Work to Stop the DeVos Nomination to the Department of Education

You may already know that Betsy DeVos has been nominated to be the U.S. Secretary of Education. The confirmation hearing is scheduled for next week, currently scheduled for January 17th, 2017.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has written a letter with a lot of detail about DeVos' record. Read it here.

Here's Mark Maynard's summary of her letter. He's got pretty pictures.

The Network for Public Education is (and I am) asking you to take action to oppose the DeVos nomination.

As NPE writes:

Below are committee members, along with their Washington phone number, fax numbers and local phone numbers. Often Washington numbers are busy. 

Please be sure to call every member prior to the January 17 hearing. 

Sample script: 

My name is xxxx and I am calling to let the Senator know that I would like him/her to oppose the appointment of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education.

DeVos and her family heavily lobbied the Michigan legislature to shield the charter industry from greater oversight. She pushes for-profit charter schools and online schools, which consistently fail the students that they are supposed to serve.

I want my tax dollars to stay in my community to support my public schools.  Betsy DeVos is bad for American education. She is unqualified to serve as Secretary of Education. 

(If you want to say more, read Sen. Warren's letter for lots of detail and ideas.)

US Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee

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Local, State, Federal Budget Thoughts (Slightly Random)

1. Tomorrow is Count Day. A day that makes a huge difference in the budgets of school districts around the state. Please make sure your kids go to school, or if they're sick, call them in for excused absences. Why does it make a difference? Read about Proposal A here.

2. Want to learn more about the Sinking Fund schools proposal on the Ann Arbor ballot? Here's your opportunity: There is a Community Forum on Wednesday, Oct. 2 from 6:30-8 p.m. at the Pioneer Annex.

3. There was an interesting piece last night on Michigan Radio on the effects of the sequester on education, especially special education and Head Start preschool. Listen to the story, or read it, here. 

4. At the state level, you might remember that the Legislature was fighting about the implementation of the Common Core curriculum last year. I think we were left, at the end of the last legislative session, with the legislative decision that no funding could go for the Common Core. (That, by the way, was heavily influenced by "tea party" Republicans.) So today, Gongwer News Service reports this ridiculousness (taken from the Michigan Parents for Schools facebook page): 

Tuesday, October 1, 2013, 10:24 AMMDE Website To Be Shuttered Under Common Core Spending Ban
The Department of Education website was still up this morning, but is expected to go offline sometime during the day because the site contains resources to help teachers implement the Common Core State Standards, officials said in an email to teachers and local school officials.
The new budget effective today prohibits the department from spending money to implement the Common Core or Smarter Balanced Assessment without legislative approval. Since that approval is still pending in the Senate, Martin Ackley, communications director for the Department of Education, said his department was asking the Department of Technology, Management and Budget to take the MDE site down because of the integration of Common Core into the site.
Pages of the site are to be restored as Education officials have time to review them for Common Core elements, Mr. Ackley said in his email.
The current budget also could affect some federal grants to districts, the email said, because implementing the Common Core is an element of the state’s No Child Left Behind waiver. That waiver expires essentially at the end of the current school year.

5. Oh yeah, and then there's the US government shutdown. Here is information from the U.S. Department of Education about the shutdown. And here is the scoop from Education Week.

Sequester Affects Back to School Funding for Low-Income Families

I saw this in the Friends in Deed Newsletter:

BACK-TO-SCHOOL NEEDS FOR LOW-INCOME FAMILIES 

Because of the much publicized 2013 “sequestering” of some planned federal budget expenditures, states are reducingfunding for some helping programs. Michigan recently announced cuts in back-to-school clothing allowances forDepartment of Human Services cash recipients. In previous years, low-income families on state cash assistance received
$75 per school-age child to use for new school clothes and shoes. That help will not be available to those families this upcoming school year. 

To address the potential impact of this decision, clothing donations are urgently requested.
DHS will be referring clients to local clothing closets. FID recommends that you take your donations of good condition used clothing to one of the following places:
Brown Chapel, Ypsi, 734-482-7050

House By The Side Of The Road, Ann Arbor, 734-971-2550

Emmanuel Lutheran, Ypsi, 734-482-7121 

YPS Foundation ReSale Shop, Ypsi, 734-714-1829 

Call ahead to check on the days, times and locations that donations are accepted. 

DHS is also collecting school supplies for distribution to local students. Donations of backpacks, paper, pens, pencils, notebooks, folders and other needed supplies can be dropped off at the DHS office in Ypsilanti. Email Greg Pordon at pordong@michigan.gov.

Why This Student's Making A Movie About Testing

My college friend posted this link on Facebook, with a note that "This is why I left teaching." (She works as an attorney now, but was a third grade teacher for many years.)

