Washington D.C. Dispatch: Too Big to Fail - Keep our Educators in the Classroom

Amina from the Capitol on Sen. Harkin's new bill

Three cheers for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chair of the Senate Education Committee! As states stimulus monies dry up and states are heading toward a funding cliff, a life preserver is tossed to educators. Sen. Harkins’ Keep Our Educators Working Act would extend stimulus funds by $23 billion for one year. Yes, this preserver is only temporary. But for tens of thousands of teachers awaiting pink slips—something is a whole lot better than nothing at all.

 

The National Education Association (NEA) is projecting over 150,000 educator layoffs in the next three months! The prospects are frightening. So, Sen. Harkin’s bill is a great start.

Let’s now push for some Wall Street bailout fortitude. A federal commitment to being there for public education. Why? Because it’s too big to fail. Because on the other end of those teacher lay-offs, school closures, stripped down school budgets are some of the nation’s most vulnerable children.

As nicely pointed out by the NEA, this approach is a far cry from the competitive roller coaster ride for Race to the Top Funds. Already the Department of Education is saying that only about 10 to 15 states may share in the remaining $3.4 billion that is estimated to be available. What happens to the rest of the states and the nation’s schools?

Unlike the Race to the Top game, Sen. Harkin’s bill would free already economically traumatized states from having to prove their worthiness for funding. They do not have to devise speedy plans and make unreasonable promises for cash. Instead, in these times of economic recession their worthiness is implied and understood. They are in crisis and their failure is inextricably linked to the well-being of the children they serve—many of whom are children of color; children whose futures are too important for them to fail.

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Public Education as a Civil Right: Reauthorization Must Reflect ESEA's Original Purpose

Jack’s op-ed carried by the California Progress Report uncovers the original intent of ESEA/NCLB as enacted in 1965 at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and suggests that legacy be lived up to during the reauthorization process:

With the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) getting underway on Capitol Hill, a meaningful anniversary will pass unobserved in Washington. Forty-five years ago this Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson signed the act, rebranded by the Bush Administration as No Child Left Behind, into law. With the stroke of a pen, the federal government’s role in public education was revolutionized, placing emphasis on ensuring educational opportunity in low-income communities.

A Revolution in Education

The law came as a critical step in the Great Society legislation package designed to fight poverty and racism. For Johnson, who was trained as a schoolteacher and had taught in a poor Latino community in Texas, ESEA held as much potential for fighting racial injustice as the Civil Rights Act passed the previous year. With the federal government mandating desegregation, education commissioner Francis Keppel designed ESEA to ensure students of color were not just seated in classrooms, but that they also received a high quality education and had the real opportunity to continue to college.

In the decade following its inception, ESEA played an instrumental role in the desegregation process. Through Title I, the portion of the law providing funding for schools with large populations of low-income students, the Department of Education gave districts a strong incentive to follow through with desegregation promises. If they didn’t, they would miss out on federal dollars. At the same time, the policy also guaranteed resources for struggling schools when states and districts failed them, providing an essential boost for schools serving communities of color that had been neglected for years.

Legacy Lost?

Since becoming law, ESEA has been reauthorized by Congress about every five years. This process allows for policy modifications and improvements, as seen by the addition of funding provisions for English language learners and massive investments in educational innovation.

However, promises made during the reauthorization process have often fallen flat. For instance, in 2002 George W. Bush promised substantial increases in Title I funding for low-income schools. The money never materialized and to date the fund remains discretionary and not mandatory, leaving it susceptible to political horse-trading in the budget process.

With reauthorization three years overdue, the Obama Administration released its blueprint for education reform last month, outlining a model of improvement through increased competition and accountability. Federal spending on competitive grants is to be increased by $3 billion while the amount for formula grants, that is guaranteed money for struggling schools in poor communities, will be slightly reduced.

Title I funds, the federal government’s main tool for achieving equality in educational opportunity, will remain stagnant. With the four intervention models mandated for the nation’s lowest performing schools highly punitive, Title I schools should be given as many resources as possible to avoid becoming worst case scenarios.

Pitfalls and Potentials

In the race to win federal funding, the strongest competitors among states and school districts are those who can best demonstrate their proposed reforms will yield real results for their students. It stands to reason that those who can invest the most money and manpower into their proposals will have the best shot.

If states or districts are strapped for such resources or even if they are simply administered poorly, it seems logical that they will struggle to be competitive. In this way, schools that serve poor communities of color may end up at an automatic disadvantage when vying for federal money. The Department of Education must take this fact into account when it is evaluating funding applications or the strategy will simply intensify inequalities.

Over the year, Congress will set to work reauthorizing ESEA. Reauthorization necessarily involves the classic dance of interest politics – unleashing lobbyists and activists armed with slogans and statistics. In the midst of the clamor, it’s possible to be sidetrack and lose touch with what the legislation was actually intended to do: guarantee quality public education for poor students and students of color. Given its civil rights legacy, that goal is the heart and soul of this law and it must be boldly reaffirmed.

