Archives for the month of: July, 2012
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More about Al Shanker, Chris Cerf and Charters

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
10

The indispensable blogger Jersey Jazzman discovered a column in a New Jersey newspaper, chastising me because I gave a history lesson to Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf. The writer feels sure that if Shanker were alive today, he would be supporting charters and the handover of public schools to private entities.

I have read all of Al Shanker’s columns as well as his speeches about charter schools. What I wrote was documented, not based on opinion or hearsay. I knew Al Shanker well. I did not speculate about what Al Shanker might believe today, but what he wrote and said when he was alive.

The writer thinks that charters have nothing to do with profit. She needs to read up on K12, which just won a charter; it is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and reported revenues last year of $522 million. Its CEO was paid $5 million. It operates for profit. Not your average mom-and-pop school.

For some reason, the writer thought I was angry, but I thought I was professorial. I never get angry when I am giving lessons. In instructing Chris Cerf, I was calm, cool, and collected.

Categories Education Reform

The States’ Budget Crisis

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
13

My ex-husband Richard Ravitch is a brilliant man who has spent most of his life in public service. He was born during the Great Depression, and he grew up idolizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt and believing that the highest ideal was to improve the well-being of the public.

We have an informal agreement that he doesn’t do education and I don’t do housing, transportation or public finance. But now he has stepped into my territory and I must step into his.

Yesterday he and Paul Volcker released a task force report on the budget crisis facing states. The task force report should be read by everyone because it contains an urgent warning. As of 2009, states now spend more on Medicaid than on K-12 education. That is a historic reversal. States are facing unsustainable costs and will have to make cuts to essential services if they can’t make appropriate adjustments to their tax and spend policies. Added to this, the possibility of federal budget cuts will do terrible damage to education and other basic services.

The task force report does not tell states precisely what to do beyond warning them of the cliff towards which they are heading. It says to stop the gimmicks and the one-shot funding measures. It says to face the problems head-on.

The task force report does not call for cuts to education. I spoke to Richard, who is a close friend, and he said that the point of the task force report was to warn states to take action now so that they can protect education and other essential state functions into the future.

My view: If we continue to cut K-12 education, preschool education, and postsecondary education, as so many states now are doing, we sacrifice our future. We throw away our seed-corn. If we continue to shift the costs of higher education to students, we will narrow access to higher education, which develops our nation’s innovativeness, research, and brainpower. We cannot eliminate access to education and erode its quality and then expect our nation to have an educated society, an innovative society, or a good society. My friend Richard Ravitch agrees.

Here are the recommendations of the task force:

Conclusions and Recommendations

The recent recession and financial crisis have exposed both structural problems in state budgets and the increasingly pro-cyclical nature of these budgets. States and their localities face major challenges due to the aging of the population, rising health care costs, unfunded promises, increasingly volatile and eroding revenues, and impending federal budget cuts.

If these problems are not addressed soon, they are likely to worsen. The problems affect the national interest and require the attention of national policymakers. In addition, each state can sharpen its fiscal tools to improve its own decision-making process.

■■ The public needs transparent, accountable state government finances. States and standards- setting and advisory bodies should develop and adopt best practices to improve the quality of planning, budgeting, and reporting.

–– States–should–replace–cash-–based–budgeting, with modified accrual budgets so the public and legislators can easily discern how revenues earned in the fiscal year relate to obligations incurred in the same year. This change won’t eliminate budget gimmickry but will be a step in the right direction, particularly if accounting standards continue to be strengthened. In addition, states should publish information, together with their budgets, on the extent to which these budgets

rely on temporary resources and underfund annual required contributions for pension and retiree health plans.

–– States–should–enact–multi-year–forecasts–and–plans–that–extend–at–least–four–years–beyond– the–current–budget–year, in order to increase their ability to make better short-term decisions and improve long-term outcomes. States should encourage independent review of their budget forecasts. Above all, states need rules that encourage them to adhere to these plans, so that the longer-term consequences of budgetary decisions become apparent.

– State Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports should be supplemented with easily accessible summaries of financial information and should be issued more quickly after the end of the fiscal year, so that they are available before the next year’s budget is proposed; the private sector accomplishes this task regularly.