The piece in the Washington Post, entitled "One teen’s standardized testing horror story (and where it will lead)" starts out this way:

Ankur Singh is a freshman at the University of Missouri-Columbia who is making a documentary film about how standardized testing has impacted young people. Here’s Ankur’s personal testing story and an explanation of what the movie is all about. Ankur published this here with the headline, “Who am I and why should you care about this silly documentary?” It sounds like anything but silly.

 By Ankur Singh
Hello, my name is Ankur Singh and I’m 18 years old and just began my freshman year at the University of Missouri-Columbia majoring in journalism. I’m making a documentary film to capture the stories of students and how standardized testing has impacted them. If you’re reading this hopefully you’ll come to understand who I am and what I’m trying to accomplish as well as how you can help me.
This film isn’t a school project or an assignment I was given by some production company, but a personal project that I am pursuing independently.

After telling "his" story about tesitng, he continues:

I’m looking for stories to tell. If you’re a parent or a teacher or a student who knows someone who has suffered from testing as I have please contact me. I want to film a few students go about their day and capture how testing has affected them. How does it affect their love of learning? How does it affect their self-esteem? What if what they’re truly passionate about isn’t measured by a standardized test? This is the story I want to tell, and every student has one worth telling.

Email: listenthefilm@gmail.com
Read the full story here.

So, the election is over. Testing is still here. Arne Duncan is one part of the problem. He is not, by any means, the only part of the problem but there is a campaign to contact him and the White House that is being started. The focus of Stop the Race to the Top is to call the president weekly at 202-456-1111 on your state's designated day with this message: Strive toward giving ALL students access to the same type of schooling your girls enjoy! Abandon Race to the Top & stop privatizing public schools!
Read more here. 

And now that the election is over, our focus turns back to too much testing in Ann Arbor. Whether you are a parent, teacher, taxpayer or student, you should feel free to sign our petition protesting over-testing in the Ann Arbor public schools. Find the petition here. And please--share it with your friends!

Of Presidents and Project-Based Learning

This is a great story about how a 12-year-old girl went above and beyond with a school project, and found out that all of the U.S. presidents except one are related to a certain King John, the one who agreed to the Magna Carta. If you were wondering how project-based learning works, here is a good example. And if you are a genealogist, the cautionary tale here is that you shouldn't ignore the maternal line, even if it is harder to trace. . . apparently all the professionals had only looked at the paternal lines. . .

Testing and the Emperor's New Clothes

This history of testing in New York State is both funny and terrifying. . . and it could just as well be Michigan.

10 Years of Assessing Students With Scientific Exactitude by Michael Winerip (New York Times article)

PS The comments are good too.

Arne Duncan & Co. visit Ann Arbor, New Tech

Arne Duncan, our Secretary of Education, is on a Midwest tour. He'll be visiting Ann Arbor on Thursday, September 8th, 2011. 

As this note from Dean of the School of Education Deborah Ball states,

He, along with a faculty panel, will discuss ways to promote excellence in America's classrooms, particularly for underserved students, and the roles for different sectors—e.g., the Federal government, states, higher education, entrepreneurs—in leveraging effective improvement. This moderated discussion will be followed by plenty of time for Q&A from the audience.
The event will take place in the Prechter Laboratory (room 2202) from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. I hope you will come to hear from and share your thoughts with this important national education leader. Space will be limited, so please arrive early. (Emphases added.)

The good news is, this is open to the public! The Prechter Laboratory is in the School of Education building, 610 E. University, Ann Arbor. If you go, please share with Secretary Duncan your feelings about using tests as a primary means to assess children and teachers; about the failures of No Child Left Behind; about small class sizes; about supporting teachers. Tell him what you think about his version of "educational reform." And if you go, I would love it if you would write about the experience in the comments.

                                                             *          *           *

Meanwhile, on the other side of our county (just a few miles away, really), his senior advisor--Greg Darnieder--will be visiting Ypsilanti's New Tech High School, which is housed in the former Ardis Elementary building. According to the Ypsilanti Schools press release,

In July 2011, the Ypsilanti New Tech @ Ardis site received National Demonstration Site Status—based on its high fidelity of implementation—making it eligible to host national attendees for Executive Tours for the New Tech Network, a non-profit organization that works with schools and communities to implement innovative high schools.

I understand that the state's Superintendent of Schools, Michael Flanagan, will also be at New Tech, along with several other dignitaries. 

If you are there, I'd encourage you to share your thoughts with the Superintendent of Schools and with Arne Duncan's senior advisor.

New School Lunch Standards Coming Soon!

Thanks to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been developing new standards for school meals. They are designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, decrease sodium content, cut saturated fat, increase whole grains consumption, combat childhood obesity, and more. In the proposed rules, starchy vegetables like potatoes cannot only be served in limited quantities. The standards are largely based on Institute of Medicine guidelines.

