A few days ago, I posted a letter from Hari Sevugan on this site, in which he defended Michelle Rhee’s agenda of privatization and high-stakes testing. Sevugan was (according to Wikipedia) the former national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee and was the senior spokesman for the Obama campaign in 2008. In June, 2011, he became vice-president of communications for Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.
I invited him to post again. I wrote:
“I hope he will write again to explain why he thinks that Rhee’s support for for-profit charters, for vouchers, and for the agenda of rightwing governors helps our society’s most vulnerable children.”
Rhee has worked closely with Governor Scott Walker, Governor John Kasich, Governor Rick Scott, and other Republicans who want to privatize education, curtail collective bargaining rights, and take away any job protections for teachers.
Many readers of the blog wrote responses to Sevugan. He responded with a letter this morning (I confess I missed it and read it first on the Huffington Post). He did not answer my questions, but he did respond to a letter from a Florida teacher and parent. I am updating this post because I did not see his comment on the blog (unlike Rhee, who has a large staff, I have no staff, not even a secretary; I read all comments myself, and I write all the responses myself, I write all my own tweets, all my own articles, all my own books, no ghostwriters).
In his comments to Huffington Post, Sevugan scoffs at the success of Massachusetts and Maryland because “only 40-50%” of students in those states are proficient on NAEP. I don’t think he knows much about NAEP’s achievement levels. “Proficient” on NAEP is not above average. It represents solid achievement. I spent seven years as a member of the NAEP governing board. Proficient on NAEP is like getting a B+ or an A. Massachusetts can be proud that half its students have such outstanding performance.
Sevugan fawns all over Florida, because Rhee gave Florida and Louisiana her highest grades. (He doesn’t even try to defend Louisiana, one of the nation’s lowest performing states on NAEP.)
But why is he so admiring of Florida? True, it is overrun with charters, both nonprofit and for-profit. But it doesn’t come close to Massachusetts (or Maryland) on NAEP.
Florida (whose education policies are tightly controlled by Jeb Bush) is far behind Massachusetts on NAEP. In fourth grade math, for example, an astonishing 59% of students in Massachusetts rank proficient (which is outstanding), as compared to 37% in Florida (slightly below the national average of 39%).
In eighth grade math, an impressive 51% in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to 28% in Florida (well below the national average of 34% proficient).
In reading, the story is the same. Massachusetts students far outperform those in Florida. In fourth grade, 51% of Massachusetts students are proficient, as compared to 35% in Florida (the national average is 32%). In eighth grade reading, 46% of students in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to only 29% in Florida.
Michelle Rhee gave one of her highest grades on her report card to the D.C. schools, despite their low test scores, low graduation rates, and scandalous achievement gaps. Michelle Rhee and her successor have been in charge of the D.C. public schools since 2007, yet the black-white achievement gap and the Hispanic-white achievement gap there are the largest of any city or state in the nation and they are even larger now than when Rhee took over.
If Michelle Rhee knows how to reform schools, why did she fail to do so in D.C.?
Sevugan’s letter is just more of the public school-bashing and teacher-bashing that StudentsFirst has perfected. He thinks our nation and our schools are failing. He is wrong. Our nation is the most powerful, most creative, most innovative in the world, and 90% of Americans were educated in public schools.
Sevugan obviously has never looked at NAEP scores. If he had, he would know that the scores for black students, white students, Hispanic students, and Asian students in 2011 (the latest NAEP) were at their highest point in history.
Sevugan has a lot to learn about education. I’ll be happy to help him. The first thing he needs to learn is that the doom-and-gloom narrative of the corporate reformers is wrong. It is factually untrue, and I’ll demonstrate how wrong it is in my next book.
We have heard the same doleful complaints since the 1950s, and the peddlers of decline have been wrong every time. They are wrong now too.
Diane
Diane – Please check your comments section to the original post.
Hari, I notice you posted a comment at 10:28 this morning. I missed it, and I rectified my post with a correction. I am still hopeful that you will explain how Democrats like you can cozy up to Scott Walker, Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, Rick Scott and others who want to impose vouchers and privatize our schools, while getting rid of unions. Please feel welcome to write a post and I will put it up.
Diane
Follow the money.
We all know it’s wrong. The TRUTH is on our side.
The real question remains: why do we continually persist in giving credibility to people who have none?
Why do we enable them with power?
Why do we provide them a platform?
Why do we keep them relavent?
Why is there no direct REAL consequence to a person’s credibility when they are discovered to be lying?
Diane, you are too kind. He knows damn well about what “proficient” means on the NAEP, about Florida’s low NAEP scores, and the rest. Either that or he’s an ignoramus, and I don’t believe he is. His writing is a great example of how charterites twist words and statistics in order to snooker people, and how it’s generally best to just assume that if you listen to them you’re going to get snookered.
One of the things I notice about your corporate education reform is that its proponents are fond of spouting statistics. Meanwhile, its opponents tend to be more likely to analyze statistics and get to the bottom of what they really mean. I’ll tend to trust the people who analyze and explain what is behind the veneer of statistics more than those who simply spout them (and, lo and behold, tend to “unintentionally” mislead people with them).
Love Your comment Henry. Trust plus knowledge equals power. They have no power unless we all them to give them control.
Apparently in Massachusetts scoring proficient on the NAEP is not above average.
¿Qué?
It probably should have said “not just above average.” NAEP rankings do not equate with our understanding of the typical grade scale. When I hear above average, I automatically think “B.” Not that a “B” is anything to sneeze at, but a “Proficient” rating on the NAEP is more than a “B.”
