Statement To The Ohio Senate Education Committee In Favor Of Senate Bill 39 by Brianne Kramer

Chair Lehner, Vice Chair Huffman, Ranking Member Sykes, and members of the Senate Education Committee:

I am sharing this written testimony in favor of Senate Bill 39 because I believe more accountability is needed for e-schools in Ohio. I have been in education for the past 14 years as a high school teacher, part-time college faculty, and now as an Assistant Professor at Southern Utah University. From November 2013 to November 2014, I worked as a high school advisor for Ohio Virtual Academy (OHVA hereafter). In addition to my various teaching and educational experiences, much of my doctoral level research has focused on Ohio’s charter and virtual/e-schools.

Upon accepting the position at OHVA, I did not hold any concrete opinions about virtual schools and their operation. I believed at the time that virtual schools could be excellent opportunities for students who were unable to attend their local public schools for various reasons. After working in the school for a year, my opinions drastically changed. As an advisor, my position required me to manage a caseload of students in order to track attendance, check grades, and keep open lines of communication with the family. Advisors were required to check student attendance logs weekly to make sure families were logging in the required hours per week. If there was a discrepancy and hours were missing, I contacted the family to alert them of the missing hours and, if the student had not completed those hours in the system, discuss a plan to make up hours and complete work that was missing. If the hours did not get entered, once the student was missing 25 hours of attendance, I initiated the truancy process by filling out a report and sending it to the truancy officer and others who oversaw the truancy process. Once the student was missing 105 hours, as the advisor, I would request the student be withdrawn for truancy. Again, once initiating this process, the truancy officer and other individuals processed it.

Shortly before leaving the school in November 2014, there were 487 K-12th grade students who had not yet logged attendance hours, and only 89 of those students were currently in the truancy reporting system after 11 weeks of school. There were also 1,826 students who were missing 25 or more hours of attendance, and of those students, only 594 had begun the truancy process, amounting to 19% of OHVA students who were eligible for the truancy process. These numbers also assume that proper truancy reporting was followed and that families did not alter attendance hours to avoid truancy charges. During my year working in the school, I found both of these things to be true at various times.

Despite changes to their reporting process or to the attendance policy that may have been made at OHVA and similar schools recently, I believe e-schools should be required to provide education to each of their students that totals the state-imposed 920 hours. All of Ohio’s public school students who attend a traditional public school are required to be in classrooms with their teachers for 920 hours each year, so e-school students should be held to the same standard. For this to occur in a way that can be measured, all 920 hours should be spent in the online classroom platform, which is not currently happening. OHVA’s 2016-2017 Parent Handbook states:

           

“Most K-5 Learning Coaches and students spend 50% of their day online and the rest of their time working off line in workbooks, printed lessons, or other related activities. Middle school students and Learning Coaches may spend between 60% and 70% of their time on their computers, while high school students will spend between 75% and 85% online. Attendance documentation of online and offline work is required by OHVA parents. Submission of student work samples is required to demonstrate consistent engagement, and will vary by grade” (p. 3).

Traditional public schools cannot provide 460 hours of instruction for grades K-5, 644 hours of instruction in middle schools, and 782 hours of instruction at the high school level and make up the remaining hours with homework. Virtual schools, who academically perform at a much lower level than the majority of public schools in Ohio, should not be allowed to loosely interpret the current attendance policies.

Senate Bill 39 would close this gap and provide greater accountability for virtual schools. If passed, the bill requires the Ohio Department of Education to be notified of truancy and attendance figures. This greater accountability places pressure on the virtual schools and their sponsors to maintain correct attendance records and uphold state policy. These proposed requirements only serve to benefit the students and families in virtual schools. Students who are not attending class are not learning to their full potential, and schools are required to make sure students are in attendance daily. Traditional public schools take attendance every morning, and in high schools, each class period. When students attend their classes, the teachers work to keep them engaged throughout the lesson through constant interaction and face-to-face engagement that cannot be replicated in an online classroom despite any technology that may be used. A 2015 study by the Stanford Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) found virtual school students lost 72 days of learning, on average, in reading, and lost 180 days of learning in math. Low attendance could contribute to this loss of learning.

