Search Results for 'charter schools'
Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., April 19, 2016
Oh, Jeez, Frank Luntz must be consulting with the House R’s again. Today, Greenville’s Debbie Hudson and Monsignor Greg Lavelle are pushing the, wait for it, Parent Empowerment Education Savings Account Act in the House Education Committee. If the bill’s title leads you to suspect that this is another scheme to take $$’s away from public schools, you are correct:
This bill provides opportunities to parents of special needs students to select the most appropriate and productive educational pathway for their children by using funds otherwise allocated to their residential school district.
The co-sponsors of this legislation appeal to the General Assembly to dignify parents of special needs children, by approving an innovative experiment to empower certain parents with the authority to design their special needs children’s education plan, subject only to state approval of vendors to be managed by the state Department of Education or its designee.
And, of course, those parents who aren’t ’empowered’ will find resources even scarcer than ever. Why do Rethugs hate public education?
General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Weds., April 13, 2016
I don’t think it was on yesterday’s Senate Agenda, but this was the best, and potentially most important, bill passed yesterday. SS2/SB 130 (McDowell) creates Complete Community Enterprise Districts, and here’s the statement of policy as to what they’re supposed to do:
(1) Encourage development that maximizes the economic value to the citizens and the government of the State of both existing and new transportation infrastructure.
(2) Strategically deploy transportation funds in ways that meet the mobility needs of the people of the State at the lowest total economic cost to the people and government of the State.
(3) Encourage transportation solutions that enable the formation of new households in the State that have less than one vehicle per adult worker.
Should the bill become law, local communities could enter into agreements with DELDOT to create districts using the synergies described above.
McDowell has been at this issue for virtually his entire career. Troglodytes like Kermit Justice and a succession of like-minded Transportation Secretaries have kept Delaware far behind the national curve when it comes to innovative mass transportation alternatives. Justice fought commuter rail tooth and nail. Until, of course, his conviction for taking kickbacks. Jason330’s new BFF, Colin Bonini, was a co-sponsor, leaving only three downstate Troggs to vote no. Hocker, Lawson and Simpson.
It looks like this bill has the strong support of the current DELDOT secretary, so maybe better things are ahead. I know that this would be a boon for the ongoing Claymont renaissance, so I’m for it.
Accurate Education Funding Data is Hard to Come By, Unless You Know Where to Look
Non-special school Christina School District Expense Per Pupil from State & Local Funding Sources: $10,899.97. Christina School District Expense Per Pupil from Local Funding Sources (your property taxes, Christina residents): $5,001.31
And those are the actual numbers. Not some artificially inflated, skewed, misleading fuzzy math number those other guys are spewing.
The General Assembly Needs To Override The Governor’s Veto Of Opt-Out Bill
It’s interesting how the biggest proponents of Choice! are the ones now against it. Then again, anyone who understands how Choice came to be and the reasons behind it knows it never had anything to do with giving parents options. Choice was simply the stepping stone to privatizing our public schools. Choice is what has hurt our public schools; it’s what opened the door to charters and privatization (as well as magnet schools). What we’re dealing with now in education wouldn’t be possible if we hadn’t implemented a system designed to create high poverty schools – schools no one has seriously tried to help.
But the point has never been to help high poverty, struggling schools. The point, and one I’ve been making for over a decade, is to privatize/charterize our public schools. It’s no coincidence that the privateers started with the poorest among us – the ones with the least influence and voice. It’s how they got their foot in the door. Take a good long look at the city of Wilmington. That’s the plan for everyone. Yep, all this will spread outward (and is spreading) to suburbia. No one actually thinks that Ed Reformers are going to let all that education money slip through their hands, do they? Of course not. What they’ve done/are doing to our struggling schools sets the precedent. And once that precedent is set it will spread like wildfire.
Which brings me to the point of this post and Mike Matthews’ Delaware Voice column. The Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) is the tool to implement this agenda. This test isn’t about helping children learn; it’s about labeling schools and teachers as failing so the next step in the Ed reformer’s agenda can be implemented. Remember Priority Schools? Remember how ALL roads in that plan led to privatization and charterizatiion? Out of everything in that plan only private/charter conversion was carved in stone. The reason it was carved in stone was because it was the end game.
SCOTUS Affirmative Action Case, Or White Girl Demands Affirmative Action For Mediocre White Kids
I have no idea why this case is back in the hands of the Supreme Court. Okay, I do have an idea, and, if I doubted my initial reaction, the Conservative Justices cleared that up for me.
Antonin Scalia:
There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less — a slower-track school where they do well.
One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re — that they’re being pushed ahead in — in classes that are too — too fast for them.
That statement is stunning with its sweeping assumptions, especially when you consider the woman, Abigail Fisher, was a mediocre student with mediocre SAT scores.
Monday Open Thread [10.5.2015]
![Monday Open Thread [10.5.2015]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Open.Thread.Orange-240x180.png "Monday Open Thread [10.5.2015]")
Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. calls out Republicans for their shameless pandering to the gun industry and commends President Obama for “politicizing” the latest mass shootings:
President Obama spoke some of the most important words of his tenure last week in response to the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. “This is something we should politicize,” the president said. “It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.”
This is something we should politicize. His statement was remarkable for violating the etiquette as to what a leader should say after another slaughter by a deranged gunman and the conventional wisdom about how politicians have to pretend that they are not engaged in politics.But Obama was forcing us to face reality. It’s politics that has rendered our nation powerless in the face of butchery. There have been at least 142 school shootings since the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, and Congress has done nothing. It’s politics, as Obama said, that makes the U.S. “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months,” and politics that leads our learned legislators to pass laws barring the government from “even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths.”
