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Nothing much.. Just John King’s adjustments to bypass the law Congress passed
“The Secretary proposes to amend the regulations… to include requirements for the submission of State plans. ”
- Remove and reserve §200.7;
- Remove §§200.12 to 200.22 of the current regulations, replace them with proposed §§200.12 to 200.22, and add proposed §§200.23 and 200.24;
- Remove §§200.30 to 200.42 of the current regulations and replace them with proposed §§200.30 to 200.37; and
- Add proposed §§299.13 to 299.19.
DEFINITIONS: The ESEA is the shortened name for “No Child Left Behind” and the ESSA is the bill passed this last summer, allegedly ending “No Child Left Behind”….
A) “Proposed §200.12 would replace the current regulations with regulations that summarize the requirements for accountability systems in the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA.” (Translated bluntly. “We will roll all the old accountability systems of “No Child Left Behind” into the new ESSA……. “)
B) Proposed §200.13 would primarily incorporate into regulation the statutory requirements under the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA.. (Translated bluntly. “We will roll all the old statutory requirements of “No Child Left Behind” into the new ESSA……. “)
C) Proposed §200.14 would clarify the statutory requirements in the ESSA for States to include, at a minimum, four distinct indicators for each school that measure performance for all students and separately for each subgroup of students under proposed… (Translated bluntly. “We had four levels of requirements in “No Child Left Behind” and we will roll that over into the new ESSA……. “)
D) Proposed §200.15 would replace current §200.15 with regulations that update and clarify assessment participation rate requirements to reflect new statutory requirements. (Bluntly translated: we will substitute cruel and severe penalties for opting out. We are taking this back from the states.)
E) Proposed §200.16 would replace the current regulations to clarify the statutory requirements under the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, for how a State must include subgroups of students in its State accountability system. (Translated bluntly. “We will roll all the old statutory requirements of “No Child Left Behind” into the new ESSA……. “)
F) Proposed §200.17 would retain and reorganize the relevant requirements of current §200.7, which would be removed and reserved, so that these requirements are incorporated directly into the sections of the proposed regulations pertaining to accountability.. (Translated bluntly. “We will bypass all the statutory requirements limiting data use in the new ESSA, and return to the no-holds-barred era of “No Child Left Behind” in all matters regarding protection of child data,…. “)
G) Proposed §200.18 would replace the current regulations with regulations implementing the ESEA statutory requirements, as amended by the ESSA, for States to establish systems of annual meaningful differentiation of all public schools. (Back to subbing the ESEA for the ESSA (replace the new bill with the procedures listed in the old)….
H) Proposed §200.19 would replace the current regulations with regulations reflecting the new statutory requirements under the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, to identify schools for comprehensive support and improvement and for targeted support and improvement. (Same thing here: Kill and replace with the old bill)
I) Proposed §200.20 would replace current title I regulations with regulations that would update and clarify how data averaging may be used in the statewide accountability system for annual meaningful differentiation and identification of schools under proposed §§200.18 and 200.19. The proposed regulations would retain the requirements of current §200.20, while updating references to reflect new statutory requirements under the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA. (Bluntly translated: Again replace the old bill with the new.)
J) Proposed §200.21 would replace the current regulations with regulations that clarify the statutory requirements under the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, for States to help ensure that LEAs with schools identified for comprehensive support and improvement develop and implement plans that will be effective in increasing student academic achievement and school success. (Same thing… put new wine in old wineskins)….
K) Proposed §200.22 would replace the current regulations with regulations that clarify the statutory requirements in the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, for States and LEAs to ensure that schools identified for targeted support and improvement will implement plans that are effective in increasing student academic achievement for the lowest-performing students in those schools. (Same thing: take the requirements of No Child Left Behind, and add them to the new bill)….
L) Proposed §200.23 would clarify the statutory requirements in the ESEA related to continued support for school and LEA improvement. (Same: take the old that was shot down by Congress bipartisanly (believe it or not), and substitute it into the new bill they did pass.
M) Proposed §200.24 would clarify the new requirements included in the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, for funds that the State must set aside for LEAs to support schools implementing comprehensive and targeted support and improvement plans. (By now you should be astute enough to translate these yourself…)
N) Proposed §200.30 would require a State to prepare and disseminate widely to the public an annual State report card that includes information on the State as a whole and is concise and presented in an understandable and uniform format and in a manner accessible to the public, including the parents of students in the State.. (This is a brand new regulation not in “No Child Left Behind” or the new ESSA.)
O) Proposed §200.31 would require an LEA to prepare and disseminate to the public an annual LEA report card that includes information on the LEA as a whole and each school served by the LEA and that is concise and presented in an understandable and uniform format and in a manner accessible to the public, including parents of students in the LEA.(This also is new; never a part of the old ESEA or new ESSA)
P) Proposed §200.32(a) would restate the statutory requirements in section 1111(h)(1)(C)(i) of the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA, for describing the State’s current accountability system on State report cards..
Q) Proposed §200.33(a) would require State and LEA report cards to include the percentages of students performing at each level of achievement on the State’s academic achievement standards, by grade, …(This also is new; never a part of the old ESEA or new ESSA) .
R) Proposed §200.34 would revise and replace current regulations to align the regulations with the statutory requirements in sections 8101(23) and (25) and would clarify statutory requirements in section 1111(c)(4)(F)of the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA.
S) Proposed §200.35 would implement the statutory provisions requiring a State and its LEAs to annually report per-pupil expenditures of Federal, State, and local funds on State and LEA report cards, disaggregated by source of funds. (There is no current regulation in the ESSA).
T) Proposed §200.36 would restate the statutory requirement that State and LEA report cards include information at the State, LEA, and school level about which students graduate from high school and enroll in programs of postsecondary education in the academic year immediately following the students’ high school graduation. ..
U) Proposed §200.37 would implement statutory requirements for reporting on educator qualifications in State and LEA report cards.. (There is not current regulation in the ESSA).
V) Proposed §299.13 would outline the general requirements for State plans authorized under the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA.
W) Proposed §§299.14 through 299.19 would outline the requirements for consolidated State plans authorized under section 8302 of the ESEA, as amended by the ESSA.
It is clear that these regulations were handed to John King by a lobbyist representing educational profit funds. Their wording and language is exactly the same as some of the ones handed to our state senators and reps from the exact same people.
Lamar Alexander has good reason to be pissed… He wrote the bill (with help) to achieve a certain goal. John King is undercutting it… Time to get rid of the Federal Department of Education…..
Florida and Missouri…
When was the last national murder outrage in a Democratic state? I think it was in the Republican enclave of LA, with Rodney King, in the otherwise Democratic state of California….
But I don’t know of any in New York. Vermont… Massachusetts…. Rhode Island…. Minnesota…. It always seems to take place in states that have lots and lots of Republicans…. like Missouri… and Florida…..
I don’t mean to cast disparagement upon all Republicans, but this is a puzzling conundrum… Why is it only Republican states that exist in such a state of dysfunction, that when someone murders a black, they get away with no criminal charges?
I think several generalities apply.
One, Republicans are just plain scared of black people. “Don’t get out of your car till he passes”..
Two, Republican philosophy stresses individuality as well as that a government’s rules and regulations should not apply to people and that everyone already in power should be allowed to do whatever it is they wish, because they are the “true” Americans and have a little flag patch on their upper sleeve to prove it….
