In an earlier post about the indefinite suspension of several principals in Newark, who had protested the closing of their schools at a public meeting, I wrote that state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson was a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Academy.
Readers have informed me that she is not a graduate of said “academy,” but that she is associated with it through a fellow organization:
http://www.broadcenter.org/residency/join/partner-organizations1
This page says Anderson is a “Fellow of the second class of The Pahara – Aspen Education Fellowship.”
http://www.aspenactionforum.org/user/52
Some Pahara participants have done both.
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/news/2012/12/18/pahara-institute-announces-new-class-entrepreneurial-leaders-pahara-aspen-education
Apparently there is a connection between the Broad Foundation and the Pahara Institute and the Aspen Education Fellowship.
Other bloggers no doubt will connect the dots.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Exploring the enclosed links gave me a sinking feeling unlike I have experienced before.The NonEducators are running it all! The flood gates are wide open and the glitzy ads, pictures, business & public policy degrees in place, corporations spewing millions, attention to every minute detail…to profit from high test scores and privatization.
None of them will EVER wear seasonal holiday sweaters for children, or step in front of a bullet, talk a student into turning over his gun, or throw themselves on top of children during a tornado, or wipe a little ones’ nose, or pay for socks or…….
It may all be too late.
H.A. you are accurate;
those 5 colored brochures are pretty expensive;
a lot of wasted money$$$$$ while they accuse schools of being derelict
Thank you, H.A. Hurley, for wearing holiday sweaters for children! I’ve never thought about that before but I think that has the makings of a social movement. Someone who puts the kids first notices that holiday sweaters make students happy and that they encourage friendly conversation and are totally worth being a fashion cliche. Who among us is willing to wear a holiday sweater? Is it you, Eva? Is it you, Michelle?
You have people like Eli Broad who believe principals should be people with MBAs. People like that have no clue whatsoever what public education is all about.
He attended public schools, including a public university, Michigan State. Still think he’s clueless? Privatizers know exactly what they’re doing. They’re trying to prevent future Americans from having the same opportunities that they had.
it says:
“In addition to serving as a management consultant to both national and international non-profits and political organizations, Anderson was the Director of Policy on Cory Booker’s mayoral campaign. Anderson attended the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University possessing degrees in education, anthropology and public policy. Anderson is an Aspen Global Leader Fellow and the recipient of both the Sallie Mae National Teacher of the Year Award and Teach For America’s Peter Jennings Award for Civic Leadership.”
No mention of what degrees she possesses, Harvard is a cesspool for turning out new world order leaders in education and a guaranteed recommendation by Joel Klein. Was awkward that our union leader was honored by the Harvard Club.
Welcome to ‘reform’, where relevant training and in-class experience is not appropriate; rather it is to be sunned like the gates of hell.
As for your phrase, ” …turning out new world order leaders”. I would ask that you reflect on the meaning and derivation of that phrase: it reeks of coded deep right wing racist and anti Semitic ideology.
Regarding Mr. Klein and his ilk, the never were invested in educational equity and school improvement. There is no need to write further about Mr Klein. His odious history in ‘education’ and politics is well known.
Here are the two dots to connect: Dot #1: Run Schools Like a Business… Dot #2: Treat all employees like they are replaceable
Also, don’t forget to rip off the workers, students, and community.
wgersen: in the 90s my boss would slam his fist on the table and say “think like a business man” “don’t think like a teacher” ; he was probably helping me to survive in what he saw was a shark infested water (called public education); it’s gotten much worse since I retired I feel badly for the young people
But ed reform superstar Chris Christie just vouched for her, in his state of the state!
His word is as good as gold. I’m curious how such a ‘hands off” manager can vouch for what anyone does in that state, quite frankly. His story is he knows nothing about anything. Why would he know what she’s up to? Is education more important than transportation?
But he always says, “don’t be stupid”.
I think Christie’s apparent ignorance of what anyone he appoints is doing is an extension of the ed reform “relinquish” idea for government.
That’s where elected leaders cede all accountability and responsibility for public schools to CEO’s and private foundations.
Politicians love this idea, naturally. Running public schools is hard. Why not outsource? The problem they may run into down the road is this plan makes elected leaders completely irrelevant 🙂
I was reading the Philadelphia mayor’s statement Friday, on how the appointed ed reform board in that city will be taking things over. He sounded bitter, and no wonder! He’s no more “running” those public schools than I am.
