Gary Rubinstein here
analyzes the unimpressive showing by Democracy Prep on
the recent disastrous Common Core tests in New York State. He takes
apart the effort by Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham
Institute to rationalize the poor performance of the
much-ballyhooed charter chain. Gary writes, “The hardest
thing about trying to have an intellectual debate with ‘reformers’
is every time they start to lose, they try to change the
rules. First they say “poverty doesn’t matter”
and when it becomes clear that it does, they start saying “Well, it
matters, but we still need to make schools as good as possible and
standardized test accountability is the best way to do that.”
First they deny that charters have a self-selected population that
is easier to teach, and then when you prove them wrong, they say
“Yes, it’s true, but it is a good thing.” Less than a
year ago, Arne
Duncan gave Democracy Prep $9.1 million to open new
schools in poor communities. But if you look at the scatterplots
that Gary constructed, it is clear that Democracy Prep is an
average school, no better than the typical New York City public
school. So why did the U.S. Department give Democracy Prep $9.1
million to open more average schools with high attrition rates in
Harlem and Camden, New Jersey?
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I had thought the reason for his behavior would have been obvious by now—The reformers aren’t interested in truth based on evidence; they’re either true believers in “the free market”, utopians who seek a sort of millenarian change in culture, or they’re charlatans, who are only about selling the public to make money. And often the line between the two is very faint.
I start to wonder if these deformers and privatizers figured that no one else would pay attention to their numbers, since the federales weren’t. Lone whistleblowers like Mary Wood in Michigan have been trying to get folks to notice that a lot was rotten in Chartermark, but few paid attention. Now, finally, the chickens are coming home to roost and it isn’t pretty. Maybe this will be like the latest performance-enhancing drug scandals in baseball: the lying liars and the lies they tell are getting caught.
It is shameful what has happened in Michigan. People are getting rich off of school children. They are ripping off staff and students. I can’t believe that legitimate universities have attached themselves to these schools. The Univ. of Mich. is supposed to be a great school. You should see the crooks they’ve partnered with. Unbelievable. It is surreal.
Here is an example of what type of garbage is expanding in Michigan.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130726/SCHOOLS/307260038
The charter is opening in an old Target. Can you imagine dropping your kid off here? Where is the playground equipment? The gym, etc? TThis is why the state needs professionals looking out for proper education. Just crazy.
Because they’ve abandoned the 95% of schools that are public schools. Look at what’s happened to existing public school systems under Arne Duncan. Can anyone claim reform has improved existing public schools? Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland were reformed. I think Cleveland is on Reform 3.0 but I’ve lost count.
Not only that, the reformers who were IN those cities, same people, have simply moved on to OTHER cities. They have been doing this for a decade now. Same people. How can anyone look at the absolute melt-down in Philadelphia and then HIRE the Philadelphia reformer in yet another city? Yet that’s exactly what’s happened. He failed in Philadelphia and he was hired by the next city. It’s true in Chicago. She came from Cleveland. Is Cleveland a success now?
How can Arne Duncan look at the state of existing public schools and claim success? It is ludicrous.
“How can Arne Duncan look at the state of existing public schools and claim success?”
Teacher demoralization, churn and turnover, elimnation of tenure, closing of public schools while charters expand, monetization of student data, private control of public resources, etc. are the real measure of Duncan and his ilk’s “success.”
Sadly, from that perspective, they continue to succeed.
I think It had made public ed worse and also weakened the country.
Less Kids will go to college. More people will be illiterate and politicians will take over and do what they want. It doesn’t sound good. Instead of rising up now like this country should it seems we are rolling over. I hope people in this country start to wake up and smell the coffee before it is to late. It doesn’t seem to matter who we elect for President they all act the same. We argue about republicans and democratic issues. The politicians seem to sit back and watch us. If we let them get away with it they continue to do what they want. We are the dumb ones!!!