Archives for the month of: June, 2012
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Mr. and Mrs Gates, Please Read This

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2012 //
22

I received the following comment from a third-grade teacher. She is trying her best but federal and state officials keep interfering with her ability to teach. You will note that she writes acronym after acronym of big programs, big ideas that officials keep dumping on her.

As I read her comment, my heart went out to her. She became a teacher because she wants to teach. The bureaucrats and the experts have decided that data matters most, and she is drowning in data, data assessment, pre- and post-test analysis, name it.

What does all this verbiage and all these programs have to do with teaching and learning?

Have we lost our collective minds?

Is there no help for a teacher who just wants to teach and nurture the children in her care?

 

I teach 3rd. grade at a “Turn Around School” in Escondido, CA. For the last two years I have felt the “heat” of improving test scores. Countless hours of PD & meetings for SIPPS check-ins, DRA Analysis, NWEA Data Analysis, Mirrored Pre and Post Analysis, Write Calibration and Scoring Analysis, weekly Student Work analysis, Data Team Assessment, collaborative cycle, technology, etc., etc. Plus multiple visits to observe/ evaluate teachers in their classrooms during the day is a standard procedure. 80% of my students made 1 1/2 years of growth as measured by DRA and NWEA assessments. I don’t know how this will translate into CST scores. So, if the Gates’ are solely using CST scores as their results indicators I will probably be labeled as an ineffective teacher.
Categories Education Reform

How Students First Recruits New Members

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2012 //
24

A friend told me she signed an online petition on Change.org for some cause to make the world a better place, and promptly received an email from Michelle Rhee of Students First thanking her for joining. She was astonished to discover that she was a member of Students First, because she never signed anything that identified the group. This is apparently standard practice for Rhee’s group, as demonstrated by this blog by a teacher who also found herself to be a “member” of a group she had not joined.

When Rhee arrives in a state to demand an end to teachers’ job protections, she says that she has thousands and thousands of members in that state. That supposedly gives her more political clout, in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars she can spend to elect candidates who want to crack down hard on teachers. Apparently a significant part of her “membership” consists of people who unwittingly signed up by agreeing to support something completely unrelated to Rhee and her cause of turning teachers into employees with no job protections.

Even more disturbing than the deceptive way that she garners members, however, is the deceptive message that she sends to her new “members.” She claims that only one in three fourth graders “can read at grade level.” This is demonstrably false. She is confusing NAEP’s rigorous proficiency level—equivalent to a solid A—with “grade level,” which is a floating mean (at any given moment, half of all students are “above grade level”).

One-third of our fourth-graders meet NAEP’s rigorous standard of “proficient”; two-third are above basic; one-third are “below basic.” We should worry about that one-third who are “below basic,” not distort the statistics to generate a make-believe crisis.

Rhee should tell her “members” about the genuinely desperate situation in the District of Columbia, where she was in charge for four years. There, an appalling 56% of fourth-graders were below basic in 2011, far more than the national rate of 34%.  I am citing federal data from NAEP here. How can she presume to tell other districts and states how to fix their schools if she was unable to do it in D.C.?

The District of Columbia has the largest black-white achievement gap and the largest Hispanic-white gap of any urban district tested by the federal government. For America’s urban districts, the black-white gap in fourth-grade reading is 30 points; in D.C., it is a staggering 64 points. The Hispanic-white gap nationally in this grade is 29 points; in D.C., it is a huge 51 points. No other district comes close to D.C. when it comes to achievement gaps.

She says in her letter that “…studies have shown that in just one year, students with an effective teacher are able to improve by one and a half grade levels. These effects are so significant that the “achievement gap” between low-income or minority students and their wealthier or white peers can effectively be erased by only three consecutive years of highly effective teachers.” Readers of this blog recognize this as the same claim made by Melinda Gates.

Reminder: It didn’t happen in D.C. on Rhee’s watch. Also, it has not happened in any other district. Not in New York City under Joel Klein’s control nor in New Orleans, the district often held up as the model for the nation because of having wiped out public education and the teacher’s union.

And as blogger and TFA alum Gary Rubinstein has demonstrated, the study on which this claim is based is 20 years old and the findings are not all that strong, nor has anyone figured out how to fill an entire school district with teachers who get a gain of eighteen months in twelve months of instruction. Certainly Michelle Rhee has not.

