Archives for the month of: May, 2012
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Cracks in New Orleans Coverage

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2012 //
2

My informants in New Orleans forwarded a story that appeared in the local Times-Picayune. The story begins as the usual paean of praise to the miracle of New Orleans,where public education was wiped out and most children now attend charter schools. But at mid-point, the story takes a surprising turn. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/05/sen_mary_landrieu_touts_new_or.html

It quotes an article I wrote in the New York Review of Books that questioned both the miracle of charters and the claims of Teach for America. Then the article cites at length the research of Charles Hatfield, who methodically reviewed the performance of the charters in the Reovery School district and found it decidedly non-miraculous.

Ordinarily, it would not be news to find a balanced news story on a controversial issue. But from what I have heard, the charter media machine has worked hard to establish the miracle narrative, especially in the local New Orleans press. This story, I’m told, is a breakthrough. Questions are raised. Critics of the official line are allowed to speak and be heard.

Read it. Good reporting.Maybe the corporate reform facade is beginning to get the scrutiny it deserves.

Diane

Categories New Orleans

The Nation’s Largest Charter Chain

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2012 //
4

Most people think that KIPP is the nation’s largest charter chain, but that’s not correct. KIPP has 109 schools. The Gulen Movement has 135 charter schools.

I mentioned in my last post that the Gulen network is associated with a Turkish imam. One of my Twitter correspondents asked me to explain.

I am attaching two links. One is by Sharon Higgins, an independent researcher who has followed the growth of the Gulen Movement’s charters, the other is a page-one article from the New York Times about the imam Fethullah Gulen; it mentions his charters in passing.

There are legitimate questions to be raised about public dollars funding schools that are tied to a cleric, as well as questions about a charter chain that has close ties with another nation.

Public schools have a civic purpose: they are supposed to prepare young Americans for citizenship. That’s why the public supports them with its taxes.

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/largest-charter-network-in-us-schools-tied-to-turkey/2012/03/23/gIQAoaFzcS_blog.html); (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/world/middleeast/turkey-feels-sway-of-fethullah-gulen-a-reclusive-cleric.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all)

Diane

Categories Charter Schools, KIPP Charter Schools

“Incubators of Innovation?”

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2012 //
8

To mark National Charter School Week, President Obama issued a proclamation hailing charter schools as “incubators of innovation.”

I began wondering what exactly he was thinking about.

I wonder if he ever visited the website http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/.

I wonder if he knows about the nation’s largest charter chain, the Gulen network, run by associates of a Turkish imam. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/largest-charter-network-in-us-schools-tied-to-turkey/2012/03/23/gIQAoaFzcS_blog.html); (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/world/middleeast/turkey-feels-sway-of-fethullah-gulen-a-reclusive-cleric.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all).

I wonder if he was thinking about the “no excuses” charter schools, where mostly black children are taught obedience, conformity, and docility.

I wonder if he was thinking about the studies showing that charters are even more segregated than their host districts.

I wonder if he was thinking about New Orleans, where charters have displaced the public education system, and the district is the lowest, or next to the lowest performing in a low-performing state.

I wonder if he was thinking of the for-profit charters, which are making a bundle.

I wonder if he was thinking of the for-profit online corporation, whose CEO was paid $5 million last year.

I wonder if he has heard of the many studies showing that charters on average don’t get better results than public schools.

Or maybe he was thinking about the campaign cash of the Wall Street hedge fund managers who love charters.

Diane

Categories Education Reform

Public Schools Do Pre-K Better, Says John White of Louisiana

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2012 //
4

I just read an astonishing article by John White, the young TFA/Broad superintendent of Louisiana. He says that public school districts do a better job of providing pre-K schooling than other providers. http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20120507/OPINION/205070301/John-White-Make-important-changes-pre-K-education. This is the same John White who works for Governor Bobby Jindal, the hero of the privatization movement. This is the same John White that travels the state advocating for vouchers and charters so that poor kids in “failing” schools (the majority of children in Louisiana) can flee to private schools. This is the same John White who, when he worked in New York City, used to measure public schools to make room for privately managed charters.

