Parent Revolution

The Cost of Our Dropout Rate

I was over at the Families in Schools blog the other day and saw this LAT article about a new study on high-school drop-outs. According to the California Dropout Research Project, our state could prevent 30,000 juvenile crimes and save $550 million a year if we just cut our dropout rate in half.

Personally, I got involved in education reform because of my passion for social justice and my belief in education as our best chance to break the indefensible cycles of povery that plague so many communities. But as this study shows, even those who don’t much care about these issues of equity still have a strong incentive to fight for better public schools. Every young person that’s in school, rather than out in the street, means less crime and less money wasted on our enormous prison system. It’s time to keep our schools full, so our jails aren't.

A Teacher Revolution?

Via Eduwonk, I found what appears to be an open letter from Jordan Henry, the Santee Chapter Chair, to AJ Duffy, President of UTLA. It’s a remarkable letter, laying out an eloquent case against UTLA’s often reflexive opposition to reform. Eduwonk notes that this could have “ramifications beyond LA,” and he's right- this type of sentiment could be a game changer nationally. You can read the entire thing here- below are the crucial excerpts:

At this critical juncture in our union's history, with at least one third of our union at stake, it is imperative we learn from past mistakes with haste. In particular, we must undo the misunderstanding, mischaracterization, and underestimation of the charter movement in Los Angeles which has marked your term and fueled the coalition of forces behind the School Choice Motion.

During your presidency, Duffy, you've screamed for smaller class sizes, better working conditions, and higher salaries for your teachers, yet derided those public charters that offer all three. You've cited national statistics of poor charters to bury local statistics of excellent charters. You've labeled charters non-public and /or private, when in fact they're neither. And while you never missed a chance to blast LAUSD's wieldy, costly bureaucracy, you never seized one to commend Charter Management Organizations' (CMOs) stream-lined, cost-efficient ones. In short, in your attempts to defend UTLA from a perceived attack on public education, you simultaneously contributed to that attack. Unfortunately, such hypocrisy in the leadership of a teachers' union was untenable and doomed to fall of its own weight, as it most surely and resoundingly did on August 25.

The losses incurred by our union as a result have been significant. We've lost the respect of thousands of parents in Los Angeles who want better public schools, charter or district, and can't fathom why UTLA wants only the latter. We've lost credibility with the thousands of teachers who've worked or work at charter schools and see only smoke and mirrors where you proclaim fire. We've lost allies in the labor movement. We've lost votes on the School Board. We've lost the Mayor, lost face, and lost time.

This letter should serve as a reminder to people throughout the education reform community that education reform and organized labor can indeed go hand in hand. Times are changing, and parents and teachers can and must join together and speak with one voice against the status quo. We know it’s not working for our children, and as Mr. Henry so eloquently outlines, its not working for teachers anymore, either.

Charter school success in NYC

A study of charter schools by a Stanford researcher released yesterday shows that charter schools in New York City produce significantly higher gains than traditional public schools.

Charter schools… have been faring well on standardized tests in recent years. But skeptics have discounted their success by accusing them of “creaming” the best students, saying that the most motivated students and engaged parents are the ones who apply for the spots.

The study’s methodology addresses that issue by comparing charter school students with students of traditional schools who applied for charter spots but did not get them. Most of the city’s 99 charter schools admit students by lottery.

Ms. Hoxby found that students who attended a charter school from kindergarten to eighth grade would nearly match the performance of their peers in affluent suburban communities on state math exams by the time they entered high school…

A few points about this. First, the rigorous methodology of this study – comparing students who did get into charters with students who tried but didn’t make it through the lottery – should help push back on the notion that all charter gains can be attributed to a more engaged pool of parents. In addition, the chart breakdowns of who gets in through the lottery provided here help disprove the nonsense that charters are somehow “skimming” students- the pool they wind up taking looks statistically identical in every way to the one that actually applies.

(Click Read More to read full post)

“It’s actually happening in Los Angeles”

Sharing a stage with a variety of amazing education leaders tonight, Ben went on national television and let the rest of our country know that something incredible is happening here in Los Angeles.  Something called the Parent Revolution.

On a panel to discuss solutions to the problems of public education, Ben told the audience how all parents can create change.  "Parents," he said, "need to organize, and need to take back our schools for our children and our collective future.  And you know what Michelle?  It's actually happening here in Los Angeles."

The movement you all have built is not only taking back our your own schools, but making waves across the country, and inspiring parents everywhere to believe that change is possible.  We have much work left to do, but if we continue to stand up and speak with one voice, nobody will be able to stop us.

The (Parent) Revolution WILL be televised!

This Sunday, at 4pm PST, the Parent Revolution will be featured on a nationally televised town hall on MSNBC called "About Our Children." I will be joining Bill Cosby, NAACP President Ben Jealous, national teacher's union leadership, and others in discussing the future of education in America. Hosted in front of a live studio audiance in Washington, DC, this is an exciting opportunity to let the country know about our work together here in Los Angeles.

You can click here to learn more about this special two hour broadcast.  We would love to have you tune in and see the Parent Revolution in action on a national stage. Each and every one of you has helped to build a movement which will change public education not only for our children here in Los Angeles, but across our entire nation.