The nutrition standards for school meals would change dramatically under the new Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Among the proposed changes:

 ALL MEALS

• Milk: One-cup servings of unflavored milk must be 1 percent milk-fat or fat-free, and one-cup servings of flavored milk must be fat-free.
• Bread products served must be made with 50 percent whole grains. Two years after the USDA implements the nutrition regulations, all breads served must be made entirely of whole grain.

BREAKFAST

• Students must be offered one full cup of fruit at breakfast. Only half a cup could be juice, and that would have to be 100 percent fruit juice. Fruit could be replaced with vegetables.
• A meat or meat alternative, such as eggs, yogurt, or cheese, would have to be served every day. Tofu is not an approved meat alternative.
• The calorie range is 350 to 500 for elementary students, 400 to 550 for middle schoolers, and 450 to 600 for high schoolers.
• No starchy vegetables—potatoes, corn, peas, or lima beans—are allowed.
• Over the course of 10 years, schools must reduce sodium to 430 milligrams or less per breakfast for elementary students, 470 milligrams or less for middle schoolers, and 500 milligrams or less for high schoolers.

LUNCH

• Elementary and middle students must be offered a one-half cup serving of fruit every day. High school students must be offered a cup every day.
• The calorie range is 550 to 650 in elementary school, 600 to 700 in the middle grades, and 750 to 850 in high school.
• Elementary and middle school students must be offered at least one ¾-cup serving of vegetables every day; one cup for high school students.
• Starchy vegetables must be limited to a one-cup serving a week.
• A one-half-cup serving of dark-green vegetables must be offered at least once a week.
• A one-half-cup serving of orange vegetables must be offered at least once a week.
• A one-half-cup serving of legumes—black beans, black-eyed peas, garbanzo beans, green peas, kidney beans, lentils, lima beans, soy beans, split peas, and white beans—must be served once a week.
• Over 10 years, schools must reduce sodium to 430 milligrams or less per lunch in elementary school, 470 milligrams or less in middle school, and 500 milligrams or less in high school.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Agriculture; excerpted from Education Week

The proposed rules were put out in January and you have until April 13th to send in your comments. It is spectacularly easy to send in your comments. Just click on this link, type in your name and your comments, and press send.

According to this article in Education Week, school districts are worried about the cost (what's new!) and they are also worried about whether kids will actually eat whole grains or fruits and vegetables. Predictably, nutrition groups are all for it.

Why does it matter? A lot of schools serve many, many subsidized meals to kids who get free and reduced price meals, and in addition (alert: fun factoid coming!) some students may get half their calories at school.

Some Things to Read

National Heritage Academies and Prep Net want to open charter schools in Ypsilanti Township. It's controversial. What do you think?

Did you watch the State of the Union talk last night? I liked most of what President Obama had to say, but not--unfortunately--the part of the speech about education. In the blogroll to the right, I've added a blog (not a new blog, but new to me) called Schools Matter, and I liked most of these two pieces (below) on the State of the Union speech.

See Jim Horn's Obama Offers Same Tired Bromides on Education with Fewer Specifics

and

Valerie Strauss Exposes Obama's Faulty Education Logic.

What is happening at the New Tech High School?

Promises, Promises

Last year, I wondered if my oldest had qualified for a Promise Scholarship. Despite the fact that I have two masters' degrees, I couldn't find the spot on the test results paper with the answer. (Who writes those forms, anyway?) Finally, after reading the damn piece of paper about ten times, I figured out that he had, in fact, qualified. Woo hoo!

Of course, that was all theoretical. Someone else told me that their family called it the False Promises Scholarship. After all, it was cut.

Which brings me to today's news:
The U.S. Department of Education is funding 5-year studies, at MSU and U of M, of the Michigan Merit curriculum and the Michigan Promise Scholarship.

So--umm--how does that work? Because the scholarship that was promised, was vanished. So how can anyone study its impact?

Education and Civil Rights

If education is the civil rights issues of this generation, and states and districts will now have to compete for a significantly larger portion of their education funding, does that mean students are to compete for their civil rights?

That is a quote from the American Association of School Administrators' report on the state of school funding around the U.S. 
Read the press release and download the study here.
Thanks to SalineSchools for tweeting this.
I don't actually know that education IS the civil rights issue of this generation. I think there are lots of other issues--prisons, race, class, ethnicity, poverty--that could qualify. But it is a thought-provoking idea.

Race to the Top, Federal Style

I swear, when I titled the last post, I had no idea that some of the federal education stimulus money was called Race to the Top. But it is. There you have it. I, of course, meant something different than the federal government means.

And here is some commentary on the federal program.
The Michigan Messenger addresses the question of whether Michigan could even qualify for the monies.
That question will not be helped by the fact that the Michigan Senate is going on vacation. It's hard to vote on legislation when you are not in session. Do they ever work?