DCPS gives charter schools access to our students personal information

Becki Couch at the school board meeting said her son received a post card from a charter school recruiting them to go to it. She asked the super how the charter school got her son's name and address.

Oh that would be genesis (the districts computer system) he said, charter schools have access to it and it has all our students personal information in it.

Oh wow, I wonder why the district has made it so tough for them, I mean couldn't the district print up cards and send it to families for them?

Isn't that the goal of the super and board an all charter school district? Why pretend it's not at this point.

That sickening noise you just heard was Duval County Schools approving two more charter schools

Duval County Charter Schools approved two new charter schools on May the fifth, another KIPP school for the Northside and a Charter Schools USA school

The KIPP School is the baby of influential business man and chair of the state board of education Gary Chartrand. I believe the evidence is dubious for the expansion, despite spending a third more per child, not backfilling when kids leave and having smaller classes and longer days the KIPP Impact school has earned grades of F, the lowest grade in northeast Florida, a miraculous B, a grade protected C, it would have been a D if the aforementioned Chartrand wouldn’t have helped pass a rule saying school grades could only drop one letter grade and another B. I submit that is any public school had the same resources and advantages it would have received nothing but A grades.   

The CUSA school at the Flagler Center is being placed right in the middle of four high performing 

schools three of which are under enrolled. It is being placed in an area town that does not need a charter school. The only possible purpose it serves is to enrich the owner of the for profit Charter Schools USA.

The superintendent and several board members have bemoaned the expansion of charter schools which according to the Jacksonville Public Education Fund’s website both hurt public schools by siphoning away resources and as a group perform worse.

Other districts are pushing back against charter schools of which over 270 have opened taken public money and closed and of which many of the ones that are successful have set up in neighborhoods where successful public schools already are draining away precious resources. Our super and board however has embraced charter schools and I don’t think it is a coincidence that our overall district grade has dropped to a C as charter schools have increased by over 300 percent over the last few years.

It’s time our board and super did the job they were elected and hired to do instead of out sourcing our children’s education to for profit charter schools many of which do worse than their public school counterparts.

Why does the right love the police but hate teachers? (rough draft)

Right wing columnist Dan Senor on the Bill Maher show repeated a new talking point making the rounds in right wing circles and that’s, if only Baltimore had more school choice then the riots would not have happened. Comedian D.L. Hughley pushed back and said “I wish you guys hated the police union as much as you hate the teacher’s union.”

It got me thinking why do the police get a pass with the right while the teacher unions are enemy number one, two if you count whatever terrorist group du jour they want to use to frighten their constituents.

Think about the parallels between the police and teachers. Both groups are highly unionized and both have had a hard time dealing with poverty.

A generation of get tough on crime, put more cops on the street and build more prisons hasn’t stopped poverty. It hasn’t jump started neighborhoods to prosperity. Sure crime rates might be down but at the same time graduation rates across the nation are up. However whenever a bad cop does something the right says, that’s just one bad apple, but when a bad teacher does something they use it as an indictment of the entire profession.

Where is merit pay for the police, or their VAM scores, how come the police are guaranteed more than one year of employment if they do well and teachers are not? Can you imagine the crisis there would be if law enforcement was saddled with the same type of policies that teachers are?

I think it boils down to two things, first the right has not figured out how to make a profit off of law enforcement, now it’s true there are lots of private prisons and sadly the scandals and mismanagement surrounding them have been legion. There however have been no calls to privatize the police like there has been with education. Nobody is saying let the private sector can do it cheaper and better.  

Next it is because teacher unions by and large have not supported republicans since they took a hard right turn twenty five years ago. They think how dare these low wage men and mostly women not support them and since that’s the case they have to be punished. I have heard some say it’s because teaching is a profession mostly made up of women and where there are other instances where the right has targeted women, I’m not quite ready to go that far.

Poverty is the real problem both teachers and the police are facing. Ignoring it in our schools and ignoring it in our streets has led to tragedies in both.

The police and teachers have been hamstrung by bad policies, the right however has given the police a pass while blaming teachers for things beyond their control.  

The shame of John Oliver’s rant on testing

John Oliver on his HBO show Last Week Tonight gave a scathing critique of the high stakes testing industry, explaining how it has been bad for teachers and students and how at the end of the day other than making testing companies rich, teachers leave the profession and children cry it has not been effective. The piece was both hilarious, poignant and sad.

It was sad not just because of the impassioned plea of a middle school girl who in between tears begged her school board not to drop her from her advanced classes because she didn’t do well on her standardized tests, smart children doing poor on them is not atypical, but it was sad because teachers have been signaling the same warnings to state legislatures who ignored them and decided instead to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on tests.

High stakes standardized tests haven’t worked. Blaming teachers has not worked. Charter schools and vouchers have not worked. Ignoring or treating poverty as an excuse has not worked.

