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November 25, 2016

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Our Kids Have Given Enough!

God, I’m tired of the whole district versus commercial (private and charter) school debate.  But, I feel strongly that district schools should be our Nation’s first choice to educate the majority of our children. I will therefore, continue to fight for not only their survival, but also success.

Usually, that means I’m at odds with school choice proponents. Today though, I read a blog post by Robin J. Lake and found myself agreeing with much of what she wrote. Ms. Lake is the Director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. In her piece titled “Will the New Administration Love School Choice to Death?” she writes “Our study of Detroit’s current choice environment, now at 50 percent charter schools, offers an important caution: choice alone is no panacea. In fact, ”School choice“, she writes, ”presented as a panacea is dangerous, both rhetorically and as policy.” She points out that in Detroit, charter schools slightly outperform district schools [I found dissenting stories about this], but their students are still some of the lowest-performing in the nation. Detroit school management is dysfunctional to say the least. There are a dozen different government agencies sponsoring schools without any coordination. This results in a parental nightmare with no one managing transportation, no one taking responsibility for closing low-performing schools, and no one making sure special needs students are well served.

Providing the complete package is one of the things district schools generally do well. They transport your child to and from school and they feed him or her breakfast, lunch and maybe even during the summer if need be. They provide both special need and advanced placement education, usually some sort of tutor support where required, and have a full range of programs such as sports, band, art, and much, much, more. And, most importantly, they take all comers, regardless of their socio-economic status, special needs, ethnicity, etc.

The real truth I have come to believe, is that no matter what school option (including district schools) one looks at, it takes sufficient funding, quality administrators and teachers, engaged parents and high expectations to produce real, positive results. It also takes an environment where if the child starts at a disadvantage in school and life, he or she can get help (especially if there is none at home) to rise above it. I once heard a presentation making the point how just one caring adult can make a huge difference in a child’s life. It struck me as incredibly sad to think that some children don’t even have that. That’s right…some children don’t even have one adult that cares about them.

When adults do care, good things usually happen. But, the more focused attention to a problem, the more likely the solution will be successful. Ms. Lake writes, “Choice is a powerful force, but it must be accompanied by thoughtful government oversight and supports for quality. There must be mechanisms to ensure that schools of choice serve the most challenging students. And there must be coordinated efforts across localities to empower parents with information, transportation, and other support systems. Without these efforts, families most often end up with a lot of choice and very little in the way of better options.” If there’s one clear lesson she has gleaned from the last 25 years of charter school implementation, she writes, it’s that “choice and competition are necessary but by no means sufficient to dramatically improve outcomes for students.”

I couldn’t agree more with Ms. Lake that, “To avoid choice becoming permanently polarized…scholars and advocates need to fight new programs that don’t promote quality and accountability.” They must advocate for policies that promote collaboration among school providers, ALL school providers, both district and commercial. They also must address equitable access for students with disabilities and other special needs and, maximize the effectiveness and accountability of any private voucher/scholarship and education savings account proposals.

And to her statement that “The new Department of Education should invest in strategies to prevent harm to students in districts facing major enrollment losses”, I say AMEN! Instead of fighting each other over who has the best answer, just imagine what we could do if we recognized there is good in all options and worked together for the best overall solution. Unfortunately, the pie is only so big and with the GOP fixation on tax cuts, it is getting smaller all the time. As long as the various school choice options are pitted against each other for resources, it is hard to see how we can work together for a better outcome. Something though, has to give and it damn well shouldn’t be our district school kids and their teachers. They’ve given enough.

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November 23, 2016

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Warning: School Choice Can be Hazardous to Your Community

Carol Burris, Executive Director of the Diane Ravitch’s Network for Public Education, recently wrote about the direction President-Elect Trump appears headed with education. “There are clear indications” she said, “that President Obama’s Race to the Top will be replaced with something that could be called ‘Race to the Bank’, as the movement to privatize education seems certain to accelerate.” Trump’s promise to redirect $20 billion in federal funds (most likely in Title I monies), is a good indication of that desire to accelerate. Of the redirect, Trump himself said, “Not only would this empower families, but it would create a massive education market that is competitive and produces better outcomes, and I mean far better outcomes.” Recent studies though, just don’t bear out those “far better outcomes” and although Congress previously considered redirecting Title I funds, they scrapped it with the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Nonetheless, Trump seems determined to press ahead as indicated today by his pick of Betsy DeVos, a forceful advocate for private school voucher programs nationwide, as his Secretary of Education.  And although his website claims that school choice is “the civil rights issue of our time”, the Nation’s leading public education advocate, Diane Ravitch writes, “school choice is not the civil rights issue of our time, as its proponents claim; it is the predictable way to roll back civil rights in our time.” Her words are born out by the fact that segregation in the United States is now the highest it has been since the early 1960s. And to that point, the Arizona Republic writes that vouchers, tax credits and charters are used “by those who least need help”, “siphon money from traditional district schools”, and “are thinly disguised workarounds that wealthy parents can use to keep their kids out of the district schools where students of color are in the majority.” Jeff Bryant, on educationopportunitynetwork.org, writes, “it’s hard to see how a system based on school choice – that so easily accentuates the advantages of the privileged – is going to benefit the whole community, especially those who are the most chronically under-served.” After all, we all know there are plenty of disadvantaged families who will likely never be able to access school choice options, partially because it really is schools’ choice. This reality plays out every day when commercial schools either don’t admit those students they don’t want or, weed them out early on.  The desire to not call attention to that truth may be part of the reason we’ve begun to see the rebranding of “school choice” to “parental choice.”

