Archives for the month of: June, 2012
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Is Hawaii the Worst State?

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2012 //
7

This reader provides an overview of what is happening in Hawaii. Those of us who live on the East Coast don’t hear much about education developments in Hawaii, so this is fresh information. It sounds like Obama and Duncan have brought all the worst ideas of corporate reform to Hawaii, via Race to the Top. It was Hawaii’s bad luck to “win.” Winning Race to the Top is like winning a Trojan horse that you must bring into your home. It gets to destroy everything and you can only hope to survive all the bad ideas packed inside it. Of course, there is that money that RTTT brings with it, but the “winning” states are bound to spend far more implementing the RTTT “reforms” than the money that it brought.

HAWAII. (Pop. 1.4 million) Given Hawaii’s relatively small population compared to other states in the US and its small size geographically, one might assume that state income from tourism, development, and a large military presence (bases) would provide a good public school system. That is no longer the case. Recently, our newly elected governor, Neil Abercrombie (D), has admonished the state teachers’ union (HSTA) by not accepting a recent re-vote on a “best and final offer” he presented to the union.Due to poor communication by HSTA to its members regarding what the vote was all about, a first vote was given a strong “No,” as teachers felt they would be giving their bargaining rights away. The union subsequently came back and told the teachers that a “No” vote would be a vote leading to re-negotiation or possible strike litigation.A re-vote was done. The governor’s original offer (he also appoints BOE members) was accepted by a 66% margin this second time round. However, the total voting was only about 25% of those who participated in the first vote. Again, a sign of weak union communication and little solidarity or understanding on the part of the teachers.

The governor has declared the re-vote null, illegal and non-binding. And now with the ambiguity of solidarity expressed by the re-vote, he has the advantage of changing the original offer should he so choose.

Because Hawaii received a RTTT award, teachers and staff are now subject to increased evaluation, evaluation by student achievement, possible increases in high stakes testing. Also, poor performing schools (i.e., schools in lower / lowest economic status communities) have been placed in a “Zones of Innovation” status. This provides for an opening of these schools to outside scrutiny which can inevitably lead to what most all other states are facing: school closures, firing of staff, takeovers by private and / or taxpayer funded corporate charters, etc. And, statistics show that it is those schools in higher poverty communities that are prime targets by corporate take over.

Given Hawaii’s high density of well funded private and / or religious affiliated schools relative to its small population, the Obama / Duncan declared evaluation and accountability meritocracy delivered via NCLB and RTTT makes pubic schools in Hawaii ripe for privatization in the manner of other locations throughout the U.S.

Diane asked us to be brief. I failed. Hawaii is right behind you in the testing and “effectiveness” VAM isssues. We’re at the start of it all as the governor is fighting w/ the teachers’ union so that the tracks are cleared for the same super-funded groups and privateers that are steaming through all the other states. I centered on this current fight even though I can see a good glimpse of the whole picture as the brave new world of educational austerity continues.
Categories Education Reform

This Art Teacher Knows What to Do with Bubble Tests

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2012 //
9

I have a visceral distaste for the very idea of measuring the arts with a standardized multiple-choice test.

This strikes me the sort of technocratic thinking that is driving creativity and ingenuity underground and crushing it whenever it dares to appear in a schoolroom.

We know that the only reason this idea is being considered is in order to generate enough data to evaluate teachers of the arts.

Imagine: Asking students in the band to answer bubble questions about composers or music.

Or asking students in a sculpture class to name this artist.

What’s the point? We want students to have cultural literacy but these kinds of learnings belong in the study of history and culture, not in an arts class.

Unless I’m wrong, arts classes are places to do the arts, places for creating them, acting them out, feeling the joy of expression.

And good grief, why can’t we trust teachers to know how there students are doing?

Oh, wait, I forgot. The tests are not being built to measure the students, but to measure their teachers. And we know that when their teachers are measured with these bubble tests, they will feel compelled to focus on what can be memorized, not what can be performed.

Another sign of the coldness that has infested the sensibilities of our policymakers.

I liked this teacher’s good idea about what to do with the bubble tests:

I am a teacher and an artist. I don’t know which came first, but I do know they work hand in hand together. I work in a high poverty school in an inclusion kindergarten. I did my student teaching in a full inclusion school with two “Emotional Behavior Disorder” programs of children included in the general population of “typical” children.In both instances, the ONLY time I have absolutely ZERO behavior challenges crop up, is when I am teaching an art lesson that allows children to be creative.

My principal has come in to observe this magic phenomena, as have other teachers, only to see troubled children smiling, engaged, cooperative, collaborating, and learning without resistance.

