There is a war going on between the public education stakeholders and the school choice advocates at the apex of civil rights in the United States.

On August 24/13 - “Jindal blasted the Justice Department’s suit Saturday.

“After generations of being denied a choice, parents finally can choose a school for their child, but now the federal government is stepping in to prevent parents from exercising this right. Shame on them,” he said. “Parents should have the ability to decide where to send their child to school.”
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/08/us_government_files_to_block_s.html

On September 20/13 - Ravitch holds court - http://dianeravitch.net/category/louisiana/

Just thought everyone should see the other side.

September 23/13 - “A pro-voucher group plans to join the state of Louisiana in fighting the federal government’s school desegregation lawsuit, saying parents must be heard. The Black Alliance for Educational Options said it and five families will file as intervenors in the court case on Tuesday.”
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/09/pro-voucher_group_seeks_to_int.html

On September 24/13 - “Since the initial filing, a steady stream of Republicans and Louisiana residents have blasted the administration. On Tuesday, a group of four mostly minority families filed a motion seeking to block the suit. Last week, Boehner and other Republican lawmakers wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, accusing him of trying to keep black kids in failing schools. Jindal has used the suit as a launching point for a biting critique of the administration overall.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/school-vouchers_n_3982725.html

September 30/13 - an invitation - http://www.chron.com/news/article/APNewsBreak-Jindal-invites-Obama-for-school-visit-4855870.php

September 30/13 - Anti-Voucher Lawsuit Resurrects Louisiana Desegregation Case   http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/09/30/anti-voucher-lawsuit-resurrects-louisiana-desegregation-case

And finally a list of the current lawsuits on school choice - dated October 3/13 - http://beforeitsnews.com/libertarian/2013/10/school-choice-lawsuit-roundup-2529136.html

I have no idea why for the most part, the public education stakeholders will fight tooth and nail to keep students in poor performing schools. I still have no idea when the public education stakeholders speaks about diversity of the student population, what do they mean? Diversity in the body count?  What I do know, the public education stakeholders don’t believe that education should be decided by the parents. That right should only be given to the education stakeholders,,,,,,,,,,,and they are losing the battles in the courts across the country. The above study is another study that gives additional evidence to the side of education choice.

pobod

Nonsense….

http://hechingerreport.org/content/as-charter-schools-come-of-age-measuring-their-success-is-tricky_12647/

Okay, Doug calls it nonsense. What are racial profiles of the neighbourhoods in the cities of Minnesota?

Bloomington - “The racial makeup of the city was 79.7% White, 7.2% African American, 0.4% Native American, 5.9% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 3.7% from other races, and 3.1% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.8% of the population.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomington,_Minnesota

Bloomington is where the “Seven Hills Classical Academy, a charter school in Bloomington, Minn., for instance, 80 percent of the student body is white, compared to 57 percent in the Bloomington Public School District. Indeed, the number of predominantly white charters in the Twin Cities metro area has risen from 11 in 2000 to 37 in 2010.”

Duluth - “. The racial makeup of the city was 90.4% White, 2.3% African American, 2.5% Native American, 1.5% Asian, 0.3% from other races, and 3.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.5% of the population.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duluth,_Minnesota

I selected Duluth, even though it was not mentioned in Doug’s link for another reason just to show you how white Minnesota is.

Saint Paul - “. The racial makeup of the city was 60.1% White, 15.7% African American, 1.1% Native American, 15.0% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 3.9% from other races, and 4.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.6% of the population.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Paul,_Minnesota

More on St. Paul in my last link, to truly show how segregated St. Paul is.

Minneapolis - “As of the 2006-2008 American Community Survey, the racial composition was as follows:

  White:70.2%
  Black or African American: 17.4%
  American Indian: 1.7%
  Asian: 4.9%
  Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.0%
  Some other race: 2.8%
  Two or more races: 3.0%
  Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 9.2%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Minneapolis

I tell you what is complete nonsense, is Doug’s link - Charter schools in Minnesota are reflecting exactly the makeup of the surrounding schools. “The city’s first public charter school, Seven Hills Classical Academy, opened in 2006…. As many families remain or continue to move into the city, there has been support for levy increases.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomington,_Minnesota

Moving unto to my last link - the icing with a cherry on top - “How diverse is your neighborhood really?