The real problem though is much more than semantics, but what school choice is actually doing to not only our district schools, but our communities as well. Julie Vassilatos, on chicagonow.com, writes that “choice” “quietly diminishes the real power of our democratic voice while it upholds the promise of individual consumer preferences above all else.” (It’s all about me.)  The picture she paints of school choice is this: no schoolmates in neighborhoods, children traveling several hours a day to/from school, and “very little political and residential investment in the heart of neighborhood communities.” The school choice model she contends, is “fracturing and breaking down local bonds among families and within neighborhoods.” Could it be that “divide and conquer” is what this is really about? Vassilatos seems to think so contending that, “Democracies require stable communities with strong institutions that are of, by, and for the community. Democracies are built on strong, stable localities.” School choice she claims, is gutting our communities and robbing our voices.

Meanwhile, Carol Burris points out that our Vice President-Elect, Mike Pence, shepherded such a time of gutting and robbing while Governor of Indiana. His voucher program created $53 million in school spending deficits in the last school year alone and the damage continues to this day. If school choice proponents get their way she warns, we could be looking at the same sort of disastrous full-frontal school choice implementation both Chile and Sweden are now trying to dig themselves out of.

We, as a nation, Burris says, need to ask ourselves two important questions. First, do we want to “build our communities, or fracture them?” Second, do we believe “in a community of learners in which kids learn from and with others of different backgrounds”, or do we want to further segregate our schools by race, income and religion. She contends that we cannot have both and that “true community public schools cannot survive school choice.” I agree with Carol, but it isn’t because the district schools can’t compete. Rather, it is because the deck is stacked against them and politicians and profiteers continue to pile on.

Robin Lake, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which supports many school choice initiatives, said she believe there needs to be a focus on quality: “My fear is [that] a big ideological push for choice as an end, not a means, is a dangerous prospect. It’s not only dangerous for getting schools started that may not be effective, but it’s also dangerous for long-term politics.” Noah Smith on bloomberg.net, basically agrees, if from a different angle. “The evidence is clear that vouchers are a policy with underwhelming potential” he writes, and “if the U.S. cares about academic success, policy makers should focus not on turning the school system into a marketplace, but on reforming existing schools to improve their quality.”

As Arthur Camins points out on HuffingtonPost.com, “there are better choices than school choice to improve education.” Unfortunately, those choices are not the path of least resistance for our politicians and our short attention spans make expediency a winning strategy. Too bad those who have no voice are the ones who will ultimately suffer the most.

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November 22, 2016

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Make America Broke Again – Millions of Trump voters to lose overtime pay

Imagine if we could redo the election with a different ballot:
For President of the United States. Vote for one.
O Donald J. Trump
O Yourself

The subtitle of the alternet.org story tags an enduring enigma: The mystery of why people vote against their own interest continues.

One of the Obama administration rules requires time-and-a-half overtime for workers earning less than $47,000. That, along with other rules, are scheduled to be ditched under the Trump administration. The result would be the loss of that overtime pay by 20,000,000 (yep – 20 million) workers who voted for Trump. Politico.com reports the details along with naming other targets for the GOtrumP ax.

House Republicans are currently in the process of making lists of regulations that fall within their time frame and could potentially be repealed early next year. One of the major ones they’re eyeing is Obama’s overtime rule that requires companies to pay time-and-a-half to employees who make under roughly $47,000.

The rule is set to go into effect Dec. 1 and will be a top priority for Republicans to reverse, multiple sources said.

I’m sure Trump will figure out how to blame Crooked Hillary.

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November 20, 2016

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Open Letter to Frederick Hess

I could barely get through your post on educationnext.org before I began formulating my response. This is not the first time I’ve wanted to respond to a post on this blog, but I definitely couldn’t let this one go unanswered. I read your blog because I try to ensure I am informed about education from a variety of opinions and viewpoints. But, as Daniel Moynihan said, “You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.”

In your post titled “Education Is So Far Left, It Can’t Really See the Right”, you condescendingly lay out the “blind spots” of those in “education.” Your interchange of “those in education” and “Democrats” as if there is no difference is your mistake #1. Although more teachers tend to be Democrats than Republicans, teachers are typically focused on their students in the classroom, not in setting education policy. I am a school board member and active in my state’s school board association. One thing I’ve learned in the past four years, is that those who serve with me are politically diverse and it is this diversity that ensures all viewpoints are represented. These governing board members are at the forefront of charting the course of education at the local level and they have many different ideas about how to do that. Its a great strength of the local control our system of district education offers. While I’m on the subject of ideas, I have a few others for you.

1. You write that those “in education spend so little time talking to or engaging with conservatives.” Don’t know where this comes from, but as I alluded to above, educators, administrators and school board members talk to all kinds of parents, community members and voters. They do this day in and day out. It is a big part of the “public” in public education.

