tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36454151928210825142024-03-18T04:32:39.064-07:00Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación PúblicaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger293125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-22315746371048987502017-03-21T07:28:00.006-07:002017-03-21T07:28:42.905-07:00IBO REPORT: NYC Charter School Costs To Grow More Than Budgeted!<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">New York City Charter School Costs To Grow More Than Budgeted!</span></b></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg82eOyW_QCB8T505vpC3mWPWEmeKrlY8KcYNZi9UGTFK6grFTSmwqUfEpO7BHrkHzPNnVWTDIGbysLZuyUL-UCYwADLSbee2jOJRHO689vquptyJLJ-HC0UXxazV0N3iUkUMxpfer5OB0/s1600/charter+school+budget+not+in+sync.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="630" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg82eOyW_QCB8T505vpC3mWPWEmeKrlY8KcYNZi9UGTFK6grFTSmwqUfEpO7BHrkHzPNnVWTDIGbysLZuyUL-UCYwADLSbee2jOJRHO689vquptyJLJ-HC0UXxazV0N3iUkUMxpfer5OB0/s640/charter+school+budget+not+in+sync.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></b></span></span>Although the preliminary budget forecast of charter school enrollment is lower than projected by IBO, the Department of Education's (DOE) budget for charter school tuition in 2018 represents a $138 million increase over the current year's figure.<br />
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This increase reflects not only enrollment growth, but an anticipated increase in the state-approved per-pupil tuition rate for charter schools. It is likely that the per-pupil tuition rate for charter school students will continue to rise in coming years as the formula driven amount catches up to recent increases in per-pupil spending at the DOE. IBO estimates that once the state updates the formula for determining charter school funding for next school year, the additional cost to the city may range from $159 million to $220 million.<br />
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The city may also lose an expected state reimbursement of $52 million for 2016-2017 costs.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com384tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-84190779346514422392017-03-15T08:45:00.004-07:002017-03-15T08:45:52.803-07:00REPORT: States With the Best and Worst Schools<h1 class="entry-title" itemprop="name">
<span style="color: #274e13;">States With the Best (and Worst)Schools</span></h1>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh40RK49p2-7UPQj9Ly9vWjl-0a-ScB7C_TjO0v0fcGbR8dOIl4Ui7VBto6kxGd80UbjGDl60bIxItrIgSiVQgsqs8jhgaKxOOkLyuXbMWP0JcvNhKRRkgaCtjnf8Sap2uwS_67_BWRc4A/s1600/best+and+worse+state%2527s+ed-+OK.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh40RK49p2-7UPQj9Ly9vWjl-0a-ScB7C_TjO0v0fcGbR8dOIl4Ui7VBto6kxGd80UbjGDl60bIxItrIgSiVQgsqs8jhgaKxOOkLyuXbMWP0JcvNhKRRkgaCtjnf8Sap2uwS_67_BWRc4A/s640/best+and+worse+state%2527s+ed-+OK.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="byline">By <b><a class="vcard author url" href="http://247wallst.com/author/evan-comen/" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" rel="author" title="Posts by Evan Comen"><span class="fn" itemprop="name">Evan Comen</span></a>, <a class="vcard author url" href="http://247wallst.com/author/michael-sauter/" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" rel="author" title="Posts by Michael B. Sauter"><span class="fn" itemprop="name">Michael B. Sauter</span></a>, <a class="vcard author url" href="http://247wallst.com/author/samuel-stebbins/" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" rel="author" title="Posts by Samuel Stebbins"><span class="fn" itemprop="name">Samuel Stebbins</span></a> and <a class="vcard author url" href="http://247wallst.com/author/thomas-c-frohlich/" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" rel="author" title="Posts by Thomas C. Frohlich"><span class="fn" itemprop="name">Thomas C. Frohlich</span></a></b></span><br />
<span class="timestamp" content="2017-01-20T06:00:56+00:00" itemprop="datePublished">January 20, 2017- http://247wallst.com</span><br />
<span class="timestamp" content="2017-01-20T06:00:56+00:00" itemprop="datePublished"><span style="background-color: yellow;"><b>SEE REPORT BELOW</b></span> </span><br />
<span class="timestamp" content="2017-01-20T06:00:56+00:00" itemprop="datePublished"></span><br />
Few concerns facing the United States — or any nation — are more
important than ensuring children receive a first-rate education. At her
confirmation hearing on Tuesday, U.S. education secretary nominee Betsy
DeVos answered questions about school proficiency. Policymakers and
observers disagree as to how to spend public education funds and how
exactly schools should be improved. At the very least, however, most
agree that school proficiency must be measured.<br />
<br />
The nation’s education system has remained steady through poor
economic times as well as policy changes. But steady is not enough and
there remains considerable room for improvement.<br />
<br />
24/7 Wall St. reviewed education data for each state from the 2017
edition of the Quality Counts report, released annually by Education
Week. The report assessed metrics in three broad categories that can
determine the strength of a school system: school finances, student
achievement, and environmental factors. Massachusetts schools are rated
best of all states, while Nevada’s school system has the lowest score.<br />
<a href="http://247wallst.com/special-report/2017/01/20/states-with-the-best-and-worst-schools-4/2/"><span style="color: green;"><b><br /></b></span></a>
According to Sterling Lloyd, assistant director at the Education Week
Research Center and coauthor of the Quality Counts report, the grading
framework rewards states with a “well-rounded approach to education.”
Broadly speaking, in states at the top end of the ranking, parents have
the resources to support their children’s learning in well-funded
schools; students report high academic achievement in the classroom; and
graduates are able to pursue careers in an economy where opportunities
are available to them.<br />
<br />
Family income levels can play a major role in the quality of a
child’s education. As Lloyd explained, “it certainly helps for parents
to be able to provide stability and resources.” A child from a
high-income family may enjoy greater access to books and a personal
computer, as well as access to extracurricular activities that require
some monetary investment. These educational tools and learning
experiences are generally less available to poorer children.<br />
<br />
In the United States, 57.2% of children are raised in households with
incomes at least double the poverty level. In all but two of the states
in the top half of the rankings, a larger share of children live in
such households. Conversely, in only six of the 25 lower ranked states
the share is greater.<br />
Because school budgets are funded largely by property taxes as well
as extensive private fundraising, a child from a high-income family is
also more likely to attend school in a well-funded school district.
Children attending such schools benefit from a range of additional
advantages, including teachers with higher pay and greater
qualifications.<br />
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By contrast, “children living in low-income areas [may not] have the
resources to help them get off to a good start,” Lloyd said. Citing
research indicating the benefits to all children of pre-K programs,
Lloyd went on to say that “preschool can help to counteract certain
disadvantages and is especially important for children in poverty.”
Despite the higher stakes for low-income families, the likelihood of a
child attending preschool is lower across states in which more families
face financial instability.<br />
<br />
Other socioeconomic measures, such as parental educational attainment
and having fluent English speaking parents, can also have a significant
bearing on a student’s chances for academic success.<br />
<br />
To identify the states with the best and worst schools, 24/7 Wall St.
used Education Week’s Quality Counts 2017 report. The report is based
on three major categories: chance for success, finances, and K-12
achievement. The chance for success category includes data on family
income, parent education and employment, child schooling, and employment
opportunities after college. Graduation rates are defined as the
percent of public high school students who graduated on time with a
standard diploma for the 2014-2015 school year. All other data are for
the most recent available year and are based on Education Week’s
analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, among other sources. The
finance category incorporates metrics on cost-adjusted per-pupil
spending and how equitably spending was distributed across school
districts in the state in 2013. The K-12 achievement category uses 2015
test score data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Each category was weighted equally in determining the final ranking.<br />
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<span class="timestamp" content="2017-01-20T06:00:56+00:00" itemprop="datePublished"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-54330330717162352862017-03-13T06:27:00.005-07:002017-03-13T06:27:38.095-07:00Still Separate/Still Unequal: 62 Years After Brown vs. Board, U.S. Schools Are Resegregating<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #783f04;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why GAO Did This Study </span></b></span></span><br />
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Recent literature shows that poor and minority students may not have full access t o educational opportunities . GAO was asked to examine poverty and race in schools and efforts by the Departm ents of Education and Justice, which are responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws prohibit ing racial discrimination against students. <br />
<br />
This report examined:<br />
(1) how the percentage of schools with high percentages of poor and Black or Hispanic student s has changed over time and the characteristics of these schools , <br />
( 2) why and how selected school districts have implemented actions to increase student diversity, and <br />
(3) the extent to which the Departments of Education and Justice have taken actions to identify and address issues related to racial discrimination i n schools. <br />
<br />
GAO analyzed Education data f or school years 2000- 01 to 2013- 14 (most recent available) ; reviewed applicable federal laws, regulations, and agency documents; and interviewed federal officials, civil rights and academic subject matter specialists, and school district officials in three state s, selected to provide geographic diversity and examples of actions to diversify . <br />
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<span style="color: #783f04;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What GAO Recommends </span></b></span></span><br />
<br />
GAO recommends that Education more routinely analyz e its civil rights data to identify disparities among types and groups of schools and that Justice systematically track key information on open federal school desegregation cases to which it is a party to better inform its monitoring. In response, both agencies are considering actions in line with GAO's recommendations.<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>K- 12 EDUCATION </b></span></span></span><br /><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Better Use of Information Could Help Agencies Identify Disparities and Address Racial Discrimination </b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>What GAO Found</b></span></i></span><br /><br />The percentage of K-12 public schools in the United States with students who are poor and are mostly Black or Hispanic is growing and these schools share a number of challenging characteristics. From school years 2000-01 to 2013-14 (the most recent data available), the percentage of all K-12 public schools that had high percentages of poor and Black or Hispanic students grew from 9 to 16 percent, according to GAO's analysis of data from the Department of Education (Education). These schools were the most racially and economically concentrated: 75 to 100 percent of the students were Black or Hispanic and eligible for free or reduced-price lunch—a commonly used indicator of poverty. GAO's analysis of Education data also found that compared with other schools, these schools offered disproportionately fewer math, science, and college preparatory courses and had disproportionately higher rates of students who were held back in 9th grade, suspended, or expelled.<br /><br />In the three districts GAO reviewed as case studies, officials reported implementing various actions to increase economic and racial diversity to address racial or other demographic shifts in school composition. For example, in one predominantly low-income, Black and Hispanic school district, the state and district created state-of-the-art magnet schools to attract students from more economically and racially diverse groups. However, these three districts faced challenges. For example, one state devoted funding to magnet schools while the district's traditional schools declined in quality, according to local officials. Further, according to officials, some magnets with openings could not accept minority students because doing so would interfere with the ratio of minority to non-minority students that the district was trying to achieve.<br /><br />The Departments of Education and Justice have taken a range of actions to identify and address racial discrimination against students. Education has investigated schools, analyzed its data by student groups protected under federal civil rights laws, and found discrimination and disparities in some cases. GAO analyzed Education's data among types of schools (charters, magnets, and traditional public schools) by percentage of racial minorities and a proxy for poverty level and found multiple disparities, including in access to academic courses. Education does not routinely analyze its data in this way. Conducting this type of analysis would enhance Education's ability to target technical assistance and identify other disparities by school types and groups. The Department of Justice (Justice) has also investigated discrimination claims, and it monitors and enforces 178 open federal desegregation court cases to which it is a party, many of which originated 30 or 40 years ago to remedy segregation. However, GAO found that Justice does not track key summary case information, such as the last action taken in a case. As a result, some may unintentionally remain dormant for long periods. For example, in one case the court noted there had been a lack of activity and that if Justice had "been keeping an eye" on relevant information, such as test score disparities, the issue could have been addressed in a more timely way. Federal internal control standards state that agencies should use information to help identify specific actions that need to be taken to allow for effective monitoring. Without tracking key information about open cases, Justice's ability toward effectively monitor such cases is hampered </span></span><b></b></span></span><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-49942407021923319622017-03-07T12:25:00.001-08:002017-03-07T12:25:12.863-08:00Parent Advocates Coming Together Workshop Series At The Center for Law & Social Jusrtice<span style="color: magenta;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Medgar Evers College's <span title="[BNYEE]-- Fw: Parent Advocates Coming Together Workshop Series">Center for Law and Social
Justice: Parent Advocates Coming Together Workshop Series</span></b></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNezwwr19NV5xtrDl2U2DiXSix9xN96kmCGIf1ghAEZgsLN0gsg41wTPaBVFC6qPVNdWPDWcC4WFndEb711bDchHEv2xpr76pGL9SeBZFN8bvIsiK25l49ItTD43BTXm-qTpsxXV9x8ek/s1600/Race+%2526+Culture+Flyer+LF+Spring+PACT+2017.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNezwwr19NV5xtrDl2U2DiXSix9xN96kmCGIf1ghAEZgsLN0gsg41wTPaBVFC6qPVNdWPDWcC4WFndEb711bDchHEv2xpr76pGL9SeBZFN8bvIsiK25l49ItTD43BTXm-qTpsxXV9x8ek/s640/Race+%2526+Culture+Flyer+LF+Spring+PACT+2017.jpg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Greetings, <br />
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4442">
<br /></div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4441">
I
hope you're all well. I wanted to let you know about a free Parent
Advocates
Coming Together (PACT) series sponsored by the Center for Law and Social
Justice. The initial event is tomorrow evening (Wednesday March8, 2017)
and this week’s topic will focus
on the Impact of Race, Racism and Culture in education. </div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4441">
</div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4441">
Next week we
will
examine how to navigate the NYC DOE middle school application process. </div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4441">
</div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4441">
The following four sessions are dedicated to a particular aspect of
navigating DOE reality. I’m
attaching a flyer for your reference to this email. Please share the
information with your members and let them know that this series also
includes
refreshments and free childcare, so long as attendees pre-register for
child
care by calling 718-804-8893. </div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4441">
</div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4441">
This link <a href="https://deref-mail.com/mail/client/Muy3qC4Swr8/dereferrer/?redirectUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fconta.cc%2F2miPxSV" id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4430" target="_blank">http://conta.cc/2miPxSV</a> will also provide additional
information about the series (which continues until April 22, 2017). </div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4431">
</div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4432">
Thank you and please do not hesitate to contact the Center for Law and Social Justice at 718-804-8893 should you need any
additional information. </div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4475">
<br /></div>
<div id="yiv3086564403yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1488917433156_4476">
Be well, </div>
LurieUnknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-88725737743984162872017-01-28T05:56:00.005-08:002017-01-28T05:56:45.613-08:00Meet The Radical Monarchs: Girls with Social Justice In Their Hearts & On Their Minds<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">Radical </span><span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">Brownies</span></b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #783f04;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Berets, badges, Black Lives Matter and social justice: the youth group for activist girls of color</b></span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-27337145562240930952017-01-16T14:57:00.000-08:002017-01-16T14:59:12.174-08:00UFT Chapter Forum: "Why are Black and Latino Teachers Disappearing?" <span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>CPE Member Sean Ahern Speaks on the Disappearing Black & Latino Educators</b></span></span><br />
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<i><span class="watch-time-text"> </span></i><br />
<i><span class="watch-time-text">Published on Sep 25, 2016 in New York City</span></i>
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-59415265667932026742017-01-14T11:40:00.004-08:002017-01-14T11:40:53.017-08:00200 Education Deans Stand Up for Public Education & Democracy<h2 class="post-title" style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Education Deans Issue a Statement in Support of Public Education and Democracy</span></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwur3F65-0X05ET14dqmWMoMLMdWvM2MtCHHTpzITVJEO3m2w9iA-dap7nytGxbRX4VNfD5LQjYfJa7GdDB0JbbIdcxb3KqN04Vud1vIHAygbOgSqJrUwz09HpGmTImRb5FXr1lklgRo8/s1600/STAND-UP-for-PUBLIC-EDUCATION.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwur3F65-0X05ET14dqmWMoMLMdWvM2MtCHHTpzITVJEO3m2w9iA-dap7nytGxbRX4VNfD5LQjYfJa7GdDB0JbbIdcxb3KqN04Vud1vIHAygbOgSqJrUwz09HpGmTImRb5FXr1lklgRo8/s640/STAND-UP-for-PUBLIC-EDUCATION.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Nearly 200 education deans from across the nation released a "<span style="color: #674ea7;">Declaration of Principles</span>," (<i>see PDF below</i>) calling on Congress and the Trump Administration to advance democratic values in America’s public schools.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><a href="https://deref-mail.com/mail/client/FlFayNvDjC8/dereferrer/?redirectUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fnepc.info%2Fnode%2F8436" target="_blank">Press Release:</a><br />Contact:<br />Dean Kevin Kumashiro: <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" style="text-decoration: none;">(415) 422-2108</a>, <a href="mailto:kkumashiro@usfca.edu" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">kkumashiro@usfca.edu</a><br />Dean Kathy Schultz: <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" style="text-decoration: none;">(303) 492-6937</a>, <a href="mailto:katherine.schultz@colorado.edu" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">katherine.schultz@colorado.edu</a><br />William J. Mathis: <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" style="text-decoration: none;">(802) 383-0058</a>, <a href="mailto:wmathis@sover.net" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">wmathis@sover.net</a></span></div>
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<br /><i>BOULDER,
CO (January 13, 2017) – As the nation watches this month’s transition
to a new administration and a new Congress, a growing alliance of deans
of colleges and schools of education across the country is urging a
fundamental reconsideration of the problems and possibilities that
surround America’s public schools.</i></div>
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<i>In
a Declaration of Principles released today, 175 deans sounded the
alarm: “Our children suffer when we deny that educational inequities
exist and when we refuse to invest sufficient time, resources, and
effort toward holistic and systemic solutions. The U.S. educational
system is plagued with oversimplified policies and reform initiatives
that were developed and imposed without support of a compelling body of
rigorous research, or even with a track record of failure.” The deans
called upon federal leaders to forge a new path forward by:</i></div>
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<i>Upholding the role of public schools as a central institution in the strengthening of our democracy;</i><br /><i>Protecting the human and civil rights of all children and youth, especially those from historically marginalized communities;</i><br /><i>• Developing
and implementing policies, laws, and reform initiatives by building on a
democratic vision for public education and on sound educational
research; </i><i></i></div>
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<i>• Supporting and partnering with colleges and schools of education to advance these goals.</i><i> </i></div>
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<i>• Signing
the statement are current and former deans of colleges and schools of
education from across the United States, as well as chairs of education
departments in institutions with no separate school of education.</i></div>
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<i>The
statement was authored by Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE)
and prepared in partnership with the National Education Policy Center.
EDJE was formed in 2016 as an alliance of deans to address inequities
and injustices in education while promoting its democratic premises
through policy, research, and practice.</i></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-61872294711808763612017-01-14T10:21:00.001-08:002017-01-14T10:22:20.435-08:00Protect Public Education - Stop Betsy DeVos!<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Billionaire Betsy's Brave New World of Nationwide Racist Privatized Education</b></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/47OC7wZbwzM" width="1672"></iframe><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #741b47;"><a class="ytp-share-panel-link ytp-no-contextmenu" href="https://youtu.be/47OC7wZbwzM" target="_blank" title="Share link">VIDEO: https://youtu.be/47OC7wZbwzM</a> </span></h2>
<h2>
<span style="color: #741b47;">Protect Public Education - Stop Betsy DeVos! </span></h2>
Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary is a threat
to public education. DeVos has spent millions funding the privatization
of education in Michigan. The result? A failing school system where
almost 80% of schools are run by private, for-profit companies.<br />
<br />
The
charter schools in Michigan, influenced by DeVos’s agenda, perform lower
than national averages, have been criticized for misuse of taxpayer
funding, and frequently shut down doors without warning or community
input. Adding to the alarm is the fact that DeVos has never held a
professional position in education in her life, but plans to lead the
Department of Education, where she would be in charge of overseeing and
providing equal access to quality education for all Americans.<br />
<br />
Discover how the DeVos effect has harmed families and the education system in Michigan and <span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="font-size: 24px;">contact your Senators at 202-224-3121</b> and <b style="font-size: 24px;">tell them to oppose her nomination!</b></span><br />
<h3>
bravenewfilms.org</h3>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-58540441022019131342016-12-16T15:40:00.001-08:002016-12-16T15:40:16.733-08:00Understanding Public-Sector Privatization Strategies in the Age Of Trumpism<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span class="bccontentsmenu" style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #003300; font-family: "verdana";">Understanding Public-Sector Privatization Strategies</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="bccontentsmenu" style="color: red;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #003300; font-family: "verdana";"></span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="bccontentsmenu" style="color: red;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #003300; font-family: "verdana";"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOm0rH5z8GQpA1mP5LO8Frt3LdzbB01Yl2E9WIW5xBCQ0W_QvHUV1dQL7IuyAmcTY14t2ARYxYpdNMr5IosWgTsQKNcviWZjq010JYwtQh7EhsHUSo78VmJ6QqtANM6KtYGF7U8t-M5xY/s1600/rr32014aa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOm0rH5z8GQpA1mP5LO8Frt3LdzbB01Yl2E9WIW5xBCQ0W_QvHUV1dQL7IuyAmcTY14t2ARYxYpdNMr5IosWgTsQKNcviWZjq010JYwtQh7EhsHUSo78VmJ6QqtANM6KtYGF7U8t-M5xY/s640/rr32014aa.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></div>
<span class="bccontentsmenu" style="color: red;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #003300; font-family: "verdana";"><span id="goog_2063274226"></span><span id="goog_2063274227"></span></span><span style="color: #ff6666; font-family: "verdana";"><span style="color: #003300;"></span><br />
</span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";"></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">"The Cartel has created a vast array of <br />
think tanks and advocacy organizations <br />
to distribute questionable and deeply flawed <br />
research studies to confirm that corporate <br />
and virtual charters, vouchers, and non-certified <br />
teachers are the best approaches to <br />
educating low-income students of color."</span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<span class="bccontentsmenu"></span>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: italic;">BlackCommentator.com Columnist,<b> Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr.,</b> PhD, MSPH, is a Fellow of the National Education Policy Center (<a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/" target="_blank">NEPC</a>)
at the University of Colorado-Boulder and has written widely on
vouchers, charter schools, and public school privatization. He has
served as Professor of Social Work at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill and as Professor of Educational Policy and Community
Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. <a href="http://www.blackcommentator.com/contact_forms/farrell/gbcf_form.php">Contact</a> Dr. Farrell. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>Public
sector stakeholders (teachers, unions, and ordinary citizens) are on
the precipice of a public education Armageddon. On January 20, 2017,
the nation’s system of public education is likely to begin
descending into a public education free zone. President-Elect Donald
J. Trump has stated that he will ramp up and facilitate the efforts
of the corporate education reform Cartel to privatize public schools.
To underscore his commitment to this endeavor, he has placed one of
the Cartel’s most prominent and aggressive members, billionaire
Betsy DeVos, at the helm of the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE).
</span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">She
and the Cartel have also established and funded an interlocking
network of majority and minority civic leaders, grassroots groups,
corporate executives, professional athletes, entertainers, former and
current school board members, superintendents, political bosses,
governors, state and federal legislators, and every U.S. president
since Ronald Reagan. DeVos’s approach has been bipartisan with
deep tentacles among both Democrats and Republicans. </span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This
reality is at the core of public education supporters’
conflicts as to how to combat this assault on K-12 public education.
As noted in previous columns, they cannot decide whether cooperation
or opposition is the best option to save public education and the
public sector. As a result, teachers, unions, elected officials, and
others have been unable to come up with a coherent and focused set of
initiatives to win the battle for K-12 public schools.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">While
these difference of opinion persist among public education
stakeholders, the corporate education reform Cartel has
systematically employed a military-style offensive on the foundations
of private- and public-sector unions: co-opting and/or developing
Democratic legislators and leaders who traditionally sustained and
advanced the public sector; legislative redistricting which
facilitated Republican takeovers of state legislatures and the U.S.
Congress; writing and passing state and federal legislation promoting
public school privatization; dismantling collective bargaining
agreements (CBAs); and forming sixty-five Cartel think tanks, from
coast to coast, that produce a steady stream of questionable and
exaggerated research findings to affirm the success of public school
privatization. </span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Starting
in the 1980s, the Cartel identified minority and majority
politicians, clergy, and local leaders and contributed to their
campaigns and 501c3 non-profits. Included in this group are former
Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke; South Carolina legislator, U.S.
Congressman, and now U.S. Sen. Tim Scott; former Illinois state
senator, U.S. Senator, and now two-term President Barack Obama;
recently elected Philadelphia Congressman Dwight Evans; disgraced
Bishop Eddie Long who paid off a $25 million lawsuit after being
accused of sexually abusing under-age boys; Bishop T.D. Jakes, who
has advised Republican and Democratic U.S. presidents for more than
two decades; and numerous others throughout the nation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1f7Od6c4T4w1i4rFCApLB7-52wYjR7IEp2BDPIUmIri9gjD3bzPBKtae86B_b-yrdZxmjqAGW_ZGhZ4Ki5CsdWPjGRo2SlEzSnBGvSThAXtqRn5iPgsv0Pt8ZWnyo5q9ij_6NXMqBCg8/s1600/school-privatization-cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1f7Od6c4T4w1i4rFCApLB7-52wYjR7IEp2BDPIUmIri9gjD3bzPBKtae86B_b-yrdZxmjqAGW_ZGhZ4Ki5CsdWPjGRo2SlEzSnBGvSThAXtqRn5iPgsv0Pt8ZWnyo5q9ij_6NXMqBCg8/s640/school-privatization-cartoon.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The
Cartel has developed its own pipeline, which it constantly
replenishes, to carry out its school privatization agenda. In return
for this largess, these proxies have provided credibility for the
Cartel’s program in their respective ethnic and social class
communities, similar to President-Elect Trump inviting former
professional football players Jim Brown and Ray Lewis and entertainer
Kanye West to confer with him this week at New York City’s
Trump tower. (Confidential sources have stated that Trump plans to
use them and others to promote his corporate education reform plan.) </span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The
legislative redistricting after the 1990 census found Democrats
asleep at the wheel. Republicans approached black communities in a
number of states and got them to buy-in to packing African Americans
into a few districts thereby increasing their numbers in state
legislatures and in the U.S. House of Representatives. It was nearly
two decades before blacks began to realize that this racial
trade-off, in terms of major reductions in overall Democratic
representation, were not in the overall best interests of African
Americans, that blacks did not need eighty to ninety percent
population density in order to win elections. </span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Coupled
with the cultivation of their erstwhile Democratic opponents, the
Cartel began proposing legislation to privatize public education (via
vouchers and tuition tax credits) in 1981 as soon as Reagan was
inaugurated as president and in state legislatures. These early
trial balloons burst very quickly, but by 1990, Wisconsin’s
Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, collaborated with the
Cartel-sponsored Democratic chair of the legislature’s
bicameral Joint Committee on Finance (Sen. Gary George), to pass the
nation’s first publicly-funded private school voucher bill,
since the era of <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i>, for Milwaukee,
the state’s largest school system which was overwhelmingly
populated by low-income African American and Hispanic students,
despite the fact that Democrats controlled both legislative houses.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When
the bill was challenged in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, special
prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who was investigating the Bill
Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, was recruited and paid by the
Bradley Foundation to take a leave from his attempt to indict
President Clinton to defend the voucher bill before the Wisconsin
Supreme Court. (Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general had
the statutory responsibility to so, but Gov. Thompson did not trust
him to be a strong advocate due to his party affiliation.) Starr
prevailed in this instance although he would later fail in his
prosecution of Bill Clinton. Using Milwaukee as a model, Ohio and
Florida passed voucher bills by 1995, and the Ohio voucher case,
<i>Zelman v. Simmons-Harris</i>, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
constitutional in 2002, opened vouchers to the nation if states could
pass the legislation.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">However,
the Cartel’s coordinated efforts to eliminate collective
bargaining agreements (CBAs) and union check-off dues, which have
provided public- and private-sector unions the financial resources to
sustain their organizing campaigns and to elect politicians who
support their interests, have taken a substantial hit in recent
years. Beginning in 2010, when Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) passed Act
10 eliminating CBA for teachers and other public-sector unions,
right-to-work bills are being advanced throughout the country. </span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Walker’s
victory was quickly followed by <i>Friedrichs v. California Teachers
Association</i> (CTA) where a teacher, Rebecca Friedrichs, was suing
to keep from paying agency dues for representation to CTA although
she had refused to join the union. The case reached the Supreme
Court and was defeated in a 4-4 tie in the wake of Justice Antonin
Scalia’s untimely death. Had he lived, unions’ ability
to collect these dues would have been overturned. Moreover, since
the November 2016 election, right-to-work bills are gaining traction
in New Hampshire, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, and Kentucky
as Republicans continue to increase their numbers in state
legislatures. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdQKaCPDNicSaaDNE1mHqlFOlqaNDABgz9417Fd4gzGSZWI546oi1pxUS2_DhjsToBxd8ofyZVgOc-BxoFMyWCVz9zqlIUvsgHtg8bEHX7oh3WJPTlGUlaqC1sIYw1UAo1lifo1WCu-Us/s1600/c604schools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdQKaCPDNicSaaDNE1mHqlFOlqaNDABgz9417Fd4gzGSZWI546oi1pxUS2_DhjsToBxd8ofyZVgOc-BxoFMyWCVz9zqlIUvsgHtg8bEHX7oh3WJPTlGUlaqC1sIYw1UAo1lifo1WCu-Us/s640/c604schools.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Finally,
the Cartel has created a vast array of think tanks and advocacy
organizations to distribute questionable and deeply flawed research
studies to confirm that corporate and virtual charters, vouchers, and
non-certified teachers are the best approaches to educating
low-income students of color. Although these results have been
repeatedly proven to be false, this information is widely reported by
the print (<i>New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los
Angeles times,</i> etc.) and broadcast (MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, etc.)
media as if they are accurate. The Cartel is becoming a major
purveyor of <i>“fake news.”</i> </span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In addition, it has
promoted parent satisfaction studies, finding that private, voucher,
and charter parents have higher satisfaction levels than those in
public schools. Just last Tuesday in the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>,
Paul Peterson, professor of government at Harvard University, where
he directs the Program on Education Policy and Governance, which has
been underwritten by the Cartel for nearly three decades, reported on
an online survey he conducted and other secondary analyses he
reviewed that showed private and charter school parents are the most
satisfied as if satisfaction, alone, translates into academic
outcomes. Other Cartel-backed researchers at the University of
Arkansas at Fayetteville, Stanford University, and the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill have made similar claims about
significant educational outcomes in voucher and charter schools using
the flimsiest data sets. </span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Public
education supporters will have to overcome the aforementioned
challenges if they hope to forestall a public education Armageddon.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
<a href="http://www.blackcommentator.com/tfr_complete_dots_series.html"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-weight: bold;">links to all 20 parts of the opening series</span></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Verdana; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
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<div style="font-family: Verdana; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.14in;">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-14908312270737311852016-12-09T09:27:00.003-08:002016-12-09T10:15:31.730-08:00Trumpism = Negative Impact Upon Free Quality Public Education<div class="field field-name-title-field field-type-text field-label-hidden">
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<span style="background-color: yellow;">The Trump Effect:</span><span style="color: #b45f06;"> <span style="background-color: #274e13;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">The Impact of The 2016 Presidential Election on Our Nation's Schools</span></span></span></h1>
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<span class="date-display-single">November 28, 2016 | splcenter.org</span></div>
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<br />
<br />
In the first days after
the 2016 presidential election, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s
Teaching Tolerance project administered an online survey to K–12
educators from across the country. Over 10,000 teachers, counselors,
administrators and others who work in schools have responded. The survey
data indicate that the results of the election are having a profoundly
negative impact on schools and students. Ninety percent of educators
report that school climate has been negatively affected, and most of
them believe it will have a long-lasting impact. A full 80 percent
describe heightened anxiety and concern on the part of students worried
about the impact of the election on themselves and their families.<br />
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Also on the upswing:
verbal harassment, the use of slurs and derogatory language, and
disturbing incidents involving swastikas, Nazi salutes and Confederate
flags.<br />
<br />
Teaching Tolerance conducted a previous survey in March, when we
asked teachers how the primary campaign season was affecting our
nation’s students. The 2,000 educators who responded reported that the
primary season was producing anxiety among vulnerable students and
emboldening others to new expressions of politicized bullying. Teachers
overwhelming named the source of both the anxiety and the behavior as
Donald Trump, then a leading contender for the Republican nomination.<br />
<br />
Since Trump was elected, media have been awash in reports of hate
incidents around the nation, including at schools. Some detractors have
characterized the reports as isolated, exaggerated or even as hoaxes.