The vast swaths of purple appear to show the racial diversity of some of America’s biggest cities. But if you zoom into the map and break these cities down at the neighborhood level, patterns of segregation become much clearer.

Cable uses the example of Minneapolis–St. Paul to illustrate a city where racial integration in the city as a whole appears far greater than it does in individual blocks of streets. The wide view of Minneapolis–St. Paul is as purple as Adrian Peterson’s uniform, which indicates a large degree of racial diversity:”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2013/08/segregation_in_america_every_neighborhood_in_the_u_s_mapped_along_racial.html

“But, as Cable notes, zooming in illustrates clear delineations between predominantly Asian, white, and black neighborhoods…....According to research by professors John Logan of Brown University and Brian Stults of Florida State University, Minneapolis is only the 40th most segregated city in the country. Logan and Stults also analyzed the 2010 census data to determine which cities had the largest amounts of segregation in America. Six of the 20 most segregated cities in the U.S. are in the Amtrak corridor that connects the northeastern Atlantic region. Those cities are New York City; Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y., Newark, N.J.; Philadelphia; Baltimore; and Washington, D.C.”

There you have it - Utter nonsense coming from the anti-charter school gang. The sad reality is the public education stakeholders of the public education system are fighting tooth and nail to retained the ability to educate by income, and not the red herring of race. They simply do not want low income students to have the ability to choose their own schools. In my research earlier today, that the desegregation laws concerning schools are antiquated for the 21st century. Perhaps a change to income, and then watch what will happen. It won’t be white flight but anyone with a large enough pocketbook to escape the public schools.

Change is needed as the Louisiana’s governor has stress since the launch of the lawsuit by the U.S. government.

pobod

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/26/2525981/louisianas-voucher-program-making-segregation-worse-justice-department-finds/

http://blog.ednewscolorado.org/2010/02/04/do-charters-make-segregation-worse


http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/mlk-national/e-pluribus…separation-deepening-double-segregation-for-more-students/orfield_epluribus_revised_omplete_2012.pdf


http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/11/charter_study

I could fill a page with studies where charters made segregation worse from cities all over America. The original concept was to find an escape route for white after court ordered desegregation Brown vs Board of Education

The basic motivation of charters is “I want my kids to go to school with kids like us”.

Doug, you provided dated links, compared to the links that I provided regarding the federal lawsuit in Louisiana. In Doug’s second link, “These trends began to reverse after a 1991 Supreme Court decision made it easier for school districts and courts to dismantle desegregation plans.”
http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/mlk-national/e-pluribus…separation-deepening-double-segregation-for-more-students/orfield_epluribus_revised_omplete_2012.pdf

Not quite the truth, as I learned yesterday. In order for Louisiana’s schools to received federal funding, the schools must meet the federal desegregation laws.

The grist of the lawsuit, “Advocates say the program primarily serves African American children. But the U.S. Department of Justice contends that last year’s voucher program damaged civil rights progress by erasing school integration gains in 13 of the 34 school systems that are under long-standing desegregation orders. Justice’s petition would require the state to get judicial approval before assigning 2014-15 voucher seats to students in those systems.”  http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/09/pro-voucher_group_seeks_to_int.html

Even judges in Louisiana are against the latest plans of the federal government for obvious reasons of delaying justice for other matters.