Last August, I was on a panel with Rhee at Martha’s Vineyard at an event sponsored by the W.E.B. DuBois Institute at Harvard University. Rhee began reciting her well-worn complaints about “bad teachers” and her dubious claims about how effective teachers could overcome any obstacles. One of the panelists, Professor Lawrence Bobo of Harvard University, abruptly asked her why she thought that any teacher, no matter how “effective,” was sufficient to level the playing field for a child of 14 who was growing up in desperate poverty. With his great authority, he literally silenced Rhee, whose claims suddenly seemed like empty rhetoric.

It will take many years to clear away the empty claims about miracle-workers and miraculous transformations. And not until then will public policy begin to address wisely and realistically the needs of children who are falling behind and need help.

Diane

Categories Education Reform, Rhee, Michelle

Online in Idaho

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2012 //
4

A reader sent me a wonderful editorial from a newspaper in Idaho. I liked it because it called out State Superintendent Tom Luna for his self-promoting campaign to replace teachers with online instruction. Idaho is a red state where there is not a lot of diversity of opinion, but whether you are red or blue, you should have common sense when it comes to education. The crucial ingredients in education are always the same: the student, the family, the teacher, the school, the curriculum, and the community. When all those factors work together, students tend to get a good solid education. When they don’t, education suffers and students don’t learn much.

Technology can’t take the place of any of the essential ingredients. It is certainly a delightful thing to have computers and smart boards in the classroom. Teachers do amazing things with computers, and students can use them for research and individual projects. But no computer can motivate a student who is unmotivated. Or take the place of a family who makes sure that the student is well fed and healthy. Or replace a teacher who knows how to teach and loves her subject. Or take the place of a community that puts a high value on education. Or compensate for a school that lacks adequate resources and a strong curriculum and good leadership.

All these elements make a difference.

Tom Luna is now on the Romney education team. He has a long history of collaboration with software corporations. The children of Idaho would be better served if he built collaboration with teachers and parents and communities, not the online corporations that helped to put him in office.

Categories Education Reform, Idaho, Luna, Tom, On-Line Education

No Miracle in New Orleans

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2012 //
26

The next time you hear an “education reformer” talk about the miracle in New Orleans, tell them about this chart.

The “reformers” would like you to believe that New Orleans has solved the problem of low academic performance. All it took was a devastating hurricane to wipe out the public schools and sweep away the teachers’ union. In the wake of this cataclysmic event, goes the story, new and innovative charter schools arose, staffed by eager young college graduates willing to work 80-hour weeks. And everyone succeeded beyond the reformers’ wildest expectations.

The chart shows the proportion of students in each charter school and voucher school who were rated basic or above on state tests of reading and math.

You will notice that the statewide average (in a low-performing state) of students who reached basic or above was 75%.

You will also notice that only six of the charter-voucher schools met or exceeded this average (and two more came close).

The average proportion of students in the Recovery School District that reached basic or above was 49%.

Looking for a miracle?

Keep looking.

Diane

Categories Education Reform

The Day I Was Terminated

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2012 //
64

A few years ago, when I began speaking out about the destructive policies that are now called “education reform,” I had the comfort of knowing that no one could punish me. I didn’t want a job, I didn’t want a political appointment, and I didn’t want a foundation grant.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I learned on June 5 that I would not be reappointed as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Bear with me. This is an unpaid position, so it does not represent a loss of income. But I was sad nonetheless, because I had a long association with Brookings and loved the institution.

I have been affiliated with Brookings since 1993. At that time, Bruce McLaury, then the institution’s president, came to visit me in my office at the U.S. Department of Education to offer me the Brown Chair in Education Policy, a newly created position. I told him I did not want to live permanently in Washington, D.C., and looked forward to returning to my home in Brooklyn after nearly two years as assistant secretary for research in the George H.W. Bush administration. But I was interested in working at Brookings for a time and writing a book there.

So McLaury appointed me as a senior fellow, and I spent two years writing a book on national standards. I returned to New York City in 1995 and retained a close relationship with Brookings. I organized annual research conferences and edited the papers presented there as Brookings Papers on Education Policy.

By 2005, I decided to spend full time writing so I stepped down as conference organizer and editor. For the past seven years, I have held the title of non-resident senior fellow.

Two years ago, when my most recent book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education was published, I contacted Grover (Russ) Whitehurst to ask if I might present my findings at Brookings. Russ was my counterpart in the George W. Bush administration. I had been the assistant secretary in charge of the Office of Education Research and Improvement, he was the head of the successor agency, called the Institute of Education Sciences. Unlike me, he had accepted the offer to take the Brown Chair at Brookings.

