Katie Osgood blogs as Ms. Katie.
Check out her blog. It’s terrific.
She is fearless and articulate.
In one of my earliest posts, I reprinted a great piece she wrote.
Open it up here and read it.
She wrote this comment in response to Jonathan Schorr’s defense of KIPP:
I am sick of hearing the same old KIPP talking points. The issue about KIPP, as well as other “no excuses” charter schools, is that regardless of incoming scores, the kids with the toughest behaviors and often lowest scores are getting pushed out. And peer effects matter. As the “tough kids”, even a handful of them, are pushed out through inappropriate expectations and ridiculous zero tolerance codes of conduct, the class culture changes as the higher-performing students are left behind. And as for attrition rates, it matters whether or not or with whom the outgoing students are replaced. (And please don’t get me started on those disgusting “zero tolerance” policies. I do not understand how it is OK for any school to treat children like inmates in prison. I can’t even imagine the KIPP behavior system being implemented in an affluent school for the children of the elite. I do not understand how it is acceptable for low-income children of color. But that’s another long conversation.) I work as a teacher at a psychiatric hospital in Chicago and before that I worked in a Chicago Public School. KIPP hides behind statistics about the kids which do not describe the realities of the school. For example, it is disingenuous to simply quote percentage numbers of students with special needs but rather you need to acknowledge the types of disabilities. My experience with students from the charters (I’ve worked with many) is that in the two years I’ve taught at the hospital, not one-NOT ONE-of the current charter school students had a disruptive behavior problem or a serious cognitive disability. The charter kids were the ones with mild learning difficulties or suffered from inward-focused anxiety or depression. They were the kids who needed just a little push to improve academically. On the other hand, I met plenty of kids with behavioral disabilities who were kicked out of the charters. And the toughest kids of all—such as the kids in foster care with truly debilitating disabilities and trauma—they were always at the neighborhood school. Only a small number made it to the limited spaces at the therapeutic day schools. Too many neighborhood schools are overwhelmed with the toughest kids with insufficient resources to help them. The schools which do take in the toughest kids, those who suffer from the worst effects of poverty, are concentrated in the schools with the least resources. I worked in one of those schools and the lack of staff, supplies, access to books or even a library was criminal. And we had really tough kids thrown into classes of 32-37 kids with no books, science labs, and only enough money for one aide for the entire K-8 school. The neighborhood high schools in Chicago have only one counselor for up to 1,200 children. There are a total of 200 social workers for the entire 400,000 Chicago public school students (see more statistics here:http://www.ctunet.com/blog/text/SCSD_Report-02-16-2012-1.pdf) Meanwhile, in the last budget, neighborhood school budgets were cut even further while charters all received more funding than ever before. Compared to neighborhood schools, KIPP schools have so much more money available especially if you include real estate deals, tax exemptions, philanthropic giving, the Gates Compact, plus whatever else you raise. (See more here:http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/no-excuses-really-another-look-at-our-nepc-charter-spending-figures/ ) And still you take fewer of the toughest kids. Stop lying about having more funding, just be up front and honest. Why is that so hard?? KIPP schools further the very un-American idea that only the deserving should get quality education. The answer cannot be to just give better-funded schools to the kids who “want to learn” because all kids want to learn. But too many of our children living in poverty are suffering from major mental health and subsequent learning and behavioral difficulties as a result of the conditions into which they were born. This is what we mean when we say poverty matters. (See Anthony Cody’s excellent overview:http://www.impatientoptimists.org/Posts/2012/08/Can-Schools-Defeat-Poverty-by-Ignoring-It ) And then, to add insult to injury, kids are being punished for having the mental health issues that come from growing up in unabated poverty (what we now call the school-to-prison-pipeline). KIPP and other “no excuses” charters place the full burden of not living up to the codes of conduct on the child and the family. KIPP is not the answer. It is part of the problem. It diverts money away from REAL equitable solutions we should be investing in. We need inclusive integrated fully-funded schools where every child is welcome while simultaneously seriously combating poverty to prevent the mental health and health conditions holding too many kids back. The call from Diane Ravitch to take over a district or even one struggling school is to call KIPP on its bluff. KIPP is not impressive. And there is nothing miraculous about teaching an easier group of kids. Nothing. And the real damage of KIPP is that policy makers listen to your miracle rhetoric and then punish the struggling, underfunded, over-burdened neighborhood schools. Stop it. Your schools, and the charter movement as a whole, are seriously hurting my students with significant behavioral and mental health needs. Tell the truth about the kids you work with and then let’s have a real conversation minus your marketing talking points. |
So, how do we break through the media glass ceiling? Why am I not reading about these issues in local newspapers? Excellent article. I work at a local neighborhood public school. When a charter school siphoned many of our students, we weren’t worried. Within months most of these students returned with complaints of not being taught, being afraid of staff, unrealistic rules, and no music, art, or after school programs. These students were taken from us based on their scores only. Even smart kids have issues, which this particular charter school was unable to or refused to address.