2. Trump did not “narrowly lose the popular vote.” As of November 19th at 6:35am, Hillary Clinton was leading with the popular vote by 1.4 million, with 2.8 million votes still unprocessed in California. I recognize it doesn’t matter how many votes she got, Trump won the election. I just object to you making it sound like the popular vote was really, really close. It wasn’t.

3. You write that the obstructionism of Congress during Obama’s presidency was just “Republican majorities in Congress doing their job”, I say no. Congress’ job is to do the work the people sent them there to do, not to be the most do-nothing Congress ever.

4. You claim that equity is why “the Left gets out of bed each morning”, and I say damn straight, it should be one of the many reasons we all get out of bed. You know, like it says in the Declaration of Independence, “all men [and women–21st century update] are created equal…”

5. Really? You want to try to take the high ground on liberty? What about the Right’s fixation on telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies and telling gay people who they can marry? And as for community, public district schools (especially in rural areas) are often the hub of their communities and the focus on the privatization of education (as your blog does) risks destroying those hubs and the communities they serve.

6. Are you serious? “Overhauling collective bargaining in Wisconsin? Governor Walker was trying his damnedest to totally dismantle the ability of hard-working people to fight for their rights. Employees after all, typically seek collective bargaining when they are not treated fairly. If a business owner doesn’t want his or her employees to unionize, maybe they could just provide a fair wage and decent working conditions.

7. So you think the framing of race, ethnicity, and gender ”tears at the fabric of our republic and sows ill-feeling and tribalism?“ How about the framing of racism, misogyny, and bigotry? And by the ”suppression of religious freedom“, are you referring to the desire for businesses to not discriminate against customers because of their ”deeply held religious beliefs?” Its easy. If you don’t want to be forced to serve everyone, don’t apply for a business license from the government (of the people) to operate.

I personally believe we have more in common than not and I really wish we could focus on finding common ground versus tearing each other down. Unfortunately, recent events tell me it is going to be awhile before we have any real breakthroughs in that regard. The sad thing is though, we aren’t just hurting ourselves, but the children who are counting on us to work together to get this education thing right. When will we learn?

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November 19, 2016

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Why civil discourse is not possible in the era of President Trump

Let’s start with some definitions. I took a short-cut and asked the web about definitions of the term “civil discourse.” Here is what Google found for me.

Def. 1: An engagement in conversation intended to enhance understanding.

Def. 2: Civil discourse is engagement in discourse intended to enhance understanding. Kenneth J. Gergen describes civil discourse as “the language of dispassionate objectivity”, and suggests that it requires respect of the other participants, such as the reader. It neither diminishes the other’s moral worth, nor questions their good judgment; it avoids hostility, direct antagonism, or excessive persuasion; it requires modesty and an appreciation for the other participant’s experiences. In Book III of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke contrasts between civil and philosophical discourse with the former being for the benefit of the reader, and the public good: (sic)

These definitions prompt some fairly obvious questions.

  • Does conversation with Trumpists – did it ever – “enhance understanding”? In this and all to follow provide concrete examples.
  • Do you feel respected by those who voted for Trump?
  • Does “The Donald” and his cabinet picks so far reflect “modesty and an appreciation for the other participant’s experiences”?
  • Do you think that engaging in “civil discourse” is likely to change Paul Ryan’s plans for the demise of our social safety net? Again, please provide your evidence for wanting it to be so.

As you have probably guessed, as a Democrat and progressive, I have no truck at all with the underlying belief that engaging in “civil discourse” will better the lot of the common woman (and man). I could write you a book on what all of Trump’s campaign promises mean for the general welfare and how the press gave that a pass and how “civil discourse” is bowing to Trump.

We are engaged in the fight of our lives (to paraphrase the head of the ACLU – I think). This is a zero sum game. You cannot both have Medicare and have Ryan’s Vouchercare. You cannot have the Dreamers on track for citizenship and deport all of them. You cannot provide universal health care and at the same time repeal Obamacare without a valid replacement.

Oh, silly me. I thought that my arguments might persuade those of you who think that the end product of “civil discourse” is some grand kumbaya. So let me direct your attention to this video of one woman’s final acceptance that she has every right to be seriously pissed about those Christian Republican Trumpists.

To show your listening skills, please spend the next 8 minutes and 44 seconds of your life listening this woman venting her feelings about how she is forced to see things from the perspective of those who care not about what she thinks or who she is. If you are a believer/practitioner in/of “civil discourse” and are not emotionally moved and cognitively changed by this video, then I regard you as not a fellow traveler in the great battle to come. You have every right as an individual to continue on your path of “civil discourse” but I will do everything in my power to lead progressives and other critical thinkers into the right fight, the fight of our lives.

Here is the link to the video. h/t Sherry Moreau

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November 11, 2016

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Bitter Pill to Swallow

Emotions have run very raw in my household since Tuesday night and this is being played out across my community and across the country as evidenced by the protests in our major cities. Many of my friends have greeted me on the verge of tears and I’m watching them go through at least three of the five stages of grief: denial, depression, and anger.