I thought that Brookings was the right place to launch my new book, in view of my long association with the institution. I contacted Russ to make arrangements, but he said that I would have to rent the auditorium and pay a variety of expenses, which would amount to thousands of dollars. I decided not to accept this expensive offer, and I soon received a request from Rick Hess to present my book at the American Enterprise Institute. I agreed, and AEI sponsored an event with an excellent panel of respondents that drew a full house to its auditorium. AEI paid all expenses, including the cost of my travel to D.C. The fact that AEI was sponsoring a discussion challenging some of its own conservative ideas reflected well on its commitment to intellectual freedom.

Over the past two years, I have done what Brookings expects of its senior fellows: I engaged in public policy debates at the highest levels. Although I was one of the most active participants in the education issues of the day, I was never invited to take part in any panels or public events at Brookings.

Then on June 5 came the email from Russ Whitehurst informing me that I would be terminated as a non-resident senior fellow because I was inactive. Understand that it is impossible to be active at Brookings if you are never invited to participate in any of its forums.

My first thought was that Russ might be responding to my blog lacerating Mitt Romney’s education plan in the New York Review of Books. It went online that very morning, about four hours before I got Russ’s email. Russ is an adviser to the Romney campaign on education issues. Would he react that quickly? Then I remembered that I had written two other pieces critical of Romney on my own blog, the first appearing on May 25.

Maybe I was over-reacting.

But then I began wondering whether I was “inactive,” as Russ said. My book—the one he had no interest in discussing at Brookings—had become a national best seller. On the very day that I got his email, it happened to be the #1 book in public policy on amazon.com. It was also the #1 book in social policy on amazon.com. The night before I got his email, I was interviewed on the PBS Newshour. This is the kind of public engagement that Brookings revels in.

There was nothing more to be said or done. I was terminated.

Brookings should be sponsoring debates and panels about the very issues that I raise. It is now clear those debates and panels will never take place. That is sad, far sadder than my termination.

Categories Education Reform

The Textbooks in Voucher Academies

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2012 //
7

There are now three states in which vouchers enable students to bring public funding to religious schools: Indiana, Wisconsin, and Louisiana. Some of these schools will be evangelical schools that use Christian textbooks written specifically for this market, as well as for home-schoolers. The list of schools approved to receive voucher students in Louisiana includes many Bible-based Christian academies.

The Christian textbooks take a decidedly different view of the world than mainstream textbooks. The science textbooks teach creationism, not evolution. The history textbooks look on liberalism as a force for moral decadence. Even the math textbooks are different from those used in public schools.

In 2003, I wrote a book about textbooks, which showed how they are shaped by political forces and how their publishers skirt controversial issues in an effort to placate partisan demands. There is something even less desirable than blandness, however, and that is teaching impressionable minds only one perspective or denying them a full understanding of crucial ideas in history, science, and other fields of study.

In this land of liberty, private schools are free to teach what they want. But when they start taking public money, what they teach–whether it is scientifically and historically accurate– becomes a matter of public concern.  That is why many religious schools have been reluctant to become entangled with public funding.

Diane

Categories Education Reform, Louisiana, Vouchers

To Fire or Not? They Report; You Decide

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2012 //
11

A very interesting, long article in the Washington Post demonstrates how hard it is to determine whether a teacher “deserves” to be fired and raises important questions about teacher tenure.

I often point out that tenure in K-12 education is different from tenure in higher education. In higher education, a tenured professor has a job for life, unless he or she commits a felony or does something else that is truly heinous. By contrast, a teacher in K-12 with tenure has a guarantee of due process if the principal wants to fire him or her.

Critics say that due process–the right to see the evidence, to confront one’s accusers, and to have the case heard by an impartial hearing officer–is too burdensome and costly. It takes too long, and principals will leave a “bad” teacher in place rather than go through the trouble of gathering evidence to persuade an impartial arbitrator.

From the teacher’s perspective, the right to due process is precious. It means that they will be protected against a vindictive principal and will be protected against pedagogical fashion or community pressure to conform. With the recent proliferation of newly minted principals who have little or no teaching experience, teachers may feel an even greater need for protection. Experienced teachers, in particular, may resent the demands of the novice principal, who not only wants higher test scores, but looks at the veteran teacher as a drain on the school’s shrinking budget, as someone who might be replaced by two young teachers.

