Final Report: Understanding Racial Inequity in School Discipline Across the Richmond Region

As described in this initial post, I was on the research team of a study of disparate disciplinary practices in Richmond, Virginia, area K-12 public schools being conducted by MERC (Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium ) at my graduate school institution, Virginia Commonwealth University.

I participated in this podcast on the topic and was a third author on this policy brief, entitled, Why do racial disparities in school discipline exist? The role of policies, processes, people, and places. In May 2018, we published another policy brief, which I was first author on, entitled, A Review of Disciplinary Interventions in K12 Public Education.

Well, at long last the final report is out, Understanding Racial Inequity in School Discipline Across the Richmond Region. It is long but well worth the read--very well done. Here is the abstract:

This report comes from the MERC Achieving Racial Equity in School Disciplinary Policies and Practices study. Launched in the spring of 2015, the purpose of this mixed- method study was to understand the factors related to disproportionate school discipline outcomes in MERC division schools. The study had two phases. Phase one (quantitative) used primary and secondary data to explore racial disparities in school discipline in the MERC region as well as discipline programs schools use to address them. Phase two (qualitative) explored the implementation of discipline programs in three MERC region schools, as well as educator and student perceptions of school discipline and racial disproportionality. This report shares findings from both phases of our study and offers numerous implications and recommendations for research, policy, and practice.

I encourage you to read the whole thing. In the meantime Justin Mattingly of the Richmond Times-Dispatch has published this good synopsis of it:

Schools in the Richmond region suspend black students at four times the rate of white students, a gap that exceeds the national average. 

One in five black students in the region received an out-of-school suspension during the 2015-16 school year, according to a new study, compared to 5% of white students. Across the country, it's closer to 15% and 5%, according to federal data. 

The finding is part of a new study from the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium, the local research arm of Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Education. The study, conducted over the past four years, analyzed data from seven area school districts and looked at the racial disparities in school discipline. 

What researchers found didn’t surprise them -- inequities in school discipline are common across the state and country -- but their analysis says the problem is slightly worse here; the effort also explored alternative discipline programs and considered how school districts can eliminate the gap.

I'm only the sixth of nine authors but I was so glad to be a part of it. I hope I can do my part now and in the future to help change these disparities and their root causes.

On becoming Dr. Levy

So. . .

At the end of the Summer 2018 semester, I became a doctor.

Much gratitude to Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Education and the Department of Educational Leadership, especially to my adviser, Charol Shakeshaft, on the left, and to my committee members Katherine Mansfield (on the screen), Genevieve-Siegel-Hawley, and Tressie McMillan Cottom (not pictured).

I may have the longest dissertation title ever: The Intersection of Economic Disadvantage and Race and the Expanded Role of Parent-Led School-Supporting Nonprofit Organizations in K-12 Public Schools in the Richmond, Virginia, Metropolitan Area: A Mixed Methods Approach.

Since then, I have served on the faculty as an adjunct professor, teaching a doctoral-level course, The Politics of Education (I will likely post separately about that) and have been on the job market (I will also probably post about that). 

Oh, and I participated in VCU's December graduation ceremony, and got to wear a silly hat for most of the day.

 (Me and some of my former classmates and fellow grads.)

 (Getting hooded by my adviser.)

(Me with my adviser Charol Shakeshaft and one of my other very influential professors, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley.) 

(Me with Jon Becker, a member of my department and the person who got me into this mess.)

Speaking of getting me into this mess, it was via twitter and this blog and his that Jon and I got to know one another.  He encouraged me to apply to the doctoral program in educational leadership and policy at VCU. I did. Once I started the Ph.D. program, I decided to focus my time and energy, and writing efforts, there instead of on the blog and other education writing. I have updated it from time to time, mostly with academic publications but with some other thoughts and efforts, too.

Once I see what happens with the job search, I will decide what to do with the blog, if anything different. For now, I am enjoying being done and am working on trying to achieve my first post-graduation publication.

Podcast: Racial Disproportionality in Disciplinary Practices

A big topic in educational policy and practice right now is disparate disciplinary practices. Essentially, black students, especially males, and students with disabilities are subject to disproportionally high rates of exclusionary discipline practices (suspensions and expulsions) and what they are being disciplined for is often subjective behaviors, such as disrespect, versus objective behaviors, such as smoking cigarettes on school grounds. This is an especially big topic in the state of Virginia and in the region of Virginia--central Virginia--where I live and study. See this recent article about it in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

A congressman has called for a federal investigation of disparities in student treatment within the Richmond region’s schools.

U.S. Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-4th, requested an investigation by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on Monday, the same day that a Richmond Times-Dispatch article detailed higher suspension rates and over-identification of African-American students with disabilities.

The Virginia Department of Education cited Henrico and Chesterfield counties for suspending black students with disabilities at a disproportionately high rate over several years. The department cited Richmond because the city’s African-American students with disabilities have been more likely to be identified as having an “other health impairment” than other students with disabilities.

Chesterfield, Henrico and Richmond are among seven Virginia school districts mandated to set aside federal money received under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act this year to combat the pattern.

This problem is not new at all, for example, see this article from 2012. And, there's lots more where that came from.

How do I know so much about this? How is it that I have read almost every single report, news and journal article about this? Well, I am part of a MERC research team studying the issue in the Richmond, Virginia, area. The Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium (MERC) comprises "a partnership between seven Richmond-area school divisions and the VCU School of Education" that "plans, conducts, and disseminates community-engaged action and applied research."

A few months ago, I took part with other team members in a MERC podcast about the study. If you want to learn more, I encourage you to take a listen.

Why DeVos Might Lose

So far, Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education, seems to be one of the most, if not the most, unpopular of all of the cabinet nominees. That's not to say that she won't be confirmed. But as of my writing this, she has not been confirmed and only one more vote from the Republicans is needed to deny her the appointment.

Why is this? Well, just as there was bi-partisan unpopularity (aside from GOP establishment types) of Eric Cantor in Virginia's 7th district (my old district) during the 2014 elections, there is bi-partisan unpopularity of Betsy DeVos.

