A reader reminded me of a post by blogger Jonathan Pelto about Hartford, Connecticut, that shows how districts can “game the system” to meet testing target.
And that reminded me that Jon Pelto is someone you should know about. Subscribe to his blog if you want an insider’s view of education reform in Connecticut.
Pelto was a legislator for several years and cares passionately about public education. He knows how to follow the money and watches for conflict of interest and hidden lobbyists.
He has written many posts in opposition to Governor Dannel Malloy’s alliance with the hedge fund managers’ group called ConnCAN (now operating in other states as 50CAN). Pelto has called out all the players in the corporate camp, including the other Wall Street group called Democrats for Education Reform, the charter chain Achievement First, Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst, and Teach for America, all of which took a role in shaping and pushing Governor Malloy’s “reform” bill to funnel more money to charters than to the state’s poorest districts and to strip teachers of tenure. It’s all “for the children,” remember. Malloy said he would be happy to see more “teaching to the test,” and also said the achievement gap in his state made it necessary to take away teacher tenure. This is absurd; Connecticut has a large achievement gap because it has outsized income inequality, with large concentrations of urban poverty and intense concentrations of extreme wealth. But let’s not talk about that.
Pelto has been critical of State Commissioner Stefan Pryor, who was a founder of a Connecticut charter school, Amistad Academy, and chairman of its board for five years. That charter school is the flagship in the Achievement First charter chain. Pelto has been fearless in criticizing the claims of the powerful Achievement First chain, showing what a small percentage of ELLs it enrolls compared to urban districts in the state, and pointing out how Malloy’s budget showered far more money on this wealthy charter chain than on the state’s neediest students.
Pelto has posted several times about what happened in Hartford during the reign of Superintendent Steven J. Adamowski.Adamowski was brought in to raise achievement, and he did get the numbers up. Here is his account from his own blog. Some school superintendents ward off charter schools, but not Adamowski. He hasworked closely with the politically powerful charter chain, Achievement First.After his tenure in Hartford, he was appointed as “special master” to run the schools of Windham, Connecticut. There, his moves have been controversial, such as cutting back on early childhood education and AP classes.
Not surprisingly, Pelto has been critical of Adamowski’s close ties to the charter school industry and to conservative groups like NCTQ. Pelto repeatedly exposed the ties between Governor Malloy and corporate reformers, as well as the lobbying activities of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst. Pelto has written scathing commentaries about the state takeover of Bridgeport and about Paul Vallas’s stewardship of the district. Pelto is one of the few commentators who has criticized the “reformers” in Connecticut for ignoring the impact of poverty on educational achievement. Please readthis.
Pelto has a dogged devotion to the facts and a well-honed sense of moral outrage: this article is the best exemplification of that combination, where he lambastes the state’s urban mayors for endorsing a budget that shortchanges their own city’s children.
We are very grateful for Jon here in CT. You must read his newest one titled:
Team Vallas falsifies documents to avoid competitive bidding.
http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/07/25/team-vallas-falsifies-documents-to-avoid-competitive-bidding/
I don’t understand how these reformers get their reputations for reform when every city they have reformed is now a mess…Vallas – Chicago, NOLA, Philly. According to their high standards for teachers, If each city was an individual child or class, teachers would be the one responsible for their failure.
I think you linked it, but the slight increase in test scores in Hartford under Adamowski was a shell game….reduce the number of kids that take the traditional CTM’s and magically the scores increase. Their strategies of juking the stats and rearranging the numbers are only meant to make themselves look good.
http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/03/21/steven-adamowski-governor-malloy-and-perfecting-the-art-of-inflating-test-scores/
Thanks for your lead, posted one of the articles on FB. I appreciate all you are doing, as well as the educators who research and post the truth.
The Michigan Populist Blog is another site to follow for updates on Michigan issues. Two espcially good entries are about the privatization of the Cadillac schools and the suffering teacher job satisfaction. Throughout the country, there are fantastic teachers keeping everyone informed. They need our thanks.
Reblogged this on Kmareka.com and commented:
Diane Ravitch, via Jonathan Pelto, provides an excellent tutorial on the education reform politics going on in Connecticut
Adamowski’s machinations are much worse than even Jonathan Pelto has yet reported–it takes time to get the story out about Adamowski’s tricks in Hartford.
Now, in Windham, Adamowski actively suppressed an engineering report about the hazards of a ceiling collapse, active leakage, and asbestos exposure in an aging elementary school. Adamowski added 75% more students to that school, while keeping the report out of the public and parental eyes. Instead of replacing the roof, ADamowski is moving the elementary students to different buildings. Meanwhile, a new interdistrict magnet school is set to open, which will cream students, teachers, and resources from existing schools, especially the aging, crowded urban ones.
Adamowski did this with magnets and charters in Hartford–leaving students in ordinary public schools to languish and to reside in schools more highly segregated by race, ELL status, and income than ever.
He must be stopped, and the best schools and facilities must go to the neglected urban students. In Windham, this means that parents should demand the new magnet as the replacement for their structurally-threatened school (where students and teachers suffered the hazards of mold, water leakage, and the real possibility that over 9 inches of snow would cause a total collapse). Oh, and this school will be in the third year of a School Improvement Grant, but Adamowski thinks nothing of grossly inflating the numbers of students while holding over teachers the threat of losing their jobs if test scores for the school do not increase!
Sickening. I don’t understand how they can get away with this….his new name….Adafraudski!
How can our Governor, Commissioner Pryor (no prior teaching experience) and legislature allow this to happen?
Where is the State BOE?
Parents, taxpayers, students UNITE!
This reforming circus is a joke!
It is time for all to expose Adafraudski…..just one more town, one more school, one more shell game under his belt.
We’re certainly not going to get what is really needed unless we have watchdogs. Mass media doesn’t want to deal with the nitty-gritty. Thank goodness we do!
I read so much on the “wait.What?” site I had to take a break as I could feel a depressing mood coming-and I have too much to do to prepare for school here! Are there any well funded legal entities out there who takes such things to court? I know the cost of fighting lies is enormous. Since so much of the nation thinks anything teachers say is stuff we make up and the ignorance I see in the comments on many of the newspaper articles is scary it is so twisted, it is hard to know where to begin! I guess my classroom is a start for as long as I am employed!! Guess I better make some sandbags for around my desk!
Thank you so much for recognizing Jon’s work. We Nutmeggers are extremely grateful for his vigilant and courageous documentation of the damage the corporate ‘reformers’ are doing to our public school system.
Jon Pelto rocks the boat and thanks to Ravitch blog for patting him on the back. I am a retired CT teacher who now lives in Bridgeport where we will vote Sept. 4 for our local Board of Ed, but then in November general election, there will be a charter revision to end an elected board and replace it with a Mayor appointed BOE. Of course the corporate ed reformers are pushing for a YES vote for mayoral control. Perhaps Diane can tell us if there is research proving that mayoral control works for the benefit of the child. Help us Diane.
You need only look to New York City–whose test results blossomed and then collapsed in 2010 when the State Ed Dept admitted it had lowered the passing mark–and now NYC has the same achievement gaps as 10 years ago, before mayoral control. Or look to Chicago, which has had mayoral control for many years, but remains in the bottom tier of cities tested by NAEP. Or look to Cleveland, which has had mayoral control since 1995 and has seen no improvement on NAEP for the past decade. Bear in mind that public school students in Cleveland are 100% free-reduced price, which means that 100% live in poverty. Mayoral control has neither reduced child poverty nor improved school performance as measured by test scores.