Pre-schoolers through adults have learned ALL subjects through integrated art lessons, sometimes including music, and movement. They have learned with joy vs drudgery. And yes, they have DISCUSSED their learning, but it has also become part of their “muscle memory”.

I recently posted on Twitter about beautiful crocheted coral reefs and the art of adult women who learned a way to discover a hyperbolic math formula that was yet to be able to be worked out by the best mathematicians.

I am hoping this link embeds the Ted-Talk, but if not, you can access it here:http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_wertheim_crochets_the_coral_reef.html

Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim of the Institute For Figuring have started this ongoing project. This integration of feminine art form, higher geometry, environmentalism, and science is found around the world now, but what I loved most besides its beauty was Margaret’s suggestion in the end of her Ted-Talk: She suggested that we create “Play Tanks” instead of “Think Tanks” for real reform.

The integration of learning is lost when we compartmentalize and narrow curriculum. Children and adults learn best when we DO. Yes, critical thinking, reading, writing, science, and math are all important. But when integrated with the arts through play, the learning is not only effortless — like play —- but becomes a muscle memory and one that does not have to be forced. We are automatically drawn to the learning and engagement.

As for bubble tests: I have a suggestion. Let’s create a bubble test art installation in every school. These bubble test forms need to become a piece of history, a thing of the past. These forms can be used creatively by artists, children and adults alike to create collage, sculpture, furniture, multi-media art forms, wall hangings, paper cutting, — watercolor, acrylic, oil paintings, sumi-e painting — music – though the notes are limited by A,B,C,D – perhaps someone can get creative – dance costumes, drama costumes, and anything else you can think of!

Join me in creating art out of bubble tests! That is the ONLY good purpose for bubble tests!

Where shall we begin installing them? Perhaps in every Department of Education as protest art! Opt Out and Create Opt Out Art!
Categories Education Reform

Five Steps to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2012 //
34

An earlier post described the four-step polka in North Carolina enroute to destroying public education, demoralizing teachers, and enriching the private vendors.

Here is a suggestion by another reader, who says it actually is a five-step process.

1.  Under-fund/STARVE the schools financially
2.  Overcrowd the classrooms, reduce programs, supplies
3.  Fail the public school using NCLB and/or Race to the Top laws leaving the public school in death-throws
4.  Sell the school to private charters
5.  Public school, Dead On Arrival

Who are the criminals?

Corporate Education DeFormers, privatizers, Democrats for Education Reform, and the GOP.  Neo-Liberals and Neo-Conservatives have joined together to tag-team as partners in the killing of public education.  We know the list.

I would change point 4 to read: Give the school away to private charters, to for-profit corporations, to online for-profit vendors, and to any business or religious group that wants to open a school, either in person or online.

Diane

Categories Education Reform

How Should Art Be Assessed?

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2012 //
30

In a piece in Education Week, Sara Mead maintains that art can be assessed through multiple-choice standardized tests.

In defense of multiple-choice testing of the arts, she writes:

The point of arts education shouldn’t be to teach children to simply “enjoy art”–we are, after all free to choose which art we enjoy, or whether we enjoy it at all. Rather, it should be to give children the skills and background knowledge to experience art or music in an informed and more than superficial sense–much of which is about understanding and identifying concepts, vocabulary, and techniques in ways that can be assessed through multiple choice assessments. A major reason that high-quality education needs to include the arts is certain arts-related information–such as names and work of key artists and composers, specific musical or artistic vocabulary and meanings, and artistic movements over time and their relationship to broader historical and social trends–is key cultural knowledge that our students need to be culturally literate. But arts and music instruction in our schools has often ignored cultural literacy and key concepts in favor of performance and “creativity.” 

I don’t agree.

I understand and embrace the idea of cultural literacy, but I don’t think that multiple-choice standardized tests are the best way to teach it or to assess it. If a teacher of music wants students to understand the differences between Mozart and Schoenberg, the best way to do that is to listen to their music and discuss the differences. If the teacher of the arts wants students to understand the differences between classical Greek and Roman architecture, the best way to do it is to view it and discuss it. Picking a bubble is no substitute nor is it a valuable way to learn about art.

It is easy to memorize the names and work of key artists and composers to prepare for a test, and just as easy to forget them when the test is over.

If we want our students to have important cultural knowledge as part of their cultural literacy, we should expose them to the experience that this knowledge represents. We should encourage them to see, feel, hear, and engage with the art or music of other times and places. To the extent that they experience arts as a part of life–their own as well as its creator–they will remember it and have it as part of their own experience.