Three, Republicans believe that having a gun, means killing something… What’s the point of being a policemen (or self-appointed vigilante) if you can’t kill your fellow human beings the Republican mentality goes. We saw it in Florida’s legislature. They throughly enjoyed and almost could not contain their rapture that their law, allowed for the public elimination of a black person. Almost it seemed that any means available to legally kill black people, especially if it gets around that inconvenient(to them) law that says, black people are equal to whites and deserve the same protections,… is something good….
Four, Republicans honestly feel blacks are not people… “Those darky things, over there..” they say. Republicans unlike Democrats, do not see blacks as their fellow brothers or sisters from a different mother…
Five, Republicans have an inflated sense of their own importance. If they tell you to stop, and you do, it gives them the right to shoot you dead… Sort of as in, “I’m SOOOOOOOOO IMPORTANT… I AM THE OMNIPOTENT AND CAN KILL PEOPLE WITH IMPUNITY. BUT IF I KILL WHITE PEOPLE, SOMEONE WILL BE MAD. HEY! BLACK PEOPLE DON’T MATTER. CAUSE ROMNEY, SAID SO…
I’ll stop there. Now keep in mind, not all Republicans feel that way. Chris Christie, for example, would agree exactly with everything I said, if he was talking about a fringe of his party… Because they are a fringe. Just like those clowns at Bundy’s ranch, those people who were too insane for mental internment so we gave them guns and banished them to a desert…. So I think all (even Republicans) can agree. It is this fringe that keeps biting all good Republicans in the ass… And we have to wonder why?
I think we can see the answer right here in Charlie Copeland, who is in charge of trying to mend a party that was shattered into single atoms, back into a viable political entity… In order to have any numbers promoting his self-respect, he has to cater to the fringe: those outlandish impostors who think they alone are a gift to all under-aged women… In Delaware, the far right fringe eliminated all viable Republicans from power. I believe that in other states, which due to their geography may be less Democratic, one encounters far more fringe elements and therefore, the party must due to their numbers, cater to their episodes of psychological dysfunction….
This allows the fringe to think they can act with impunity, and if they want to shoot a black person… what the heck. no one cares… stupid fool happened to show up while I was here… Oh look, he’s stopped running away and is putting his hands up? Good, let me get closer. Ok, he’s only 5 feet away, I can hit that. Let me empty this clip into his freaking big head… Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow… Ewww wow, neat “O”.. did you see how his head exploded with each hit and all that blood and meat shot everywhere… Cool… Wonder if there is another one I can still shoot?…
And that is my theory on why, white cops shooting underage black children, can only occur in states run by Republicans… Because there is no consequence. If you only said… the next black child who gets killed by a white police man, will cause all handguns, assault rifles, and miniature cannons to become illegal in the state of Missouri or Florida, then such incidents simply would never happen. For there would be real consequences then…. If in your capacity as a police officer you accidentally shot and killed a black child, the NRA would have you dead before the sun rose the next day.
The now famous high stepping Wal*Mart video mentions that point….
Now, the meme of bashing Wal*mart and fast foods has gotten a little blaze and to be honest, when I first saw the flash mob at Walmart on the national sites, as a person with little time, I passed.
But on Delaware Liberal, I opened it in another tab, and was listening to it as background and all of a sudden….. it stopped for a half second and then…
“Hold It! Did You Know? It Is Your Right To Form A Union!”
The answer in my head was … “no, i didn’t…”
The second answer was… “of course I did.” which made me more intrigued by my original answer. Why on earth did I think it was bad for these people to interrupt business as usual to demonstrate for something affecting I think, one person?
As this “wow moment” started to dawn on me, I realized I’d been brainwashed’… Over time. it had really happened. My gut, had been over-ruling my head…. it’s a business. They should call the police. They should fire everyone involved… Demonstrations are really ineffective blowing off of steam…
“Hold It! Did You Know? It Is Your Right To Form A Union!”
How many others out there would say “no” … How many others out there really don’t know it is their right to form a union? That anyone can form a union? It is legally protected.
Oh, they can threaten to fire you if you join… And they can fire you….
But if they do… you can sue… and even better, under current law, you can sue them and win. Win big!
You can make them pay you for all back wages you lost. So finacially it is just like you were working but having the entire time off.
You can make them pay all your damages, including late fees on bills you couldn’t pay because the illegally fired you. You can make them pay interest on all loans you took out to live on, even if they came from family. If you Dad gives you a loan at 1000% interest, they have to pay that… and to your Mom, your brothers, your sisters, your aunts, and uncles… Your whole family and friends can get rich off them because they fired you for forming a union!
“Hold It! Did You Know? It Is Your Right To Form A Union!”
The business may respond to the legal judgment , “Screw you , we are closing”. But if they close they will still have to pay you for all the damage they cause you because they fired you for forming a union… You still win! And win BIG!
“Hold It! Did You Know? It Is Your Right To Form A Union!”
How is it that our newspapers don’t remind us of this. How is it that Unions are painted to be the bad guys, because they make a business lose money? Why isn’t the business painted as the bad guy, for stealing potential earnings out of each and every employee working for them…
Some may think forcing a union on a business is unfair. Racist states often use this argument. Why should White owned businesses pay more for black people’s labor? That is why ALEC (in Delaware associated with Patty Blevins) was invented: to protect White Businesses’ interests. And still unfortunately, in some states, there were enough white people still agreeing that black people as well as to those whites who associate with them, should be paid inferior wages,so much so that with ALEC’s help, enough votes were mustered to pass state anti-union laws..
But historically there were laws that once said: slavery was legal. Despite bad law, morally it was still everyone’s right to be free….
“Hold It! Did You Know? It Is Your Right To Form A Union!”
It is your right to form a union. Existing law is crystal clear. Why was this decided? What is the moral argument behind it?
Simple. You have to eat. Bottom line. If someone says I have to pay you $6.00 an hour because I’m not making enough money, and you can’t get money anywhere else, you work for $6.00 and hour. If he counters that he can only pay $5.00 an hour, and you can’t make money anywhere else, you will do his bidding for $5.00 an hour. Why not $4 then? Why not $3 then? Why not $2 then? Why not $1 then? Why not .25 cents then?
You have to eat.
There is no bargaining chip in your favor… Your employer if legally allowed, would pay the lowest rate possible to still have employees. When there are more employees than positions, wages could drop very low…. because you have to eat.
America went through the Great Depression primarily because of this… Even business leaders realized from that experience that by making their employees so poor, no one was buying the products they were making…
And so they agreed: “If we make our employers have disposable income, they can buy our products and we can again make money”. So the legal basis was almost unanimously approved by both businesses and labor, to make the right to strike just that. a basic human right protected by the full force of the law… Simply because paying workers higher wages is good for increasing overall demand. and that is what drives economies forward.
“Hold It! Did You Know? It Is Your Right To Form A Union!”
Basically, a union is the answer to this counter argument: “why should you, the investors, get all the money off our labor, and we get none?” Admittedly both of us should get something decent from our arrangement….