■■ States should strengthen and make better use of their main tool for counter-cyclical policy, their rainy day funds. They need to save larger amounts automatically. Also, to avoid discouraging the use of these funds, states should allow enough time to replenish them once a fiscal emergency is over. Successful state models of rainy day funds, like those in Virginia and Texas, should be

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Report of the State Budget Crisis Task Force SUMMARY

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promoted, disseminated, and replicated. It is in the national interest that states have effective rainy day funds so that state balanced-budget imperatives do not counteract efforts to spur national economic recovery and so that states can maintain more-stable tax and spending policies, particularly for the programs implemented by states under federal oversight.

  • ■■  Pension systems and states need to account clearly for the risks they assume and more fully disclose the potential shortfalls they face. States and retirement systems should develop and adopt rules for responsible management of these systems and mechanisms to ensure that required contributions are paid. States should begin to use dedicated systems of reserves to save for the ongoing health benefits they expect to provide to retirees and should monitor the ability of their local jurisdictions to do the same.
  • ■■  State tax bases have eroded and become more volatile; these developments are undermining fiscal sustainability. States should mitigate these trends by seeking reforms that would make their tax structures more broad-based, stable and productive. The federal government should exercise its authority to make it easier for states to collect existing sales taxes on goods and services sold over the internet. Federal tax reform needs to take account of the significant effects of such change on state and local tax systems.
  • ■■  Federal deficit reduction and budget balancing actions pose serious potential threats to
    state and local government economies and budgets. There is a “disconnect” between the federal government and the states, with no formal mechanism for evaluating the impact of proposed federal policies on the states. There should be a permanent national-level body to consider the ways in which federal deficit reduction or major changes in the federal tax system will affect states and localities. Such a body, with purposes similar to those of the former Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, should conduct careful, ongoing examination of the relationship between federal and state governments. Even before such a body is established, Congress should require the Congressional Budget Office to prepare analyses of the ways in which major legislative proposals, whether relating to mandated programs, discretionary programs, or tax revenue, are likely to affect the fiscal situation of state and local governments.
  • ■■  Federal and state governments should work together to control health care costs and Medicaid costs. State costs for existing Medicaid programs are likely to continue to grow faster than state revenues; many states already consider these costs unaffordable unless they scale back other essential functions or substantially raise taxes. Now that the Supreme Court has validated most of the Affordable Care Act, states that implement eligibility expansions will incur additional annual costs over the next eight years that could range from zero to five percent of baseline Medicaid spending.

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Report of the State Budget Crisis Task Force

SUMMARY

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  • ■■  Few state governments have effective procedures for monitoring the fiscal condition of
    their local governments in a timely manner or taking early action to help local governments resolve their fiscal problems before they threaten insolvency or bankruptcy. Most states either ignore such problems altogether or wait until local governments actively seek state help because they are on the brink of insolvency. Fortunately, a few states have well-established monitoring and early intervention procedures that can serve as models for other states. North Carolina, New Jersey, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Michigan are examples worth careful study.
  • ■■  Essential state and local infrastructure is starved of funding and necessary maintenance. This underfunding threatens the nation’s competitiveness; the longer it is ignored, the larger the problem it will pose. An essential first step toward mitigating the problem will be the adoption and funding by states of realistic annual capital budgets based on multi-year capital plans. 
Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform

Should Children Eat Tests? Or Should Pearson?

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
23

Jason Stanford wrote a blistering critique of the misuse of testing in Texas and Sandy Kress responded. Sandy Kress was the architect of No Child Left Behind, which imposed a testing regime on the entire nation. Kress is now a lobbyist for testing giant Pearson.

Stanford summarized his original column, called “Let Them Eat Tests,” as follows:

  1. Texas taxpayers are paying Pearson $470 million for the STAAR test.
  2. Sandy Kress, the father of No Child Left Behind, lobbies for Pearson in Texas.
  3. The school taxes I pay fund a system that corrupts the classroom experience for my two sons who attend an elementary school in Austin by requiring them to learn test-taking skills to pass Sandy Kress’ tests.
  4. Sandy Kress, enriched in very small part by my tax dollars, chooses to send his children to private schools where they don’t have to take his standardized tests.

Kress took this as a personal attack, as well as an attack on the concept on the value of testing and accountability. Read his response. In fact, read the whole exchange. It is a very thorough airing of important issues that concern every state and every citizen these days.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Pearson, Testing, Texas

A Wise TFA Teacher

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
33

Whenever I meet young people who have joined Teach for America, I am always impressed by their idealism and enthusiasm.