There is something in a bubble test that is inherently at odds with the arts. One can indeed test for superficial recall, not only in the arts but in other subjects as well. And there are times when it is useful to know the results of large-scale assessment. NAEP is valuable, for example, in providing a snapshot of the state of reading, math, science, history and other subjects. But it is only a snapshot. And the results that are informative for a nation, a state, or a district are less informative and less valid for individual students. For the purposes of large-scale assessment, multiple-choice standardized testing is useful and cheap.

But if it is understanding and discernment that we value, there is not a good case to be made for multiple-choice standardized testing. If it is learning that we care about, there is not a good case to be made for multiple-choice, standardized testing. If it is individual children that we care about, then we want to know what they have learned and what they understand. Conceptual knowledge does not lend itself to bubble tests.

Diane

Categories Arts Education, Education Reform, Testing

Is Pennsylvania the Worst State?

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2012 //
4

When I asked readers to tell me about the reforms in their own state, I received dozens of replies.

It is hard to say which state has the most destructive reforms. By destructive, I refer to legislation that is anti-teacher, anti-public education, anti-education, and anti-child. This means legislation that strips teachers of any job protections and that prohibits them from bargaining collectively, as well as legislation that bases teacher evaluation on student test scores and that hands public school dollars over to private interests, whether for profit or for private management.

This writer describes what is happening in Pennsylvania, under Tea-Party governor Tom Corbett, who seems determined to rid the state of public education:

In Pennsylvania Governor Corbett has been following the ALEC script to the letter. This year he cut education funding by $1 billion and raised funding for prisons by $700 million. This includes what will be three new privately owned, for profit prisons. School districts throughout the state are cutting programs and laying off teachers.In Philadelphia, public schools are under full scale attack. The School Reform Commission has announced plans to turn over 65 public schools to charters and a goal of have 40% of Philadelphia’s students be in charters by 2017. All blue collar workers are in the process of being laid off and replaced with a low paid, non-union workforce.The School Reform Commission is the state body (three members appointed by the Governor and two appointed by the Mayor) that has been running Philadelphia schools for ten years. It ostensibly took over the Philadelphia School District due to mismanagement, but in the last ten years has made the District’s financial situation much worse.After repeated attempts to privatize schools over massive community opposition, the agenda of a series of SRC’s to privatize Philadelphia’s public schools was greatly advanced during the tenure of Dr. Arlene Ackerman. At the same time as she was Superintendent, she was serving on the Board of the Broad Foundation. After she was forced to resign in August, 2011 after getting into a turf war over proposed charters with Mayor Nutter, her appointments, most who received training from the Broad Foundation, continue to advance the privatization agenda. They have brought in the corporate raider the Boston Consulting Group and a group of corporate privatizers calling themselves the Great Schools Compact to oversee the transfer of public schools to charters.

Here is another report from Pennsylvania:
In my state, Pennsylvania, we have a Governor who is deliberately underfunding true public education while actively seeking to privatize education using Charter managers and vouchers. In my district, Philadelphia, things are even worse: ten years of State Control through a ‘School Reform Commission’ have left with a horrible budget crisis and ‘solutions’ that only make the problem worse. They are cutting us to the bone marrow and then decrying our ‘failure’ with the poorest children in our city. They are closing or turning over neighborhood school that serve as refuges in the community to charter companies. Companies that exist to make money for CEOs and ‘counsel’ the neediest at every turn. Sixty million dollar district buildings are given free to millionaires (Kenny Gamble’s Universal Company), major charter operators (Mastery) are allowed to say educating Special Ed students is ‘too expensive’ and get monetary help from a broke district. All this is done without votes or transparency!
http://thenotebook.org/blog/124936/district-mastery-reach-agreement-serving-disabled-students-clymer-elementary
http://thenotebook.org/blog/124911/district-price-tag-audenried-and-vare-year-18-million
Categories Education Reform

This Teacher Says No Thanks to the Galvanic Skin Response Bracelet

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2012 //
17

Readers of this blog are aware of the controversy surrounding the Gates-funded research into the uses of a device to monitor students’ and possibly teachers’ physiological reactions in the classroom. The device is called a “galvanic skin response” monitor. It would be a bracelet with wireless sensor that students would wear to measure how engaged or disengaged they are while in class. The Gates Foundation has spent $1.4 million to sponsor research on this project at Clemson, the National Commission on Time & Learning, and some other unnamed facility. The Clemson grant was described on the Gates website as part of the MET project, implying that it would be used to evaluate teachers, but the foundation said that was not correct and changed the description on the website.

There has been quite a lively discussion of this research on my blog, with a few people saying they welcomed the bracelet and the research and wanted to learn more about the physiological reactions of students, but most saying they thought this was a bad idea, for various reasons. I personally object to the Big Brother aspect of the project, as well as to the suggestion that “learning” can be measured by physiological reactions rather than by that yet-unmeasurable thing called understanding.