And there you go. America did do very well… that is, until our media became influenced by investors (who now own them btw) and started painting unions as a scourage… Missing from all press coverage, was the simple fact that one has to act scouragingly when bargaining with fellow scourages… Sort of like not realizing that your hero prize fighter has to hurt people. It’s necessary to stay in the ring…
So I encourage all reading this to now begin talking up unions in your workplace… Because if you get fired for any reason afterwards, you can blame it on the legal right to form a union…. it is like a wonderful vacation in which you still will get paid, probably even more than if you’d put up with the bosses crap the whole damn time….!
Now… you know! It Is Your Right To Form A Union!”
Yeah.
It really is your “right.” and it is protected by law. Now, go get them tigers!
A pretty good pastor told me this story. His first born son came home, obviously had been crying. So he asked him if there was something he wanted to tell him and was told his son hated school. With this son it was a shock. A complete reversal because that was all this son talked about up to this point: how wonderful his days were at school. With a little probing the pastor found that other boys had discovered this pastor’s son, didn’t hit back and were having a field day at his expense. So, the pastor had a little heart-to-heart talk. “You know,” the pastor said. “you have the right by God to defend yourself. If someone hurts you, you are allowed to hurt them back, so they see what if feels like and stop hurting you.” The relief spread over his son’s upturned face. “Really? it’s ok?” “Why yes.” the pastor said. “I used to be one of the best fighters in my school when I was growing up.”
The next day his son came home all smiles. “Everything go ok?” His son’s smile said it all..
That normally would be the end of the story. Life lesson taught. Well, this story has a twist and keeps going. A couple of weeks later, the pastor got an urgent letter from his teacher. ” I must see you personally as soon as possible.” He hurried down and the teacher begins… “I don’t know what is wrong with your son. He used to be so nice and kind and everybody loved him. Now no one will sit next to him. They are adamant. I’ve had to put him in a chair in the corner just to get class back on track. They say he’s hitting them, but I really find that very hard to believe.”
The pastor went back home, found his son, and together, they had …. another little heart-to-heart discussion… 🙂
Point is: sometimes though fighting back is not deemed civilized or the mature method to handle problems, it is necessary. ( Just don’t enjoy the rush so much you forget when to stop.)
The erosion of the middle class has gone on long enough. Let me rephrase that: the erosion of all classes except those at the top 1%, has gone on long enough. What can we do about it?
it is time for class war. i don’t like it anymore than that little boy who was taught that hitting was wrong, liked hitting back at first, but it is necessary. The longer we wait; the weaker we become.
How do we win? We win by deflating the value they place on their pile of money. We throw the economy so investors everywhere are forced to panic. The easiest way to do that, is to simply not work. We can a) under perform and drive up productivity costs; b) sabotage our bosses and drive up supply costs; or c) strike and win, and drive up labor costs.
Of the three, the latter is the cleanest. Staging a mutiny until conditions change, sends the clearest signal that the rules on the playing field must change. The price of labor is going up. If you refuse, we shut your plant down.
It has been awhile since we have had strikes. If they’ve happened at all, they get swept under the mat of the next news story to come up on the wire. Strikes are kind of ugly. They hurt a lot of people just like war; many of those hurt are completely innocent. And at one point, those of us who remember the past, recognized that strikes were being thrown way too often; in fact, they at one point were being used as extortion. Give it to us, or we’ll strike. The middle class did well back then too.
Strikes hurt those striking. During the strike they stop earning money. Strikes hurt employers whose revenue stream screeches to a stop. They have to pay bills and have no income with which to pay them. Strikes hurt customers and vendors of that company that is the target of the strike. It is indicative that in these times, of all the strikes we have had in recent memory, most have all been done by millionaires striking against other millionaires. By that I mean the sports industry. Baseball, hockey, basketball, football… no problem with them striking; they have money to wait it out indefinitely.
Our middle class may be past that. But strikes have a deeper purpose; if they are never used, that purpose ceases to exist. A strike reminds the employer that they need to pay attention to those who are doing the work. A strike reminds an employer that all are in life and business together, Life is not a two layer system consisting of the overseer and the slaves; where one has all the privileges; the other all the pain.
Life is a cohabitation. And sometimes the expense of a divorce is necessary to drive that point home. For if you are completely confident that no one will ever strike, you can act with impunity. Cut wages. Cut pensions. Cut rates. Cut benefits. If you always know that people will work for you, you can starve them to enrich yourself. Really. If there were no consequences: who wouldn’t?
War is always far more costly than the concessions of peace. That was how strikes were won. A business may balk at paying one percent more of its revenue towards its employees. “That is outrageous” the business owner may puff. “That will never happen.”
But he can only say that because he is confident that the employees will say, “oh, ok. Sorry we bothered you then.” For if they went on strike, and his revenue drops down to zero, he has lost 10% of his potential yearly earnings because of the strike. The 1% was rather cheap comparatively.
Which is why we need strikes to return. We need the threat of a strike, to be real again. What would happen if every teacher refused to return until Common Core was eradicated. We would finally have a serious discussion about Common Core and it would be eradicated. What if dock workers in both Paulsboro and Wilmington went on strike until Dole decided to stay in Wilmington. In a few short days, Dole would lose more cash than it would ever pay out any other way… What if policemen stopped working because their pension was being privatized? What if all of Detroit simply stopped working until their pensions were guaranteed by the Federal Government. What if the wait staffs and bartenders of every restaurant in Delaware refused to work, just stopped one day until their minimum wage set in 1990 was allowed to rise above $2.23 an hour? What if nurses did not show for work, until rich investment companies owning hospitals, agreed not to steal their pensions, but fund them fully? What if every administrative assistant in the Federal Government went on strike until Congress passed their budget? What if no one services a broken car, in any garage across the country, until some of that $150 dollars an hour fo labor, went to them.
Can you see the implications? In every case the cost of a strike is far more rigorous than the cost of the demand. But it can only happen when there is a viable expectation that a strike is imminent. An owner can be as invective as hell at the insolence of his worker daring to ask for more money, but his accountants and lawyers with wiser heads, know full well that the cheapest way out is to give them what they want… Cheaper by one tenth.
So we have come to where strikes must occur, not only for individual workers, but for society as a whole. Labor is underpaid, and it is time to use the laws of supply and demand to correct it.
And what will happen if we do? Suddenly America will no longer be the safest place to park one’s money. The stock market will fall by billions. Money will move out of our financial center over most likely to China, at the moment. The wealthy certainly can’t have that. It is far better to stop getting as high of a rate of return as one is used to, than lose 40% of everything one has accumulated so far….
And that is the power behind committing to a strike. As soon as the strike goes into effect, every shareholder of the company being struck, loses tremendous value on their investment. Does that boss really want to face his angry shareholders at the next stockholders meeting?
The Declaration of Independence states that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That adage doesn’t apply just to the one percent. Sometimes like that little boy at the beginning of this story, you just gotta hit back.
.3 million is $300,000 dollars to those of you not mathematically inclined… How did they do that? By transferring only part of that money they withheld from the Christina School District over to Charter Schools… They take $2.3 million away from Christina; give $2 million to Charter Schools, and presto, they pocket a cool $.3 million and no one is wiser.
So did we just hear that right? They are taking $2.3 million from the neediest school district in the state, one with the highest number of low income students, and giving it to charter schools, which cater to the wealthy?
Yes.