The voucher program, like in other states - Louisiana’s voucher program is no different - “About 8,000 students were matched with seats this fall in the voucher program, officially called the Louisiana Scholarship Program. It lets children from low-income families attend participating private schools at taxpayer expense. The students must be coming from a C-, D- or F-graded public school or be entering kindergarten. “
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/09/pro-voucher_group_seeks_to_int.html

Since the vast majority of voucher students are low-income black in low performing schools, and in the state of Louisiana, the majority of residents are white. For example in New Orleans, ” The racial and ethnic makeup of the city was 60.2% African American, 33.0% White, 2.9% Asian (1.7% Vietnamese, 0.3% Indian, 0.3% Chinese, 0.1% Filipino, 0.1% Korean), 0.0% Pacific Islander, and 1.7% were people of two or more races.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans

Are the public schools in compliance with each and every school with 60 % black and 33 % white?  It is doubtful, when large urban areas, racial diversity is a rare breed in the American cities. As shown on this map - http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2013/08/segregation_in_america_every_neighborhood_in_the_u_s_mapped_along_racial.html

In the state of Louisiana - “According to the 2010 US census, the population of Louisiana was:[65]
White Americans – 62.6%, Black or African American – 32.0%, Asian – 1.5%, Native American – 0.7%, Multiracial American – 1.6%, some other race – 1.6%”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana

The numbers are reverse when looking at the state of Louisiana. The desegregation laws is one of the legal arguments being used as being outdated, since it is against the law to discriminate by race. But its okay to discriminate by the income ranking of a student??  The voucher programs are to aid students in the low-performing schools and as the demographics have shown - the majority of low-performing schools are in low-income neighbourhoods. Why is that?  Some would say, the public education system is educating according to the income status of the student. It is no longer segregation of the races, but segregation according to income.

Or as others are discussing - will there be a time, when people have to go to court to request permission to move in fear of upsetting the racial diversity of communities? 

As for the public school districts, its rather bizarre for them to attack education choice on the grounds of race, when they are doing a poor job in creating a healthy balance of diversity in their schools. Forcing parents to send their children to the neighbourhood schools that are low performing, is the new kind of discrimination being perpetuated by the public school districts. It will be challenged in the U.S. courts, and be found to be discriminatory, just like it was found to be discriminatory to force LD students to used the approved programs by the school districts to remediate reading and writing problems. Ergo, public school districts are now paying for private tutoring. Sooner or later, the public education school districts will be challenged in the courts regarding the many barriers in the form of regulations that prevents parents and their children from leaving their neighbourhood schools.

“The basic motivation of charters is “I want my kids to go to school with kids like us” - It is one of the excuses used by the public education stakeholders to demonized parents, in order to protect the legal authority of the public education system.

Hello Nancy and Doug,

School Choice- alright, let’s play it out.  There is an excellent secondary public high school in our community.  This school has been at capacity for the last four years.  This means that they cannot accommodate any students out of catchment. 

My children have friends in that school, I know colleagues in that school - everyone in my family agrees that participating in that school would be terrific - but there is no room at that Inn- they are full up!  And they will continue to be. 

Our situation is not the terrible scenario depicted in the American documentary “waiting for superman”.  We still have solid schools that can, and do, get the job done.  But choice is limited by simple physics. 

Question-  School Choice - what do you do when there is no room at the Inn?  How do a few high performing schools help *all*  the students?

please enlighten me,  Mirka

One needs to looked at the demographics. Then one needs to looked at the crazy upside down world at the school board district. Why are some schools fully loaded while other schools are the bare basic models?  The latter statistically speaking, matches with income and the fully loaded schools are the ones in fully mature upper class neighbourhoods that has not lost its charm to the buyers of the professional class.

Mirka, your question cannot be answer unless you acknowledged the demographics of the schools, the school boards and the external varialbes that lies outside of the schools. Even more important, are the school and school board variables dealing with the regulation regime plus the political and professional agendas of the educationalists.

In the 21st century, its very hard to keep the status-quo of the 19th century school house - educating according to social-income status of students. Worse yet, pretend in the 21st century that the standardization of curriculum and teacher training of the one-sized-fits-all solutions for provinces is the perfect fit for all schools. The reality is, it leads to the closure of schools, poor achievement, and the only winners are the employees of the education system.

The last few days Mirka, I read papers and news articles from the educator set, and all I can do is shake my head, Or another way of putting it as some parents over at People for Education are now stating, the schools are no longer providing for the needs of the students and their communities.

