Archives for the month of: July, 2012
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An Educator Runs for Office in Idaho

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2012 //
1

Clayton Trehal is running for a seat in the Idaho legislature.

He is a veteran educator.

He has sent me some of his columns, and I read them with fascination.

Clayton teaches in an online charter school, which, as readers of this blog know, are not necessarily at the top of my hit parade.

I am not as enthusiastic as he is about ranking schools by how many AP courses they offer or how many kids pass.

If I were in Idaho, I’d be inclined to emphasize the fact that Idaho students have made significant gains on NAEP in both reading and math, in fourth grade and eighth grade, while many other states did not.

I don’t like the assumption that we need to know which schools are best and which are worst so that parents can be smart shoppers.

If you buy the assumptions of the “reformers,” they win.

I think that every community should work to make its schools right for the children of that community.

But Clayton supports public education and has some interesting things to say about it.

I hope he wins his race. Running as a Democrat is red-state Idaho is an uphill battle. I wish him well.

Idaho is at the very bottom in education spending, and the State Superintendent Tom Luna likes to say that spending has nothing to do with achievement. Look at Utah, it spends even less.

Follow this line of argument to its logical conclusion: the best possible education is the one that costs the very least, with underpaid teachers, poorly maintained facilities (or none at all), and meager spending on supplies.

 

Categories Education Reform, Idaho, Testing

The Connecticut Watchdog for the Public Interest

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2012 //
12

A reader reminded me of a post by blogger Jonathan Pelto about Hartford, Connecticut, that shows how districts can “game the system” to meet testing target.

And that reminded me that Jon Pelto is someone you should know about. Subscribe to his blog if you want an insider’s view of education reform in Connecticut.

Pelto was a legislator for several years and cares passionately about public education. He knows how to follow the money and watches for conflict of interest and hidden lobbyists.

He has written many posts in opposition to Governor Dannel Malloy’s alliance with the hedge fund managers’ group called ConnCAN (now operating in other states as 50CAN). Pelto has called out all the players in the corporate camp, including the other Wall Street group called Democrats for Education Reform, the charter chain Achievement First, Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst, and Teach for America, all of which took a role in shaping and pushing Governor Malloy’s “reform” bill to funnel more money to charters than to the state’s poorest districts and to strip teachers of tenure. It’s all “for the children,” remember. Malloy said he would be happy to see more “teaching to the test,” and also said the achievement gap in his state made it necessary to take away teacher tenure. This is absurd; Connecticut has a large achievement gap because it has outsized income inequality, with large concentrations of urban poverty and intense concentrations of extreme wealth. But let’s not talk about that.

Pelto has been critical of State Commissioner Stefan Pryor, who was a founder of a Connecticut charter school, Amistad Academy, and chairman of its board for five years. That charter school is the flagship in the Achievement First charter chain. Pelto has been fearless in criticizing the claims of the powerful Achievement First chain, showing what a small percentage of ELLs it enrolls compared to urban districts in the state, and pointing out how Malloy’s budget showered far more money on this wealthy charter chain than on the state’s neediest students.

Pelto has posted several times about what happened in Hartford during the reign of Superintendent Steven J. Adamowski.Adamowski was brought in to raise achievement, and he did get the numbers up. Here is his account from his own blog. Some school superintendents ward off charter schools, but not Adamowski. He hasworked closely with the politically powerful charter chain, Achievement First.After his tenure in Hartford, he was appointed as “special master” to run the schools of Windham, Connecticut. There, his moves have been controversial, such as cutting back on early childhood education and AP classes.

Not surprisingly, Pelto has been critical of Adamowski’s close ties to the charter school industry and to conservative groups like NCTQ. Pelto repeatedly exposed the ties between Governor Malloy and corporate reformers, as well as the lobbying activities of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst. Pelto has written scathing commentaries about the state takeover of Bridgeport and about Paul Vallas’s stewardship of the district. Pelto is one of the few commentators who has criticized the “reformers” in Connecticut for ignoring the impact of poverty on educational achievement. Please readthis.

Pelto has a dogged devotion to the facts and a well-honed sense of moral outrage: this article is the best exemplification of that combination, where he lambastes the state’s urban mayors for endorsing a budget that shortchanges their own city’s children.