You can add “Bellweather Education Partners” to the shadow groups of corporate privatizers.
Out here in Los Angeles, there were two union (UTLA) teacher guys—Mike Stryer and James Encinas—who suddenly and strangely started spouting all this corporate ed party line stuff. All of a sudden, they were writing op-eds about abolishing seniority, pushing union-wide referendums demanding VAM, and on and on…
It was like these two guys were replaced by pod people clones right out of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. It was really that creepy.
When asked if they were getting corporate money, they gave non answers. Encinas picked at his shabby shirt and said, “Does it look like I’m getting corporate money?”
Well, thank to GOOGLE, we soon found out the shabby shirt was just a cover…. either that, or he’s just a real lousy dresser.
The next time that either James Encinas or Mike Stryer showed
up and started to speak at a House or Reps meeting, or at an
Area meeting, or at a chapter meeting, or wherever…
people asked them about their being awardees as
the “2012 Aspen Teacher Leader Fellows”.
And they pretty much shut up after that.
Stryer left teaching—or took a leave of absence… I’m
not sure—to head up the local branch of TEACH PLUS.
This is a right-wing, anti-union think tank that just
anointed James and Mike as their “educational change agents.”
Go to the following website:
http://bellwethereducation.org/aspen-teacher-leader-fellows-2012/
It’s says of Mike and James and the other 2012 Fellows:
—————————————————————————
” “By investing in these leaders, and giving them an opportunity
for greater collaboration and leadership encouragement over the
course of two years together, we believe they will create even more
positive change for the profession and for the children of this country.””
—————————————————————————
Whoa, whoa… “investing in…” ??? Does that mean that James and
Mike are being paid by “Bellweather Education Partners” and / or
the Aspen Institute???!!!
Isn’t that a conflict of interest? Doesn’t it taint and call into question
anything they have to say, or any UTLA referendum or House motion
they’re pushing members to sign, or House members to vote for?
Here’s more:
—————————————————————————
“In collaboration with the Aspen Institute, and with the generous
support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Smith launched
this pilot fellowship program in order to foster greater leadership
capacity among a diverse group of leaders working to enhance
the teaching profession itself, and to strengthen student
achievement at the same time.”
—————————————————————————
Now, we know who’s paying Mike and James… if they are being paid.
—————————————————————————
“In addition, Fellows will design and undertake projects aimed
at strengthening the teaching profession and the capacity of
educators to improve student achievement.”
—————————————————————————
Uh huh… “projects”… next time, either of these guys try to push a
union referendum, or a House motion, or whatever… please keep in mind
and communicate to the membership the ultimate source behind what
they’re pushing and saying, and who’s funding it.
And could someone please communicate this as widely and as thoroughly as
possible to the membership, parents, public, etc. ?
Again, here’s the Fellows list.
(Note it includes the leader of Illinois’ teacher union IEA,
Audrey Soglin, who pushed legislation that sold out the unions rights to strike… or so they thought… her actions led to the infamous Jonah Edelman “shove-it-down-their-throats” speech and video from the summer of 2011..
Also, there’s Massachusetts’ Paul Toner
Anybody else know what these sell-outs listed below have
been up to?)
—————————————————————————
“The 2012 Aspen Teacher Leader Fellows are:
“Carrie Bakken, Program Coordinator and Teacher, Avalon School
“Jean Clements, President, Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association
“Celine Coggins, Founder and CEO, Teach Plus
“Kerrie Dallman, President, Jefferson County Education Association
“Christopher Eide, Founder and Executive Director, Teachers United
“James Encinas, Teacher, Westminster Avenue Elementary School
“Nina Esposito-Visgitis, President, Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers
“Ira Fishman, Managing Director and COO, NFL Players Association
“Emily Ayscue Hassel, Co-Director, Public Impact
“Heather Kirkpatrick, Vice President of Education, Aspire Public Schools
“Tony Klemmer, Founder and President, The Center for Better Schools & the National Academy of Advanced Teacher Education
“David Low, Vice President for High Schools & School Reform, New Haven Federation of Teachers, and Teacher, Sound School
“Christopher Poulos, Teacher, Joel Barlow High School
“Lewis Robinson, Executive Director, Prince George’s County Educators’ Association
“Cynthia Robinson-Rivers, Manager of Teacher Effectiveness Strategy, DC Public Schools
“Mark Sass, Teacher, Legacy High School
“Audrey Soglin, Executive Director, Illinois Education Association
“Michael Stryer, Director of New Unionism, Future is Now Schools
“Paul Toner, President, Massachusetts Teachers Association
“Andrew Vanden Heuvel, Teacher, Michigan Virtual School
“Robert Williams, Teacher, Colony High School “
Who are these people, and why are they giving Harvard a bad name?