This survey, which was distributed by several organizations (see About
the Survey for a complete list), via email and social media, offers the
richest source of information about the immediate impact of the election
on our country. The findings show that teachers, principals and
district leaders will have an oversized job this year as they work to
heal the rifts within school communities.<br />
<br />
The survey asked respondents a mix of easily quantifiable questions
and also offered them a chance to describe what was happening in
open-ended questions. There are over 25,000 responses, in the form of
comments and stories, to the open-ended questions. It will take time to
fully analyze and report on those comments. This report provides a
high-level summary of the findings.<br />
<br />
Here are the highlights:<br />
<ul>
<li>
Nine out of 10 educators who responded have seen a negative impact on
students’ mood and behavior following the election; most of them worry
about the continuing impact for the remainder of the school year.<br />
</li>
<li>
Eight in 10 report heightened anxiety on the part of marginalized
students, including immigrants, Muslims, African Americans and LGBT
students.<br />
</li>
<li>
Four in 10 have heard derogatory language directed at students of
color, Muslims, immigrants and people based on gender or sexual
orientation.<br />
</li>
<li>
Half said that students were targeting each other based on which candidate they’d supported.<br />
</li>
<li>
Although two-thirds report that administrators have been
“responsive,” four out of 10 don’t think their schools have action plans
to respond to incidents of hate and bias.<br />
</li>
<li>
Over 2,500 educators described specific incidents of bigotry and
harassment that can be directly traced to election rhetoric. These
incidents include graffiti (including swastikas), assaults on students
and teachers, property damage, fights and threats of violence.<br />
</li>
<li>
Because of the heightened emotion, half are hesitant to discuss the
election in class. Some principals have told teachers to refrain from
discussing or addressing the election in any way.<br />
</li>
</ul>
It is worth noting that many teachers took pains to point out
that the incidents they were reporting represent a distinct uptick;
these dynamics are new and can be traced directly to the results of the
election.<br />
<br />
In addition, many teachers who said they were <i>not </i>hearing
anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim sentiment or derogatory language pointed
out that their students belong exclusively to targeted groups. The
dynamics in their schools reflect fear and anxiety about the future (and
of the larger community) rather than aggressions between students or
groups of students.<br />
<br />
The dynamics and incidents these educators reported are nothing short
of a crisis and should be treated as such. We end the report with a
series of recommendations that school leaders and administrators should
take immediately. These include making public statements that set
expectations, establishing protocols to identify students who are being
targeted or whose emotional needs have changed, doubling down on
anti-bullying strategies and being alert to signs of a hostile
environment. Most importantly, every school should have a crisis plan to
respond to hate and bias incidents.<br />
<br />
These are only the initial steps. What new steps will be needed
depends entirely on how the rapidly changing political environment (and
new federal policies) affect fragile school cultures. At minimum, all
schools will need to work to rebuild community; many will need to deal
with even more serious threats. The kinds of disruption we describe in
this report have long-lasting impacts; school leaders must be ready to
respond.<br />
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<h3 class="section-title">
Schools In The Aftermath: Targeting, Trauma, and Tension</h3>
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The election of Donald
Trump is having a major impact on American schools, but how students are
affected — and how educators are addressing the impact — depends
largely on demographics. American schools are increasingly segregated
along racial, ethnic and economic lines. Although individual experiences
will vary, looking at the proportion of students who are African
American, Hispanic and white is a generally dependable indicator of what
each school is experiencing, regardless of whether it is located in a
red or a blue state. We found that how a school reacted ultimately
depended on whether it is a white-majority school, a "minority-majority"
school, or a diverse school with no single group in the majority. This
is a generalization, of course, and there are exceptions, which we
discuss later.<br />
Overall, our public schools serve mainly low-income students of
color. But students are not evenly distributed among schools. Here are a
few important facts:<br />
<ul>
<li>
Total number of public schools: 98,454<br />
</li>
<li>
Percentage of students who are from low-income families: 51<br />
</li>
<li>
Percentage of students who are Hispanic: 25<br />
</li>
<li>
Percentage of students who are African American: 16<br />
</li>
<li>
Percentage of students who are students of color: 50<br />
</li>
<li>
Percentage of schools that are 70% or more minority: 26<br />
</li>
<li>
Percentage of schools that are 70% or more white: 42<br />
</li>
<li>
Percentage of schools with less than 70% of one racial group: 32<br />
</li>
</ul>
<b>TARGETING AND RACIAL BIAS</b><br />
The increase in targeting and harassment that began in the spring
has, according to the teachers we surveyed, skyrocketed. It was most
frequently reported by educators in schools with a majority of white
students.<br />
<br />
The behavior is directed against immigrants, Muslims, girls, LGBT
students, kids with disabilities and anyone who was on the “wrong” side
of the election. It ranges from frightening displays of white power to
remarks that are passed off as “jokes.”<br />
<br />
Here’s a small sampling of the thousands of stories teachers told us that illustrate post-election targeting.<br />
<br />
“A group of white students held up a Confederate flag during the pledge of allegiance at a school-wide assembly.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL COUNSELOR, ARIZONA</b><br />
<br />
“Since the election, every single secondary school in our district
has had issues with racist, xenophobic or misogynistic comments cropping
up. In the week since the election, I have personally had to deal with
the following issues: 1) Boys inappropriately grabbing and touching
girls, even after they said no (this never happened until after the
election); 2) White students telling their friends who are Hispanic or
of color that their parents are going to be deported and that they would
be thrown out of school; 3) White students going up to students of
color who are total strangers and hurling racial remarks at them, such
as, ‘Trump is going [to] throw you back over the wall, you know?’ or ‘We
can’t wait until you and the other brownies are gone’; 4) The use of
the n-word by white students in my class and in the hallway. Never
directed towards a student of color (that I’ve been told yet), but still
being casually used in conversation.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, INDIANA</b><br />
<br />
“The slurs have been written on assignments. ‘Send the Muslims back because they are responsible for 9/11.’” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, MINNESOTA</b><br />
<br />
“’I hate Muslims.’ (Student blurted this while the class was learning about major religions.)” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, WASHINGTON</b><br />
<br />
“I’ve had a lot of students repeat the phrase ‘Trump that bitch’ in
my class, and make jokes about Hispanic students ‘going back to
Mexico.’” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, GEORGIA</b><br />
<br />
“A proud proclamation of racism was made by a student after the election: ‘Bet those black people are really scared now.’” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, MICHIGAN</b><br />
<br />
“White males have been overheard saying, ‘screw women’s rights, fag
lover liberal, build the wall, lock her up.’ The rebel flag is draped on
the truck of a popular student, and the p-word has been used very
casually, citing Trump as the excuse.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER,</b> <b>MICHIGAN</b><br />
<br />
“Kids saying, ‘Trump won, you’re going back to Mexico!’ Boys grabbing
girls, cornering girls against lockers. Kids yelling, ‘Trump won, so
[there will] be less people here soon.’” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, KANSAS</b><br />
<br />
“Today I photographed vandalism in the boy’s bathroom that mentioned a
specific black student (1 of 7 in a school of 200). It repeatedly
mentioned the KKK, used the n-word and joining Jews. A student drew a
swastika on my board a few days ago. A black female ran out of a room
crying after being racially harassed by multiple students during two
different classes. One student … reported asking two different Latina
students if they were ready to move back to Mexico now that Trump is
president. I have witnessed an increase in racist and sexist jokes by
students who support Trump. I personally spent most of the day putting
out fires related to these issues, including documenting and reporting
them. Multiple white males also expressed anger over the school wanting
to post signs stating we are a sanctuary school.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, OREGON</b><br />
<br />
“’Kill the n*****s’ etched in school bathroom. Paper with n-word left
in my classroom. Neither incident was investigated. Students have told
me they no longer need Spanish (the subject I teach) since Trump is
sending all the Mexicans back. A black student was blocked from entering
his classroom by two white students chanting, ‘Trump, Trump.’” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, TENNESSEE</b><br />
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<br />
“Kids did a ‘mock’ election where they got to vote for president and
two of 32 kids voted for Trump (this was all before the actual
election). One of the students who voted for Trump expressed that he
felt kids were judging him for his choice and the teacher defended his
position and right to have his own vote. He then said to the class, ‘I
just want him to win so he can get rid of all the Mexicans.’ He himself
is an immigrant from Bosnia.”<b>— ELEMENTARY TEACHER, COLORADO</b><br />
<br />
“The day after the election I had a group of Hispanic girls in my
homeroom targeted by a boy who told them Trump was going to deport their
families.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, NEW JERSEY</b><br />
<br />
“Seventh-grade white boys yelling, ‘Heil Trump!’ Many stories about bigotry have happened outside of school.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, COLORADO</b><br />
<br />
“Someone anonymously put a swastika with the Trump tag line ‘Make America Great Again’ on the desk of a Spanish teacher.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, CALIFORNIA</b><br />
<br />
“The day after the election, white students in my school walked down
the halls harassing their students of color. One student went around
asking, ‘Are you legal?’ to each student he passed. Another student told
his black classmate to ‘Go back to Haiti because this is our country
now.’” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT TEACHER, MASSACHUSETTS</b><br />
<br />
“These incidents involve students that I teach in 6<sup>th</sup>
grade: 1) A white student waited outside the boys restroom to target an
African-American student, attempting to provoke a fight and calling him
‘n----r.’ The white student had been a vocal Trump supporter; 2) A white
male student asked an Asian female student why her eyes looked so
funny. The same male student repeatedly asked another male student of
Middle Eastern background if he was Muslim and [said] that he ‘hated
Muslims.’ Both of these occurred last week following the election.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, VIRGINIA</b><br />
<br />
“In over 15 years of teaching high school this is the first year that
swastikas are appearing all over school furniture. The day after the
election I overheard a student in the hall chanting, ‘White power.’ I’m
appalled! I live in one of the bluest states!” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER,</b> <b>WASHINGTON STATE</b><br />
<br />
<b>THE NEW MAJORITY: TRAUMA AND FEAR</b><br />
Speaking broadly, the survey results indicate that schools with
significant numbers of African-American and Hispanic students and
immigrant students of color are experiencing what many teachers named as
trauma, with all its attendant consequences. A Minnesota high school
teacher wrote, “Our school is all immigrant, mostly students in upper
teen years (14–21, most are over 16). The levels of anxiety have been
through the roof since summer break. It’s very hard for them to think.
Their brains can literally handle a fraction of what students could
learn in these same classes in the previous 16 years I have taught them.
They escaped trauma recently and now are facing it ahead of them (and
around them right now).”<br />
<br />
These schools with large populations of students of color, many of
them also high-poverty schools, report relatively few instances of
bigotry in the form of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim or racist sentiment
or language. That’s not, however, a sign that all is well. As several
teachers noted, theirs are the students whose identities were disparaged
during the election. A California high school teacher reported, “[Our]
students have not perpetuated incidents of election-related bigotry or
harassment. They perceive themselves to be victims of this throughout
their lives, not just because of the election.”<br />
<br />
A school social worker in Washington State observed that her school
had no incidents of harassment. “On the contrary,” she wrote, “since the
vast majority of our students are members of targeted groups, I have
seen nothing but a shared sense of fear about what will happen to them
and their families.”<br />
<br />
The fear comes in many forms: worries about deportation, family
separation and general anxiety and hopelessness about the future.
Teachers observed that children who are fearful and anxious are unable
to concentrate and have a harder time keeping up at school.<br />
<br />
The biggest fear of all comes from immigrants; nearly 1,000 teachers
specifically named “deportation” or family separation as a concern among
students. Given Trump’s promises to deport millions of people here
illegally and the uncertainty about what actual policies may ensue,
teachers are ill-equipped to address these fears.<br />
<br />
Here is a sampling of what fear looks like in schools.<br />
<br />
“I teach in a university lab school. The kids come from very diverse
cultures, but definitely from middle class, educated families, and STILL
they feel threatened. One Muslim girl clung to her kindergarten teacher
on November 9 and asked, ‘Are they going to do anything to me? Am I
safe?’” <b>— EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER, TENNESSEE</b><br />
<br />
“In a 24-hour period, I completed two suicide assessments and two
threat of violence assessments for middle school students. This was last
week, one week after the election... students were threatening violence
against African Americans. Students were suicidal and without hope.
Fights, disrespect have increased as well.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL COUNSELOR, FLORIDA</b><br />
<br />
“A kindergartener asked me ‘Why did the bully win?’ Other kids who
have been awarded student of the month and considered great examples for
our school hid in a classroom after school and drew pokemon fireballs
attacking the man. This is a serious issue that we have not clearly
addressed. We need help and we must claim our districts and other
districts ‘sanctuary districts.’” <b>— ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER, ARIZONA</b><br />
<br />
“We have over 20 percent Muslim students and 96 percent students of
color. Before the election night, in my role in the building as the
principal, I was already dealing with children calling Muslims
terrorists, boys objectifying girls by calling out obscenities about
their private parts, and racial tensions between Latino and Black
students. We have had one incident the election night, but our students
are really worried about being deported, some Muslim girls are coming to
school without their hijabs, and kids have told me they are afraid that
a war is going to happen. One child asked me, ‘How are we going to get
our freedom back?’” <b>— ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL, MICHIGAN</b><br />
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<br />
“I teach at a charter school in [an inner city]. The student makeup
is 99 percent black and Latino children, with the majority qualifying
for free or reduced price lunch. The climate in the school itself has
been fine, because almost all of the students are people of color.
However students have been emotionally distraught, especially the day
after the election. Many came to school sobbing, fearing for their
future and their families, worried about their relatives being deported.
Many expressed sadness that they didn’t realize how messed up the
country was until that day, and that they either hated America or now
understood why their friends said they hated America.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, NEW JERSEY</b><br />
<br />
“Many of my students feel fear, particularly my students of color, my
Latino students, LGBTQ students and so on. They worry about their
future and their rights. While we’ve had few episodes of hate, we have
had many students (mostly white) tell others to get over it, shake it
off and so on. It’s a difficult climate.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, WASHINGTON STATE</b><br />
<br />
“Most of students come from Hispanic backgrounds. Many of their
parents came to the states illegally. We also have some Muslim students.
Many of them were crying and so scared the day after Trump won. They
are thinking of future plans just in case. My Muslim students wondered
why America didn’t like them. It’s been tough and emotionally
exhausting.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, PENNSYLVANIA</b><br />
<br />
“Immigrant students reported that the bus on November 9th was full of
‘Terrorist’ or ‘Pack your bags!’ or ‘Go back to where you came from.’
Another student who is Jewish reported, ‘We’ll burn you.’” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, ILLINOIS</b><br />
<br />
“Multi-racial children were telling Hispanic children they were going
back to Mexico and their parents were first. Fifth-grade boys were
fighting in the bathroom because they found out who voted for Trump in
the mock election at school. A lesbian student’s mother was telling her
that life as we knew it was over, and she was quite distraught about her
mother. Children are very worried about being deported or killed.” <b>— ELEMENTARY COUNSELOR, ILLINOIS</b><br />
<br />
The trauma students are experiencing is putting a strain on school
counseling and social work resources and leading teachers to spend more
time away from instruction so they can provide emotional support. For
some, student distrust of a majority-white teaching force may loom as a
new issue. More than one educator commented that her “students believe
that white teachers voted for Trump.” It’s impossible to know how long
added support will be needed or when trust will be restored.<br />
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<b>INCREASED TENSION, LESS COMMUNITY</b><br />
Finally, in any school that is diverse, especially those with no
group in the majority, teachers report that students are tense, have
lost trust in each other and are struggling to get along. The divisions
opened by the election run deep in these schools.<br />
<br />
Here are some stories that show the division, tension and loss of trust.<br />
<br />
“We have a mixture of high-income white families and low-income
Latino students. The divide has always existed, but with the election
over the last year, it’s been WAY worse.” <b>— ELEMENTARY TEACHER, ILLINOIS</b><br />
<br />
“The day after the election, I broke up a fight in the locker room
because of differing opinions around each student’s choice for
president.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, ILLINOIS</b><br />
“’You voted for Trump. I hate you,’ said one third-grader to another.” <b>—ELEMENTARY TEACHER, WASHINGTON</b><br />
<br />
“Half of the students are white with frontier mindset (working in
primary industries and a dislike for authority). One-third of the
students are Native [American]. One-third of the students are newly
arrived first-generation and second-generation immigrants from Central
America. The students have grown up together in a small town. The white
students wear red ball caps and say terrible things about immigrants,
while sitting next to their immigrant friends. The white students are
loud about their views. The others are quiet and afraid.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, OREGON</b><br />
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“I teach in a primarily white, upper middle-class school that largely
supports Trump. Unfortunately, there have been divisions between
students since Trump’s win. My African-American students are refusing to
work with the white students who supported Trump. Students are no
longer looking at each other as people, but are looking at them as who
their parents supported. It is no longer about issues, but about hate
and fear and disagreement and all the things we work our tails off to
teach our students to be careful and wary of. My heart is breaking. And
it was especially broken when the 12-year-old white male student saw an x
on another white male student's paper and said to him, ‘Here, let me
help you,’ and proceeded to draw a swastika on his paper. And our admin
is telling us NOT to talk about it.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, GEORGIA</b><br />
<br />
“There is a lack of trust in the school right now. Many students are unclear as to how to talk to each other.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, WASHINGTON</b><br />
<br />
“The day after the election a line of students (mainly Hispanic) was
formed at lunch. A student (African American) told one of them to ‘Go
back to Mexico.’ A fight almost resulted from his comment.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, NORTH CAROLINA</b><br />
<br />
“We had a race-related fight at a school function in September. My
Mexican-American students have been catching comments from kids at
school and in the community about being deported, etc. We also had one
student post a pro-Trump/anti-black meme that went to 600 other kids’
Instagram feeds. (The words he used are not printable here.)” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, NEW YORK</b><br />
<br />
“We have had many students fighting, especially between the Latino
and African-American population, as well as many more boys feeling
superior to girls. I have had one male student grab a female student’s
crotch and tell her that it’s legal for him to do that to her now. We
have not had as many hate crimes in our school as others, but that is
likely because we have a VERY small white population. One of my students
from last year who is Muslim has not worn her hijab since the election.
She is one of three Muslim students in our school.” <b>— ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER, MINNESOTA</b><br />
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Some Exceptions</h3>
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A very small minority
of teachers reported little impact of the election on their schools.
These schools tended to fall into two broad groups.<br />
<br />
The first group includes school that are overwhelmingly white,
especially in areas with few immigrants or African Americans. These
students are isolated, with little exposure to students who are
frightened by the election results, and few opportunities to see the
world from their perspective. Teachers at these schools report that
their students have accepted (or welcomed) the results and have moved
on.<br />
<br />
Here are some examples of the schools that fall into this category.<br />
<br />
“Truly, it hasn’t had a huge impact. Because I talk about these
things in class, I have been able to see what little impact there is.
Colleagues haven’t seen anything.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, UTAH</b><br />
<br />
“Students stated, regardless of who won, we are still in this country
together and we will make the most of it. They really did not see that
whoever won would make a difference in their lives.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, ALABAMA</b><br />
<br />
“If we stop trying to find problems and focus on the future, our
country would be a better, more tolerant place to live. I explained to
my students how lucky we are to live in the greatest country in the
world, a place where we can have a peaceful transition of power; and if
you do not agree with the results, we get to do it again in four years.”
<b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, FLORIDA</b><br />
<br />
“I teach current events and the students did a very good job on
breaking down how to actually do a true protest that will actually bring
change vs. a mass temper tantrum. They also looked into how our
democracy works.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, WASHINGTON STATE</b><br />
<br />
“They reacted, but they moved on faster than the adults are.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, IDAHO</b><br />
<br />
“I don’t think the election has had a big impact on our school
climate. It is a 6–8 middle school in a wealthy suburb. We have mostly
white students with a decent size Asian population. It seems that there
was support for both sides in our community, but the students seem to be
taking the results fairly.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, OHIO</b><br />
<br />
“Absolutely nothing; if anything, this survey is creating more hatred than the election results.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, RHODE ISLAND</b><br />
<br />
“Our school has a unique demographic and, as a result, the emotions
of the election were very mixed. Many of our students are white,
middle-to-upper-class and conservative. Many of them were happy with the
outcome of the election, much to most teachers’ chagrin. There were, of
course, a fair amount of students who were visibly upset as well. A
week later, though, and I (sadly) don’t really see much remnants of the
election.” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, NEW MEXICO</b><br />
<br />
The second group includes schools that have worked hard at
establishing inclusive welcoming communities, have response programs in
place, and nurtured qualities of empathy and compassion among students.
Many of them report that students are affected, but that they have the
language and practices — talking circles, student- led groups,
leadership clubs, character programs and proactive staff — that have
helped them avoid conflict. “We are keeping a careful, careful watch as
teachers and administrators,” noted a North Carolina educator. “We are
in solidarity as we seek to see that every child in our school knows
his/her value and importance in our community.” A high school teacher in
California reported, “The students were devastated by the election
results, as were most of our faculty and staff members. However, the
darkness of the election brought us all closer together and in a
positive and proactive way!”<br />
<br />
Other schools are feeling the pressure, though. A Maryland high
school teacher said, “We have worked really hard over the last 10 years
to change our climate. The last year has nearly undone all of that work.
It is disheartening.”</div>
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The Ugliness Is New</h3>
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Many teachers made a
point of saying that what is happening now is something new. It’s not,
they explained, a different response to an election result, but an
unleashing of a spirit of hatred they had not seen before.<br />
<br />
Here are some of their comments.<br />
<br />
“I have seen open racism, spoken, for the first time in 23 years of teaching.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, MICHIGAN</b><br />
<br />
“I have never directly encountered race-related harassment in our school until after the election this year.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, WISCONSIN</b><br />
<br />
“There have been more fights in the first 10 weeks of this year than
in the first 10 years of my career (this is my 11th year teaching).” <b>— SECONDARY TEACHER, NEW YORK</b><br />
<br />
“Words that I have not heard in the past — racist, bigot, pussy, slut — are now used by my fourth-graders.” <b>— ELEMENTARY TEACHER, MINNESOTA</b><br />
<br />
“This is my 21st year of teaching. This is the first time I’ve had a
student call another student the ‘n’ word. This incident occurred the
day after a conference with the offender’s mother. During the
conference, the mother made her support of Trump known and expressed her
hope that ‘the blacks’ would soon ‘know their place again.’” <b>— ELEMENTARY TEACHER, GEORGIA</b><br />
<br />
Clearly, this election is having an effect on students, but teachers are affected as well.<br />
“Teachers are struggling. We are facing division like we’ve never
seen before. People are rethinking relationships and opinions of
colleagues. Personally, I am wondering if teaching Arthur Miller’s <i>The Crucible </i>might bring me grief. I’ve never even considered such a thought in 20+ years of teaching!” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, IOWA</b><br />
<br />
“An administrator told female and minority teachers that fear was ‘silly’ and ‘ridiculous.’” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER, CALIFORNIA</b><br />
<br />
“The day after the election, I sat in my car for 30 minutes before
school dreading going in to the middle school and seeing the faces of
the disappointed students and trying to think of what I was going to say
to them. I tried to be encouraging and say they would be safe in the
school that no one would be coming to get them in school.” <b>— MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER IN A SCHOOL WITH 65 PERCENT STUDENTS OF COLOR, INCLUDING IMMIGRANTS, WISCONSIN</b><br />
<br />
“The day after the election, white male students were seen running
through the halls, wearing American flag shorts and socks, Confederate
flag shirts and carrying large American flags. The students were told to
put their flags away, but they argued that it was freedom of speech.
They continued to run through the halls periodically throughout that
day. The symbol of our flag was changed for me that day. When I attended
a Veteran’s Day service on Thursday, some of those same students were
in the ROTC group here. I saw a distinct parallel to Hitler Youth. I am
no longer able to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I am compelled to
turn away when it comes on over the loud speaker and am repulsed by
‘liberty and justice for all.’” <b>— HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, VIRGINIA</b></div>
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Recommendations</h3>
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A few days before the
election, we posted advice to help teachers navigate the day after
Election Day. We knew that, no matter the result, some kids would be
crushed and others would be jubilant. We also knew that, after a
campaign as ugly as this one, teachers would be like medics on the front
lines.<br />
<br />
A week later, we saw that school leaders around the country were
confronting increasingly volatile school environments. From managing
anxiety and fear to responding to derogatory language and acts of bias,
principals, superintendents and other district and building leaders have
a tremendous challenge ahead.<br />
<br />
With this understanding in mind, we offer these suggestions to school administrators.<br />
<br />
• <b>SET THE TONE. </b>We’re aware that many superintendents and principals around the country have sent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/11/09/school-districts-offer-counseling-support-after-trump-victory-as-officials-try-to-calm-fears/" target="_blank">letters to staff and families</a>. If your administration hasn’t, consider doing it now. <a href="http://bostonpublicschools.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&ModuleInstanceID=14&ViewID=047E6BE3-6D87-4130-8424-D8E4E9ED6C2A&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=11269&PageID=1" target="_blank">This one</a>,
from Boston’s school superintendent Tommy Chang, is a great model. Your
message should affirm your school’s values, set expectations about
inclusion and respect, and explain your vision for the school community.<br />
<br />
• <b>TAKE CARE OF THE WOUNDED. </b>Many students — especially
immigrant, LGBT, Muslim and African-American students — are profoundly
upset and worried by the election results. Their anxiety is warranted;
many have been targeted in and out of school by individuals who think
Trump’s election has licensed hatred and bigotry. Let your school
community know that you have a plan — and the necessary resources — to
provide for the needs of specific students. Some of them are
experiencing <a href="http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-52-spring-2016/department/pd-caf" target="_blank"><b>trauma</b></a>. Are your teachers ready?<br />
<br />
• <b>DOUBLE DOWN ON ANTI-BULLYING STRATEGIES. </b>Encourage everyone
in the school community to be aware of bullying, harassment and bias in
all their forms. Remind them of the school’s written policies, and set
the expectation that your staff be ready to act. Not everyone has to be a
superhero, but everyone can be an <a href="http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-53-summer-2016/feature/anatomy-ally" target="_blank">ally</a> and an <a href="http://www.tolerance.org/blog/building-community-upstanders-abf" target="_blank">upstander</a>.<br />
<br />
• <b>ENCOURAGE COURAGE. </b>It’s especially important to let staff and students know that you expect them to <a href="http://www.tolerance.org/publication/speak-school" target="_blank">speak up</a>
when they see or hear something that denigrates any member of the
school community. When students interrupt biased language, calmly ask
questions, correct misinformation and echo others who do the same, they
send their peers a clear message: This kind of language doesn’t fly
here.<br />
<br />
• <b>BE READY FOR A CRISIS. </b>The news and social media are awash
in posts about ugly bias incidents — and even hate crimes — in our
communities and our schools. When an incident happens, you will not have
time to learn how to manage it: You need to be prepared. If something
happens, we have guidance for managing the crisis and keeping students
safe.<br />
<br />
Download “<a href="http://www.tolerance.org/publication/responding-hate-and-bias-school" target="_blank">Responding to Hate and Bias</a>” now and share it with others.<br />
<br />
Teaching Tolerance will further analyze the survey results and
continue to use the data to shape our resources and offerings to K–12
teachers and others who work in schools. Visit <a href="http://www.tolerance.org/voting-elections" target="_blank">tolerance.org/voting-elections</a> to view a package of materials currently available to help educators navigate this crisis.</div>
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About The Survey</h3>
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The discussion in this
report summarizes responses to questions posed by Teaching Tolerance via
an informal online survey launched on November 14, 2016; the data
reported here is based on the responses as of November 23. A link to the
survey was sent to educators who subscribe to the Teaching Tolerance
newsletter and was also shared on Teaching Tolerance’s social media
sites. It was open to any educator who wanted to participate. Several
other groups, including Facing History and Ourselves, Teaching for
Change, Not in Our Schools, the American<br />
<br />
Federation of Teachers and
Rethinking Schools, also shared the survey link with their audiences.<br />
<br />
The survey questions can be found <a href="http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/u76079/Teaching%20Tolerance%20Post-Election%20Survey.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> and are included as an appendix to this report.<br />
<br />
In the course of just over a week, over 10,000 people responded to
the survey. Collectively, they submitted over 25,000 comments. Nearly
all respondents identified themselves by name, email address, grade
level and state. More than 1,500 signified a willingness to go on record
by giving permission for Teaching Tolerance to share their contact
information with the media.<br />
<br />
The results of this survey are not scientific. The respondents were
not selected in a manner to ensure a representative sample; those who
responded may have been more likely to perceive problems than those who
did not. But it is the largest collection of educator responses that has
been collected; the tremendous number of responses as well as the
overwhelming confirmation of what has been anecdotally reported in the
media cannot be ignored or dismissed.<br />
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<br />
<b>SURVEY QUESTIONS</b><br />
1. How would you describe the impact of the election results on your school’s climate?<br />
• VERY NEGATIVE • SOMEWHAT NEGATIVE • SOMEWHAT POSITIVE • VERY POSITIVE<br />
2. How concerned are you about your school climate for the remainder * of the year?<br />
• NOT AT ALL CONCERNED • SOMEWHAT CONCERNED • VERY CONCERNED • EXTREMELY CONCERNED<br />
3. Is there anything you’d like to tell us about your school and the students you serve?<br />
4. How has the election affected the mood and behavior of students at your school?<br />
<br />
Since the election:<br />
My students have expressed concern about what might happen to them or their families.<br />
• Strongly disagree • Somewhat disagree • Somewhat agree • Strongly agree<br />
There has been anti-immigrant sentiment at my school.<br />
• Strongly disagree • Somewhat disagree • Somewhat agree • Strongly agree<br />
There has been anti-Muslim sentiment at my school.<br />
• Strongly disagree • Somewhat disagree • Somewhat agree • Strongly agree<br />
I have heard derogatory language or slurs about students of color.<br />
• Strongly disagree • Somewhat disagree • Somewhat agree • Strongly agree<br />
I have heard derogatory language or slurs about white students.<br />
• Strongly disagree • Somewhat disagree • Somewhat agree • Strongly agree<br />
I have heard derogatory language or slurs based on gender or sexual orientation.<br />
• Strongly disagree • Somewhat disagree • Somewhat agree • Strongly agree<br />
Students are targeting other students based on who they supported in the election.<br />
• Strongly disagree • Somewhat disagree • Somewhat agree • Strongly agree<br />
5. If specific incidents of election-related bigotry or harassment
have occurred in your school, please describe them. You may include a
link.<br />
6. Please describe any examples of hope or inclusion that have occurred in your school following the election.<br />
7. How are you, other educators and administration responding?<br />
• My administration is being responsive to the post-election climate.<br />
• My school has an action plan for when incidents of hate or bias occur.<br />
• I am hesitant to teach about the election results and post-election season.<br />
• Teachers or administrators are being harassed for standing up for children.<br />
Please provide details about any of the above statements.<br />
8. Use this space for comments or additional information you'd like to share.<br />
9. What resources or support do you and your school need?<br />
10. What resources, programs or interventions are you currently using?<br />
<br />
<i>Please let us know about yourself. We need your name and will not
share it without your permission. This is necessary so we can verify the
data. Reports of harassment at school are being dismissed as "hoaxes,"
and we know that some social media anecdotes have been found to be
pranks. We need solid data from educators. </i><br />
<br />
<i>We're depending on you.</i><br />
11. At what school level do you work?<br />
• Early childhood to pre-K<br />
• Elementary education K-5<br />
• Middle school 6-8<br />
• High school 9-12<br />
• Higher ed<br />
• Other (please specify)<br />
12. What is your main job role?<br />
• Teacher<br />
• Counselor<br />
• Building administrator<br />
• District administrator<br />
• Librarian<br />
• Professor<br />
• Other (please specify)<br />
<b>13. What is your name? </b>(We will not share it without your permission.)<br />
<b>14. Please provide your email address. </b>(We will never share your email address without your permission.)<br />
<b>15. In what state or U.S. territory do you work?</b><br />
<b>16. What city?</b><br />
<b>17. The report we wrote after our last survey drew the media's
attention to classrooms. We expect this to happen again. If you would
like the opportunity to tell your story or the story of your students,
answer YES. It gives us permission to give your email address to a
journalist.</b><br />
• YES, you may share my email address.<br />
<i>Thank you for taking the time to respond to our survey.</i></div>
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Endnotes</h3>
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1. U.S. Department of
Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Fast Facts:
Education Institutions, accessed November 27, 2016, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84" target="_blank">https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84</a><br />
2. Southern Education Foundation, A New Majority Research Bulletin:
Low Income Students Now a Majority in the Nation's Public Schools,
accessed November 27, 2016, <a href="http://www.southerneducation.org/" target="_blank">http://www.southerneducation.org/</a>
Our-Strategies/Research-and-Publications/New-Majority-Diverse-Majority-Report-Series/A-NewMajority-2015-Update-Low-Income-Students-Now<br />
3. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics, Common Core Data: State Nonfiscal Survey of Public
Elementary and Secondary Education, accessed November 27, 2016, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/" target="_blank">https://nces.ed.gov/</a>
ccd/stnfis.asp U.S. Department of Education, National Center for
Education Statistics, The Condition of Education: Racial/Ethnic
Enrollment in Public Schools, accessed November 27, 2016, <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/" target="_blank">http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/</a> indicator_cge.asp<br />
4. Ibid.<br />
5. Leslie A. Maxwell, “U.S. school enrollment hits majority-minority
milestone,” Education Week, August 19, 2014, accessed November 27, 2016,
<a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/08/20/01demographics.h34" target="_blank">http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/08/20/01demographics.h34</a>. html<br />
6. Market Data Research school data, accessed via subscription November 27, 2016.<br />
7. Ibid.<br />
8. Ibid</div>
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Acknowledgments</h3>
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This report was written
by Maureen B. Costello and edited by Richard Cohen and Adrienne van der
Valk. Russell Estes designed the layout.<br />
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER<br />
<b>CO-FOUNDERS</b> Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin Jr.<br />
<b>PRESIDENT & CEO </b>J. Richard Cohen<br />
<b>INTELLIGENCE PROJECT DIRECTOR</b> Heidi Beirich<br />
<b>OUTREACH DIRECTOR</b> Lecia Brooks<br />
<b>LEGAL DIRECTOR </b>Rhonda Brownstein<br />
<b>CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS & DEVELOPMENT OFFICER</b> Wendy Via<br />
TEACHING TOLERANCE<br />
<b>DIRECTOR</b> Maureen B. Costello<br />
<b>DEPUTY DIRECTOR </b>Adrienne van der Valk<br />
<b>MANAGER, TEACHING AND LEARNING</b> Hoyt J. Phillips III<br />
<b>TEACHING AND LEARNING SPECIALISTS</b> Jarah Botello, Lauryn Mascareñaz<br />
<b>SENIOR EDITOR</b> Monita K. Bell<br />
<b>WRITER/ASSOCIATE EDITOR</b> Maya Lindberg<br />
<b>RESEARCH ASSOCIATE</b> Margaret Sasser<br />
<b>TECHNICAL LEAD</b> D. Scott McDaniel<br />
<b>NEW MEDIA SPECIALIST</b> Tiffany Gibert<br />
<b>PROGRAM COORDINATOR</b> Steffany Moyer<br />
<b>ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT</b> Cecile Jones<br />
<b>INTERN</b> Alexis Ofe<br />
DESIGN<br />
<b>DESIGN DIRECTOR </b>Russell Estes<br />
<b>SENIOR DESIGNER</b> Valerie Downes<br />
<b>DESIGNERS</b> Michelle Leland, Sunny Paulk, Scott Phillips, Kristina Turner<br />
<b>DESIGN ASSOCIATE</b> Shannon Anderson</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-40799038938962160472016-12-04T06:00:00.002-08:002016-12-04T06:00:49.550-08:00Growth of Charter Schools Has Increased Inequality in Education<div data-canvas-width="752.7466666666667" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 53.3333px; left: 120px; top: 326.93px; transform: scaleX(1.03236);">
<span style="background-color: lime;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Exploring the negative consequences of</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: lime;"><span style="color: red;"><b>charter school expansion in U.S. cities</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></span></i></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoGJlYvPinnvSSCNeYohZ7KqjWD4MFr8mpWsO74siKL-5uGPQLPt4sh1n4AxxMxN1Xgfsx5A9COIqQrQ55tKsxGjkzXL260GQteivKx5i8na80jrOgMhgujb3Ma3-5Tn-iNAJGJ6-XnP0/s1600/California-Charter-School-Meme-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoGJlYvPinnvSSCNeYohZ7KqjWD4MFr8mpWsO74siKL-5uGPQLPt4sh1n4AxxMxN1Xgfsx5A9COIqQrQ55tKsxGjkzXL260GQteivKx5i8na80jrOgMhgujb3Ma3-5Tn-iNAJGJ6-XnP0/s640/California-Charter-School-Meme-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></i></div>
<br />
<span style="color: purple;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">In a new EPI report (see PDF below),
Rutgers University professor Bruce Baker finds that charter school
expansion has exacerbated inequities in education. In his study of 11
city school systems, Baker finds, in most cases, the non-charter public
schools have received fewer resources due to charter school expansion.