Are they taking government money originally earmarked for the public’s school children, and just giving it away to friends of theirs, to do with as they wish?
Yes.
Your money. Earmarked for your children. Now goes to wealthy friends of “theirs” who for a profit, can now open up a “charter school” to make money while you get poorer..
That is what charter schools are. Private businesses who make their money by enticing children’s parents to sign up, then collecting money from the state to educate that child.
Remember Chris Castagno? He ran as a Republican for New County Council Executive once? Well under the guize of 4048 Associates, his group got $100,000 a month for an old abandoned building he let Pencader Charter School move into….. to the tune of $1.1 million a year... The total Pencader cost to the state that year was around $2.9 million.
Does it matter that the school was so poorly run, it had to be shut down? Yes, to the tune of $1.1 million dollars of income each fiscal year that is no longer coming in… As for the children? Heck they can go back to public school; its probably better for them anyways…..
So over the life of Pencader, Chris Castagno made $7 million from money that was earmarked for your public school child.
And he is not the only one… Every developer has property just sitting around. Putting more money into the existing school system does nothing for them. Ahhh… but put it into Charters?…….
This new $2 million going to Charter Schools is a “thank you”… It has not one thing to do with education. While Christina’s impoverished school children go through the day without school lunches, the wealthy of this state can toast Jack Markell with the most expensive champagne, the richest caviar, all for his part in helping them take from the poor to waste upon themselves…
$2 million straight from Christina, will now be handed over directly to wealthy private charter schools…
Unless you complain, beginning now.
I’d never thought I’d write that. How could anyone in their right mind be against raising teacher’s standards… After all it is our kids we are talking about who will suffer….
Exactly, Passing SB 51 with S/A 1 Amendment attached, will cause our kids to suffer. That’s how I can write that. Otherwise I’d be full force behind this bill just as was every senator who voted for it….
You ask, how can raising standards on teachers, hurt our children?
I will ask you back; “How would you like to take your brand new car you just purchased to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop and have him work it over? How could that possibly hurt your car?”
Basically that’s what this law does for education. It is as if we passed a law for cars that said every new car purchased had to be re-certified by Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop. The entire premise on this auto legislation lies in this one single question: gee, who is Joe?
If Joe is someone who is the world’s best mechanic, factory trained by every car manufactured, a man or woman who can analyze myriads of problems by just with listening with a fine-tuned ear, then maybe this bill could possibly be ok. But if Joe has no knowledge of electronic computers, but learned his mechanics back in the days of steel and oil, and is a complete loss when he sees a car with no distributer cap, then taking your car that runs perfectly to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop, can damage your car pretty darn bad.
And THAT is the problem with SB 51… We don’t know who Joe is….
What we do know, is that our car is purring perfectly, heck we just bought it, everything was tuned at the factory. Since it is straight from the factory, it is running very well, no play in the wheel, clean car smell, all items are working, and even our factory tells us to make sure we take it back to a “factory approved shop” for all repairs in order not to void the warranty…. But our government is making us take it to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop.… And we still don’t know who Joe is?
And we are not too enthralled by all the junk cars piled up in its back lot…….
That is what is wrong with SB 51….
Our great educational training program that is functioning very well, is going to be tested and inspected by someone who doesn’t know crap…
That should scare the hell out of every single parent….
The educational system of America over the last 13 years has been disrupted. Good teachers have been fired, to be replaced with bad ones. Students used to read literature, and now they are handed “packets” and read test questions. Schools that have been opened for a century, have been closed…. The educational system is in disarray; a disarry that appears to have been forced down from the top.
We’ve all been there… The new boss walks in, and yells “things are going to be different now”. Some are excited, some are afraid, but this boss is out of control… He arbitrarily fires, can’t hire fast enough, and the business breaks down. It becomes broken. He came into fix, and it got put… into a fix. So he storms out, blaming all those left for his need to make an exit. And then everyone is asked to put it back together, and they do, then the next boss is hired… If you work in America, you’re guaranteed to have been through this scenario.
We are going to do that with teachers? Who’s this guy, Joe again? Is this test going to be made by the same ones that lowered Delaware’s results? Is this test going to be like those 5th grader tests loaded with 7th grade questions using letters a,b,c in algebraic math?
As that car owner, we have the best educational system bar none. Delaware educators have among toughest standards in the country. Counting every school, even the most stringent Ivy League schools, the University of Delaware is ranked 37th in the nation. That’s ahead of Rutgers, Temple, and even Boston University. Delaware State University is solid Tier 2 school.
Currently in Delaware’s educational programs, only one third make it through the tough gauntlet into teaching. All students graduating from UD, DSU, and WU have passed Praxis I and II; have logged hundreds of hours of observation and additional hundreds more hours of supervised teaching under the watchful eye of master teachers in our public schools. Compared to the standards even 10 years ago, new Delaware teachers graduated by these universities are the best prepared to enter the classroom in our history.
Delaware should be pretty damn proud. Instead we appear to be on the verge of committing a rash act full of unintended consequences. Our head is in the sand. Ok, the argument may go…. “If we’re so good, what possiblE harm can befall us if we take our new baby to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop?
Apart from the fact that we do not know who “Joe” is or will be when we get there, there are these reasons. The changes in SB 51/SA-1 actually lower some credentialing standards rather than raise them [see the section on now accepting Composite Scores].
Currently all Delaware student teachers take the Praxis One and the Praxis Two. No pass, no teach. These are the factory cars in the educational equation. There are composed by NCATE, National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. This is a very solid organization. If you go to their website right now, you will see that they pre-published their accreditation standards for public view and comments. They also dropped Wesley College’s accreditation for not living up to the standards.
This bill would replace these standards with ones created by the Delaware Department of Education. Returning to the Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop analogy, one has to wonder how a 3 year Phys Ed elementary teacher, can do better than a national organization that accredits schools.
Delaware has the 37th BEST teacher school ranked in the nation. And after this bill is passed, we are going to completely gut our entire program out of all we do so well, and have a 3 year elementary Physical Education Teacher rebuild our entire program from scratch….. One who has never gone through the RTTT testing he inflicts on others? One who quite questionably doesn’t meet the minimum 5 year requirement necessary to be a DOE?
It’s in the bill. that is what it says.
Would we let someone who has never been a doctor create the state’s medical certification program? Would we let a non-lawyer create the state’s Bar exam? Would we let a manager of McDonalds create our state’s nutritional guidelines?
With this administration and this Senate, I really don’t know. We just might, based on what I’m seeing right before me!
So, you are saying you would really take your BMW, Rolls, or Cadillac to Joe The Mechanic’s Auto Shop to be certified to drive it in Delaware? Wouldn’t you be afraid he’d mess it up, especially since it is working rather well right now? Ranked 37th!..
I can hear “Joe” now… “What are all these damn stupid wires for. (Rip,rip,rip) My old Model T never had this crap”…
It’s our kids. We can’t rush this, and this bill has been rushed far too fast through the Senate. The House needs to slow down and debate this one…
We can’t afford to lose our 37th top spot in the nation for which we worked so hard and so long to get….. We got to stop this bill that will make our cars all go to “Joe’s” .
“Here are the guts of SB 51… The cuts are in one color, and the add ons are in another….
