bell hooks on educating black boys

"Oftentimes separate schools for black boys are presented as the best educational alternative because of their emphasis on strict discipline instead of learning. Yet often it is not the strictness that leads boys to do well in these schools, rather the fact that they are cared about, given attention, and perceived to be learners who can excel academically. Individual boys educated in supportive environments often regress when they enter predominantly white schools where they are stereotypically categorized as non-learners."

From her chapter titled, "school black males" in the book We Real Cool, p. 45.

"tricker" laws

Let's be clear what the so-called parent trigger means. If 51 percent of the parents in a public school sign a petition, they can take control of the school, fire the staff, and hand the school over to a private corporation run by themselves or someone else.

Parent trigger laws are an invitation, as economist Bruce Baker put it, to mob rule.

I wonder how the mayors would react to a similar proposal to allow citizens to seize control of the public housing projects they live in or their local firehouse or police station, if they are dissatisfied with them. Perhaps they should also be permitted to take control of the sanitation trucks and give the jobs to one another.

It is frankly bizarre to pass a law allowing 51 percent of the present users of a public facility or public service to seize control and hand it off to a private corporation. The public paid for it, why should the people who use it this year claim the power to give it away? What about the rights of those who plan to attend the school in years to come? Supposing next year half of those who signed the petition are no longer parents in the school that they privatized? To me, this is akin to saying that those riding on a public bus should have the power to "seize control" and give it to a private bus company.

The national parent organization Parents Across America opposes the parent trigger as a stealth way to privatize public schools. When Florida considered parent trigger legislation this past spring, the law failed because of opposition from every Florida parent organization.

I wonder why parent trigger laws never include the right of charter school parents to "seize control" of their school and give it back to the public system.

 -- Ravitch

debunking in a democracy

Isn't this supposed to be the job of our media?

Debunking schools is not bad because it is difficult.  Finding the incriminating data usually takes less than an hour.  What’s bad about it is that I know some people will misunderstand my intentions.  The reason I need to debunk miracle schools is because lawmakers use them as examples of why it is good education reform practice to close down failing schools and fire their teachers.  My purpose is to show that the good test scores, if they really have them, come at an even greater cost.  The more I can show that the ‘miracle’ schools aren’t any better than the failing schools, maybe people will be more outraged when ‘failing’ schools are shut down.

-- Gary Rubinstein

Why doesn't anyone talk about the attrition of students and teachers at high-performing charters? What happens to those other children?  Look at the decrease in children at this school, Harlem Village Academy Charter.

why do we think this is a good idea?

From an LA Times article about one of the top performing middle schools in CA:

Not many schools in California recruit teachers with language like this: "We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multicultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply."

...School administrators take pride in their record of frequently firing teachers they consider to be underperforming. Unions are embraced with the same warmth accorded "self-esteem experts, panhandlers, drug dealers and those snapping turtles who refuse to put forth their best effort," to quote the school's website.

Students, almost all poor, wear uniforms and are subject to disciplinary procedures redolent of military school. One local school district official was horrified to learn that a girl was forced to clean the boys' restroom as punishment.

 Reality, Ravitch-style:

The preliminary findings [of an independent audit] reported:

– $350,000 to Chavis’ wife, who was paid wages as the school’s financial administrator as well as additional fees to her private accounting firm.

– $355,000 to Chavis for administering a summer school program, one that violated state law by requiring students to attend and pay the charter school $50 for each day missed.

– $348,000 in payments to companies owned by Chavis for unauthorized construction projects.

...With so many questions raised about the mismanagement of money, how could anyone trust the schools’ test scores?

from my awesome teacher friend, mr. s

Five really important things to think about when thinking about education in the US.

1. Education reformers are attempting to privatize education to open a new market.

2. There is no education crisis sweeping the nation. Factor out poverty and US students are near the top of international standings. We need to address poverty issues that hold children back.

3. "Full-Service Community Schools" are a model for addressing poverty issues that affect education. "Community Schools NOT Charter Schools"

4. The charter school experiment is a failure. 20 years of data show that only 17% of charter schools perform better than the neighborhood school and nearly 40% perform worse. Giving 4 in 10 students a worse education is not going to close any gaps if you only give 2 in 10 a better education.

5. 50% of teachers quit before 5 years. This means most of the bad ones leave on their own before tenure. No other sector is as self-selecting as this.