Also, he finds that many leading charter operators have been charged
with conflicts-of-interest and financial malfeasance.<span style="background-color: white;"> <b> </b></span></span></span></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: purple;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="background-color: yellow;">Baker recommends
communities hold charter operators publicly accountable and consider the
cost and benefits to the community and to the greater public good.</span></b></span></span></i></span><br />
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<iframe frameborder="1" height="700" scrolling="yes" src="https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/8196189/2236994?da=y&ifr=y" width="900"></iframe>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-21316103754034477852016-11-10T15:18:00.002-08:002016-11-10T15:18:48.110-08:00The Opt Out Revolt-- Democracy and Education<header style="font-family: 'Average Sans', arial, sans-serif;"><h1 class="title entry-title" style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: 'Crimson Text', arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.1em; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: red; font-size: x-large;">The Opt Out Revolt</span></h1>
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<span style="background-color: #e69138; color: purple; font-size: x-large;">Democracy and Education</span></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq1iHTcdDE_TiI-swMVrCpOgzxEGdftl2nsOe_N89dGg4pn2b9B2PmfI1Tg3HeITGLkLegu1lOLGiIhx9HApMZ0pTpjdHoC82wGUdhhJ_nMhb7ohrOtNWBehsI_FbmfIFFMG2Ax4QfJk4/s1600/cartoon-on-standardized-testing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq1iHTcdDE_TiI-swMVrCpOgzxEGdftl2nsOe_N89dGg4pn2b9B2PmfI1Tg3HeITGLkLegu1lOLGiIhx9HApMZ0pTpjdHoC82wGUdhhJ_nMhb7ohrOtNWBehsI_FbmfIFFMG2Ax4QfJk4/s640/cartoon-on-standardized-testing.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">by<b> <span class="coauthors" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="author url fn" href="http://monthlyreview.org/author/johnbellamyfoster/" rel="author" style="border: 0px; color: #880000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Posts by John Bellamy Foster">John Bellamy Foster</a></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>minthlyreview.org</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the United States today, the age of monopoly-finance capital and neoliberal politics, all aspects of social life are being financialized at breakneck speed, while the economy as a whole and employment remain lackluster. Financial flows of whatever kind are converted into “securitized” assets to be leveraged by Wall Street speculators. The data of private communications are mined. Health care is converted into a realm of super profits. Public water and electric facilities are sold to the highest bidder. The political system is turned into an open-air auction. Even pollution is treated as a market.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At the center of this juggernaut is elementary and secondary education, which receives over $550 billion in annual public spending, equal to the GDP of Belgium, ranked twenty-fifth worldwide in national income.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en1" id="fn1" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">1</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The new copyrighted Common Core State Standards, and the accompanying standardized tests run by two multi-state consortia in conjunction with testing companies, are “high stakes” not merely for schools, teachers, and students, but also for the vested interests of capital. The latter seek by these means to: (1) form a labor force of cheerful robots; (2) eliminate critical thinking from schools; (3) generate immense profits for the education industry and information firms; (4) end teacher tenure, seize control of classrooms from professional educators, and break teachers’ unions; (5) privatize public education through charter schools and other means; (6) facilitate private profits and financial speculation through control of government education funding; (7) merge education for large sections of the poor and racial minorities with the military and penal systems; (8) decrease the role of democracy in education while increasing the corporate role; (9) create databases with detailed biometrics on almost everyone, to be exploited by corporations; and (10) manage the population in what is a potentially fractious society divided by race and class.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Such unstated systemic aims—even more than the stated goals of closing the achievement gap associated with racial and ethnic inequality, or increasing international competitiveness—serve to explain the vast restructuring of U.S. education pushed forward during the last decade and a half, from the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act to the Obama administration’s Race to the Top.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The entire educational reform movement, as it is called, has been spearheaded by a number of big “venture philanthropic” or “philanthrocapitalist” foundations, including the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and others, which have sought to promote the Common Core State Standards, high-stakes standardized tests, and charter schools. These foundations have poured billions into educational restructuring, with the cooperation of large corporations and the government at every level.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en2" id="fn2" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">2</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">However, what could be called the national command center of this corporate-based education reform movement is located in the quasi-governmental agencies of the Council of Chief State Officers (CCSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA), both consisting of governmental officials but functioning outside political jurisdictions as private, non-governmental organizations, unaccountable to the populace. The CCSO and the NGA have copyrighted the Common Core State Standards, which were paid for primarily by the Gates Foundation and designed in conjunction with educational services companies like Pearson and McGraw-Hill—and without the significant involvement of teachers. As a result neither the federal government nor the states nor the teaching profession itself have control of the Common Core, which is nonetheless imposed on states and local school districts, forming the foundation of the entire system of high-stakes standardized testing.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en3" id="fn3" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">3</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The performance of students on the high-stakes standardized tests is currently being used in thirty-five states to evaluate teachers, in many cases firing those educators whose students do not provide sufficient evidence of teacher “value added.”</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en4" id="fn4" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">4</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There is no doubt that the U.S. public education system is full of inefficiencies and inequities. Huge inequalities exist in the funding of schools in different states, in different school districts within the same state, and even among schools within the same district. At Mission High School in San Francisco, $9,780 is spent on each student, while at schools in Palo Alto, a wealthy enclave home to Stanford, located just 30 miles away, the amount spent per student is $14,995.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en5" id="fn5" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">5</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A national survey of fourteen large school districts discovered that students from third through eighth grade took ten standardized tests each year on average, with some taking as many as twenty tests in a year. From third to fifth grades, students in urban communities spend 80 percent more time on test-taking than their suburban counterparts; from sixth to eighth grades 73 percent more; and from ninth to twelfth grades 266 percent more. In contrast, European students, whose educational performance is generally higher, are very rarely exposed at this stage to multiple-choice based standardized tests in their national assessments, and instead write essays evaluated by educators.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en6" id="fn6" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">6</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There is no evidence that the new system of high-stakes standardized tests has served to lessen chronic inequalities. In the 1970s to early 1980s the white-black and white-Latino achievement gaps narrowed sharply, with black and Latino students gaining relative to their white student peers. However, this closing of the gap has since slowed dramatically, especially in the decade and a half since No Child Left Behind was introduced. At the same time, the income-achievement gap has grown so that it is now 40 percent higher than it was several decades ago.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en7" id="fn7" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">7</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Indeed, all indicators point to a strong correlation today between educational achievement and class or socioeconomic status. To put this in proper perspective, though, it is first crucial to recognize that since in the United States minorities are disproportionately working class and poor, lower socioeconomic status overlaps significantly with racial and ethnic inequality, increasing the likelihood that a low-income child will come from a negatively stereotyped and culturally oppressed group, thereby placing further barriers in the way of educational achievement. The central problem confronting the school system is therefore the basic conditions of life endured by students attending public schools, a reflection of the larger capitalist society and its class and racial oppressions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In 2013, for the first time in recent history, a majority of the students in U.S. public schools came from families designated as in poverty or “near-poverty.” As recently as 1989, the share of low-income students in public schools was less than 32 percent. It has climbed ever since, to 38 percent in 2000, 48 percent in 2011, and 51 percent in 2013. In Mississippi the portion of low-income students in public elementary and secondary schools is 71 percent, and in New Mexico 68 percent, while in New York it is 48 percent, and in a largely white state with a sizeable rural population like Oregon, 49 percent. In 40 of the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia, more than 40 percent of the public school students are classified as low-income. This means that not only are Pre-Kindergarten to twelfth grade (PK–12) students in U.S. public schools mainly working class, by any measure, but they also come predominantly from the working and non-working poor. (A key element in the class structure of U.S. education is that almost a quarter of all PK-12 schools in the United States are private schools [here private does not include charter schools which are publically funded but privately managed], serving over five million mostly wealthier, primarily white students. Enrollees in private PK-12 schools in the United States represent about 10 percent of the total national elementary and secondary school population.)</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en8" id="fn8" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">8</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Rather than seeking to address these deepening class and race inequalities—and the nature of U.S. society itself—the supposed answer to the crisis of education advanced by the new corporate-education juggernaut has been the privatization of the entire system. The result is an educational system increasingly controlled by firms at the apex of monopoly-finance capital, promoting high profits and a packaged curriculum designed to habituate future workers to the firms’ own needs. Such a model can only exacerbate economic and social inequality. Those students who seem less integrated into the system, primarily the most underprivileged minority students, are to be shunted off to the military and penal systems—a reality already apparent in some large urban centers.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en9" id="fn9" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">9</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Schools across the country deemed “failures” due to low standardized test scores, mostly in poor and minority communities, are being closed, their teachers fired, and the educational system in those areas increasingly given over to charter schools. The main victims of this educational restructuring have of course been those most vulnerable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For all of its deficiencies, including a long history of racial segregation, the U.S. education system has been the site periodically of populist and progressive movements driven by teachers, parents, and communities—a struggle memorialized by John Dewey’s</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><em style="border: 0px; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Democracy and Education</em><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, W.E.B. Du Bois’s</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><em style="border: 0px; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Education of Black People</em><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, and Grace Lee Boggs’s “Education: The Great Obsession.”</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en10" id="fn10" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">10</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At various points in the twentieth century, attempts by vested interests to bring the school system under the regime of scientific management and monopoly capital were beaten back, by mass popular resistance aimed at defending a degree of local and parental control of schools.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en11" id="fn11" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">11</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Public schools have generally been viewed as central to communities, and constitute one of the few places where the inequities of society can be addressed and partially ameliorated, given dedicated, critical teachers and adequate funding—although it is impossible for the schools themselves to transcend the broader societal contradictions and their effects on children.]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The latest establishment attempt to use the Common Core and high-stakes standardized tests as a means of breaking down and restructuring the entire education system has once again met with a massive popular revolt—a vast fire burning in the opposite direction, in the form of a rapidly growing Opt Out movement in school districts and states across the country. In New York State in 2015, over 200,000 students—a full 20 percent of designated test takers—were opted out by their parents from standardized testing in English or math or both, quadruple the number from the previous year. Opting out was substantial in some of those districts in New York with preponderantly black and Latino populations, contradicting the notion that the movement was simply based in the white upper middle class. At the predominantly black Garfield High School in Seattle in 2013, the staff refused to administer the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, and were supported by parents and students in a mass Opt Out revolt. All across the country, the Opt Out movement has taken the form of a populist groundswell—on both the left and right—as more than a million parents have had their children opted out from the standardized tests. In December 2015, the U.S. Department of Education sent letters to twelve states warning them that they were violating federal law with their low test participation rates. Fighting back, Oregon passed a law requiring that school districts notify parents of their right to opt their students out of the standardized testing for any reason.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en12" id="fn12" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">12</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Although there have been attempts in the media to portray Opt Out as a movement primarily of privileged, white suburban families, the class and race demographics of the schools largely belie this image. If black and Latino communities are more likely to be struggling over actual school closures—with their community schools designated “failures” because of weak test scores—rather than organizing around opting out from the standardized tests themselves, it simply means that they are facing conditions that are considerably worse, and the struggle is consequently taking a different form. Moreover, there are now signs of a wide class and race alliance emerging against high-stakes standardized tests and the privatization of education, in which communities of color are playing larger roles. As Gerald Hankerson, president of the Seattle-King County NAACP, declared last year, “The Opt Out movement is a vital component of the Black Lives Matter movement and other struggles for social justice in our region. Using standardized tests to label Black people and immigrants ‘lesser,’ while systematically under-funding their schools has a long and ugly history in this country.”</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en13" id="fn13" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">13</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In early January 2016, a BK Nation Forum on Testing and the Opt Out movement was held in Manhattan.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en14" id="fn14" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">14</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Of those attending, around 70 percent were people of color, and the majority were African American. Over half were under 40 years of age. As Fordham professor of African American Studies and education activist Mark Naison, one of the founders of the Badass Teachers organization, wrote, the gathering represented a “powerful challenge to education policy makers who claim testing is a civil rights issue and that the Opt Out movement is strictly a white middle class initiative.” He continued,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify;">Parent after parent, teacher after teacher, administrator after administrator spoke eloquently about how excessive testing and culturally insensitive curricula were making students in their communities hate school. Equally harrowing were stories about how excessive scripting and humiliating visits [to classrooms] were making the best teachers in high poverty communities leave their jobs. What came across loud and clear was that a climate of fear emanating from city, state and federal policies, especially school closings and receivership, was creating a toxic atmosphere in Black and Latino Communities.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en15" id="fn15" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">15</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In December 2015 the federal government, faced with increasing criticism and a national Opt Out movement that threatened to emerge as a tidal wave in 2016, rid the country of No Child Left Behind and replaced it with the 1,061-page Every Student Succeeds Act. The new law’s main change was the federal government’s move to turn over more authority for running high-stakes assessments to the states. Nevertheless, it mandates as before that such tests be imposed annually on all students from grades three through eight, requiring 95 percent student participation in the testing. Moreover, the Every Student Succeeds Act clearly presumes that real control of the Common Core State Standards, and hence the standardized tests themselves, will remain primarily in private hands: the Council of Chief State Officials, the National Governors’ Association, educational service companies such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill, and the big venture capitalist foundations that provide funding and direction. All of this means that the Opt Out struggle will continue, but will be fought out in shifting terrains from state to state.</span><a class="endnote-link" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#en16" id="fn16" rel="footnote" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #d62e2b; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -0.6em; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;">16</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Meanwhile, teachers in many parts of the country are struggling to protect a viable education, their students’ futures, and their own jobs. On January 25, 2016, Detroit teachers closed 64 out of around a hundred public schools in the city with a massive “sick-out.” Their demands in a nutshell: Democracy and Education.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Crimson Text', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; letter-spacing: 1px;">Notes</span></div>
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<section class="entry" style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-top: 2em;"><ol style="border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.199999809265137px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: outside; margin: 0px 0px 15px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en1" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn1" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>“<a href="http://atlas.newamerica.org/school-finance" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Pre-K–12 Financing Overview</span></a>,” Atlas, New America Foundation, June 29, 2015, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://atlas.newamerica.org/school-finance</span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn2" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Diane Ravitch,<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Death and Life of the Great American School System</cite> (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 199–200;<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Reign of Error</cite> (New York: Vintage, 2014), 19-31; Mercedes K. Schneider,<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in American Public Education</cite> (Charlotte, NC: Information Age, 2014): 369–85; John Bellamy Foster, “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.14452/MR-063-03-2011-07_3" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Education and the Structural Crisis of Capital: The U.S. Case</span></a>,”<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Monthly Review</cite> 63, no. 3 (July-August 2011): 17–27.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en3" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn3" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Mercedes K. Schneider,<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?</cite> (New York: Teachers’ College Press, 2015), 128–39.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en4" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn4" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Kristin Rizga, “<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/opt-out-standardized-testing-overload" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sorry, I’m Not Taking This Test</span></a>,”<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mother Jones</cite>, August 2015, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://motherjones.com</span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en5" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn5" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Rizga, “<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/opt-out-standardized-testing-overload" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sorry, I’m Not Taking This Test</span></a>“; Eduardo Porter, “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/business/a-rich-childs-edge-in-public-education.html" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In Public Education, Edge Still Goes to Rich</span></a>,”<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">New York Times</cite>, November 5, 2013.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en6" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn6" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Rizga, “<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/opt-out-standardized-testing-overload" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sorry, I’m Not Taking This Test</span></a>“; Melissa Lazarin, “<a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2014/10/16/99073/testing-overload-in-americas-schools/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Testing Overload in America’s Schools</span></a>,” Center for American Progress, October 2014, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://americanprogress.org</span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en7" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn7" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>“<a href="http://cepa.stanford.edu/educational-opportunity-monitoring-project/achievement-gaps/race/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Racial and Ethnic Achievement Gaps</span></a>,” Stanford Educational Opportunity Monitoring Project, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://cepa.stanford.edu</span>; Rizga, “<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/opt-out-standardized-testing-overloadhttp://" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sorry, I’m Not Taking This Test</span></a>,”; Sean F. Reardon, “<a href="http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may13/vol70/num08/The-Widening-Income-Achievement-Gap.aspx" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Widening Income Achievement Gap</span></a>,”<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Educational Leadership</cite> 70, no. 8 (2013): 10–16, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://ascd.org</span>; Ravitch,<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rein of Error</cite>, 55–62.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en8" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn8" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Southern Education Foundation, “<a href="http://www.southerneducation.org/Our-Strategies/Research-and-Publications/New-Majority-Diverse-Majority-Report-Series/A-New-Majority-2015-Update-Low-Income-Students-Now" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A New Majority: Low Income Students Now a Majority in the Nation’s Schools</span></a>,” January 2015, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://southerneducation.org</span>; National Center for Education Statistics, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Digest of Education Statistics</cite></a>, Table 205.20, Enrollment and Percentage Distribution of Students Enrolled in Private Elementary and Secondary Schools, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://nces.ed.gov</span>; Council for American Private Education, “<a href="http://www.capenet.org/facts.html" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Facts and Studies</span></a>,” <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://capenet.org</span>; U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, “<a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2013008" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Projection of Education Statistics for 2021</span></a>,” January 2013, 3, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://nces.ed.gov</span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en9" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn9" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>See Erica R. Meiners and Therese Quinn, “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.14452/MR-063-03-2011-07_8" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Militarism and Education Normal</span></a>,”<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Monthly Review</cite> 63, no. 3 (July-August 2011): 77–86.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en10" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn10" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>John Dewey,<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Democracy and Education</cite> (New York: Free Press, 1916); W.E.B. Du Bois, <a href="http://monthlyreview.org/product/education_of_black_people/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Education of Black People</cite></a>(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973); Grace Lee Boggs, “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.14452/MR-022-04-1970-08_2" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Education: The Great Obsession</span></a>,”<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Monthly Review</cite> 22, no. 4 (September 1970): 18–39.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en11" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn11" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>See Foster, “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.14452/MR-063-03-2011-07_3" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Education and the Structural Crisis of Capital</span></a>,” 9–17.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en12" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn12" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Elizabeth A. Harris, “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/nyregion/new-york-state-students-standardized-tests.html" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">20% of New York State Students Opted Out of Standardized Tests This Year</span></a>,”<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">New York Times</cite>, August 12, 2015; Valerie Strauss, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/05/03/why-the-movement-to-opt-out-of-common-core-tests-is-a-big-deal/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Why the Movement to Opt Out of Common Core Tests Is a Big Deal</span></a>,” Answer Sheet blog,<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Washington Post</cite>, May 3, 2015; David Casalaspi, “<a href="http://edwp.educ.msu.edu/green-and-write/2016/reflections-on-the-opt-out-movements-future/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Reflections on the Opt-Out Movement’s Future</span></a>,” Green and Write blog, Michigan State University, January 19, 2016, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://edwp.educ.msu.edu/green-and-write</span>; Jesse Hagopian, “<a href="http://iamaneducator.com/2015/04/07/seattles-garfield-high-school-opt-out-movement-scores-huge-victory-over-smarter-balanced-common-core-testing/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Seattle’s Garfield High School Opt Out Movement Scores Huge Victory Over ‘Smarter Balanced’ Common Core Testing</span></a>,” I Am an Educator blog, April 7, 2015, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://iamaneducator.com</span>. The Oregon Department of Education, responsible for instituting the state’s new law ensuring the right of parents to opt their children out of standardized tests, has already undermined the clear intent of the law by inserting on the opt-out form the following misleading statement in larger, boldface letters, designed to frighten the parents from opting out their kids: “I understand that by signing this form I may lose valuable information about how well my child is progressing in English Language Arts and Math. In addition, opting out may impact my school districts efforts to equitably distribute resources and support student learning” (Oregon Department of Education, 2015–2016 Opt-Out Form).</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en13" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn13" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Hankerson, quoted in Jesse Hagopian, “‘Opt out now’: The Seattle NAACP Revives the Legacy W.E.B Du Bois, Demands an End to Common Core Testing,” I Am an Educator blog, April 10, 2015.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en14" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn14" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>“BK” stands for “Building Knowledge.” BK Nation is a relatively new national organization based in New York City: <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://bknation.org</span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en15" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn15" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Mark Naison, “<a href="http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2016/01/bk-nation-forum-defuses-stereotypes.html" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BK Nation Forum Defuses Stereotypes About Opt Out as a ‘White Movement’</span></a>,” With a Brooklyn Accent blog, January 7, 2016, <span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com</span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en16" style="border: 0px; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="endnote-backlink" href="http://monthlyreview.org/2016/03/01/the-opt-out-revolt/#fn16" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px 0.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="↩" class="emoji" draggable="false" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/21a9.svg" style="background-image: none !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; display: inline !important; height: 1em !important; margin: 0px 0.07em !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; vertical-align: -0.1em !important; width: 1em !important;" /></a>Emma Brown, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/11/30/how-schools-would-be-judged-under-every-student-succeeds-the-new-no-child-left-behind/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(135, 0, 0, 0.14902) 0px -0.2em 0px inset; color: #222222; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1), border-bottom 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1); vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="hyperlink" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">How Schools Would Be Judged Under ‘Every Student Succeeds,’ the New No Child Left Behind</span></a>,”<cite class="journal-book" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Washington Post</cite>, November 30, 2015.</li>
</ol>
</section><aside id="connect" style="background-color: #fafafa; border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); clear: both; color: #444444; font-family: 'Average Sans', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 15px;"></aside>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-36237637706436298512016-10-07T08:27:00.000-07:002016-10-07T08:28:51.071-07:00Segregated Schools are NOT Community or Neighborhood Schools<span style="color: #274e13;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Segregated Schools = Less Funding for Black Schools While Being Controlled by Whitefolks</b></span></span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xHwWgirYgNw" width="560"></iframe>
This is still happening in the US. It is part of the American education system's DNA. To rid this deformity, serious deep surgery must be performed by those experts known as Black & Latino Parents, Students and Educators.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-75238544144024015122016-09-07T13:09:00.003-07:002016-09-07T13:09:58.271-07:00More Students Resisting Standardized Testing Onslaught<div class="clear-block" id="node-header">
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"Sorry, I'm Not Taking This Test"</span></h1>
<h3 class="dek">
<span style="color: #073763;">The average US student takes more than 113 standardized tests before graduation. More and more are now saying: <span style="color: red;"><i>Enough!</i></span></span></h3>
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<span class="byline byline-byline"> </span><img alt="" class="image" src="https://www.motherjones.com/files/Kiana-Hernandez_1_0.jpg" /></div>
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<b><span class="byline byline-byline">Kristina Rizga</span><span id="dateline"> -</span></b><i><span id="dateline"> motherjones.com</span></i><b><span id="dateline"><br /></span></b><br />
<span id="dateline"><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/toc/2015/09">September/October 2015 issue</a></span></div>
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<span class="section-lead"><b>One hot morning</b></span>
in May, <b>Kiana Hernandez</b> (above) came to class early. She stood still outside
the door, intensely scanning each face in the morning rush of shoulders,
hats, and backpacks. She felt anxious. For more than eight months she
had been thinking about what she was about to do, but she didn't want it
to be a big scene.<br />
As her English teacher approached the door, she blocked him with her
petite, slender frame. Then, in a soft voice, she said, "I'm sorry. I'm
not going to take the test today." The multiple-choice test that morning
was one of 15 that year alone, and she'd found out it would be used
primarily as part of her teacher's job evaluation. She'd come into
class, she said, but would spend the hour quietly studying.<br />
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The teacher stared at her dark-brown eyes in silence while students shuffled past. "That's a mistake," he said with a deep sigh.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/mission-high-false-low-performing-school" target="_blank"><b> </b></a><br />
By her own estimate, Kiana had spent about three months during each
of her four years at University High in Orlando preparing for and taking
standardized tests that determined everything from her GPA to her
school's fate. "These tests were cutting out class time," she says. "We
would stop whatever we were learning to prepare." The spring of her
senior year, she says, there were three whole months when she couldn't
get access to computers at school (she didn't have one at home) to do
homework or fill out college applications. They were always being used
for testing.<br />
<br />
Kiana had a 2.99 GPA and is heading to Otterbein University in Ohio
this fall. She says she did well in regular classroom assignments and
quizzes, but struggled with the standardized tests the district and
state demanded. "Once you throw out the word 'test,' I freeze," she
tells me. "I get anxiety knowing that the tests count more than
classwork or schoolwork. It's a make or break kind of thing."<br />
<div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%;">
<br /></div>
Junior year had been particularly hard. She'd failed the Florida
reading test every year since sixth grade and had been placed in
remedial classes where she was drilled on basic skills, like reading
paragraphs to find the topic sentence and then filling in the right
bubbles on a practice test. She didn't get to read whole books like her
peers in the regular class or practice her writing, analysis, and
debating—skills she would need for the political science degree she
dreamed of, or for the school board candidacy that she envisioned.
(Sorting students into remedial classes, educational research shows,
actually <a href="https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/DifferentTeachersPeers.pdf" target="_blank">depresses achievement</a> among African American and Latino students in many cases, yet it remains common practice.)<br />
<br />
Kiana was living with her mother, and times were tough. Some days
there was no food in the house. "The only thing that kept me going to
school was my math teacher," Kiana says. "The only place that I felt
that I had worth was Mr. Katz's class. That's the thing that kept me
going every day."<br />
<br />
On the news, Kiana <a href="http://www.clickorlando.com/news/parents-protest-standardized-testing/32130502" target="_blank">saw pictures</a>
of students and parents carrying signs reading "Opt-Out: Boycott
Standardized Testing." Her high school didn't have activists like that.
In the library, Kiana made flyers that read: "Are you tired of taking
time consuming and pointless tests? Boycott Benchmark Testing! When
given the test, open the slip and do NOT pick up your pencil. Refuse to
feed the system!" She passed them out to her classmates, but they were
worried that opting out would hurt their GPAs.<br />
<br />
<div class="pullquote-left">
"I get anxiety knowing that the tests count
more than classwork or schoolwork," Kiana said. "It's a make or break
kind of thing."<br />
</div>
Kiana talked about this with Mr. Katz, who regularly met with
students who needed extra help during his lunch hour and after school.
One day during their tutoring session, he mentioned Gandhi. Kiana went
to the library and found some of Gandhi's essays. She determined that
what it took to make change was someone taking a personal stand.<br />
<br />
Next, she researched state education rules and discovered that the
end-of-course tests that Florida required in every subject were being
used primarily for job evaluations. (She says one teacher told her:
"Please take [the test]. My paycheck depends on it.")<br />
<br />
The English teacher started passing out the computer tablets used to
take the test. He put one on her desk. Kiana raised her hand. "I'm
sorry," she said again. "I'm not going to take this test."<br />
The noise dropped abruptly.<br />
<br />
"You should wait until you are done with high school before you try to change the world," the teacher said.<br />
<br />
Kiana reached into her backpack and pulled out a notebook to prepare for her psychology final.<br />
<br />
<span class="section-lead"><b>Critics have long</b></span>
warned that a flood of standardized testing is distorting American
education. But in recent months, an unprecedented number of students
like Kiana, along with teachers and parents across the country, have
chosen to take matters into their own hands—by simply refusing to take
part.<br />
<br />
"This school year saw by far some of the largest numbers of families
opting out from standardized tests in history," Bob Schaeffer, director
of public education at the <a href="http://fairtest.org/" target="_blank">advocacy group FairTest.org</a>, told me this spring. In New Jersey, <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/story/15-percent-nj-11th-graders-opted-out-parcc-tests/" target="_blank">15 percent</a>
of high school students chose not to take state tests in the 2014-15
school year. In New York state, only a few districts reported meeting 95
percent participation, the minimum required by federal rules, according
to a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/nyregion/opt-out-movement-against-common-core-testing-grows-in-new-york-state.html" target="_blank"><i>New York Times</i> investigation</a>.
There are opt-out activists in every state, and in Florida—thanks in
part to the hardcore pro-testing policies implemented by former Gov. Jeb
Bush—the backlash is especially severe.<br />
<div class="inline inline-right" style="display: table; width: 1%;">
<img alt="" class="image" src="https://www.motherjones.com/files/Schools_stats1a_300.png" /></div>
"Half the counties in Florida have an opt-out group," Cindy Hamilton, a parent and cofounder of <a href="https://optoutorlando.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Opt Out Orlando</a>,
told me. She said her group is not against tests per se, but against
the process being taken out of the hands of teachers and schools and
turned over to outside vendors.<br />
<br />
(As NPR's Anya Kamenetz has documented,
the testing industry, controlled by a handful of companies such as
CBT/McGraw-Hill, Harcourt, and Pearson, has grown from <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-4OSBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=$263+million+testing+industry&source=bl&ots=HdIhMlB-EV&sig=GDsFReX0rUwdxicmz8gVxRtSdYM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBWoVChMInNvxzfyNxwIVwaWICh13oAV5#v=onepage&q=%24263%20million%20testing%20industry&f=false" target="_blank">$263 million</a>
worth of sales in 1997 to $2 billion.) "Our movement," Hamilton said,
"is civil disobedience against the gathering of all of this data by
for-profit companies that doesn't help students learn."<br />
<br />
Students in American public schools today take more standardized tests than their peers in any other industrialized country. A <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/documents/2190991-source-1" target="_blank">2014 survey</a>
of 14 large districts by the Center for American Progress found that
third- to eighth-graders take 10 standardized tests each year on
average, and some take up to 20. By contrast, students in Europe rarely
encounter multiple-choice questions in their national assessments and
instead write essays that are graded by trained educators.<br />
<br />
Students in
England, New Zealand, and Singapore are also evaluated through projects
like presentations, science investigations, and collaborative
assignments, designed to both mimic what professionals do in the real
world and provide data on what students are learning.<br />
<br />
In the past three years, I interviewed hundreds of students across the nation while reporting <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mission-High-Experts-Students-Teachers/dp/1568584954/" target="_blank">my book, <i>Mission High</i></a>.
In schools both urban and suburban, affluent and struggling, students
told me that preparing for such tests cut into things that advanced
their education—projects, field trips, and electives like music or
computer classes.<br />
<br />
"Testing felt like such a waste," Alexia Garcia, a 2013 graduate of
Lincoln High in Portland, Oregon, told me. "It felt really irrelevant
and disconnected from what we were doing in classes." As a senior,
Garcia became a lead organizer with the <a href="http://portlandstudentunion.org/" target="_blank">Portland Student Union</a>,
a coalition with members in 12 area high schools that has been one of
the most visible student groups in the national student opt-out
movement. Garcia, who is now at Vassar College, told me that this
year—thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement—students are also
increasingly talking about how standardized testing contributes to
inequality and ultimately the "school-to-prison pipeline."<br />
<br />
Joshua Katz, Kiana Hernandez's math teacher, says he tests his
students using a variety of challenges and quizzes, but the only ones
that officially count are the fill-in-the-bubble variety. "They tell me I
must have data, and they don't consider tests data unless it comes from
multiple-choice," Katz told me.<br />
<br />
Every nine weeks, Katz has to stop whatever his students are doing and make time for the district's <a href="https://www.ocps.net/Documents/2014-15%20Documents/2014%20State%20Accountability%20Work%20Session.pdf" target="_blank">benchmark tests</a>
measuring student progress toward the big Common Core exam in the
spring. (Proponents of the Common Core standards, now in place in <a href="http://www.corestandards.org/standards-in-your-state/" target="_blank">43 states</a>,
promised fewer tests and less of a focus on multiple-choice. But most
of the teachers told me there had been no change in the number of
standardized assessments. "This year was a circus—16 weeks of testing
scheduled at the high school level," Katz said.)<br />
<br />
And University High, whose neighborhood and student population is
largely middle class, didn't bear as heavy a load of tests and drills as
its poorer counterparts: One <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/documents/2190991-source-1" target="_blank">recent study</a>
found that urban high school students spend 266 percent more time
taking district-level exams than their suburban counterparts. That's in
part because the stakes for these schools are so high: Test scores
determine not just how much funding a school will get, but whether it
will be allowed to <a href="http://dianeravitch.net/2013/03/05/research-on-school-closings/" target="_blank">stay open</a>
at all. In response, some administrators have been taking desperate
measures, including pushing the lowest-performing students out entirely.
<a href="https://www.ocps.net/Documents/2014-15%20Documents/2014%20State%20Accountability%20Work%20Session.pdf" target="_blank">Suspensions have been growing</a>
across the country, especially among African American and Latino
students, and many researchers correlate this with pressure to raise
scores. And in the 2011-12 school year, the Government Accountability
Office reported that officials in <a href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/654721.pdf" target="_blank">33 states confirmed</a> at least one instance of school staff flat-out cheating.<br />
<br />
<span class="section-lead"><b>With so much</b></span><b> </b>controversy
revolving around the effect of testing on struggling students and
schools, it's hard to remember that the movement's original goal was to
level the educational playing field. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2191000-a-historical-perspective-on-validity-arguments.html" target="_blank">In 1965</a>,
as part of the War on Poverty, the Johnson administration sent extra
federal funding to low-income schools, and in return asked for data to
make sure the money was making an impact. As more states started using
standardized tests in the 1970s and 1980s, urban education researchers
were able to identify which schools were helping students of color and
those from poor families achieve—giving the lie to the idea that these
students couldn't succeed.<br />
<br />
By the late '80s, many educators were pushing to deploy reliable,
external data to measure student progress, a movement that culminated in
the bipartisan support for President George W. Bush's <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/factsheet.html" target="_blank">No Child Left Behind</a>
initiative. With NCLB, states were required to gather and analyze vast
amounts of testing data by race, ethnicity, and class. Researchers soon
started mining this information, convinced that they could reveal what
really worked in education. One <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/200604hamilton_1.pdf" target="_blank">2006 study</a> found that putting students in a top-rated teacher's class raised average scores by 5 percentage points. Another connected <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/documents/2190992-measuring-the-impacts-of-teachers" target="_blank">increases in test scores</a> to higher earning levels, lower pregnancy rates, and higher college acceptance rates.<br />
<br />
<div class="pullquote-left">
"They tell me I must have data, and they
don't consider tests data unless it comes from multiple-choice," teacher
Joshua Katz told me.<br />
</div>
Findings like this encouraged two major beliefs in policy circles:
First, that test scores were a key factor in how students would do later
in life. And second, that the best way to improve teaching was to
reward the top performers and fire the bottom ones, based in large part
on their students' scores. High-profile charter schools like <a href="http://www.kipp.org/" target="_blank">KIPP</a> and <a href="http://www.uncommonschools.org/" target="_blank">Uncommon Schools</a>, whose model relied in part on avoiding teacher tenure, helped cement that belief.<br />
<br />
By 2009, President Barack Obama used his <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html" target="_blank">Race to the Top</a>
initiative to promote using test scores to hire, fire, and compensate
teachers. Today, 35 states require teacher evaluations to include these
scores as a factor—and many states have introduced new tests just for
this purpose. Until this year, Florida used end-of-course tests in
virtually every subject to give bonuses to some teachers and punish
others. When Kiana's math teacher, Joshua Katz, was downgraded to
"effective" from "highly effective" this year, his salary was slated to
drop by $1,100.<br />
<br />
But while using student test scores to rate teachers may seem
intuitive, researchers say it actually flies in the face of the
evidence: Decades of data indicates that better results come not from
hiring innately better teachers, but from helping them improve through
constant training and feedback. Perhaps that's why no other nation in
the world uses annual, standardized tests to set teacher salaries.