Categories ConnCAN, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Malloy, Dannel, StudentsFirst, Teach for America TFA

The Americanizing of English Schools?

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2012 //
8

This writer worries that American ideas are being imported to English schools.

The curious episode at the center of the article is the description of a conference about creating charter schools in the U.K., encouraged by the Conservative government’s Minister of Education Michael Gove:

To see where News Corp’s interest might lie, we can look to a conference organised by Gove’s department in January 2011. Gove had invited Gerald [Joel] Klein, who was then chancellor of the New York City Board of Education, to speak to people “interested in setting up free schools”. (So called “free schools” are a version of academies which both front benches favour.) Four days after Gove extended the invitation, Klein was appointed to the Board of News International. By the time Klein attended the conference he was a News Corp employee, although Gove says he did not know about the appointment.

Also attending the conference, and present at a dinner hosted by the Department for Education, were Mike Feinberg, co-Founder of KIPP Houston, Paul Castro, Head of High Schools KIPP Houston, Aaron Brenner, Head of Primary schools KIPP Houston, Jo Baker, Director of Washington Public Charter School Board, and Monique Miller, Performance Manager of Washington DC Public Charter School Board.

This goes a way towards explaining Murdoch’s enthusiastic support for charter schools, and his ceaseless disparagement of public schools, in his many media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and Fox News.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International

How to Educate the Public

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2012 //
5

Bruce Adams, a veteran teacher in Buffalo, New York, one of the poorest districts in the state, wrote these articles.

This one explores the Hollywood myth of the good teacher, the great teacher who takes students from basic math to advanced calculus in the course of a single year, implying that anyone could do it, if they are a great teacher.

This one shows how harmful is the practice of ranking schools from best-to-worst based on some external measure because it either reflects the socioeconomic status of the students and their family, or it encourages the worst educational practices in a futile effort to change the rankings.

The reason I call attention to these articles, aside from the fact that I liked them, is that I want to encourage other teachers to write in your local newspapers. The public needs to understand more about education and more about how schooling works and doesn’t work. You are the experts, and you must do your best to educate the public. Don’t sit back and complain when people are woefully misinformed. Inform them.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Conservatives Debate Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2012 //
6

Recently I published a comment by Jamie Gass of the Pioneer Institute in Massachusetts explaining his opposition to the Common Core State Standards. I thought it was interesting as it showed the conservative argument against the Common Core.

The comment was originally part of an email exchange between Jamie Gass and Sol Stern of the Manhattan Institute, a New York City-based conservative think tank. Sol is an old friend of mine, who has been writing about education and politics for many years. Sol contacted me to say that I should have printed the entire exchange, not just Jamie’s response to him.

So, I am rectifying the situation by first giving you a link to an article by Sol Stern about E.D. Hirsch and the Core Knowledge curriculum. It was just published online at the City Journal website, which belongs to the Manhattan Institute. Sol argues that the Hirsch curriculum will align well with the Common Core standards and should bring renewed attention to the Core Knowledge curriculum.

When Sol sent the article to several friends, including me, Jamie Gass responded. Jamie is very disappointed that Massachusetts was compelled to drop its highly regarded state standards and to replace them with the Common Core standards.

Sol asked me to republish the entire correspondence so that readers can understand the discussion.

So, here is the drill if you want to read on.

First, read Sol’s article. Then read the correspondence, starting from the bottom. The only thing I changed is that I removed the email addresses of those who received a copy, as there was no reason to publish them.

**************************************************************
Please start reading at the bottom
**************************************************************
Hi Sol:
As PI’s independent research has shown, the CCSSI standards are far lower than what the best states previously had; none of the major CCSSI proponents have improved student achievement anywhere in the last 25 years; and federal support for national standards, testing, and curriculum is, in fact, illegal and unconstitutional.
As John Adam said, “Facts are stubborn things.”
Best,
Jamie
 