If we want to make real change we must address poverty. The students in high poverty schools need smaller classes, a longer school day and a longer school year, a wealth of electives and extracurricular activities so schools don’t become drudgery to them and mental health counselors and social workers because why a kid acts up or does poorly in school often has nothing to do with school.

We can continue to throw money down a pit that just makes donors to legislators and testing companies wealthy or we can resolve to make systematic and real changes that make a difference.  

John Oliver was able to do something teachers weren’t and that’s get people to notice. Now it’s time we did something too.

John Oliver on standardized tests

Three things have happened in Jacksonville, which show the complete breakdown of discipline in our public schools.

Three things have happened in Jacksonville, which show the complete breakdown of discipline in our public schools.

The first was the suspension of Assistant Principal Oscar Harris for breaking up a brutal fight at Westside High School. He also received several blows and a torn meniscus for his troubles. The district said he took a student down to hard. What’s to hard when you are protecting yourself or others? Ironically Harris was the only person who was truly injured.

Next there was the murder of Johnnel Johnson at a house party. Were the perpetrator is still at large as of this writing, witnesses say it was the continuation of a fight that happened at First Coast high school. A fight where sources say both participants received a light punishment if it could be called that and zero follow up.

Then there is Ken Amaro the bow tie wearing consumer reporter at channel 12. Known mostly for checking into pot holes or chasing down roofers who didn’t get the job done, he recently went off about all the violence in Duval Schools, saying he was going to get the bottom of it and quite frankly if the school district has lost Ken Amaro then it has lost the city.

When Superintendent Vitti arrived to town he knew we had a discipline problem and hired dozens of extra security personnel. Fast-forward two years and those positions and more were cut and a feel good discipline initiative called restorative justice was placed in our schools, a program that has taken discipline from poor to practically non-existent.

Now maybe the superintendent’s heart is in the right place, we probably were suspending to many students but to go from one extreme to the other where students can act up repeatedly just creates another set of problems.

Vitti cited a 24 percent drop in in-door suspensions, a 12 percent decline in out-of-school suspensions and a 20 percent decline in arrests to show that school discipline and safety are improving, but “this is an area I must continue to hone, address and improve,” he said.
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-01-26/story

The thing is he is doing the city a disservice when he presents this all is well message that even Ken Amaro doesn’t believe. Him pointing to the stats got me thinking about how many times I heard the same thing and it wasn’t true then and it’s not true now.

I heard it in 2009, when a Times Union article reported describing how suspensions have dropped 30 percent from year to year;
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/schools/2009-12-08/story/duval%E2%80%99s_number_of_suspensions_drops_dramatically

Then again in 2010 when they said we had a 71 percent drop in suspensions.
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2010-01-17/story/school_suspensions_altering_the_tide

Another article in 2012, talked about a 35% drop in suspensions over three years. I guess the bulk of that came in 2010. In that article they at least questioned the possibility of under reporting.
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-01-28/story/discipline-duvals-public-schools-are-students-really-behaving-better

And I could have went on and on, as there have been quite a few stories about dramatic drops in suspensions and referrals over the years. Now you don’t have to believe me just look at what members of the district have said even just recently.  

The principal at Oak Hill in a Times Union article … added that teachers want more parental support and to be able to remove disruptive students from class more often than the district discipline guidelines allow. Duval is transitioning to more restorative discipline techniques, she said.

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-02-27/story/duval-teachers-vent-about-their-schools-principals-survey

Then School Board member Connie Hall in the Times Union said,  …she wants more improvement in children’s behavior, especially more respect for teachers and principals.

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-03-26/story/duvals-transformation-schools-face-long-road-improvement

But don’t just take their word for it ask a teacher what they think about the superintendent’s new discipline initiative. You will find most think it is a disaster.

Discipline is hard but necessary and I am not saying to drop the hammer or be cruel but it is something we have to address and its something that is holding back the learning of many children. If a teacher spends just ten percent of their time disciplining, usually just a couple kids too, then the entire class has lost out on 18 days of instruction.

Kids need consequences for their behavior and fighting should never be tolerated. If the fights recently publicized would have happened at the landing or in a grocery store kids would have went to jail. Society wouldn't have just shrugged their shoulders and said, oh kids will be kids, they would have demanded something be done.

Again Vitti's heart may have been in the right place, we were probably suspending children at to fast of a pace and we were definitely ignoring the underlying causes of their behavior, who knows given proper training and resources restorative justice might even work. We however have an epidemic of violence in our schools and it's just a matter of time before a tragedy like the one that happened at the party happens at one of our schools.  

When the district suspends assistant principals for taking their life in their hands to protect other children, when they are disingenuous about what is happening in our schools and report massaged statistics, when they start initiatives like restorative justice but give very little training and follow up and when they refuse to give consequences for poor behavior and then don’t follow up with our most vulnerable children they are courting tragedy and some innocent teacher or student is going to pay the price.

We can and should be dong better.

Jeb Bush, terrible or absolutely terrible? (rough draft)

I have to say the more I think about Jeb Bush's comments that if Baltimore had more school choice then there wouldn't have been any riots the more Flabbergasted I become.