I feel many of these emotions along with a small amount of relief, that at least the election is over. Of course, that sword cuts both ways. The election is over so we at least have an idea of what’s to come, but we also must face the reality that President-elect Trump is on the verge of being the most powerful man (some might say child), in the world. We also know that there is little possibility we’ll continue to move forward (at least for now), on the issues that we Progressives hold near and dear. How much damage can a President Trump and his GOP-led Congress and Supreme Court, do to the environment, to civil liberties, to international relations, and to world peace?

The truth is that the Left isn’t just grieving, we are viscerally fearful. How much of the rhetoric Trump spewed over the last year will turn into reality? And even if he doesn’t pursue his hateful agenda, how will others use him to further their’s (McConnell, Bannon, Giuliani, Gingrich, etc.?)

Those who supported Trump are telling us Liberals to get over it. Just as we, when Obama got elected, told them to do the same. I don’t remember hearing back then though, that anyone had concerns about Obama with the nuclear codes. That’s the big difference now. Trump’s campaign staff did after all, in the last week of the presidential election, take away his access to his Twitter account so he couldn’t tweet something that might further damage his ability to get elected. His campaign staff did not trust him to tweet, it is no wonder the vast majority of us don’t trust him with our nuclear weapons.

Nonetheless, the system that has elected the past 44 presidents of the United States, elected Donald J. Trump to be the 45th. No matter how devastated I am about it, he is our President-elect. And, I’ve made a choice to accept that fact. I will not forgive or forget the disdain he has demonstrated for the vast majority of Americans. Neither will I push aside my concerns for what damage he can bring not to just our Nation, but the entire world. I’ve also chosen to understand though, that we all helped him get elected. “Wait just a damn minute” you say “not me!” “I donated to Hillary, had her yard sign outside my home, canvassed for her, made calls for her, and voted for her.” But, I ask, were you ever glued to MSNBC to watch for the next outrageous thing Trump would say? Did you find yourself thinking that his supporters were either just “haters” or to stupid to know any better? I am guilty of both of those.

My decision to accept that he is our president-elect does not mean I am rolling over. Quite the contrary. Even though it might seem that the United States of America is less and less a place “of the people, by the people, and for the people, we are still are the greatest democracy in the world. It is not time to move to Canada or to throw our hands up in despair. It is time to turn our angst and anger into action. Write your elected officials at all levels or run for office yourself or support like-minded candidates who do. Donate to volunteer for organizations that work on behalf of causes you are concerned about and write letters to the editor to express your concerns. And please remember, with Hillary winning the popular vote by 395,595, Donald Trump does NOT have a mandate from the people. What he does have, is the title of President-elect, granted him by the Electoral College.

Through it all though, remember that blame is not constructive and hate is not who we are. The nation is divided for a reason and we must deal with that reason. I believe it is because we collectively haven’t been focused on solving the problems most negatively affecting our people. Flint, MI for example, still doesn’t have safe drinking water, the loss of manufacturing has left many without the hope for a better life, the education of our children of color lags, and college debt has made it very difficult for many to realize their American dream. Who is responsible for fixing these problems? Ultimately, it is up to all of us. After all, we elect representatives to, well…represent us. By either our support or our acquiescence, we give them their marching orders. As long as we continue to reward their performance with reelection, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten.

I’ll close with the point that, it wasn’t “a Trump insurgency, but a Clinton collapse”) as Jonathan Webber coined) that elected him.” Hillary lost because she got 10 million fewer votes that Obama in 2012, and 15 million fewer than in 2008. That is probably the most bitter pill of all to swallow. But swallow it I must and then I will pick myself up, dust myself off, and rejoin the battle to keep the American Dream alive for ALL Americans.

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November 9, 2016

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Failure is NOT an option!

Its 2:22 am and I can’t sleep. I was too worn out to stay up and watch the election results, but then woke up just in time to see the news that Hillary had conceded to Trump. I watched his victory speech, listened to the stunned pundits on MSNBC and then thought I’d go back to sleep. Well, that didn’t work out like I planned it. None…of…it!

So yeah, as the markets around the world are proving, these are tumultuous times and I’m worried. My eyes are wide open and I don’t like what they see. I understand this election was a referendum on an establishment that didn’t care enough to really listen to the concerns of many Americans. It was also though, one of fear and hatred and it brought to the forefront, all that characterizes the “ugly” American.

In addition to all the hateful rhetoric spewed by President-Elect Trump, I am concerned about his stance on public education. His vision for K-12 education is to: 1) immediately add an additional federal investment of $20 billion towards school choice and says he’ll do this by reprioritizing existing federal dollars (just imagine the role district schools play in this reprioritization); 2) give states the option for backpack funding and favor states for grants that have maximum school choice; and 3) establish a national goal of providing school choice to all 11 million school aged children living in poverty.  It is easy of course to promise to fund something without being specific about where it will come from or and to promise you’ll provide school choice to the poor. After all, the definition of “opportunity” is “a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.” If the student can’t avail him or herself of the opportunity (because for example, he or she has no transportation to the school), it makes no difference how much “school choice opportunity” they’ve been given.

And yet, I have hope. This isn’t the first time our country has faced a crisis and it won’t be the last. Despite all the challenges our nation has experienced in its short 224 years of existence, the strength of our Constitution and the resiliency of our people have ensured we not only survive, but thrive.

