Education cuts in Texas would hurt special needs students, prompt legal action

Jack writes on the coming battle in Texas over the state education budget and considers the communities these cuts will most affect:

Over the past few days there’s been much rumbling in Texas about the prospect of extensive cuts to the Lone Star State’s education budget, adding some irony to Gov. Rick Perry's slogan, "Texas is Open for Business." Quintessentially conservative, the Texan approach of  slashing public services by 10 percent to address a $27 billion budget shortfall is being viewed as a model for other states similarly afraid to broach the issue of tax hikes. The true extent of these cuts and their consequences is now being seen in their effects on special needs students.

Courtesy: theatlanticwire.com

A (Much Needed) Lawsuit in the Making

Currently, the Texas Senate is considering legislation that would effectively freeze new enrollment at the state’s School for the Deaf and School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. What’s more is that legislation would also reduce the full-time staff on-call at both schools, which serve hundreds of students who were unable to receive adequate care in the wider public school system.

However, on Monday the senate’s education committee members were warned by special needs education experts that this tactic could cost the state millions more in the long-run through lawsuits. Thankfully, it seems that the Federal government’s Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is likely to prompt a flurry of lawsuits from rightly outraged parents of the special needs students Texas would hurt if these cuts are implemented.

Getting Organized Around the Law

It’s sad that states legislatures across the country find it more convenient to hack away at already meager education funding before having a heated but needed conversation about raising taxes to realistic levels (Texas famously doesn’t have a state income tax). However, it’s reassuring to know that parents are getting organized and willing to take action against cuts to essential educational services.

It’s also good to know that even if state legislators might loathe it, the Federal government can serve an effective and active role in making sure these budget cuts don’t hurt the communities that need stable resources. An organized national effort could counter this wave of budget cuts and there’s also plenty of good legal arguments to be made against any further cuts to resources for low-income students and students of color. We just need to get organized.

While existing Federal law could help stem the austerity tide, this sort of action also brings attention back to a discussion started last summer over making quality education a Constitutional right.

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Trigger World: California's Trigger Law in Action

As I read Watanabe’s LA Times piece on Compton’s McKinley elementary trigger law saga, I felt like I was in some altered universe. The right pieces seem to be in place, but it all feels so wrong. We’ve got parents engaged in the process—great! A call for full fledged reform in a severely underserved school—awesome! But all is not right in Trigger World.

With the California trigger law we’ve gone from utterly ignoring parent voice (parents of color in particular) in public education to making each PTA a mini-state legislature. With 51% of the parent vote a failing school can be converted into a charter, shutdown, or 50% of staff fired.  Now that’s power! …But is it the right power and to whom has it really been granted?

Parent Revolution, the organizing body behind the Trigger Law and McKinley Elementary parents, is closely tied to the charter organization Green Dot. They receive some 80% of their funding from Green Dot. So, the parent revolution may be more like a charter invasion. Hmmm, with all this charter money behind them, I wonder which of the three trigger options parents will endorse? In Trigger World it looks like charter school companies may be the ones really holding the gun.

Which leads to the other issue. If we really believe in parent engagement and giving parents power; it seems hypocritical to give parents only three choices for reform. Who wants to see their neighborhood school closed, or to fire staff? Beginning a charter, the shiny new penny in everyone’s reform toolkits from Obama to the states; is the only halfway palatable option. It’s a Hobson’s choice, given to parents with the fewest resources and tools for making demands on the system.

The irony is that everyone may be right in this dysfunctional debate. If the McKinley trigger is successful and they get their charter, it may well be a better school than the status quo. After all, there are good charter schools. And people are watching this case. And districts are right that the trigger law is flawed. McKinley’s possible success doesn’t address the certain failure of charters in serving all children. Let’s also remember studies show charters to be little better than their traditional public school counterparts on average.

In the end, it’s a little insulting. Parents of color rarely get the limelight in public education. They deserve it! Their children are the least served. To finally “include” them—yet use their real distress to chase charter dreams instead of true education transformation is…unsettling. To pit their desperation to improve education for their own children against a broader need to insure thousands of other children aren’t lost in the charter fray is unconscionable. 

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The Williams-Bolar Moment

Jack writes on what Kelley Williams-Bolar's experience says about education, place, and race in 2011:


Last week’s buzz over a mother who was jailed for sending her children to a safer, better school appears to have lost some steam in the media. In fact, yesterday’s piece in the Washington Post, attempted to deflate the story a little further by pointing out that this was no “Rosa Parks moment” for education. However, what happened to Kelley Williams-Bolar should continue to speak directly to an education reform movement that is increasingly supportive of privatizing schools and turning the funding process for low-income schools into a cut-throat, winner-take-all competition.