1. She is a blatant pay-to-play actor. She bought the Michigan legislature. She has given tens of thousands of dollars to several Senate Education Committee members. The way Cantor thought he was above members of the public, she operates in a way that shows she believes she is above members of public. On this point, this ad by End Citizens United is particularly devastating:


2. Besides purchasing pet education policies, Betsy Devos has no experience in education at all. Proposing someone to be U.S. Secretary of Education who has no experience in education at all is a slap in the face to all educators. Public school teachers and educators are tiring of getting crapped on and they are tired of people with little to no experience in education telling them what to do. Teachers got crapped on by the Bush administration and then the Obama administration and they are tired of it. Kind of like no one outside of the GOP establishment liked Cantor, hardly anyone who actually worked in public schools or had children in them liked Obama's education policies. Mostly insulated centrist Democratic and moderate Republican DC wonks and education reform-types liked Obama's education policies. Many of the policies that DeVos advocates for, including the Common Core, are part of the bi-partisan education reform regime that we have all been suffering through.


3. I live in a very conservative area of Virginia where public schools are very popular. In fact, public schools are very popular in many conservative areas in Virginia. 53% of white women voted for Trump. Public school teachers are 82% white and 76% female. Of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members who voted, roughly one in five of them voted for Trump.  Among National Education Association (NEA) member voters, more than one in three likely voted for Trump.

Basically, there is bi-partisan support of public schools. A small majority of white women voted for Trump. A large majority of teachers are white women.  They might have voted for Trump (and I don't have time right now to get into how messed up that is) but that doesn't mean they take kindly to being insulted by the nomination of someone who has no experience in education and who doesn't support the work they do anyway.


4.  Parents of students with disabilities are Republicans and they are Democrats and they are Independents. Disabilities do not manifest themselves in children according to the political party of their parents. These parents are very organized and they are very big advocates for their children and their groups are very powerful. I see this where I live, too. I also have a child with a (medical) disability. Except in extreme cases, because of IDEA, a child with disabilities has a better chance of being accommodated, served, and better educated in public schools than in private schools, let alone religious schools. The idea that a child with disabilities is to be protected and equitably educated is largely a mainstream, assumed one that is part of the fabric of public schooling. I have rights as a parent of a student with a disability, my child has rights as a student with a disability, it's on paper, and everybody knows it. Everybody, that is, except for Betsy DeVos. She has shown an ignorance of IDEA and a callousness towards students with disabilities. That is a big bi-partisan, political no-no.


5. In her confirmation hearing, Betsy DeVos came across as robotic, fumbling, clueless, lacking in leadership skills, and bland. I have yet to meet a bland educational leader who serves in a public position. Her answer to every question was a smile and  "choice." She knew nothing beyond her own ideology.

Q: What would you do to serve students with disabilities?
A: Choice.

Q: What is your plan to stem bullying?
A: Choice.

Q: How are you going to enforce civil rights laws in our public schools?
A: Choice.

Q: What are you going to do about sexual assault on college campuses?
A: Choice.

Q: What are going to do when we give you follow-up questions to answer?
A: Plagiarize.

Plagiarizing may be part of the Trump administration modus operandi and education reform ideologues might be able to overlook it, but it does not go over well with parents and educators.


6. Betsy DeVos is a woman. She is completely unqualified but she is a woman. I don't doubt that Democrats (except for Eva Moskowitz) would oppose her nomination even if she were a man. But I wonder if a completely unqualified man would get put through the same thing.

Book Review: The End of Consensus

I wanted to announce my first official academic publication. Woot, woot!

It's a second-authored book review in Teachers College Record with one of the professors at VCU who I work with, Dr. Genevieve Siegel-Hawley. The book is The End of Consensus: Diversity, Neighborhoods, and the Politics of Public School Assignments by Toby L. Parcel and Andrew J. Taylor.  Here is the first paragraph:

Changes to student assignment policies that determine who goes to school with whom typically engender political controversies around race, class, opportunity and equity. In 2009, North Carolina’s Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), which includes the city of Raleigh, drew national attention as area leaders debated over significant shifts to a student assignment policy long been held up as a model for promoting diversity and equity. In a fast-growing city-suburban district historically committed to comprehensive school desegregation, the tensions between old and new, conservative and progressive and narrowly- and broadly-defined community came to a head. North Carolina State University sociologist Toby L. Parcel and political scientist Andrew J. Taylor take us into the heart of these controversies in their recent book, The End of Consensus. Parcel and Taylor’s principal findings, laid out over seven concise chapters, showcase a tension between those who prioritized heterogeneous schools versus those who prioritized neighborhood schools.

If you want to read the whole thing, I think it might be behind a paywall, though I had somehow thought that the book reviews in TCR were open access.

Post 2016 Election Post

I have long outgrown (I hope) shaming, scolding, and ranting.  I am sobered, I am humbled, and I am devastated.  I will say that, yes, more empathy, compassion, and understanding is needed, but this goes both ways.  If people like me should understand why others voted for Trump (and I agree that we should), they need to understand why people like me find that vote threatening--threatening to us, to people we love and to people we've never even met (especially to non-white, non-Christian, non-straight, non-cis male people), to our society and the world, and to our values.  For more of what might articulate what I am thinking and feeling, read this twitter thread by Michael Schur.

As for education, I don't have some detailed post on what a Trump presidency would mean for education; I am only able to string together some thoughts and recommendations.

1.  I am leaving the details of why Trump happened to others, but I will say that ultimately there are many reasons Trump won and that social science can help to tell us what those were.  And we need both quantitative and qualitative research to tell us.  Quantitative can tell us what and who but it can't tell us why.  We can also examine the policies that impact voting and see where they were oppressive and where they were facilitative.  Otherwise, while we know the extent of racism, sexism, homophobia, bigotry, ableism, and xenophobia in our country is great, we don't know what each American eligible to vote was thinking when they went into the voting booth or made a choice not to vote, or neglected to register in the first place.  But that can and should be studied.

Recommendation #1: Read, respect, and support high quality social scientific research that studies people of all groups and researchers that represent people of all groups.