I also have hope because as Diane Ravitch wrote, there were many “piece[s] of good news in the midst of a dark night.” The one she specifically referred to is that the voters of Massachusetts “overwhelmingly defeated Question 2, by a margin of about 62%-38%. This ballot issue would have permitted 12 charter schools to be added in that state every year in perpetuity. Despite the proponents spending at least $22 million, much of it from out of state donors, billionaires and hedge fund managers, the little guys rallied to save the say. Over 200 school committees passed resolutions against Question 2 because they understood every charter built would drain funding from the district schools…schools that in many cases are already the best in the nation. In Arizona, voters have yet to come to the realization of what the commercialization of our schools is doing to the 85% of Arizona students that choose district schools. The “horse” is definitely out of the “barn” and I’m not sure how we can coax it back in.

Of course, public (district) education advocates were certainly hoping to see more pro-district education candidates elected in our state. Unfortunately, when I looked at the results as of 11/9/2016 at 2:28:31 am, the counts in the Senate remained the same with 17 Republicans and 13 Democrats. The House, likewise, remained unchanged with 36 Republicans and 24 Democrats. But then I looked at the 9:04:43 am results and Daniel Hernandez had pulled ahead of Chris Ackerley and Mitzi Epstein had pulled ahead of Bob Robson to make the House 34 Republicans to 26 Democrats. I noted the Brophy-McGee versus Meyer race had tightened as well to less than one percentage point. Only 97.55% of precincts had reported at this point, so these results are unofficial.

I wanted to get a feel for what all this meant to the K-12 education in the coming 53rd Legislature so I did a very unscientific analysis. I first looked at the voting records of all the incumbents from the 2016 Friends of ASBA Educating Arizona guide. This guide shows which legislators voted with ASBA K-12 legislation in 2016. Based on my rudimentary review, the average percentage all legislators voted with ASBA was 62% of the time. Then I carried those numbers over for incumbents and gave newly elected legislators an average score based on how their Republican (60%) or Democratic (80%) counterparts had voted. This resulted in an average predictive score of voting with the ASBA position of 63 for the incoming 53rd Legislature.

I don’t know if my analysis has any real validity, I’ll leave that to the statisticians among us. What I do know is we probably shouldn’t expect too much change from the Legislature on K-12 education legislation. I’ve no doubt we’ll see an attempt to once again push through a full-blown expansion of vouchers (Empowerment Scholarship Accounts) and tax credits to maximize the siphoning of tax dollars from district schools to commercial ones with no increase to the badly needed accountability and transparency. The GOP-led Arizona Legislature has made no secret of their intent to privatize public education, and voters continue to validate their position. Until we can get enough voters to speak with our votes on behalf of their community schools, they’ll continue to lose out.

It is easy to get disheartened and defeatist, but giving up won’t help the 85% of Arizona students choosing to be educated in our district schools. Now is not the time to “shelter in-place”, but to look for any silver linings we can find and build on them. There is much to fix in our schools, our communities, our state and our nation and it will take all of us working together to do that. So, today you can be afraid, you can be angry, you can be disappointed or depressed. Tomorrow though, is a new day and the work to support our district students and all those who work so hard to educate them, must continue. Buckle up; it’s got to be a hell of a ride because failure is not an option.

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November 8, 2016

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123: Show Me The Money!

Since the passage of Proposition 123, I’ve heard people ask where the money went. Did it really go to raise the salaries of Arizona’s teachers?

An August 2016 survey on Prop. 123 funding conducted by the Arizona School Boards Association and the Arizona Association of School Business Officials had 83 school districts (representing over half of Arizona’s students) respond. The survey largely reinforced the narrative that adequate compensation to attract and retain teachers towers as the top priority statewide. Most of the districts concentrated their Prop. 123 funding in teacher and staff bonuses for FY2016, and a full 74% of districts budgeted the additional FY2017 funds for the same.

Survey responses from across the state (21% urban, 24% suburban, 53% rural and 2% remote) affirmed the varied needs of our district schools and for locally elected governance. In some cases, the funding priorities were supplies, textbooks, technology and school building maintenance and repair, all of which support the learning environment.

The need to buy essential supplies and services with the funds should surprise no one. After all, the Arizona Legislature has cut more than $2 billion in district funding since FY2009. In addition to impacting the ability to fund the needs listed above, the cuts eliminated state funding for full-day kindergarten and ninth grade career and technical education students. Let’s not forget Prop. 123 provided no new funding to help offset these cuts. Rather, only 70% of what the voters had already mandated and the courts adjudicated. It was better than nothing, but after years of hollowing out district resources, the funding was rapidly absorbed by the many pressing needs districts had long deferred.

One clear example of those pressing needs is the severe teacher shortage facing Arizona. A recent survey of 130 school districts and charter schools conducted by the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association found almost 8,200 teacher openings for the 2016-2017 school year. By August 28, 2016, 47% of these remained vacant or were filled by individuals not meeting standard teacher requirements.

With fewer college students pursuing a teaching career and a wave of teachers soon eligible for retirement, this problem is only going to get worse and is proof positive that Prop. 123 was not the solution, just a step in the right direction. Almost three-fourths of Arizona’s registered voters agree, stating in a recent Arizona Republic/Morrison Institute/Cronkite News poll they believe the state is spending “too little” on K-12 education.

