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Wealth — Not Enrollment in Private School — Increases Student Achievement, According to New Study

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By Steven Singer / Common Dreams

Students enrolled in private schools often get good grades and high test scores.

And there’s a reason for that – they’re from wealthier families.

A new peer-reviewed study from Professors Richard C. Pianta and Arya Ansari of the University of Virginia found that once you take family income out of the equation, there are absolutely zero benefits of going to a private school. The majority of the advantage comes from simply having money and all that comes with it – physical, emotional, and mental well-being, living in a stable and secure environment, knowing where your next meal will come from, etc.   [Read more…]

Southwest High School Students Create Climate Awareness Through Murals

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By Michelle Roberts

In late May/early June, a number of my students at Southwest High School gathered in Biology Room 501 to embark on a climate murals project. Their goal? To help change the mindset of San Diegans.

I became involved in the murals project through volunteering with SanDiego350, who got input on the concept from local artist and muralist, Joanne Tawfilis, of the Muramid museum, Oceanside. SanDiego350 contacted Tawfilis and she got us started with some helpful insights on this type of project. Our volunteers then brainstormed on how we could adapt her concept so local kids could create murals relating to climate change.

SanDiego350 volunteer and artist, Anne Mudge, refined the concept in a Climate Murals PowerPoint presentation. Anne believes:

“Giving children and the youth a way to express themselves creatively as they explore the consequences of our actions gives them a sense of agency in a totally fun and community-building way. The images they create can be powerful motivators for the rest of us. Who isn’t moved by the hopes and visions of the ones who will be living in the world we hand off to them?”

  [Read more…]

The Burden of Charter Schools in San Diego County

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The California charter school law is doing serious harm to public schools. Few counties in the state have been more impacted by charter schools than San Diego County. This past school year 75,473 of the 508,169 publicly financed students enrolled in charter schools. In other words, 14.9 percent of San Diego’s students attended privatized schools and in the San Diego Unified School District, that percentage was greater than 17 percent.

San Diego’s charter school students attended one of the county’s 129 active charter schools some of which will close their doors next year. In the past five years, more than one out six charter schools – a total of 27 schools – went out of business. This presents an additional financial burden to public schools because they must be ready to take in all students from failed charter schools at any time. Charter schools typically do not add students during a school year.

When students from the public system exit to the privatized charter school system, the cost to the district schools is substantially more than just the loss of state daily attendance money. A recent study that Professor Gordon Lafer did for In The Public Interest is the third major report in five years to demonstrate this point.   [Read more…]

iReady: Magnificent Marketing, Terrible Teaching

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iReady is an economically successful software product used in public schools, by homeschoolers, and in private schools. It utilizes the blended learning practices endorsed by the recently updated federal education law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). iReady employs competency-based education (CBE) theory which is also advocated by ESSA. The outcome is iReady drains money from classrooms, applies federally supported failed learning theories and undermines good teaching. Children hate it.   [Read more…]

History of Institutional Racism in U.S. Public Schools

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Susan DuFresne, a pre-school and special education specialist from Seattle, Washi., just published the book History of Institutional Racism in U.S. Public Schools. Dufresne is also a self-taught artist with a heart that screams for justice. She began her project with three 15-feet-long 4-feet-high pieces of canvas and painted images of racial injustice and its effect on schools from the 16th century until today. These illustrations are supported by the notes Susan developed about each issue depicted and hand wrote in the margins.

I met Susan at a march in 2014 at Seattle’s iconic Westgate Park, home of political expression and protest for five decades. For me, it brought back childhood memories of a 1962 trip with my parents and a sister to the Seattle World’s Fair. At Westgate Park, my family boarded the mono-rail for the fairgrounds now called the Seattle Center, still home of the Space Needle and today, home to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

That 2014 teacher’s march was the first public event organized by the Washington State Bats. We were protesting the Gates Foundation. Two motorcycle police went ahead of us closing streets to cross traffic and we happily marched toward the Seattle Center to enthusiastic cheers from locals along the route.

Last year, I met Susan again at the National Public Education (NPE) annual conference in Oakland, California. She displayed her amazing art work in the main conference room. The room was large enough to accommodate more than 1,000 people seated at round tables. Her illustrations covered most of the north wall.

I would be very surprised if Susan could pick me out of a line   [Read more…]

San Diego Needs a Citizen Commission on Refugee and Immigrant Affairs

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By Rebecca Paida

The saying goes, if you are not at the table, you are on the menu! This statement suggests that advocacy by supporters is essential but that lived experiences also matter. If people with first-hand experiences of a particular phenomenon are not part of decision making processes, then they will likely get left out. For many underrepresented and under-served populations, including refugees and immigrants in the San Diego region, this is a reality that they must confront. While some residents actively participate in civic discourse at the community level, that is the extent of their contributions. This is in part because they have little or no opportunities to affect policies at the City level and beyond, due to a lack of inclusion.