In a sign of the intelligence with which this project has been developed, the bracelet is referred to as “an engagement pedometer,” even though a pedometer measures steps and is not worn on the arm.

This is one teacher’s reaction. I liked it. I think you will too. Unless you are one of those who wants to measure students’ skin temperature and whatever emotional responses can be recorded on a bracelet.

As an experienced teacher who admires her students, I don’t need a bracelet to tell me when they are: bored, confused, excited, tired, interested, etc. I know them as individuals with strengths, weaknesses, aspirations and dreams. I find this insulting and another way to turn the art of teaching into an exact science that can be manned by Stepford test prep drones or teach for a while recruits. Gates continues to demean and insult the teaching profession, one he knows nothing about. Just because he is a billionaire, it is assumed he is a expert on all topics and all professions. Bill and Melinda and the rest of the faux reformers should give up three years of their lives and work on the front line teaching public school children……plan the lessons, monitor their progress, grade papers, chart the data, enrich for the talented and gifted while individualizing and differentiating for those who struggle, attend 504 meetings, PPT’s, parent conferences, district workshops.  It is time for them to walk the walk and then let’s plan to talk some more about the teaching profession.

Diane

Categories Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Technology, Computers

Four-Step Demolition Polka in North Carolina

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2012 //
9

An article describing the situation in North Carolina defines the four steps needed to attack and dismantle public education. It is a scenario based on ALEC model legislation, which is now being faithfully implemented in many states.

Step one is to cut the budget of the public schools.

Step two is to divert public school money to privately-managed charter schools.

Step three is to divert more public school money to private and religious schools, either through vouchers or tax credits.

Step four is to declare that the public schools will get better because of competition and to declare them failures when they don’t, due to budget cuts and the exodus of motivated students to the publicly-funded alternatives in steps two and three.

And don’t forget: It’s all about the children!

Diane

Categories ALEC, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Vouchers

Is This a Conflict of Interest?

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2012 //
12

Last spring, Louisiana held a crucial election that determined who would control the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Governor Bobby Jindal–the uber-conservative education reformer with a plan to replace public education with vouchers and charters–wanted to take control.

He rallied his friends and allies to win the decisive seat on the board, which was held by a local attorney, Louella Givens. Jindal’s candidate was Kira Orange Jones, the director of TFA in New Orleans.

According to Education Week, Orange Jones collected nearly $500,000 for her campaign.  She raised large sums of money from the business community and from out-of-state donors, including Mayor Bloomberg, who sent a last-minute contribution of $100,000. Orange Jones also received campaign funds from Democrats for Education Reform, the pro-charter Wall Street hedge-fund managers organization.

Educators rallied to support Givens, but she raised only $9,000. In a runoff, Orange Jones won.

Now questions have been raised about the propriety of having a member of the state board who works for an organization that receives contracts from the State Department of Education. Orange Jones says there is no conflict because TFA gets its contracts from the state education department, not the state board.

The potential for conflict of interest goes well beyond the contracts that are written specifically for TFA. Every time the state board of education approves charter schools, it is implicitly expanding the number of jobs available for members of TFA. Every expansion of charters across Louisiana will benefit TFA teachers and alums who run charters.

Don’t expect Governor Jindal to launch an investigation. The question in Louisiana is whether there is anyone independent of the Jindal machine (or TFA–the state superintendent is a TFA alum).

Diane

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Teach for America TFA

Add Your State to My List

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2012 //
88

Readers,

I posted a blog a few minutes ago called “Reformers vs. Democracy.”

It says that the current corporate reformers push their reforms through without listening to parents, educators or the public. They consider the democratic process to be a nuisance that slows them down. They like to say, “We can’t wait,” and “Children have only one chance so we must act right now.” Then they proceed to ram through whatever they want without public consultation. Vouchers. Charters. Evaluation of teachers by test scores. Ending collective bargaining. Removing any due process rights for teachers. And so on.

I invited readers to submit their own state’s experience. Right now, I have Idaho and South Dakota. Please send in your comments about your state and I will add them too. Be brief.

Diane

Categories Education Reform

Race from the Axe

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2012 //
5

A reader sent this animation. I think most everyone who reads this blog will find it humorous yet too true to be funny.

It depicts the way teachers are evaluated now. Being “very good” is not good enough. Being “perfect” is not good enough.

In what line of work are people expected to go higher and higher until they hit the top and are washed up because they can’t get any better?

 

Enjoy.

Diane

Categories Education Reform, Humor
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