(Other countries use test scores to push teachers to improve, but not to
punish them.)<br />
<br />
Nor do other developed nations have such a drastic gap in funding
between rich and poor schools. Mission High School in San Francisco, for
example, spends $9,780 per student, while schools in Palo Alto, just 30
miles away, spend $14,995. New York <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-98.html" target="_blank">spends $19,818</a>
per student, California just $9,220. The per student funding gap
between rich and poor schools nationwide has grown 44 percent in the
last decade—even as the number of needy students has grown. In 2013, for
the first time in at least 50 years, a <a href="http://www.southerneducation.org/getattachment/4ac62e27-5260-47a5-9d02-14896ec3a531/A-New-Majority-2015-Update-Low-Income-Students-Now.aspx" target="_blank">majority of US public school students</a> came from low-income families.<br />
<div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%;">
<img alt="" class="image" src="https://www.motherjones.com/files/Screen%20Shot%202015-08-17%20at%204.31.52%20PM.png" style="height: 349px; width: 630px;" />
<br />
<div class="caption">
<b><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>In July, EdBuild <a href="http://maps.edbuild.org/DividingLines.html#" target="_blank">released an analysis</a>
of child poverty in some 13,000 school districts nationwide. In the
districts outlined in red, more than 40 percent of students came from
impoverished households.</i></span> </b>EdBuild<br />
</div>
</div>
All this presents a significant risk for a country that has relied on schools as the primary avenue for social mobility. <a href="https://ed.stanford.edu/faculty/plcarter" target="_blank">Prudence L. Carter</a>,
a professor in the school of education at Stanford University, says in
fact, kids have very different opportunities: Affluent students ride
through the education system in what amounts to a <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/opportunity-gap-stupid-article-1.1340946" target="_blank">high-speed elevator</a>
supported by well-paid teachers, intellectually challenging classes,
and private tutors. Middle-class kids are on an escalator. Their parents
may struggle to keep up, but still can access resources to help their
children prepare for college. And then there are low-income students
like Kiana, who are left running up a staircase with missing steps and
no handrails.<br />
<br />
When it comes to standardized testing, this means that schools that
educate low-income students start out at a disadvantage: They are much
more likely to have lower-paid and less-qualified teachers; lack college
preparatory classes, books, and supplies; and offer fewer arts and
sports programs. When their students don't make it to the same
"proficiency" benchmarks on yearly tests as their wealthier
counterparts, politicians label them and their <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/mission-high-false-low-performing-school" target="_blank">teachers as "failing."</a>
And that begins a vicious cycle: Struggling students are pushed into
remedial classes that zero in on what's measured on the tests, further
limiting their opportunities to learn the advanced skills they'll need
in college or the workplace.<br />
<br />
"What I observed was egregious," Ceresta Smith, a 26-year veteran teacher in Miami and a cofounder of <a href="http://unitedoptout.com/" target="_blank">United Opt Out National</a>,
told me about a predominantly African American, low-income school where
she worked from 2008 to 2010. Some teachers tried to incorporate
writing and intellectually engaging readings, she said, but most
resorted to remediation of basic skills. "Students are reading random
passages and practice picking the correct multiple-choice. It was very
separate and unequal."<br />
<br />
The proponents of testing-based reform like to argue that—while
imperfect—the current approach has been working better than any other,
leading to rising graduation rates and standardized test scores. But as
Stanford researcher <a href="https://ed.stanford.edu/faculty/ldh" target="_blank">Linda Darling-Hammond</a>
has pointed out, there's a bit of circular logic at work here: A system
singularly focused on producing better test scores leads to...better
test scores. Meanwhile, though, American students' performance compared
to other nations—on tests that measure skills and knowledge more
broadly—remained flat or declined between 2000 and 2012.<br />
<br />
Most importantly, test-based accountability is failing on its most
important mandate—eliminating the achievement gap between different
groups of students. While racial gaps have narrowed slightly since 2001,
<a href="http://cepa.stanford.edu/educational-opportunity-monitoring-project/achievement-gaps/race/#first" target="_blank">they remain stubbornly large</a>.
The gaps in math and reading for African American and Latino students
shrank far more dramatically before No Child Left Behind—when policies
focused on equalizing funding and school integration, rather than on
test scores. In the 1970s and '80s, the achievement gap between black
and white 13-year-olds was cut roughly in half nationwide. In the
mid-'70s, the rates at which white, black, and Latino graduates attended
college <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/documents/2191003-percentage-of-recent-high-school-completers" target="_blank">reached parity</a> for the first and only time.<br />
<div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%;">
<img alt="" class="image" src="https://www.motherjones.com/files/xSchools_stats2_3ALT_630.png" /></div>
In the decades since, the encouraging news is that the black-white
achievement gap has kept slowly shrinking. But at the same time, the gap
between students from poor and affluent families has <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/documents/2190993-the-widening-income-achievement-gap" target="_blank">widened into a chasm</a>, growing by 40 percent between 1985 and 2001. <a href="https://cepa.stanford.edu/sean-reardon" target="_blank">Sean Reardon</a>,
a Stanford professor who focuses on poverty and inequality in
education, says this is not surprising—affluent families can spend more
than ever on enrichment activities. He argues it's up to government to
level the playing field, by making sure low-income students get the
opportunity to succeed. But in many places, government is instead
pulling back from the civil rights era's focus on educational
inequality.<br />
<br />
Today, many students of color are once again going to segregated,
high-poverty schools that struggle to offer advanced classes and attract
teachers and counselors. Some <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/UnequalEduation.pdf" target="_blank">40 percent</a> of black and Latino students now are in schools at which 90 to 100 percent of the student body are kids of color.<br />
<br />
<span class="section-lead"><b>To be sure,</b></span><b> </b>the test-based reform movement still has powerful proponents—politicians like <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/common-core-gop-election-2016-confused" target="_blank">Jeb Bush</a> and Secretary of Education <a href="http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/duncan-pushes-back-attacks-common-core-standards" target="_blank">Arne Duncan</a>, philanthropists like <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-common-core" target="_blank">Bill Gates</a>,
some teachers, and prominent civil rights organizations such as the
NAACP and National Council of La Raza. "For the civil rights community,
data provide the power to advocate for greater equality under the law," a
coalition of 12 groups argued in a recent <a href="http://www.civilrights.org/press/2015/anti-testing-efforts.html" target="_blank">joint statement </a>criticizing
the opt-out movement. "We cannot fix what we cannot measure." Some
teachers I spoke to echoed that message: Lauren Fine, an
elementary-school teacher in Denver, believes that without the standards
and annual assessments, we won't be able to maintain "a high bar for
every student."<br />
<br />
President Barack Obama agrees with this line of
reasoning and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/114/saps1177s_20150707.pdf" target="_blank">recently said</a>
that as Congress debates rewriting the No Child Left Behind law, he
won't sign any bills that don't include requirements for annual testing,
accountability, and state interventions.<br />
<br />
But a growing list of others, from the students and parents in the
opt-out movement to youth and labor groups and education researchers,
are arguing that the push for standardized testing has in fact
exacerbated inequities. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CCgQFjADahUKEwiMnbDzjI7HAhXFKogKHRxIArE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.j4jalliance.com%2F&ei=zP2_VYyHKMXVoASckImICw&usg=AFQjCNHEGp-VNfYzIBA8J7nNXwRhM0nrxw&sig2=Os6FylAD4QktXXHDCQ1jrQ&bvm=bv.99261572,d.cGU" target="_blank">Journey for Justice</a>
is a coalition of grassroots youth and parent groups in 21 cities. "Our
concern is that the people who are most directly impacted by these
education policies are never consulted," director Jitu Brown told me.<br />
<br />
Brown, who saw firsthand the impact of the recent closures of <a href="http://www.wbez.org/news/education/just-months-after-closing-50-schools-chicago-issues-rfp-more-charter-schools-108398" target="_blank">50 low-scoring schools</a>
in his native Chicago, says politicians should look at the real world
rather than listening to "education entrepreneurs who are implementing
mediocre interventions in our communities." In Chicago, he notes, "you
had young people being displaced as the one stable institution in our
community was eliminated. You had the massive firing of black teachers,
as if they were the problem—when equity never existed."<br />
<br />
<span class="section-lead"><b>So assume for a</b></span>
moment that the opt-outers succeed: We'd still need ways to improve
teaching, assess what students are learning, and reduce the achievement
gaps. How should that happen instead?<br />
<br />
I found some answers as I spent two years in classrooms with Pirette
McKamey, a highly respected teacher at Mission High, and Ajanee Greene, a
bright, resilient senior who had just finished a powerful 10-page
research paper—even though, as a freshman, she got a D in English at her
old school. As I watched McKamey and her colleagues design lesson plans
and pore over Ajanee's writing together, I realized that a focus on
accountability doesn't have to sacrifice teachers' growth or students'
love of learning.<br />
<br />
One winter morning in 2013, McKamey and seven other teachers sat in
an empty classroom at Mission High. A light February rain drummed
against the windows as Shideh Etaat passed around roasted almonds and
talked about her weekend plans. The teachers had convened for one of
their three weekly planning hours. This one was dedicated to in-depth
case studies of individual students' math worksheets, essay drafts, and
written notes for science lab investigations.<br />
<br />
Etaat, a first-year English teacher, had brought in a poem written by
a junior named Jay, who came to California from Thailand two years ago.
"Jay is that student who will say, 'Oh, I don't write poetry. I'm not
creative,'" Etaat said. "But I find that English learners are able to
see outside of the box. They have an ability to play with language in
this really creative way."<br />
<br />
Etaat explained that she'd given her students photos of five
different pairs of shoes. She'd asked them to pick a pair they would not
wear, and to create a character to go with them. She passed out the
"scaffolding" documentation for her lesson—directions for how to develop
a character, some sample stanzas, a poem she had written herself based
on the assignment. Educational theorists call this teaching in the "<a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html" target="_blank">zone of proximal development</a>": that place where we can't progress by ourselves, but we can with targeted assistance and constructive feedback.<br />
<br />
The wind whistled through the old window frames as the teachers read Jay's poem.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>My shoes look like a pair of cheap running shoes</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>Full of sweat and heat</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>In his shoes, he works hard every day</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>He sees himself working in the mud</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>And sleeping on the street with other hobos</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>In my shoes, I see a student running in the hallway</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>Trying to get his lunch as early as possible</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>In his shoes, he hears the heavy metal noise of his hammer</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>Striking at that thick jet black rock until it resolves</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>In my shoes, I hear the noisy noise coming out of the classroom</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>The sound of electronic devices and ceaseless hip hop music</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>In his shoes, he feels pain coming from his body,</i></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>The pain of loneliness and betrayal.</i></span><br />
<br />
"It's very hard to <a href="http://edglossary.org/scaffolding/" target="_blank">scaffold creativity</a>
just right," said Dayna Soares, a second-year math teacher. "Sometimes
teachers give you a blank paper and that's too much freedom. I'm always
struggling with this—how can I give my students just enough structure,
but in a way that doesn't make them fill in the blanks?"<br />
<br />
They talked about the craft of grading and commenting on student
work. When teachers provide feedback on writing, research shows, many
default to a "what's wrong with this paper" strategy, instead of writing
responses that promote growth. "Every time a student does an
assignment, they are communicating something about their thinking,"
McKamey told the group.<br />
<br />
"And even if it's far away from what I thought
they'd do, they are still communicating the ways they are putting the
pieces together. There are so many opportunities to miss certain
students and not see them, not hear them, shut them down. It takes a lot
of skill, experience, and patience not to do that." Looking over
multiple-choice questions doesn't help teachers detect these signals,
McKamey told me, because they won't tell you where and why someone got
stuck.<br />
<div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%;">
<img alt="" class="image" src="https://www.motherjones.com/files/Schools_Map_630.png" /></div>
In other words: It's not just students who miss out on a chance to
learn when standardized tests set the pace. Teachers, too, lose
opportunities to improve their craft and professional judgment—for
example, detecting where their students' thinking hits what McKamey
calls a "knot" and figuring out how they can improve. That's when many
fall back on the only available option: repetitive instruction, more
testing, and remediation.<br />
<br />
What's essential for teachers to grow, McKamey told me, is
collaboration with fellow professionals—and that mutual accountability,
she said, is more effective than test scores or even financial bonuses.
"What teachers care about," she said, "is the feedback they get from
students, parents, and peers they respect."<br />
<br />
Max Anders, a first-year English teacher, told me that working with
McKamey helped him learn how to teach every student individually. "My
understanding before was you give work for the middle," explained
Anders, who was teaching Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave"<i> </i>at
the time. "But the best approach is to give rigorous work that
challenges everyone and learn how to break it up and scaffold it just
right."<br />
<br />
<span class="section-lead"><b>McKamey's small, sunlit</b></span><b> </b>office
is lined with binders filled with the lesson plans she has built up
over the last 27 years of teaching, including one for Tim O'Brien's
Vietnam War memoir, <i>The Things They Carried</i>. Every year she
teaches the novel, McKamey adds material to the binder, because she
learns new things from her students and colleagues each time. Underneath
her heavy desk, three pairs of shoes sit neatly lined up: black loafers
and Mary Janes for teaching and coaching, light-gray sneakers for dance
class after school.<br />
<br />
I talked to Ajanee Greene in that office one afternoon. Independent
and astute, Ajanee wrote the strongest research papers in the English
classes I'd been observing. She was about to become the first in her
family to graduate from high school and had started filling out college
applications.<br />
<br />
From the moment she stepped into McKamey's classroom, Ajanee told me,
she started to feel like an intelligent person. "By middle school, I
could tell which teacher is looking at my grades and test scores and is
just teaching me basics without opportunities to challenge myself. Just
because I struggle with some grammar rules doesn't mean I can't think
deeply. Ms. McKamey believed in me and then pushed me to work really,
really hard."<br />
<br />
Ajanee and McKamey had just finished their lunch meeting, an
occasional check-in to talk about life and school. As McKamey left for a
meeting, Ajanee told me that she'd chosen the topic for her
paper—titled "Black on Black Violence: Why We Do This to
Ourselves"—because she'd lost her stepfather and several close friends
to gun violence.<br />
<br />
<div class="pullquote-left">
At school, Ajanee said, "you learn about math and reading, but you rarely learn new ways of looking and thinking about life."<br />
</div>
For the paper, Ajanee had read and analyzed about 20 articles and
studies and, with McKamey's encouragement, had interviewed her neighbors
and added her own point of view. She didn't like how the local paper
described her stepfather as a "flashy" man who had recently purchased a
piece of new jewelry—implying, it seemed to her, that greed might have
been the reason he'd been shot.<br />
<br />
Ajanee wanted her readers to understand that her stepdad was a
dedicated father of four who was home with his seven-year-old nephew
when he was killed. The violence didn't just affect the victims; it
scarred the survivors, Ajanee wrote. "Personal, private, solitary pain
is more terrifying than what anyone can inflict. The violence stays with
families and becomes a part of their lives.<br />
<br />
Nobody feels the same and
family relationships get strained." She also added a section on the
history of slavery and Jim Crow, writing, "The epidemic of African
Americans killing each other didn't start because we just hate each
other. It started when we began to believe the things other races said
about us and began to hate ourselves."<br />
<br />
"When you go to school, you learn about math and reading, but you
rarely learn new ways of looking and thinking about life," Ajanee
explained. "Learning the skills to research and write this paper helped
me learn so much: how many people are dying, why they are dying, how to
tell the stories of others and learn about the world. It gave me a
better understanding."<br />
<br />
She got an A- for the paper. "When they told me the grade, I thought
it must have been a mistake," she says—she'd read her classmates' drafts
and didn't think hers measured up. "Before this, the longest paper I
wrote was three pages. Now, if I have to write 15 pages in college next
year, I feel ready," she told me. (That was in 2013. This year, after
two years in community college, Ajanee transferred to Jackson State
University in Mississippi.)<br />
<br />
But as politicians, economists, and philanthropists focus on ever
more sophisticated number crunching, opportunities for teachers to
nurture students' intellect the way McKamey does have grown more
limited. Mission High teachers never complained to me about being
overworked, but they worked more hours than anyone I met in the
corporate world. For more than a decade, McKamey woke up at 5 a.m., got
to school by 6:30, left for dance class at 4:30 p.m., and then worked
almost every evening and every Sunday. Most teachers I met worked with
students after school and colleagues on weekends, without pay.<br />
<br />
And yet the story of Mission High holds out hope for a different kind
of school reform—one that builds on resources that already exist in
thousands of schools and doesn't require spending a dime on the next
generation of tests, software, or teacher evaluation forms. That's
because Mission has already been through exactly the kind of harsh
treatment for "failing" schools that the standardized-testing movement
supports—and then it found another way.<br />
<br />
In the mid-1990s, Mission had rock-bottom test scores and was targeted by the district for <a href="http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=elj" target="_blank">"reconstitution."</a>
The principal was removed and half the teachers were reassigned. Yet in
2001, the school once again had some of the lowest test scores and
attendance rates among all of San Francisco's high schools, and more
teachers were leaving it than almost any other school in the district.<br />
<br />
Then Mission High tried something new. Instead of bringing in
consultants, it mobilized a small group of teachers—including McKamey—to
lead reforms on their own. It increased paid time for them to plan
lessons together, design assessments, and analyze outcomes. The teachers
made videos of students talking about what kind of instruction helped
them succeed. They read research about how integrated classes,
personalized teaching, and culturally relevant curriculum increased
achievement. They asked successful teachers to coach colleagues who
needed help.<br />
<br />
To focus their efforts and keep each other accountable, McKamey and
her colleagues regularly pore over data, both qualitative and
quantitative. They look at achievement gaps, attendance, referrals,
graduation rates, and test scores. They also walk through classrooms,
delve into student work, and interview teachers and students. "We are
always looking at and trying to understand different kinds of data,
including anecdotal," McKamey told me. "Then we can settle on something
we need to concentrate on each year." One year, social studies teachers
discovered that too many students didn't fully grasp the difference
between summarizing a text versus analyzing it, so they spent the next
year building more opportunities to practice those skills. The math
department, meanwhile, focused on one-on-one coaching to help set up
effective group work.<br />
<div class="inline inline-right" style="display: table; width: 1%;">
<img alt="" class="image" src="https://www.motherjones.com/files/Schools_Stats3_300.png" /></div>
By contrast, back in Florida, Katz told me that the typical way he
receives professional development entails an observation of a model
lesson by a district consultant demonstrating how to teach Common Core
standards. While University High struggles to keep teachers, Mission
High has very low attrition. It is no longer considered a
"hard-to-staff" school by the district. "Mission High is famous at the
district because it is known as a learning community and a good,
supportive place to work," Soares told me. "It's hard to get a job
here."<br />
<br />
The school does well on a bevy of other metrics, as well. The
graduation rate went from among the lowest in the district, at 60
percent, to 82 percent; the graduation rate for African American
students was 20 percent higher than the district average that year. Even
though close to 40 percent of students are English learners and 75
percent are poor, college enrollment rose from 55 percent in 2007 to 74
percent by 2013. Suspensions plummeted, and in the annual student and
parent satisfaction survey from 2013, close to 90 percent said they
liked the school and would recommend it to others.<br />
<br />
That doesn't mean there aren't challenges. Standardized test scores
went up 86 points, to 641 (out of 1,000) in 2012, but that was still far
from California's target for all schools of 800. The numbers of African
American and Latino students in AP math and science classes don't fully
mirror the student body, and their passing rates on the California high
school exit exam went down in 2013 and 2014. The work continues, but so
does the commitment of teachers to keep at it. "No one here does 7:45
to 3:10 and then calls it quits," science teacher Becky Fulop, who has
worked at Mission High for more than a decade, told me. "That by itself
doesn't necessarily make teachers effective, but the dedication here is
extraordinarily high."<br />
<br />
Nationally, there are thousands of struggling schools like Mission
where teachers are engaged in similar hard, messy, and slow work. What
if instead of spending more money on new rounds of tests, we focused on
their ability to learn and lead on the job?<br />
<br />
No country has ever turned around its educational achievement by
increasing standardized tests, according to research conducted by Lant
Pritchett at the <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/" target="_blank">Center for Global Development</a>.
The best systems, it turns out, invest in supporting accountability at
the school level—like those teacher meetings at Mission High.<br />
<br />
<span class="section-lead"><b>"It's always an attempt</b></span>
to hijack the effort by the teacher to think about education," McKamey
told me one morning as we talked about the dozens of reform efforts
she's seen come and go in 27 years of working in inner-city schools. The
only thing none of the politicians, consultants, and philanthropists
who came in to fix education ever tried, she said, was a systemic
commitment to support teachers as leaders in closing the achievement
gap, one classroom at a time.<br />
<br />
"Let me remind you what analysis is," she said a few hours later,
standing in the middle of her class with those black leather loafers
from under her desk. "When I was little, I used a hammer and screwdriver
to crack a golf ball open. As I cracked that glossy plastic open, I saw
rubber bands. And I went, 'Ha! I didn't know there were rubber bands in
golf balls. I wonder what's inside other balls?' It made me curious
about the world. So we are doing the same thing. We'll analyze the
author's words to dig in deeper."<br />
<br />
The 25 seniors had just finished reading a chapter from <i>The Things They Carried</i> titled "The Man I Killed." When they were done, McKamey asked them to pick out a quote they found intriguing.<br />
<br />
David, a shy, reflective teenager whose face lit up when the class read poetry, raised his hand:<br />
<i>"He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He
lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face
neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a
star-shaped hole."</i><br />
<br />
"What do you notice in this passage?" McKamey probed.<br />
<br />
"The man the narrator killed is the same age as him," Roberto commented.<br />
<br />
"Exactly," she replied. "Now you are one step deeper. What do I feel inside when I think of that?"<br />
<br />
"Guilt, regret," Ajanee jumped in.<br />
<br />
"That's right," McKamey commented. "I personally would use the word <i>compassion</i>. But what you said is 100 percent correct. And what does that do when we realize that this man is the same age as us?"<br />
<br />
"It makes me think that he's young, likes girls, probably doesn't want to fight in a war," Roberto said.<br />
<br />
"Exactly. Now take that even deeper."<br />
<br />
"It's like he is killing himself?" Roberto said more hesitantly, glancing at her for affirmation.<br />
<br />
"Perfect! Now you made a connection," McKamey said, excitement in her
voice. "That's what this quote is really about. Now, why is O'Brien
saying 'star-shaped hole'? Why not 'peanut-shaped' hole?"<br />
<br />
Ajanee raised her hand. "The image in his mind is burned."<br />
<br />
"Exactly!" McKamey replied. "O'Brien wants us to keep that same image in mind that he had as a young soldier in <i>his</i> mind. It's the kind of image you never forget."<br />
------------------- <br />
<br />
<div class="end-of-article-credit">
Support for this story was provided by the Equity Reporting Project.
Data sources: In Ohio.../Average testing hours: <a href="https://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Testing/Ohio-s-State-Tests/Testing-Report-and-Recommendations-2015.pdf.aspx">Ohio Dept. of Education</a>; A child entering…: <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/11/17/362339421/testing-how-much-is-too-much">Council of Great City Schools</a>; Urban students spend…/Public school students…: <a href="https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/LazarinOvertestingReport.pdf">Center for American Progress</a>; Percentage of public school students who are low income: <a href="http://www.southerneducation.org/Our-Strategies/Research-and-Publications/New-Majority-Diverse-Majority-Report-Series/A-New-Majority-2015-Update-Low-Income-Students-Now">Southern Education Foundation</a>; Teachers in schools…/Black students…: <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-teacher-equity-snapshot.pdf">US Dept. of Education Office of Civil Rights</a></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-72119663180031739262016-08-30T08:41:00.001-07:002016-08-30T08:41:21.968-07:00 The Teacher Pay Gap Is Wider Than Ever <h1 class="page-title">
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="subtitle">Teachers’ pay continues to fall further behind pay of comparable workers</span></span></span> </h1>
<div class="entry-meta">
<div class="authors">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiff7bX9qC9tf-vJKsOSPsBseW4tTbOZrvvWZE45ZLjiG3S3mLt1NazSvSNvNDlGpjf5JFqGaXKJ-jGQ_zrN4lt9eCzkgs8SS8sUeaCWja94aFGJJbppVqqtYCoahrLVDi6bz3kTUsIPHM/s1600/CLASSROOM-KIDS-TEACHER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiff7bX9qC9tf-vJKsOSPsBseW4tTbOZrvvWZE45ZLjiG3S3mLt1NazSvSNvNDlGpjf5JFqGaXKJ-jGQ_zrN4lt9eCzkgs8SS8sUeaCWja94aFGJJbppVqqtYCoahrLVDi6bz3kTUsIPHM/s640/CLASSROOM-KIDS-TEACHER.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span class="loop-type"> </span><br />
By <b><a href="http://www.epi.org/people/sylvia-a-allegretto">Sylvia Allegretto</a> </b>and <b><a href="http://www.epi.org/people/lawrence-mishel">Lawrence Mishel</a></b> </div>
<div class="authors">
<br /></div>
<div class="authors">
• August 9, 2016- epi.org</div>
</div>
<div class="box">
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-1" name="epi-toc-1" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i>Summary</i></span></h2>
<b>What this report finds:</b> The teacher pay penalty is
bigger than ever. In 2015, public school teachers’ weekly wages were
17.0 percent lower than those of comparable workers—compared with just
1.8 percent lower in 1994. This erosion of relative teacher wages has
fallen more heavily on experienced teachers than on entry-level
teachers. Importantly, collective bargaining can help to abate this
teacher wage penalty. Some of the increase in the teacher wage
penalty may be attributed to a trade-off between wages and benefits.
Even so, teachers’ compensation (wages plus benefits) was 11.1 percent
lower than that of comparable workers in 2015.<br />
<br />
<b>Why this matters: </b>An effective teacher is the most
important school-based determinant of education outcomes. It is
therefore crucial that school districts recruit and retain high-quality
teachers. This is particularly difficult at a time when the supply of
teachers is constrained by high turnover rates, annual retirements of
longtime teachers, and a decline in students opting for a teaching
career—and when demand for teachers is rising due to rigorous national
student performance standards and many locales’ mandates to shrink class
sizes. In light of these challenges, providing adequate wages and
benefits is a crucial tool for attracting and keeping the teachers
America’s children need.<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="1" height="700" scrolling="yes" src="https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/8190579/2236994?da=y&ifr=y" width="900"></iframe>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-11784893802895919442016-08-22T10:11:00.000-07:002016-08-22T10:11:10.962-07:00Political Comedian, John Oliver, Rips Into Charter Schools<span style="color: #134f5c;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="watch-title" dir="ltr" id="eow-title" title="Charter Schools: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)">Charter Schools: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver </span></span></span></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Charter schools are privately run, publicly funded, and irregularly
regulated. John Oliver explores why they aren’t at all like pizzerias.</span></b></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b class="watch-time-text">Published on Aug 21, 2016</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b class="watch-time-text"> </b></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l_htSPGAY7I" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-16971399769337068012016-08-19T08:17:00.001-07:002016-08-19T08:19:07.555-07:00An Effective Video About the Way Adults Talk to Kids Is Causing Debate<h1>
<span style="color: blue;">Video tries to show how the way adults talk to kids matters</span></h1>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VxyxywShewI" width="600"></iframe>
A video about the way adults talk to kids is causing debate. It
focuses on the ways adults can affect a child’s education through
interactions with them. Although the response is varied, there’s no
denying the power of its message.<br />
<br />
<div class="sm-embedded-ad sm-inline-gtm-ad" id="">
</div>
The Atlanta Speech School released a video called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxyxywShewI">Every Opportunity</a> and
the story it depicts is eliciting a strong reaction from teachers and
parents. It follows a little boy throughout his day at school and shows
how the adults he encounters, from bus driver to teachers, interact with
him.<br />
<br />
It starts with the child climbing the bus steps and giving the driver
an enthusiastic hello that’s met with little more than a grunt. The boy
tries to greet an aide at the school’s entrance and she ignores him. He
asks the cafeteria employee for his student number and she’s
short-tempered and impatient. His teacher grows annoyed at the behavior
in his classroom and speaks to the children in a harsh tone.<br />
<br />
<div class="sm-embedded-ad sm-inline-gtm-ad" id="">
</div>
The second half of the video shows all the same scenarios, but with
the adults responding to the children positively. By the end, the kids
are depicted as their adult selves, confident and ready for the world
because the teachers and staff gave them the encouragement and
positivity they needed to succeed.<br />
<br />
The video is hard to watch and as such, is provoking <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HuffPostParents/posts/1193746783980996">a response</a>
from some teachers who say these interactions are not the norm and that
they make every effort to treat their students with respect.<br />
<br />
<i>Nonsense! Let’s demonize teachers as usual. The kids at my school
beg to stay during school vacations and are sad when summer break
starts. School is the most stable and safe environment for a lot of
them. Yes adults should watch their tone with kids, but to make teachers
out to be drill sergeants is unfair.</i><br />
<br />
<i>In my 9 years of teaching, I’ve never seen the jerk teachers that
are portrayed here. Every one I know works extremely hard to make sure
their child is loved and respected. That’s why we are teachers. I agree
that education is in need of reform, but this teacher-shaming video is
ridiculously inaccurate. Teachers are the ONE thing in education that
are doing what’s right by their students.</i><br />
<br />
<div class="sm-embedded-ad sm-inline-gtm-ad" id="">
</div>
While some are saying it’s an excellent wake-up call about the affect an educator (or any adult) can have on a child.<br />
<br />
<i>I think this should be mandatory viewing for teachers!!! I’m a
substitute and the lack of pleasantries I see regularly is so sad.
Children are people too and deserve the same respect as adults.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Be sure to watch the entire video… The first part models the
negatives that do happen at times, but the second part shows the
positives that typically happen throughout a school day. It’s a simple
reminder and as a 21 year veteran teacher, I welcome the reminder of the
importance of my role in children’s lives.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Beautifully said… The first part of this video made me so sad.
Than I recognized all the educators I know and it brought a smile to my
face. I’m thankful for all the Educators I know and their commitment to
the students they teach and love.</i><br />
<br />
<i>This is so full of wisdom, it should be a learning tool for at
home and at school. We all want to feel love and appreciated not shut
out by rules and regulations.</i><br />
<br />
<div class="sm-embedded-ad sm-inline-gtm-ad" id="">
</div>
Many commenters pointed out that the video is important viewing for
parents too, and an example of how we should be talking to our children
at home. That’s certainly how I took it.<br />
<br />
The beginning of the video made
me tear up because I recognized some of my worst moments as a parent in
those terse interactions. The video doesn’t feel as though it’s meant
to shame, but to remind adults of the power of our words and actions.
Because in a world full of distractions and busyness, it can be easy to
forget that our children are always listening.<br />
<br />
As the little boy in the video says, “talk <i>with</i> us, not <i>at</i>
us.” It never hurts for parents and teachers to take stock of the way
they talk to kids. They’re people too, and deserve to be respected and
listened to so they grow up to be adults who do the same.<br />
<br />
H/T<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/eye-opening-video-will-make-adults-reconsider-the-way-they-talk-to-children_us_57b36f62e4b0edfa80d9ddcc?"><i> The Huffington Post</i></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-54331002512485656692016-07-16T08:39:00.005-07:002016-07-16T08:39:46.065-07:00Cleveland's Community Based School (A Wraparound School)<span style="color: #274e13;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Here's a short video depicting the Harvey Rice School... one of Cleveland's 25 "wraparound" or community schools.</b></span></span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/167365922" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-29122651477396065572016-06-16T13:07:00.000-07:002016-06-16T13:07:09.676-07:00It’s time for an ambitious national investment in America’s children<h1 class="page-title">
<span style="color: #38761d;"><span class="title-presub">It’s time for an ambitious national investment in America’s children</span><span class="subtitle"> </span></span></h1>
<h1 class="page-title">
<span style="color: #741b47;"><i><span class="subtitle" style="font-size: large;">Investments in early childhood care and education would have enormous benefits for children, families, society, and the economy</span></i></span> </h1>
<div class="entry-meta">
<div class="authors">
<span class="loop-type"> <a href="http://www.epi.org/types/report/"></a></span><a href="http://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/"><img height="336" src="https://www.epi.org/files/uploads/child-care-fact-sheet-share.png" width="640" /></a><br />
• By <b><a href="http://www.epi.org/people/josh-bivens">Josh Bivens</a>, <a href="http://www.epi.org/people/emma-garcia">Emma García</a>, <a href="http://www.epi.org/people/elise-gould">Elise Gould</a>, <a href="http://www.epi.org/people/elaine-weiss">Elaine Weiss</a>, and <a href="http://www.epi.org/people/valerie-wilson">Valerie Wilson</a> </b></div>
<div class="authors">
• April 6, 2016
</div>
</div>
<div class="entry-content">
<br />
<figure class="materials">
<a href="http://www.epi.org/files/uploads/EPI-Its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-Americas-children.pdf">Download PDF</a><br />
</figure>
<br />
<div class="the-content-wrap">
<div class="toc-container sticky-toc" data-toc-title="Contents" id="">
<div class="epi-dynamic-toc">
<h3>
Sections</h3>
<div class="epi-toc-body">
<ol>
<li><a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-1">Introduction and key <span class="break-control">findings</span></a></li>
<li><a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-3">Benefits stemming from direct investments in childhood <span class="break-control">development</span></a></li>
<li><a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-6">Benefits stemming from increased in-kind resources to families with <span class="break-control">children</span></a></li>
<li><a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-7">Benefits stemming from parents’ increased labor force <span class="break-control">participation</span></a></li>
<li><a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-12">Benefits stemming from professionalization of the child care <span class="break-control">workforce</span></a></li>
<li><a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-13">The status quo in American child care, and policy efforts to <span class="break-control">help</span></a></li>
<li><a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-20"><span class="break-control">Conclusion</span></a></li>
</ol>
</div>
<div class="epi-toc-additional-items">
<div class="epi-toc-additional">
<a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-21">About the <span class="break-control">authors</span></a></div>
<div class="epi-toc-additional">
<a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-22"><span class="break-control">Endnotes</span></a></div>
<div class="epi-toc-additional">
<a class="" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#epi-toc-23"><span class="break-control">References</span></a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-1" name="epi-toc-1" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Introduction and key findings</h2>
Nearly 7 years into the recovery from the Great Recession, two
glaring problems remain in the U.S. economy. One is a significant
slowdown in the growth of productivity (the amount of output and income
generated in an average hour of work). The other is the destructive rise
in income inequality in recent decades due largely to big corporations
and the wealthy rewriting the rules of the economy to stack the deck in
their favor. This inequality has prevented the fruits of productivity
growth from “trickling down” to reach most households—and has undermined
the ideal of providing genuinely equal opportunity for all.<br />
Ameliorating these two problems should be policymakers’ core focus.