Yes, Prop. 123 was a critical infusion of funding allowing districts some ability to more appropriately compensate our teachers and support other critical needs. Let’s be real, though. It didn’t even move Arizona out of our 48th place for per pupil funding which would have required double the funding from Prop. 123. That’s why Support Our Schools AZ and the Arizona Parent Network support funding for our district schools that ensures equity (regardless of ZIP code) and stability (critical to continuity of staffing and programming, which enables more effective operations.) State-provided funding and other support should respect that choice.

Our district educators have done more and more with less and less for many years, and ultimately, our students are the ones who suffer the lack of certified teachers in their classroom, higher class sizes, narrowed curricula, outdated technology and rundown facilities. It is incumbent upon each of us to remember those students when we vote today. The bottom line is if we want different results, we need to elect different candidates — pro-public (district) education candidates!

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November 5, 2016

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Death by a thousand cuts

A post-Prop. 123 election poll showed 74% of Arizonans support even more funding for our public schools. This, even though I suspect most of the general public has little idea about ALL the “death by a thousand cuts” our public school districts are experiencing. One of those amounts to an estimated loss of about $33 million statewide. In effect, districts will not be paid for the 2015-2016 school year due to the transition from prior-year, to current-year funding and in many cases it basically wipes out the gains districts made from Prop. 123.

Even as the voters “giveth” again via Prop. 123, the Legislature taketh away with the move last year to change the how “student count” is determined. Prior to the law change, district budgets were calculated using the 100th day average daily membership (ADM) count from the prior year. Now, districts are forced to base their budgets on an estimated number of students for the current year before school starts. Budgets are then adjusted during the year to reflect actual student enrollment. Unfortunately these adjustments are just on paper; they don’t fix the funding problem districts must then live with. If they overestimate, they’ll overspend their budgets and have state aid reduced times two the amount overspent. If they underestimate, they won’t have sufficient funding to operate for the current year. Either way, being forced to guess on student count can mean hiring freezes, delays in discretionary expenditures, postponing payments to vendors, teacher lay offs, and ultimately, the district being placed into receivership if they fail to create a solid repayment plan.

The difference to district budgets can be substantial. Balsz Unified for example, could see a $1 million reduction in their budget for 2017/2018. For TUSD, the estimated impact is $4.5 million. In addition to the resulting operational constraints, current year funding also impacts district ability to garner override and bond funds. AZCentral.com reported that if current-year funding had been the law in 2015 when Gilbert Public Schools passed their 10% override, the amount generated would have been about $300,000 less. Another consequence of the probable deficits or surpluses in ending-year cash balances is tax rates that may fluctuate drastically from one year.” That will surely please taxpayers, especially our retirees on a fixed income. Guess what block of voters are the most consistent in voting? Anyone? Anyone?…Bueller?

It is interesting that we’ve gone down this road, since we’ve traveled it before. In 1980, districts were allowed to build budgets with current year or prior year students counts. The process was changed because districts got in trouble with estimating student counts. They overspent budget capacities and miscalculated tax rates. School business officials and administrators are asking if it was a bad idea then, why is it a good idea now?

Bottom line is, it isn’t. Arizona is experiencing a critical shortage of teachers, especially highly effective ones, with many districts having numerous unfilled positions. This means substitutes are in many classrooms, classes are combined, or class sizes are larger than ever. Where there are teachers, their inexperience or turnover can have an impact on the achievement of students, especially for those in low-income and low-performing schools as well as at-risk students. Potentially exacerbating the situation, districts may be forced to (as ARS 14-544 allows) eliminate certificated teachers “to effectuate economies in the operation of the district or to improve the efficient conduct and administration of the schools of the school district.”

The projected savings from the change to current year funding is one-time and the model increases administrative burdens at a time when school districts are being directed to reduce administrative costs. It also comes when District Additional Assistance (used for soft capital costs such as classroom materials and supplies and capital funding such as facility maintenance, busses and technology) was estimated to be reduced by over $381 million. The perfect storm conditions were then made complete with the Arizona Department of Education’s transition to a new data collection system called AzEDS.

So why did the Legislature change the law? One anonymous source told me the Arizona Tax Research Association (ATRA), represented by their former Senior Research Analyst Justin Olson, pushed the change. In a February 2008 paper, ATRA advocated for: 1) moving from the “prior year plus growth” to current year funding to ensure districts are not paid for students who are now enrolled elsewhere, 2) ensuring districts student growth reports are legitimate and 3) eliminating or reduce rapid decline funding. Unfortunately, as a Prescott Schools Current Year Funding Concerns paper points out, “Current year funding will create unpredictability in ADM (average daily membership or student count), resulting in cash deficits or significant positive cash balances.” Yes, some districts experiencing student growth may receive additional funding, but it is largely offset by unpredictability that is counter-productive to employee morale.

 If the way student counts were determined was the problem, why aren’t current year numbers used for all school funding formulas? Chuck Essigs, Executive Director of the Arizona Association of School Business Officials) writes that “only the Base Support Level for both school districts and Joint Technical Education Districts will be based upon current year count,” the largest component in determining state aid and budget capacity. Other school funding components that use student count in the formulas are the Classroom Site Fund, Instructional Improvement Fund, small school exemption, tuition calculations and more.