The shock doctrine is incredibly effective. Transparency and exposure and outrage are the only effective weapons.
How does the shock doctrine work in our schools?
1. Strip public schools of resources. Check — education funding is plummeting nationwide.
2. Make them undesirable. Check — concentrating high needs & tough kids in our neighborhood schools drives motivated, mobile families into charters.
3. Ensure they fail. Check — high stakes testing labels schools as failures and now test-based teacher evaluations and pay label teachers as individual failures.
4. Undermine their base. Check — teachers are the largest unionized work force in the country. Making teachers the villains gives politicians cover for the real goal: dismantling organized labor for the benefit of the 1%. TFA infiltrates the ranks, undermining from within.
5. Reframe the story. Check — the media is owned by the beneficiaries of the privatization of our schools. They’re on board. Check again — movies like WFS and WBD are designed to re-write our beliefs. This is a tough one. Even today, surveys still show that people rate their neighborhood schools and their teachers highly, despite these smear campaigns. This effort will escalate.
When you stand back and look at the scale, the reformers are few, charters are the minority, TFA is a drop in the bucket, Bill Gates’ money is miniscule…but collectively, they have made formidable progress. Uncle Miltie would be proud.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1877467554618436978&q=Robert+sapolsky&pr=goog-sl
I wanted to share this with ya’ll.
I was searching for information on stress levels and learning and I came across this interesting video lecture titled
Stress, Neuro-degeneration and Individual Differences by Robert Sapolosky, an award winning neuroscientist
One of the best lecturers I have ever seen. Very interesting, helps to gain a better understanding of stress responses, stress related disease, predictors of psychological stress. He uses slides from his lab experiments, photos, graphs and humorous anecdotes to make his points. Fast paced, easy to follow and understand. Tells how stress triggers chemical and hormonal reactions which can cause death to neurons and cause permanent damage to the hippocamus (memory and learning). He links his findings to depression, and other dieases and breifly speaks to socio economic stresses of being poor and damage to learning and memory. Stress is our bodies response to physical and psychologically perceived threats to survival .Fascinating
The last part of his lecture was the best for me.Simply fascinating.. He reviews his 23 yrs of research on baboons in the wild and their stress levels related to their social rank, provocation, transitional provocations, stability of social order, intimidation, personality and depression responses to aggression. He has found that the chemical and behavior stress responses of low ranking baboons (due to high levels of intimidation and threats) is identical to that of clinically depressed humans in our society. He points out specific social situations releative to high stress. he compares his observations of baboon rank translate into better understanding human socio economic levels. Almost everything he spoke about relates to our profession and the climate of hostility we are living and working in…especially how high ranking baboons live with less stress as compared to lower ranking baboons and why.
I learned so much.
Exercise your right to believe in Evolution and Science… I hope you watch it. and enjoy it.
Bravo Katie. More ammo for our fight against establishing charters here in Washington State. I keep telling people, the longer we hold out, the smarter we look.
And ditto what you say about KIPP for TFA. They love to tout their “successes” but it’s mostly smoke and mirrors.
From a kipp student the 7th grade
I agree with your statement that we are taking away from unprivileged schools and kids,but I disagree when you said that kipp kicks out kids just because they have a learning disorder or is a behavioral promblem. Not all kids at kipp are smart. We have kids that struggle a lot with the work that is given, so our teachers work all day trying to provide us with work that fits each kids learning level. We also have to deal with behavioral promblems and when someone does become a behavioral promblem they are not just kicked out, our teachers work with and listen to where they are coming from, and try to help