People are starting to wake up to the corporate attempt to privatize the public schools. The question is, is it too little and too late? This article says the Newark school closings are starting to be address in the New Jersey legislature.
Fight Over School Closings in Newark, Other Cities Heads to Legislative Area
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/14/01/16/fight-over-school-closings-heads-to-legislative-arena/
“Bellweather”? “Pahara”?… it never ends.
How many of these “Aspen Education” groups do they have?
And how many “Fellows”?
From the link above:
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/news/2012/12/18/pahara-institute-announces-new-class-entrepreneurial-leaders-pahara-aspen-education
BELOW is the list.
(Keep in mind that many of these folks already make six-figure salaries
i.e. KIPP’s Mike Feinberg pulls down $400,000 / year)
——————-
“The 24 Pahara-Aspen Education Fellows who have been selected to begin in the spring of 2013 are:
“Jay Altman, Chief Executive Officer, FirstLine Schools
“Susan Asiyanbi, Executive Vice President, Teacher Preparation, Support, and Development, Teach For America
‘Jim Blew, Director of K-12 Education Reform, Walton Family Foundation
“Tom Boasberg, Superintendent, Denver Public Schools
“Stacey Childress, Deputy Director of Education, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
‘J. Kristean Dragon, Chief Executive Officer, Citizens of the World Charter Schools
“Mike Feinberg, Co-Founder, KIPP Foundation & Executive Vice Chair, KIPP Houston
“Joe Ferguson, Chief Operating Officer, Mastery Charter Schools
“Karen Symms Gallagher, Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California
“Ron Gonzales, President & Chief Executive Officer, Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley
“Aimee Guidera, Founder & Executive Director, Data Quality Campaign
“Christina Heitz, Managing Director, The Broad Superintendents Academy, The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems
“Mike Johnston, State Senator, Colorado State Senate
“David Keeling, Vice President for Communications, TNTP
“Emily Lawson, Founder, DC Prep
“Michael Magee, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Rhode Island Mayoral Academies
“Trish Millines Dziko, Founder and CEO, Technology Access Foundation
“Vanessa Rodriguez, Chief Executive Officer, District 79 Alternative Schools and Programs, New York City Department of Education
“Joel Rose, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, New Classroom Innovation Partners
“Aylon Samouha, Chief Executive Officer, Lighthouse Academies
“Brian Sims, Managing Director for Training Academies and Teacher Development, Academy for Urban School Leadership
“Kimberly A. Smith, President, K12 digimedia
“Diane Tavenner, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Summit Public Schools
“Gregory White, President and Chief Executive Officer, LEARN Charter School Network”
My favorite part of those links is Cami’s own project at Aspen:
“Increasing African-American and Latino Leadership in the Education Reform Movement – Increasing senior leadership roles among African-Americans and Latinos, who share the racial and socio-economic backgrounds of the students that many entrepreneurial education reform organizations within the movement serve.”
She isn’t going to increase senior leadership roles for the courageous principals in Newark, who are defending their communities and their children from the callous, profit-driven entrepreneurs who have colonized their city with her.
Chemtchr ~
Boy, if that isn’t a slap in the face to that community & it’s educators!
The privileged, unprofessional, unethical, clambering, stepping over, controlling, dictatorial, shaming…..nonhumans being ‘birthed’ by these organizations and universities. This master plan & final solution is a master piece. It is working like a charm for them. When eventually the wheels fall off and they are not making a killing with profits, who will be left to pick up the pieces? China? Turkey? …..
H. A.,
HOW TRUE!!! HOW TRUE!!
Are we EVER going to be able to get the citizens, parents, and students of this nation to WAKE UP???? I talk this everywhere I go and everywhere I can to raise awareness….
I propose that everyone that posts to this blog write one letter to President Obama and one letter to their local newspaper. This will not only raise awareness but there is strength in numbers!! As others have pointed out, we must raise our voices not only within this blog, but outside this blog as well. They cannot ignore our numbers if we work collectively in public places and space!