As readers of this blog know, I am not as impressed with the organization, TFA, which is filled with hubris, self-promotion, and ambition. No amount of money ever seems to be enough, as this organization grows and grows and collects hundreds of millions of dollars from foundations and corporations (no matter how rightwing they may be), and paints itself as the saviour of American education from those “others,” the veteran teachers. Periodically I learn that TFA is out shaking cans to raise nickels and dimes in grocery stores or ATMs and I get angry all over again. It seems that their business plan is to get richer and richer, while sending out these terrific young kids to staff the classes of the nation’s most disadvantaged children for two years, then move on.

So, that’s my dilemmas, love the kids, don’t love the organization.

I just read an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times that reminded me of why I love these kids. This young man, Jared Billings, is a TFA teacher who decided to stay. He says that TFA should require a commitment of four-five years, not two. He is right. No one is a great teacher in their first year, and precious few are effective in their second. TFA has resisted this because they would get fewer applicants. But that’s the kind of commitment that would turn TFA into an organization that was dedicated to helping the schools, not itself.

Categories Education Reform, Teach for America TFA

What Reformers Don’t “Get” about Education

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
18

I have so many brilliant readers. I am happy to share this space with them. They understand so much more than the pundits, reformers, think tank experts, and foundation deep-thinkers who are paid six figures to tell educators how to “reform” the schools. When I worked in journalism many years ago, there were two terms that described arm-chair experts: thumbsuckers and ankle-biters. We hear from them all the time in the media. But they are not the true experts. The true experts are the people who do the hard work of educating kids every day: their teachers, principals and parents.

this is what “educational reformers” don’t seem to “get” about education–education is not a business, it’s a relationship.every time a school is closed, there are families being torn apart. and not just the families of students and parents–”families” of teachers, custodians, secretaries, principals, lunch monitors and many others who make their lives in these schools. these people work together every day, share their hopes and dreams, trust one another in ways few lawyers or engineers ever do with their colleagues, and become one another’s families. sometimes dysfunctional families, but families nonetheless.and when a school is closed, or teachers are moved around among schools like so many checkers, these families are ripped apart, and those relationships become frayed and torn, never to recover. educational reformers and policy makers don’t seem to understand–or care about–the real, human damage that is done by their decisions.our communities are not characterized by the businesses in them, or by the amount of profit generated within them–our communities are characterized by the number and strength of the human relationships formed between their members. and so are our schools.

 
Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform

Credibility of Florida’s Accountability System Near Collapse

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
12

The roiling controversy about the legitimacy of Florida’s testing regime is growing by the day.

Many school boards have passed their version of the Texas anti-high-stakes testing resolution.

FAIRTest says that Florida may be the worst “misuser” of testing of any state in the nation. Students spend 38-40 days each year preparing to take tests and taking tests. That is a bit more than 20 percent of the school year. What reasonable person would want their child to spend 20 percent of his or her school life on testing? That time should be reallocated to instruction, to physical education, to art and singing and play, to activities that stimulate the mind and body, not to the arcane skill of bubble guessing.

When the Florida School Boards Association passed their own resolution and voiced their disapproval of the state’s obsession with testing, State Commissioner Gerard Robinson accused them of giving up “hope.” Somehow, he suggested, they were giving up on the children.

This is such errant nonsense that one hardly knows where to begin or when to stop sputtering. The children of Florida don’t get “hope” by taking more tests and spending more time preparing to take tests. The FCAT mania is solely for the benefit of the adults, who parade around the country boasting of the test scores that “they” increased by turning up the pressure on children and teachers.

Commissioner Robinson should take the Florida high school tests and publish his scores.

You gotta wonder if these people even care about children.

The good news, as blogger Coach Sikes predicts, is that public confidence in the accountability system is rapidly declining. He says it is near collapse. I hope he is right.

The idea of giving letter grades to schools is absurd. Schools are complex institutions. They do some things well, some things poorly. A letter grade cannot capture their quality or their challenges. And the whole testing enterprise is highly political. The passing score is set by the State Department of Education, which works for the governor. The standards are politically derived, not based on some objective scientific measure.

The sooner the public realizes this, the sooner this whole child-abusing structure should collapse. And good riddance!

Once the debris is cleared away, Florida can begin to improve its public education system and aim to make it good for all children.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Florida, Testing

The Lessons of Louisiana’s Voucher Program

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
8

We will have to wait for court challenges to be resolved before we know whether Bobby Jindal’s voucher plan meets the requirements of both the Louisiana state constitution (which says that public money is for public schools) and the U.S. Constitution, which says nothing about education.