” …has achieved a passing score on both a content-readiness exam and a performance assessment as specified by the Department no later than July 1, 2015,” Added.
, except that this provision shall not apply to applicants seeking an initial license to teach in a core content area. For the purposes of this section, “core content area” means any subject area tested by the state assessment system, including Mathematics, English/Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies. “Added
“an initial license may be issued to an applicant who meets all other requirements for initial licensure except for passage of the PRAXIS I exam, provided that the applicant must pass PRAXIS I within the period of time from the date of hire to the end of the next, consecutive fiscal year. If proof of passage of PRAXIS I has not been provided during the time period specified, the initial license will be suspended unless the superintendent of the school district submits to the Secretary of Education a written request for a 1-year extension. The request must also document the effectiveness of the applicant.” Cut
An applicant seeking an initial license to teaching the secondary content area of Math Mathematics or English/Language Arts must also meet the achieve a passing score on the corresponding section of Praxis I. The Department may also require that an applicant achieve a passing score on both a content-readiness exam and performance assessment. The assessments and the passing scores shall be approved by the Department, and shall be developed or identified in collaboration with Delaware educators. ” added.
” This requirement shall apply to all applicants teaching special education in a core content area, as defined in § 1210 of this title, in secondary schools” added.
The Department shall recognize a professional status certificate or standard certificate that is otherwise valid if issued prior to August 31, 2003. The Department shall also recognize a limited standard certificate or a temporary certificate issued prior to August 31, 2003, provided that the educator successfully completes the requirements set forth in the limited standard certificate or the temporary certificate.” cut.
And this entire passage was added….
Subchapter VIII. Education Preparation Programs
§ 1280. Educator Preparation Program Approval.
(a) Consistent with § 122 of this title, no individual, public or private educational association, corporation, or institution, including any institution of post-secondary education, shall offer an educator preparation program for the training of educators to be licensed in this State without first having procured the assent of the Department for the offering of such programs. A program approval process based on standards adopted pursuant to this section must be established for educator preparation approval programs, phased in according to timelines determined by the Department, and fully implemented for such programs in the State. Each program shall be approved by the Department based upon significant, objective, and quantifiable performance measures.
(b) Each teacher preparation program approved by the Department shall establish rigorous entry requirements as prerequisites for admission into the program. At a minimum, each program shall require applicants to:
(1) Have a grade point average of at least a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale or a grade point average in the top 50th percentile for coursework completed during the most recent two years of the applicant’s general education, whether secondary or post-secondary; or
(2) Demonstrate mastery of general knowledge, including the ability to read, write, and compute, by achieving a minimum score on a standardized test normed to the general college-bound population, as approved by the Department.
Each educator preparation program may waive these admissions requirements for up to 10% of the students admitted. Programs shall implement strategies to ensure that students admitted under such a waiver receive assistance to demonstrate competencies to successfully meet requirements for certification.
(c) Each teacher preparation program approved by the Department shall incorporate the following:
(1) A clinical residency component, supervised by high quality educators, as defined by the Department. The clinical residency shall consist of at least ten weeks of full-time student teaching. Clinical experiences shall also be interwoven throughout and aligned with program curriculum.
(2) Instruction for prospective elementary school teachers on research-based strategies for childhood literacy and age-appropriate mathematics content;
(3) Ongoing evaluation of students, consisting of no less than an annual evaluation, aligned to the statewide educator evaluation system;
(d) Each teacher preparation program approved by the Department shall establish rigorous exit requirements, which shall include but not be limited to achievement of passing scores on both a content-readiness exam and a performance assessment.
(e) Education preparation programs administered by institutions of higher education shall collaborate with the Department to collect and report data on the performance and effectiveness of program graduates. At a minimum, such data shall measure performance and effectiveness of program graduates by student achievement. The effectiveness of each graduate shall be reported for a period of 5 years following graduation for each graduate who is employed as an educator in the State. Data shall be reported on an annual basis. The Department shall make such data available to the public.
(f) The Department shall promulgate rules and regulations governing educator preparation programs pursuant to this subchapter in collaboration with Delaware educators.” Added.
Section 3. The effective date of this Act shall be July 1, 2014.
Here is the bill in full….
And here is the Delaware code for that same passage as it stand now, before any changes get wrought…..
Ok, done… Sounds good right? Well for most it does. But… some of us have inquiring minds. and since there are no National Enquirers on newstands this time of night, these changes here will have to be the object that absorb our attentions….
For example…
At first glance it appears that before one could still teach first and take the Praxis later. Now one must take the Praxis first, period. My problem with this is that if a super-great student teacher trains in one school, and that school is aware of an upcoming vacancy and really wants that teacher to fill it, they can’t until the Praxis is first taken. Now one doesn’t walk in to take the Praxis, … or do they? One has to wait, like we did back when we took our SAT’s, until the test is being offered. That means this school which had a great chance at acquiring an awesome teacher, one they knew and wanted, must hire someone else who is a complete stranger to them, and who may not have as good of qualifications as did their own student teacher who they hoped could get that job. Under the old bill, she could have worked and taken the test when it was offered. Now, she can’t. An amendment could solve this!
Secondly. It appears that the old bill grandfathered anyone who has a certificate from before August 2003. With a stroke of a pen, those are no longer valid. I see some issues here. I see a home economics teacher, who is impossible to replace (who learns home economics in college anymore?) now at age 63 having to take todays recertification exams. As a normal human being, I can barely remember most of my education because I don’t use it. Today I pride myself on still being able to figure out my kids algebra. Woo Hoo! Back in class our exam was to start from scratch and prove Einsteins theory of General Relativity; I can’t even begin to start it now…. Forgive me for being cynical here, but this just looks like a vehicle to remove someone before retirement sets in. At most, a person in this capacity has been teaching for 10 years. If you didn’t fire them in ten years because they were so good, you are planning on firing them now? Is it because they make too much and you can hire someone cheaper? Is it because if you remove them before retirement, you can cut back on the pensions they have saved up? I don’t know this so I’m asking, but do we make Doctors take their MCAT’s over again in their old age? We don’t? Why not? They are dealing with life and death. What if they made a mistake and gave us 40 milligrams because they added 2.0 plus 2.o and missed the decimal points, giving us 40? We don’t test them for a reason. Because they know more already than the tests can check. And why don’t we make lawyers take their LSAT’s over again? Our OWN Attorney General had to take his Delaware Bar exam 3 times before he squeaked in over the 154 benchmark. He’s our Attorney General for heavens sakes!!! Surely we should test HIM once a term maybe? If he’s good, he should whiz through it… Hell, give him the Delaware Bar right now and let’s pull him if he doesn’t get a passing score… After all, if he can’t muster it, he shouldn’t practice law, ..right? I don’t know this so I’m asking… So why don’t we test lawyers, like we are going to do teachers?
Because its just plain stupid that is why. You test those to determine who gets in, and once they get in, their time needs to be spent on the tasks at hand, not focused on retaking test they’ve already taken…. Requiring ongoing multiple tests is as sensible as selling your stock and buying it back yourself just to say you don’t have any old stock… It’s costing you a lot in commissions to do so.