But now he says, for reasons unknown, that district schools do a better job for pre-kindergarten children in readying them for kindergarten. My friends in Louisiana tell me that the Legislature plans to mandate pre-K but to provide no funding for it. It’s a great idea to mandate pre-kindergarten, but why not fund it? Why another unfunded mandate?

And why is John White now putting down the private providers of pre-K at the same time that his administration is launching the nation’s most far-reaching privatization scheme for K-12?

If anyone can figure this out, please let me know.

Diane

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Pre-K

The United States of Pearson?

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2012 //
6

Ever since the debacle of Pineapplegate, it is widely recognized by everyone other than the publishing giant Pearson that its tentacles have grown too long and too aggressive. It is difficult to remember what part of American education has not been invaded by Pearson’s corporate grasp. It receives billions of dollars to test millions of students. Its scores will be used to calculate the value of teachers. It has a deal with the Gates Foundation to store all the student-level data collected at the behest of Race to the Top. It recently purchased Connections Academy, thus giving it a foothold in the online charter industry. And it recently added the GED to its portfolio.

With the U.S. Department of Education now pressing schools to test children in second grade, first grade, kindergarten–and possibly earlier–and with the same agency demanding that schools of education be evaluated by the test scores of the students of their graduates (whew!), the picture grows clear. Pearson will control every aspect of our education system.

Today, we learned from Michael Winerip in the New York Times that Pearson has made a deal with Stanford University to license teachers, no matter what state they are in. The deal is this: the school of education is supposed to send Pearson two 10-minute videos of the prospective teacher, plus the response to a written examination. Someone in the Pearson shop–possibly a retired teacher–will evaluate the prospect and decide after a brief review, whether they should get a license to teach. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/education/new-procedure-for-teaching-license-draws-protest.html?_r=2&src=rechp

It seems the teaching candidates at U.-Mass in Amherst say they won’t do it. They prefer to be evaluated by the people who see them teach every day. Their professors prefer to use their judgment about their students, rather than to outsource it to people who will never see their students face-to-face.

This is a hopeful sign. We should never forget that we always have the power to say no. It takes courage. But it can be done. Say no.

We can say no to testing. We can say no to anything that offends our basic values. We can stop the corporatization of public education. We can stop the outsourcing of responsibility from public institutions to Pearson and other providers.

Many years ago, I interviewed a famous at MIT about the role of standardized tests in education. He said something I never forgot. He said, “Let me write a nation’s tests, and I care not who writes its songs or laws.”

Are we prepared to hand over our children, our teachers, and our definition of knowledge to Pearson?

Categories Pearson

Are Test Scores the Point?

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2012 //
5

We have reached a point in our public life where the only way to demonstrate the success of a school is to say it has higher test scores than some other school. But we all know–or should know–that there are many ways to get higher test scores without having a better school.

Some schools get higher test scores because they have a selection mechanism. The selection mechanism might be as simple as a test for entry. That screens out low-scoring students. But no one would be so brazen as to say that an exam-entry school was therefore better than an open-admission school.

But there are more subtle ways to get higher scores. Another is to have a lottery for admission. That means that parents must fill out papers to apply for admission. That screens out parents who don’t have the knowledge or the motivation to fill out an application.

Another way is to limit the admission of special-education students because your school doesn’t have the personnel or resources to help them. That screens out students who might present problems, require expensive trained staff, and possibly have lower scores because of their disability.

Another way is to have a high attrition rate and not to admit new students as current students leave the school. The ones who leave are likely to be those who are having trouble meeting the academic demands of the school or who are in trouble because of breaking school rules. That means that each successive class is smaller and more compliant and likelier to have higher grades.