…”Politicize” is the right word for another reason: We will not act until politicians start losing elections for opposing even the most modest gun safety measure. We will not act unless political parties that block action lose their majorities. Yes, I am talking about a Republican Party that has completely aligned itself with the interests of gun manufacturers and gun fanatics.
Dionne cites “the conclusion of a study released in August by National Journal: “The states that impose the most restrictions on gun users also have the lowest rates of gun-related deaths, while states with fewer regulations typically have a much higher death rate from guns.” Dionne adds, “State laws could be even more effective if they were matched by federal laws that made it harder for guns to get into the wrong hands.” Here is that chart. It is huge, so I can’t really post it here to fit the page and at the same time have you read it. So go click on that link.
Guest Post: Opt-Out Ends The Madness Of High-Stakes Testing
Kevin from Exceptional Delaware asked if we could share his post. The State Board of Education is having their monthly meeting at 1:00pm today. The Parent Strike press conference will begin prior to the meeting at 12:30pm in front of Legislative Hall in Dover. If any of our readers attend, let us know in the comments.
As a proud advocate of parent opt out, I watched in horror as Governor Markell vetoed legislation created for parents and their fundamental rights. The News Journal refers to House Bill 50 as giving parents the right to opt out. This is wrong. It’s about honoring a parental right that already exists, an attempt to codify that right and stop schools and the Delaware Department of Education from punishing schools over parent opt-out.
Today, the State Board of Education will have their monthly meeting, and they will discuss Regulation 103. To give some quick back-story here, Regulation 103 covers school accountability. Born out of Race To The Top, Delaware won in the first round partly because we already had this regulation in place. Race To The Top was an abject failure. But the DOE and the State Board are attempting to further legitimize this program under the guise of the Delaware School Success Framework. This “school report card” is nothing more than Federal mandate PLUS the many layers of complexity the DOE added to it. This regulation will put any Title I school in jeopardy if the students don’t perform well on Smarter Balanced. This week, we will hear about the creation of 10 new so-called “Focus Schools” and 4 “Focus Plus Schools”. The DOE will attempt to sell this as yet another way of “fixing” these high-need schools. The truth is, these labels are punitive in nature and are just another step before they become “Priority Schools”. We all know how that went a year ago.
Comment Rescue: Dorian Gray, Education And The Uncomfortable Truth
I keep going back to Dorian’s comment on my Education post. Here is what he said:
18th RD: David Bentz Is the Real Deal
I’m quite impressed with the progressive positions he has taken on the issues, and I hope we can all do whatever it takes to help him win the Special Election. I’ve decided to print the entire endorsement from Progressive Democrats of Delaware, because he really spells out his positions here:
From now to 2025.
I missed this hilarious and hopeful piece from Kevin Ohlandt of Exceptional Delaware when he posted it, but I just stumbled upon it and you have to read the whole thing. But I thought I would summarize the political musical chairs he envisions over the next ten years, and if they are possible.
Matt Denn is elected Governor in 2016 and he eliminates crime in all Delaware cities.
Former Governor Markell is indicted on charges of fraud and abuse.
Kimberly Williams is elected Governor in 2020.
Finding jobs for out of work Delawareans was Governor Williams first goal when she won the election of 2020 against William Manning (R) after she devastated former Senator David Sokola in the landslide 542,828-16 vote in the Democrat(ic) primary.
So Matt Denn only serves one term, voluntarily? Did another office open up for him? Hmmm
Wilmington is a thriving city. The problem of education is solved.
Friday News Dump: Murphy Heads for the Exits
Mark Murphy, co-destroyer of public education along with his governor and boss, is leaving for another ‘opportunity’, not yet announced: “Education Secretary Mark Murphy to Leave Administration after Successful Tenure Marked by Improved Student Achievement Governor nominates long-time Delaware superintendent and leader in state’s schools to build on tremendous progress Dover, DE – Education Secretary Mark […]
Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., April 21, 2015
Something quite remarkable has happened over the past six months. So much so that I doubt that those most responsible for it even recognize what they’ve accomplished.
There is an emerging recognition that the state’s education policy is an unmitigated disaster that will, I believe, almost inevitably have to be reversed or, at least, deep-sixed.
An education policy that began with Jack Markell deciding to go all-in and do whatever it took to get that Race To the Top money.
Students, teachers, and parents have become victims of the Common Corporate Curriculum, and the only beneficiaries have been corporations peddling snake oil in the form of tests and texts, and the oversized education bureaucracy that Race To the Top funded. If the bureaucracy was a burger joint, it’d be called ‘240 Fat Guys’. The governor’s legacy on this issue is already sunk, but he can’t/won’t admit the inevitable. It is, after all, his legacy. Which is why legislators and emerging policy leaders are taking up the slack. First step is to make sure that the governor does no more harm before he exits. Now, if only Mike Matthews and Pandora would run for the General Assembly…
Before we refocus our attention from the Governor to the General Assembly, can someone explain to me why…four years after Markell signed the legislation, we still don’t have a single medical marijuana dispensary up and running in Delaware? This quote from Jonathan Starkey’s News-Journal article says it best:
“Why did he (Markell) sign the bill if he had no intentions of enacting it?”
Why, indeed. Incompetence or ideology? You decide.
BTW, today’s Al Show will be a Very Special Primal Scream Therapy Edition. So much bad stuff, so little time (10-12 noon). Now on 101.7 FM, as well as the traditional 1150 AM. Or, you can just tune in here.
College Remedial Courses And The State Test
Even though I know there are unique and deserving circumstances, I can’t help but wonder how kids needing remedial courses are even accepted into college, especially University of Delaware which touts itself as highly selective. Okay, I don’t really wonder. Remedial courses are a cash cow for colleges so I understand why they offer them. Having parents/students pay for non-credit courses makes achieving a degree take longer than four years which adds another semester, or two, in tuition and room and board fees… Cha-Ching!