Think of the convergence of these three trends: One, lots of brand-new principals who are under pressure to raise scores to prove their worth; two, shrinking budgets; three, the spread of a concept called “fair student funding,” or “weighted student funding,” where each school’s budget is tied to the students in the school and the principal is given “autonomy” to make the most of a shrinking budget for the school. In these circumstances, the veteran teacher is viewed as too expensive rather than as a valued professional.

I cannot say whether this context shaped the trial of Fairfax teacher Violet Nichols. What does seem clear is that Nichols was out of step with the pedagogical ideas of her principal. The principal said her methods were obsolete. Nichols responded with evidence to the contrary. Was her dismissal in any way related to her role in the local teachers’ association? Virginia is hardly a state that coddles teachers’ unions or that gives strong tenure guarantees to teachers.

Does the trial prove that “bad” teachers have too much protection and can never be fired (the test scores of Nichols’ students were similar to those of other teachers in her building)? Does it prove that principals should have the power to fire teachers for any reason or no reason at all? Or does it show that teachers need a modicum of insulation from the pedagogical winds of the day?

What do you think?

Diane

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Some Sure-Fire Ways to Beat the Bracelet

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2012 //
6

Here are some creative ideas about how to beat the wireless sensor that will be embedded in every child’s galvanic response skin bracelet, if Clemson’s studies come to fruition. Bear in mind that the teacher will be evaluated in relation to the children’s level of excitement, engagement, and anxiety. Are they alert? Are they aware? Are they paying attention? How to create this state of high intensity?

In the first instance, the teacher insists that she herself would never do the following things, but she believes they would definitely work and guarantee a high rating on the responsiveness meter. In the second, the teacher treats the bracelet as a wonderful opportunity for his students to conduct an inquiry into how to game the bracelet.

Set a bell to ring at random intervals. When the bell rings, choose a student (mostly) at random and scream in their face for a minute about the slightest thing they’ve done wrong. Not only would those kids be kept in a high state of excitement, never knowing when or to whom a reaming would be handed, but they’d be the best behaved kids in the school, which I’m sure a lot of charter schools would love.Perhaps one could even create a bit of Stockholm Syndrome by some days being super nice candy teacher and being crazy screaming nutso teacher on others.I mean, the fun/interesting/cool stuff wears off-kids get used to it and you have to keep upping the ante. Not all kids are excited or interested in the same stuff. But fear? Everyone’s afraid of something…Plus, it’s a LOT easier to keep the kids afraid than engaged. I know one (as in, only one) teacher who is naturally so awesome that the kids hang on every word because “they might miss something.” I know a bunch more that try to be that way. But if it came down to keeping a job, keeping the kids afraid is a lot easier and I think that a lot of teachers that wouldn’t dream of teaching that way would do that if they felt they had no other choice.
Finally . . . some inquiry-based science materials!!I’d challenge the kids to figure out how the devices work and how to “game the system”. My 8th grade science students would be abuzz. They’d probably try attaching the bracelets to the class hamster (his metabolism usually registers as pretty excited). The kids would figure it and come up with incredibly creative ways to outsmart it!http://www.makershed.com/Galvanic_Skin_Response_Kit_p/msgr01.htmIt’s about time the reform movement offer our kids a means to develop their innovation! Before this, we have been starved of any materials, resources, support, or time for innovation or intelligence.

 
Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations

Why We Should Care About Galvanic Response Skin Bracelets

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2012 //
26

A few days ago, I learned from Leonie Haimson who learned from Susan Ohanian about a grant from the Gates Foundation to Clemson University to conduct research into the uses of a “galvanic skin response” bracelet. This is a wireless sensor that tracks physiological reactions. What made this grant of special interest was that it was directly connected to the Gates Foundation’s premier teacher-evaluation program, Measures of Effective Teaching (MET). The Clemson team won a grant of $498,055 (wonder what that $55 is for?) to “determine the feasibility and utility of using such devices regularly in schools with students and teachers.” The GSR bracelet, in short, could be used to measure physiological responses to instruction, and such responses might provide yet another metric to add to test scores, student surveys, and observations when evaluating teacher effectiveness.

The story got more interesting when someone on Twitter discovered another Gates grant, this one for $621,265 to the National Center on Time and Learning, ” “to measure engagement physiologically with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Galvanic Skin Response to determine correlations between each measure and develop a scale that differentiates different degrees or levels of engagement.”

And then a reader noted that the GSR bracelet was unable to distinguish between “electrodermal activity that grows higher during states such as excitement, attention or anxiety and lower during states such as boredom or relaxation.” 