Virtual schools also need to have greater transparency in order for the general public to better understand the structures of such schools and their operation. Virtual school board meetings should be live-streamed after appropriate notice has been provided statewide in the cities the virtual school students and their families reside. Parents and the general public have a right to be able to attend (in person or virtually) each board meeting, just as if they were attending a board meeting in their local traditional public school district. Virtual school advertisements, which have been paid for using taxpayer money funneled from local school districts, should contain the most recent state report card grades. Taxpayers deserve to understand what their money is being used for. In a traditional district, taxpayers have a better understanding of what their taxes are being used for as they see building improvements happen, hear about new teachers being hired, or see the new textbooks and curriculum coming home in their child’s backpack each day. Finally, the state report cards for each virtual school in the state should contain an area that indicates the school’s mobility rate. While mobility rates are not an issue solely for virtual schools, the mobility rates remain higher for virtual schools than many of the traditional public school districts. 

My final point refers to the funding component of SB 39. For the past 17 years, since the inception of ECOT in 2000, virtual schools have siphoned money from local school districts. While supporters of virtual schools may claim that only state funds are transferred from traditional public school districts to the virtual schools as the money “follows the student,” many Ohio school districts are subsidizing virtual schools with a portion of local taxpayer money. In my hometown of Napoleon, the per-pupil funding amount is $4,205; however, the per-pupil funding amount for ECOT and OHVA is slightly above $7000. Where does that remaining $2,795 come from? According to The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project, out of the $237,539 transferred to charter schools (3 of 4 being virtual schools), $99,562 was through local taxpayer subsidy. Napoleon Area City taxpayers have been subsidizing virtual schools who have consistently demonstrated lower academic achievement and graduation rates than their local district.

I urge you to pass Senate Bill 39 to better serve the students and families who seek out this type of education. All students in the state of Ohio are entitled to a quality education. I believe it is our duty to ensure the proper policies are in place to ensure this for all children. It is also important that taxpayers understand the structure, operation, and funding of virtual schools in the state of Ohio.

Chair Lehner and members of the committee-- thank you again for the opportunity to provide written testimony in favor of Senate Bill 39.

Equity in Educational Management by Michael Morton

Originally posted at: https://aztecpromises.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/equity-in-educational-management/

Doesn’t it seem to be a paradox that school boards and administrations can hold a teacher certificate over the heads of educational professionals (even when they themselves are charged with ethics violations)? Threatened with wage increment withholdings, additional mandatory trainings (on personal time), required commitment to extra-curricular activities, forced compliance with arbitrary policy, and the list goes on….
It’s hard to find leadership that lead with integrity. 

Fifteen years ago, I was hired as a special ed teacher with minimal teaching experience and no special ed certificate. And although I only had experience working with children, I was clearly the ideal candidate because I was passionate about my role in the community. I was hired, but I recognized that my accountability was to the community and not simply to a few administrators. For three years I administered standardized test under the auspice that my failure to comply will result in loss of a teacher certificate (that I had not yet obtained). I was non-tenured and vulnerable. And yet I stood proud BEFORE I recognized the strength of my union.  

I have earned my appropriate teacher certificates. My woes of classroom teaching are not confined to my weariness of teaching students whose parents are not engaged. Instead I spent a lot of time reflecting on the demise of public education. Something is failing, and it’s not at the hands of the educators but in the hands of the administrators, the politicians, and the state boards of education. And charters ARE NOT the answer.  

The unions and the teaching associations are already preparing for the Supreme Court decision that allows association members the ability to choose whether or not they will support the unions efforts. Collectively we have watched the bargaining ability of educators across the nation suffer a similar demise. When right to negotiate our working conditions and our abilities to grieve contract infractions removed, the presence of quality education will be reduced.

And so how do we really prepare for this eminent future? The teaching associations are planning precisely how they will convince/reaffirm educators that we have power in numbers. They will emphasize the importance of collective-bargaining and the value of union negotiating. But for many educators who have overlooked the value of their unions, the battle is already lost. They will be the first to relinquish their bargaining rights and likely the first on the chopping blocks when reductions-in-force occur. For them there will be no sense of unity.  