Why become so upset with a Superintendent’s fake credentials. Our current Secretary of Education’s only credential is his jump shot.
Duncan is like the majority of administrators in the United States and a very large number of teachers who get hired over much more qualified applicants–it’s all about the connections, not about ability.
While I do not discount connections, what bothered me as a teacher and administrator, was the profound disrespect for the kind of professional knowledge a teacher should possess when they enter the classroom. Throughout my career I observed teachers and administrators being hired for all the wrong reasons—they could coach football, they were good at passing referendums, they were good with P.R., and the newest arrival—they are data driven. Rarely in these conversations did I hear the sole criteria for employment: they were excellent teachers. What is most disturbing is that this profound disrespect for the profession of teaching is shared by both parties — in fact, what is most disturbing it appears that if you have educational credentials you are immediately discounted as a viable candidate.
Exactly. I haven’t completely finished with Diane’s book, but I don’t think she even addresses the nepotism /cronyism issue at all, and it really IS the ONE big, legitimate problem in public education. If I decide to “review” her book on my blog, I will note this obvious omission, if it is omitted in her book. The big problem in the hiring process is that public education, unlike most other public sectors, isn’t governed by a civil service system. We all know of people–we may actually BE those people–who are passed over for jobs to make room for somebody’s kid or spouse who never had to look for work in this horrifically competitive field. It isn’t right.
Or, like you said, they were “good” at things having nothing to do with teaching ability. The hiring process is really a dirty secret in public ed.
You are SO RIGHT, Alan! Year after year, I become SO TIRED of seeing important teaching positions of important subjects being given to someone who could CARE LESS about teaching students…and then DON’T teach students (students are just allowed to “sit” in class while other coaches come in and they work on playbooks and new plays …..because they “desperately needed” another FOOTBALL COACH!!…TO ADD TO THE 15+ THEY ALREADY HAVE–AND THE FOOTBALL TEAM STILL CONTINUES TO LOSE!!! But, why can’t “regular” teachers understand? After all, the administrators are former coaches….it has to be the BEST for “the team”! And, never mind that with all the “evaluations” that we “regular” teachers have to go thru….all heads are conveniently turned the other way when coaches get their “perfect” evaluations!
ThankS to you and Susan for noting this!
One thing that some of these people on the above list have in common is that they received highly critical “Open Letters” from fellow TFA Corps Member (some might call him TFA Apostate) Gary Rubenstein.
These include Mike Johnston, Mike Feinberg, and Joel Rose.
I’ve posted both the links and Gary’s “Open Letters” included below.
I know, I know… it’s a lot to read. You don’t have to read it all if you don’t want.
First, ere’s Gary’s “Open Letter to Mike Johnston”:
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/12/01/open-letters-to-reformers-i-know-part-3-michael-johnston/
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
11/30/12
Dear Mike,
Though we’ve only met a few times, I think of you as a friend. Certainly we’re friends in the Facebook sense as I sometimes enjoy your family pictures when they appear on my newsfeed. I also have great respect for you. You are a true ‘mover and shaker,’ getting elected to state senator so young and doing a lot of good there in Denver, which has a special place in my heart, having lived there for six years. I think of all the people I know, you have the best chance of being President of the United States one day — I mean that.
But I’m concerned about what’s going on with education around the country and I want to clear some things up about how I see you fitting into it. From what you once wrote to me, it seems like you view ed reform as if there are two ‘sides.’ There’s the side of the ‘reformers,’ people, many of them TFA, who believe in the unlimited potential of students. And then there are the other people — maybe they can be described as the ‘union.’ These are pessimists who see change as a threat to their comfortable lifestyle. They don’t think education can be improved much until “poverty is fixed” first so why bother? I think that if I thought those were the only two sides, I would side with the ‘reformers’ too.
But I don’t oppose the proposed reforms of DFER because I don’t think schools can be improved. My fear is that since the DFERers have little idea about how schools actually work, they propose reforms that will, in my opinion, make schools worse. A big example is the overuse of standardized test ‘growth’ as a measure of school and teacher quality. Though it seems like a good idea in theory, these ‘growth’ scores are too inaccurate. I already see places like D.C. backpedaling and reducing the percent from 50% to 35%. One day it will be down to 20%, I expect.