From: Sol Stern [mailto:sstern9447@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 4:48 PM
To: Jamie Gass
Cc:
Subject: Re: Hirsch and the Common Core
We are obviously beyond any reasonable debate on this, since you insist — without a shred of evidence — that those who disagree with you are just shills who are in it for the money. That’s a pretty low standard of discourse for a movement supposedly concerned with improving education.
My final and last word: I think the “sad and disgraceful chapter in the history of education public education” is the federal government forcing school districts to use a discredited and unscientific method of evaluating teachers — and I don’t see Pioneer or any of the “reform” groups pushing back against this looming disaster.
given the mediocre records of its major advocates, I see nothing in CCSSI that will reverse this trend towards decline, or any evidence that CCSSI’s one-stop-shopping-for-lower-standards won’t, in fact, dramatically accelerate a race to the middle.
Best,
Sol
From: sstern9447@aol.com
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 6:16 PM
To: Jamie Gass;
Subject: Re: Hirsch and the Common Core
Sorry Jamie, CCSSI didn’t ruin MA standards or programs. Your governor and legislature did and your job at Pioneer should have been to convince the state to reject Race to the Top, stick to the 1993 reforms and make them even stronger by implementing a Core Knowledge K-12 curriculum. And if Will is right about CCSSI violating all those laws it should be a snap for you to hire some good lawyers and go into federal court to throw out Common Core. Please, make my day.
—–Original Message—–
From: Jamie Gass <jgass@pioneerinstitute.org>
To: sstern9447 <sstern9447@aol.com>;
Sent: Mon, Jul 16, 2012 5:37 pm
Subject: RE: Hirsch and the Common Core
Thanks, Sol. I always like reading your pieces.
People can also read the attached (embargoed) Pioneer piece on MA and CCSSI, which appears in the current issue of City Journal.Our article explains how the CCSSIers helped ruin the most successful, proven academic standards/ed reform effort of the last half century. Interestingly, I can’t find one CCSSIer, or Gates-funded advocate, who has actually improved student achievement more than a tiny bit anywhere in the last 20 years. Ahem, think — Fordham, Ohio, and NAEP results J
I’d also encourage everyone to read George Will’s March column on how CCSSI violates three federal laws. Will’s column, of course, implicitly shows how the CCSSIers offer a terrific anti-civics lesson for America’s 50 million schoolchildren.
Best,
Jamie
 
Those pesky things called laws
By George F. Will, Saturday, March 10
Two policies of the Obama administration illustrate an axiom: As government expands, its lawfulness contracts. Consider the administration’s desire to continue funding UNESCO and to develop a national curriculum for primary and secondary education.
In 1994, Congress stipulated that no U.S. funds shall go to “any affiliated organization” of the United Nations that “grants full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood.”
Last October, UNESCO (the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)voted to confer membership on Palestine. Although there are waiver provisions in most laws restricting executive discretion in foreign relations, the 107 national delegations that voted to extend membership to Palestine were told there is no such provision in the pertinent law.
The United States immediately cut off funding, which is 22 percent of UNESCO’s budget. But President Obama’s 2013 budget seeks $78,968,000 for UNESCO and says: “The Department of State intends to work with Congress to seek legislation that would provide authority to waive restrictions on paying the U.S. assessed contributions to UNESCO.”
The administration regards the 18-year-old statute as an evanescent inconvenience — that Congress will obediently tug its forelock and grant a waiver provision enabling the executive branch to slip the leash of law.
Meanwhile, the Education Department is pretending that three laws do not mean what they clearly say.
This is documented in the Pioneer Institute’s report “The Road to a National Curriculum: The Legal Aspects of the Common Core Standards, Race to the Top, and Conditional Waivers” by Robert S. Eitel, Kent D. Talbert and Williamson M. Evers, all former senior officials in the Education Department.
The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) — No Child Left Behind is its ninth iteration — intruded the federal government into this traditionally state and local responsibility. It said that “nothing in this act” shall authorize any federal official to “mandate, direct, or control” a state’s, local educational agency’s or school’s curriculum.
The General Education Provisions Act of 1970, which supposedly controls federal education programs, stipulates that “no provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize” any federal agency or official “to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction” or selection of “instructional materials” by “any educational institution or school system.”
The 1979 law establishing the Education Department forbids it from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum” or “program of instruction” of any school or school system. The ESEA as amended goes further: No funds provided to the Education Department “may be used . . . to endorse, approve, or sanction any curriculum designed to be used in” kindergarten through 12th grade.
However . . .
What authors Eitel, Talbert and Evers call the Education Department’s “incremental march down the road to a national curriculum” begins with the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSS). It is an initiative not of any state legislature but of a governors association, state school officials and private foundations.
This push advanced when the Race to the Top Fund (RTTT, part of the 2009 stimulus) said that peer reviewers of applications for money should favor those states that join a majority of states in developing and adopting common standards. The 11 states and the District of Columbia that won Race to the Top funding had adopted or indicated an intention to adopt the CCSS, which will require changes in curricula.
An Education Department synopsis of discussions with members of the public about priorities in competition for RTTT money says “the goal of common K-12 standards is to replace the existing patchwork of state standards.” Progressives celebrate diversity in everything but thought.
The Obama administration is granting conditional waivers to states chafing under No Child Left Behind’s unrealistic accountability requirements. The waivers are contingent on each state adopting certain standards “that are common to a significant number of states,” or the state may adopt standards endorsed by its institutions of higher education — if those standards are consistent with the Education Department’s guidelines.
We have been warned. Joseph Califano, secretary of health, education and welfare in the Carter administration, noted that “in its most extreme form, national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas.”
Here again laws are cobwebs. As government becomes bigger, it becomes more lawless. As the regulatory state’s micromanagement of society metastasizes, inconvenient laws are construed — by those the laws are supposed to restrain — as porous and permissive, enabling the executive branch to render them nullities.
 