One way to address both issues—one that would spur myriad other benefits
to American families—is investing ambitiously in our country’s
children. These investments should include (but not necessarily be
limited to):<br />
<ul>
<li>Expanding public funding for home visits by trained nurses to help
expectant parents make healthy choices both before and after childbirth.</li>
<li>Providing resources necessary to ensure all families can access
high-quality child care with well-trained, professional staff qualified
to provide early childhood education. High-quality programs will aim to
nurture children’s cognitive and socioemotional development and allow
all children to enter their formal schooling years at comparable levels
of preparedness.</li>
<li>Providing resources to ensure the professionalization of early
childhood caregivers and teachers. This means providing enough resources
to attract and retain well-credentialed staff and to close earnings
gaps between early childhood workers and other workers with similar
skills and credentials (including K–12 teachers).</li>
</ul>
There are many models of successful widespread implementation of
these types of investments, and research clearly demonstrates such
investments would provide high societal returns. American productivity
would improve with a better-educated and healthier future workforce,
inequality would be immediately reduced as resources to provide quality
child care are progressively made available to families with children,
and the next generation would benefit from a more level playing field
that allows for real equality of opportunity. What is missing is the
political will to provide these resources to all American families.<br />
<span class="epi-teaser-title no-print">Interactive</span><br />
<div class="epi-feature-teaser clearfix no-print">
<div class="epi-teaser-right">
<a href="http://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/"></a><a class="epi-teaser-button" href="http://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/">View interactive</a></div>
<h3>
<a href="http://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/">How much is child care in your state?</a> <span class="exclude-from-toc"></span></h3>
Find out the real cost of child care across the country.</div>
This report reviews the evidence on why a major investment in
America’s children is such a promising economic strategy that can
provide substantial social benefits—and that would more than pay for
itself over time. It highlights four particular tranches of benefits:<br />
<b>1. Benefits that stem from having more resources invested in the care and education of children in their early years</b><br />
The benefits accruing directly to the children receiving greater care and educational resources are large and <i>progressive</i>,
as higher-income families are much more likely to already be able to
afford high-quality child care and educational opportunities. The
benefits stemming from greater investments in children are also
universal, leading to an increasingly productive workforce that will
boost economic growth, provide budgetary savings at the state and
federal levels, and lead to reductions in future generations’
involvement with the criminal justice system. These benefits will, of
course, materialize only in coming decades when today’s children have
grown up. But the research is clear that they will materialize—and when
they do, they are permanent.<br />
One section of this paper will review the research on the potential
payoff from this tranche of benefits. Key findings from this section
include:<br />
<ul>
<li>Achievement gaps between American students in different income
classes, and between students of different races and ethnicities, appear
before kindergarten begins, and sometimes peak at ages 5 and 6. This
means early childhood care and education (ECCE) has a potentially large
role in shaping these gaps.</li>
<li>According to McKinsey researchers, the potential benefits to closing
educational achievement gaps between students of different income
classes total nearly $70 billion annually. The same researchers have
further estimated that the payoff to reducing average test score gaps
between American students and students in better-performing national
school systems stands at nearly $180 billion annually.</li>
<li>High-income families spend much more on child enrichment activities
than do low-income families—and the gap has grown over time. For
example, in 1970 the spending gap between the highest and lowest
household income fifths was roughly $2,700. By 2006, it had grown to
$7,500.</li>
<li>Gaps in the absolute <i>level</i> of investments in children’s
enrichment activities by income class have grown substantially over
time, even as lower-income households increased their spending on these
activities at a more rapid clip when measured as a <i>share</i> of
income. In essence, lower-income households are making a greater
investment effort, but the rise in income inequality has allowed
higher-income households to pull away even without increasing the share
of income they devote to children’s enrichment.</li>
<li>The gaps in parental investment are firmly linked to achievement
gaps in young children. Parental involvement in enrichment activities is
a significant positive determinant of test score achievement. This
provides a clear lever for ECCE investments that free up resources
(including parental time) to make a major dent in achievement gaps.</li>
<li>A solid research base has identified major benefits from specific
ECCE interventions. For infants and very young children, programs that
send nurses to pregnant mothers and mothers of infants to provide
parenting advice and health monitoring have been linked to better
scholastic achievement and later life outcomes for children. In
countries that have provided subsidies for high-quality very early child
care, similar improvements in children’s academic and later life
achievement have been documented.</li>
</ul>
<b>2. Benefits that stem from providing resources directly to
families with young children to help them afford early child care and
pre-kindergarten</b><br />
Because early child care and education are huge expenses for nearly
all families with young children, the case for providing subsidies for
quality child care and education seems strong. This case is strengthened
by the fact that such investments would pay dividends down the road in
addition to immediately improving families’ living standards. And the
direct economic benefits of providing such in-kind aid and removing a
portion of child development costs from family budgets can be
considerable.<br />
One section of this paper will look at a number of family archetypes
(say, a family earning the median income with a given number of
children) to see how much subsidies that cap out-of-pocket child care
expenses at 10 percent of family income would boost these families’
post-subsidy income. Key findings from this section include:<br />
<ul>
<li>For a family that had an infant and a pre-kindergarten-age child and
that earned the state median income for families with children, the
median benefit from such a reform would be about $11,000 (received by
families in Florida).</li>
<li>For a family that had an infant and a pre-kindergarten-age child and
that earned just half the state median for families with children, the
median state benefit would be about $16,000 (received by families in
Kansas).</li>
</ul>
<b>3. Benefits that stem from increasing labor force participation by parents (mostly mothers) of young children</b><br />
A prime impediment to a career for families with young children is a
lack of high-quality child care possibilities. And it’s an unfortunate
fact of culture, history, and past policy decisions that this curtails
women’s labor force opportunities to a much greater degree than men’s.
The benefits of boosting women’s labor force participation through the
provision of more and better child care access and affordability are
potentially enormous. Women are, of course, half of the potential
workforce, and each 1 percent boost in the overall workforce increases
total national income by 1 percent, or roughly $180 <i>billion</i>.<br />
One section of this paper will look at trends in women’s labor force
participation and provide illustrative calculations of how much an
ambitious investment in America’s children could pay off in terms of
greater labor force participation and national income. Key findings from
this section include:<br />
<ul>
<li>If women’s labor force participation in the United States matched
that of America’s international peers, the potential gains to gross
domestic product (GDP) could be enormous—up to $600 billion annually.</li>
<li>Providing affordable, high-quality child care should be a core
component of any strategy to boost women’s labor force participation. An
investment that capped child care expenditures at 10 percent of family
income could increase overall women’s labor force participation enough
to boost GDP by roughly $210 billion (or 1.2 percent).</li>
<li>The additional tax revenue and reduced public outlays associated
with higher GDP stemming from higher women’s labor force participation
could provide roughly $70 billion in economic resources to governments
to help finance the investment in ECCE.</li>
</ul>
<b>4. Benefits that stem from the professionalization of the child care workforce</b><br />
Currently, providing early child care in the United States is
low-wage work. This is largely because the workforce lacks meaningful
labor standards and protections. Further, even with its current low-wage
workforce, the cost of early child care and development is large
relative to the budgets of typical American families, principally
because this work is labor-intensive and there is little scope for
traditional strategies to lower costs without sacrificing quality. To
put it simply, while crowding more and more children into each room with
a caregiver and teacher would normally register in economic statistics
as a productivity improvement, this is clearly not a serious strategy
for improving early childhood care and development.<br />
By providing incentives to boost pay and training for early child
care providers, a major investment in America’s children would also lift
wages in this key economic sector. Many of these gains would accrue to
the workers themselves, but the higher-quality workforce that would
result from attracting and retaining more and better job seekers and
incentivizing training would also result in higher-quality care. A key
strategy for retention will be closing the wage penalty that currently
exists between early child care and development workers and workers in
other sectors with similar skills and credentials (including teachers in
the K–12 sector).<br />
One section of this paper will examine the characteristics of the
child care workforce, and will calculate the wage gains that would
accompany policies leading to a better-trained and better-paid early
child care workforce. Key findings from this section include:<br />
<ul>
<li>The current U.S. child care workforce is strikingly low-paid and
lacks bargaining power to boost their pay and raise standards in the
profession. In 2014, for example, the median wage of child care workers
was $10.31, or 39.3 percent below the median in other occupations.</li>
<li>The low pay of child care workers and the low level of investment in
their training are barriers to providing high-quality child care.
Well-compensated employees and investment in staff are key contributors
to the most successful ECCE strategies.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-2" name="epi-toc-2" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Outline of following sections</h3>
The following four sections examine the economic evidence and logic
behind each of the four tranches of benefits that investments in ECCE
provide. This is followed by an overview of the American status quo of
helping families with children obtain access to quality child care. It
finds that while a number of different policies and programs aim to help
American families along these lines, these efforts fall short in terms
of affordability, access, and quality. This highlights the need for a
major investment in America’s children that could realize the potential
benefits we identify.<br />
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-3" name="epi-toc-3" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Benefits stemming from direct investments in childhood development</h2>
The largest and most enduring benefits of a major investment in
childhood care and development are those stemming from its direct impact
on children. The evidence is clear: Children with better early
childhood care and educational opportunities grow up to be more likely
to work and less likely to interact with the criminal justice system.
They grow up in better health and earn higher wages. They pay more taxes
and draw on fewer government resources. While many of these benefits
only become apparent once the first wave of children enter adulthood,
these benefits are large—and they persist and grow in successive
generations so long as the investment effort is maintained.<br />
Lynch and Vaghul (2015), for example, review evidence on the economic
benefits from a major investment that would provide universal
high-quality pre-kindergarten education to all American 3- and
4-year-olds. Over a 34-year window (between 2016 and 2050), they
estimate annual benefits from this investment would total roughly $10
billion.<br />
It is important to note that even these large benefits still leave many <i>potential</i> benefits
on the table. The full potential economic payoff from a major
investment in America’s children would occur if achievement gaps were
eliminated between American students of different income classes, or
different races and ethnicities, or even between average American
students and students in higher-performing national educational systems
in other advanced economies. McKinsey (2009) has estimated that closing
achievement gaps between low-income students and others would boost GDP
by roughly $70 billion <i>annually.</i> They further estimate that
closing achievement gaps that persist between students of different
races and ethnicities would boost GDP by roughly $50 billion annually.
Further, if a major investment in America’s children also boosted the <i>average</i> performance
of American students, payoffs would be even larger. For example,
McKinsey (2009) estimates that closing the gap in average educational
achievement between American students and students in higher-performing
national educational systems could boost U.S. GDP by roughly $180
billion annually.<br />
The Lynch and Vaghul (2015) and McKinsey (2009) estimates together
indicate that just one major component (high-quality pre-kindergarten
for 3- and 4-year-olds) of an ambitious investment effort in America’s
children could potentially provide a payoff equivalent to eliminating
over a tenth of the achievement gap between students of different income
classes. This indicates, among other things, that we should not
restrict our investment effort in childhood development and education to
any one strand of interventions, but should instead pursue an ambitious
and varied portfolio of policies.<br />
The benefits stemming from various features of such an investment
strategy are not speculative. The research base identifying the economic
benefits of early childhood care and education programs (ECCE) is large
and unequivocal: Public investments in these programs produce
significant net societal returns, with benefits far exceeding costs
(Barnett and Nores 2015; Rolnick and Grunewald 2003; Council of Economic
Advisers 2014). The precise magnitude of these net returns is obviously
a function of the specific intervention type, as ECCE encompasses a
range of programs and services. For example, ECCE can include child care
in its many forms (from in-home care with a relative, to professional
in-home care, to center-based care), nurse home visiting programs,
parenting programs, and nutrition and health-oriented interventions.<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="1" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note1" id="_ref1">1</a>
ECCE can also include early child education programs (e.g., Early Head
Start, EDUCARE) as well as preschool programs (e.g., center-based
education programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, including state- and/or
locally funded programs, and the federal Head Start program).<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="2" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note2" id="_ref2">2</a><br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-4" name="epi-toc-4" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Benefits of high-quality early child care</h3>
Benefits to children stemming solely from enhanced access to quality
early child care have not been translated into monetary terms as often
as have benefits stemming from expanded early childhood education. As is
discussed in the next section, evidence clearly shows the latter would
have large positive societal effects. A less-robust but still convincing
body of research suggests expanding access to early child care may also
have potentially large positive impacts.<br />
To understand why, it is crucial to note that the previously
discussed income-based achievement gaps are present even before children
enter kindergarten.<br />
<br />
<b>Figure A</b><b> </b>shows
gaps in a number of average measures of achievement and school readiness
among kindergarteners of different socioeconomic statuses. The figure
shows test results from assessments of math and reading as well as
teacher-reported summaries of “persistence in completing tasks.” Each
assessment is measured relative to the bottom socioeconomic status
fifth, and in all cases achievement and school readiness rise steadily
as socioeconomic status rises.<br />
<div class="figure chart-100650 figure-dynamic figure-theme-clean" data-anchor="Figure-A" data-chartid="100650">
<div class="figBorder">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHaDepckODTmAAKBhrAFEEmnoaOwXco-DOXD7EYnVwjiNjl-sBMaoUvGyb2GDpHLKc8-GEPcQVG3iGrqzpegKotA19l5Mau4JelFT8RkBMMLsK3B8xADKWjXxRhS3MMnk_0SS-ltpcDI/s1600/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.07.21.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHaDepckODTmAAKBhrAFEEmnoaOwXco-DOXD7EYnVwjiNjl-sBMaoUvGyb2GDpHLKc8-GEPcQVG3iGrqzpegKotA19l5Mau4JelFT8RkBMMLsK3B8xADKWjXxRhS3MMnk_0SS-ltpcDI/s640/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.07.21.png" width="478" /></a></div>
<div class="donotprint">
Perhaps even more strikingly, there is very little movement
thereafter in achievement gaps across income groups relative to the size
of these <i>initial</i> gaps that appear in kindergarten. <b> </b></div>
<div class="donotprint">
<b> </b></div>
<div class="donotprint">
<b>Figure B</b><b> </b>replicates
a figure used in a recent report by the Council of Economic Advisers
(2014) showing measures of IQ scores through age 8 and measures of math
test scores after age 8 for children from families in the highest and
lowest income quartiles. The IQ gaps essentially peak in kindergarten,
and math test score gaps are nearly stable over most of the years
between ages 8 and 14. The clear implication is that the income-based
achievement gaps highlighted in Figure A tend to persist throughout
childhood—highlighting again just how crucial early childhood education
and development are.<svg height="330" style="font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" width="489" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g class="highcharts-axis-labels highcharts-xaxis-labels"><text opacity="1" style="color: black; cursor: default; fill: black; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 13.4333; font-weight: normal; width: 6px;" text-anchor="middle" x="456.0333333333333" y="277"></text></g><g class="highcharts-tooltip" opacity="0" style="border: 0px; cursor: default; padding: 0; white-space: nowrap;" transform="translate(53,202)"><path d="M 0.5 0.5 L 34.5 0.5 40.5 -5.5 46.5 0.5 81 0.5 C 81.5 0.5 81.5 0.5 81.5 0.5 L 81.5 85.5 C 81.5 85.5 81.5 85.5 81.5 85.5 L 0.5 85.5 C 0.5 85.5 0.5 85.5 0.5 85.5 L 0.5 0.5 C 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5" fill="rgba(255, 255, 255, .85)" stroke-width="1" stroke="rgba(200, 200, 200, .6)"></path></g></svg></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEuhVjrhqDk-QfY2MnU3PKYAhhe55J1BasZXQ_FNTBw8Lj9jdSMz7Eeno1VaRG2ZTPEGVVUYpfo5dPbrmh1G4g6Bt-BOBRZE6hBnph56acqJFP6UqFhYtVGmItPoG9-BBfubiFpaNlzkY/s1600/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.10.14.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEuhVjrhqDk-QfY2MnU3PKYAhhe55J1BasZXQ_FNTBw8Lj9jdSMz7Eeno1VaRG2ZTPEGVVUYpfo5dPbrmh1G4g6Bt-BOBRZE6hBnph56acqJFP6UqFhYtVGmItPoG9-BBfubiFpaNlzkY/s640/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.10.14.png" width="604" /></a></div>
<div class="figure chart-100622 figure-dynamic figure-theme-clean" data-anchor="Figure-B" data-chartid="100622">
<br /></div>
These achievement gaps are mirrored in gaps in different income
classes’ parental investment of time and money on childhood development.
For example, the Council of Economic Advisers (2014) documented that
both mothers and fathers in high-income families spent substantially
more time engaged in educational activities with their children. Garcia
(2015) shows that such enrichment activities with parents are positively
associated with greater cognitive and non-cognitive achievement in
kindergarteners.<br />
<br />
The extent to which higher-income parents are increasingly able to
invest more money in educational and enrichment activities is depicted
in <b>Figure C,</b><b> </b>which uses data from
Duncan and Murnane (2011). It shows that the spending gap between the
highest and lowest household income fifths widened from about $2,700 in
1970 to roughly $7,500 by 2006. One of the most distressing aspects of
this large and growing gap is that it has widened even as lower-income
families have increased the <i>share</i><i> </i>of income devoted to
these expenditures much more rapidly than higher-income families.
Essentially, families in the lowest income classes have increased their
investment <i>effort</i> in childhood development more rapidly than
families with higher incomes. But because increasing income inequality
has channeled so much more money to these higher-income families, the
absolute <i>level</i> of resources devoted to children has become increasingly unequal.<br />
<div class="figure chart-100617 figure-dynamic figure-theme-clean" data-anchor="Figure-C" data-chartid="100617">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEU4zB-0HaG6kWfh8yVqfF4QLcIs0fXR8E1C8njovVg-Put_KeJE-fZdfN8OAqlUN-1nN8mU5IlykNdlGaAm8IUr5t5yoCvHBjG06G1ODBSaGgtKvVVhhBf9nJAVQ0l0WC692N9wQRYjo/s1600/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.11.35.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEU4zB-0HaG6kWfh8yVqfF4QLcIs0fXR8E1C8njovVg-Put_KeJE-fZdfN8OAqlUN-1nN8mU5IlykNdlGaAm8IUr5t5yoCvHBjG06G1ODBSaGgtKvVVhhBf9nJAVQ0l0WC692N9wQRYjo/s640/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.11.35.png" width="554" /></a></div>
<div class="figBorder">
In short, gaps that appear in kindergarten—and which are hence (at
least in part) the result of investments in very young children’s
development—tend to persist throughout children’s lives. Thus, if we
want to reap the enormous potential benefits of closing income-based
achievement gaps, we need to equalize resources available to young
children even before they begin traditional elementary school.</div>
</div>
This includes investing in quality early child care and early
childhood development activities. For example, as Figure B showed,
measures of children’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills begin
diverging reliably across income classes even before ages 3 and 4. This
leaves considerable room for even earlier childhood interventions than
pre-kindergarten to help close achievement gaps. Further, some very
early interventions, such as the Nurse Family Partnership (which
provides first-time, unmarried, low-income mothers with home visits
during pregnancy through the child’s second birthday), are associated
with higher cognitive abilities at age 6. Exposure to the Nurse Family
Partnership was also associated with better language and math skills at
age 12.<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="3" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note3" id="_ref3">3</a>
Additionally, Black, Devereux, and Salvanes (2011) have shown that
Norwegian expansions of child care subsidies led to improved academic
achievement by recipients, as well as decreased receipt of cash
transfers and increased labor force participation in adulthood.<br />
Given the stakes involved in closing persistent income-based
achievement gaps, the links between these gaps and parental investment
in time and expenditures, and the evidence that some specific early
interventions are associated with shrinking achievement gaps, a major
effort aimed at equalizing resources and quality child care options for
children even younger than age 3 should be a primary part of any major
national investment in America’s children.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-5" name="epi-toc-5" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Benefits of early childhood education (ECE) programs</h3>
As noted above, the estimated benefits of ECE investments are
exceptionally large—and the research supporting this conclusion is
robust. The benefits primarily stem from how these investments would
equalize resources among children of different income classes. As such,
they would unambiguously boost economic and educational mobility. A
truly ambitious investment in America’s children could also conceivably
raise the <i>average</i> level of educational achievement, and not
just close achievements gaps without lifting this average. But most of
the benefits would still accrue to children who are relatively
resource-deprived, thereby enhancing their economic mobility.<br />
<h4>
Benefits to student achievement</h4>
Because the most immediately recognizable benefit conferred by
participation in high-quality early childhood education is a gain in
standardized-test scores, these are widely measured in studies of
several such programs.<br />
<br />
<div class="box">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>How results are described in this section</b></span><br />
The easiest way to compare results of ECE programs across studies is to scale the benefits in terms of <i>standard deviation increases</i> associated
with participation. This is because the outcome variable in most of
these studies is not the same; different studies examine student
achievement on different tests. We can compare results among different
tests by translating findings into standard deviations. This measure
shows the test score increase associated with various interventions as a
share of the typical variance among scores. In the realm of test
scores, one standard deviation is an enormous difference. For example,
the standard deviation of 2014 college-bound seniors’ SAT scores was 322
(College Board 2015). A gain of this magnitude would move a
test-taker’s score from the median (about 1490) to the 82nd percentile
(about 1810).</div>
Two major meta-analyses provide conclusive evidence that high-quality
early childhood education is associated with improved test scores. One
study (Camilli et al. 2010) examined over 120 U.S. studies since 1960
and found consistent evidence that having participated in preschool the
year prior to entering kindergarten was associated with large positive
effects (0.23 standard deviations) on cognitive outcomes. Another study
(Duncan and Magnuson 2013) suggests even larger effects, with early
childhood education associated with score gains of 0.35 standard
deviations.<br />
Preschool also positively affects school progress (with an effect
size of 0.156 standard deviations, according to Camilli et al. 2010),
reduces special education placement and grade repetition, and increases
high school graduation rates and post-secondary educational attainment
(Barnett 2008). In addition to gains in traditional cognitive areas,
preschool has also been found to improve social development (with an
effect size of 0.137 standard deviations, according to Camilli et al.
2010), and to reduce externalizing behavior problems (Schindler et al.
2015).<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="4" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note4" id="_ref4">4</a><br />
Detailed studies of lasting gains resulting from exposure to the
Chicago Child-Parent Center (CCPC) in the 1980s have shown that
large-scale publicly run programs can deliver real benefits comparable
to those provided by smaller “model” programs, so long as teacher
training and support are strong, there is a quality, age-appropriate
curriculum, and parents are engaged. This helps allay concerns about
“scalability” that have plagued analyses of smaller-scale ECCE
interventions (for more on the components of successful early childhood
educational interventions in large-scale programs, see Reynolds et al.
2011).<br />
More recently, studies of state-level pre-kindergarten programs have
reported gains in scores for participating students (compared with their
non-participating peers). Oklahoma’s universal pre-kindergarten program
illustrates that a universal program (versus a targeted program) can
yield significant returns not only for low-income children, but for all
children. Offered to all 4-year-olds since 1998, it currently serves all
but a few school districts.<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="5" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note5" id="_ref5">5</a>
An evaluation of the program found statistically significant effects on
literacy (Wong et al. 2008). Using data from the Tulsa, Oklahoma,
program, studies have shown significant impacts on kindergarten outcomes
of between 0.2 and 0.5 standard deviations in different pre-reading and
math outcomes for two different cohorts, one in preschool during
2001–2002 and the second during 2006–2007 (Hill, Gormley, and Adelstein
2015; Gormley, Phillips, and Gayer 2008).<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="6" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note6" id="_ref6">6</a>
While the benefits are greatest for the most disadvantaged children,
all participants reaped significant benefits (Barnett 2008).<br />
New Jersey’s Abbott Preschool Program constitutes an important
benchmark both for high quality and for continuous improvement. It
started in 1999–2000 and currently serves all children in 31
high-poverty communities and about 19 percent and 29 percent,
respectively, of the state’s 3- and 4-year-olds (Barnett et al. 2015).
Basic program standards include a maximum class size of 15, teachers
with certification in early childhood education, assistant teachers in
every classroom, support services for children and families, and a
developmentally appropriate curriculum that fully addresses the state’s
learning standards (Barnett et al. 2013).<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="7" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note7" id="_ref7">7</a>
Program effects persist over time, and are larger for children who
participated in the program for two years than for one year. Using data
from a cohort that completed preschool in 2004–2005, Barnett et al.
(2013) estimate that test score gains in fifth grade from one year of
preschool education are equivalent to about 10–20 percent of the
achievement gap between white and minority students. Two years of
preschool participation results in gains equivalent to 20–40 percent of
the gap (Barnett et al. 2013).<br />
North Carolina’s Smart Start Initiative complements its More at Four
preschool program for 4-year-olds. Established in 1993, the initiative
takes a comprehensive approach, offering child care and education, as
well as health and family support, for children from ages 0 to 5 (Ladd,
Muschkin, and Dodge 2014). By the time participating students reached
third grade, the Smart Start Initiative had generated gains equivalent
to two to four months of instruction in math and reading, respectively
(Ladd, Muschkin, and Dodge 2014).<br />
<h5>
<span style="font-size: large;">
Will these test score gains fade over time?</span></h5>
One concern regarding ECE’s effects on student test scores is the
potential for these benefits to diminish over time. Two comprehensive
meta-analyses of quality studies report that such fadeout is common, but
that its economic and social impacts are easy to overstate.<br />
Leak et al. (forthcoming) and Duncan and Magnuson (2013) estimate
that test score gains associated with high-quality pre-kindergarten
decline by about 0.03 standard deviations a year. However, even
statistically significant estimates of fadeout do not mean that such
programs do not have large positive social returns. Heckman et al.
(2010) and Heckman and Kautz (2012) find that gains in social and
emotional skills (versus the traditional cognitive skills presumably
captured in test scores) obtained in pre-kindergarten programs continue
to benefit participants through their adulthood. Shonkoff and Phillips
(2000) and Heckman (2008) similarly find that earlier investments
establish strong foundations important to children’s later development,
and that these benefits are not adequately captured in test scores.<br />
Evidence from studies evaluating the federal Head Start program
reinforces this finding. For example, while the at-risk 3- and
4-year-olds who participate show substantial short-run gains (up to 0.25
standard deviations on cognitive outcomes after nine months in the
program), test score improvements largely fade after a few years. Yet
long-term studies of Head Start participants indicate that the students
are more likely to graduate from high school and less likely to commit
crimes.<br />
<h4>
<span style="font-size: large;">
Benefits to employment outcomes and earnings from ECE</span></h4>
Strong evidence also demonstrates that ECE has substantial effects on
children’s eventual employment outcomes and earnings. Children who
participated in the Perry Preschool Project (a program in the 1960s that
provided at-risk children with high-quality preschool) and who were
exposed to the Chicago Child-Parent Center were all followed through
early adulthood, allowing a comparison of outcomes among adults who
participated in the programs in their early childhood and those who did
not. Adults who had participated registered increased earnings compared
with those who did not participate (Nores et al. 2006; Belfield et al.
2006; Reynolds et al. 2002; and Reynolds et al. 2011). Economists find
that these gains are the result of a combination of higher rates of
employment and higher earnings.<br />
<h4>
<span style="font-size: large;">
Other ECE benefits: Reduced crime, better health, more stable adult lives</span></h4>
There are a host of other benefits associated with exposure to early
childhood education. The largest benefits are associated with reductions
in criminal activity, but a range of other benefits are also
identified.<br />
Both “model” programs (the Perry Preschool Project and the Chicago
Child-Parent Center) as well as the very large-scale Head Start program
are associated with significant reductions in the odds of
pre-kindergarten program participants’ eventual criminal
activity/involvement in the criminal justice system as adults, when
compared with their non-participating peers. At age 40, Perry
preschoolers had considerably lower rates of lifetime criminal activity
than nonparticipants, including felonies for violent assault, drug
sales, or property theft (Nores et al. 2005).<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="8" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note8" id="_ref8">8</a>
At age 26, CCPC participants’ rates of felony arrests and substance
abuse were 25 percent and 24 percent lower, respectively, than those of
nonparticipating children (Reynolds et al. 2011).<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="9" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note9" id="_ref9">9</a>
At age 18, the juvenile arrest rate differences were even more
significant for CCPC participants: The number of juvenile court
petitions was 42 percent lower in the treatment group versus the
comparison group.<br />
Improved health outcomes are additional benefits that accrue both to
individual graduates of various pre-kindergarten programs and to
society. At age 40, when compared with their nonparticipating peers, the
shares of Perry participants who reported health problems or having
been treated for substance abuse were 9 percentage points and 12
percentage points lower, respectively (Nores et al. 2005). At age 26,
when compared with their nonparticipating peers, CCPC participants had a
26 percent lower rate of reported depression symptoms, a 24 percent
lower substance use rate, and higher health insurance rates (Reynolds et
al. 2011).<br />
Other adulthood outcomes that contribute to life stability in
different forms are higher rates of asset possession, such as owning a
home (Perry participants’ homeownership rate was 10 percentage points
higher than that of nonparticipants) or having a savings account (76
percent versus 41 percent). Participants also had higher marriage rates
at age 40 (37 percent versus 24 percent) (Nores et al. 2005).<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="10" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note10" id="_ref10">10</a><br />
For all of these reasons, an ambitious investment in high-quality
early child care and education would benefit children—and ultimately
society as a whole.<br />
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-6" name="epi-toc-6" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Benefits stemming from increased in-kind resources to families with children</h2>
Child care reform that substantially reins in parents’ out-of-pocket
child care costs through providing subsidies, while enforcing high
standards in the quality and pay of child care workers, can provide
significant returns not only to the children who receive that care (as
described in previous sections), but also to parents, their families’
well-being, and the economy as a whole.<br />
Many important benefits provided by our social insurance and safety
net programs come in the form of in-kind benefits to households to help
them afford specific goods and services. Food stamps, Medicaid, housing
vouchers, and even energy cost assistance are programs that provide such
in-kind resources to low-income families. Given that such families’
budgets are stretched thin, these in-kind benefits are essentially
fungible with cash and provide huge assistance. The practice of
providing subsidies for specific in-kind services even for families well
above the poverty line has been greatly expanded by the Affordable Care
Act (ACA), which provides financial help to afford health insurance to
families earning a full 400 percent of the federal poverty line.<br />
Child care subsidies are a simple resource transfer to low- and
moderate-income families with children, who currently either find child
care entirely out of reach, or who struggle to find room for
high-quality child care in their budget. A child care reform proposal
that caps the amount families would be required to pay as a share of
their total family income, and fully subsidizes the remaining costs,
would free up substantial resources to not only make child care
affordable, but also to allow families to pay for other necessities that
may have previously been neglected. These necessities may include rent,
food, health care, and savings for a rainy day, for retirement, or for
their children’s education.<br />
Here we examine the monetary impact one particular proposal would
have for a number of family “archetypes.” Using the best data available
on child care costs by state (CCAA 2015), we limit expenditures for the
state-level median family with children to 10 percent of total income
and see how much income that frees up. (Ten percent used to be indicated
as a threshold of child care affordability by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services. It has very recently reduced this threshold
to 7 percent. A policy that capped out-of-pocket costs at this level
would have even larger benefits than we calculate below.)<br />
The maps in <b>Figures D</b><b> </b>and<b> </b><b>E</b> compare
the savings of capping child care costs at 10 percent of family income
for both a family with an infant, and a family with an infant and a
4-year-old in full-year care, respectively. The colors of the map
represent how much income is freed up by capping child care
expenditures. In all but two states, the median family with children
would experience savings from such child care reform.<br />
<div class="figure chart-100080 figure-epimap figure-theme-clean maptype-block" data-anchor="Figures-D-and-E" data-chartid="100080">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7viygbd4UR5dDIfRQrLG3PojYIXiO0Neh2Tnn1kxU5cXsXV_UPc8Ad57F4gIFUqaYEfV2eHXizm2gZ3nVPirdGStf2zSz4hKCPE375gBC1yZXC9qbVxBRiGvFtyCTWr4JWueHyWEutM/s1600/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.14.00.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7viygbd4UR5dDIfRQrLG3PojYIXiO0Neh2Tnn1kxU5cXsXV_UPc8Ad57F4gIFUqaYEfV2eHXizm2gZ3nVPirdGStf2zSz4hKCPE375gBC1yZXC9qbVxBRiGvFtyCTWr4JWueHyWEutM/s640/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.14.00.png" width="528" /></a></div>
<span class="title-presub">Typical families would see significant savings from policies that limit their child care expenses</span><span class="subtitle">Savings to median-income families with children if out-of-pocket child care expenditures were capped at 10% of income, by state</span></div>
</div>
<div class="data-table-wrapper table-wrapper visuallyhidden overflowing">
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col">State</th>
<th scope="col">Savings to median-income families</th>
<th scope="col">Share of median income freed up</th>
<th scope="col">Savings to median-income families</th>
<th scope="col">Share of median income freed up</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Alaska</th>
<td>$3,300</td>
<td>5.0%</td>
<td>$10,952</td>
<td>18.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Alabama</th>
<td>$516</td>
<td>1.1%</td>
<td>$5,387</td>
<td>13.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Arkansas</th>
<td>$1,301</td>
<td>3.2%</td>
<td>$6,296</td>
<td>17.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Arizona</th>
<td>$4,090</td>
<td>9.3%</td>
<td>$11,587</td>
<td>31.7%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">California</th>
<td>$5,457</td>
<td>10.5%</td>
<td>$13,687</td>
<td>31.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Colorado</th>
<td>$6,164</td>
<td>10.9%</td>
<td>$16,046</td>
<td>34.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Connecticut</th>
<td>$5,182</td>
<td>7.1%</td>
<td>$16,684</td>
<td>27.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Washington D.C.</th>
<td>$16,272</td>
<td>39.7%</td>
<td>$34,114</td>
<td>147.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Delaware</th>
<td>$3,999</td>
<td>6.8%</td>
<td>$12,267</td>
<td>24.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Florida</th>
<td>$3,460</td>
<td>7.9%</td>
<td>$11,128</td>
<td>30.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Georgia</th>
<td>$2,103</td>
<td>4.4%</td>
<td>$8,603</td>
<td>20.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Hawaii</th>
<td>$788</td>
<td>1.2%</td>
<td>$10,100</td>
<td>17.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Iowa</th>
<td>$2,941</td>
<td>5.3%</td>
<td>$11,157</td>
<td>23.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Idaho</th>
<td>$1,810</td>
<td>3.9%</td>
<td>$8,734</td>
<td>22.0%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Illinois</th>
<td>$6,195</td>
<td>11.3%</td>
<td>$15,762</td>
<td>34.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Indiana</th>
<td>$3,201</td>
<td>6.6%</td>
<td>$9,961</td>
<td>24.0%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Kansas</th>
<td>$4,926</td>
<td>9.6%</td>
<td>$12,877</td>
<td>29.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Kentucky</th>
<td>$974</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$6,473</td>
<td>15.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Louisiana</th>
<td>$412</td>
<td>0.9%</td>
<td>$5,326</td>
<td>12.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Massachusetts</th>
<td>$8,304</td>
<td>11.8%</td>
<td>$21,085</td>
<td>36.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Maryland</th>
<td>$5,249</td>
<td>7.2%</td>
<td>$14,349</td>
<td>22.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Maine</th>
<td>$3,835</td>
<td>8.1%</td>
<td>$10,705</td>
<td>26.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Michigan</th>
<td>$3,888</td>
<td>7.8%</td>
<td>$10,652</td>
<td>24.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Minnesota</th>
<td>$6,712</td>
<td>10.8%</td>
<td>$17,831</td>
<td>34.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Missouri</th>
<td>$2,834</td>
<td>5.7%</td>
<td>$12,142</td>
<td>30.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Mississippi</th>
<td>$350</td>
<td>0.9%</td>
<td>$4,347</td>
<td>12.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Montana</th>
<td>$3,213</td>
<td>6.5%</td>
<td>$11,135</td>
<td>26.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">North Carolina</th>
<td>$3,900</td>
<td>8.8%</td>
<td>$11,492</td>
<td>31.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">North Dakota</th>
<td>$1,110</td>
<td>1.8%</td>
<td>$8,621</td>
<td>15.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Nebraska</th>
<td>$1,613</td>
<td>2.9%</td>
<td>$8,456</td>
<td>17.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New Hampshire</th>
<td>$3,627</td>
<td>5.2%</td>
<td>$13,084</td>
<td>21.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New Jersey</th>
<td>$2,671</td>
<td>3.5%</td>
<td>$12,217</td>
<td>18.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New Mexico</th>
<td>$3,272</td>
<td>8.4%</td>
<td>$10,370</td>
<td>32.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Nevada</th>
<td>$4,462</td>
<td>10.1%</td>
<td>$12,580</td>
<td>35.0%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New York</th>
<td>$7,461</td>
<td>14.2%</td>
<td>$19,161</td>
<td>46.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Ohio</th>
<td>$3,028</td>
<td>6.0%</td>
<td>$10,369</td>
<td>24.0%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Oklahoma</th>
<td>$1,561</td>
<td>3.4%</td>
<td>$6,684</td>
<td>16.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Oregon</th>
<td>$5,656</td>
<td>12.5%</td>
<td>$14,443</td>
<td>39.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Pennsylvania</th>
<td>$3,910</td>
<td>6.9%</td>
<td>$11,982</td>
<td>24.7%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Rhode Island</th>
<td>$6,155</td>
<td>11.3%</td>
<td>$16,195</td>
<td>36.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">South Carolina</th>
<td>$1,336</td>
<td>3.0%</td>
<td>$5,987</td>
<td>14.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">South Dakota</th>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td> $4,289</td>
<td> 8.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Tennessee</th>
<td>$647</td>
<td>1.4%</td>
<td>$5,162</td>
<td>12.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Texas</th>
<td>$3,122</td>
<td>6.6%</td>
<td>$9,852</td>
<td>24.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Utah</th>
<td>$2,058</td>
<td>3.6%</td>
<td>$8,670</td>
<td>17.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Virginia</th>
<td>$2,797</td>
<td>4.2%</td>
<td>$10,754</td>
<td>18.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Vermont</th>
<td>$4,676</td>
<td>8.6%</td>
<td>$14,646</td>
<td>32.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Washington</th>
<td>$5,854</td>
<td>10.4%</td>
<td>$15,442</td>
<td>33.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Wisconsin</th>
<td>$5,008</td>
<td>9.3%</td>
<td>$14,477</td>
<td>32.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">West Virginia</th>
<td>$2,678</td>
<td>6.0%</td>
<td>$8,491</td>
<td>21.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Wyoming</th>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td> $5,453</td>
<td> 9.6%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="source-and-notes">
<div class="chart-source">
<b>Source: </b>EPI analysis of CCAA (2015) and U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="donotprint">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
For families with only an infant, the savings range from $350 a year
in Mississippi to $8,304 in Massachusetts. (Savings in Washington, D.C.,
are substantially higher, at $16,272; however, we do not include it in
our rankings because it is more properly thought of as a city, not a
state, and because it has outlier levels of child care costs.) The
median savings for this prototypical family ($3,272) is found in New
Mexico. It’s important to note that the savings would be even greater
with ambitious, quality-oriented child care reform, which has the
potential to increase prices as staff quality and investments rise.<br />
As expected, capping expenditures at 10 percent of family income for
families with two children (an infant and a 4-year-old) would yield even
larger savings. They range from $4,289 in South Dakota to $21,085 in
Massachusetts. (Washington, D.C., comes in at $34,114 because of its
far-higher-than-average child care costs.) The median savings are in
Florida (at $11,128), where such child care reform would free up nearly
one-third of median family income.<br />
While the illustration here considers the cost savings for median
families with children (which, on a nationwide basis, have a median
income of $63,767), the boost would be even greater for families lower
on the income scale. These include single-mother families (which have a
median income of $26,374), families headed by an African American (which
have a median income of $36,790), and families headed by a Latino or
Latina (which have a median income of $41,363). This is because the
progressive nature of a cap on child care expenditures as a share of
income, by definition, provides greater subsidies to those with lower
family income, freeing up a larger share of their income to spend on
other needs. For instance, in Kansas, the median state in terms of
median family income for families with children ($62,752), families with
an infant and a 4-year-old would save $12,877 from a 10 percent cap on
child care expenditures. If a Kansas family’s income is half the median
($31,376), the income freed up by the 10 percent cap would be much
greater, at $16,014.<br />
Helping families afford high-quality child care through generous
subsidies would materially improve families’ living
standards—particularly for those families that need the most help.<br />
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-7" name="epi-toc-7" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Benefits stemming from parents’ increased labor force participation</h2>
A major investment in America’s children would also deliver economic
benefits to families—and the economy as a whole—by making it more
feasible for parents (particularly mothers) to work. From the widespread
lack of paid parental leave to inadequate and unaffordable child care,
the United States falls far behind its international peers on a number
of measures related to investments in families with children. Without
adequate policies to support parents’ ability to remain in the labor
force after having children, many parents (mostly mothers) drop out.