I don’t know a lot about the bill you got passed, but I know that it does put a lot of faith in these metrics. But I think you have made a time table where things don’t get implemented until 2014. To me this means that you are not just rushing into something that is not ready yet. You could have easily just taken D.C.’s IMPACT model, and the fact that you didn’t, to me, shows that you are trying to do something that is fair.
Though I do think that schools can improve, I will admit that I do think there is a limit to what can be accomplished by just ‘fixing’ schools and ‘fixing’ teachers primarily by ‘fixing’ teacher evaluation. I have not seen much evidence that this type of reform is working anywhere. It certainly isn’t working in D.C.. But the ‘reformers’ never seem to want to face the mounting evidence that the reforms aren’t improving achievement and are, instead, encouraging teachers change their teaching so they might ‘game’ the new metrics.
I’ve been teaching now for fifteen years, and some of my best lessons are the ones where I insert something into the curriculum that won’t be part of any standardized test, but will inspire my students to like math more. If my salary and my ability to support my family were heavily weighted by my ‘value-added’ I’d have to think carefully before risking doing something that won’t be on the test.
I think it is easy to forget, after leaving the classroom, how tough teaching is. I hope that whatever school and teacher evaluation system you eventually adopt, you take the time to see how your own school that you were principal of would have fared on the system. Though the test scores at MESA were very low, you know that your teachers were working hard and ‘making a difference’ despite some computer saying that the students were not getting enough ‘growth’ and the teachers were not adding enough ‘value.’ I think that there can be great schools that score low on these types of metrics and other schools that are not really so good, but manage to rank high when measured by these same formulas.
I encourage you to see that there are not just two sides that you have to choose from. There is a full spectrum. If you are not an extremist, let us know that.
You are the fourth person I’ve written an open letter to. The first three, Tilson, Levin, and Feinberg have all written me back short private emails. Nobody, yet, is willing to go on record with ‘the enemy,’ I guess. I’m hoping that you’d be willing, though, to answer publicly. It might encourage the others to do so as well and then we can really get a chance to have an honest discussion about what is working, what isn’t, and what to try next.
Sincerely,
Gary
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Here’s Gary’s “Open Letter to Mike Feinberg (& his partner Dave Levin)”:
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/11/26/open-letters-to-reformers-i-know-part-2-dave-levin-and-mike-feinberg/
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
25 November 2012
Dear Dave and Mike,
I know it’s been a while. I saw both of you briefly nearly two years ago at the TFA 20th thing. Before that, it must have been 2008 when Mike and I met for wings when I was in Houston or when I ran into Dave on the street on The Upper West Side.
I don’t know what you may or may not have heard about my ‘conversion’ from a TFA cheerleader to a current outspoken critic of both TFA and of many things now called ed reform. As charters are a big part of the discussion on how to improve schools, and any conversation about charters is going to lead to something about KIPP, I found myself feeling a little strange as I’ve needed to do research challenging the claims by an organization founded and run by two of my long-time TFA friends.
I want to let you know that it would be a great oversimplification to say that I’m ‘anti-KIPP’ or ‘anti-charter’ or even ‘anti-TFA.’ I think that everything has its place in improving education, but that when a strategy is used beyond the purpose it was intended for, I get concerned.
I’ll get straight to the point: I think that KIPP is too defensive when responding to critics. Now of course people and organizations get defensive when they feel they are getting attacked, but I’d like to encourage you to look at it a bit differently.
The reason KIPP is under such a microscope, recently, is that the results that you claim to get with the ‘same kids’ and the ‘same funding’ as nearby ‘failing’ schools has led politicians to shut down schools and fire teachers who are not measuring up to the KIPP standard. This concerns me a lot.
As far as the ‘same funding’ goes, there was some recent report that KIPP schools had a lot more funding per pupil and then there was a KIPP response that the report was misleading. They then said that it wasn’t. Now I do think that a lot of schools, district and charters alike do not make the best use of their money so ‘throwing money at the problem’ does not always work. But if you are really spending more per student and you are doing it wisely, why not just say that being efficient with money AND having more money is something that would help all schools.
