I'm teaching a free seminar on An Introduction to Value Investing on 4/4; NY event on 3/27 for Antonio Villaraigosa for Gov. of CA; ERN poker tourney 7/18; DeVos on 60 Min; Chris Cerf, Newark; NJ; Why Are Our Most Important Teachers Paid the Least?
1. Via my new business, Kase Learning (www.kaselearning.com), I'm teaching value investing and hedge fund entrepreneurship to the next generation of investors. Our programs are aimed at experienced investors and are very hands-on, so they aren't cheap ($1,500-$2,000/day), but for beginners, we're offering a free two-hour seminar, An Introduction to Value Investing, in midtown NYC (57th and 7th) on Wed., April 4th from 5:30-7:30pm, followed by a cocktail hour. If you'd like to come, just email me and I'll send you details.
2. Former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is running for governor of California and DFER and I are supporting him wholeheartedly, starting with an event in NYC at 6pm two weeks from tomorrow (3/27) – see attached invite. If you're in NYC, please join us!
I had the pleasure of meeting him five years ago, which I described in my blog post here: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2013/02/mayor-villaraigosa-on-education-reform.html. Here's a picture of us from that day:
Here's what DFER has to say about him today:
Antonio Villaraigosa is a bonafide DFER all-star.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa is one of the nation's most prominent advocates for education reform, and was the first mayor in Los Angeles history to run on an unabashedly pro-reform platform.
Now in his run for governor, Villaraigosa is well positioned to emerge from the primary, and given his record and strong appeal to the state's Latino electorate, has a competitive opportunity to win the general. It goes without saying that an unabashed reformer as Governor of one of our country's most influential states would send a powerful signal about the ongoing strength of reform in our current post-Obama era. For these reasons, we are strong supporters of Villaraigosa's candidacy.
A number of key electoral and demographic trends, as well as Villaraigosa's track record as an accomplished leader, give him a distinct advantage over his opponents.
Polling Consistently Shows Villaraigosa Making the Top Two in California's Open Primary.
- Recent independent public polls suggest that Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom and Villaraigosa are the current frontrunners despite the crowded field of declared candidates.
- Moreover, since entering the race Villaraigosa's support has consistently grown, putting him within a few points of Newsom.
- In January 2018, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released a statewide survey of likely voters, and the race for governor was statistically tied with Newsom at 23%, Villaraigosa at 21% and all other candidates in single digits.
The Latino Electorate Is Growing Rapidly
- Villaraigosa's strength among the Latino electorate is key to his candidacy, and its historic and continued growth provides a clear trajectory toward victory.
Southern California Advantage
- Home to more than half of the California electorate, winning in Southern California is crucial in a statewide race.
- This gives Villaraigosa a major advantage as Southern California is his base.
- According to the Los Angeles Times, "California governor's race is likely to be decided in Los Angeles County" where "1 in 4 of the state's voters live." In the UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies poll, Villaraigosa led Newsom in L.A. County by 11 percentage points — 31% to 20%.
Endorsements
- Villaraigosa has a wide range of support from prominent organizations and elected officials— support that has rapidly grown with major endorsement announcements.
- Villaraigosa was endorsed by the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), the largest law enforcement organization in California.
- He has the support of four former California State Assembly Speakers and education leaders such as Dr. Shirley Weber. Villaraigosa also has the support of a number of local elected officials from across the state.
Ed Reform Credentials
As Mayor, he sought mayoral control over Los Angeles' schools, and used his platform to take responsibility over a large subset of the City's failing schools including those in South Los Angeles, Watts and East Los Angeles. During his tenure, the schools went from 45% graduation rates to 75%, and are all now College-Preparatory campuses – while in the process, making the largest academic gains in the state.
Importantly, given that Mayor Villaraigosa served for years as an organizer for the local teachers' unions, he continues to be one of the only leaders in the country who can speak against inequities in education with the credibility of being a pro-union Democrat who once represented members of the unions he is now holding accountable. He used his influence and power as Mayor to elect a pro-reform LAUSD school board, leading to the creation of a school choice resolution where teams of educators could compete to bring ed reform to local schools and manage them with a thin union contract, and he increased access to high-quality charters.
3. The 9th annual Take 'Em to School Poker Tournament & Casino Night, which I'm co-chairing, is coming up on Wednesday, July 18th at Gotham Hall in NYC. It benefits Education Reform Now, a non-profit organization committed to ensuring that all children have access a high-quality public education regardless of race, gender, geography or socioeconomic status.
