Search Results for 'charter schools'
State’s Plan To Strengthen Delaware Schools
Gotta love timing, and since I’m on an education kick today I might as well post on the latest press release. (Full content below) Interesting stuff, and a lot of it good, but I’m a blogger so I have to focus on my concern. 🙂 The one area of this plan that caught my attention […]
Un-Chartered Waters?
The recent firing of Principal Ron Russo by the Board of Directors of the Wilmington Charter School has left El Somnambulo with more questions than answers. That’s why he needs your feedback on those questions. But first, a brief history of Wilmington Charter and the current situation. The Delaware General Assembly, as part of Tomas […]
Governor Minner to visit new Henry C. Conrad Schools of Science
Minner will be visiting the Henry C. Conrad Schools of Science where the children will be extracting DNA from Strawberries. Personally I think the school is off to a decent start. They had delays in getting the books, but it appears they are moving along. They aren’t rivaling Wilmington Charter but they are making progress.
Join the Wilmington Parent Advocacy Council for Education
If you live in Wilmington and are a parent, grandparent, foster parent, guardian, primary caregiver, student or just plain concerned community member — this is a newly formed group that is going to advocate for better equity, access and educational opportunity for Wilmington kids. From the brochure:
The PACE Network joins adults, youth and educators together to imagine, create and advocate for equity, access and more effective learning in schools and community places. The Vision is to ensure all Wilmington youth safely attend quality early learning programs, read on level by 3rd grade, excel in reading, math, science, social studies, technology, arts, sports, extracurricular activities and graduate high school prepared for college/career success. The PACE Network aims to shape a unified voice to advocate for Wilmington students. Families and city residents play a critical role in our children’s education. Network membership is open to parents, grandparents, community members, guardians, foster parents, educators in early care, pre-schools, districts and charter schools enrolling Wilmington students.
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Poverty And The Smarter Balanced Assessment
Last week LiberalGeek took a comment I posted about the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) scores and turned it into a graph. Now we have many graphs and charts.
Inside you will find charts of the four districts that serve city of Wilmington students (click on charts inside to enlarge). You will also find a chart of Charter Schools. Pay attention to the trend lines. Some are more obvious than others. Before I continue, let me say this: I do not support the SBA, but since we’ll be using these scores to judge and label students, teachers and schools we need to look at the data. This test will have consequences.
Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Let’s not mince words. Not since 2009 has the General Assembly entered June with so much uncertainty and so much unfinished business. I’d argue that it will even be a more difficult June than June of 2009.
Back then, everyone recognized that Delaware, like virtually every other state, was suffering from an economic downturn. The newly-minted governor was able to work with the General Assembly to craft a series of ‘revenue-enhancers’ to address the budget shortfall. R’s released just enough yes votes to enable bills to pass, in exchange for provisions sunsetting the revenue enhancers.
Fast-forward six years. This governor has lost a huge amount of political influence. So much so that his press flak has said that he’ll watch what the General Assembly does, and not actively broker any settlements. He has, in particular, lost a lot of leverage with Democrats. Some of this is inevitable. Lame ducks almost never have much political capital to spend by Year 7. Markell has also wasted political capital in ways that have earned him the enmity and distrust of D’s in particular. Whether it’s the disaster of Race To the Top, his attempt to bypass the General Assembly while looking to get rid of the Port of Wilmington, his sabotage of a meaningful minimum wage bill, his inability to rally support for his gas tax increase, his cheerleading for charter schools, his refusal to consider any tax increase on his wealthy pals, and so much more, he is as close to feckless as any governor facing a budget shortfall can be.
Except…he HAS, by Executive Order, created a panel to look at long-term changes to how Delaware funds government. Unfortunately, Markell has chosen to place a vast majority of DINO’s and Rethugs on the panel, ensuring that any recommendations it might make would not in any way address inequities in who pays what. The good news: the ideas that are being put forward by this group are likely to be DOA. I mean, eliminate the estate tax? Really? These are not serious proposals except in a world where ALEC is king.