But what I consider to be the biggest issue is that KIPP, like all schools, surely is somewhat limited in the percent of students that they are able to make, as TFA likes to say, ‘transformative change.’ When a politician gushes about KIPP they seem to imply that KIPP is the, so-called, silver-bullet. That you have figured out how to reach even the most difficult to teach students. Now the attrition rate of KIPP (around 10%) is no secret. You publish it yourself in your annual report. And though you are not obligated to put a spotlight on what you haven’t been able to accomplish, it is important that when you have a group of 5th graders and you lose 10% each year, you end up with nearly 40% of the original cohort leaving. In a speech that Mike made which I saw on YouTube he said that this was a better attrition rate than the neighborhood schools. I think this is misleading. The neighborhood schools take the kids who leave the charters, though charters generally don’t get the kids who leave the neighborhood schools. I’m going to write something very obvious here, yet something that is not often said: Not every school is a good fit for every kid. And this is true for KIPP also. There are some kids who, for various reasons, aren’t able — or willing — to do what it takes to get through KIPP. Now this isn’t something to be ashamed of, but it is a reality that the politicians and other ed ‘reformers’ who seem to love nothing more than shutting down schools to make space for more charters are not willing to admit.
I actually visited my first KIPP recently, a high school in NYC. I did not see all the teachers, but from what I saw I’d say the school was ‘fine.’ I didn’t see much that was particularly innovative. In one English class I saw kids on laptops practicing reading short passages and answering multiple choice questions. I know you don’t micro-manage your schools to conform to a particular KIPP philosophy, and trust them to do what they think they need to do for their kids, but I still can’t get too excited about those kinds of activities.
Though I think KIPP stays out of the larger ‘ed reform’ debate, many KIPP supporters are very enthusiastic about the use of data to sort, rank, and, if necessary, punish schools and teachers. I’m interested on what you think about the various different types of measurements and whether or not you think they are accurate enough to comprise a large percent of a school or teachers rating.
If you guys are willing to respond, here are three things to think about:
1) What do you think about schools getting closed and teachers getting fired because they are not living up to the KIPP scores?
2) What do you think about the accuracy of school report cards in various states? There are some KIPPs that have gotten very low scores on these. Does this mean that these schools are ‘bad’ or does it mean that the rating system is flawed?
3) What do you think about the value-added metrics that have given your own superstar math teacher who has been with you since the beginning (omitting his name for privacy purposes) just a rating in the 40th percentile for 7th grade math and in the 67th percentile for 8th grade? Is this not proof that the value-added ratings are very flawed?
You both know that I have a lot of respect for you as teachers and also for being some of the hardest workers I’ve ever met. My attempts to put KIPP results into a more of a context is not an attempt to discredit you, and I hope you don’t see it that way. I think that as far as charter networks go, KIPP is probably the most transparent of all. Still, I think you can lead the way and be even more transparent about what sorts of things you have not been able to do yet.
I hope I’m not putting you in a position where you have to either ignore my open letter or say things that might upset some of your allies. Figuring out what will best help schools is very difficult. I don’t claim to have many answers myself, but open discussion is definitely better that discussion controlled by few.
Your early 90′s Houston TFA brother,
Gary
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Here’s Gary’s “Open Letter to Joel Rose”:
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/11/22/open-letters-to-b-list-reformers-i-know-part-1-joel-rose/
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
November 19th 2013
Dear Joel,
I know receiving one of my famous ‘open letters’ isn’t the ideal way for you to hear from me, but since we go way back to the days in Stratton Hall, and have been in touch, off and on, for the past twenty-five years, I’m hoping you’ll be willing to offer a public response which I will post on my blog. In the over-simplified world in which there are ‘reformers’ and ‘anti-reformers,’ I’m hearing a lot, mainly from the ‘reformer’ side, about how the sides need to communicate more and be more civil. I’m hoping that this latest letter will serve as an example of this.
Joel, who would have figured twenty-five years ago when we met at Tufts University — home of The Jumbos — that we’d have such parallel lives, teaching in Houston and ending up in math education while living so close to each another. But even if someone could have figured this out, they would be shocked to find that I was bitterly opposed to the marketing of an educational technology that may have the potential to do some good.
As you remember I came to visit the ‘School of One’ a few years back and was not impressed by what I saw. There were so many issues I had that it was tough to figure out if the program was salvageable by addressing some of those issues or if each of the issues was, by itself, some kid of ‘deal breaker.’ From what I’ve read you’ve worked to improve the program, but there remain some fundamental issues that I have with the program which I will describe in more detail at the end of this letter.
