Six on Schools: Students Suspended, Expelled, and Arrested for Refusing to Recite the “Pledge of Allegiance"; Why do charter
panaritisp
 | In February, an 11-year-old African American student at the Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland, Florida faced criminal charges after he refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and supposedly created a “disturbance in the classroom.” School... | |
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"Major customers include charter chains Success Academy, Uncommon, KIPP, and Achievement First, said DOE spokesman Douglas Cohen. The DOE receives no payment from Vanguard, he said.
In response to Garcia’s complaint, the New York state and US education departments said they are probing whether the marketing deal violates FERPA — a federal law which requires schools to get parent permission before releasing student information, except in limited cases.
The DOE claims an exemption lets it give student information to outside entities to perform functions that its own employees would otherwise do. State law “permits outreach to make families aware of their educational options, including both district and charter schools,” Cohen said.
But Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the national Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, said the reasoning makes no sense: “School districts lose funding and space when students enroll in charters. Why would the DOE use its own employees for that purpose?”
If you haven’t already begun, it’s time to start mobilizing for testing/opt out season.
Here’s how:
Attend an event. You’ll learn more, network with others, and get inspired to organize your own school.
Events coming up in the next week (March 3 & March 5) in Brooklyn are open to the public and put on by school communities where many families have boycotted the state tests. Both events feature teachers and administrators who are on the testing frontlines--definitely worth your time.
On Saturday March 9, the Parent Action Conference (Lower Manhattan) includes a workshop on how to organize test refusal at your school. Speakers/presenters have experience organizing in both sympathetic and hostile environments. You don’t have to do this alone--bring others on board!
Finally, put Saturday afternoon March 16th in your calendar for an education town hall in Queens showcasing noted education historian Diane Ravitch, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (yes, you read that correctly), and NYS Senators Jessica Ramos, Robert Jackson, John Liu and NYC Opt Out’s own Johanna Garcia.
Find details about these events and others at https://www.optoutnyc.com/events. Are you planning a testing-related event? Contact us to post your event, and/or if you need help getting guest speakers for an event.
Check out our website and social media. On optoutnyc.com you can find 2019 opt out letters, organizing tools like videos and handouts, and the middle and high school admissions surveys that lay to rest the myth that students need state test scores if they don’t want to be left behind. Interact with other parents and educators and keep up with the latest education policy changes by joining NYC Opt Out on Facebook or following @nycoptout on Twitter.
Answer a few questions. How can we help each other grow opt out in the few weeks remaining before the tests? So we can figure out next steps, please answer this brief survey as soon as you can so that we can be effective.
We wanted to get this to you as soon as we could, which means:
You will have to wait until our next communication to get the statement we are writing about test refusal in 2019. While the (purposely?) complicated new NY state “accountability” laws haven’t changed everything, there are some differences to address. In the meantime, check out this just-released opt out fact sheet from NYSUT (New York State Union of Teachers).
We are sending this in English only. If you know someone who needs this information in Spanish, let us know. In the meantime, here’s the Spanish language page of our website.
All for now and please, please take our survey!
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History is a bunch of grass. And we need to let our kids play on it.
"So . . . how can we help our kids see history?
The Heath brothers book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die has some interesting things to say about how we can best engage our learners. I especially like what they say about creating mystery and using emotional stories to suck kids into our content.
- Web sites like DocsTeach, the Stanford History Education Group, Zoom In, the Smithsonian Learning Lab, and Historical Scene Investigation provide hands-on kinds of stuff for kids to play with.
- Virtual reality tools like Google Expeditions, Google StreetView, and Google Arts & Culture give kids the chance to solve realistic problems and experience history first hand.
Google Arts & Culture
Explore collections and stories from around the world with Google Arts & Culture.
- Simulations such as those over at iCivics and Mission US all support the brain’s need to solve emotional, real-life problems.
Mission US | THIRTEEN
Developed for use in middle and high school classrooms, Mission US engages students in the study of transformati...
- If you’re gonna use a direct instructional tool like a lecture, do it using strategies ways that engage and involve kids in what’s going on. Simply talking at them is not going to work. Try a micro-lecture or interactive lectures. Use images. And problems. Or images with problems.
Bottom line?
We shouldn’t be trying to describe the individual grass stalks for our kids. They need to out there playing on it."