Another way is to accept few or no students who are English language learners. That helps raise the school’s test scores.

Another is to have more money to spend on smaller classes, on intensive tutoring, and on other things that produce higher test scores.

In a blog for CNN, Gary Rubinstein identified the many kinds of cheating that are now being employed to inflate schools’ test scores: http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/12/my-view-the-other-types-of-cheating/.

Some researchers believe that the best way to measure the performance of students who enter a charter lottery is to compare the scores of those who won the lottery and those who lost. That is widely trumpeted as “the gold standard” of research, but even this method has a defect. The ones who win are enrolled in a small school with small classes, the latest technology, and peers who are equally motivated. The ones who lose the lottery are likely to enroll in the neighborhood school with larger classes, obsolete technology, and peers who include students who are unmotivated, as well as peers with disabilities and peers who are just learning English. So, this is by no means a fair comparison since the two groups of students will have access to unequal resources and opportunities.

So, I am left with the view that we need a far better way to describe successful schools. Test scores alone are not the way. They may define a school where students spend every day engaged in test prep. They may describe a school producing compliant student-robots.

We need better definitions of success. We need a far more thoughtful way of educating the future generation.

Diane

Categories Testing

Cerf Rolls Out Reform Plans for Camden, NJ

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2012 //
1

You have heard this from me before, and you’ll hear it again. People who are in charge of public schools are placed there to lead them. They are there to help them get better. They are appointed or elected to solve problems, not to abandon public schools.

When they take charge, they are supposed to be (in Phillip Schlecty’s term), moral and intellectual leaders of the public schools.

They are not appointed or elected to hand off their responsibility to the private sector. That is not leadership. That is an abandonment of responsibility. That is a clear indicator of leaders who lack the knowledge to improve schools and who lack the moral sense required of those in public office.

Yet this is the plan for Camden, New Jersey. Ten schools will close now, undoubtedly more later. The New Jersey Department of Education has a plan prepared by one of its Broad-trained administrators (as the article cited below mentions, the Broad people have colonized the NJ DOE). Since the Broad Foundation is known for training people to privatize public schools and put school systems into bankruptcy, the plan should not surprise. Yet it does. It rings with the business-type phrases that are supposed to assure the public that the writer knows what he is talking about. In fact, what the document shows is a Department of Education that does not know how to help public schools, that doesn’t believe in helping public schools. It shows leaders who are clueless about education. The plan begins by saying that asking how to improve the schools is the wrong question. That’s old-style thinking. The new way of thinking is to hand the public schools over to private management; surely, they must know how to get those test scores up. If they don’t, the schools can always be closed again and turned over to someone else.

This is what is known today as school reform.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012305010023

http://www.courierpostonline.com/assets/pdf/BZ18861851.PDF

http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20120430/NEWS01/304300034/campprivatization?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Diane

Categories Broad Foundation, Cerf, Chris

Usual Faux Reforms in Connecticut

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2012 //
1

A reader asked if I am following the battle over what is misleadingly called school reform in Connecticut. Indeed I am, largely tHrough the efforts of three smart Connecticut blogger-writers: Jonathan Pelto, Sarah Littman, and Wendy Lecker.

The Democratic governor of Connecticut, Dannell Malloy, was elected with the endorsement of the states’ two teachers unions, the NEA and the AFT. It was generally assumed, certainly by me, that he would not join the wolf-pack now blaming teachers for low scores and would not jump aboard the movement to privatize public education.

Unfortunately, that assumption was wrong. Malloy showed his hand when he appointed Stefan Pryor as state commissioner. Not only was Pryor on the board of the charter chain, Achievement First, but he previously worked for Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who is one of the leading voices in favor of privatizing the public schools. When I spoke in Hartford last fall, I met Pryor, who was charming and decided to wait-and-see.