For the rest of us, we will need to learn to stand up for ourselves in hope and prayer that we too are not picked off one-by-one. Our abilities will be transformed. We will no longer be just educators. We will become our own negotiators. We will be selective in what we grieve. And we will find ourselves standing for increased occurrences of injustice (instead of standing up for all that is right and moral for our students, their families, and our communities). We will be forced to choose between what is right for ourselves and what is right for our students.

Collectively we will be… individuals. Standing alone, we will develop new skills in coping with far more than just lesson plans, grades, standards, and professional development. Because we didn’t stand up when we could, we will be required to fight on our own.  
How will you prepare for the transformation?  

Donald Trump is a Pathetic Excuse For a Human Being by Steven Singer

Originally posted at: https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/01/donald-trump-is-a-pathetic-excuse-for-a-human-being/

I’m not going to pull any punches here.

Donald Trump is not just a bad President.

He’s a bad person.

No. That doesn’t go far enough.

He’s one of the worst people ever to hold public office in this country.

He’s a pathetic excuse for a person. A narcissistic and incurious fool.

Donald Trump is what happens when you spoil a child and he never has to prove his own worth.

He is the fruit of our worship of wealth and the ruling class. He is the lie of trickledown economics. He is what happens when you give someone all the rewards our society has to offer – just for showing up.

But he’s not a racist.

Not really. Not in the strictest sense. That would require some kind of commitment.

Nor is he a sexist. That would require ideology.

Trump doesn’t hate anyone. He doesn’t divide people up into categories. He just loves himself so much that his regard for anyone else seems lacking.

In Trumpland, there are only two personas – himself and everyone else.

And make no mistake – he sees the world as containing only one important personality – Donald J. Trump. Everyone else is subordinate. Even his own family is important only in so much as they reflect him and meet his expectations. (Tiffany Trump, anyone?)

Trump is the sole practitioner of a solitary religion where one individual can serve as both penitent and deity. He writes his own hymns and sings them to himself every morning during golden thrown Twitter church services.

And anyone who dares to deny the fact of his own exceptionality is not good. They’re Bad. Sad.

They get low ratings. Such low ratings. Fake news. Or whatever other nearly monosyllabic criticism his atrophied brain can defecate out of his sloppy mouth.

Other people’s suffering just doesn’t matter. Puerto Rico, NFL players, people of color unjustly targeted by police, the middle class – none of us matter to him.

 
Not black people.

Not Hispanics.

Not women.

No one. Literally no lives matter to Trump.

This is a fact borne out by his actions over decades in public life.

It’s no accident that Bret Easton Ellis made Trump the role model of Patrick Bateman, his fictional unhinged everyman businessman protagonist in “American Psycho.”

Trump may not be psychopathic, but he is clearly a solipsist, a sociopath. The outside world is not real to him, and we are not ends in ourselves. We are illusions who only merit if we increase his own self-worth.

Even from a conservative heteronormative viewpoint, men do not represent the possibility of friendship or camaraderie to Trump. They are pawns to be used or adversaries to be avoided.

Women do not represent the possibility of intimacy or understanding. They are pure shape, status and physicality – objects to be ordered, groped, controlled and tabulated.

Likewise, his constituents are important only to the degree that they support him. He has no reciprocal responsibilities toward them. He may have promised to “Make America Great Again,” but to this stunted individual, America, itself, is best represented by one thing – Trump.

He is the poster boy for all that is wrong with our society.

He is petty, unintelligent, and mean. Everything he has was handed to him. In fact, he’d have more if he just held onto it, but he had to try to prove he deserved this stuff so he lost more than what he was given.

And he doesn’t even know how to enjoy what he has.

His wife is a product he bought and modified to his liking. His children are indentured servants made to reflect his brand. He doesn’t even understand how to extract the best flavors from the expensive foods he eats.

He spends most of his time obsessively playing a game that requires wealth as a prerequisite, that isn’t particularly athletic but bestows a certain image on its practitioners. And somehow he must think hitting a little ball with a hooked stick proves – what? Something about him? Maybe it proves his physical prowess, his identity as a man of wealth and privilege?