2. Although I won't, others have written generally about what a Trump presidency might mean for education.  A good place to start is this straightforward piece from Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute.  Mike is a Republican and people like him would know best what Republicans might try to implement.  The most comprehensive, yet concise piece I have read on what education policy might look like is this by one of my favorite education journalists, Emma Brown of the Washington Post.  Otherwise, there is tons of stuff up at Education Week, this, for example.  As we have found out, we need to support journalism, especially investigative journalism, more than ever.  I have said this for a long time.  I am an education news junkie.  I don't pay for all of my content, but I happily pay for a lot of it.

Recommendation #2: Read people who you don't agree with and who make you uncomfortable--they can tell you things you won't pick up on by only reading people you agree with.

Recommendation #2a: If you don't already, invest in journalism. I repeat: read, support, and pay for journalism, especially investigative journalism.  Demand that journalists be of diverse backgrounds and groups and that coverage reflect that diversity.


3. If you read the links in #2, you will see, according to what he said on the campaign trail and who is advising him on education so far, that Trump supports the current traditional Republican agenda, that is privatization, school "choice," and the complete elimination of education as a public good.  In my opinion, those are not good policies--they are not good for public education but they also are not good for our society.  Public schools are flawed and as an institution have been tools of segregation and oppression but they are our best model for sustaining a pluralistic democracy.  Public schools are where kids (hopefully) from all kinds of backgrounds and families come together and navigate the world.  Privatization and "choice" will end that.  Keep in mind that privatization and school "choice" are part of what we've been contending with for a long time, including from the Obama administration, though most centrist Democrats do draw the line at vouchers.

And education is a matter that is largely left to states and localities.  Trump has indicated that he would leave education to the states and localities to a even greater extent than ESSA does.  However, at the same time, he has said things such as that he wants to abolish Common Core, which is a state matter.  He has no record of governing (he has never held office), has no demonstrated expertise or knowledge of policy, is unpredictable, is, and is especially interested in amassing power.  Education does not appear to be much on his radar screen.  So some of what happens will depend upon his education-related appointments, but otherwise, who knows how much he will leave education to states and localities and how much he will want to control himself?  Who knows what he will do?

Recommendation #3: If you are not already, now is the time to get engaged in your local and state governance.  That is the only thing that is left.  Learn all about your local and state governing bodies, including your school boards. Learn about the issues and policies.  Get informed.  Talk with your fellow community members about the issues and policies.  Comment publicly on what your local and state governing bodies are doing and what you as a citizen, taxpayer, and constituent want them to do.  Cherish those public democratic institutions and work to preserve them and keep them healthy.  Work to get people from diverse backgrounds and different groups elected and appointed to such bodies. Serve in those bodies yourself. Contribute and be a participant.  I can't stress this enough.  I have long said that local and state governance is the most important and this is more true than ever.  Neo-liberals have demonstrated disdain for institutions and matters of local and state governance.  Obama's principal Secretary of Education Arne Duncan thought school boards were dysfunctional and a nuisance.  Do not follow this example.  Set a new one.  When you fail to engage with your local and state institutions, you leave a void for others or nobody to fill.  Local and state political leaders are obligated to serve their constituents and they need to be held accountable. We have to make them serve the public, ALL members of the public.


4. Going back to federal education, while I stated that much of what Trump has said about education aligns with current initiatives in education generally, there will be a large, devastating difference from the Obama administration in terms of the focus of the Department of Education.  Trump may work to eliminate the Department of Education, he may completely redirect the way federal funds for education are used (Title I, for example, and Pell Grants).  Civil rights components and integration initiatives will be gutted.  So much of the work that has been done towards establishing even just a fragile understanding of white supremacy and just a small start to countering and dismantling it will likely be lost.  This will have devastating effects.

Recommendation #4: Get involved and be present in your community's schools, in your children's schools. Advocate for diverse school staffs and diverse curricula. Tell your local educators that you know that they can't control what kids learn at home, but that once in school, you expect everyone be treated with respect and dignity and to be kept safe.  If you hear something or see something, say something.  Right now, there are many kids in schools (including many traditional public schools) who are just trying to survive. Read this --it's alarming but you must read it.  It's always been this way on some level, especially for Muslim, black, Latino, LGBT, and immigrant students and students with disabilities, but now it's even worse and female and all other non-Christian students are also in more danger. The country will have a president, unless the electors of electoral college step up to the plate, who is a white nationalist sexual predator and whose behavior would violate the code of conduct in many of our children's schools and warrant suspension if not expulsion, not to mention arrest and conviction outside of school.  Our schools will be charged with enforcing codes of conduct to keep students safe from sexual assault, bullying, harassment, and attacks. Many are being bullied, intimidated, provoked, and in some cases attacked. They need our support and protection.

It isn't much, but that's all I got. Stay safe and remember to breathe.

NAACP calls for a moratorium on charter schools but the devil is in the (state) details

Julian Vasquez was one of the first, if not the first, to report that the NAACP called for a moratorium on charter schools. Please read his post as well as the copy of the resolution itself that he posted.

Here are my thoughts:

This is a big deal. In many cases, or at least some, civil rights groups and those representing black and Latino communities were not initially, necessarily against charters. Even if they had reservations, many saw them as an alternative to the traditional public schools TPSs) where many black and Latino have been not been served well by traditional public schools. It is easy for those of us who have been well served by traditional public schools to oppose charter schools, but it's not been a no-brainer for those who haven't been and who can blame them. That the national NAACP has essentially put their foot down on this means something.

However . . .

1. (And their resolution acknowledges this if you examine the language) charter laws are made state-by-state.  Certainly, federal policy, such as RTTT (Race to the Top) can influence the proliferation of charter schools with funding incentives (or lack thereof) and other types of support. But it's at the state level where charters are born and made and it's state laws that determine their regulation, their proliferation, and their governance structures. Every state is different. So while this will have influence at the national level, we'll have to see what individual NAACP chapters do, what each individual's state charter laws and climate is, and what state legislatures do.