Then Governor Malloy proposed SB 24 as his major reform program. It included restrictions on teacher tenure, a new teacher evaluation system, and a pledge to turnaround low-performing schools by putting them in a special Commissioner’s district. The governor’s statements inflamed reactions to the bill. Governor Malloy blamed teachers for Connecticut’s racial achievement gap, and he said that teachers get paid just for showing up or breathing, or words to that effect. He said that he would be happy with teachers “teaching to the test,” although most educators know that any gains so obtained are likely to be temporary. He lauded charter schools. In his Commissioner’s district, made up of the state’s lowest performing schools, the State Commissioner would be empowered to fire all the teachers, ban collective bargaining, make contracts not subject to the usual laws and regulations, and turn the schools over to private entities to manage.

On his blog, former legislator Jonathan Pelto warned that Governor Malloy had formed an alliance with powerful financiers and that the low-performing schools would very likely be handed off to Achievement First. Although the so-called reform faction included the state’s superintendents and school boards, this was an odd alliance, which found them joined with such privatization-loving groups as StudentsFirst, ConnCAN, and Democrats for Education Reform. Malloy’s budget, Pelto wrote, had a disproportionate amount of money for Achievement First charter schools (http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/04/24/news-flash-malloy-hits-new-low-as-he-misleads-minority-community-on-education-reform/). Pelto regularly publishes powerful commentaries, such as today’s (http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/05/05/what-do-you-do-when-someone-wont-stop-lying/). Some of his other top entries: http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/03/24/just-when-you-think-youve-seen-it-all-big-city-mayors-speak-out/; also this one: http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/03/25/these-billionaires-and-millionaires-sure-are-interested-in-education-reform-3/.

Wendy Lecker was former president of the Stamford, CT, parent teacher council and staff attorney for the NYC Campaign for Fiscal Equity. Her articles are consistently thoughtful and enlightening, such as the last one: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Wendy-Lecker-Follow-colleges-advice-on-what-3535530.php#ixzz1twnbQkaX

I have also learned by reading Sarah Darer Littman, who writes often about education in Connecticut. Here is a sampling of some of her articles: http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/op-ed_dont_blame_teachers/ and http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/op-ed_coalition_of_the_factual/.

So, yes, I am watching to see what happens in Connecticut. I have heard that a compromise was in the works, that Governor Malloy would back down on some of his most extreme proposals. Connecticut is a blue state, after all, and it should not be fertile ground for attacks on teachers’ rights to due process, their right to bargain collectively, or on the very idea of public schooling. I expect that Henry Barnard, the founding father of public education in Connecticut, must be watching these shenanagins with concern. After all, Connecticut was one of the first states to establish a public school system. On the NAEP, it is one of the highest performing states in the nation. An odd place to impose corporate-style reforms with private takeovers of public responsibility.

It’s important to keep an eye on what happens in this state.

Diane

Categories Connecticut, Education Reform, Malloy, Dannel

Pineapplegate: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2012 //
4

Earlier today, we saw a leaked memo in which Pearson defended the tale of the Hare and the Pineapple. It was field-tested, the spokesman said. It was psychometrically sound. It was just a splendid test item, and the corporation couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. (http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/04/pineapplegate-exclusive-memo-detailing-the-hare-and-the-pineapple-passage/)

There is an adage: When you are in a hole, stop digging.

Well, Pearson, keep digging. It gets better and better.

Fred Smith, who is a testing expert who worked at the old New York City Board of Education, often comments on testing issues in the press and on the New York City parent blog. Today, he wrote the following at the New York City parent listserv:

“Not only that, folks:
 
This justification from Pearson comes two days after Commissioner John King canned the pineapple.  It shows that the Pineapple and the Harewas nationally-normed ten years ago — when the Stanford 10 was standardized.
 
SED contracted for Pearson to supply 20-25 nationally-normed items per grade per subject (120 to 150 items for ELA and for math). How many of these were developed in 2002?  In the testing industry, norms grow stale over time and tests are re-normed to stay up-to-date with achievement levels in the current test population. In short, old norms (based on performance exhibited by 3rd through 8th grade reference groups from ten years ago) are unacceptable.  It appears that Pearson resorted to old data in its item bank in order to cut costs.
 