Jamie Gass
From: sstern9447@aol.com [mailto:sstern9447@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 12:03 PMSubject: Hirsch and the Common Core
My article on Don Hirsch and the Common Core in the new City Journal. Please do not link on line till it appears on the CJ website
Categories Common Core, Education Reform

Whither Wisconsin?

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
5

Wisconsin’s leaders seem determined to degrade public education in the state. An earlier post described the expectation that the schools will produce a docile workforce. This one shows the overall plan to turn the educational system so that it meets the needs not of children, but the needs of industry.

Categories Education Reform, Wisconsin

Student Activists Take the Stage at SOS Webinar

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
3

A reader sent the following notice. I often correspond with Nikhil Goyal, whom I met on Twitter.

If these young people raise their voices and rally their peers, they can drive the conversation and stop the obsession with testing and the monetizing of schooling.

Please join the Webinar to talk to them and give them encouragement.

I am glad to see students participation in the education process because after all, it is THEIR future.  I believe the students in America’s schools deserve a much stronger voice in their own education.

Today, teacher moderators will host the Save Our Schools Student Voice Webinar entitled:

Elevating Student Voices: Sparking the Movement for OUR Future.

The SOS Webinar takes place this evening at 9:00 pm EDT | 6 pm PT.  Folks can register for the webinar and read more about it here:

http://saveourschoolsmarch.com/issues/webinars-featured-future-past/webinar-elevating-student-voices-sparking-movement/

During the webinar three students will share their roles as activists, authors, and speakers about how they are elevating student voices to spark a movement.  The three students include:

Nikhil Goyal • Lobbyist for the Students!

“At age 17, Nikhil Goyal is the author of All Hands on Deck: Why America Needs a Learning Revolution to be published September 6, 2012 by Alternative Education Resource Organization. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, NBC, Huffington Post, and Edutopia. Nikhil has spoken to thousands at conferences and TEDx events around the world from Qatar to Spain.”

Zak Malamed • An Education Reform Leader!

“Zak Malamed is an 18 year old advocate for the student voice in education policy. He considers himself to be both a political and social activist who is passion driven. Recently, he founded the #stuvoice Twitter chat to promote the students’ perspective in education. Zak was president of his high school’s Student Government in and has held many other leadership roles as both a student advocate and a student leader. He looks forward to pursuing a career in public service and hopes to see that track begin as we collaborate to re-imagine the way we learn.”

Stephanie Rivera • A Future Classroom Teacher, Current Cyberspace Teacher

“Stephanie Rivera is a 20 year old student studying English and Education at Rutgers University. She is a high school mentor, teacher assistant, future teacher, and runs her own blog at Teacher Under Construction. Her work includes elevating student voices, working towards recreating a nation where the term “at-risk” is no longer a term associated with the term “school,” and ultimately empowering future world changers.”