Mirka, you offered a question that is no different from the questions in the late 19th century. How do we educate children that will reflect the 19th century educationalists values and beliefs systems?  Back in the late 19th century, it was all about getting the professional class to buy into the public school house, and to get the lower income students to come to school. The only way around it, was to make a law saying school is compulsory for one and all. Once the students were in the school doors, that was when it all fall apart. However, not right away. As society and government grew more complex, the complexity by the 21st century rendered the school compulsory laws moot, and by doing so, the public education system monopoly on education became weaker.

Its a bit more complex than what I have stated, but a good place to start is to go over to the Supreme Court of Canada’s web site, and looked up the Moore case. Please read the factums but more importantly the video on the case. The public education system monopoly, will argued the case based on 19th century beliefs that only 50 % of the Canadian population will reach average to above average reading levels.

Pray tell, why bother to attend a public school in the 21st century, if the public school is only willing to provide education services to only 50 % of the population based on 19th century beliefs?  For the low-income neighbourhoods, choice was very welcomed indeed. A chance for their kids to received a better education than what the parents received. You see Mirka, a lot of things have change since the 19th century, isn’t it about time for the public education model to reflect the changes in their structure, the administration and operations of schools of the 21st century?? It is where 99 % of students will be average to above average readers - we are no longer living in 19th century Mirka!

Going back to your original question being posed, have you check out the data streams in private tutoring, the cash outlays of parents for purchased of education services and products? I was watching the Fifth Estate the other day - over 6 billion dollars is being spent on our pets. I am sure there is a tutoring outfit at every corner completing with the doughnut shops for retail space. Most tutoring places are located in neighbourhoods like the one you described in your post.

By the way, high performing schools can’t help other schools because the high performing schools are performing their function perfectly - providing for the needs of their students.  Damn few schools can mimic the higher performing schools, because only a few schools can provide the one-sized-fits-all, standardized curriculum and healthy parents’ pocketbooks to pay for the private educational services that the school is no longer willing to provide.

Until the day, each school provides and meets the need of their unique school population, choice is the only option opened to most parents. Choice also leads to a more diverse student population that benefits the students in the long run. Its a pity, that the public educationalists have not learned that one or is it because they don’t want the other 50 % - the bottom achievers to have access to choice, other than the public education choice of one-size-fits all types?

pobod

If you go to any city over 1/2 million in Canada or the USA (or anywhere) the neighbourhoods are stratified by income. In Toronto the VERY high income neighbourhoods are Forest Hill and Rosedale followed by hoods like Kingsway, Moore Park, Don Mills etc

The next tier are the “yuppie heaven” districts like High Park, Danforth, Beachers, Bluffs-Guildwood etc.

It then drops down to solid Bluecollar neighbourhoods Lakeshore, Triity, East york, Parkdale, downsview…

Lowest on the list are the areas with massive public housing projects like Jane Finch, Malvern or Regent Park.

Scores peak in the first group, stay very high in the second group, drop quite a bit but not disasterously in the 3rd group and are quite bad in the forth group.

You can change the teachers all you want, principals, even resources it all makes very little difference.

The nonsense about 3 good teachers or 3 bad teachers in a row is just that total nonsense.

Then CAN the schools make any difference whatsoever?

Yes but only by adding ECE down to age 2, much smaller classes, Pathways type programs, summer and holiday programs, and reforms such as this.

Closing schools privatizing schools, witch hunting teachers, none of this makes a dimes worth of difference.

If you live outside the catchment area of the school you desire there is not much you can do. But or rent a home in the area or spend more time on your own children’s enrichment.

People are caught cheating every year in Toronto.

See what I mean when educating to social-income class.

Doug’s response is a very typical response from the educator class. What is never mentioned and omitted it the standardized curriculum, the standardized teaching training and for the most part the pedagogy theories based on cultural and biosocial development rooted in the 19th century ‘knowledge matrix’. The educator is standardized in the 21st century.

It could be a good thing if educators were police officers, but educators are not police officers who are there to protect and serve using the criminal code law as their guidance. Moving from one neighbourhood to the next, from urban to rural does not posed the same difficulties for police officers, since society has accepted the values of behaviour that closely matches the values of the criminal code.