2. I could be wrong but the language seems to indicate a moratorium on "privately managed charters" and perhaps even just "for-profit" charter schools. With some exceptions (and remember, this changes depending on the state), all charter schools are privately managed, meaning their governing boards or entities are privately chosen or appointed. There is no public process. (In Virginia, charter schools are permitted but they must be approved by local school bards and then they are still subject to, although not as strictly as TPSs, their governance, they are still under democratic control--we have very sound charter school laws here.) So yes, saying no more "privately managed" charter schools is kind of like saying no more charter schools. But, the distinction between "for-profit" and "non-profit" charter schools is much blurrier. For one, they can still be financed the same. Second, non-profits can still have dealings that foster profiteering and that involve corrupting profit-motives. Third, the governance of non-profits charter schools can still be private and non-democratic, which is the real issue. The funding and profit-making generally come out of the governance. To learn more about this (or maybe see what I got wrong here :) I highly recommend you read Baker and Miron's (2015) report about this.

I have had another little charter school-themed post in the works for a while which I hope to have up sometime in the next week. Stay tuned . . .

For what it's worth, my take on Tim Kaine

As her "contact in Virginia," Diane Ravitch asked me several days ago to write a piece on her blog about Tim Kaine and Anne Holton. I agreed.

I know he didn't give the greatest speech at the convention last night. He had too much makeup on. People on twitter made all kinds of youth-pastor-dad-jokes-substitute-teacher-who-tries-to-teach-you-something jokes about him. I laughed. (But then I felt guilty about it after.) Maybe it will be in the future, but a convention like that is not his best venue. But I think that's a good thing. It means he is not slick.  You don't walk away feeling fired up but without really knowing what you're fired up about. They certainly don't always get it right, but he and his wife are in public service and politics to actually help people and make our society a better place. What a novelty.

Anyway, I hope you will read what I wrote and I hope those skeptics out there will give him a chance:

I had never heard a politician speak so earnestly and so frankly. He told his story. What stood out the most was his emphasis on local politics. He didn’t seem to see local political work as grunt work you have to do to get to next level; he saw it as the most important type of work you can do, serving the public and serving your community. 

Please read the whole thing.

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Virginia Education Legislation

There are many interesting education bills before the Virginia legislature this year. I should have written a post exploring the most important ones and what position I take on them, but I didn't, so now I will feature the most, most important ones. Before I do that I want to thank the bloggers at VASB (Virginia Association of School Boards) and VEA (Virginia Education Association) for keeping us Virginia education policy geeks so well informed. For further information on various bills for the Virginia General Assembly and to find out who your legislators are and how to contact them, go here.


1. I'm going to start with the really, enormously huge stinker that is Senator Obenshain’s SJR256 (the House bill is HJR 526) which proposes a constitutional amendment that would take away decision-making power regarding the establishment of charter schools in school divisions from local school boards and hand it over to the nine-member Virginia Board of Education, which is appointed by the Governor. This is another version of the Opportunity Education Institution (which was found unconstitutional)--see what I think of that horror show here and here. Whatever you think of charter schools, whether or not to establish them is a decision for local communities and their school boards to make, not for a bunch of Governor appointees.

This initiative is an affront to democracy and an affront to local control, and the fact that the bill's supporters are using the democratic process and the state's own Constitution to undermine the democratic process and to disenfranchise citizens is offensive. If you contact your delegate and senator about any education matter this legislative session, make it this one. Unfortunately, it already passed the Senate on a 21-17 vote with all Republicans supporting it and all Democrats voting against it. I guess Republican State Senators in Virginia are opposed to local control. Contact your delegate and senator and tell them you oppose this bill.


2. HB1328 would require school principals to assess and report the immigration status of students at their schools. This is wrong on many levels. Immigration policy enforcement is not the job of school principals (and they have enough on their plates as it is). This would put school administrators in the role of immigration officers and pose a real ethical dilemma for them, and it would intimidate students and parents who are immigrants, keeping them from going to school. Contact your delegate and senator and tell them you oppose this bill.


3. The "Tebow" bill which permits home-schooled high school students to participate in public school sports at their local high schools passed the House 57 to 41 on Thursday. It was defeated last year. For my thoughts on this bill, see last year's post on VA GA education legislation. Then, contact your senator and tell them to oppose this bill.


4. The first bill is already dead and gone but it would have reduced the number of SOL tests from 29 to 17. The Senate Education and Health Committee rejected the bill on a 9 to 6 vote. Thanks to Senator John Miller (D-Newport News) for proposing  this. Please contact your delegate and senator and let them know you support this type of bill.

Tell Governor McAuliffe: no OEI, no way, no how.

About two weeks ago, Virginians got this great news about the state's new anti-democratic education bureaucracy, the Opportunity Educational Institution:

A judge has ruled that the state's plan to take over failing schools violates the Virginia constitution. 

The idea had been to establish Opportunity Educational Institution to take control of six schools, including three in Norfolk, that were denied accreditation by the state Board of Education. Tuesday's ruling by Norfolk Circuit Court Judge Charles Poston strikes down the plan. 

The state can appeal.

In case you missed it, I wrote about my misgivings about the OEI in this post a little over a year ago:

According to this post, the OEI would take over schools that were denied accreditation, which is done in accordance with "federal accountability data," also known as standardized test scores. The Institution will be run by a board of gubernatorial appointees, which includes the executive director. There is no guarantee that the board would include any people who know anything about education. The board would contract with non-profits, corporations, or education organizations to operate the schools. Funding for the new bureaucracy would be provided by federal, state, and local taxpayers. The "failing" schools' local governing bodies would be represented on the board in some way, but they would lose decision-making power and would not be able to vote or, from what I can tell, have much meaningful input, besides providing the same share of local funding and being responsible for maintenance of the school building. As for staffing, current faculty at the schools being taken over could apply for a position as a new employee with the OEI or apply for a transfer.

First of all, the following Virginia education stakeholder organizations are all opposed to these measures: Virginia Association of Counties, Virginia Municipal League, Virginia School Boards Association, Virginia Association of School Superintendents, Virginia Association of Secondary School Principals, Virginia Association of Elementary School Principals, Virginia PTA, Virginia First Cities, and Virginia Education Association. 

Second, although there are under ten schools currently slated to be part of the OEI, with the new more "rigorous" (read: more tricky) SOL tests, and no end in sight to unreasonable federal accountability mandates, many more schools, such as one in your community, could find themselves getting swallowed up by the OEI. 