He is the illusion Gatsby tried to portray to win Daisy – but the only love Trump covets is his own.

He both demonstrates the lie at the heart of the American Dream – that it is possible anymore for any of us to achieve – and that the dream has any inherent value.

Wealth does not make one happy. Look at Trump. He is a miserable son of a bitch. And he would be the first to tell you so if he had even a smidgen of self-reflection.

You can see it on his face in those candid moments when he isn’t talking and talking and talking.

This is a man begging to be told he is doing a good job, but the only opinion he trusts is his own, and that one not even so much.

He is a lost soul telling himself lies he only half believes. He’s an apparition, a ghost, a zombie that never was really alive in the first place.

And we, the people of the United States of America, are gathered here around him in an ever closing circle watching this tin pot dictator getting ever smaller by the hour.

One fine day he will simply disappear. And we’ll all be left staring at the space he left behind.

Perhaps this vanishing act will be accompanied by a “pop,” a “hiss” or just a silence deeper than background static.

And the only question that will remain will be if we’ll all be sucked into the maelstrom of his leaving.

Or if we’ll all shake our heads and wonder…

What the Hell had we just been looking at?

BAT Sustainability Drive - Fall Fundraiser

Help BATs Sustain Our Work into 2018!

So many times we hear the question “What is my donation paying for?”. Some people do not always see the bigger picture of how the costs and expenditures directly translate into assisting them and advocating for our profession.

BATs work hard nationally to shine a light on issues around education, racial, and social justice. We work on legislative platforms, meet with state and national legislators and policy makers, and attend education and advocacy conferences to learn strategies and best practices that can be implemented in our work. Many of our members join in conferences with other organizations to have conversations that will expose the privatization efforts of those that wish to destroy public education.

We do all of this with our network and our students in mind, all of the time thinking about ways that we can help people in our network join in the work and build a stronger fighting force.

We do not have the overhead costs of renting an office, paying staff or utility bills. Every dime we spend goes towards the benefit of the people in our network, children, our communities, and in support of our mission.

We would not have gotten as far as we have in this war if it had not been for your financial support. It has caused us to grow as an organization tremendously. As we continue to grow, we hope that you can continue to support these efforts. As teachers, we recognize that time can be limited - some of you have families at home, other areas of interest… so the best way that you can show us that you would like us to continue to do the work that we do is to donate financially to our efforts and allow us to continue into the new year. If you are a teacher that is financially strapped but has some time to spare, we encourage you contact us to find out ways that you can join the work at contact.batmanager@gmail.com!

Here are some areas where donations have gone and what we have planned for the future

1. Our annual education event.  This year we held it in Seattle and three years prior to that we were in DC.  In our first event we got inside the USDOE and were able to meet with USDOE Sec. Arne Duncan.
2. We give out student scholarships each year to help education students and student activists.  Award winners have been Chastity Berrios (Fairfield University); Student activists Tanaisa Brown and Nidalis Burgos, and this year to Trinity University education students Melissa Dunn and Elsa Arias.
3. BATs donated $500 to Harvey Relief efforts (targeted Navarro Middle School - school of Houston BAT Daniel Santos); $200 sent to Mexico to help a school impacted by the earthquake; $500 sent to the FMPR (teachers union in Puerto Rico): $200 to DeAndre Harris who was beaten by white nationalists in Charlottesville.
4. We have been able to use your donations to send BAT representatives to The People’s Summit in Chicago, Network for Public Education, Progressive Education Network; Free Minds Free People; #WeChoose  National Coalition events in Chicago and DC, BATs went to DC and met with the education aides of  Senator Sanders and Senator Hassan prior to the DeVos vote, and a BAT representative went to The Facebook Summit.  
5. We donate yearly to the AFT and NEA BAT Caucuses who represent our mission and vision at the AFT and NEA conventions.
6. We also have several toolkits on our website for members in our network to use.  Please go to badassteacher.org and click on the toolkit tab.
7. Naturally we also use your kind donations to pay for office and organizational items (P.O. Box, Stamps, and Postal stuff).
8. To see what we have been up to in the previous years you can go here for 2016 http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2016/12/bats-were-busy-in-2016-this-bats-meme.html  and here for 2015 http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2015/12/bats-had-amazing-2015-we-come-2016-bats.html

Here is what we hope to do with donations in the coming year!