What about the standardized educator in the 21st century? The 21st century Canadian families has not accepted the values of the pedagogy rooted in the 19th century, as 19th century Canadian families did not buy into the public school ‘ethos’ of the emerging public education model. Ergo, the building of the education class bureaucracy began, according the the beliefs and values of the educator class, to force compliance among all Canadian families to adapt to the one-sized-fits-all model, commanded by a team of standardized educators headed up by administrators and supervisors to enforce the rules/regulations of the public education regime. A natural outcome since the educator class ‘ethos’ is embedded within the structure of the public education model is educating according to the social-income class of the students. It is enforced by the public eduction regulation regime to limit the mobility of students to the neighbourhood schools.

Now in the 21st century, the education model rooted in the 19th century knowledge and ethos matrix is having major difficulties in maintaining the ‘status-quo’ of education services that the public education system is willing to provide to the public to each social-income group. It is at this apex, this intersection in the 21st century - the public is no longer willing to complied and submit to the public education bureaucracy who want to keep students penned in by educating the students according to their social-income status.

Doug writes - “Scores peak in the first group, stay very high in the second group, drop quite a bit but not disastrously in the 3rd group and are quite bad in the fourth group.”  One could lift quote after quote among the educator class on a historical time line that speaks of the same values. What is often omitted in the 21st century discussions by the educator class, but not omitted in the 19th century historical record is the ability of families to picked up the education services that the public education system was not willing to provide in education services.

Today, in 2013 achievement is according to the parent’s ability to provide for their children’s education on the education services that the public education system is no longer willing to provide. A natural outcome, the higher the income a family has, it enables the family to purchased the necessary education services and other activities that the public education system are no longer willing to provide or are pale versions to what can be had at home or at a private concern.

The public education system is moving towards a model in the 21st century, expecting ALL parents to picked up the basic education services that they will no longer provide without changing the overall structure and the ‘ethos’ rooted in the 19th century knowledge matrix, to which works in the educator class best interests.

The 21st century public education system rooted in the 19th century knowledge and ethos matrix is at the root of school choice. The reason being, is the unwillingness of the educator class to shift their pedagogy, education theories, administration and ethos values to the 21st century. It is why today in 2013, there is an educator somewhere across Canada, telling a high income parent their child does not have a reading problem, to another educator telling a middle-class parent to another telling a low-income parent - their children don’t have a reading problem for the expressed purpose to denied a reading assessment - an education service that the public education system is no longer willing to fund and provide. It is expected, for parents to pick up the ball and provide the education services on their own, regardless of ability and means.

School choice is the only option left to parents and their families. As I stated in my last post - “Choice also leads to a more diverse student population that benefits the students in the long run. Its a pity, that the public educationalists have not learned that one or is it because they don’t want the other 50 % - the bottom achievers to have access to choice, other than the public education choice of one-size-fits all types?”

Nancy,

you missed my point - but your response was interesting - so here is the bigger question…..

YOU Nancy get the ear of Bill Gates and his foundation gives you 3 million to leverage that money for maximum impact ...  You are challenged to make a difference in Waterloo…...What do you do?
What is your operational plan for the first year, the first five years, and what you hope to accomplish in the first 10 years - provided that the same amount of money will be paid in every two years as long as you meet agreed upon goals?

The conversation now is about the plan and not how the system fails.    What is the plan?

please advise,  Mirka

Only 3 million dollars every two years?? 

After careful consideration - the 3 million dollars would be specifically targeted at the 3 Rs - reading, writing and numeracy.

First year - 1. Curriculum changes - the introduction of grammar and spelling curriculum starting in grade 3 to grade 8. Ten minutes of daily grammar and 15 minutes of spelling instruction. Since it is the 21st century, both spelling and grammar can be easily incorporated with the language arts program that will aid in improved writing for one and all. The bonus - improved vocabulary and the ability of students to expressed themselves on paper.  Also in the first year - new math curriculum which will be a combination of Jump Math and Singapore math. Mastery of the foundational and advanced arithmetic skills will be the goal, that will enable and facilitate the constructivist problem solving found in the current math textbooks.