Delaware General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up: Week of April 21-23, 2015
Common Corporate, Race To the Top, No Textbook Publisher Left Behind, these will be legacies of a lost decade-plus in education reform. Bloated bureaucracies full of bean-counters will hopefully shrink and vanish.
Make no mistake, while HB 50 is just one bill in one small state, it reflects a burgeoning movement nationally to reject the K-12 reform that was foisted on us by people with next to no experience in, you know, educating children.
Thinkers like Nicholas Kristof are already focusing on where our efforts would be best allocated in the post-reform era. Yes, the notion of reform was well-intended, still is, for that matter, in a time when there continue to be inequities in education. However, charter schools and one-size-fits-all testing have proven to help perpetuate and accelerate those inequities, as opposed to alleviating them. Which is what happens when there are huge piles of money thrown at the issue, and greedy corporations and individuals looking to pocket the proceeds. In fact, one could argue (and I will) that the most vocal proponents for this reform were those who (or in the case of Dubya, his family) stood to gain the most financially from the reforms.
HB 50(Kowalko) is important less for what it would do, than for what it represents. The bill serves as a reflection of the mounting dissatisfaction with both the disastrous education reform policies of the past decade and also the Bigfoot approach that this governor and his corporate comrade cum Secretary of Education have tried to impose/inflict on those with the nerve to fight back. “We may be wrong (although we’re not), but we have the power to crush you like a bug” does very little to win friends and influence people. With knowledgeable education-oriented legislators joining the likes of John Kowalko in the General Assembly recently (Kim Williams, Bryan Townsend, and Sean Matthews, among others), legislators are starting to understand how bad the current policies are. Plus, teachers, parents, and students have found their voices on these issues. Which is why getting HB 50 out of committee is/was important. There is also a bipartisan coalition forming on this issue, with many conservative legislators joining their progressive counterparts in support of HB 50. The question is whether the Chamber of Commerce types still have the numbers to outvote them. Might I point out that the Chamber of Commerce has embraced this disastrous reform going back to Phase One during the unlamented Carper years? If you support this bill, it is absolutely essential that you contact your legislators, especially, for now, your state representative. Kevin Ohlandt has done all the work for us, so click on this to get your specific marching orders. BTW, thanks, Kevin, for your contribution to the cause! Exceptional Delaware is an exceptional blog.
Petition To Allow Parents To Opt Out Of Testing
As usual, please sign. Here’s the petition’s wording.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment is the new state assessment based on the Common Core State Standards for Delaware. Many states have adopted this assessment as part of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, of which Delaware is a part. This consortium was approved by Governor Markell without any legislative approval.
Many parents in Delaware, as well as across the country, believe the Smarter Balanced Assessment, as well as the PARCC test in other states, is not an effective standardized test. Therefore, we are electing our Constitutional right to opt our children out of this assessment. We believe it is a parental right to choose the best educational outcome for our children. We also believe our children are not the property of the state. Many of us have experienced, at a minimum, vast confusion in regards to the opt out time period, which began in earnest in February of 2015, from our Governor, our Delaware Department of Education, our schools, and several administrators from our schools.
This legislation would help codify what is already our right, and would prevent the opted out students from adversely affecting the schools in Delaware. As well, this would also put all the school districts and charter schools in the state on the same level playing field based on a clear and distinct law.
Vote Tracker Update: Death Penalty Repeal Clears Committee, and some good Republican Bills.
Well that was quick. The Senate Judiciary Committee held its hearing on SB 40, the Death Penalty Repeal bill, yesterday, and has already voted the bill out of committee for consideration by the full Senate. I suppose the fast action should not be surprising, since passage by the Senate may be a foregone conclusion since it passed 11-10 last year.
Once and a while the Republicans in the General Assembly introduce legislation that is actually good, even though their Republican sponsorship is often times cynical and an attempt to bait or embarrass the Democratic Leadership. But hey, one of the complaints of the GOP is that their bills never get a hearing or a vote on the floor. Rep. Deborah Hudson’s HB 61 requires that all public meetings of the boards of education of public school districts, vo-tech school districts, and public meetings of charter schools’ boards of directors be digitally recorded and made available to the public on the districts’ and charter schools’ websites within seven business days. That is open government transparency, and a no brainer for Democrats to get behind. Speaker Schwartzkopf, let’s get this bill on the floor.