                                                                           

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Washington D.C. Dispatch: Zero Tolerance Policies Hurt Students of Color

Amina from the Capitol on NYU's Pedro Noguera, the school to prison pipeline, and the future of discipline policies in the nation's public schools:

They Came to Capitol Hill

On Capitol Hill New York University’s Pedro Noguera implores lawmakers to recognize that zero tolerance policies disproportionately punish the kids that have the highest needs.  Noguera, Monty Neill from Fair Test, Jim Freeman from the Advancement Project and Eric Yates student organizer from the Philadelphia Student Union issued a clarion call to address the issue. The school to prison pipeline is not a policy footnote. In fact, for students of color in particular it may be the golden key to help unlock the mysteries of the drop out plague.

Duncan Disses Discipline

Did you know that in Chicago Public Schools, under the leadership of then Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan, the number of out-of-school suspensions district wide nearly quadrupled over six years? I guess its no surprise zero tolerance policies aren’t at the top of Duncan’s “things to do” list. The Advancement Project’s 2010 release of Test, Punish, and Push Out reports this and other stunning results from zero tolerance policies now employed in schools across the nation.  The report screams that we can’t afford to overlook this issue.

Race Doesn’t What?!

Did you know that since NCLB’s passage nationwide expulsion numbers have gone up some 15%? More tellingly, the numbers of expulsions for Black students has risen 33% and 6% for Latino students, yet FALLEN 2% for white students! Does race still matter? Clearly, in the world of school discipline it does. This inconvenient truth flies in the face of a country wishing for a post-racial gold star—but we simply aren’t there yet. 

Connect the Dots

Discipline is a line that connects many education outcome dots. Suspended, expelled and needlessly arrested kids are kids that aren’t learning.  Kids that fall behind academically tend to be kids that don’t feel welcome in schools. Kids that don’t feel welcome in school tend to drop out and are at an increased risk to be placed in the criminal justice system. No matter how convenient separating these issues may be for policy expedience, it doesn’t erase the reality. Let’s connect some dots folks and learn from what we see.

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Washington D.C. Dispatch: Ravitch on her NCLB change of heart, but where's the race analysis in the discussion?

Amina's on the ground take on Diane Ravitch, Carmel Martin, and others discussing the Education Secondary Elementary Act (ESEA) (but avoiding race) at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC:


Diane Ravitch, toast of the town among progressives, today presented her latest book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, to a capacity crowd at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington D.C. What brought the people? Likely her scathing critique of No Child Left Behind, this made all the more interesting and oddly legitimate since she was a former member of the Bush administration and vocal proponent of the legislation. Today Ravitch outright denounces the sanctions of NCLB and high stakes testing. She’s also taken on some popular Obama administration ideas particularly charter schools and privatization of public education.

The New Blueprint

In contrast to Ravitch, the EPI panel also included Carmel Martin. Martin, of the Department of Education, was described as a principal author of the administration’s newly minted ESEA blueprint. It’s interesting as she spoke about the blueprint I got a striking feeling that we were hearing a kitchen sink approach to education policy making; they’re really throwing a bit of everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. For progressives there are some pretty nasty ingredients in the mix, but they’re laced with something sweet to make them go down a little easier. Although they may have covered all their bases, and are doing a lot of “things”, the finished product misses the mark on creating a grand idea for truly transformative change.

Standardized testing will remain, but it’s based on student progress; an improvement maybe; yet it still doesn’t answer the problem of teaching to the test. For turnaround schools they offer some unproven and harsh methods; close them, convert them to charters, fire teachers and principals; but before you want to rip your hair out in frustration; they add a fourth option of intensive planning and professional development. How many districts will really use the fourth option? They’re strong arming states to remove charter school caps; we’d say that opens the floodgates to charter school creation and mass privatization of public schools; they say they haven’t mandated the creation of these schools, they just want to make sure they’re an option for districts.

A Sad Reality

Overall the event was great but tempered by a sad reality. Where’s the racial and ethnic diversity in the voices speaking on this issue? Where are the voices of the people on the ground? But this (from what I’ve seen thus far in the DC policy world), is nothing new. The problems in the schools persists despite all this highbrow conversation; maybe they’re missing something. In fact, an actual District of Columbia Schools social worker and parent addressed the crowd bringing all the high minded dialogue to eye level. We are teaching to the test, we have extreme needs that aren’t being met, the schools are in crisis, she lamented. In response, a panel member, offering all due respect of course, proceeded to dispel and temper her reality by pointing out that test scores in DC public schools have actually been improving and perhaps, things weren’t quite as bad as she’d perceived them. Perhaps this goes a long way in telling progressives what’s sadly lacking in the present day policy making mix in Washington DC.

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