We would like to begin a grant program in the coming year where we can pay BATs to produce such things as toolkits, to write articles/op ed/blog entries, to represent BATs at events in their area, or to hold boots on the ground events that support our vision and mission.

For the Fall Fundraiser this year we will be able to send our new recurring donors a thank you gift.

If you make a recurring donation of $10 a month during our Fall Fundraiser we will send you a copy of John Merrow’s new book Addicted to Reform, one of our amazing BAT Meme Team Calendars, and a Bag O’ BAT Swag!  

You can make a recurring donation on our website badassteachers.org using the PayPal monthly donation or you can send a monthly check made out to The Badass Teachers Association, Inc,; P.O. Box 1390, Bellmore, NY 11710.

We will also accept a one time generous donation.  If you make a one time donation of $50 or more we will send you the gift listed above.  

**Donations to BATs are not tax deductible. BATs is a 501c4 but please donate anyway!

BATs Monthly Newsletter - October

Dear BATs and BAT Supporters -

We want to wish you a wonderful Fall! Fall finds BATs super busy as we fly all over the country sharing our message and vision for public education. BATs will be presenting at the Network for Public Education, the Progressive Education Network, Antioch University, and NEA See Educators Run - just to name a few.  

BATs will enter into year two of our partnership in the #WeChoose National Coalition. On September 26th the coalition had a press conference in DC. Our message has been very clear - #WeChoose Public Education NOT the illusion of choice! To view that event please go here.  https://www.facebook.com/WeChooseEquity/videos/1410126162390633/

Last month BATs proudly signed on as a supporter of the National Education Policy Center call to resist Washington's dangerous vision for U.S. education. You can read more here  http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/children-deserve-better

BATs donated to Harvey, Mexico, and Puerto Rico relief efforts. We encourage all of our allies and followers to please do the same. If you need a place to donate please email us at contact.batmanager@gmail.com and we can point you to someone on the ground that will use every dime of your donation towards children impacted in these areas.

Last month BATs launched our state clearinghouse website. It has been a GREAT success! Here is the link if you missed it https://sites.google.com/view/batstatenews/home

Here is our October Calendar!

Finally, BATs is currently engaged in our Fall Fundraiser for the entire month of October. During this fundraising cycle we are offering some really cool gifts for your kind donations! We hope you will consider becoming a monthly donor. Read more here about what we have done and what our hopes are for the new year

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vucsXQABlBecyIcNup9vk0WmOmCrk7bLye0wJGToZT8/edit?usp=sharing  

Thank you again for your continued support. 

Solidarity

Marla Kilfoyle, Executive Director BATs

Melissa Tomlinson, Asst. Executive Director BATs

BATs Board of Directors and Steering Committee Directors

BATs is a 501c4 - If you would like to donate please go to http://www.badassteacher.org/ and donate at our PayPal button or you can send a check made out to The BadassTeachersAssociation, Inc; P.O. Box 1390, Bellmore, NY 11710.   Donations are NOT tax deductible.

A Parent's Thoughts On Her Children Sitting Through The Pledge Of Allegiance by Rachael Quinn Egan

When asked about my decision to send a letter to teachers to say that my children will sit through the pledge in future:- for background - I am white my daughters are POC and have been watching the NFL protests as well as having a very in-depth education on race in this country. We are big on history in our house. When we take vacations and we visit the sites of founding fathers for example -we spend a lot more time in the enslaved peoples quarters - that is the spot my kids wonder WHY and HOW the most in.