Third, there's no evidence that state takeover of struggling schools and districts helps. In fact, the evidence is at bestmixed. The Governor and his policy allies are basing this approach on the system in New Orleans, which thus far has not proven successful. That Virginia would use as a model a city that hasn't had much educational success doesn't make sense. Michigan has also turned many public services over to the private sector, including the schools of Muskegon Heights. So far, that approach has been a disaster. 

Finally, eliminating democratic institution and processes in a democratic society is not a cure for dysfunction or low test scores. Certainly, mass failure on the SOL tests signals a problem, but before the state blames and disenfranchises school communities, it really needs to figure out what that problem is and then target its resources accordingly. While many majority poor schools do just fine on standardized tests, I think we all know that the schools with low standardized test scores are often majority poor. Last I checked, being poor isn't a reason to disenfranchise communities and hand their schools over to outsiders.

Now, the pro-OEI folks are urging the current Governor, McAuliffe to appeal this ruling:

Members of the Opportunity Educational Institution’s board voted Wednesday to recommend to McAuliffe that he appeal the Norfolk Circuit Court judge’s decision to the Virginia Supreme Court, a move also supported by former Gov. Bob McDonnell, who championed the OEI during his term.

I am urging you to contact Governor McAuliffe's administration (804-786-2211) to tell him to let the court's ruling stand. The OEI is bad for democracy, it's bad for local control, it's bad for public education, and it will add another layer of expensive and superfluous bureaucracy. If people want charter schools in their local communities, let them work that out among members of their local community, via a democratic process and under the umbrella of the local school division; charter schools and privatization should not be imposed from up high by the state.

Although it is likely that the OEI would takeover only schools with a majority of students from families struggling with poverty, which is grossly unjust all by itself, if any community's school happens to do poorly for a spell on our low-quality SOL tests, that school could be ripe for OEI takeover and that community ripe for disenfranchisement and loss of local control. In other words, it's a slippery slope. I appreciate that Virginia education decision makers want more "tools" to help struggling schools, but they need to find tools that don't disenfranchise local education stakeholders.

Are standardized testing and absence of oversight civil rights?

During the next several days, when I am taking breaks from my budding career as a statistics wonderkid, I will be guest posting along with Diana Senechal and Michael Lopez over at Joanne Jacobs' blog.

My first post is in response to Politico education reporter Stephanie Simon's article about the tensions in Louisiana between Bobby Jindal and John White:

Now, this isn’t a post about the merits of the Common Core Standards or their associated assessments, though that is fodder for many long and complex conversations (to see what I have said about the Common Core, go here), nor is it about the politics behind Jindal’s about-face. Rather, it is about John White’s hysteria and perversion of the term “civil rights.”

Please head over and read the whole thing.

Thoughts & questions on race and grassroots education reform

Riffing off of my last post, I have been thinking a lot lately about the intersection of race and the grassroots education reform movement. Here are some thoughts/questions I have come up with:

1.  What a person knows about race dynamics constantly evolves, no matter how long or how much one has been involved in struggles against racism, or how involved one has been in communities of color. Once we understand once, we will continue to learn and to struggle to understand the next time. Dynamics change, laws change, circumstances change, younger people come in with their own unique perspectives, perspectives that have been influenced by current times, not the past (even if they have studied the past).

White people may know people of color personally--they may be members of our families, friends, co-workers, co-activists, neighbors, students, or teachers, but those are personal relationships which may not manifest the same shifts that take place in society.

Furthermore, what was once considered an acceptable compromise or alliance may not be so in a different context or era. If we claim that progress has been made, then we can not expect people of color to make the same compromises and alliances that their predecessors made. Why shouldn't they?

2. Some white progressive  (or other) public education activists seem to think that their first priority is to preserve public education and that those efforts will inevitably help to address structural racism. Are those efforts enough? I don't know, but it seems too simplistic to me. Too often, white public education activists seem to say, "You are hurting our common cause by bringing internal issues of race up" rather than "I am hurting the cause by not addressing issues of race."

3. Some white educators who teach a majority of students of color seem to think that because of that, they are engaged in social justice work, or in anti-racism work. But even if you serve students of color and serve them well as an educator, does that mean you're engaged in social justice or anti-racism work? I'm not so sure. It seems to me that there has to be something more to such work. Also, you can teach mostly or all white students and be engaged in anti-racism or pro-social justice work, as well.

4. Speaking of social justice, I hear that phrase batted about so much so that I wonder if it has lost its meaning somewhat. Or, maybe people just don't seem to know what they mean when they say it. How does one define social justice? Well, here's the definition of "social justice" from John Rawls and Aristotle via wikipedia:

Social justice is the ability people have to realize their potential in the society where they live.^[1] Classically, "justice" (especially corrective justice or distributive justice) referred to ensuring that individuals both fulfilled their societal roles,^[2] and received what was due from society. "Social justice" is generally used to refer to a set of institutions which will enable people to lead a fulfilling life and be active contributors to their community.^[3] The goal of social justice is generally the same as human development, and the relevant institutions are usually taken to include education, health care, social security, labour rights, as well as a broader system of public services, progressive taxation and regulation of markets, to ensure fair distribution of wealth, equality of opportunity, and no gross inequality of outcome.

Sounds good to me. But do all stakeholders agree on this? In any case, just because you call something "social justice" doesn't mean that it is.

5. I'm wondering if there's a disconnect between public education activists who are anti-charter and parents of color who send their children to charter schools. I see a certain amount of judgement of people of color who send their kids to charter schools, especially the for-profits and "no excuses" chains. While I am troubled by the proliferation of charter schools, and especially of those of for-profits and no excuses variety, and have problems seeing them as public democratic institutions, I am also loathe to judge people who send their children to them. I'm not seeing where most people of color are gung-ho about sending their children to such charters, but rather that they see it as the least bad option. Or maybe, it's matter of values matching up. Even as I acknowledge that the "market" is rigged in well-endowed charter chains' favors, I find it problematic to assume that people whose children go to them are simply pawns of that system. We need to find out why people of color send their children to charter schools when they do. Furthermore, we need to acknowledge that the traditional public school system has not served students of color as well as it has white students. I don't think that that means we should destroy the traditional public schools system--I think we should make it better for all students, but "rigged market" aside, we need to explore what might cause people who would otherwise support public schools to leave them.