  [Read more…]

Lemon Grove Oral History Project: Lemon Grove Incident

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History and historical background of the 1931 court case on desegregation and the first successful challenge on segregation in the nation

By John Valdez / Lemon Grove Oral History Project

In 1930, a small rural community in the county of San Diego, California, called Lemon Grove was home to a hundred or more Mexican-American families. These families were mostly situated on Olive and North Avenue Streets near the central avenue called Broadway. The only elementary school was called Golden Avenue School and it’s there that this story begins.

The Lemon Grove School Board members voted to build a separate school on Olive Street for the 75 Mexican-American students who were attending the Golden Avenue School. As the Spanish speaking members of this quiet community became aware of the board’s decision to remodel an existing barn-like structure for all the Spanish speaking students, thereby creating a separate school for them, the families of these children dissented.   [Read more…]

Philadelphia Story: Another School Choice Failure

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For the last two decades, Pennsylvania’s political leaders have attempted to improve schools in Philadelphia without spending money. In 2001, Governor Thomas Ridge turned to Chris Whittle and his Edison Project to study the school system and create a reform plan. That December, the state of Pennsylvania disbanded the local school board and assumed total control of the district.

Since then, citizens of Philadelphia have endured – with minimal input – a relentless school choice agenda and the loss of public schools in their neighborhoods.

Politicians – not wanting to spend on education – often claim the problem is public schools have become bloated and inefficient. This assertion is normally paired with an attack on teachers’ unions as being the enemy of good pedagogy and progress. The medicine offered to solve these ills is competition and market forces. It is theorized that competition will improve management and force teachers to do their job better.

After two decades of implementing this theory in Philadelphia; test scores are still low, communities are still plagued by poverty and fraud is rampant. Worst of all, the public-school system has been significantly harmed.   [Read more…]

Are Public Schools in California’s Inglewood a Warning?

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In 2006, the relatively small Inglewood Unified School District (IUSD) had over 18,000 students and was a fiscally sound competent system. Today, IUSD has 8,400 students, is 30 percent privatized and drowning in debt. In 2012, the state of California took over the district, usurped the authority of the elected school board and installed a “State Trustee” to run it. IUSD is on its sixth state appointed trustee in six years.

This crisis was created by politicians and wealthy elites. It did not just happen. Understanding the privatization of Inglewood’s schools through the choice agenda is instructive of the path that could lead to the end of public schools in California.   [Read more…]

Dear Betsy DeVos, I Will *Never* Report My Students to Immigration and Customs Enforcement

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By Steven Singer / Common Dreams

Teachers fill a lot of roles in our public schools.

We’re mentors to kids in need. We’re aides to students struggling with new concepts and skills. We’re homework-givers, pencil-providers, idea-encouragers, lunch-buyers, scrape-bandagers, hand-holders, hug-givers, good listeners, counselors, caregivers and – yes – sometimes even butt-kickers.

It’s no wonder that we occasionally get mistaken for mothers and fathers.

But one thing we will never be is a snitch.   [Read more…]

An Open Letter to the California Charter Schools Association

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To: Steven Baratte, Managing Director, Communications, Southern California, California Charter Schools Association (CCSA)

Reference: Your May 21, 2018, email message to San Diego Free Press (SDFP)

Your message began, “I am the managing director of communications in Southern California for the California Charter Schools Association and wanted to introduce myself because I have seen an increase of charter-related stories on your website.” Then you claim without evidence, “Many of the stories contain inaccuracies about California charter schools and perpetuate falsehoods.”

Mr. Baratte, don’t you think a serious claim like this deserves a little evidence; a few examples? Every charter school article in SDFP has been rigorously documented and provides hot links to the documentation. One might disagree with the conclusions, but the evidence presented is accurate and well-sourced.   [Read more…]

Democracy’s Schools: A Good Read on the Origins and Evolution of Public Education

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The unprecedented development of a pan American public education system arose between the end of the Revolutionary War and the beginning of the Civil War. In Democracy’s Schools, Johann Neem explains the origins of the egalitarian spirit manifested in the uniquely American system, the system’s rapid development from the bottom up and he presents evidence about ideological debates that are still unresolved in the twenty-first century. These explanations are informed by impressive scholarship.   [Read more…]

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