We All Need to Fight for Our Public Schools, Not Abandon Them

“Minneapolis Public Schools promises an inspirational education experience in a safe, welcoming environment for all diverse learners to acquire the tools and skills necessary to confidently engage in the global community. “

                                                                        -  MPS “Mission and Vision” webpage (emphasis mine)

“It is the duty and the function of the district to furnish school facilities to every child of school age residing in any part of the district”

                                                                        - Minnesota statute 123B.02, Subd. 2. 

Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) must provide an education for EVERY child that comes into its schools.  We continue to have a school board that is not willing to accept this obligation.  At the last Minneapolis School Board meeting on Tuesday, February 26, board members continued to abdicate their responsibility to serve all students.

One of the items on their agenda was a recommendation by the administration to sell a school building that was closed 8 years ago to a property company that would then lease it to a charter school.  There is currently a shortage of classroom space throughout the district, and yet Minneapolis is looking to sell off one of its buildings so a charter school can open in that space.  Why don’t they re-open this building as a district school?

School board members have repeatedly claimed that charter schools could better serve students of color and low-income students.  This is done despite the fact that the majority of charter schools do no better, and often worse than, true public schools.  Charters that are listed as “beating-the-odds" are based scores on standardized tests.  No attention is given to the charter schools’ ability to manipulate its student population such as weeding out students with the greatest challenges, or how they teach to the tests with “drill and kill" curriculum.  Rather than trying to better serve students of color and students from low-income families, the school board simply tells the students to try their luck with charter schools.

The Chair of the Minneapolis School Board, Director Monserrate, was notably quiet during the discussion of selling the building to a charter school.  Could it be his conflict of interest?  As Minneapolis parent Ralph Crowder pointed out during the public comment section, Monserrate had served on the board of Hiawatha Leadership Academy.  Hiawatha is the charter school operator planning to lease the Minneapolis Public School building that is for sale.

As if this blatant willingness to privatize the public schools they are responsible for was not bad enough, one of our school board members told parents and students that it might be best if they just left MPS.

Two weeks ago at South High School in Minneapolis, there was a fight at lunch that included as many as 200 – 300 students.  Many students and parents described this as the result of growing tensions between Somali-American and African American students.  Director Samatar said this was about “the leadership of the building, about the leadership of this district, including [him]self as a board member.”

He then said, “I will have no doubt, anytime that I see that the community has not been served...I will tell any [of them], anytime, if they don’t get what they need from the district with respect and decency, to get up and find another site, another school, another district…If you don’t get what you need from the district, you have to make…better choices.”

Why did he not tell them, public schools belong to all students?  Why did he not tell them to fight for their public schools, and that he, as a school board member, would lead that fight?  Instead, he, other school board members, and the Superintendent are quick to tell dissatisfied parents and students, we can't help you.

Public schools must serve all students.  We must do better, but we don't do it by abandoning groups of our students or privatizing our public schools.  If school board members don't share this commitment, they are the ones who need to make "better choices" and resign.

The Charter School Factories

I am continually amazed by the education “reformers” who are apparently unfazed by their own continual contradictions. 

They argue that seniority bidding rights leave struggling students with the least experienced teachers and yet they want to fill those same schools with inexperienced and under-trained Teach for America (TFA) teachers.

They claim to be the leaders of the "new" civil rights movement, fighting for social justice.  They then create schools on the backs of teachers and staff who are required to work 10 hour days at school, and then be "on-call" until 9 or 10 p.m. each night to answer any and every question a student or parent may have.  Many schools also have classes on Saturdays, resulting in teachers working 60 to 70 hour weeks.  Many charters also have extended school years.  What does this teach students about social justice? 

They criticize public schools as relics of the industrial age and then praise charter schools that operate as assembly lines.  I'm not sure the irony is recognized by anyone in this video about Rocketship Education charters.  I believe the comparison to the Model T is intended to show the "innovation" of the charter model, and yet it simply shows the assembly line approach is what most charters are all about.

Charters claim to make their students "college and career-ready," or as Rocketship Education claims, "Rocketeers are well positioned along a path toward expanded opportunities in Middle school, high school, college and life."  Yet, when you look at the scene with students spending an hour and a half of their day in the "learning lab," you can't help but see this as their future.