6. When people say "we need to reach out to communities of color" and the group they are addressing includes people of color, there is something wrong. That "we" is excluding and sounds like the people of color already in the group are invisible. Furthermore, whose movement is it? Who owns it? If said policies are affecting mostly communities of color, should white people put themselves in charge of the movement?

7. Sometimes, I see or read about injustices that happen to people of color in the education sector and I am outraged or troubled and I want to write about them. I can use any megaphone I have to try to get others thinking about these things, to try to effect change, and I can use my white privilege to try to get through to those who don't see a problem. But in doing that, am I co-opting the outrage? Am I associating the problem with me, a white woman, rather than "making space for people of color to share their experiences directly," as a friend of color recently spoke of? By listening to and talking to someone who might not listen as easily to my black, native American, Asian or Latina equivalent, am I perpetuating their racism?

Where's the line between being an ally and an activist and being patronizing or speaking for people of color? I mean, I know where the line is in some cases. I am not Trayvon Martin, for example, and it made me cringe to see white women saying #iamtrayvonmartin. I remember thinking, No , you're not. If you were Trayvon Martin, he wouldn't be dead. That's the whole point. Maybe I shouldn't have published this piece, for example. But the guy was making all of these racist assumptions (based on inaccuracies to boot!) and it made me mad. But was it my place to rant about it? Was I co-opting?

8. Even in 2014, inequality is not just "about class, not race." It's seductive to think so, and I went through a phase of thinking this, but espousing such a point of view means ignoring the role of history on conditions today and it means telling a person of color that the prejudice they experience does not exist. Even if it is more about class now than race, race very much determined class, and still does at least to a certain extent. I refer you to Ta-Nehisi Coates:

When you hear people claiming that "class" can somehow account for the damage of white supremacy, or making spurious comparisons between Appalachia and Harlem,  you should be skeptical. I have made those comparisons. But learning is the entire point of researching, writing, and reporting. I am learning that you can not simply wish the past away. 

White-supremacist policy is older than this country. It begins with the slave codes in mid-17th-century colonial Virginia. It proceeds through the the 18th century, inscribing itself into our Constitution. It moves into the 19th century with such force that slaves alone were worth more than all the productive capacity of the country put together. War was waged to assure slavery's continuance. The war was lost. We had a chance to do the right thing. We didn't. So white supremacist policy endured. Even American liberalism's proudest moment -- the New Deal -- would be unimaginable without its aid. This era of policy did not close until the late 1960s, well within the living memory of many Americans. 

In the face of this, liberals today are arguing that 300 years of immoral policy can be undone by changing the subject. If only we can fool white racists by helping black people under the guise of "class," maybe we can get out from under this. But the math says that black people are a class unto themselves. There is no "black and white" elite, no "black and white" middle class, no colorless poor. And when you consider that white supremacy is a dominant strain in our history, how could there be? 

On strange bedfellows in ed reform skepticism

Lately there has been some debate over whether progressives align themselves with the Tea Party to defeat the Common Core. I would argue that progressives should be skeptical of aligning ourselves with Tea Party at all because it is an affront to anti-racism and it may lead us to win the battle but lose the war for public education.

Within the progressive white education reform movement, there seems to be a troubling double standard, among some members. Why is it an unacceptable violation take Gates money, find common ground with Gates, or consider any potential merits of the Common Core, while working with the Tea Party (many members of which don't think public education should exist) on one issue is acceptable because it's "pragmatic"?

 Nancy Flanagan brought it up a couple of months ago and concluded:

Agreeing with the folks who see the Common Core as tearing children from the arms of their parents is a dangerous business. Let's have a rational conversation about the uses and misuses of content standards.

I agree: Public education advocacy work should be about policies and not about aligning ourselves with individuals or groups--in this case policies about standards and discussions about their use. If individuals or groups endorse the same policies I do, so be it. If your elected official happens to be a Tea Partier, you should still call them to express your views. Just because members of the Tea Party are in power doesn't mean we should abdicate our rights and powers as citizens, or that we should give up hope that people can change their opinions. I will never surrender my rightful role in the political process or give up give up efforts, if I think they might be fruitful, to change someone's point of view.

Jose Vilson addressed the issue on his blog and at the NPE:

There’s a big difference between having a difference of opinion, as so many do with our union representatives, for example, and a difference of vision. The difference is in how we view others in the same tent. Do we see each other as equal, capable of leading this movement, or as subordinate, a step towards a goal that eventually excludes? Inclusion along race, gender, and class lines matters. Examining the ways in which we hinder ourselves is so crucial to this work.

Some have responded to this by saying that saving public education is the bigger picture. But whose bigger picture? Don't they understand that for people of color, the bigger picture includes one where they are not considered as less than others because of the color of their skin? Asking people in the public education advocacy community to compartmentalize racism and "balance it" with other concerns is not reasonable. None of us should be doing that, none of us should lose sight of the components of the bigger picture. Part of white privilege is having the luxury to compartmentalize issues, i.e., saying this is about race and this isn't, or even though this is about race, I can see past that to the bigger picture. And in that case we're also, as white people, controlling the conversation, i.e., "This is/isn't about race because I say it is." or "Race doesn't matter here as much as preserving public education because that's the issue that is most important to me." Of course it wouldn't matter as much to a white person because it doesn't have to. No one is going to shoot one of us for walking down the street or stopping in a gas station while being white. Furthermore, what if the Tea Party's bigger picture includes the end of public education?