An Ohio court convicted Williams-Bolar of a double felony for falsifying her residency records so that her two daughters could attend school in the Copley-Fairlawn public school district between 2006 and 2008. The district demanded that Williams-Bolar pay over $30,000 in back tuition and ultimately prosecuted her after a district-hired private detective followed and filmed her picking up her children after school and driving them to her real residence in Akron.

Courtesy newsrealblog.com

Making Her an Example for Other Parents
Williams-Bolar served ten days in jail (reduced from a sentence of five years) and will be on probation for the next two years. Prosecutors in the case refused to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor and the judge in the case indicated that she hoped the sentence would make an example of Williams-Bolar and serve as a deterrent to other parents.


Lawyers for the Copley-Fairlawn school district earlier argued that because school quality is a function of adequate funding and, as funding is determined by local property taxes, Williams-Bolar had committed grand theft. This charge was ultimately dropped, but it demonstrates the intractable madness of a public school system funded by property tax dollars.


Further, one of the prosecutors in the case predictably argued that: “There are many single mothers and families in similar situations who want the best for their children who are not breaking the law." Translation: “The law’s the law because it’s the law.” Glad we cleared that up.


An Unjust Law in an Unjust System
Yes, Kelley Williams-Bolar broke the law, but this is an unjust law that upholds an unjust situation. Kelley Williams-Bolar broke the law in a state of a nation that tacitly accepts that even a basic quality education is a privilege that can be enjoyed by some and denied to others on the basis of their zip code or income or race. If you live in a nice, affluent suburb, the sky’s the limit for your kids’ education and we’ll prosecute anyone who tries to steal it from them. If you live elsewhere, well… let’s hope your district gets its act together in that next round of Race to the Top.


Kelley Williams-Bolar broke an unjust law to overcome an unjust situation and, in doing so, she did exactly the right thing. It’s sadly ironic that Williams-Bolar is herself en route to certification as a teacher. While this unjust and excessive conviction now jeopardizes that career for her, we can’t let her story become just another banal “teachable moment” that shakes heads and peppers Twitter feeds, only to be forgotten by the national media by week's end.


Instead, we must remember that any system that imprisons a mother for simply enrolling her child in a public school, whatever the circumstances, is fundamentally unjust. We must also remember what Henry David Thoreau wrote about institutionalized injustice in America over 150 years ago: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

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Duncan calls for more Black male teachers through TEACH campaign

Amina posts on Arne Duncan's recent show of flare in the TEACH campaign:

Hats off to Secretary Duncan! We do need more Black male teachers. They’re 2% of the total teacher population. The goal is to recruit 80,000 new African American male teachers by 2015. The initiative is part of the TEACH campaign to recruit new teachers in the wake of a retiring workforce.

And Black Male Teachers Are Important Because?

Yet, this all begs the question: Why is this initiative important? “Teachers should look like the people they serve” Duncan proclaims. But why? What forces at work in our schools--in society, make it critical to have that representation? But that’s a kind of Pandora’s Box for an administration careful to avoid conversations about persistent and institutionalized racism and inequity in our schools.

A Teacher Campaign with Flare

Check out the TEACH campaign website. It’s textually sparse. As if reading too much might scare off a potential teacher. It’s a light and wistful discussion on teaching—little thoughtful analysis. However, what the TEACH campaign may lack in critical analysis, it makes up for in flare. It’s heavy on 45 second long testimonials—they’ve even got Oprah doing a testimonial. Yesterday, Spike Lee appeared at the last TEACH event touting the new initiative. It’s all very attractive. Just check out the Department of Education's complete media advisory.

Reality Check

Yet, talking about the reality of teaching in an underserved school again leads to the touchy subject of the Obama Administration’s approach to these schools. In the case of turnaround schools; where teachers are most in need, there’s the threat of mass teacher firings and frequent principal changes. There’s increasing pressure placed on those teachers to “show results”. How quickly the conversation shifts from, be a leader, be a role model, change a life to let’s get those test scores up, NOW!

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President Obama’s SOTU Missed the Mark on Education

Following last night's State of the Union Addressed, which highlighted education reform's role in ensuring economic competitiveness, Amina comments on the Obama Administration's vision for the future:

Courtesy news.com.au

The tone was not urgent, nor the solutions thoughtful. President Obama’s State of the Union address missed the mark on education.  More racing, more pay for performance, more personal responsibility. Even less attention to the sad reality of public education for students of color in low income communities.