We also learn from the memo that the Pineapple item was field tested by Pearson in New York State in 2011. [Under the contract, Pearson did stand-alone field testing in 2011 in order to develop the operational 2012 exams given three weeks ago.]  This was done despite warnings that stand-alone field testing is prone to being unreliable, because students are not always well-motivated to take such field tests. That was the very reason given for embedding field test items on the April exams,
 
The fact that the Pineapple item stats gathered from the 2011 field test match up nicely with the stats from data generated by a decade-old national standardization sample has little relevance to the case that Pearson is trying to advance here– that items such as this “have been developed to support valid and reliable interpretations of scores for their intended uses.”
 
Plain and simple–this is a CYA memo from the publisher who apparently acted to increase its profit margin.
 
~Fred Smith“
And Lisa Donlan, a Manhattan parent activist, wrote as follows:
“A perfect object lesson in why psychometric pseudo science (and justifying babble) should not replace real live human qualified and trained TEACHERS and teacher-generated assessments.

Why trust this flawed model with evaluating the teaching and learning of our kids, teachers, schools and districts?
 And why cut our school budgets to the bone so we can afford these outrageous for-profit vendors, when we (under) pay teachers and administrators to assess effective teaching and learning every day?
 
This is a sham,  a scam and all about the ADULTS, not the kids! 
 
Lisa“
Pineapplegate is the gift that keeps on giving, and Pearson just won’t  let go. Keep digging.
Diane
Categories Education Reform

Is the New York Board of Regents Now Toast?

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2012 //
8

This is an interesting question: Is the New York Board of Regents now toast? Or is it actually chopped liver? Either way, it doesn’t matter. When Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed a commission and assigned the most consequential powers of the Regents to the commission, he neutered the Regents. Peter Goodman, a longtime observer of city and state politics, speculates on this question and leaves little doubt (http://mets2006.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/is-the-governor-firing-the-regents-andor-remaking-an-archaic-dysfunctional-education-policy-making-process-andor-running-for-the-white-house-in-2016-from-ed-in-the-apple/). Governor Cuomo has blatantly taken control of education policy, a function described in the state constitution as belonging to the duly appointed Regents.

Is this good or bad? I personally have never thought it problematic when someone says that a democratic body works slowly. That is the way democratic bodies are supposed to work. That is called checks and balances.. That is why we have not only an executive, but also a bicameral legislature and a judiciary system. Things done quickly and without thorough review are not necessarily better than those that must pass scrutiny.

I have not been a huge fan of the Regents, especially since they decided to go for Race to the Top funding and had the bad fortune to win. Various officials mistakenly thought that the $700 million from the Department of Education would help the state with its debt, but they didn’t realize that every bit of the $700 million had to be spent on Washington’s priorities, not New York State’s. And if New York’s experience is similar to that of other states, we will end up spending $2-3 billion because of having “won” $700 million, paying for the mandates and conditions to which we are bound.

And I am less than impressed by the authoritarian ways of the New York State Education Department. Our young commissioner, John King, who taught in charter schools, is certain that he knows more about how to reform schools and educate students than all the experienced principals and teachers in the state put together. I am too old to admire hubris. Pride goeth before you-know-what. King’s defensive response to Pineapplegate seemed immature, a harbinger of tough times ahead as the state begins imposing more of its mandates on the schools and districts.

But having said all that, I am nonetheless perturbed by the usurpation of the Regents’ authority by a commission composed largely of non-educators. All of them have day jobs. They are busy people. They will hold hearings. Who exactly is being asked to redesign education in New York State and what are their qualifications for doing so?

I dunno. It sometimes seems like education has become a hobby or a parlor game, and anyone can play.

Diane

Categories New York
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