In addition, two adults who have activist goals related directly to students will join us.

Robert Applebaum • Founder of Forgive Student Loan Debt

“Robert Applebaum is an attorney from Staten Island, NY and the founder of ForgiveStudentLoanDebt.com. Rob is a 1998 graduate of Fordham University School of Law and, thereafter, he served as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y. between 1999 and 2004. After 5 years of service as an ADA, because of his exponentially increasing student loan debt, Applebaum made the unfortunate decision to leave a public service job he loved for the private sector, where he remained for the next 5 years.

In late January, 2009, frustrated with countless bailouts of the very institutions responsible for the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, news of lavish vacations, exorbitant bonuses and office redecorations, Robert Applebaum authored an essay entitled which he posted to Facebook Group by the same name. Due to the overwhelming popularity of the Facebook group, Mr. Applebaum founded ForgiveStudentLoanDebt.com so as to advocate for both current and former students struggling under massive amounts of student loan debt.

Applebaum’s petition on the White House’s “We the People” site, which garnered over 32,000 signatures, resulted in a direct response from the Obama Administration when they unveiled the “Pay As You Earn” initiative in October, 2011.

Rob’s most recent petition on SignOn.org, in favor of H.R. 4170, The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, has over 950,000 signatures and is on track to reach a million signatures.

Robert Applebaum has written on the topic of student loan debt for The New York Times, Salon.com, The Guardian and The Hill. He has been featured in BusinessWeek, The Economist, U.S. News &amp; World Report, The Huffington Post, and The Washington Post, Now on PBS, Nightly Business Report, RT America, PBS NewsHour and Default: The Student Loan Documentary.”

Rick Roach •  Orange County School Board Member

“Judge Rick Roach was elected to the Orange County, Florida School Board in November 1998 and was re-elected to a fourth term in 2010. He has been a resident of Orange County for thirty years. He holds a bachelor of science degree in education and master of arts degree in education and educational psychology. Recently, Roach became known for his prowess; he assessed the standardized assessment test, commonly known as the FCAT. Rick’s study led him to ask Are low FCAT Scores the Tests Fault? Roach was a teacher, counselor and coach in Orange County for 14 years. For the last 25 years he has trained over 18,000 educators in classroom management and course delivery skills in six eastern states. Roach serves on the board of the Orange County Foundation.”

These panelists will discuss several topics that impact students in America’s school due to education reform.

Here is what is happening across America: [ co-authored by Susan DuFresne and Stephanie Rivera ]

“Across the globe, students are engaging in activist movements against corporate education reforms: Chile, Spain, Greece, Canada, UK, and now… America.

Students of all ages in America are feeling the pressures of these reforms. With their futures in the hands of corporate reformers, students are realizing they have the power to take it back. Students are waking up and demanding that their voices are heard. It is their education, their lives, their futures, and they are making sure they have a say in it. Thus far in 2012, over 150 student protests have taken place in the United States. Students have protested against standardized testing, loss of teachers, lack of resources, student loan debt—and these are just to name a few.

As America’s students begin their own movement, students are realizing how critical it is to not delay on taking action. They are realizing how imperative it is to come together as one unifying voice. With this awakening, students are on their way to organizing a national movement for their education.

Under the current system, students’ creativity and love for learning is being drowned by the corporate reformer’s demands. Months of their lives are spent either in test-prep or testing in a system designed for failure. Students are losing interest in school, interest in learning, and being discouraged about their future as corporate reformers demand results, looking at students as if they were machines rather than humans.

These demands create disparity among students and future generations, at all levels of education. Students are at loss in determining the value of school. We as humans have an innate drive for knowledge and discovery, if students can’t find these in their classrooms, then where can they? The lowering value of school leads to increase of dropouts, which inevitably leads to minimum-wage jobs, or victims of school-to-prison pipeline. Yet, regardless of the equation that led them there, it is still considered the students’ fault.

Students are labeled failures through high-stakes testing, leaving them with a narrowed curriculum — absent of the arts, sports, electives, or vocational courses. The narrowed curriculum and time spent teaching to the test often leave many students in the dust. Without social studies, civics, and history being taught at every grade level, the very fabric of our democracy is at stake.