Thus a teacher might be highly effective if his students were in a statement of excitement or anxiety; and a teacher might be considered ineffective if her students were either bored or relaxed. The reader concluded, quite rightly, that the meter would be useless since a teacher might inspire anxiety by keeping students in constant fear and might look ineffective if students were silently reading a satisfying story. In the first instance, a tyrannical teacher might be rated effective on the GRS scale, while an excellent teacher might appear ineffective in the second instance.

The idea that this powerful foundation is setting in motion a means of measuring physiological responses to teachers is deeply disturbing. The act of teaching is complex. It involves art, science, and craft. Learning is far more than can be measured by a GRS bracelet. At any given moment, students may be engaged or disengaged. They may be thinking about what happened at home that morning or a spat with their best friend. They may be worried about their mother’s illness or looking forward to going to the movies. They may be hungry and feeling anxious or they may be hungry and excited about having lunch.

Some aspects of the human experience are more important than teacher evaluation. Like our human dignity, our right to privacy, our need to be treated with basic respect as individuals with the power to shape our own destiny, not just as creatures to be tested, measured, and shaped by the will of others.

Yes, there is a Brave New World quality to the prospect of using wireless sensors to measure physiological reactions to teachers. Yes, there is a line that separates educationally sound ideas from crackpot theories. Yes, there is reason to be concerned about the degree of wisdom–or lack thereof– that informs the decisions of the world’s richest and most powerful foundations. And yes, we must worry about what part of our humanity is inviolable, what part of our humanity cannot be invaded by snoopers, what part of our humanity is off-limits to those who wish to quantify our experience and use it for their own purposes, be it marketing or teacher evaluation.

The line has been crossed.

Diane

Categories Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations

A Teacher’s Advice for Bill and Melinda Gates

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2012 //
4

Let’s assume that Bill and Melinda Gates really want to improve the teaching profession. Let’s assume that they have no idea about the negative effects of their current agenda. Let’s assume they want to do what is best for teachers and students and American education. Certainly, they are not in it for the money; they have enough. The chances are they are surrounded by compliant staff who never tell them what is really happening on the ground.

Since this teacher does not work for them and has no skin in the game, she offers this advice for them, which I am pleased to pass along:

Perhaps I’m being naive but I do believe Bill and Melinda Gates are truly interested in teacher quality. So am I and so is Diane Ravitch and almost everyone else.From what I’ve read I believe the Gates couple are just beginning to realize that all their donated money is (once again) having unintended consequences. Are their practices luring more talented people to the profession or are many young people being scared away? Are dedicated urban teachers electing to stay in low-performing schools or are they trying desperately to get transfers to “better” (i.e. more affluent) schools where test scores are almost certain to improve? Are young women still preparing for K-12 jobs or are they electing to follow men into many professions that promise higher pay, autonomy and prestige? Personally I don’t know a single young man or woman who is planning on a career in elementary or secondary education. Yes, there are many recent college graduates who are searching for teaching jobs but how many are entering college programs at this time?Is someone from the Gates Foundation reading this blog? If so, why not try tried and true methods for attracting and retaining talented people to the field of public school teaching. Here’s what I’d like to see:Fellowships at excellent colleges and universities for talented individuals to prepare to become teachers;

Schools where highly qualified teachers can be fully professional. At these schools these teachers would make most decisions regarding budget, governance, curriculum, and instruction. They would elect a head teacher who would serve at the pleasure of the faculty and vote on promotion for colleagues. Like their college teacher counterparts, these teachers would have a career ladder: assistant teacher, associate teacher, teacher, mentor etc. They would not have to leave the classroom in order to advance. Their unions would morph into the associations they were originally meant to be. With teachers at the helm, we’ll see an end to the ineffective teacher. And, yes, salaries, working conditions and benefits will need to be improved. Perhaps the Gates people can help talented teachers open their own schools where they would be free to make almost all decisions.

We know how to encourage talented people to enter other occupations. Let’s try these same strategies to improve the teaching profession. Humiliating, shaming and depriving teachers of hard-won benefits isn’t going to improve the profession and we don’t need a Stanford or Harvard researcher to tell us that. The contempt that so many of our citizens feel for schoolteachers ( mainly women) is at the root of our problems. If we want to see improvement, we have to find a way to change this unfortunate cultural characteristic of the American people. Hopefully Bill and Melinda Gates will use their money to help. They will realize the success they want when they help to elevate the profession and not demean it, as is happening at this time.
Categories Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teachers and Teaching
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