Rep. Dukes’ HB 67 requires all statewide and other candidates that may appear on the general election ballot to disclose whether or not all their State and Federal personal income tax returns are filed and any tax due has been paid and whether or not all their real property taxes have been paid. Sure, this bill is making a political point, but I think it is still good policy nonetheless. Placing this bill in the House Administrative Committee, with is Speaker Schwartzkopf’s version of a desk drawer veto, is only giving the Republicans the issue and more time to harp on it. It is self defeating.
Finally, SB 38. This is intriguing. This bill is sponsored by Senator Colin Bonini, and allows a terminally ill patient, and his or her treating physician, to decide if they will pursue treatment with an investigational drug, biological product or device, which has successfully completed Phase One of a clinical trial. That is downright compassionate, one or two steps away from Death with Dignity, and it comes from a Republican. Shame on Democrats for not introducing this bill themselves.
This Houston Transplant Apologizes for No Child Left Behind
Sorry Delaware, for all the mess created for public schools by fellow Houstonians which has the local blogsphere on fire over so called school reform and charter schools and the like.
Shockingly Candid Response to ACLU “Resegregation” Lawsuit
First the accusation, then the shockingly candid DOE response below the fold.
Delaware’s charter schools are causing resegregation and discrimination against minorities and students with disabilities, the ACLU and Community Legal Aid Society are arguing in a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
The groups say that, especially in the City of Wilmington, most charters are easily racially identifiable as either mostly white or mostly minority schools, with those serving minority students vastly underperforming those serving more affluent white students.
The complaint is filed against the State Department of Education and the Red Clay School District, which authorize all of the state’s charters.
Honoring the 2013 MVP’s (Most Valuable to the Progressive Cause)
One of the people in the picture to the left is the MVP this year. There were several worthy contenders who just missed the list this year. Superior legislators like Melanie George Smith and Michael Barbieri deserve consideration every year. Ed Osienski is fast approaching that status. Helene Keeley and Kim Williams were on my list at one time or another during my deliberations.
2013 was a great year for social justice in Delaware. Economic justice, not so much. However, I am encouraged that at least three strong voices for progressive principles joined the General Assembly this year, and a couple of Leg Hall vets found their voices as well. The progressive grassroots became more effective this year, and helped ensure historic victories that would not have happened without their support. Marriage equality, transgender equality, and justice for manufactured home owners, being among them.
The most notable omission from my list, and I struggled with it, is Governor Jack Markell. His role in hastening civil rights for the LGBT community will most assuredly be his lasting positive legacy. But, his actions in slowing the passage of minimum wage; his continued pushing for corporate education solutions and favoring charter schools; his granting of a tax cut for Delaware’s wealthiest citizens; his almost-disastrous actions concerning the Port of Wilmington; and several others, led me to omit him from the list. At best, the good and the bad canceled each other out. And, no, you don’t have to take the bad with the good. Or at least you shouldn’t accept it. I don’t.
Now to the list….
Festivus Open Thread [12.23.13]
![Festivus Open Thread [12.23.13]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Markell-240x180.png "Festivus Open Thread [12.23.13]")
Governor Jack Markell is Kavip’s Delawarean of the Year. He did some good things, like this:
He proposed and pushed through requiring background checks for all gun sales.
He proposed and was able to get mandated reporting of lost or stolen firearms.
He signed the Gay Marriage Bill.
He signed transgender equality into law.
But he also did some inexplicable things, for a Democrat:
He tried to give away the Port of Wilmington to an oil company.
He killed Minimum Wage in 2013.
He rammed through SB51 which permanently weakens teacher education programs.
He created an Illegal Star Chamber to draw up HB 165 charter school beneficial legislation, in secret without public input.
He rammed through HG 165 which gives private for profit charter schools access to public school capital financing.
He tried to lower taxes for the top 1%. And not for anyone else.
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