This has important ramifications for their future work prospects,
including their career path and earnings potential, which likewise has
implications for their family’s income and well-being. Moreover, lower
labor force participation translates directly to lower levels of gross
domestic product (GDP). This section surveys the literature regarding
links between child care costs and labor force participation and
provides illustrative simulations of how better child care policy could
lead to better outcomes for parents, families, and the economy.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-8" name="epi-toc-8" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>International context for better parental support policies</h3>
Research has shown that paid parental leave and subsidized child care
increase parental labor force participation. Many of our peer nations
have such policies, and, not surprisingly, their parental labor force
participation rates are much higher than ours.<br />
<br />
<b>Figure F</b> illustrates just how far U.S. women have
fallen behind some of our international peers. The graph shows the share
of women age 25–54 with a job between 1995 and 2014 in Germany, Canada,
Japan, and the United States. While the share of prime-age women with a
job rose in those peer nations, in the U.S. it actually fell. Policies
that help parents, particularly women, balance work and family could
meaningfully improve their ability to participate in the labor force.
This increase in labor force participation would mean more earnings for
families and more economic activity for the country.<br />
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Blau and Kahn (2013) concur with those findings and also stress that
at the same time that U.S. women’s labor force participation went from
the sixth highest (out of 22) in 1990 to the 17th highest in 2010, our
peer countries outpaced the United States in providing investments and
public benefits dedicated to supporting families with children. Ruhm
(2011) looks specifically at the relationship between investments in
child care and labor force participation, and finds that increasing
public child care expenditures from the average of 19 wealthy OECD
countries to the level of Denmark would increase labor force
participation rates of 25- to 54-year-old women by 4.4 percentage
points.</div>
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An increase of this magnitude would have enormous implications for
economic growth. To get a sense of how increasing the share of women in
the labor force could affect the economy, consider that if prime-age
women had the same labor force participation rate in the United States
as in Canada or Germany, there would be roughly 5.5 million more women
in the U.S. labor force. All else equal, this would increase GDP by 3.5
percent, representing an additional $600 billion of economic activity
(Shierholz 2014).<br />
This overall GDP gain would manifest itself as more parents
(overwhelmingly women) being able to access paid work, which would lead
to higher annual earnings and income for households with children. Some
of today’s potential workers who are most constrained from participating
in paid labor because of the lack of access to quality child care are
single mothers. Relieving this constraint (especially through a policy
of progressive transfer) would boost household income and family
resources for these households particularly, making it not just good for
overall economic growth, but for the equitable distribution of income
as well. Allowing heads of low-income, single-parent households to
choose paid work knowing that quality child care is available is
especially important given that the American system of income supports
has shifted so decisively in recent decades toward boosting the returns
to work. The earned income tax credit (EITC), for example, now lifts
more people out of poverty than any other single government program
except for Social Security, and it is only available to those with
earnings from the labor market.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-9" name="epi-toc-9" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Estimating the relationship between child care costs and women’s labor force participation</h3>
A number of studies have examined specific policy changes to identify
a causal relationship between the cost of child care and parental labor
force participation in the United States and abroad. While the price of
child care could affect the extent of labor force participation of both
men and women, the literature focuses on changes in mothers’
participation (and, to keep our simulations grounded in solid research,
we do as well).<br />
One prominent study examined the introduction of universal child care
in Quebec (Baker, Gruber, and Milligan 2005). They found that each 1
percent increase in subsidies was found to raise maternal labor force
participation by 0.24 percent. Lefebvre and Merrigan (2005) found
similar results, with every 1 percent decrease in child care costs
raising the labor force participation of mothers by 0.25 percent.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-10" name="epi-toc-10" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Child care policy can help close gender gaps in employment and wages</h3>
While U.S. women have increased their labor force participation rate
(LFPR) greatly in the last 50 years, substantial gaps between men’s and
women’s participation remain. Only 56.8 percent of women participate in
the labor force, as compared with 69.1 percent of men. The gender gap in
LFPRs is even greater for parents with children under age 18. In 2015,
mothers’ LFPR was 69.9 percent, compared with 92.7 percent for fathers.<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="11" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note11" id="_ref11">11</a>
A menu of work–family policies ranging from paid family leave to
affordable child care could make it easier for women to enter or stay in
the labor force. As a result, women’s (i.e., mothers’) labor force
participation would increase substantially, helping to close the gender
employment gap. Minimizing employment gaps would also help close gender
wage gaps.<br />
Although the gender pay gap can be measured in numerous ways, one
clear way is to examine hourly pay differences. In 2015, the hourly pay
of women at the median was 83 percent of men’s. The differences are
starker among mothers, who are more likely to work fewer hours and are
also more likely to not work for stretches of time. In terms of annual
earnings, the pay gap is wider—women earned 78.6 cents for every dollar a
man earned in 2014, in part because women work fewer hours on average
compared with men (Hegewisch and Hartman 2015).<br />
Additionally, there is a sizable penalty for time out of the labor
force for women (i.e., mothers with young children). In a study of MBA
graduates, Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz (2009) find that career
interruptions are costly in terms of future earnings, and women are far
more likely to have career interruptions than men.<br />
While paid parental leave and making child care affordable can
improve gender wage gaps in general, and sometimes to a large degree,
other labor market changes should be considered to limit disparities in
certain occupations that confer large rewards to those workers willing
to put in exceptionally long hours. Goldin (2014) argues that
differences in pay are particularly stark among professions that reward
long hours of work. As such, mothers in particular may benefit from
policies to promote temporal flexibility, which would give them the
ability to adjust hours and complete work when it is most convenient
given their family obligations. While that temporal flexibility can come
at a cost to wages, it would help to remedy gender inequities in the
labor market.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-11" name="epi-toc-11" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Estimating each state’s economic gains from increased labor force participation through child care reform</h3>
In this section, we provide a rough illustration of the magnitude of
possible economic gains stemming from increasing women’s labor force
participation by enacting child care reform. We also allocate these
gains across states.<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="12" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note12" id="_ref12">12</a><br />
Consider the child care reform discussed previously whereby child
care expenditures would be capped at 10 percent of a family’s income. We
evaluate the effect of this change at the median of the income
distribution for families with children to get an illustration of the
possible magnitude of this reform’s effect on labor force participation.
First, for the median family with children, we calculate the percent
reduction in child care costs (i.e., the size of the subsidy) that such
reform would result in. Then, using the relatively conservative estimate
by Blau (2001) that decreasing child care costs by 1 percent increases
mothers’ labor force participation by 0.2 percent, we calculate the
mothers’ labor force response to this subsidy. Translating this addition
to the overall labor force, we then estimate the gains to each state’s
economy from such child care reform.<br />
In <b>Figure G</b>, we illustrate these gains to each
state’s gross state product (GSP) for families with an infant. While the
color coding in the map corresponds to the percent increase in GSP, the
level increase in each state’s GSP is also provided in the online
version of the figure. While the percent increases in GSP are as large
as 1.6 percent in several states, the median GSP increase was $1.9
billion in Washington, D.C., and as large as $33.5 billion in
California. Across the country, this translates into a GDP increase of
1.2 percent, equal to $210.2 billion.<br />
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<h4>
<span class="title-presub">Nearly all states’ economies would grow from policies that limit families’ child care expenditures</span><span class="subtitle">Increase in size of state economy from capping out-of-pocket infant care expenditures at 10% of income</span></h4>
<div class="legend-wrap" style="cursor: auto; margin-top: 15px; width: 200px;">
<div class="legend-box" style="display: inline-block; width: 200px;">
<span style="border-left: 1px solid #aaa; float: left; padding-left: 2px;">0.2%</span><span style="border-right: 1px solid #aaa; float: right; padding-right: 2px;">1.6%</span></div>
</div>
<div class="epimap-values loc-after">
<b>Click map to view data.</b></div>
<div class="data-table-wrapper table-wrapper visuallyhidden overflowing">
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col">State</th>
<th scope="col">Increase in state economy</th>
<th scope="col">Increase in state economy (in millions)</th>
<th scope="col">Increase in state economy</th>
<th scope="col">Increase in state economy (in millions)</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Alaska</th>
<td>1.0%</td>
<td>$562</td>
<td>1.9%</td>
<td>$1,099</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Alabama</th>
<td>0.3%</td>
<td>$655</td>
<td>1.8%</td>
<td>$3,665</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Arkansas</th>
<td>0.8%</td>
<td>$954</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$2,518</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Arizona</th>
<td>1.3%</td>
<td>$3,853</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$6,083</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">California</th>
<td>1.5%</td>
<td>$33,498</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$49,529</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Colorado</th>
<td>1.5%</td>
<td>$4,437</td>
<td>2.2%</td>
<td>$6,595</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Connecticut</th>
<td>1.2%</td>
<td>$3,033</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$5,340</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Washington D.C.</th>
<td>1.6%</td>
<td>$1,916</td>
<td>1.9%</td>
<td>$2,246</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Delaware</th>
<td>1.2%</td>
<td>$774</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$1,356</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Florida</th>
<td>1.2%</td>
<td>$10,404</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$17,781</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Georgia</th>
<td>1.0%</td>
<td>$4,594</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$10,156</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Hawaii</th>
<td>0.3%</td>
<td>$219</td>
<td>1.7%</td>
<td>$1,321</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Iowa</th>
<td>1.1%</td>
<td>$1,793</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$3,645</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Idaho</th>
<td>0.9%</td>
<td>$545</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$1,340</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Illinois</th>
<td>1.6%</td>
<td>$11,490</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
<td>$16,821</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Indiana</th>
<td>1.2%</td>
<td>$3,948</td>
<td>2.2%</td>
<td>$6,989</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Kansas</th>
<td>1.5%</td>
<td>$2,177</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
<td>$3,329</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Kentucky</th>
<td>0.5%</td>
<td>$939</td>
<td>1.8%</td>
<td>$3,330</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Louisiana</th>
<td>0.2%</td>
<td>$625</td>
<td>1.7%</td>
<td>$4,356</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Massachusetts</th>
<td>1.6%</td>
<td>$7,075</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
<td>$10,271</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Maryland</th>
<td>1.3%</td>
<td>$4,378</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$7,240</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Maine</th>
<td>1.1%</td>
<td>$623</td>
<td>1.9%</td>
<td>$1,009</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Michigan</th>
<td>1.3%</td>
<td>$5,708</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$9,284</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Minnesota</th>
<td>1.5%</td>
<td>$4,833</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
<td>$7,237</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Missouri</th>
<td>1.1%</td>
<td>$3,180</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
<td>$6,557</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Mississippi</th>
<td>0.3%</td>
<td>$290</td>
<td>1.9%</td>
<td>$1,971</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Montana</th>
<td>1.1%</td>
<td>$472</td>
<td>2.0%</td>
<td>$872</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">North Carolina</th>
<td>1.5%</td>
<td>$7,135</td>
<td>2.4%</td>
<td>$11,550</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">North Dakota</th>
<td>0.4%</td>
<td>$232</td>
<td>1.7%</td>
<td>$941</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Nebraska</th>
<td>0.7%</td>
<td>$771</td>
<td>2.0%</td>
<td>$2,170</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New Hampshire</th>
<td>0.9%</td>
<td>$625</td>
<td>1.8%</td>
<td>$1,252</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New Jersey</th>
<td>0.7%</td>
<td>$3,968</td>
<td>1.8%</td>
<td>$9,931</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New Mexico</th>
<td>1.4%</td>
<td>$1,268</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
<td>$2,122</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Nevada</th>
<td>1.4%</td>
<td>$1,925</td>
<td>2.2%</td>
<td>$2,975</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New York</th>
<td>1.6%</td>
<td>$22,580</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
<td>$31,736</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Ohio</th>
<td>1.1%</td>
<td>$6,583</td>
<td>2.2%</td>
<td>$12,401</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Oklahoma</th>
<td>0.8%</td>
<td>$1,405</td>
<td>1.9%</td>
<td>$3,429</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Oregon</th>
<td>1.6%</td>
<td>$3,333</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
<td>$4,792</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Pennsylvania</th>
<td>1.1%</td>
<td>$7,560</td>
<td>2.0%</td>
<td>$13,172</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Rhode Island</th>
<td>1.5%</td>
<td>$832</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
<td>$1,230</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">South Carolina</th>
<td>0.7%</td>
<td>$1,285</td>
<td>1.8%</td>
<td>$3,351</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">South Dakota</th>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Tennessee</th>
<td>0.4%</td>
<td>$1,087</td>
<td>1.6%</td>
<td>$4,897</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Texas</th>
<td>1.2%</td>
<td>$20,139</td>
<td>2.2%</td>
<td>$35,942</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Utah</th>
<td>0.8%</td>
<td>$1,128</td>
<td>1.9%</td>
<td>$2,692</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Virginia</th>
<td>0.9%</td>
<td>$4,176</td>
<td>2.0%</td>
<td>$9,117</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Vermont</th>
<td>1.3%</td>
<td>$375</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$623</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Washington</th>
<td>1.4%</td>
<td>$5,966</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>$8,978</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Wisconsin</th>
<td>1.4%</td>
<td>$4,093</td>
<td>2.2%</td>
<td>$6,509</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">West Virginia</th>
<td>1.1%</td>
<td>$787</td>
<td>1.9%</td>
<td>$1,439</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Wyoming</th>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
<td><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="source-and-notes">
<div class="chart-notes">
<b>Note: </b>These
estimates use each state's median income for families with children and
use Blau's (2001) finding that decreasing child care costs by 1 percent
increases mothers' labor force participation by 0.2 percent.</div>
<div class="chart-source">
<b>Source: </b>EPI analysis
of CCAA (2015), U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, Current
Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group microdata, Blau (2001), and
BEA (2016)</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="donotprint">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Using estimates from Bivens and Edwards (2010), we estimate that a
GDP gain of this magnitude would boost federal tax revenue by roughly
$70 billion annually, providing a very large base of economic support to
finance this ambitious investment in America’s children.<br />
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-12" name="epi-toc-12" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Benefits stemming from professionalization of the child care workforce</h2>
There is large variation in the outcomes of specific ECCE
interventions. To maximize the benefits of these interventions, the
design of an ambitious national investment in children should be guided
by research findings identifying the characteristics of particularly
successful ECCE efforts. One of the clearest findings is the importance
of the characteristics of child care providers and staff. Some of the
most important characteristics are credentials, schooling, and
experience, but other characteristics related to quality are intangible
ones, such as energy, enthusiasm, and motivation (Blau 2001).<br />
However, the low pay of child care workers presents a severe barrier
to attracting the type of workforce at scale that would maximize the
benefits of ECCE. <b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Table 1</b>, reproduced from Gould
(2015), highlights that child care workers are overwhelmingly female
(95.6 percent) and disproportionately workers of color (39.9 percent,
versus 33.9 percent for other occupations). In part because of the
lingering labor market penalty suffered by women and workers of color,
child care workers receive very low hourly pay, many significantly below
the state median wage. However, their low pay is not just a function of
their demographic characteristics—these workers face a wage penalty
even after controlling for relevant worker characteristics. Gould (2015)
has documented that the wage penalty for child care workers is 23.0
percent even when compared with demographically similar workers in other
occupations.<br />
<div class="figure chart-94398 figure-table figure-theme-clean shrink-table" data-anchor="Table-1" data-chartid="94398">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5HCpevoLMDciIDZpvU1wIf-MNQ6EYkT9CT-D28PIs-jpjWmAZV3D1nPJbOpjkjoabE_dBs2qN6HGZlpqiHWPJ7hQ58d6e0ZXYO0HWa6ebnwsUGfqR05b1FlWq1s27anL2pIjfmzEDgU/s1600/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.18.38.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5HCpevoLMDciIDZpvU1wIf-MNQ6EYkT9CT-D28PIs-jpjWmAZV3D1nPJbOpjkjoabE_dBs2qN6HGZlpqiHWPJ7hQ58d6e0ZXYO0HWa6ebnwsUGfqR05b1FlWq1s27anL2pIjfmzEDgU/s1600/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.18.38.png" /></a></div>
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The effect of child care workers’ demographic characteristics being
consistently penalized in the U.S. labor market, along with the
occupation-specific wage penalty, combine to make median hourly wages
for child care workers nationally just $10.31, 39.3 percent below the
$17.00 median hourly wage of workers in other occupations. In fact, one
in seven child care workers (14.7 percent) live in families with income
below the official poverty line, compared with 6.7 percent of workers in
other occupations. After accounting for demographic differences between
child care workers and other workers, child care workers are 5.9
percentage points more likely to be in poverty than similar workers in
other occupations (Gould 2015). Current proposals to set a wage floor
for child care workers at $15 an hour would directly raise wages for 60
percent of child care workers, for a total wage increase of $156 million
per week.<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="13" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note13" id="_ref13">13</a><br />
Higher wages for child care workers would also have benefits beyond
improving the economic well-being of care providers and their families.
Multiple studies of child care quality have shown that higher
compensation is correlated with the ability to attract and retain a
highly trained workforce—particularly workers who display more of the
intangible characteristics associated with high-quality care, and who
provide more positive developmental experiences for young children
(Whitebook et al. 2001; Center on Children, Families and the Law 2005).
Higher compensation has also been shown to contribute to sustainability
of quality improvements over time (Whitebook et al. 2001).<br />
Higher wages would also provide incentives for child care facilities
to invest in the development of their staff, which in turn would improve
quality. In a comprehensive longitudinal evaluation of one of the most
stunning ECCE successes—the Chicago Child-Parent Program—Reynolds et al.
(2011) identified a number of elements crucial to its success. “Highly
qualified and well-compensated teachers with bachelor’s degrees and
certifications in early childhood education” and “ongoing staff
development” were identified as major drivers of this success.<br />
This finding that better-compensated teachers are associated with
both higher quality and greater levels of employer investment should not
come as a shock. Recent studies examining the impact of increases in
minimum wages (at either the state or federal level) have come to
similar conclusions. Dube, Lester, and Reich (2014) find that
minimum-wage increases reduce turnover significantly. Given that
provider experience is a key ingredient in ECCE quality, providing a
better-paid, more-stable workforce should be a primary goal of any
ambitious effort to invest in America’s children.<br />
Given the crucial role that provider quality plays in maximizing the
return to investments in ECCE, policymakers should ensure that
incentives to boost quality and spur investment in ECCE staff and
providers are included in any investment effort. One tool to spur
quality is to set high reimbursement rates for providers. Higher
reimbursement rates to quality providers make them more likely to serve
subsidy-receiving households instead of just catering to higher-income
families. The federal government currently recommends that states set
their reimbursement rates at the 75th percentile of the market rate
distribution so that low-income families have access to 75 percent of
the providers in their area and to provide incentives for providers to
invest in more professional staff. Unfortunately, few states—only one in
2014—actually do so in practice; many states fail to update the rates
based on current market surveys. By comparison, 22 states set
reimbursement rates at or above 75 percent in 2001. Other tools to spur
quality in ECCE staff could include measures to ensure that subsidies
can only be used in ECCE facilities that meet high thresholds for staff
training and job quality.<br />
Through raising child care workers’ wages and pursuing other policies
to increase child care quality, we can ensure that investments in ECCE
yield the greatest possible benefits.<br />
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-13" name="epi-toc-13" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>The status quo in American child care, and policy efforts to help</h2>
In this section, we describe the current state of child care in
America, with a focus on affordability and availability of high-quality
care. We also provide a broad overview of the patchwork of policies that
help families gain access to child care. Above all, this analysis of
the status quo underscores the need for ambitious child care reform.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-14" name="epi-toc-14" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>The problem of affordability extends beyond low-income families</h3>
High-quality child care is out of reach for many American
families—not just those with low incomes. Child care costs are one of
the most significant expenses in a family’s budget, largely because
child care and early education is a labor-intensive industry, requiring a
low student-to-teacher ratio (CCAA 2014). The heavy burden of child
care costs in the context of typical family budgets is illustrated by <a href="http://www.epi.org/resources/budget/">EPI’s basic family budget thresholds</a> (Gould,
Cooke, and Kimball 2015), which measure the income families need in
order to attain a modest yet adequate standard of living in 618
communities. Geographical cost-of-living differences are built into the
budget calculations by incorporating regional, state, or local
variations in prices (depending on item). The thresholds are also
adjustable by family type, as expenses vary considerably depending on
the number of children in a family (if any), and whether a family is
headed by a single parent or two parents.<br />
Across regions and family types, child care costs account for the
greatest variability in family budgets. Monthly child care costs for a
household with one child (a 4-year-old) range from $344 in rural South
Carolina to $1,472 in Washington, D.C (Gould and Cooke 2015).<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="14" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note14" id="_ref14">14</a>
Child care costs are even higher for families with multiple children;
in the District of Columbia, monthly child care costs for a three-child
household (with a 4-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 12-year-old) are
$2,784—nearly 90 percent higher than for a household with one child (a
4-year-old). Costs are particularly high for families with infants, due
to increased staff sizes and additional training and licensing
requirements (CCAA 2014); center-based infant care costs range from $468
a month in Mississippi to $1,868 a month in the District of Columbia.<br />
<br />
The Department of Health and Human Services has considered child care
affordable if it consumes 10 percent or less of a family’s income (HHS
2014). (As previously noted, HHS very recently reduced this threshold to
7 percent.) By this 10 percent metric, in only two states is infant
care “affordable”—South Dakota and Wyoming. In Massachusetts, which has
one of the highest center-based infant care costs, child care costs
exceed this affordability test for over 80 percent of families. This is
illustrated in <b>Figure H</b>, which depicts the share of families able to afford infant care in each state. Similarly, <b>Figure I</b><b> </b>displays the share of families in each state able to afford 4-year-old care.<br />
<div class="figure chart-100167 figure-epimap figure-theme-clean maptype-block" data-anchor="Figures-H-and-I" data-chartid="100167">
<div class="figBorder">
<div class="figInner ">
<div class="figTop">
<div class="figLabel">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsLaU1yEG5buW7yiF4SgMaMdmtGKxtwBEnmFo7Uafh8F2tVhu9w-65huV8OlIrg1nlkaKXbXn-XZ3vy3CPcfMCa9yCtYPx5TyD4ArJuEocEvsgrRIQ7R2GRxvF1ITs8ATSIqOFEjbomaw/s1600/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.20.33.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsLaU1yEG5buW7yiF4SgMaMdmtGKxtwBEnmFo7Uafh8F2tVhu9w-65huV8OlIrg1nlkaKXbXn-XZ3vy3CPcfMCa9yCtYPx5TyD4ArJuEocEvsgrRIQ7R2GRxvF1ITs8ATSIqOFEjbomaw/s1600/Screenshot+2016-06-16+15.20.33.png" /></a></div>
</div>
<b>--------------------------------------</b><div class="data-table-wrapper table-wrapper visuallyhidden overflowing">
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col">State</th>
<th scope="col">Share of families able to afford infant care</th>
<th scope="col">Annual infant care cost</th>
<th scope="col">Income necessary to afford infant care</th>
<th scope="col">Total number of families</th>
<th scope="col">Number of families unable to afford infant care</th>
<th scope="col">Share of families able to afford 4-year-old care</th>
<th scope="col">Annual 4-year-old care cost</th>
<th scope="col">Income necessary to afford 4-year-old care</th>
<th scope="col">Number of families unable to afford 4-year-old care</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Alabama</th>
<td>48.4%</td>
<td>$5,637</td>
<td>$56,370</td>
<td> 1,232,515</td>
<td> 636,083</td>
<td>53.7%</td>
<td>$4,871</td>
<td>$48,710</td>
<td> 571,109</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Alaska</th>
<td>35.5%</td>
<td>$10,957</td>
<td>$109,570</td>
<td> 165,015</td>
<td> 106,417</td>
<td>53.5%</td>
<td>$7,652</td>
<td>$76,520</td>
<td> 76,663</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Arizona</th>
<td>27.9%</td>
<td>$9,437</td>
<td>$94,370</td>
<td> 1,579,481</td>
<td> 1,139,095</td>
<td>38.2%</td>
<td>$7,497</td>
<td>$74,970</td>
<td> 976,833</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Arkansas</th>
<td>42.8%</td>
<td>$5,995</td>
<td>$59,950</td>
<td> 752,212</td>
<td> 430,405</td>
<td>50.9%</td>
<td>$4,995</td>
<td>$49,950</td>
<td> 369,363</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">California</th>
<td>28.5%</td>
<td>$11,817</td>
<td>$118,170</td>
<td> 8,762,059</td>
<td> 6,261,095</td>
<td>43.5%</td>
<td>$8,230</td>
<td>$82,300</td>
<td> 4,947,250</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Colorado</th>
<td>22.6%</td>
<td>$13,154</td>
<td>$131,540</td>
<td> 1,315,283</td>
<td> 1,017,666</td>
<td>34.9%</td>
<td>$9,882</td>
<td>$98,820</td>
<td> 855,942</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Connecticut</th>
<td>28.1%</td>
<td>$13,880</td>
<td>$138,800</td>
<td> 887,263</td>
<td> 638,385</td>
<td>37.6%</td>
<td>$11,502</td>
<td>$115,020</td>
<td> 553,704</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Delaware</th>
<td>28.9%</td>
<td>$11,000</td>
<td>$110,000</td>
<td> 233,000</td>
<td> 165,678</td>
<td>42.8%</td>
<td>$8,268</td>
<td>$82,680</td>
<td> 133,383</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Washington D.C.</th>
<td>9.4</td>
<td>$22,631</td>
<td>$226,310</td>
<td> 117,864</td>
<td> 106,728</td>
<td>23.8%</td>
<td>$17,842</td>
<td>$178,420</td>
<td> 89,870</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Florida</th>
<td>30.2%</td>
<td>$8,694</td>
<td>$86,940</td>
<td> 4,693,411</td>
<td> 3,276,899</td>
<td>35.3%</td>
<td>$7,668</td>
<td>$76,680</td>
<td> 3,038,663</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Georgia</th>
<td>37.7%</td>
<td>$7,644</td>
<td>$76,440</td>
<td> 2,426,392</td>
<td> 1,511,827</td>
<td>45.4%</td>
<td>$6,500</td>
<td>$65,000</td>
<td> 1,323,794</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Hawaii</th>
<td>47.3%</td>
<td>$8,280</td>
<td>$82,800</td>
<td> 314,151</td>
<td> 165,521</td>
<td>41.0%</td>
<td>$9,312</td>
<td>$93,120</td>
<td> 185,437</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Idaho</th>
<td>37.5%</td>
<td>$7,200</td>
<td>$72,000</td>
<td> 407,499</td>
<td> 254,728</td>
<td>40.2%</td>
<td>$6,924</td>
<td>$69,240</td>
<td> 243,740</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Illinois</th>
<td>22.3%</td>
<td>$12,964</td>
<td>$129,640</td>
<td> 3,099,184</td>
<td> 2,408,277</td>
<td>35.0%</td>
<td>$9,567</td>
<td>$95,670</td>
<td> 2,013,603</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Indiana</th>
<td>29.2%</td>
<td>$8,918</td>
<td>$89,180</td>
<td> 1,657,223</td>
<td> 1,172,679</td>
<td>43.8%</td>
<td>$6,760</td>
<td>$67,600</td>
<td> 931,801</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Iowa</th>
<td>30.0%</td>
<td>$9,485</td>
<td>$94,850</td>
<td> 801,562</td>
<td> 560,861</td>
<td>38.9%</td>
<td>$8,216</td>
<td>$82,160</td>
<td> 490,045</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Kansas</th>
<td>23.5%</td>
<td>$11,201</td>
<td>$112,010</td>
<td> 728,602</td>
<td> 557,203</td>
<td>39.8%</td>
<td>$7,951</td>
<td>$79,510</td>
<td> 438,626</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Kentucky</th>
<td>43.3%</td>
<td>$6,294</td>
<td>$62,940</td>
<td> 1,124,586</td>
<td> 637,332</td>
<td>49.7%</td>
<td>$5,499</td>
<td>$54,990</td>
<td> 565,207</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Louisiana</th>
<td>49.8%</td>
<td>$5,747</td>
<td>$57,470</td>
<td> 1,112,659</td>
<td> 558,845</td>
<td>55.5%</td>
<td>$4,914</td>
<td>$49,140</td>
<td> 495,651</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Maine</th>
<td>26.7%</td>
<td>$9,512</td>
<td>$95,120</td>
<td> 344,585</td>
<td> 252,503</td>
<td>44.5%</td>
<td>$6,870</td>
<td>$68,700</td>
<td> 191,333</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Maryland</th>
<td>27.7%</td>
<td>$13,932</td>
<td>$139,320</td>
<td> 1,445,972</td>
<td> 1,045,936</td>
<td>48.9%</td>
<td>$9,100</td>
<td>$91,000</td>
<td> 739,057</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Massachusetts</th>
<td>18.7%</td>
<td>$17,062</td>
<td>$170,620</td>
<td> 1,610,581</td>
<td> 1,310,167</td>
<td>32.0%</td>
<td>$12,781</td>
<td>$127,810</td>
<td> 1,095,495</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Michigan</th>
<td>26.0%</td>
<td>$9,882</td>
<td>$98,820</td>
<td> 2,485,159</td>
<td> 1,838,890</td>
<td>45.4%</td>
<td>$6,764</td>
<td>$67,640</td>
<td> 1,357,822</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Minnesota</th>
<td>17.8%</td>
<td>$14,366</td>
<td>$143,660</td>
<td> 1,369,594</td>
<td> 1,125,417</td>
<td>31.0%</td>
<td>$11,119</td>
<td>$111,190</td>
<td> 944,628</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Mississippi</th>
<td>50.2%</td>
<td>$4,822</td>
<td>$48,220</td>
<td> 738,463</td>
<td> 360,339</td>
<td>59.2%</td>
<td>$3,997</td>
<td>$39,970</td>
<td> 301,661</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Missouri</th>
<td>32.0%</td>
<td>$8,632</td>
<td>$86,320</td>
<td> 1,508,816</td>
<td> 1,025,310</td>
<td>27.9%</td>
<td>$9,308</td>
<td>$93,080</td>
<td> 1,088,313</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Montana</th>
<td>28.0%</td>
<td>$9,062</td>
<td>$90,620</td>
<td> 251,176</td>
<td> 180,747</td>
<td>35.0%</td>
<td>$7,922</td>
<td>$79,220</td>
<td> 163,152</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Nebraska</th>
<td>39.9%</td>
<td>$7,926</td>
<td>$79,260</td>
<td> 480,317</td>
<td> 288,694</td>
<td>48.4%</td>
<td>$6,843</td>
<td>$68,430</td>
<td> 248,045</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Nevada</th>
<td>23.8%</td>
<td>$9,852</td>
<td>$98,520</td>
<td> 642,461</td>
<td> 489,647</td>
<td>34.4%</td>
<td>$8,118</td>
<td>$81,180</td>
<td> 421,504</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New Hampshire</th>
<td>30.3%</td>
<td>$11,810</td>
<td>$118,100</td>
<td> 345,901</td>
<td> 241,134</td>
<td>40.8%</td>
<td>$9,457</td>
<td>$94,570</td>
<td> 204,941</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New Jersey</th>
<td>38.0%</td>
<td>$11,534</td>
<td>$115,340</td>
<td> 2,203,675</td>
<td> 1,367,079</td>
<td>46.5%</td>
<td>$9,546</td>
<td>$95,460</td>
<td> 1,178,767</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New Mexico</th>
<td>32.9%</td>
<td>$7,942</td>
<td>$79,420</td>
<td> 489,532</td>
<td> 328,393</td>
<td>37.9%</td>
<td>$7,098</td>
<td>$70,980</td>
<td> 303,909</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">New York</th>
<td>20.3%</td>
<td>$14,144</td>
<td>$141,440</td>
<td> 4,621,954</td>
<td> 3,681,435</td>
<td>28.4%</td>
<td>$11,700</td>
<td>$117,000</td>
<td> 3,307,405</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">North Carolina</th>
<td>26.7%</td>
<td>$9,255</td>
<td>$92,550</td>
<td> 2,492,048</td>
<td> 1,826,395</td>
<td>35.9%</td>
<td>$7,592</td>
<td>$75,920</td>
<td> 1,596,596</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">North Dakota</th>
<td>44.6%</td>
<td>$8,217</td>
<td>$82,170</td>
<td> 187,800</td>
<td> 104,037</td>
<td>49.5%</td>
<td>$7,511</td>
<td>$75,110</td>
<td> 94,867</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Ohio</th>
<td>31.2%</td>
<td>$8,977</td>
<td>$89,770</td>
<td> 2,923,523</td>
<td> 2,011,132</td>
<td>41.5%</td>
<td>$7,341</td>
<td>$73,410</td>
<td> 1,711,321</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Oklahoma</th>
<td>42.1%</td>
<td>$6,788</td>
<td>$67,880</td>
<td> 966,516</td>
<td> 559,684</td>
<td>56.6%</td>
<td>$5,123</td>
<td>$51,230</td>
<td> 419,601</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Oregon</th>
<td>22.1%</td>
<td>$11,322</td>
<td>$113,220</td>
<td> 966,250</td>
<td> 752,680</td>
<td>32.9%</td>
<td>$8,787</td>
<td>$87,870</td>
<td> 648,101</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Pennsylvania</th>
<td>27.5%</td>
<td>$10,640</td>
<td>$106,400</td>
<td> 3,185,054</td>
<td> 2,310,572</td>
<td>40.7%</td>
<td>$8,072</td>
<td>$80,720</td>
<td> 1,889,506</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Rhode Island</th>
<td>21.9%</td>
<td>$12,867</td>
<td>$128,670</td>
<td> 257,165</td>
<td> 200,888</td>
<td>32.2%</td>
<td>$10,040</td>
<td>$100,400</td>
<td> 174,337</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">South Carolina</th>
<td>43.0%</td>
<td>$6,475</td>
<td>$64,750</td>
<td> 1,201,616</td>
<td> 684,782</td>
<td>57.7%</td>
<td>$4,651</td>
<td>$46,510</td>
<td> 507,920</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">South Dakota</th>
<td>57.7%</td>
<td>$5,661</td>
<td>$56,610</td>
<td> 211,235</td>
<td> 89,310</td>
<td>65.8%</td>
<td>$4,804</td>
<td>$48,040</td>
<td> 72,348</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Tennessee</th>
<td>47.2%</td>
<td>$5,857</td>
<td>$58,570</td>
<td> 1,660,344</td>
<td> 876,697</td>
<td>59.1%</td>
<td>$4,515</td>
<td>$45,150</td>
<td> 679,033</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Texas</th>
<td>34.7%</td>
<td>$8,759</td>
<td>$87,590</td>
<td> 6,407,165</td>
<td> 4,184,224</td>
<td>47.2%</td>
<td>$6,730</td>
<td>$67,300</td>
<td> 3,384,004</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Utah</th>
<td>37.4%</td>
<td>$8,641</td>
<td>$86,410</td>
<td> 691,495</td>
<td> 432,893</td>
<td>52.8%</td>
<td>$6,612</td>
<td>$66,120</td>
<td> 326,081</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Vermont</th>
<td>22.7%</td>
<td>$11,270</td>
<td>$112,700</td>
<td> 162,017</td>
<td> 125,222</td>
<td>27.3%</td>
<td>$9,970</td>
<td>$99,700</td>
<td> 117,832</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Virginia</th>
<td>35.6%</td>
<td>$10,458</td>
<td>$104,580</td>
<td> 2,058,820</td>
<td> 1,325,316</td>
<td>48.7%</td>
<td>$7,957</td>
<td>$79,570</td>
<td> 1,056,282</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Washington</th>
<td>24.0%</td>
<td>$12,733</td>
<td>$127,330</td>
<td> 1,725,099</td>
<td> 1,311,543</td>
<td>36.3%</td>
<td>$9,588</td>
<td>$95,880</td>
<td> 1,099,260</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">West Virginia</th>
<td>28.5%</td>
<td>$7,926</td>
<td>$79,260</td>
<td> 472,869</td>
<td> 337,939</td>
<td>45.0%</td>
<td>$5,813</td>
<td>$58,130</td>
<td> 260,002</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Wisconsin</th>
<td>21.4%</td>
<td>$11,579</td>
<td>$115,790</td>
<td> 1,485,877</td>
<td> 1,168,488</td>
<td>29.8%</td>
<td>$9,469</td>
<td>$94,690</td>
<td> 1,042,753</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Wyoming</th>
<td>55.3%</td>
<td>$6,541</td>
<td>$65,410</td>
<td> 149,032</td>
<td> 66,550</td>
<td>60.8%</td>
<td>$5,833</td>
<td>$58,330</td>
<td> 58,348</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="source-and-notes">
<div class="chart-notes">
<b>Note: </b>Child care is considered affordable if it consumes 10 percent or less of a family's income.</div>
<div class="chart-source">
<b>Source: </b>EPI analysis of CCAA (2014) and U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="donotprint">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Of EPI’s 618 family budget areas, in only a handful of areas (all in
Louisiana) are child care costs even close to 10 percent of EPI’s family
budget threshold. Center-based child care for single-parent families
with two children (ages 4 and 8) ranges from 11.7 percent of a modest
yet adequate income in New Orleans to 33.7 percent in Buffalo.<br />
Affording child care is particularly difficult for low-wage families.