Passage of this bill allows for the removal of tenured teachers who after teaching all this time, can’t pass the exam….. Something none of us could do, no matter how successful we are in our current careers. By the way. Did Mark Murphy have to pass a competency test as would these teachers, before he took office? Let’s give him the Praxis today and make his position dependent upon its passage. If he fails to accept the challenge, then obviously, there is something wrong in this bill. Although set in talk of raising standards, there belies intent behind this bill to arbitrarily remove people the Department does not like…
Again, an amendment grandfathering this group, similar to the one before, can solve this problem.
Thirdly… and forgive me for going into this, but flat out… this is vague. “Each program shall be approved by the Department based upon significant, objective, and quantifiable performance measures.” And that’s it. No explanation. What are or will be the performance measures? As Steve points out, we have considerable measures currently in place. We receive excellent teachers from our current crop of schools. So what exactly will be the significant, objective, and quantifiable measures? ( Playing devils advocate here, but the language is so vague, it could apply) Do you have to be white? Do you have to be a woman? Do you have to be willing to work for $15,000 a year? Do you have to be willing to work with no pension? So how are you going to rate Del Tech’s teaching, Del State’s teaching, UDel’s teaching any differently than you do now? If someone comes from Harvard, how do you measure that, without telling us how you are measuring that? We used to have to measure intelligence at the polls to vote. We thought is was funny to ask a white boy who was the president of the United States, and a black boy what the square root of 32 was to the 4th decimal place… yes, it created lots of laughter. But that is exactly what this legislation is creating. An impartial, willy-nilly, capricious standard that can let some through the door, and close it on others… Where is the standard? If we don’t have it, why are we voting on something we haven’t seen? Who here would sign a contract with a bank that was blank? (Good thing I switched that around; that was going to be a Wilmington Trust jibe)…
Fourth, and again forgive me for asking, but what is the reasoning behind passing super high standards … then creating a back door so 10% of those below standard can walk in and join the party? Isn’t that an exercise of futility? The result is going to give you exactly the same results one has now. Today 90% are 3.0 and above; 10 percent are just under. Perhaps quantifying it could be their excuse… That’s the way it is so we’ll put it in writing. Or maybe its trying to set a minimum so at some point in the future, generations not yet born, will not be tempted to go to 80/20 or 70/30 ratios. Still, it just seems futile. Of course we all know what happened was the original standard got offered, then the 10% was added to insure the objections raised were met, but still, the final piece now lacks credibility. It was as if we said, “ok, you must follow the no text rulings, no texting or hand held phones… Except 10% of you will be allowed. No problem for you.” As an old corporate dog once advise me: “If you’re going to make a ruling you can’t enforce, don’t make it. It gives you personally only one option, and that is to lose.”
Fifth: As noted by Steve, Delaware already utilizes far more than ten weeks of student teaching this bill requires. By dropping the levels required to just 10 weeks, Delaware student teachers will be overqualified and should easily get jobs here in this state. Is this lowering of the requirement to allow us to recruit and bring in cheaper teachers from other parts of the country, parts whose educational departments are perhaps not as thorough as is Delaware in its requirement for teachers? I do know in some states, teachers tell their students that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time. Is this an attempt to whisk “those kind” into Delaware? .. Our standards are already higher than that, so why are we lowering them while pretending it is raising the bar higher? Do we need to start warning our children to beware of teachers who talk with funny accents?
Sixthly: What do you mean when you say this: Instruction for prospective elementary school teachers on research-based strategies for childhood literacy and age-appropriate mathematics content. Excuse me for asking, but “whose” research will you use? I’m sure you are well aware that the now accepted failure, No Child Left Behind, was attempted at all because of faulty research. I’m sure you are well aware, the the school voucher program pushed forward in some states is failing desperately because it too, was based on faulty research. I’m sure that you are well aware, that the entire charter school program is failing across this nation, and taking all its children down with it…. was based on faulty research… So when you say research-based strategies, the hair sort of goes up on the back of my head… Uh oh. As every single working teacher will tell you, each year there is a new, proven, brand-new strategy that will finally, finally magically transform all students into a model classroom,…. and each year afterwards, … there is a new, proven brand-new strategy to replace it… All costing the state millions of dollars to implement I should add. And furthermore, each time there is a top personnel change there is also a new research-based strategy to go along with it. And as you know, each strategy takes up weeks of a teacher’s time they could spend with students, and if there was any redeeming value in that strategy, it is only discovered in the final weeks of the year, but alas it is too late. Next year there will be a new strategy and teachers get to start all over. And as reports of the tests come filtering back, there are multiple issues of where 7th grade material ends up being on 5th grade tests. Who is determining the age appropriateness of the mathematics? Surely not the same people who are making the test? And while I have your attention… what really is the point of putting a question on a test that no one taking it has been trained to answer? Why give a student who has passed algebra and trig and geometry and done well mind you, a Galileo equation? As adults, none of us are tested on things we should not know? I mean would we really put complicated questions of Ugandan history on Beau Biden’s Bar Review that he must pass to pursue a career? Of course not… That is torture. To do so would just be mean and nothing else. So why are we torturing little children?
Again, there is no definition of standards. What are they? Can they be misused like almost the exact wording was put in law back during the Southern Segregational Era? Do you know how many research strategies their are? Google gives you 56,700,000 in under a second. There have been at least 10 used in every school over the last 10 years… So out of all of them, which one is right? Isn’t that an extremely arbitrary decision?
Seventh: As has been frequently pointed out, we currently have standard that must be met to teach. They are rather difficult to achieve. Most schools have a final exam. After four years of college it is nice to get a score to see where you stand. And heaven forbid, if beer was your major and you failed to meet the standard of the college on its final exam, you couldn’t represent that college as alumni. No problem there. But I’m curious, how one expects to discern the educational aptitude of teachers coming from a variety of locations, like George Fox University, or the University of Central Arkansas, or Concord University, or Everglades University, or Franklin Pierce University? Sure they pass their tests, they got their degree, but can they even be close to as good as someone coming from a much more difficult regimen at a Delawarean university or college? So we say No to someone to entering college got a 1400 combined on their SAT, because they didn’t pass Delaware’s stringent test, and say yes to someone from Everglades University, who entered college with a combined SAT of 1000, and was taught the test and passed it with a high score. How does that benefit children?
That question could be fixed with an amendment requiring the GRE to be part of the assessment. Otherwise, this action is pointless because of so many standards nationwide.
Eighth. And here is the crucial point. After graduating the bar of success or failure will be data collected from testing students. When a new teacher joins a district, where do you think they will be placed? In the best classrooms with the best students? Or in the classes after every current teacher has been given the opportunity to move up, that are left? Obviously the latter. So a great teacher, one who would teach suburban students amazingly, finds themselves in a classroom of students whose lifetime ambition is to get a good rep in what was once Gander Hill, but is now the Howard Young Correctional Center… “I’m sorry miss, but your scores are embarrassing. You can’t work in Delaware anymore.” Likewise a teacher who doesn’t give a damn, who luckily is in a great environment, gets raises year after year. Tests do not measure students accurately, so using them to fire teachers is just plain wrong. If you’ve read this far… you had good teachers. None of them were tested into the ground like we are doing to ours today. What? How can that be? How on earth can you have great education, one that make America into a world power, without testing 3 times a year, and again, many times between that? How can it be?….
Obviously it was. And in the real world, that alone would put an end to this policy of testing ad nauseum.