Color me cynical, but it would appear this move is just one more step toward education privatization by the Arizona Legislature. The narrative goes like this: 1) decrease funding to district schools to make it harder for them to succeed, 2) introduce more instability to district school funding to make it harder for them to attract and retain the best teachers and 3) refuse to hold commercial schools (for-profit charters and private) to the same level of accountability and transparency to help them look better.

Want to change the narrative to one that works for 85% of Arizona’s children? Sure you do and, you know how. Let your vote be your voice on November 8th. Vote only for pro-public DISTRICT education candidates. They, like pro-district public education advocates, won’t kill charters, we recognize they have their place. We just don’t think it should be first place. What they will do, is ensure the priority for funding and support is on our district schools…the only schools that accept all students, are governed by locally elected school board members (your neighbors), are fully transparent, and are fully accountable for the taxpayer dollar!

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November 3, 2016

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Evidence that Trump is The Moskovian Candidate

Yesterday I posted a “short take” about a secret communications channel between two servers, one at the Russian Alfa Bank and one at the Trump Organization. Today I’m going to post more about the communications and put this Russian Connection in the larger context of alleged Russian attempts to influence our election.

Ping! The secret link between Russia and the Trump Tower.

Franklin Foer (slate.com) asks Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? (h/t AZBlueMeanie at Blog for Arizona) Foer reviews the cyber-security evidence. This spring, a group of computer scientists set out to determine whether hackers were interfering with the Trump campaign. They found something they weren’t expecting.

The computer scientists discovered a pattern of internet traffic between a server registered to the Russian Alfa Bank and a server registered to the Trump Organization. Various cyber-security experts evaluated the pattern of communications. (Note that the contents of the communications were not available – just the metadata.)

The researchers quickly dismissed their initial fear that the logs represented a malware attack. The communication wasn’t the work of bots. The irregular pattern of server lookups actually resembled the pattern of human conversation—conversations that began during office hours in New York and continued during office hours in Moscow. It dawned on the researchers that this wasn’t an attack, but a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump Organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank.

The researchers had initially stumbled in their diagnosis because of the odd configuration of Trump’s server. “I’ve never seen a server set up like that,” says Christopher Davis, who runs the cybersecurity firm HYAS InfoSec Inc. and won a FBI Director Award for Excellence for his work tracking down the authors of one of the world’s nastiest botnet attacks. “It looked weird, and it didn’t pass the sniff test.” The server was first registered to Trump’s business in 2009 and was set up to run consumer marketing campaigns. It had a history of sending mass emails on behalf of Trump-branded properties and products. Researchers were ultimately convinced that the server indeed belonged to Trump. (Click here to see the server’s registration record.) But now this capacious server handled a strangely small load of traffic, such a small load that it would be hard for a company to justify the expense and trouble it would take to maintain it. “I get more mail in a day than the server handled,” Davis says.

In the parlance that has become familiar since the Edward Snowden revelations, the DNS logs reside in the realm of metadata. We can see a trail of transmissions, but we can’t see the actual substance of the communications. And we can’t even say with complete certitude that the servers exchanged email. One scientist, who wasn’t involved in the effort to compile and analyze the logs, ticked off a list of other possibilities: an errant piece of spam caroming between servers, a misdirected email that kept trying to reach its destination, which created the impression of sustained communication. “I’m seeing a preponderance of the evidence, but not a smoking gun,” he said. Richard Clayton, a cybersecurity researcher at Cambridge University who was sent one of the white papers laying out the evidence, acknowledges those objections and the alternative theories but considers them improbable. “I think mail is more likely, because it’s going to a machine running a mail server and [the host] is called mail. Dr. Occam says you should rule out mail before pulling out the more exotic explanations.”

I put the question of what kind of activity the logs recorded to the University of California’s Nicholas Weaver, another computer scientist not involved in compiling the logs. “I can’t attest to the logs themselves,” he told me, “but assuming they are legitimate they do indicate effectively human-level communication.”

Weaver’s statement raises another uncertainty: Are the logs authentic? Computer scientists are careful about vouching for evidence that emerges from unknown sources—especially since the logs were pasted in a text file, where they could conceivably have been edited. I asked nine computer scientists—some who agreed to speak on the record, some who asked for anonymity—if the DNS logs … could be forged or manipulated. They considered it nearly impossible. It would be easy enough to fake one or maybe even a dozen records of DNS lookups. But in the aggregate, the logs contained thousands of records, with nuances and patterns that not even the most skilled programmers would be able to recreate on this scale. “The data has got the right kind of fuzz growing on it,” Vixie told me. “It’s the interpacket gap, the spacing between the conversations, the total volume. If you look at those time stamps, they are not simulated. This bears every indication that it was collected from a live link.” I asked him if there was a chance that he was wrong about their authenticity. “This passes the reasonable person test,” he told me. “No reasonable person would come to the conclusion other than the one I’ve come to.” Others were equally emphatic. “It would be really, really hard to fake these,” Davis said. According to Camp, “When the technical community examined the data, the conclusion was pretty obvious.”