For a full-time, full-year minimum-wage worker, child care costs as a
share of income far exceed the HHS affordability standard. For example,
the shares of annual minimum-wage earnings required to afford infant
care ranges from 31.8 percent in South Dakota to 103.6 percent in
Washington, D.C. This expense becomes even further out of reach for
families with more than one child requiring care.<br />
However, affordable child care is not just a problem for low-income
families. For families of four, with two parents and two children (ages 4
and 8), the income level necessary to achieve a modest yet adequate
standard of living exceeds state median income in 430 of 618 family
budget areas. (Median incomes for families with children under 18 range
from $44,717 in Mississippi to $88,627 in New Jersey.) This is due
largely to the high cost of child care. Clearly, even middle-income
families have great difficulty affording child care.<br />
As mentioned previously, child care is even less affordable for
families with infants. To illustrate this, we constructed family budgets
in 10 areas for two-parent, two-child families with an infant and a
4-year-old (instead of a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old). The areas
include San Francisco; Stamford, Connecticut; Tampa, Florida; Atlanta;
Chicago; Boston; Detroit; Kansas City, Missouri; Raleigh, North
Carolina; and Las Vegas. Annual budgets for these families range from
$67,536 in Atlanta (which saw the smallest change in its overall budget
when we changed the age of children in the household to include an
infant, increasing $3,648) to $108,245 in Stamford. (Boston saw the
largest change in its overall budget, increasing $16,921.) Annual child
care costs for an infant and a 4-year-old range from $13,245 in Atlanta
to $29,478 in Boston. As a share of total family budgets, these child
care costs range from 19.3 percent in San Francisco to 28.7 percent in
Boston. This compares with a range of 11.8 percent in San Francisco to
21.6 percent in Chicago for families with a 4-year-old and an
8-year-old. In short, families with infants deserve special attention
from policymakers. By the time children are age 5, universal schooling
helps many families with child care obligations. But before then, and
particularly in the first years of children’s lives, too many families
are left on their own.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-15" name="epi-toc-15" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Child care–related tax provisions to promote affordability</h3>
As the above estimates show, child care affordability is not just a
problem for low-income families, but for many higher-income families as
well. There are two major federal vehicles used to offset
employment-related child care costs that are available to all families,
regardless of income: the child and dependent care tax credit (CDCTC)
and the employer-provided child care tax exclusion.<br />
The CDCTC allows parents to report up to $3,000 per child in child
care costs (up to a maximum of $6,000) and receive a tax credit of 20 to
35 percent, or up to $2,100, based on their adjusted gross income
(AGI). Both parents in a two-parent household must be employed in order
to receive the credit. The 35 percent credit rate applies to families
with AGI below $15,000 and decreases by 1 percentage point for each
additional $2,000 of AGI. The 20 percent credit rate applies to families
with AGI greater than $43,000.<br />
Despite its progressive structure, the federal CDCTC provides little
benefit to low-income families because it is non-refundable, meaning
families with little or no tax liabilities are unable to receive it.
This excludes well over a third of the lowest-income households.
Twenty-six states also have child care–related tax provisions, but only
12 include refundable tax credits (NWLC 2014). Tax credits are also less
practical for liquidity-constrained low-income families because the
benefits are only available when or if a family files an income tax
return, rather than at the time the expenses are incurred.<br />
According to Blau (2001), one-quarter of the total amount of tax
credits claimed in 1997 went to families with AGI of less than $30,000,
but almost all of this amount was claimed by families with AGI between
$15,000 and $30,000; only 1.8 percent was claimed by families with AGI
less than $15,000. This suggests that those most likely to <i>qualify</i> for
the maximum benefit of $2,100, such as single-parent minimum-wage
workers, rarely actually get it. The largest average benefits go to
those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 because their expenses
are higher than those of other income groups and because more people in
this income range have child care expenses (Maag 2013).<br />
The employer-provided child care tax exclusion is available to any
worker employed at a firm that offers this benefit. It allows an
employee to exclude from taxation up to $5,000 of her salary, regardless
of the number of children receiving care. Since these are pre-tax
dollars, higher-income families typically benefit more from the
exclusion than from the tax credit because they save both on income and
payroll taxes. Families can claim both the CDCTC as well as the child
care exclusion, but total expenses claimed cannot exceed $6,000.
Although most working families will only receive a fraction of this
amount in actual tax benefits, $6,000 covers the average cost of infant
care in only six states, and the average cost of child care for a
4-year-old in 11 states.<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="15" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note15" id="_ref15">15</a>
At the other end of the spectrum, average infant care costs in the
District of Columbia are nearly four times the total allowable expenses
under federal child care tax provisions.<br />
In addition to limitations on the amount of allowable expenses and
the number of families who benefit from these tax provisions, the value
of these provisions erodes each year because they are not indexed to
inflation.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-16" name="epi-toc-16" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Child care subsidies</h3>
Child care subsidies are the primary vehicle for making more options
for higher-quality child care available to low-income families who
generally do not benefit from non-refundable tax credits. The Child Care
Development Fund (CCDF), authorized under the Child Care and
Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG), is the primary source of federal
funding for child care subsidies for low-income working families. Other
funding sources for child care assistance include the federal Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding and Social Services Block
Grant (SSBG), along with other state funds.<br />
States may transfer up to 30 percent of their TANF block grant funds
to CCDBG, or use TANF funds directly for child care without first
transferring the money. In fiscal 2013, total federal spending on child
care assistance—including combined CCDBG and TANF funds—was $11.3
billion; 1.46 million children received care subsidized by CCDF (CLASP
June 2015). These numbers represent an 11-year low in child care
assistance spending and a 15-year low in the number of children served.
Only 17 percent of eligible families access these subsidies due to any
number of obstacles presented by a complex maze of program rules.
Although CCDF is a single federal program, it functions as separate
state programs in practice because states have flexibility to set
specific program rules for how the CCDBG funds are distributed. For
example, states can determine:<br />
<ul>
<li>Whether to set income thresholds lower than the federally allowed maximums</li>
<li>How to define the family unit and family income for purposes of establishing eligibility</li>
<li>Whether to provide care for older children with special needs</li>
<li>How to define the parent/guardian activities for which child care may be provided, including setting minimum work hours</li>
<li>Whether to use the CCDF-funded program to provide child care for
foster children or children being monitored through child protective
services</li>
<li>Whether to modify requirements in any way for families also enrolled in other programs</li>
<li>Whether to impose any other eligibility requirements, such as an assets test<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="16" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note16" id="_ref16">16</a></li>
</ul>
Program rules can have significant and sometimes conflicting effects
on the affordability and quality of child care available to low-income
families. The National Women’s Law Center publishes an annual report
with detailed information on state child care assistance policies.
Findings from their 2015 report are summarized in <b>Table 2</b>.<br />
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<h4>
Key barriers to access for families eligible for subsidies:
eligibility limits, waiting lists, copayments, and job-search
eligibility</h4>
Income eligibility limits are a clear shortcoming of current child
care subsidies. These eligibility limits are used to determine how far
up the income scale access to child care subsidies extend. The higher
the limit, the more families potentially have access to child care
assistance, assuming they also meet the other requirements. In 2015,
income eligibility limits for a family of three ranged from $23,880 in
Michigan to $61,524 in North Dakota (Schulman and Blank 2015). In all
states, a family of three with income below the federal poverty
threshold ($20,090 for a family of three) could qualify for assistance
in 2015. About two-thirds of states offer assistance to families with
income up to 150 percent of the poverty threshold ($30,135 for a family
of three), but less than one-fourth offer assistance to families with
income up to 200 percent of the poverty threshold ($40,180 for a family
of three). But as we demonstrated previously in our review of child care
affordability, this means many families with incomes substantially
above the poverty line that nevertheless face severe stress in affording
quality child care do not benefit from these subsidies.<br />
Waiting lists are used to manage excess demand for child care
assistance by qualified families. States may also opt to freeze intake,
meaning qualified families are turned away without even being placed on a
waiting list. Average time spent on a waiting list can vary by state,
but ranged from one to two months in one state to between 18 months and
two years in another (Schulman and Blank 2015). Eligible families with
an immediate need for child care are often forced to seek other options
or risk losing a job.<br />
Copayments are the portion of the total cost of child care a family
must pay out of pocket. These copayments have generally increased over
time. Among states that required a copayment in 2015, more than half
required copayments that were a higher percentage of income than what
was required in 2001. Based on the 10 percent HHS affordability
standard, required copayments were unaffordable for a family of three
with an income at 150 percent of poverty in nine states (Schulman and
Blank 2015).<br />
While all but five states allow families receiving child care
assistance to continue receiving it for at least some amount of time
while a parent searched for a job in 2014, the amount of time allowed
varies by state. Only 14 states allowed families to qualify for and
begin receiving child care assistance while a parent searched for a job.<br />
Eligibility redetermination periods establish the frequency with
which a family’s eligibility for child care assistance is reassessed. In
most cases these periods are between six and 12 months. A family’s
ongoing eligibility has a major impact on the continuity of care. A
family can lose eligibility if parents are no longer engaged in an
approved activity (i.e., working, searching for work, or engaging in
education or training) or if their income rises above the established
income eligibility limit. In 2014, 17 states had tiered eligibility
limits, allowing a higher income limit at redetermination than initial
eligibility. This permits a family to continue receiving assistance
while their income grows. In most states the allowable increase is
modest, with a median increase of 24 percent in 2014 (Forry et al.
2014). Among states with tiered eligibility in 2014, the lowest
allowable increase was 8 percent in Wisconsin, and the highest was 70
percent in Massachusetts.<br />
The other consequence of this patchwork system of state rules is that
certain racial or ethnic groups may be disproportionately impacted by
various policies, depending on population distribution and the racial
distribution of children served in a state. Nationally, African American
and white children made up nearly equal percentages of children served
through CCDF funding in fiscal 2014 (42 percent and 41 percent,
respectively). Latino children (includes all races) were 21 percent of
those served. However, the racial distribution of children served varies
across states. African American children were as much as 91 percent of
those served in Mississippi, and Latino children were the highest share
of children served in New Mexico (77 percent). White children are 95
percent of those served in Idaho.<br />
Program rules regarding approved activities for eligibility may be
more likely to qualify different groups, based on their unique
circumstances. For example, employment is an approved activity in all
states, but searching for a job is not. In 2014, of the 20 states where
the black unemployment rate was higher than the average national black
unemployment rate (11.4 percent), six did not consider searching for a
job an eligible activity at any time—including when a parent loses a
job—and seven more didn’t allow families to qualify during an initial
job search. Since the black unemployment rate in those states is also
more than double the white rate, excluding searching for a job as an
eligible activity would be more of a barrier to access or continuity of
care for low-income African American families.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-17" name="epi-toc-17" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Availability barriers that reach beyond simple affordability</h3>
Affordability and availability of high-quality child care are closely
related because with the exception of a few publicly funded programs,
most parents pay out of pocket for some portion of child care costs
(including preschool or pre-kindergarten). However, even publicly funded
programs that offer free care manage to provide high-quality care to
only a fraction of their targeted population. For example, Head Start
offers free high-quality early care and education services to young
children in poverty, but reaches less than half of eligible
preschool-age children. Early Head Start reaches less than 5 percent of
eligible infants and toddlers (NWLC 2015). Forty states and the District
of Columbia funded pre-kindergarten programs in the 2013–2014 school
year, but these programs reached only 29 percent of 4-year-olds and 4
percent of 3-year-olds. In addition, only five states funded
pre-kindergarten programs that met all 10 of the key quality benchmarks
identified by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NWLC
2015).<br />
While all parents are challenged with finding the best quality of
care available and affordable to them, options for parents with
non-standard work schedules are even more limited. These are parents who
work evenings, overnight shifts, on the weekends, or have varying work
schedules that change from week to week or month to month. This group is
primarily served by home-based providers who are much more likely to
offer evening, overnight, or weekend care than child care centers.
According to the National Survey of Early Care and Education, only 8
percent of center-based providers are open anytime during evenings,
overnight, or weekends, compared with 82 percent of unlisted, unpaid
home-based providers, 63 percent of unlisted, paid home-based providers,
and 34 percent of listed<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="17" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note17" id="_ref17">17</a> home-based providers (NSECE 2015).<a class="footnote-id-ref" data-note_number="18" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_note18" id="_ref18">18</a>
Providers of all types are more likely to provide care overnight or on
weekends than during evenings. Although child care centers are less
likely to provide care during non-standard hours, those that do tend to
offer more hours of care than home-based providers.<br />
Parents who face irregular work schedules—such as nurses and retail
and fast food workers—also face the challenge of finding providers who
are willing to be flexible with respect to when their children can use
care or that allow them to pay only for the care they use. While these
arrangements are beneficial to parents, they often create uncertainty
for providers, who need to coordinate staffing and maintain a consistent
and predictable stream of income. Parents with irregular work schedules
often earn income low enough to qualify for child care subsidies, but
have problems accessing child care assistance due to policies that are
structured for parents with standard work schedules.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-18" name="epi-toc-18" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Child
Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) reauthorization nibbles at some
problems of affordability and access, but leaves most problems
unaddressed</h3>
The 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care Development Block Grant
(CCDBG) legislation includes provisions to ensure the health and safety
of children in child care settings, improve the quality of care, and
make it easier for families to get and keep child care assistance. Some
of the relevant quality provisions include:<br />
<ul>
<li>Increases in the quality set-aside over five years and authorization
of a set-aside to increase the supply and quality of infant/toddler
care</li>
<li>Requiring states to mandate ongoing training that provides for a
progression of professional development to improve the skills of
providers</li>
<li>Requiring states to implement early learning and development guidelines</li>
<li>Incentives to increase the supply of high-quality care for underserved populations</li>
<li>Requiring states to establish payment policies and practices that
reflect generally accepted payment practices for child care providers</li>
</ul>
Despite these positive steps to improve the availability of
higher-quality child care, one of the biggest challenges with the new
law is that it is not accompanied with a guarantee of significant new
federal funds, unlike the past two reauthorizations in 1990 and 1996. As
a result, states will be challenged with having to make difficult
tradeoffs in order to meet the new objectives (Matthews et al. 2015).<br />
The new CCDBG reauthorization includes a number of provisions that
give states greater flexibility in meeting the needs of families with
non-standard schedules. These include increasing the supply of providers
who offer care during non-standard work hours, expanding access to
child care for families whose work schedules and income fluctuate, and
improving payment practices for providers who accommodate parents with
irregular work schedules. The law also requires that new health and
safety standards be applied to a wider array of providers, including
license-exempt providers who are more likely to provide care during
non-standard hours. States must do what they can to minimize the burden
on these providers, so as not to restrict the availability of care for
parents working non-standard hours.<br />
<h3 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-19" name="epi-toc-19" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Summing up current American child care policy</h3>
While there are non-trivial efforts aimed at providing affordable
ECCE interventions to American children, the system has become wholly
insufficient to address the realities of 2016 family economics. Child
care affordability is not just a problem for low-income families, and
policy should adapt to this. Further, even the admirable ECCE efforts
aimed at lower-income families (such as Head Start) have become too
uneven in quality and need further investments to live up to their
potential. Finally, innovations that have become commonplace in our
advanced industrial peer countries (provision of universal affordable
child care through subsidies and extensive pre-kindergarten programs)
have not yet arrived in the United States. All of this should be
addressed with a major investment in America’s families with children
that patches holes and creates needed new institutions in our national
system of ECCE.<br />
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-20" name="epi-toc-20" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Conclusion</h2>
Resources invested in childhood development and education vary
enormously and predictably across income classes. These gaps in resource
investment lead to gaps in school readiness—gaps that persist over
students’ lifetimes. These school achievement gaps then translate into
large gaps in later life success.<br />
As distressing as these gaps should be for those committed to basic
equality of opportunity, they do provide an enormous potential
opportunity to improve economic mobility as well as overall economic
performance. But this potential opportunity can only be realized if we
are prepared to make an ambitious national investment in America’s
children—investments aimed at providing higher-quality development and
educational opportunities for all children from birth.<br />
This report has demonstrated that such a national investment could
pay off in a number of ways. In the aggregate, such an investment would
even pay off in narrow budgetary terms, making it a “free lunch” to
fiscal policymakers so long as they were willing to wait a decade or so
for the returns to begin arriving.<br />
This report has also demonstrated that the current patchwork of
American policy aimed at aiding families in finding high-quality,
affordable child care is deeply flawed. Nonrefundable tax credits leave
many low-income families ineligible for these credits. Direct subsidies
for low-income households are too narrow in eligibility, leaving too
many economically stressed families behind. Worse, these subsidies are
slowly withering, and are of little use to the growing number of workers
with non-standard schedules. Wait lists and insufficient space in Head
Start and Early Head Start programs prevent them from fully meeting the
needs of the intended population. The upside of this current patchwork
is that financing a truly ambitious set of investments in America’s
children could be partially paid-for by rolling up some of these
programs into the new investments.<br />
But these investments are worth undertaking even if all new financing
had to come from scratch. They are worth it in the aggregate benefits
they would provide the economy (and even government budgets), they are
worth it in terms of the greater economic mobility they would allow, and
they are worth it for the help they would provide working families in
balancing work and family.<br />
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-21" name="epi-toc-21" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>About the authors</h2>
<span style="color: #990000;"><b>Josh Bivens</b><b> </b>joined the Economic
Policy Institute in 2002 and is currently the director of research and
policy. His primary areas of research include macroeconomics, social
insurance, and globalization. He has authored or co-authored three books
(including <i>The State of Working America, 12th Edition</i>) while
working at EPI, edited another, and has written numerous research
papers, including for academic journals. He appears often in media
outlets to offer economic commentary and has testified several times
before the U.S. Congress. He earned his Ph.D. from The New School for
Social Research.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b>Emma García</b> joined the Economic Policy Institute as
an economist in 2013. She specializes in the economics of education and
education policy. Her areas of research include analysis of the
production of education, returns to education, program evaluation,
international comparative education, human development, and
cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis in education. Prior to
joining EPI, García conducted research for the Center for Benefit-Cost
Studies of Education and other research centers at Teachers College,
Columbia University, and did consulting work for MDRC, the
Inter-American Development Bank, and the National Institute for Early
Education Research. García has a Ph.D. in Economics and Education from
Teachers College, Columbia University.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b>Elise Gould</b>, senior economist, joined EPI in 2003
and is the institute’s director of health policy research. Her research
areas include wages, poverty, economic mobility, and health care. She is
a co-author of <i>The State of Working America, 12th Edition</i>. In the past, she has authored a chapter on health in <i>The State of Working America 2008/09;</i> co-authored a book on health insurance coverage in retirement; published in venues such as <i>The Chronicle of Higher Education</i>, <i>Challenge Magazine</i>, and <i>Tax Notes;</i> and written for academic journals including <i>Health Economics</i>, <i>Health Affairs, Journal of Aging and Social Policy, Risk Management & Insurance Review, Environmental Health Perspectives</i>, and <i>International Journal of Health Services</i>. She
holds a master’s in public affairs from the University of Texas at
Austin and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin at
Madison.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b>Elaine Weiss</b> has served as the national coordinator for the <a href="http://www.boldapproach.org/">Broader, Bolder Approach to Education</a> (BBA)
since 2011, in which capacity she works with four co-chairs, a
high-level task force, and multiple coalition partners to promote a
comprehensive, evidence-based set of policies to allow all children to
thrive. Elaine came to BBA from the Pew Charitable Trusts, where she
served as project manager for Pew’s Partnership for America’s Economic
Success campaign. Ms. Weiss was previously a member of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention’s task force on child abuse, and served
as volunteer counsel for clients at the Washington Legal Clinic for
the Homeless. She holds a Ph.D. in public policy from The George
Washington University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b>Valerie Wilson</b> is director of the Economic Policy
Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE), a
nationally recognized source for expert reports and policy analyses on
the economic condition of America’s people of color. Prior to joining
EPI, Wilson was an economist and vice president of research at the
National Urban League Washington Bureau, where she was responsible for
planning and directing the bureau’s research agenda. She has written
extensively on various issues impacting economic inequality in the
United States—including employment and training, income and wealth
disparities, access to higher education, and social insurance—and has
also appeared in print, television, and radio media. She has a Ph.D. in
economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</span><br />
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-22" name="epi-toc-22" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>Endnotes</h2>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="1">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref1" id="_note1">1. </a> These include the Nurse Family Partnership and the Infant Health and Development Program.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="2">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref2" id="_note2">2. </a> Examples of these high-quality preschool programs include the Perry Preschool Program, Abecedarian Project, Early Training Project, Chicago Parent-Child Program, the Elmira Prenatal/Early Infancy Project, The Milwaukee Project, NC Smart Start, and More at Four, among many others.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="3">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref3" id="_note3">3. </a> Participation also provided large benefits to the mothers.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="4">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref4" id="_note4">4. </a> Individual studies show a variety of effects on social and emotional skills: The most recent Oklahoma study finds gains in social emotional skills, on reducing timidity and increasing attentiveness. At the same time, there seems to be the potential for poor-quality programs to result in increased behavior problems (Magnuson, Ruhm, and Waldfogel 2007). Indeed, Heckman and colleagues suggest that these early gains in so-called noncognitive skills drive many of the lasting gains we see in other domains (Heckman, Stixrud, and Urzua 2006).</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="5">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref5" id="_note5">5. </a> It meets eight of the 10 NIEER quality standards (Barnett et al. 2015).</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="6">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref6" id="_note6">6. </a> For the 2001–2002 cohort, however, effects on math and reading test scores had vanished by 3rd grade (a phenomenon sometimes referred to as “fadeout”). For the 2006–2007 cohort, however, there were persistent effects on math scores of 0.18 standard deviations (there were no persistent effects in reading).</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="7">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref7" id="_note7">7. </a> The program’s quality has significantly improved “using essentially the same programs (2/3 private) and teachers—though many teachers went back to school for degrees and specialized training in return for higher pay, all received coaching” (NIEER 2013).</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="8">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref8" id="_note8">8. </a> Number of felonies by type and gender are reported in Table A2 (Nores et al. 2005).</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="9">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref9" id="_note9">9. </a> An expansion of these benefits also considers the non-negligible costs saved to the potential crime victims. See Heckman et al. (2010) and Reynolds et al. (2011).</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="10">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref10" id="_note10">10. </a> Bartik (2014) also points to a few shorter-term impacts that are rarely noted, such as increased property values in areas in which public pre-kindergarten programs are established.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="11">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref11" id="_note11">11. </a> EPI analysis of 2015 CPS microdata.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="12">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref12" id="_note12">12. </a> Blau and Hagy (1998) examine differences in child care prices and their relationship with child care demand and labor supply of parents, among other outcomes. They estimate an elasticity of employment with respect to the price of child care of -0.20. In other words, decreasing child care costs by 1 percent increases mothers’ labor force participation by 0.2 percent.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented">
In a recent White House paper on the economics of early childhood investments, researchers cite elasticity estimates ranging from -0.05 to 0.40. They also find that single mothers’ work decisions appear particularly responsive to changes in child care costs. In our estimates, we use the -0.20 elasticity, following the relatively conservative estimate discussed in Blau (2001), and used for similar purposes by Bartik (2006) in his analysis of the Chicago Child-Parent Center, and by Lynch and Vaghul (2015) in their analysis of the benefits of a hypothetical universal pre-kindergarten program.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="13">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref13" id="_note13">13. </a> EPI analysis of pooled Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group microdata, 2013–2015.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="14">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref14" id="_note14">14. </a> In EPI’s family budgets, child care costs in metropolitan areas—which constitute over 90 percent of our family budget areas—are statewide averages of the cost of center-based care. (For rural areas, which may not have easy access to center-based care, the budgets assume family-based care.) Although center-based care varies in quality, it serves as the standard for child care costs in the vast majority of our budget areas because it is the predominant form of child care (CCAA 2014).</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="15">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref15" id="_note15">15. </a> EPI analysis of cost estimates from CCAA (2014).</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="16">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref16" id="_note16">16. </a> Currently, only Nebraska and Rhode Island use any sort of assets test.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="17">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref17" id="_note17">17. </a> “Listed” individuals appear on state or national lists of early care and education services, such as licensed, regulated, license-exempt, or registered home-based providers.</div>
<div class="endnotes endnotes-indented" data-note_number="18">
<a class="footnote-id-foot" href="http://www.epi.org/publication/its-time-for-an-ambitious-national-investment-in-americas-children/#_ref18" id="_note18">18. </a> These data come from interviews completed in 2012 with 5,240 home-based providers and 7,770 center-based providers providing care to at least one child birth through age 5, not yet in kindergarten.</div>
<h2 style="position: relative;">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" id="epi-toc-23" name="epi-toc-23" style="position: absolute; top: -19px;"></a>References</h2>
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Barnett, W. Steven. 2008. <i><a href="http://nieer.org/resources/research/PreschoolLastingEffects.pdf">Preschool Education and Its Lasting Effects: Research and Policy Implications</a></i>. National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.</div>
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Barnett, W. Steven, and Milagros Nores. 2015. “Investment and Productivity Arguments for ECCE.” In P.T.M. Marope and Y. Kaga (eds), <i>Investing against Evidence: The Global State of Early Childhood Care and Education</i>, UNESCO.</div>
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Barnett, W. Steven, K. Jung, M. Youn, and E.C. Frede. 2013. <a href="http://nieer.org/publications/latest-research/abbott-preschool-program-longitudinal-effects-study-fifth-grade-follow"><i>Abbott Preschool Program Longitudinal Effects Study: Fifth Grade Follow-Up</i></a>. National Institute for Early Education Research.</div>
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Bertrand, Marianne, Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2009. <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w14681"><i>Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Corporate and Financial Sectors</i></a>. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 14681.</div>
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<div class="endnotes references">
Ladd, Helen F., Clara G. Muschkin, and Kenneth A. Dodge. 2014. “From Birth to School: Early Childhood Initiatives and Third‐Grade Outcomes in North Carolina.” <i>Journal of Policy Analysis and Management</i>, vol. 33, no. 1, 162–187.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Leak, James, G. Duncan, Weilin Li, Katherine Magnuson, Holly S. Schindler, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, and Jack P. Shonkoff. Forthcoming. <i>Timing in Early Childhood Education: How Program Impacts on Cognition and Achievement Vary by Starting Age, Program Duration, and Time Since the End of the Program.</i></div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Lefebvre, Pierre, and Philip Merrigan. 2005. <a href="http://www.cirano.qc.ca/files/publications/2005s-08.pdfhttps:/ideas.repec.org/p/cir/cirwor/2005s-08.html"><i>Low-Fee ($5/Day/Child) Regulated Childcare Policy and the Labor Supply of Mothers with Young Children: A Natural Experiment from Canada</i></a><i>.</i> <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/s/cir/cirwor.html">CIRANO Working Papers</a> 2005s-08.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
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<div class="endnotes references">
Maag, Elaine. 2013. “<a href="http://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/key-elements/family/child-care-subsidies.cfm">Taxation and the Family: How Does the Tax System Subsidize Child Care Expenses?”</a> In <i>The Tax Policy Briefing Book</i>. Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
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<div class="endnotes references">
Matthews, Hannah, Karen Schulman, Julie Vogtman, Christine Johnson-Staub, and Helen Blank. 2015. <a href="http://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/final_nwlc_ccdbg_report2015_6_18_2015.pdf"><i>Implementing the Child Care and Development Block Grant Reauthorization: A Guide for States</i></a><i>.</i> National Women’s Law Center.</div>
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<div class="endnotes references">
Minton, Sarah, Kathryn Stevens, Lorraine Blatt, and Christin Durham. 2015. <a href="http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/ccdf_policies_database_2014_book_of_tables_final_11_05_15_b508_3.pdf"><i>The CCDF Policies Database Book of Tables: Key Cross-state Variations in CCDF Policies as of October 1, 2014</i></a>. OPRE Report #2015-95.</div>
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National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). 2013. “<a href="http://nieer.org/publications/latest-research/fact-sheet-abbott-preschool-program-longitudinal-effects-study-apples">Fact Sheet: The Abbott Preschool Program Longitudinal Effects Study (APPLES).</a>”</div>
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National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). 2014. <a href="http://nwlc.org/resources/state-child-and-dependent-care-tax-provisions-tax-year-2014/"><i>State Child and Dependent Care Tax Provisions, Tax Year 2014</i></a>.</div>
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National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). 2015. <a href="http://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/gaps_in_support_for_early_care_and_education_june_2015.pdf"><i>Gaps in Support for Early Care and Education</i></a>.</div>
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Nores, Milagros, Clive R. Belfield, W. Steven Barnett, and Lawrence Schweinhart. 2005. “Updating the Economic Impacts of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program.” <i>Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis,</i><i> </i>vol. 27, no. 3, 245–261.</div>
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Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Various years. “<a href="http://www.oecd.org/employment/labour-stats/">Labour Force Statistics</a>.”</div>
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Reynolds, A.J., J.A. Temple, D.L. Robertson, E.A. Mann. 2002. “Age 21 Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Title I Chicago Child-Parent Centers.”<i> </i><i>Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis,</i><i> </i>vol. 24, no. 4, 267–303.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Reynolds, A. J., J.A. Temple, B.A. White, S. Ou, and D.L. Robertson. 2011. “Age-26 Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Child-Parent Center Early Education Program.” <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01563.x"><i>Child Development</i>,</a> vol. 82, no. 1.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Rolnick, A., and R. Grunewald. 2003. “Early Childhood Development: Economic Development with a High Public Return.” <i>The Region</i>, vol. 17, no. 4, 6–12.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Ruhm, Chistopher J. 2011. “<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3202345/">Policies to Assist Parents With Young Children</a>.” <i>Future Child,</i><i> </i>vol. 21, no. 2, 37–68.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Schindler, H.S., J. Kholoptseva, S. Oh, H. Yoshikawa, G.J. Duncan, K.A. Magnuson, and J.P. Shonkoff. 2015. “Maximizing the Potential of Early Childhood Education to Prevent Externalizing Behavior Problems: A Meta-Analysis.” <i>Journal of School Psychology</i>, vol. 53, no. 3, 243–263.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Schulman, Karen, and Helen Blank. 2015. <a href="http://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CC_RP_Building_Blocks_Assistance_Policies_2015.pdf"><i>Building Blocks: State Child Care Assistance Policies 2015</i></a><i>.</i> National Women’s Law Center.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Shierholz, Heidi. 2014. “<a href="https://blog.dol.gov/2014/12/19/paid-leave-is-good-for-business/">Paid Leave Is Good for Business</a>.” <i>U.S. Department of Labor Blog</i>, December 19.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Shonkoff, J.P., and D.A. Phillips. 2000. <i>From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development</i>. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). 2016. “<a href="http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_regional.cfm">Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by State (Millions of Current Dollars),”</a> February.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey. Various years. “S1903: Median Income in the Past 12 Months (In 2014 Inflation-Adjusted Dollars).”</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 2014. <i>“</i><a href="http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/occ/fundamentals_of_ccdf_administration.pdf"><i>Fun”damentals of CCDF Administration</i></a>.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Whitebook, Marcy, Laura Sakai, Emily Gerber, and Carollee Howes. 2001. <a href="http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/cscce/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Then-and-Now.pdf"><i>Then and Now: Changes in Child Care Staffing, 1994-2000</i></a>. Center for the Child Care Workforce.</div>
<div class="endnotes references">
Wong, Vivian C., Thomas D. Cook, W. Steven Barnett, Kwanghee Jung. 2008. “<a href="http://dx.doi.org.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/10.1002/pam.20310">An Effectiveness-Based Evaluation of Five State Pre-Kindergarten Programs</a>.” <i>Journal of Policy Analysis and Management</i>, vol. 27, 122–154.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="more">
See more work by <a href="http://www.epi.org/people/josh-bivens">Josh Bivens</a>, <a href="http://www.epi.org/people/emma-garcia">Emma García</a>, <a href="http://www.epi.org/people/elise-gould">Elise Gould</a>, <a href="http://www.epi.org/people/elaine-weiss">Elaine Weiss</a>, and <a href="http://www.epi.org/people/valerie-wilson">Valerie Wilson</a></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-1850109325046124872016-05-20T14:46:00.000-07:002016-05-20T14:46:59.782-07:00NYC Fight Against Mayoral Continues Contiues Under DeBlasio Dictatorship<span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Assmeblyman Charles Barron Passion Call to Vote NO! For Mayoral Control</b></span></span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxW7cG9jIft3B9bga3bmSGV3uUkbvc1E3SxJGyCzcP4HWhadxMwBxifq8Ruqgthpoq5tL4dI--VXFlAfFnyUw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-31113629358675864742016-04-04T07:02:00.001-07:002016-04-04T07:02:04.318-07:00Black EDSTATS In The Age of Educational Genocide<div>
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<span style="color: yellow;"><strong><span style="font-size: 20.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 24.0px;"><span style="background-color: green;">Percentage of 8th Grade Black Boys in Large American Cities</span></span></span></strong></span><span style="color: yellow;"><strong><span style="font-size: 20.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 24.0px;"><span style="background-color: green;"> Reading at a Proficient Level</span></span></span></strong></span><b><span style="font-size: 20.0pt;"> </span></b>
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<b><img border="0" height="494" hspace="5" src="https://mlsvc01-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/7f5d9ce6401/68523d12-ca68-40ca-9e77-320f8bf570b6.jpg" vspace="5" width="438" /></b></div>
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<strong>Above Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)</strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: yellow;">NOTE: 8th Grade Black Girls only do a little better.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="color: firebrick;"><span style="font-size: 18.0px;"><strong>...And
here's one reason why: Most of our children's teachers are white and
have low expectations for academic success of Black boys and girls. But,
we also see that Black teachers have also internalized white
supremacist assumptions about academic achievement... resulting in a
slightly higher level (9%) of Black academic achievement in 2002.