But we don’t live in a real world anymore, do we? It seems not.
Ninth. And there is one important thing that is missing. How much will this cost? Any estimates? Who will get the contracts? Pearson? ETS? College Board? The ACE? Someone’s getting wealthy… But how much will this cost, and will that be supported by a tax upon the wealthy to pay for it, or will it be culled from existing programs now doing a great job today?
These issues need to be addressed before the House passes the bill…. As i said at the beginning, it all sounds nice… “higher standards for teachers? Sure, why not?” But then, a year later…. “What! They fired Ms. Jones! Are they effin’ crazy? She’s the best teacher in this school!” and two years later, … “Mr. Principal: your scores are down. You failed.” Then at three years later: “ladies and gentlemen, we are closing this school.”
Perhaps it’s time to look at bills closely before passing them unanimously.
Steve is on top of this….Gov. Jack Markell is backing legislation that would allow Alabama-based HealthSouth Corp. to build a rehabilitation hospital in Middletown without a state review, despite a legal challenge and claims that the governor exerted improper political influence to move the deal forward. That would be excusable if HealthSouth Corp was a pristine company. One that truly benefited all those fortunate to come into its good graces… But it isn’t….
They were guilty of…” failing to make and keep books, records, and accounts,” Obviously there is a good reason this company does not want a regulatory body looking over its shoulder.
Fifteen former HealthSouth executives pleaded guilty in the fraud, and five finance chiefs who worked under their former CEO Scrushy testified that he directed the scheme. Obviously there is a good reason this company does not want a regulatory body looking over its shoulder.
Obviously there is a good reason this company does not want a regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
And we want to let this company come into Delaware and perform health work without any regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
Just yesterday, April 30th, 2013, HealthSouth Corporation announced that the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama denied the Company’s motion to vacate the decision of the American Arbitration Association (the “AAA”) panel which, on December 18, 2012, dismissed the Company’s claims against Ernst & Young. This firm litigates like crazy. And we want to let this company come into Delaware and perform health work without any regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
It was sued by its very own employees who held that “the fiduciaries to the ESOP breached their duties to loyally and prudently manage and administer the ESOP and its assets in violation of sections 404 and 405 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. (“ERISA”), by failing to monitor the administration of the ESOP, failing to diversify the portfolio held by the ESOP, and failing to provide other fiduciaries with material information about the ESOP. HealthSouth Corp. and its insurers agreed to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits by workers over losses in their company retirement fund, .
And we want to let this company come into Delaware and perform health work without any regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
Here are some of the wrongful death ruling decided against Health South Rehabilitation. The exact same firm coming into Delaware that Governor Markell, wants to change Delaware’s existing statutes so this company will have no regulatory body overseeing it…..
“Mr. Darling, the patient who is suing HealthSouth, said that practice caught him by surprise. “I was under the assumption that everybody in the building was licensed. “It turns out that the man who put the weights on my leg is called a technician. They were all wearing identical polo shirts with HealthSouth logos and the same ID badges.HealthSouth’s business plan at the time encouraged clinics to use unlicensed employees to perform physical therapy. That allowed their licensed therapists to perform more expensive tasks, bringing in more money at clinics.” Growing Concerns on the Health of HealthSouth New York Times September 19, 2002
And we want to let this company come into Delaware and perform health work without any regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
And we want to let this company come into Delaware and perform health work without any regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
Two months after falling and breaking his hip while a patient at Healthsouth Rehabilitation Center-Beaumont, Roland LeBoeuf died..“While a patient at Healthsouth, LeBoeuf sustained a fall during physical therapy and broke his hip,” the suit says. He never recovered. The suit also accuses the center of the following: • Failing to actively perform ongoing nursing assessments on the patient to be aware of potential problems • Failing to put care plans into place for the patient • Failing to put in bed and chair alarms
And we want to let this company come into Delaware and perform health work without any regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
Meyers was reportedly moved to HealthSouth in June, where her symptoms progressed. Doctors at this institution also allegedly discussed neurological testing but never ordered any tests, the news provider reports. The lawsuit claims that a doctor finally ordered an MRI in July when Meyers began to lose movement in her legs. The MRI procedure allowed doctors to discover a tumor on the woman’s spinal cord, and she allegedly needed to have it removed through a surgery that left her paralyzed. There was a two month delay of failing to do what they recognized they needed to do all along,” Feller said. “It was just never ordered for her, despite the doctors attending to her saying, ‘We need to rule it out,’ they just never performed it.”
And we want to let this company come into Delaware and perform health work without any regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
And we want to let this company come into Delaware and perform health work without any regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
And we want to let this company come into Delaware and perform health work without any regulatory body looking over its shoulder…
So… can anyone out there tell me… WHY? we replaced the board that first disallowed them into Delaware, and who then later resigned in protest instead of allowing this same company to enter Delaware, and why Rep. Quinn Johnson is now filing a bill that exempts just this one company from every single rule and regulation that have been in place for ages to insure that those in medical treatment centers remain safe?
Really? Really?
So we are going to force our current rehabilitation homes to go out of business, because they have to compete with a company that does not have to play by ANY rules…
Really? That is what we call encouraging competition these days?
If the HealthSouth came in to abide by Delaware;s long term rules and regulations, and competed on a level playing field, … well, that’s just plain competition. I’d be good with that. But to hurt Delawarean patients by bringing and a company known for neglect, known for malefeasance, misfeasance, and nofeasance, so they can undercut those local firms doing medical care correctly, is nothing short of criminal.
In fact it IS criminal, until you change the law so it is no longer a crime…
Eli Broad — the CPA-trained-billionaire-businessman-turned-public-education-reformer — informed Diane Ravitch, a distinguished education expert, about what needs to be done to education in America. . According to Ravitch, “We talked about school reform for an hour or more, and he told me that what was needed to fix the schools was not all that complicated: A tough manager surrounded by smart graduates of business schools and law schools.”
According to Slate quoting Vanity Fair, Eli Broad boasted back in 2006 that he “plans to virtually take over the Delaware school system in 2007, pending approval from that state’s legislature.” He backed the winning slate of candidates for the local board of education in 1999 and helped hire the superintendent.
Eli Broad trains Superintendents. Christina School District has been the unfortunate beneficiary of his largess. Joe Wise, followed by Lillian Lowery, followed by Marcia Lyles, all are from Eli’s School of Superintendencies….Dr. Joe Wise was selected as a Broad Fellow by Eli Broad Institute for School Boards (2005), was appointed to the Eli Broad Urban Superintendents Academy as a Fellow (2003), and serves on the Broad Academy’s adjunct faculty and advisory committee. Although Broad Superintendents come in highly qualified, they often leave disgracefully. Joe Wise, may have been one of the first. Recently, across this nation many Broad Superintendents have been let go. All trained by the Broad Superintendents Academy: Maria Goodloe-Johnson (class of 2003) of the Seattle school district, LaVonne Sheffield (class of 2002) of the Rockford, Illinois school district, and Jean-Claude Brizard (class of 2008) of the Rochester New York school district. Brizard resigned to take the job as CEO of Chicago schools, but his superintendency in Rochester had been mired in controversy. Another Broad-trained Superintendent recently announced his resignation: Tom Brady (class of 2004) of Providence, Rhode Island, as well as these others from before: Arnold “Woody” Carter (class or 2002), formerly of the Capistrano Unified School District; Thandiwee Peebles,( class of 2002), formerly of the Minneapolis Public School District; and John Q. Porter (class of 2006), formerly of the Oklahoma City Public School District.