It's always a great night for players, spectators, and education reformers alike. The tournament will feature 250 poker players battling for prizes that in past years have included a Sebonack golf trip with a one night cottage stay, a table at Rao's for 8, power lunches with some of the world's top investors, and a set visit for The Walking Dead. For those attending as cocktail guests there will be a variety of casino games and entertainment. The event also features a full swing golf simulator, which will host Long Drive and Closest to the Pin contests.
The event always includes special guests and in the past has featured poker stars Phil Hellmuth, Erik Seidel, Layne Flack, Vanessa Selbst, Andy Frankenberger and Samantha Abernathy; WPT TV hosts Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patten and Lynn Gilmartin; sports icons Alex Kovalev, John Starks, Dwight Gooden, Charles Smith and Allan Houston; Avenue Capital Founder and Milwaukee Bucks Owner Marc Lasry; co-creator of the hit Showtime series Billions and co-writer of poker blockbuster Rounders Brian Koppelman; America's Next Top Model contestant Jamie Rae and Shannon Elizabeth from American Pie. To view highlight videos from past events, please click here.
For information about purchasing tickets or tables, please reply to this email or visit www.TakeEmToSchool.org. Here's the invite:
I hope to see you there!
4. Betsy DeVos was on 60 Minutes last night and it wasn't pretty. Here's a 1:47 clip of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiuvnijhmXQ. Here's the Washington Post's summary:
Speaking of "60 Minutes," Trump's education secretary recently gave an interview to the show that was painfully awkward. She seemed unprepared and at times flat-out uninformed. Her interview aired Sunday night, and it's still the talk of the town here in Washington, because she said stuff like this:
- She acknowledged not having visited an underperforming public school yet. ("Maybe I should.")
- She said she didn't know if sexual assault and false accusations are comparable.
- She had no defense for why, if her champion cause of using public school funding for charter schools is so great, her home state of Michigan hasn't shown education improvements with the rise of charter schools. ("Overall I can't say they've gotten better," she said of public schools in Michigan.)
The White House is reportedly dismayed at her performance. But maybe this shouldn't have come as a surprise.
In her confirmation hearing last year before the Senate, DeVos didn't seem to understand basic laws and defended guns in schools because some rural schools might — I'm not making this up — need it "to protect from potential grizzlies."
Lastly, here's Andy Borowitz's spoof of it:
Betsy DeVos Calls "60 Minutes" a Waste of a Half Hour
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Furious about her treatment on the CBS news-magazine program on Sunday night, Betsy DeVos spoke to reporters on Monday, and called "60 Minutes" a "total waste of a half hour."
"I had never watched '60 Minutes' before, but I can tell you this, I will never watch it again," the Education Secretary said. "I have better things to do with a half hour of my time."
Calling her interviewer, Lesley Stahl, a practitioner of "gotcha journalism at its worst," DeVos said that it was "very unfair of her to ask me so many questions about education."
"She asked me one thing about schools, and then another, and another," she said. "If I had to answer every question she had about schools, I would have had to bone up on education for a month."
DeVos said that she was "frustrated" that Stahl neglected to ask her about any of her "really good ideas" for the nation's schools, such as "purchasing guns for teachers with money that is currently being wasted on books."
"If a bear comes into your classroom, throwing a book at him will only stun him momentarily, at best," DeVos said.
5. Newark Superintendent Chris Cerf stepped down at the end of January, which coincided with some well-deserved great press on the district accomplishments and the legacy he leaves (kudos as well to Cory Booker and Cami Anderson). Here are three stories:
- In Newark, Chris Cerf's diplomacy protects solid classroom gains, www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/02/for_newark_students.html. Excerpt:
Imagine that it's 1995, you live in Newark, and you can't afford to send your kids to private school.
In more than half of the public elementary schools, not a single 8th grader passed the state test on academic competence. Putrid bathrooms lacked even toilet paper. The superintendent had 10 relatives on the payroll. Board members flew to Hawaii for conferences, and bought lavish meals at home, with house accounts at 32 area restaurants.
But it's 1995 in Newark, and you have no choice: You must send your kids into that system.
... Today, 40 percent of Newark kids attend schools that beat the state average in math and English tests. About one-in-three attend charter schools that are rated among the nation's best. The graduation rate has jumped to 77 percent, up by more than 20 points. The worst schools were closed, the worst principals replaced, and a new contract allowed Cerf to pay his best teachers a little more.
... So, go ahead, take your shots at Jersey. I make a decent living doing it.