The reports are in, the studies are clear: education is in crisis. Only 47% of black males graduate from high school! The Latino high school graduation rate in Obama’s own state of Illinois hovers at a lowly 55%!  Yet, the problem didn’t translate in the administration’s solutions.

Parents Matter…Or do they?

Obama opened his discussion of education with a familiar refrain on personal responsibility. He preached, “[R]esponsibility begins not in our classroom, but in our homes and communities… Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done.” True words, but substantively hollow.  Are parents valuable or aren’t they? Obama’s rhetoric says yes, but his policies say no. His own Blueprint for Reform largely ignores parental engagement in schools. There is little indication the administration is willing to offer the respect, support and resources to empower parents to be full partners in their child’s education.

Show Teachers the Money!

He continues to try and show good teachers the money. “In South Korea, teachers are known as nation builders. Here in America, it’s time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect. We want to reward good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones. ” Overlaying bonus checks on a fundamentally flawed system for developing and supporting teachers hardly sounds respectful. Too often a good teacher is primarily defined by student test score performance. Moreover, the scheme has shown its flaws most recently in Washington DC’s IMPACT Performance Assessment. “Highly effective” teachers could accept their bonuses, but find themselves more vulnerable to layoffs. 40% of the eligible teachers declined the money. Is this what President Obama envisions?

Fire teachers, fire principals, close traditional schools, open charters, change standards; it’s an alphabet soup of policies that doesn’t get to the complex heart of the problem and lacks the extraordinary vision, resources, and effort needed for real change.  We can do better.

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What Michelle Rhee still means to education reform

Photo courtesy of TIME Magazine

With Michelle Rhee's resignation, Jack reflects from Washington on her methods and style of leadership:


Last week, Michelle Rhee, the controversial figure at the helm of the Washington, D.C. public school system since 2007 resigned. Effective as the end of this month, Rhee's resignation comes in step with the primary loss of Mayor Adrian Fenty, her political patron, to Vincent Gray.While frequently lauded by the media and prominent figures in the education reform debate, Rhee's methods in Washington frequently drew the ire of parents and teachers alike. Owing to excess capacity, she closed schools, promoted merit pay, and popularized a model of dismissing low performing teachers.


For those in the education reform community, including many in the Obama Administration, Rhee's style appeared a model of decisive action in addressing the root causes of all that ails our public school. She, as Arne Duncan has often noted, delivered the kind of results that the education reform movement would like to see accomplished across the country.


Results aside (and there are big questions over whether Rhee accomplished half of what has been claimed in terms of student achievement and infrastructural improvements), let's focus on her methods and the question of leadership. The sort of leadership that is needed in our public schools is the kind that makes tough decisions and holds educators accountable without alienating an entire profession in the process. Many praised Rhee's tenure as D.C. schools chancellor as groundbreaking and exemplary, but the fact that so many teachers and administrators stridently resisted her efforts seems to imply that the combative approach to reform has very clear limitations.


Rather than celebrating ruthlessness on magazine covers and on daytime talk shows, a premium should be placed on collaboration and cooperation. After all, convincing a wide variety of individuals and interests to work together toward positive results is truly difficult work. Dramatizing confrontational tactics such as mass firings promotes the easy way out of our biggest educational challenges.A figure can make a name for herself as a maverick taking tough stands and going it alone, then simply resign as a martyr of reform when the going gets tough and the public demands real compromise and real results.Surely it's not that simple.


It seems instead that real, lasting improvements to public education – the kind that most benefit and empower low income students and communities of color – are the kind that cannot be made by one-liners and enough media exposure. They are the kind that are accomplished through on-going conversation, collaborative problem solving, and seriously rethinking some of the basic assumptions that steer the existing public education system. Real leadership in this important national discussion must be humble, democratic, and rooted in the very communities that are most affected by these decisions.

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San Francisco punishes parents to lower truancy rate

Director of Community Action Malaika Parker is quoted by El Tecolote in their piece on the San Francisco Unified School District's (SFUSD) new anti-truancy program being piloted in the Mission District. The initiative would use "carrot and stick" methods, including $2,500 fines and jail time for parents of chronically truant students. 

Malaika challenges the program, as it criminalizes parents: "Too much of the school reform discussion is focused on what parents need to do differently instead of looking at the root causes of students’ disengagement from the schools.”

Check out the full article on eltecolote.org:
http://eltecolote.org/content/2010/10/new-program-aims-to-lower-san-francisco-truancy-rate/

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