Ms. Lillian Lowery (class of 2004), Wise's replacement after supposedly cleaning up Joe Wise's disaster, was put in charge of all Delaware's schools, and now, is in charge of Maryland's. Broad's influence has touched every Delaware Student… and is about to touch all those of Maryland.
Our current head of the Department of Education, Mark Murphy, hails from a group NLNS funded by Eli Broad
If this was a good thing, it would be good.
So, what is the Broad influence?
Here is one take. It is one of the three influencers of education. Along with the Gates Foundation and the Walton's, it exerts a powerful influence, good or bad. It calls itself a venture philanthropy, as in venture capitalist. Meaning it invests in philanthropy expecting to yield a return on its investment. As an example, it can fund a study that says computers will help inner city kids learn, then sell those recommended computers to that school district.
Here is how it infiltrates a school district. Christina School District to be exact…
The Broad Foundation plants one of its elements in a school district, it is then highly likely they will plant another one along with it, so their influence is maximized.
For instance, an element might be:
– The presence of a Broad-trained superintendent
– The placement of Broad Residents into important central office positions
– An "invitation" to participate in a program spawned by the Foundation (such as CRSS's Reform Governance in Action program)
– Offering to provide the district with a free "Performance Management Diagnostic and Planning" experience
The Broad Foundation has spent nearly $400 million on its mission of “transforming urban K-12 public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition.”
That sounds nice. So let us look closer….
The signature effort of the Broad Foundation is its investment in its training programs…The Broad Superintendents Academy runs a training program held during six weekends over ten months, after which graduates are placed in large districts as superintendents. Those accepted into the program (“Broad Fellows”) are not required to have a background in-education; many come instead from careers in the military, business, or government. Tuition and travel expenses for participants are paid for by the Broad Center, which also sometimes covers a share of the graduates’ salaries when they are appointed into district leadership positions. The foundation’s website boasts that 43 percent of all large urban superintendent openings were filled by Broad Academy graduates in 2009.
The Broad Superintendents Academy’s weekend training course provides an “alternative” certification process which has come to supplant or override the typical regulations in many states that require that individuals have years of experience as a teacher and principal before being installed as a school district superintendents….
The Broad Residency in Urban Education is a two-year program, during which individuals with MBAs, JDs, etc. in the early stages of their careers are placed in high-level managerial positions in school districts, charter management organizations, or state and federal departments of education. The Broad Center subsidizes approximately 33 percent of each Resident’s salary.
The Broad Foundation founded the New York City Leadership Academy, which trains individuals to serve as principals in the city public schools, several of whose graduates have been accused of financial misconduct, as well as arbitrary and dictatorial treatment of teachers, students and parents. This was recently featured by Delaware’s WDDE reporting on Reshid Walker who is training in Cape Henelopen under the Delaware Leadership Project. DLP is an alternate certification program that this year is preparing six candidates to work as principals or assistant principals at public schools serving high-risk students in Delaware. Alternate Certification means it sidesteps requirements that a principal has to have stepped foot inside a school before. Through four days a week of on-the-job training, and no certification from an accredited college or university, he will soon be in command of your child’s education.
The Broad Institute for School Boards provides three training programs for elected school board members and non-Broad-trained superintendents conducted in partnership with the Center for Reform of School Systems (CRSS). The Institute trains new board members at a one-week summer residential setting…The Broad Foundation underwrites 80 percent of all program costs through a grant to CRSS.
The Broad Foundation also supports a broad range of pro-charter school advocacy groups, as well as alternative training programs for non-educators who want to work as teachers and principals (Teach for America, New Leaders for New Schools). In addition, the foundation offers free diagnostic “audits” to school districts, along with recommendations aligned with its policy preferences. It produces a number of guides and toolkits for school districts, including a “School Closure Guide,” based on the experiences of Broad-trained administrators involved in closing schools in Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Miami-Dade County, Oakland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Seattle…..
Closing public schools to open opportunities for charters seems to be it’s prime directive. Although not officially enshrined as such, it does seem to be the consistent pattern of each of its graduates.
The foundation provided start-up funding for Parent Revolution (formerly the Los Angeles Parent Union), the group which developed the “Parent Trigger” legislation, designed to encourage the conversion of public schools to charter schools. Broad has also has given large amounts of money to Education Reform Now, a pro-charter school advocacy organization…
Eli Broad has said he “expects to be a major contributor” to Students First, former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s organization that advocates for the expansion of charters, vouchers, and an end to seniority protections for teachers. The pro-Rhee biography, The Bee Eater, was subsidized by the Broad Foundation as is mentioned on the book jacket.
Of course, there are campaign contributions (you will need to type in Broad, Eli) to facilitate the corporatizing of education… A quick look certifies that his coverage is a who’s who across party lines in Congress. Obviously there will be support for Charters streaming down from the top lines of government.
Ok, so how does all of this affect Delaware’s public school’s families?….
One of the tenets of his philosophy taught to his graduates, is to produce system change by “investing in a disruptive force.” Continual reorganizations, firings of staff, and experimentation to create chaos or “churn” is believed to be productive and beneficial, as it weakens the ability of communities to resist change.
A hallmark of the Broad-style leadership is closing existing schools rather than attempting to improve them, increasing class size, opening charter schools, imposing high-stakes test-based accountability systems on teachers and students, and implementing of pay for performance schemes. The brusque and often punitive management style of Broad-trained leaders has frequently alienated parents and teachers and sparked protests. A long laundry list of Broad Supertendants run out of town can be found here, near the bottom. But you can get an idea of what to expect, from just this one: Robert Bobb (class of 2005), the Emergency Financial Manager of the Detroit Public Schools, recently sent layoff notices to every one of the district’s 5,466 salaried employees, including all its teachers, and said that nearly a third of the district’s schools would be closed or turned over to private charter operators. At a recent town hall which Bobb had called so he could go over his plan, angry students, parents, and teachers drove him from the meeting. He was escorted out by his six bodyguards….
Disruption and chaos indeed…..
Delaware is fortunate to have a large parenting network of watch dogs who communicate well with legislators. Whereas the Christina District has had a rough go with Broad graduates, the rest of the state has so far been unscathed…..
Without the oversight being provided by parents and teachers watchdog organizations, the fate of Delaware’s students might be that of Philadelphia, Chicago, or Detroit.
if you are a parent or know one, you probably feel this way as well. Parents Across America considers Broad’s influence to be inherently undemocratic, as it disenfranchises parents and other stakeholders in an effort to privatize our public schools and imposes corporate-style policies without our consent. We strongly oppose allowing our nation’s education policy to be driven by billionaires who have no education expertise, who do not send their own children to public schools, and whose particular biases and policy preferences are damaging our children’s ability to receive a quality education.
In fact, this entire philosophy of forcing change upon children, strikes every parent as coming from those types of people we all run across, … who hate children…. “Someone smack that kid who’s crying.”
Amen And Amen.
kavips 