Fourteen years later, we see (above) that the situation either
degenerated or- at best -remained horribly the same.</strong></span></span></div>
<div>
<img src="https://3c-lxa.mail.com/mail/client/attachment/view/tmai14422b28f8480912/OTQwNDk4NTNiMTU1YTFiNjIxNzI3NjJjZGEwMGQ2NzMyN2FiNzE5ZDcyN2EzMTBlODA2M2YzZGJiZjliY2UyYw;jsessionid=A22FDA4C0831887736AF5452F65A5749-n1.lxa03a" /></div>
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SOURCE: <a href="https://deref-mail.com/mail/client/dereferrer/?redirectUrl=http%3A%2F%2Freleases.jhu.edu%2F2016%2F03%2F30%2Frace-biases-teachers-expectations-for-students" target="_blank">http://releases.jhu.edu/2016/03/30/race-biases-teachers-expectations-for-students</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0px;"><strong><span style="color: purple;">Thanx to Brother Phillip Jackson of Chicago's </span><a href="https://deref-mail.com/mail/client/dereferrer/?redirectUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fblackstarproject.org" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">Black Star Project</span></a><span style="color: purple;"> for originally posting this data.</span></strong></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-33436359115560843252016-03-13T16:42:00.000-07:002016-03-13T16:42:02.470-07:002PM JULY 8, 2016 Save Our Schools Rally at Lincoln Memorial<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>JULY 8 @2PM</b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>SAVE OUR SCHOOLS RALLY AT LINCOLN MEMORIAL- WASHINGTON DC!</b></span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIuQBDJpKgNrqUyR9hyVzC_iEyGXXQjIJqSiZ-KaumvxBzrLwri8azq6J7zd2NpLv0GUaelkpk11tID-VoGjsXcermr_LC6hoFQNxLU7QJAPJ8P0PVOIcL9FuSJarZ7p484fgCLRF30c/s1600/SaveOurPublicSchools.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIuQBDJpKgNrqUyR9hyVzC_iEyGXXQjIJqSiZ-KaumvxBzrLwri8azq6J7zd2NpLv0GUaelkpk11tID-VoGjsXcermr_LC6hoFQNxLU7QJAPJ8P0PVOIcL9FuSJarZ7p484fgCLRF30c/s640/SaveOurPublicSchools.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">On July 30, 2011, </span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">m</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">any thousands of us gathered in
Washington, DC for the historic </span><a href="https://deref-mail.com/mail/client/dereferrer/?redirectUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fsaveourschoolsmarch.org%2F2014%2F12%2Fsos-in-action-2011-2015-and-beyond%2F" target="_blank"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Save Our Schools March and National
Call to Action</span></i></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">. We came from across the country to
voice our grievances about the state of public education
and to share our visions for the future. We stood in
solidarity to denounce an unresponsive political process
and its dehumanizing policies. We returned to our cities,
communities, organizations and unions committed to the
goal of building an equitable, democratic education system
for our students, their communities, their schools and
educators. We have not rested since in our collective
struggle for humane public schools and policies across the
nation.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">
<b>Today,</b> <b>we have a
burgeoning coalition</b> of grassroots groups, union
organizations, and activists who will rally and march <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>in support of
education and social justice. We are marching for
community-based, equitably-funded schools that are the
heart of neighborhoods.<br />
<br />
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">We stand and march for:<br />
<br />
</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol";">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Full, equitable funding for all public
schools</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol";">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Safe, racially just schools and
communities</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol";">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Community leadership in public school
policies</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol";">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Professional, diverse educators for all
students</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol";">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Child-centered, culturally appropriate
curriculum for all<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="principle-5"></a></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol";">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">No high-stakes standardized testing</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<a href="https://deref-mail.com/mail/client/dereferrer/?redirectUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fsaveourschoolsmarch.org%2F2015%2F12%2F17575%2F" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Save Our Schools Coalition for
Action</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"> envisions a mass gathering of
like-minded people – from all walks of life and with
diverse causes – speaking and marching in solidarity once
more. We envision bold actions and expressions of
resistance for children and adults alike, which foster
awareness and camaraderie in the movement. Join us in <b>Washington D.C. on
July 8-10<sup>th</sup></b> to celebrate democracy <i>by living it</i>. The
general schedule for the event is:<br />
<br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol";">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">July 8<sup>th</sup>:</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> Rally
& March (<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Lincoln
Memorial</span>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol";">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">July 9<sup>th</sup>:</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">National & International
Summit with family and kid-friendly events (at Howard
University)</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol";">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">July 10<sup>th</sup>:</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> Coalition Congress – member
organizations meet to plan next steps for the movement<br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">This is an election year, and surely
there can be no better time to show our government and our
fellow citizens, “This is what democracy looks like!” We
look forward to marching with you this summer in D.C.!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>
</b></span></div>
</span><div style="display: block; font-family: "helvetica","arial",sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 12px auto 6px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Save Our Schools Coalition Demands, Principles</b></span></span></span></div>
<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="undefined" data-auto-height="false" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_35906" scrolling="no" src="https://www.scribd.com/embeds/304444759/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&show_recommendations=true" width="100%"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-66106071047011611142016-03-09T06:08:00.002-08:002016-03-09T06:08:40.706-08:00A MAJOR HISTORIC EVENT: More than 2,000 Boston public school students walk out of class to protest budget cuts
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<header class="content-header">
<h1 class="content-header__headline">
<span style="color: purple;">More than 2,000 Boston public school students walk out of class to protest budget cuts</span></h1>
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Students marched through downtown Boston and converged on Boston Common.</span></h2>
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><i><b>Thousands of students protest on Boston Common.</b></i></span><div class="content-media__credit">
Ryan Breslin/Boston.com</div>
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<div class="content-byline">
<div class="content-byline__producer">
By Allison Pohle <a href="http://www.twitter.com/allisonpohle">@allisonpohle</a> and Kristi Palma <a href="http://www.twitter.com/kristipalma">@kristipalma</a>
</div>
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Boston.com Staff | 03.07.16 </div>
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Daphne Partridge spent Monday
morning debating whether to walk out of her class at Boston Teachers
Union School. The blond sixth grader worried she might be suspended for
abruptly standing up and leaving, but, more than that, she worried about
what would happen if she didn’t walk out.</div>
<div class="content-text__text">
<br /></div>
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As she stood cheering and shouting on the
Common with more than 2,000 other students from across the school
system, Partridge knew she’d made the right choice.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWml2vZl67rX5rJbO-PIC6NDOD4FBERRohC8Wc6599M1BlvY4fVotU-rVb9oovhCDckn_7wT4v8hxX6DYJasEPc7bhVxxOhcUtj0dilbbvGx51JYea_nnq69LZN4UEMbEgRCzfDPg7Q2k/s1600/EC2A8250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWml2vZl67rX5rJbO-PIC6NDOD4FBERRohC8Wc6599M1BlvY4fVotU-rVb9oovhCDckn_7wT4v8hxX6DYJasEPc7bhVxxOhcUtj0dilbbvGx51JYea_nnq69LZN4UEMbEgRCzfDPg7Q2k/s640/EC2A8250.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="content-text__text">
“At our school we’re worried about
language programs being taken away, but now that we’re here we see the
ways all the other schools are affected,” she said. “It’s crazy how many
kids are here. But it makes me feel like I have a voice.” </div>
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<br /></div>
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The students marched through downtown Boston after <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/2016/03/07/boston-public-school-students-plan-walk-out-class-monday-protest-budget-cuts/zwS5MP6iJhx1PmPvO94w3J/story.html" target="_blank">walking out of class</a>
to protest planned budget cuts, carrying signs and chanting, “What do
we want? Education!,” as shoppers and onlookers walking down Newbury
Street pulled out their cell phones to record the demonstration.</div>
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<div class="fb-video fb_iframe_widget fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop" data-allowfullscreen="1" data-href="/boston/videos/vb.6879409364/10154028795294365/?type=3" style="width: 100%;">
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Students made their way in large throngs toward Boston Common, the State House, and Faneuil Hall, on foot and by bus,<a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/2016/03/07/boston-public-school-students-plan-walk-out-class-monday-protest-budget-cuts/zwS5MP6iJhx1PmPvO94w3J/story.html" target="_blank"> despite warnings from the school district</a> that they would be marked absent if they left class.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinB5MJsZhEBbCruuKv6nWY5M1NdbHYlZP8bdR_ie0v9hsj9Dj8y-fi31qI5VAJrxAhOQuGQAP9GmtNo8nJQ8r1YKpWKEuzudvSWBQbDiSj3i21goCvmUKZfnaeAlGkAyBdfeNTobKk8Mk/s1600/EC2A8258.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinB5MJsZhEBbCruuKv6nWY5M1NdbHYlZP8bdR_ie0v9hsj9Dj8y-fi31qI5VAJrxAhOQuGQAP9GmtNo8nJQ8r1YKpWKEuzudvSWBQbDiSj3i21goCvmUKZfnaeAlGkAyBdfeNTobKk8Mk/s640/EC2A8258.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="content-text__text">
“Pretty much every student in my class
walked out. I don’t think there’s anyone left,” said Harry Saunders, a
senior at Snowden International School. “But I’m surprised how many
people are here.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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Protest organizers <a href="https://twitter.com/speechless_x3/status/704452963755024385" target="_blank">posted a letter on Twitter</a>
prior to the walkout stating that budget cuts next year will prohibit
students from learning “at full capacity” and “make it impossible to get
into the college of your dreams.” </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="content-text__text">
The city’s public schools are facing the
deficit due to rising expenses and a decline in state and federal aid.
The exact amount of the deficit, however, has yet to be determined. The
initial budget shortfall was estimated at about $50 million, though the
mayor’s office has said the total figure will be lower when the school
committee votes on the final budget March 23.</div>
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<span style="color: #274e13;"><i><b>Over 1,000 Boston public school students staged a
walkout Monday afternoon, marching downtown, through Boston Common, and
outside of Faneuil H</b></i><i><b>all. </b></i></span></figcaption>Ryan Breslin / Boston.com<figcaption class="content-media__caption content-media__caption--embed"></figcaption><figcaption class="content-media__caption content-media__caption--embed"></figcaption><figcaption class="content-media__caption content-media__caption--embed"></figcaption><figcaption class="content-media__caption content-media__caption--embed"></figcaption><figcaption class="content-media__caption content-media__caption--embed">
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This isn’t the first public protest
regarding the budget cuts. During February vacation week, several
hundred parents, teachers, and students held a rally in downtown Boston.
Many parents also protested outside of Mayor Marty Walsh’s “State of
the City” address in January. But this was the first student-organized
demonstration. </div>
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City Councilor Tito Jackson marched with
the students, and encouraged them to walk inside the State House to
voice their opinions.</div>
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“I’m so encouraged by the massive turnout
and voices of our young people,” he said. “They should be holding
lawmakers accountable. They should demand that they have enough teachers
who will encourage them to stay in their classrooms. They shouldn’t
lose their JV programs, which keep some kids involved and are a lifeline
for them. And they shouldn’t lose funding to charter schools.”</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8S61I3ZFqb83ZjXkqxGExA1Cmn9WDd_kHcsQ5V0o9bc9-ougyownnUpUsbuvlBg2lP9QD3Jsv_K-5sBzNc69mK0Qi972siE6bCm5ShGBqILgJgcWLDWx-AZV6LwdscWbxL2L3_q30-sg/s1600/EC2A8281.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8S61I3ZFqb83ZjXkqxGExA1Cmn9WDd_kHcsQ5V0o9bc9-ougyownnUpUsbuvlBg2lP9QD3Jsv_K-5sBzNc69mK0Qi972siE6bCm5ShGBqILgJgcWLDWx-AZV6LwdscWbxL2L3_q30-sg/s640/EC2A8281.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Jackson abruptly broke away from the rally
to go address two students who were fighting on the Common. After the
tussle, the crowd diminished, but several hundred students marched to
Faneuil Hall, where Walsh and Gov. Charlie Baker held a press conference
for a <a href="http://www.boston.com/life/2016/03/07/forbes-under-summit-coming-boston-october/fWASZeQS536jIy9BPUAG3N/story.html" target="_blank">“Forbes Under 30” event</a>.</div>
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Once the students realized Baker and Walsh
were no longer inside, they slowly began to walk away. Some students
went back to the State House, where they testified before the Joint
Committee on Education regarding funding. </div>
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About two dozen students remained in front of Faneuil Hall, including Nathan Metz-Lerman, a junior at Boston Latin Academy.</div>
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“We have to continue fighting,” he said
into a megaphone. “We’re not just gonna let our education be destroyed.
Who wants to do a chant?”</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeAVIgm1RfudA_2RLJQAvyZHSv_HSI3ulYZ1gDA-S4dRdKT4GKWJ1QsJ5I08qP7FJiLXY9PZChiHXNGA_1WcmN81sPkZojer_YmZ38V27MWzMpqF_OREQdWhCFVucvp1dNuoxqAW_4_Xg/s1600/EC2A8459.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeAVIgm1RfudA_2RLJQAvyZHSv_HSI3ulYZ1gDA-S4dRdKT4GKWJ1QsJ5I08qP7FJiLXY9PZChiHXNGA_1WcmN81sPkZojer_YmZ38V27MWzMpqF_OREQdWhCFVucvp1dNuoxqAW_4_Xg/s640/EC2A8459.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The remaining students cheered.</div>
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“They say cut back, we say fight back,” he said. “Cut back.”</div>
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“Fight back,” the crowd answered.</div>
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Then, as more students dispersed to go home to do homework, Metz-Lerman led the crowd in one last cheer.</div>
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<br /></div>
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“I believe,” he yelled, then paused. “That we. Will win.” </div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-77154271057181453412016-02-27T14:33:00.003-08:002016-02-27T14:33:51.129-08:00Corporatizing MisEducation: Charter Schools<div class="field-wrapper content-container clearfix inline-fields" id="field-wrapper-attribution">
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<span class="date-display-single">Friday, February 26, 2016</span></div>
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by<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Common Dreams</a></div>
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<span style="color: red;">How to Get Rich From Public Schools (Without Actually Educating)</span></h1>
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by <b><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/author/steven-singer" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Steven Singer</a></b></div>
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<a href="http://commons.commondreams.org/t/how-to-get-rich-from-public-schools-without-actually-educating/18974" target="_blank"> <span class="comment-count"></span></a></div>
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"Someday
people may wake up and demand more for their tax dollars and for their
children. But until then…There’s gold in them thar schools!" (Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bullionvault/3592552424https://www.flickr.com/photos/bullionvault/3592552424">Bullion Vault</a>/flickr/cc)<br />
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<em>Gold!</em><br />
<em>There’s gold in them thar schools!</em><br />
Don’t believe me?<br />
When you drive by an inner city school, it <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/research/most-states-funding-schools-less-than-before-the-recession">doesn’t exactly look like the Taj Mahal</a>. Does it? Even relatively upscale suburban schools <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/06/24/report-federal-education-funding-cut-by-5-times-more-than-all-spending">wouldn’t be mistaken for a house on MTV Cribs</a>. And some of those <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/us/crumbling-destitute-schools-threaten-detroits-recovery.html">fly-by night charter schools</a> look more like prisons than Shangri-La.<br />
But I’ve got it <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2014/who-profiting-charters-big-bucks-behind-charter-school-secrecy-financial-scandal-and">on good authority</a> that there’s $1.3 trillion available for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-big-business-of-charter-schools/2012/08/16/bdadfeca-e7ff-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_blog.html">someone who knows how to take it</a>.<br />
That someone is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_O._Levy">Harold Levy</a>, an expert on how to <a href="http://www.palmventures.com/privateinv.html">get rich through school privatization</a>.<br />
The former chancellor of the New York City School System has begun a second career managing an <a href="http://www.palmventures.com/">investment company</a>.<br />
“For-profit education is one of the largest U.S. investment markets, currently topping $1.3 trillion in value,” according to <a href="http://capitalroundtable.com/masterclass/For-Profit-Education-Conference.html">the Website </a>for one of his master classes for rich investors.<br />
<em>Wooo-weee!</em> That’s a lot of money!<br />
To put it in context, that’s more than 10 times the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_States_federal_budget">amount the federal government spends on education</a> per year. And it’s all yummy profit!<br />
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/donate"><img alt="There's something in the air..." class="caption-processed" height="296" src="http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/022616-theres-something-banner-690px.jpg" style="border: 2px solid black;" width="640" /></a><br />
So how do you get your hands on some of those delicious taxpayer greenbacks?<br />
You gotta’ invest.<br />
No! I don’t mean increase education budgets for traditional public schools that <a href="http://www.alternet.org/education/corporations-advise-school-closings-while-private-charters-suck-public-schools-away">can barely make ends meet</a>! I mean invest in shiny <a href="http://www.alternet.org/education/punishing-students-not-making-eye-contact-how-charter-schools-prejudiced-policies-continue">new charter schools</a>.<br />
Here’s how it works.<br />
Lend money to a for-profit company to build a new charter school. If
you do it just right, you’re almost guaranteed to double or triple your
money in seven years.<br />
You’ll want to take advantage of the <a href="http://www.occ.gov/static/community-affairs/community-developments-investments/spring11/articles/financing/cde11spring06.htm">New Markets Tax Credit</a> (NMTC), which began in 2000 at the end of President <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Bill_Clinton_Education.htm">Bill Clinton’s</a> administration. This will give you a whooping <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/7/juan_gonzalez_big_banks_making_a">39 percent tax credit</a>. But here’s the best part, <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/7/juan_gonzalez_big_banks_making_a">since it’s money you’re lending</a>, you also get interest on it! And if that weren’t enough, you can <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-06-02/agassi-forms-fund-to-build-charter-schools-with-canyon-capital">piggyback all kinds of additional federal tax credits</a> on top of that – things like historic preservation or job creation or Brownfield’s credits.<br />
That doesn’t sound legal, does it? But it is!<br />
In case that has you feeling queasy, you can <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/12/19/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-donating-500-million-in-stock-to-silicon-valley.html">hide what you’re doing</a> by funneling the whole thing through a large non-profit organization like the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/gates-foundation-accused-of-dangerously-skewing-aid-priorities-by-promoting-big-business-a6822036.html">Gates Foundation</a>. They’ll be more than happy to help. They’ve done it for so many before you anyway.<br />
However, make sure you whisk this money through something called a <a href="http://www.cdfifund.gov/what_we_do/programs_id.asp?programID=5">Community Development Entity</a> (CDE). The federal website explains this can be either a “<a href="http://www.cdfifund.gov/what_we_do/programs_id.asp?programID=5">domestic corporation or partnership</a>.” And it must have “a primary mission of serving LICs [Low Income Communities].” <em>(Snicker!)</em><br />
Here’s the best part. A CDE isn’t required to release information
about who its donors are or how much they’re spending. So on paper the
CDE – not you – gives the money to the non-profit, which, in turn, loans
the money to a charter management organization. It’s like money
laundering. No one can tell where the funds came from and thus it’s easy
to escape from federal regulations or any appearance of wrongdoing.<br />
There is a catch, however. You’re probably going to need a
substantial amount of capital to put forward – at least a million bucks
or so. No bank’s going to waste its time with only a few hundred thou.<br />
This method is perfect for those who are already wealthy and want to increase their wealth or <a href="http://dianeravitch.net/2014/05/21/bill-moyers-explains-why-hedge-fund-managers-love-charters-2/">hedge fund managers</a> out to boost their clients’ portfolios.<br />
But maybe you just aren’t into the whole hedge fund game. Maybe you’re not the banking and investing type.<br />
You can still make oodles of cash off public schools through <a href="http://www.alternet.org/education/education-profiteering-wall-streets-next-big-thing">real estate</a>.<br />
Here’s what you do – buy up cheap inner city properties that can be
renovated or repurposed for charter schools. Then when a school
privatization firm wants to set up shop in an impoverished city like <a href="http://mobile.philly.com/news/opinion?wss=/philly/opinion&id=334870121">Philadelphia</a>, <a href="http://dianeravitch.net/2015/07/18/chicago-public-schools-lose-charters-gain/">Chicago</a> or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/01/23/detroit-teacher-why-is-separate-and-unequal-okay-in-2016/">Detroit</a>, it needs someone like you to open the door.<br />
You’ll get to charge the charter corporation rent and – get this –
that’s not price capped! You can charge whatever you want! As long as
you’ve got a good spot and no one else is trying to beat you to it,
charter corporations are willing to pay bookoo bucks to get their
money-making enterprises rolling!<br />
A good rule of thumb comes from privatization expert <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_Schools_USA">Charter Schools USA</a>, which recommends rental costs not exceed <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2014/who-profiting-charters-big-bucks-behind-charter-school-secrecy-financial-scandal-and">20 percent of a school’s budget</a>.
However, there are plenty of examples of charter schools paying 25, 30
even up to 43 percent of their money just on rental costs! <em>Ca-Ching!</em><br />
And if you really want to boost the bottom line, open a charter
school, yourself! That way you can both rent out the real estate and pay
for it!<br />
Think about it. Who sets the rental price? You do. Who pays the rental price? You do. So you can pay yourself <strong>WHATEVER YOU WANT!</strong> And where does the money come from? The taxpayers!<br />
Doesn’t sound legal does it? But it is!<br />
According to the <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article49565370.html">Miami Herald</a>, which conducted an <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/cashing-in-on-kids/article1939199.html">in-depth investigation</a>
into these practices, many of the highest rents are charged by
landlords with ties to the management companies running the schools.
Property records show at least 56 charter schools in Miami-Dade and
Broward counties sitting on land whose owners are tied to management
companies.<br />
Of course there are <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/charter-school-executive-profit_b_5093883.html">so many other ways</a>
to set things up like this with a charter school. Unlike most
traditional public schools, charters contract with for-profit companies
for everything from curriculum development to construction. So there are
<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/schooled/2015/12/17/for_profit_charter_schools_are_failing_and_fading_here_s_why.html">many opportunities for creative investors </a>to figure out how to both set the price and pay it <strong>TO THEMSELVES!</strong><br />
Moreover, every state has different laws about charter schools so <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/09/01/some-inferior-charter-schools-use-loopholes-to-stay-open.html">check for loopholes</a>. <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/state-city-pols-push-close-charter-school-loophole-article-1.2084812">You’ll find ‘em</a>!<br />
Just don’t forget to set up that CDE to hide your shady dealings from
the public. After all, if taxpayers could easily see how you’re sucking
up their hard-earned money that they thought was going to help school
children (<em>Tee-hee</em>!) they wouldn’t be happy.<br />
And if you’re reading this from somewhere outside of the USA, don’t
despair. You, too, can make a ton of money off school privatization in
the United States. It’s like the Statue of Liberty says – wealthy
foreign nationals welcome! (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Colossus">Or something like that.</a>)<br />
Since the<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1990"> Immigration Act of 1990</a>,
investors have been allowed to purchase visas for their families by
investing in U.S. corporations. Just stash some cash into a<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/15/why-wealthy-foreigners-invest-in-u-s-charter-schools/"> hotel, ski resort or charter school </a>and – <em>voil</em><em>à</em><em>!</em> – Move directly to <strong>GO</strong> and collect way more than $200!<br />
It’s called the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/15/why-wealthy-foreigners-invest-in-u-s-charter-schools/">EB-5 visa for Immigrant Investors</a>. For the low price of at least $1 million -or $500,000 to a rural or high unemployment neighborhood — you can <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-education-charter-visas-idUSL1E8LAOAK20121012">get visas for the whole family</a>.<br />
Sounds like some crazy new loophole – right? It isn’t. It’s been
around for decades. Every year, the federal government hands out <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2014/who-profiting-charters-big-bucks-behind-charter-school-secrecy-financial-scandal-and">10,000 of these visas</a>. So while <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/shocking-image-of-drowned-syrian-boy-shows-tragic-plight-of-refugees">Syrian refugee children drown</a> seeking asylum, wealthy foreign nationals get an express ticket to the US of A.<br />
You might be thinking, ‘That gets me into the country, but where do I
cash in?’ Easy. You now have a stake in a U.S. charter school and have
access to all the same easy money as native-born investors.<br />
It’s an incredibly lucrative model even for those more interested in the Prophet than profit.<br />
Just look at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/education/07charter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1">Gulen charter schools</a>.
It’s the largest single charter school network in the country. More
than 150 schools in Texas, Ohio, Illinois and other cities are funded by
Turkish investors following an Islamic nationalist named <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_4_fethullah-gulen.html">Fetullaf Gülen</a>. These schools are part of a “worldwide religious, social and nationalistic movement in his name,” according to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/education/07charter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">New York Times</a>.<br />
Be warned. Many of these schools are <a href="http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/1183551/watchdogs-charter-firm-suspected-cheating-federal-grant-program">under investigation</a>
for using U.S. taxpayer dollars meant to educate U.S. children in
non-educational or otherwise shady ways. Some of this tax revenue has
allegedly been spent on <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/120-american-charter-schools-and-one-secretive-turkish-cleric/375923/">political and religious causes championed by the Prophet Gülen</a>.
Other funds have gone to controversial educational practices. For
instance, instead of hiring local teachers, the chain is infamous for
shipping in Turkish educators to the United States. As if it wouldn’t be
cheaper to hire locals! And guess where the money comes from to pay for
these Turkish teachers’ visas? That’s right – from the charter school’s
funding!<br />
Still. Even with <a href="http://dianeravitch.net/2014/02/21/why-is-the-us-doe-supporting-gulen-movement/">a few setbacks</a>,
there’s never been a better time to invest in the privatization of
public education. Sure there are financial, behavioral and educational <a href="http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/">scandals at charter schools</a> throughout the country being discovered everyday. But fortune favors the brave!<br />
Money is just hanging on the tree waiting to be plucked. It’s hard to
walk into a charter school and not come out with pockets fit to
bursting with cold, hard cash.<br />
In fact, the only folks not making bank in this whole scheme are the teachers!<br />
Don’t be one of them.<br />
Teachers at charter schools – where unionizing is often prohibited – <a href="http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2014/12/07/charter-school-teachers-green-earn-less/20015915/#">take home even less </a>than those working at traditional public schools. And those traditional educators aren’t getting rich, either.<br />
A new report by the <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2014/07/teacher-salary-growth-weak-in-the-united-states.html">Center for American Progress</a> argues that U.S. teachers usually have bad starting pay and are <a href="http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/teachersalaries-brief.pdf"> unlikely to see major salary gains</a> even after several years of teaching.<br />
Growth in teacher salaries is especially bad when comparing the U.S. to other developed countries:<br />
<img alt="Screen Shot 2016-02-23 at 7.48.08 AM" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3779 caption-processed" height="640" src="https://gadflyonthewallblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/screen-shot-2016-02-23-at-7-48-08-am.png?w=700" width="592" /><br />
“The bottom line is that mid- and late-career teachers are not
earning what they deserve, nor are they able to gain the salaries that
support a middle-class existence,” the report concluded.<br />
There appears to be a golden rule in education: the less you actually help students learn, the more money you get to take home.<br />
Perhaps if public schools were kept out of private hands where profit
is the overwhelming motivation for everything you do, things would be
different. But thank goodness that isn’t happening!<br />
Someday people may wake up and demand more for their tax dollars and
for their children. But until then…There’s gold in them thar schools!<br />
Don’t be a sap. Don’t be a teacher. Don’t help children. Invest in a fly-by-night charter school and get rich!<br />
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<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/author/steven-singer"><img alt="Steven Singer" class="caption-processed" height="65" src="http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_bio_small/public/authors/steve-singer.jpg?itok=2WgbwGrM" width="65" /></a></div>
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Steven Singer is a husband, father, teacher, blogger and education advocate. He blogs at <a href="http://www.gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/">http://www.gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com</a>.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3645415192821082514.post-79131863646483911162016-01-22T09:00:00.000-08:002016-01-22T09:00:06.552-08:00VIDEO SERIES: Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed Explained In Detail<h1 class="yt watch-title-container">
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" id="eow-title" title="1. Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed">Paulo Freire's</span> Pedagogy of the Oppressed Broken Down Point By Point</span></h1>
Prof. Jason J. Campbell gives us 10 videos that help us understand the central ideas of Paulo Freire's seminal work on how the oppressed learn about the world about them and their power to transform it on their terms and not on the terms of the oppressor.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DvHi328_mYI" width="560"></iframe>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YEAATeUAU8Q" width="560"></iframe>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5realGgF6ag" width="560"></iframe>
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Videos 4 thru 10 can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKTrdlVVDIs <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2