I love technology. Ever since I got my first Mattel Football electronic game some time in the late 1970s, I was hooked on gadgets and gizmos. When I got my first computer, an Atari 800, for my Bar Mitzvah in December of 1982 I learned to program in BASIC which eventually led to me, nearly twenty years later, getting a master’s degree in computer science and even working as a programmer for the six years before I moved back to New York and started teaching math again. I know that technology, when used appropriately, can help people be considerably more productive and that teachers struggle, even me, to make the most use of very limited time. As a teacher I use technology all the time for administrative and for pedagogical reasons. I keep my grades on my computer and I make my materials on it too. I maintain my class websites where I update each day with lesson notes and homework assignments for kids who are absent. I also have my own YouTube channel where I have posted about 100 math videos, some of which have gone ‘viral’ getting over 20,000 views for a lesson on ‘The Extended Euclidean Algorithm,’ for example. My favorite use of technology in the classroom, though, is when I take my students to the computer lab to use the absolute best math education software ever created, The Geometer’s Sketchpad, which enables students to ‘explore’ Geometry and figure out their own conjectures and interact with the figures to learn about their mysteries. So I have nothing against technology, I hope you’ll agree.
A few days ago I read about a press conference in which you presented the results of a newly released research paper about Teach to One produced by some professors at Columbia Teacher’s College. The results, they said, were ‘encouraging,’ showing that the ‘gains’ of Teach to One students exceeded the national average gain on the MAP test. This is a report that I have a feeling you will be quoting for years to come as you pitch your program to districts around the country, and even the world.
So I downloaded the twenty-five page paper and read it carefully and need to report to you some bad news and some good news.
The bad news is that this paper is the most amateurish piece of Jumbo the Elephant poop I’ve seen in all my years of reading these kinds of reports. It just isn’t up to the Tufts standard that Sol Gittleman would have accepted in Yid Lit. The methodology of the study renders it completely invalid which is why they admit in the executive summary and elsewhere throughout the paper, “Please note that these analyses cannot attribute TtO student results to the TtO model: the data available did not permit the use of an experimental design, which would be necessary to establish a link between the implementation of the program and the student test results.” They are keeping this paper away from Nate Silver as they are concerned that if he sees this ‘research’ he may lapse into a stress-induced coma. The issue is that there there is no way to draw any conclusion from comparing the average MAP gain of the students in Teach to One to the national average gain since they are not similar demographics. If lower performing students generally get larger gains than average students and the students in Teach to One are lower performing students then it should be expected for them to get larger gains than the national average, which they do. Why these researchers didn’t get more relevant data, only they can know for sure, but this detail does truly invalidate any of their conclusions, which is something I want you to remember any time you tout their conclusions.
So yes, this is bad news that I will advise you to tout the results of this paper since it was the thing that you really seem to have needed after not releasing any really good news about the program in several years. But I did mention that I had good news too. And the good news is actually the same as the bad news since much of what they conclude in that paper is actually very negative and discouraging about your program. For example, when they broke the gains down by race, it turned out that black students actually underperformed against the national average for black students. This is not something that you would want a district that serves predominantly black students to know about. But now that you’ve heard about how terrible that study was the good news is that you will be able to dismiss critics, even critics like me, who might hold statistics like that up as some kind of ‘proof’ that the program isn’t working as well as advertised, that no conclusions drawn from this paper can be taken seriously.
Another conclusion from the paper is that it only produced gains for below average students. For average and for above average students, the program, this study says, did not really accomplish much. If, as ‘reformers’ believe, our country is threatened by our weak academic scores in comparison to other countries, this paper would lead us to not invest more in Teach to One. Our national academic strength is not going to come from must making the below average students a bit less below average. Fortunately you will also be able to say, now, that this paper can be pretty much ignored any time critics try to trot out statistics from it which paint your program in a bad light.
There are some things I like about computer assisted learning. As a teacher it is a challenge to assess whether all the students are learning and even whether all students who look like they are working are truly working. Having students enter their answers into some kind of system, like clickers, for instance, or even by texting them somewhere for schools that allow cell phones, is something I’d like to incorporate into my own class.