Reading Ta-Nehisi Coates on supporting Ron Paul and Rand Paul is instructive here. The War on Drugs and War on Terror/ NSA over-reach are awful policies that Ron and Rand Paul are against. But both have also promoted all kinds of racist bile. (And also think public education should not exist). I agree that the War on Drugs needs to end but I can not see getting it to end by propping up men such as Ron or Rand Paul even if temporarily. If you read some of TNC's thoughts about his peers' embracing of the Pauls you can get an idea of the position that any alliance with the Tea Party regarding Common Core puts a person of color from our public education community in:

To those who dimly perceived something wrong, something that could not be put on a placard, or could not move the party machine, men such as this become something more than political operators, they become symbols. Substantive charges against them, no matter the reasons, are dismissed. The movement they represent means more. But as sure as the followers of Farrakhan deserved more than UFOs, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories, those of us who oppose the drug-war, who oppose the Patriot Act deserve better than Ron Paul. 

It is not enough to simply proffer Paul as a protest candidate.One must fully imagine the import of a Paul presidency. How, precisely, would Paul end the drug war? What, exactly, would he do about the Middle East? How, specifically,would the world look for women under a Ron Paul presidency?  

And then the dispatches must be honestly grappled with: It must be argued that a man who could not manage a newsletter should be promoted to managing a nuclear arsenal. Failing that, it must be asserted that a man who once claimedthat black people were knowingly injecting white people with HIV, who fund-raised by predicting a race-war, who handsomely profited from it all, should lead the free world. If that line falls too, we are forced to confess that  Ron Paul regularly summoned up the specters of racism for his own politically gain, and thus stands convicted of moral cowardice.

It's a no-brainer and it should be. I, Rachel, might protest Big Data or the Common Core but I protest far more any person or group who thinks people of color as less than white people or who thinks the Civil Rights movement is bogus. I'm willing to talk and listen to them but I'm not willing to prop up people of such political views even temporarily.

I have written a few times about the shortcomings of single-issue advocacy. Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst defend their support of anti-gay, anti-poor people, and otherwise right-wing legislators by saying that their issue is education reform and not GLTB rights or poverty. And our community is always criticizing TFA for taking Walton money. Well, this is not dissimilar. To quote myself:

When reformers see fit to hand over the reigns of a sacred, public, democratic institution to people who hate the government, how is that supposed to work out? How can these education "reformers" imagine that anti-intellectuals can have anything of substance to offer to the intellectual pursuit of education? Is getting your questionable education reforms passed really worth empowering people who don't value knowledge-based education, public or otherwise? At some point, being anti-science and anti-intellectual means you're anti-education. If you have disdain for the creation of knowledge, or for knowledge itself even, you can't really be trusted to oversee the reform of one of our society's principal mechanisms for generating and transferring knowledge. 

The problem with a single-issue approach to education reform is that students don't lead single-issue lives. Democrats and neo-liberals who support decision-makers who would use their power to crush the Democratic party (through a war on unions of all stripes), who hate gay people, who deny climate change science, who support the disastrous Wars on Drugs and Terror, who don't even have the support of the saner members of their own party, who sell their states off to the highest bidders are acting irresponsibly and short-sightedly. 

Do we really want to employ a pyromaniac to fix our fireplaces if it means giving him the opportunity soon thereafter to burn down our homes? When I do the calculus, I don't see children or students, public or knowledge-rich and meaningful education winning. I see homo-phobic, poverty-criminalizing, anti-intellectual, knowledge-agnostic, right-wing ideology winning and I have yet to understand why any self-described liberal or education reformer would support that.

To read some thoughts and questions I posted as a follow-up to this post, go here.

My Yeas, Nays, and Maybes: 2014 Virginia Education Legislation

The Virginia legislature is, once again, in session. Here is my take on various education-related bills.

1. SOL (Standards of Learning) Testing Reform Bill: Unfortunately, I can't locate the legislation for this bill, but I couldn't be happier that this legislation is in the works and that it has such wide and bi-partisan support. It's not the end of what should be done to fix Virginia's accountability structure but it's a start. Among other changes, the bill would reduce the number of SOL tests from 34 to 26 and call for more authentic and higher quality assessments. Two caveats:

a. The Virginia Board of Education and some folks at Virginia's Department of Education are claiming that Virginia's newer SOL tests, for example the math ones, are already of higher quality:

Virginia’s Board of Education has revised its tests so they are more reflective of what students need to know to attend college or begin an entry-level job, said Charles Pyle, a spokesman for the Virginia Education Department. 

Many of the state’s new online tests include “technology-enhanced items” that require students to think critically and solve problems. The more rigorous tests caused scores to drop around the state. 

Greason applauded the work the state has been doing and said the legislature would build on those reforms and codify them.

From what I can tell, the new tests are the same old stuff with some added bells and whistles. The reading test is still a disaster, "technology-enhanced" test items does not a critical thinker make, and these tests are not more rigorous, but are rather more tricky. Merely having twenty-six SOL tests akin to the newer ones is not progress in my book.

b. While there are efforts being made to ensure that non-tested subjects continue to be taught, some legislators are pushing to eliminate some tests in order to "focus on math and reading:"

“In the early years of elementary school we want to spend the majority of our time on reading and math,” said Del. Thomas “Tag” Greason, R-Loudoun County. “If a student cannot read, or do math, then the science SOL is really going to be a waste of everybody’s time.”

Oh, brother. Not this again. If a student can't read or do math, they're certainly not going to get any better at either by being denied instruction in science, social studies, or the arts. If students haven't learned anything about or any vocabulary words from those subjects, once they try to read about them, they won't be able to understand what they're reading with any success.

I hope legislators do not deny elementary students rich and varied curricula in the name of testing reform. Including the two caveats, I would support this bill.


2. HB 113: This bill would abolish the Opportunity Education Institution. The Opportunity Education Institution will undermine democracy and local control and will add another costly layer of bureaucracy. In case you missed it, I wrote about the OEI here. Among other Virginia public education stakeholder groups, one hundred or 75% of Virginia School Boards also oppose the OEI. I couldn't locate it but there is also a budget amendment to de-fund the OEI.

I completely support this bill and the accompanying budget amendment. Death to the OEI!


3. HB 318: This bill would repeal the School Grading Bill passed last year. I do not think school grading is a sound practice. See what I wrote here about school grading (hint: Virginia's school grading bill is also linked to the OEI, so double yuck.) There is also a bill to delay implementation of the School Grading Bill , HB 618/SB 324, and a bill to alter it, ostensibly to make it better, HB 553.