2. Reading instruction will be changed to one of phonetically explicit instruction. The nuts and bolts will be purchased from the private market that lies outside of the textbook publishers. Without mentioning names, it will be a Canadian developer who has already proven their worth and value to prevent reading deficits.

1.5 million dollars for one year doesn’t really go that far and the major dollar expenditures would go to training the K to grade 4 teachers in reading instruction via through the private route rather then the education faculties. The reason being, the so-called experts at the education faculties are still under the 19th century opinion that 50 % of the student population will never reach average reading levels. Time to pull the education faculties into the 21st century, where a child with a standard score of 59 in phonemic awareness can indeed learn to read very well at the end of grade 3. The 59 score, is a typical score for a student who has developmentally dyslexic. In the year 2013, this set of students are written off as being slow in the current public elementary schools. They are the ones that will received the dumb-down work in the inclusive classroom.

The second part of training would go to training the special education teachers, the specialized staff at the board level in literacy and numeracy that will include specialized training based on the Orton-Gillingham methods for the children who need more intensive interventions to bring the children up to grade level in reading, and as well specialized training in the cognitive learning sciences to improved the overall reading, writing and numeracy problems of all children, and not just the children who have been identified as having reading deficits. Near perfect cognitive processes are only blessed by approximately 20 percent of the student population. The 80 %, unfortunately, have faulty cognitive processes, that requires a bit of exercise in the brain matter to elicit steady achievement.

The second year to the 10th year, the 1.5 million dollars for each year will be targeted to expand what was started in the first year. The main emphasis would be to captured the older students in the higher grades who are sitting at the bottom 50 % of the achievement chart and/or have been identified as having reading, writing or numeracy problems. After 10 years, it would be the primary students who started out in year one, would be the students enrolling in the academic programs of math english, and science courses rather then the applied program at the high school level.

However, 15 million dollars over a ten year period is only targeting the three Rs, without changing the belief systems of the educators and the overgrown bureaucracy that lies above the schools who are determined to micro-managed the operations of the individual schools. Some would be determine to sabotage the efforts of targeting the 3 Rs, because they are firmly entrenched in the 19th century knowledge and ethos matrix. Plenty of these characters sitting at the board level….......too many too count who truly think children with early learning struggles are the not worth the effort and expense to fixed the early learning struggles. Instead, they want parents to do it on their own dime, just like it was expected in the 19th century. Addled children was not an desire element in the 19th century school house…......and it appears it is still true in the 21st century school house.

Nancy,

You are hired (or would be if I had the spending money of Bill Gates).

And spending some dough to clear out the *clown car*  at the board level would be an excellent investment of extra cash!

best.  Mirka

Mirka, I omitted the part of the ‘clown car’ at the board level - where the board staff would no longer be sitting at the board offices but actually spending 5 hours per day at the schools, 5 days a week. To aid in helping the school staff to work with the students who are in need of intensive remediation and one to one instruction. The whole burden should not be on the classroom, special education and guidance teachers of the school.

As for the clown car - here is the latest which will be front page news at the end of next week. At the moment, it is in quite a few places in social media that I follow. I was absolutely shock, and amazed what passes for professional education learning concerning the education of children at the OISE.  http://www.uc.utoronto.ca/schooling

The issue is the keynote speaker - who has been quoted and describes himself as a ’ “theoretical pedophile”. I did check it out and its true. A book review on the New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/24/books/we-have-met-the-pedophiles-and-they-are-us.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

What should be at the OISE symposium?  Perhaps unwinding the cultural biases that the education class has toward children with the invisible disabilities http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-anne-richardson/its-called-dyslexia_b_4074199.html

In many instances across the education span, there is virtually no difference in the education of children with disabilities in the 19th century classroom compared to the children with disabilities in the 21st century public education system. That is the cultural biases…...

It is why education choice is the siren call of the 21st century, when the OISE is bound and determined to remove the public education system further and further away from their main mission - the academic education of children.