But once in a long while, we're allowed to feel warm and fuzzy. Children in Newark have a better shot at a good life than they did a decade ago, no small thing. And sometimes, what drives our political leaders is that they actually give a damn.
- Ahead of departure, Cerf assesses impact of reforms on Newark schools, www.njtvonline.org/news/video/ahead-departure-cerf-assesses-impact-reforms-newark-schools
- As Chris Cerf Steps Down as Newark Superintendent, a Look Back at a Career Spent Breaking the Tie in Favor of New Jersey's Children, www.the74million.org/article/analysis-as-chris-cerf-steps-down-as-newark-superintendent-a-look-back-at-a-career-spent-breaking-the-tie-in-favor-of-new-jerseys-children
6. Sadly, things aren't as good in the rest of NJ. What a disgrace this is! Here's the WSJ editorial on: Who's the Boss in New Jersey?, www.wsj.com/articles/whos-the-boss-in-new-jersey-1519429933:
Who's the Boss in New Jersey?
Here's a hint: It isn't Phil Murphy, the new Governor.
Feb. 23, 2018 6:52 p.m. ET
Phil Murphy hasn't been Governor of New Jersey long enough to deliver on his campaign promise to legalize recreational marijuana. But somebody had to be smoking something to think it was smart to fire an eminently qualified teacher from her post as assistant commissioner at the Department of Education this week just a few hours after she'd been approved by the state school board and even met her staff.
The woman is Paula White, an African-American teacher with a degree from Columbia who has a record of achievement that includes six years teaching in Atlanta. Most recently she was the Chief Turnaround Officer for New Jersey's Department of Education. But no sooner was she named to her assistant commissioner post than she was given the heave-ho.
What was Ms. White's firing offense? Her résumé includes an 18-month stint as New Jersey director of Democrats for Education Reform, a group whose ideas line up more or less with Barack Obama's on education. This includes support for tenure reform and giving kids stuck in rotten schools the lifeline of charter schools. Which is what she did personally when she founded the Newark Legacy Charter School in 2009.
This is all anathema to the teachers union, which brooks no dissent from New Jersey's elected leaders. Last year the union spent $5 million in an unsuccessful effort to unseat Steve Sweeney, state Senate President. Mr. Sweeney is a Democrat and union man himself, though his ironworkers are in the private economy. He has fallen afoul of the teachers union because he understands the state cannot afford the lavish benefits for teachers and other government workers that have created the pension crisis.
Mr. Murphy's cave on Paula White does not augur well for his governorship, given how so many of the state's pressing problems from pensions to failing inner-city schools are rooted in public union obstruction. In a column for the Star-Ledger, editorial page editor Tom Moran suggested the union has "a brass ring firmly hooked into the new governor's nose."
But give the teachers union this much credit: It has shown everyone who the real boss is in Trenton.
7. A good NYT Magazine story. Why Are Our Most Important Teachers Paid the Least? www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/magazine/why-are-our-most-important-teachers-paid-the-least.html. Excerpt:
Imagine a program that increased kids' rates of high school completion and college attendance, that reduced the incidence of teenage parenthood, that lowered welfare dependence and arrests for low-income black and Hispanic students. You might think a program like that would be highly valued. But despite a growing body of research showing that preschool education can accomplish all those things, teachers like Kejo Kelly continue to earn average salaries as low as $28,500 a year — almost half the pay of their K-12 colleagues.
For this week's cover story, Jeneen Interlandi follows Kelly into the classroom as she juggles shifting class sizes, staff shortages, changing job requirements and children leaping onto her back — as lawmakers try to reconcile the importance of her role with neglect of the systems surrounding it.
8. Great to see! Princeton, Others Aim to Accept More Low-Income Students, www.wsj.com/articles/princeton-others-aim-to-accept-more-low-income-students-1519900203. Excerpt:
Princeton University in the fall will begin taking transfer students from community colleges for the first time.
Several hundreds miles south, Davidson College recently began keeping dining halls open during fall break, Thanksgiving and Easter, an acknowledgment that not all students could afford the trip home from North Carolina.
They're small steps. But the institutions hope that if enough peers make similar moves, the nation's highest ranked campuses could seem within reach for thousands of financially strapped students.
Just over a year ago, 30 elite colleges banded together with a goal of enrolling an additional 50,000 low- and moderate-income students at top institutions by 2025.
With nearly $3.9 million in backing to date from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the American Talent Initiative now has 97 member schools taking steps toward socioeconomic diversity. The Bloomberg money largely covers organizational costs to run the coalition, but schools are on the hook to raise money for scholarships and other programs once students make it to campus.