When I think of average I am more inclined to think of a C, but my discipline tends to grade harder than many.
TE,
Please see Diane’s explanation of the “grades” of NAEP as to why what you are questioning is not what you may think it is. Even though there is no doubt that any comparison of any student, school, district, state, nation through standardized testing is utter nonsense (and I’m being nice with that term). See N. Wilson for more details: “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
“A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” found at:
http://www.edrev.info/essays/v10n5index.html
Click to access v10n5.pdf
If you haven’t read them yet please do. If so please explain why what Wilson has shown is wrong.
Thanks,
Duane
Again:
the NAEP achievement levels:
Advanced =superb performance, usually about 2-3% of any grade.
Proficient: Solid academic achievement. From the NAEP tests I have reviewed, I’d say it is A-level, or at east a very strong B+
Basic: partial mastery of standards. About a C.
Below basic: trouble.
TE,
Have a comment awaiting moderation and it probably won’t be moderated until tomorrow unless Diane is still up.
I am not questioning it, but if we define a proficient score as something above average, well most students in Massachusetts are above average. I always thought Lake Wobegon was in Minnesota, but I could be wrong.
Let me say it again: Proficient on NAEP is not “above average.”
It is an A or A-.
When I see the word average I interpret it as mean or median. If more than 50% of a group scores proficient on an exam, some of the students who were rated proficient scored lower than average score on the exam. That is why the Lake Wobegon statement is funny.
The thing is, charters are essentially private schools. They get to call the shots and do things pretty much however they want. Expression is limited to what the management of the charter says it is. If the charter management says students have to wear uniforms, chant in unison, track the teacher at all times, and otherwise remain on-task and obedient, then that’s what students have to do. What happens to students who can’t or won’t conform to such dictates?
Every so often we read a story about a kid being disciplined or expelled for something like dying their hair blue or wearing their shoes untied. If it happens at a public school, there is recourse for the student to challenge the discipline/expulsion. The Supreme Court has ruled that students’ rights don’t end at the school door (admittedly, however, the courts have been curtailing more and more of those rights which supposedly don’t end at the school door). But when such a thing happens at a private school, we just collectively shrug – whatcha gonna do? We might think it’s silly, maybe even outrageous, but, hey, a private entity has a right to set its own standards. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to stay there.
This is, in my always humble opinion, one of the primary underpinnings of the “reform” movement. The rheeformers are very much opposed to unrestrained, democratic, freedom of expression. Children should have exactly as much freedom as we say they should have. For the “good” kids (read: affluent/middle class), we might be able to allow a bit more freedom, but we still control the range of acceptable expression. For the “bad” kids (read: poor, minority), that range is almost nil. You will do what you are told, when you are told, how you are told and only exactly as much as you are told. Nothing more, nothing less. Don’t like it? Then go elsewhere. Except that as more and more of the public domain is taken over by the private sector, there is no “elsewhere” to go.
As almost always, spot on, Dienne.
Apparently Hari needed a few days to craft his response and maybe with the help of the “education reform community” and this was the best he could do?
We now know why he didn’t choose to post here. If he reads your response and apparently he did, surely he will reply. Demonstrating the ability to read and process new information, and then reflect is something Hari would want for all of the students in our country. We shall wait and see.
Hari is playing games now..
Huck Fari!
Democratic Party needs a massive overhaul if a person like this is near the top of the party. I guess in order to get high marks from Rhee you have to have a right-wing governor and legislature that puts on a full-scale attack on teachers and public schools.
You mentioned your next book in this post and a previous one. I, for one, am really looking forward to it.
Thanks, it will be published in the fall. Wish it were sooner.
This is what all commercial scams do — they just keep advertising the virtues of their product even after it is proven harmful and ineffective.
The problem coming down the road is — what are we going to do when there are no independent or non-commercial agencies for evaluating the claims of product promoters?
Because you can bet that goal is high on the corporate agenda.
Government agencies, we don’t need no stinkin government agencies!!
It is so sad that the media continues to fail to report what is really happening. They give voice to these so-called education reformers, even when there is no real data to back up their false claims of success. They fail to inform the tax paying public that their tax dollars are being hijacked by private for-profit companies who have no accountability. Parents have no idea that their children will not have the same rights as they do in public schools. That they will have no voice, nor representation as they do in public schools. That their community schools will be taken over and taken away from them. Look at what happened in New Orleans. By the time parents there realized the truth, it was too late. The NOLA Recovery school district scores at the bottom of the state accountability list. The Dept of Ed puts a great in on it, and the media obliges. I guess that is why Students First listed Louisiana as a success story???
Boy, wouldn’t it be great if the media decided to give voice to the educators (not the pseudo educators from whom we hear so much) that respond here!
Correction: The Dept of Ed puts a great SPIN on it…
Gandhi’s Seven Deadly Sins
Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, considered these traits to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity.
Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice
There is so much to learn in this world. These words are much wiser than any I could offer on my own.
You are an individual who could offer much to this world. Choose wisely.
WM,
Do you have a source for those aphorisms?
Thanks,
Duane
I saw these posted elsewhere and I googled Gandhi Seven Deadly Sins. Easy to find.
I hope Hari gives them some thought.
Thanks!
Thanks for the sobering insight. I love reading Gandhi’s work. It keeps me on the right track with its thought provoking simplicity. It’s a shame that those who really need it, will probably never give those sins a second thought.