There has been school choice in Florida for going on twenty years now. Charter schools including one that was started by Jeb Bush that failed have been here since 1996. During the 13-14 school year there were 615, most less than 5 years old. Furthermore over 270 have opened taken public money and failed leaving mostly poor and minority families and communities in a lurch.  When these school opened they took resources from the neighborhood schools undoubtedly hurting them too.

The Stanford Credo says Florida's charter schools as a group perform worse than their public school counterparts and most of the ones that are doing well have set up shop in affluent neighborhoods attracting parents who have bought the hype about our failing public system, who don't like gov'ment schools or think they are getting a free private school.

Also has Jeb Bush not been to the north side of Jacksonville, downtown Miami, Tampa Heights in Tampa and dozens of other neighborhoods in Florida. Even with school choice those neighborhoods are mired in crippling poverty and are a Freddie Gray tragedy away from blowing.

Jeb Bush who sent his children to an exclusive and expensive private school and who hates labor more than he cares about kids is either completely clueless, naive or I don't beeping know but his school choice comments are completely ridiculous and beyond wrong.

For him to try and take advantage of the tragic death of a young man shows just what a poor human being he is.

Jeb Bush says if only Baltimore had more charter schools there wouldn't have been any riots.

You know I have heard of never letting a good crisis go to waste but come on!!!

In Politic he said: Bush on Thursday touted the education reforms he oversaw as Florida’s governor, arguing that expanding school choice is one way to improve opportunities for at-risk children.

“Baltimore is not a model for public education,” Bush said. “You want to see that, go to Florida.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/jeb-bush-baltimore-riots-welfare-education-reform-117534.html?hp=rc1_4

Yes just what the poor black folks of Baltimore need, for profit charters, many of which will close, run by charlatans and mercenaries that as a group perform worse than their public school counterparts. No word if Bush think the police not killing their sons would probably help too.  

Like Baltimore many of Florida's neighborhoods do need help but they need responsible help. The children in those schools need smaller classes, a longer school day and a longer school year with fun things to do so school does not become such drudgery for them. They need mental health counselors and social workers because why kids act up and do poorly often has nothing to do with school and if we don't address the whole child all we are doing is spitting into the wind.

Jeb's solutions give money to for profit companies and unregulated schools while testing students to death and running teachers out of the profession has not worked in Florida despite his assistance that it has and it won't work in Baltimore or anywhere else either.

Florida sticks a knife in the hearts of Bright Futures, so much for caring about poor and mostly minority children.

The same people who often say we must give poor and mostly minority children vouchers so they can escape poor performing public schools are the same people who voted to dramatically slash the Bright Futures Scholarship program, which you guessed it disproportionately hurts poor and mostly minority children and will prevent thousand and thousand from going to college. It seems a bit hypocritical doesn’t it?

The truth is vouchers aren’t here to help poor and mostly minority children, if that was a priority there wouldn’t be these draconian cuts to the Bright Futures Scholarships. Vouchers, which have siphoned nearly a billion dollars out pf public schools, have a more insidious purpose.  They are designed to divert what would have been public money to religious institutions, over seventy percent of voucher schools are religious and to hasten the privatization of public schools.

This should concern us all because where accountability is an often-repeated word out of Tallahassee for public schools; voucher schools have practically been given a pass. The system is even set up so that most of the schools don’t even have to reveal how the money they receive is spent.

If we truly care about the fate of poor and mostly minority children at the very least we should restore the cuts to the bright future scholarships, but I also believe we should stop siphoning money out of public schools and sending it to schools that don’t have to have certified teachers, recognized curriculums and have practically zero academic and fiscal accountability measures in place.  

It’s Teacher and charter school appreciation week, guess which one Florida really appreciates.

The week of May third is teacher appreciation and charter school appreciation week and that right there should tell you how important education is. We have to cram everything in together because the other fifty-one weeks are apparently claimed.

Florida doesn’t really seem to appreciate its teachers. At the height of the recession they took three percent of their salary and now that things are much better they have not given it back. The legislature has required teachers to be evaluated using a complicated formula that no expert thinks we should be using called VAM. It doesn’t take into account poverty and a recent report revealed that even if students do perfect or really well it can still count against a teachers evaluation. Then teachers hired after 2011 have no work protections and can be fired at the end of the school year for any reason or none. Finally Florida’s teachers continue to be some of the poorest paid in the nation. All of this has led to teachers leaving the profession in droves.

Florida however does seem to appreciate it’s charter schools as year after year the legislature finds new ways to send even more money to them. They do this despite the fact over 270 have failed leaving families and communities in lurch, as a group they perform worse than their public school counterparts and more and more are run by for profit management companies, the political connected owners of charter Schools USA and Academia are getting really rich. Furthermore most of the charter schools that are doing well have set up shop in affluent neighborhoods draining resources and hurting the schools already there. I guess what’s not to appreciate.

I often feel Florida has it backwards.