But there are some big issues I have with computerized learning, particularly the setup of Teach to One. For one, I think there is just way too much going on in that big room for people to concentrate. You’ve compared Tt1 to an airport and I don’t think the hustle of an airport is very conducive to learning. Also, I’m not so sure that ‘self pacing’ is always a good thing. When students choose their own pace, they might go deliberately slow though the topics, taking the path of least resistance. I feel like the ‘personalized’ learning programs enable them to do so. I also don’t think that the type of math that you can learn on a computer is really the kind of math that is actually worth learning. In a post I recently wrote which got over 10,000 views called ‘The Death of math’ I explained a bit more about what I mean by this.
On another level, I guess I see the ed tech industry as an arm of the ‘reform’ industry in general. I suppose it doesn’t have to be this way. When I think about Texas Instruments calculators, for example, I always see them as something that assists teaching and learning and isn’t seen by ‘reformers’ as a way to prove that education is completely antiquated. When technology is framed that way, I’m much less resistant to it. As I mentioned before, I think The Geometer’s Sketchpad offers an authentic learning experience, when done right, which has helped me create some of my most meaningful lessons. But in my experience, most education technology is a waste of money. I also disagree very much with your promotional materials that present your program as the only alternative to a 1950s style classroom for which you use this image:
I do think that this is a stretch. In your own classroom, this is not how your math instruction looked and as a NYC DOE executive, I’m sure that a lot of the math instruction you observed did not resemble this either.
I guess the big issue, though, is the fact that the two of us can have such similar backgrounds and life paths and yet end up on such opposite sides when it comes to what we have learned about what will improve schools and what won’t. When I think of the trip we took to Houston, I got to see you as a true educator who thrived on the relationships you built with your class. When I contrast this priority with the modern ‘reform’ concept of data and measuring ‘gains’ and proficiency percents, the two concepts just seem so incongruous.
Well, that’s it for now. I know that getting an ‘open letter’ like this is pretty strange, but this is my way of personalizing the difficult very public debate about education that is going on nowadays. Very few people have written back to me, you might know. My thought is that people don’t want to put much into writing which might somehow come back to haunt them later. Or maybe they don’t want their new buddies to believe that they have known an outspoken ‘reform’ critic like me for twenty years. I don’t know, but hopefully you’ll be one of the few who does.
Sincerely,
Gary
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Meryll Tisch and the NYS Regents also have a connection to Aspen; Tisch’s sister-in-law is on the board and the Regents recently attended an Aspen “retreat.” This runs deep; we need to keep digging.
Who could wade through all of that. Either you’re in it for the money, or you are not. If you enjoy being in the classroom with kids, it doesn’t matter about other’s promotions, if you identify as a teacher and control your room.. So many administrators flee the classroom as teachers, they are not suited to become teachers. Spare us the jocularity..
Spare us the reductionist dichotomy.
cant tell you just how sick I feel reading all the “follow-the-money-connect-the-dots” stuff above.
I – with Dora Taylor, Sue Peters and a handful of others here in Seattle – began researching the connections between Milken, Broad, Gates, MIlton Friedman’s Foundation, AFT, UTA, Duncan, TFA, Rhee, Stand For Children, various legislators and city officials, the various other astro turf groups in Seattle and nationally etc seven years ago & the “hostile takeover of public education” ed deform monster just keeps growing and growing and growing…
The problem is, what’s playing out in public education is the micro of the macro … as above, so below; as within, so without… it’s the fractal reduction of what’s going on in our broader economic, political, social and evironmental systems…
We are never going to kill this beast by being nice, playing by the rules…. seriously – if we want to turn things around, we are going to have to take back the power… we are going to have to put it all on the line…. and I know that’s scarey – but really, what have we got left to lose? And if we dont, what will happen to our kids?
Excellent comment.
Your analysis is ‘right on’. Your recommendation in your final paragraph speaks to the kernel of the issue and problem of recognizing that ‘nice’, ‘comfortable’ and ever so rational responses to the monster that is destroying Our public schools and public education system is has become incredibly complex and powerful right before our eyes and is virtually immune to the traditional liberal forms of resistance; the education as business entrepreneur complex resembles what President Eisenhower named the Military-Industrial Complex. Given the similarities between the controlling, consuming monsters, we must generate an opposition that will ” Bring the War home” in every community that faces the destruction of its public school. Otherwise, we might as well .
, fold up our tents and sue for peace, cut any deal that maintains a semblance of public school education. Reading the blogs if opposition, this option does not appear to be viable. The only question is where and how the real resistance will become manifest. Seattle has a long progressive tradition. Perhaps Seattle will set the example of what can be done.