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Are Public Schools in Crisis or are Communities?
By Rev. Romal Tune
Huffington Post
 When it comes to improving public education there are a lot of ideas and opinions about how it should be done. Some say we should close failing schools, fire teachers, increase funding and address issues related to standardized tests.
When asked who is to blame for failing schools, the finger pointing begins. It's the teachers, unions, the parents, school board, chancellor, etc. The reality is that no one person or institution is to blame and since there is more than one cause of the problem it will also require multiple solutions. Solutions that address not just the school and its performance but the role of the entire surrounding community in helping children achieve academic success.
That's because the label "failing school" tells us more about the community than it does about the school. It tells us that many of the children are not succeeding inside or outside the classroom. It is likely that where you find failing schools you will also find high unemployment, poverty, crime, lack of economic opportunity and other challenges which impact children, parents and the entire surrounding community.
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Daley school plan fails to make grade
Renaissance 2010 officials defend efforts to upgrade education for Chicago students over last 6 years
By Stephanie Banchero
January 17, 2010
chicagotribune.com
 Six years after Mayor Richard Daley launched a bold initiative to close down and remake failing schools, Renaissance 2010 has done little to improve the educational performance of the city's school system, according to a Tribune analysis of 2009 state test data.
Scores from the elementary schools created under Renaissance 2010 are nearly identical to the city average, and scores at the remade high schools are below the already abysmal city average, the analysis found.
The moribund test scores follow other less than enthusiastic findings about Renaissance 2010 - that displaced students ended up mostly in other low-performing schools and that mass closings led to youth violence as rival gang members ended up in the same classrooms. Together, they suggest the initiative hasn't lived up to its promise by this, its target year.
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The Faces of School Reform
By John Tarleton
From the January 29, 2010 issue | Posted in John Tarleton , Local | Email this article
Led by a band of billionaires, the school-reform movement has gained increasing momentum during the past decade, spreading its reach into urban communities across the country. But instead of truly transforming public schools, private funders want to restructure them. They insist running schools like a business is the solution. At stake is not only control over hundreds of billions of dollars in local, state and federal funding, but also the future of the next generation of schoolchildren.
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Leading Education Scholar Diane Ravitch: No Child Left Behind Has Left US Schools with Legacy of "Institutionalized Fraud" |
Soure: Democracy Now!
 As the Obama administration touts No Child Left Behind and the "Race to the Top" competition for school grants, we speak to leading education scholar and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch. She's long been known as an advocate of No Child Left Behind, charter schools, standardized testing, and using the free market to improve schools. But she's had a radical change of heart, as chronicled in her latest book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. Ravitch says, "The evidence says No Child Left Behind was a failure, and charter schools aren't going to be any better."
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'NEO-SLAVERY' - City schools commissioner charges system sets minority students up for failure
ANDRÉS A. ALONSO STRENUOUSLY OBJECTS
TO BOARD MEMBER'S USE OF PEJORATIVE TERM
By Alan Z. Forman
Schools' CEO Andrés A. Alonso, left, took issue with Board Member George M. VanHook Sr. over the latter's use of the term, 'neo-slavery.' (Official Baltimore City Schools photos)
Responding to charges that the Baltimore City Pub- lic School System has practiced "neo-slavery" for a long time, the CEO of the city's schools reacted strenuously Tuesday night, saying, "That is not a term that is acceptable to me."
Dr. Andrés A. Alonso, the CEO, acknowledged that in order to get results in fixing Baltimore's schools, "there cannot be simply a democratic process" in the way the system operates and that "the only thing that matters is outcomes for kids." Alonso said, "I have to respond to that term," to the categorization of school policy as "neo-slavery," by Board of School Commissioners Member George M. VanHook Sr., who said the system sets up minority students for failure.VanHook's and Alonso's remarks came during a meeting at North Ave. public school headquarters Tuesday night to determine, among other things, the fate of five middle schools that will close at the end of the current term.
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Race to the Top? Banking on Charter Schools to Save the Failing Public School System
By C. Nicole Mason
thedefendersonline.com
 Amid protest from parents and teachers, New York City's Department of Education voted on January 27 to close 19 failing public schools. The closings come on the heels of a heated battle among state legislators to lift a ban limiting the number of charter schools in the state. The measure failed, but not without revealing a troubling trend around the country with regard to public education in states and cities-chasing dollars instead of what's in the best interest of students.
New York is one of several states, Tennessee and Massachusetts among them, competing for a bite of the $4 billion carrot Obama is dangling in front of them to improve performance, reform failing schools and ease restrictions on charter schools.
Enacted last February with little fanfare outside of education circles, the Race to the Top fund aims to reform America's failing public school system by creating what amounts to a free-market education system that encourages competition and experimentation with some of the most fragile school systems in the nation.
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Faith Communities Partnering with Baltimore City Schools
The Baltimore Interfaith Coalition has arranged for individuals from churches, temples, mosques, and other faith-based institutions meet with Baltimore City School staff to identify opportunities for linking with a classroom, grade, or school and how members of the organization can be linked with any of the Baltimore City Schools. The next meeting will take place on Thursday March 25th at 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm in Room 317 at the School System Headquarters
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The Case for Closing Failed Schools
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About Us
... You will raise up the age-old foundations; And you will be called the repairer of the breach, The restorer of the streets in which to dwell. (Isaiah. 58:12)
Kinetics mission is to disseminate information and develop new ideas that work to strengthen social movements within the African-American community; providing them with the tools and skills to pursue justice and better address the needs of those whom they serve.
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Public Education Justice-Where Do Charter Schools Fit In?
A Resource of the National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and Literacy
Are children in your congregation or your community attending charter schools? Maybe you have been asked to serve on the board of a charter school. Perhaps your congregation is considering forming a charter school. What questions should people of faith be asking to explore whether these quasi-public schools serve the public good?
What are charter schools?
local or national non-profit chains. Still others are part of huge for-profit enterprises like Edison Schools or the on-line schooling giant, K-12. Some are excellent, others deplorable, and many quite average. Overall, charter schools have not out-performed traditional public schools, although such generalizations are deceiving because they mask the disparity in quality among charter schools. Charter schools are established in state law and their licensing requirements and operations differ significantly from place to place. They are rarely subject to the same public oversight required for traditional public institutions. Charter schools are publicly funded schools, but they are operated by separate, semi-autonomous, appointed governing boards. Some charter schools are founded by visionary local educators while others are part of local or national non-profit chains. Still others are part of huge for-profit enterprises like Edison Schools or the on-line schooling giant, K-12. Some are excellent, others deplorable, and many quite average. Overall, charter schools have not out-performed traditional public schools, although such generalizations are deceiving because they mask the disparity in quality among charter schools. Charter schools are established in state law and their licensing requirements and operations differ significantly from place to place. They are rarely subject to the same public oversight required for traditional public institutions.
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Join Us
Kinetics Faith & Justice Network mission is to provide the faith community with the tools to advocate and mobilize on local, national, and international issues, to build capacity to solve our own problems, and to use dialogue as a catalyst for social change. Members include clergy, scholars, lawyers, social justice advocates, and nonprofit and business professionals.
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