My children know that POC get killed by police officers with impunity because we have a teenager also whom we have had "the talk" with because she drives etc. -she came home to us through adoption at 13 and stopped saying the pledge in CSJ at MHS of her own volition. I have been on a very sharp learning curve myself to ensure that my daughters feel empowered and prepared to live in this country. I worry that they are already disadvantaged in not having had parents who are also POC to raise them with all their more informed life experience. I work hard not to whitewash or brainwash them with my white experience which is so different from what theirs will be certainly once they leave home and my umbrella of privilege. They already feel that the pledge is a disservice to their own race. I only regret I allowed this pledging to go on so long for my youngest two into 4th and 6th grades. It is really ridiculous and dangerous and I think it changes the way Americans react to leadership- I come from a free and democratic country too (Ireland) where we are far more vocal about our politicians and our reporters are far less malleable in interviews (google the time an Irish reporter interviewed GW Bush and how shocked he looked) and I suspect it's because we have not been wrapped in the flag since kindergarten.

Perhaps I see all of this very differently because I did not grow up here and have a very different perspective. As a child, I only saw pledging as a thing that happened in dictatorships.

Letter:

Dear wonderful teachers;
Our daughter >>>>>>, does not want to stand for or take the pledge at school. Until our president and the rest of this nation works to create actual liberty and justice for all I wish for her to be able to sit it out quietly and hope that she will feel supported by her teachers to express her first amendment right. She is the kind of child who wishes to please her elders and works very hard and is a little afraid that she will be seen to be a “troublemaker” when she is quite the opposite. She is really a good and kind-hearted child, but she and the rest of her family can no longer tolerate empty words while people of color are being betrayed by our nation. I have explained that her teachers are kind and will understand and that she will not get into trouble.
Many thanks and warm regards,
Rachael Quinn Egan

Comment On New Paltz District's Racial Equality Initiative by BOE President Michael O'Donnell

Welcome, everyone.

As board members we have all sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of New York. The US Constitution claims to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty. The NY Constitution states that no person shall, because of race, be subjected to any discrimination in his or her civil rights by any institution.

We are failing to live up to our oaths, and as long as we continue to allow institutional racism to persist within our schools, unchecked, we will continue to fail. And let us not be naive enough to believe that systemic racism does not exist in New Paltz. It most certainly does.

This is an uncomfortable truth, but let us recognize that, for most of us within this district and within this community, discomfort is the worst consequence we will suffer from a systemic structure of racism that elevates the interests and welfare of individuals that fit the social construct of whiteness over all others.

Systemic racism is pervasive and ubiquitous. It infects every minute of every day and takes up residence in every corner of every classroom, every hallway, every bus, and every young mind entrusted to this institution.

To combat systemic racism we need solutions that work on the same level -- they need to be pervasive and ubiquitous. We need a mass movement of teachers, administrators, staff, parents, community members, and students to work collectively, District-wide, in the pursuit of progress. We must endeavor to move beyond the concept of being non-racist and toward a culture of anti-racism -- a movement away from a passive, internalized personal journey and toward a continuous, affirmative, and active effort to dismantle institutional racism. We need to address this issue as if lives depend on it -- because they do.

There will be resistance to this effort, and it won’t be carrying a tiki torch or a confederate flag. It will come in the form of a smile. It will speak in neutral language. It will come from outside and within this District. The largest threat to this initiative will not be overtly offensive actions, but rather, indifference. Whiteness carries many privileges -- among them the exclusive and ever-ready option to retreat from the realities of racism at a moment’s discomfort.

That is why I am going to make the audacious request for patience. Institutional racism has a system of defenses centuries in the making -- it will take time to penetrate and dismantle that system. It may seem like I’m asking people of color in our community to continue to endure pain to allow for the most privileged among us to catch up. I am. I wouldn’t ask if I could see any other way, and I sincerely apologize for my request. If a pathway comes to light that is not so unfairly burdensome I will swiftly advocate for a change of course.

How will we ever know if we are making progress? How will we measure success? I’m analytical by nature, so naturally I’d want to see some numbers, some kind of metric to measure progress, but I don’t think that will work in this case. Progress will only be made when change is deeply, truly, and emotionally felt by people of color in this community. It will be measured in spontaneous outbursts of hope and the absence of distress. When it comes to gauging the impact of racism we need to stop litigating the case and start listening.

The stakes are very high. Failure could lead to damage that takes years or decades to repair. Success on this front would mark the most consequential improvement this school district in a generation, or, perhaps, ever. Let us seek success by being united, vigilant, honest, and brave.

Thank you.