Tea Leaves [the original discoverer of the traffic] and his colleagues plotted the data from the logs on a timeline. What it illustrated was suggestive: The conversation between the Trump and Alfa servers appeared to follow the contours of political happenings in the United States. “At election-related moments, the traffic peaked,” according to Camp. There were considerably more DNS lookups, for instance, during the two conventions.

But the traffic came to a screeching halt after reporters at the New York Times started to ask questions.

The Times hadn’t yet been in touch with the Trump campaign—[the Times reporter] spoke with the campaign a week later—but shortly after it reached out to Alfa, the Trump domain name in question seemed to suddenly stop working. When the scientists looked up the host, the DNS server returned a fail message, evidence that it no longer functioned. … The computer scientists believe there was one logical conclusion to be drawn: The Trump Organization shut down the server after Alfa was told that the Times might expose the connection. Weaver told me the Trump domain was “very sloppily removed.” Or as another of the researchers put it, it looked like “the knee was hit in Moscow, the leg kicked in New York.”

Four days later, on Sept. 27, the Trump Organization created a new host name, trump1.contact-client.com, which enabled communication to the very same server via a different route. When a new host name is created, the first communication with it is never random. To reach the server after the resetting of the host name, the sender of the first inbound mail has to first learn of the name somehow. It’s simply impossible to randomly reach a renamed server. “That party had to have some kind of outbound message through SMS, phone, or some noninternet channel they used to communicate [the new configuration],” Paul Vixie told me. The first attempt to look up the revised host name came from Alfa Bank. “If this was a public server, we would have seen other traces,” Vixie says. “The only look-ups came from this particular source.”

According to Vixie and others, the new host name may have represented an attempt to establish a new channel of communication. But media inquiries into the nature of Trump’s relationship with Alfa Bank, which suggested that their communications were being monitored, may have deterred the parties from using it. Soon after the New York Times began to ask questions, the traffic between the servers stopped cold.

Foer reached out to Alfa Bank and Trump Organization representatives. Both entities denied the connection or attempted alternative explanations of the traffic. In the end, like the Trump Organization server, the Trump PR person stopped responding.

What the scientists amassed wasn’t a smoking gun. It’s a suggestive body of evidence that doesn’t absolutely preclude alternative explanations. But this evidence arrives in the broader context of the campaign and everything else that has come to light: The efforts of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager to bring Ukraine into Vladimir Putin’s orbit; the other Trump adviser whose communications with senior Russian officials have worried intelligence officials; the Russian hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s email.

Did Russia create A Man from Moscow?

The secret communications link is but one part of a larger unfolding picture of “coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government”, the aim being to sway the election to Trump.

David Corn (Mother Jones) tells us that A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump He asks: Has the bureau investigated this material? (AZBlueMeanie at Blog for Arizona covers the same ground in today’s, Nov. 3rd, post.)

On Friday [October 28th, 2016], FBI Director James Comey set off a political blast when he informed congressional leaders that the bureau had stumbled across emails that might be pertinent to its completed inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of emails when she was secretary of state. The Clinton campaign and others criticized Comey for intervening in a presidential campaign by breaking with Justice Department tradition and revealing information about an investigation—information that was vague and perhaps ultimately irrelevant—so close to Election Day. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid upped the ante. He sent Comey a fiery letter saying the FBI chief may have broken the law and pointed to a potentially greater controversy: "In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government …The public has a right to know this information."

… a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him.

[The FBI won’t comment] But a senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.

… “It started off as a fairly general inquiry,” says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, “there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit.”

Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer’s conversations with Russian sources, noted, “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.” It maintained that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” It claimed that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him.” It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on “bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls.”

The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was “shock and horror.” The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump’s inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. “It’s quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on,” he says.

“This is something of huge significance, way above party politics,” the former intelligence officer comments. “I think [Trump’s] own party should be aware of this stuff as well.”

The FBI is certainly investigating the hacks attributed to Russia that have hit American political targets, including the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, the chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign. But there have been few public signs of whether that probe extends to examining possible contacts between the Russian government and Trump. (In recent weeks, reporters in Washington have pursued anonymous online reports that a computer server related to the Trump Organization engaged in a high level of activity with servers connected to Alfa Bank, the largest private bank in Russia. [See above for documentation.] On Monday, a Slate investigation detailed the pattern of unusual server activity but concluded, “We don’t yet know what this [Trump] server was for, but it deserves further explanation.” In an email to Mother Jones, Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, maintains, “The Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server. The Trump Organization has no communication or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity.”)

Observe the language: “is not” and “has no” refer to the present. We know from the Slate report that the server connection was severed after the Times started asking questions. So the question is did the Trump Organization ever have communications and a relationship with Alfa Bank. That has not been answered.

There’s no way to tell whether the FBI has confirmed or debunked any of the allegations contained in the former spy’s memos. But a Russian intelligence attempt to co-opt or cultivate a presidential candidate would mark an even more serious operation than the hacking.

In the letter Reid sent to Comey on Sunday, he pointed out that months ago he had asked the FBI director to release information on Trump’s possible Russia ties. Since then, according to a Reid spokesman, Reid has been briefed several times. The spokesman adds, “He is confident that he knows enough to be extremely alarmed.”

We should all be alarmed. Now connect all this with my post yesterday on the “November ninth nightmare” and you get, as Tom Clancy once wrote, the sum of all fears.