Posted by Rob Panning-Miller

Weingarten still Supporting the Corporate Reformers

The College Board, which administers the SAT and Advance Placement (AP) courses and exams, has just announced David Coleman is their new president.  Coleman is identified as an architect of the Common Core State Standards.  This news was welcomed by the AFT President, Randi Wiengarten.  She described Coleman as “innovative and an excellent choice,” who “put the common core on the map and he's very respectful of the teacher voice."  He has pushed for "informational texts" rather than fiction.  He said “[A]s you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think.”  Weingarten’s comments are very troubling.  I would hate to meet the teacher that feels Coleman is “respectful” of their voice.

Coleman worked for McKinsey and Company, which has become a major supplier of education “experts” even here in Minneapolis.  His appointment is troubling, but AFT President Wiengarten's comments are even more so.  Wiengarten's record, which includes inviting Bill Gates to the AFT Convention is marred by the collaboration with those who are interested in destroying public education.  

Learn more about David Coleman at Perdido Street School Blog: http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2012/03/david-coleman-and-common-core-consortia.html

An end to Testing Season

We are not just nearing the end of the school year, but the end of the testing season.  From March to June, schools are deluged by tests, after spending much of September through February prepping for the tests.  As politicians and pundits perpetuate the myth that confuses standardized testing with learning, students’ education suffers, and teachers are blamed.  Schools spend less and less time working on what would improve the educational experience of all of its students; instead spending more time and resources trying to survive wave after wave of new tests.

I teach at South High School in Minneapolis.  It is a school that highlights the ridiculous realities of our obsession with testing, although I’m sure most every other school could tell a similar story. 

According to the latest US News and World Report High School Ranking, South High ranked the 24^th best high school in the state of Minnesota, out of 786, and in the top 5% of high schools nationally.  At the same time, No Child Left Behind rules label South as a “Stage 4 AYP” school.  This requires the school to take “corrective action” and prepare for “restructuring.”  While neither the US News ranking or the NCLB labeling actually tell us about the real quality of education at a school, they are both based on the same testing data.  The disparate results exemplify the failed nature of standardized tests.

Despite the mixed messages, our District is requiring students in all schools to take a new series of standardized tests this year called the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP).  This is apparently being done to improve our scores on the state mandated MCA tests, and includes 9^th graders in the high schools.

The MAP test has two parts - math and reading, and they are taken once in the fall and again in the spring.  At South, ninth graders took the fall portion during their English classes, and are taking the spring portion now during their social studies classes.  This means students in my five World History classes need to spend two class periods taking the two parts of this test.  While two days of missed class time might not seem like too much, the set up requirements of the computerized test, along with the limited computer lab space results in the testing of my students being scattered over six days rather than just two.

The tests cost the district about $12 per student, which amounts to at least $400,000 annually, and this is only one of the many standardized tests given in Minneapolis Public Schools.  The District has also recently negotiated a contract with teachers that will add four additional student days next year.  They are paying millions of dollars for these four additional days.  The merit of these additional days is itself questionable, but why claim students need more days in school only to use up more of that time taking standardized tests?

Every few days a new story comes out about the dysfunction of standardized tests themselves, and the dysfunction they create in our school environment.  Recent example include, the “Pineapple” story in New York, the FCAT writing scores in Florida, and numerous cheating scandals across the country.  Yet these are just the superficial problems with standardized tests.  Todd Farley worked for 15 years at Pearson Education, one of the largest for profit companies in education and testing, and he said, “there aren’t scoring problems on some standardized tests—my experience suggests there are scoring problems on all of them.”

Beyond the scoring problems, the manner in which the questionable test results are used compound the problems.  They have narrowed the curriculum and reduced the opportunities for students to engage in creative play and critical thinking.  They have been used to punish teachers and schools, and forced educators to teach to the test rather than meet the individual needs of the children.  An incredible amount of time and money is dedicated to testing rather than actual learning.

If we really want to improve the educational experience for all students, we would not add more time in school and require more testing.  We would try to eliminate standardized testing and focus on empowering teachers to make time in school a rich meaningful experience for students.  If politicians and administrators cannot or will not end the testing obsession, parents, students, and teachers must work together to force an end this destructive process.  It pains me too much to watch my students sit in front of a computer answering questions they don’t care about and are not making them better students or better people.

Corporate-School Reform VS Democracy Is Still the Issue in DC's November Election

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

 

The mostly black District of Columbia has been run like a plantation, a colony for as long as anybody can recall. Habitual defiance of the democratic will of DC voters and residents is safe for Congress, where DC has neither a vote nor an effective voice. But DC' mayor was booted out after a single term for a series of sins, the biggest of which was his embrace of top-down, undemocratic corporate-style school reform.