The U.S. Supreme Court did uphold a voucher plan in Cleveland a decade ago, and this blogger analyzes whether Louisiana’s plan meets the same criteria. (Of course, no one now points to Cleveland as an example of the benefits of vouchers, but that’s another story.)

But what we know now is that the offer of vouchers did not provoke a stampede for the exits, as voucher advocates have claimed for more than half a century. We have heard again and again about all those poor kids trying desperately to escape their failing schools. We now know that this claim is false. Only 2% of all those eligible to get a state-funded voucher even asked for one. 98% made a choice to stay where they are.

So much for voucher mythology.

And we also know that many of the voucher schools are poorly equipped, under-resourced, and offer a meager and/or faith-based curriculum that will not prepare children for the 21st century.

Louisiana has become a national laughing stock because of its voucher program. I take that back. Louisiana has become an international laughing stock, as media in other nations published stories about the schools using textbooks saying the Loch Ness monster proves that evolution never happened.

Whether it passes muster in court is important, because of the implications for similar raids on the public budget. But ultimately we have learned something perhaps even more important: The public is not clamoring for vouchers, and if we want to create a future for our children and our society, we should build the best public schools in the world.

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Vouchers

A New Teacher Says He Is Not “Highly Qualified”

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2012 //
4

Dave Reid is an engineer who decided to become a public school teacher after a career of 25 years in the high-tech sector.

He has been blogging about his experiences as a new teacher of math in California.

He sent this comment to add to our discussion of whether five weeks of training is enough to be considered a “highly qualified teacher.”

As a new, second career teacher, I find it amazing that the adverb “highly” is prepended to “qualified” for any teacher with less than ten (10) years experience. What profession designates its rookies and junior staff with the same descriptor as if they were on par with veterans and experts in the field?While I believe select alternate certification programs can be advantageous for second career professionals, and in times where supply cannot meet demand, programs like TFA can help bridge the gap, but blindly believing that youthful passion will save the day is naive, and anointing them “highly qualified” is absurd.I wrote about these descriptors in early 2011 in the following posts.Highly Qualified” Interns – a Mendacious Misnomer:http://mathequality.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/mendacious-misnomer/)Dashboard Delusions – The ED’s Ineffective Measure of Effectiveness:http://mathequality.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/dashboard-delusions/Dave
Categories Alternate Route To Certification, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching

Bill Gates Says….

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2012 //
69

Are you ready? Bill Gates says that game-based learning is the future of education.

He has a dream. A dream of children sitting around and playing games on their computers or their iPads or their Whatevers.

They will be wearing galvanic skin response monitor bracelets, or they will have a little chip in their heads to measure their level of excitement, and they will be excited all the time.

Every classroom–if there are classrooms–will buzz with their excitement. Little and big squeals of sheer joy as they blast off and shoot the intruder or blow away somebody else’s avatar or compete to win the most points.

They will be so excited that they won’t want to go  home. They won’t want to read a book.

They will need half a gram of soma to calm down, to become calm enough to leave the classroom of the future where they have spent the entire day in play and gaming.

Just a question: Why does he get to do this to our children? Why doesn’t he use his own children as guinea pigs first?

Another question: Why do education leaders listen to him?

 

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, On-Line Education

Report from Florida: Fight Them or Join Them?

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2012 //
13

A reader reflects on the rapid advance of privatization in Florida, which has been abetted by the hard demands of the state’s high-stakes testing regime:

Having been in education in FL for over 30 years, it is gut wrenching to me to watch what is going on. Jeb Bush and his band of merry men (and women) have taken over public education in FL. Some of the best and most innovative public educators I have known are now working for him or one of his groups. I am beginning to think folks in FL have decided the privatization of public education in FL is inevitable, and our best shot at helping kids is to get involved now in that transition to make sure there will be some folks in those private enterprises that actually care for kids. The climate and culture in the public schools has become toxic to people who believe in the duty of the state to provide a free quality education to our kids (that’s actually in the FL Constitution).

I observed in a summer school class today for students who didn’t pass the third grade FCAT. Their only shot at fourth grade is to pass a similar test this summer. The teachers in those classes are some of the best in our county. And most of the summer has been spent in quality reading instruction. But the final two to three weeks is totally focused on test prep and testing, teaching ‘strategies’ to use to pass the test. “Remember, next Wednesday, use all these strategies so you can pass the big test.” You can see the stress in the faces of these eight year old children. They get one more chance to bubble in the right answers, or they get to spend another year in third grade.

What are we doing? Have we all lost our minds?

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Florida, Privatization
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