I heartily support the repeal bill. However, if delay and/or modification is the best that can be done, I'd support those, too.


4. SB 236: This bill would give public school students the right to pray, participate in religious activities, and wear faith-themed clothing on school property. I normally say to err on the side of free-er speech. I, for one, support the moment of silence that begins the school day in Virginia public schools, because it's silent and you can think anything you want to during that time. However, the problem with this particular bill as stated in this article is precisely this:

Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, the head of the Virginia chapter of the ACLU, said the proposed law is unnecessary and could lead to government-sponsored religious speech at public schools that would draw litigation. 

“Students’ rights to express and practice their faith in the public schools are already well-protected in existing federal and state laws,” she said in a statement. 

Gastañaga said the ACLU of Virginia and other groups actively remind schools about their constitutional obligation to treat religious speech equally. But she said the bill could be interpreted in a way that would result in religious coercion of students. 

“The right to engage in voluntary prayer or religious discussion free from discrimination does not include the right to have a captive audience listen, or to compel other students to participate,” she said.

I would oppose this bill. There's enough religion and praying in Virginia public schools.

5. House Bill 207: The bill to "encourage students to explore scientific questions" is actually a bill that encourages students to disregard science. It gives science teachers "the freedom" to teach that climate change and evolution are scientifically controversial theories. There are many theories in science that are controversial within scientific communities, however evolution and climate change aren't two of them. At all.

I totally oppose this bill.


6. HB 63: This bill would allow home-schooled students to be eligible to play public school sports. It was defeated last year. I actually was indifferent to leaning to supporting this bill, but Chris Pace, one of my local education advocacy pals and a high school social studies teacher, has convinced me to oppose it. Here is some of his reasoning:

First, extra-curricular programs exist for students who attend the school. Their entire purpose is to get kids thinking about their school in a positive way, while connecting students to teachers in an out-of-class setting. This fosters more personal relationships and that has been proven to lead to more academic success. 

Second, there is no way to hold home schooled athletes academically accountable. Home schooled students do not take SOLs or have GPAs. Their grades are assigned by the child’s parents. We assume that home schooling is done by people who have their child’s best academic interests at heart, but that is sometimes far from the truth. as a nine year GED instructor, I can tell you that I had many students who were “home schooled” who hadn’t done much in their time away from public school. Sometimes “home schooled” means not schooled. Imagine the shooting guard who flunks the 1st semester but shows up for baseball tryouts as a “home schooled athlete”. You would also have people pull their kids out of school before the school year begins to avoid academic standards. 

Third, there are only so many jerseys to give out. Cutting a student who attends the school to give a jersey to someone who doesn’t is plain wrong. The “carrot and stick” game linking behavior and academics to athletic participation works well and it can only be realistically used for students at the school. For example, a suspended student cannot play on the day of the suspension. What if that academically struggling student athlete were cut in favor of a home schooled athlete? Who will be there to help that child? Many coaches link behavior and academic performance to playing time – this motivates students and sets a good example of priorities. I know of several examples where a coach helped make the difference between passing and failing for a student athlete.   

Finally, serious athletes are almost always recruited OUTSIDE of their high school seasons in AAU or “Travel Teams." With the exception of football, all scholarship recipients are recruited during their travel seasons. This is where college coaches make evaluations and offers. Any home schooled athlete can participate in these programs – so they aren’t missing out on anything that they aren’t already skipping voluntarily by not attending public school.

I'd add that I believe that each school receives a per-pupil allotment which goes towards athletics, too. If this is true then when the student doesn't attend their home school then the school doesn't receive funding for them, for athletics or otherwise. If we wanted to re-invent our local public schools as community centers, then I might support this bill but with the way high school sports and funding mechanisms are currently structured here, I don't think it would be a good idea. I oppose this bill.


7. HB 720: This bill would require that each public school in Virginia set aside a non-restroom room, shielded from public view to pump breast milk. As a teacher and mom who was able to lock her small, windowless classroom once per school day to pump breast milk (I could produce 24 ounces in like 15 minutes but that's another story) for her beautiful twin baby boys, I must fully support this bill. It meant I could work as a teacher while another caretaker fed my little ones my breast milk.


8. HB 514/ SB 385: This is an awful bill and h/t to the VEA blog or I never would have gotten wind of it. The VEA is calling it the "Dead Peasant" bill:

The concept behind these bills is that an entity created by a Virginia locality or by the Virginia Retirement System would borrow money and use the money to purchase life insurance on employees.  The example provided to me by a lobbyist supporting the concept is that the employer would take out a $250,000 policy.  When the employee died, the entity would get $200,000 and the employee’s heirs would get $50,000.  The collective value of the policies held by the entities would offset the unfunded pension liability on the books of the state and localities.

Pardon my French, but that is some f%^ed up sh&!.  WalMart has done this in the past, albeit secretly and purely for profit, but any way you slice it, it is unbelievably disturbing. We really don't want to fund our pension obligations this way, by gambling on the prospects of Virginia state's employees dying. It can not have come to this.

I oppose this bill out of disgust alone.


9. HB 1156: This bill would require lower class sizes in early elementary school, requiring kindergarten, first, second, and third grades classes to have an average of 21 students with a maximum of 26. I am in full agreement that smaller class sizes are beneficial and preferred especially at younger ages, however, this sounds like an unfunded mandate and I'm not convinced that legislating this is the way to go. Such mandates can undermine control and flexibility at the local level and can cause greater problems than they solve.

Before I oppose or support this bill, I need to learn more about it, but for now I am skeptical. If Virginia actually funded public education as it should be, class sizes would get smaller quickly.


10. Medicaid Expansion: I can not locate a bill for this, but Medicaid Expansion would mean a billion or so dollars for Virginia's general fund which means more money for public education, more jobs for Virginians, and health insurance for the thousands of Virginians currently without.

I support Medicaid Expansion for Virginia.


If there any bills you think I missed, please mention them in the comments. Otherwise, please contact your legislators! To track bills, find out who your legislator is, and get their contact information, please go to the Virginia General Assembly website.