In addition, Corporate Education Reformers are pushing for Charter schools, claiming they are the ultimate solution to saving our students. Yet, these schools frequently marginalize students by using a lottery system and selecting out students by race, class, ability, gender, and language creating a two-tiered system of injustice. As a result, our current schools are now more segregated than prior to the 1950′s.

Students are realizing the cause and responsibility of these issues lies squarely on the doorstep of Corporate Education Reformers.

The panel will tell you how you can join us to create a movement that will stop this corporate take-over of public education and lift the burden of student loan debt, all via student activism and partnerships with all stakeholders.

Again, we invite you to join us in our Save Our Schools Webinar: Elevating Student Voices: Sparking the Movement for OUR Future. Never before, have America’s students asked so much of one another. Clearly, now is the time for America’s student to take a part in creating the future of their own educations.

These dynamic guests — in our Save Our Schools Webinar: Elevating Student Voices: Sparking the Movement for OUR Future — ask you to join them to empower and elevate student voices, to spark a movement built by students — for students, and for the future of democracy in America.

Join us for our webinar and join these students in building America’s student movement giving students a voice.”

Categories Students

When Youth Get Involved

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
1

A reader in Louisiana points out that the research I cited this morning was prepared by a 19-year-old who is fighting for quality education and real science education, not religious indoctrination. This is an uphill battle in Louisiana today, in light of the state’s decision to give public funding to schools that teach creationism as science.

 The young man whose blog you cited, Zach Kopplin – 19,  is a shining example of the ability and power that our youth have when they speak out and take action against injustice and just plain bad policy.   Zach has recorded a video for me to share at the Save Our Schools People’s Convention August 3-5 explaining his work to repeal Louisiana’s Creationist law when it was proposed. I will publish it on my blog as soon as it is edited and ready.  Zach testified yesterday at our Board of Education meeting when our Supt. John White presented his worthless accountability plan for private and parochial schools that received vouchers.   His testimony that many of the approved receiving schools bypass the proper teaching of science and replace it with creationism was compelling and presents the case that they are therefore unqualified to receive public funding because their curricula would not meet the “quality” criterion.    It should be one of the issues that is presented in the lawsuit filed by two of our state unions and a group of district school boards against the new voucher legislation. 

Categories Accountability, Louisiana, Vouchers

Has UTLA Been Pounded into Submission?

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
13

A story in the Los Angeles Times says that the United Teachers of Los Angeles has agreed to permit test scores to be part of teachers’ evaluations.

This is in response to a lawsuit brought by EdVoice on behalf of anonymous parents. EdVoice is one of those organizations funded by the Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation and other members of the billionaire boys’ club who will never leave teachers alone until they teach to the test.

I hope this is not true. As we have seen again and again, judging teachers by the test scores of their students is harmful to the quality of education as it places too much emphasis on testing. It incentives narrowing of the curriculum, teaching to the test, cheating, gaming the system, score inflation.

Value-added modeling, which would be used here, is junk science.

Even Eric Hanushek, the favorite economist of the VAM crowd, says that teachers account for only 7 1/2-15 percent of the variation in students’ test scores.

What about the 60 percent that is usually attributed to the influence of family, especially family income?

If Los Angeles goes down this path, it may well fire the wrong teachers (Houston fired one of its teachers of the year based on VAM data).

Surely there is a better, more constructive way to evaluate teachers than to rely on unstable and inaccurate measures.

Categories Accountability, California, Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Unions

Governor Rick Snyder’s Plan

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2012 //
15

Governor Snyder’s plan for education in Michigan sounds just like Romney’s and Bobby Jindal’s.

The money should follow the student anywhere and everywhere, to any vendor of education services, regardless of who owns it or manages it.

So, students may take their money to private schools, to hawkers of services, to online courses, whatever. Welcome to anyone who wants to start a school and collect public money.

That is a plan to undermine public education, and the rightwing knows it. That’s their goal.

Education costs won’t go down without increasing class sizes, and the way that will happen is by shifting more dollars to online schools of dubious quality.

It may be worth pointing out that this is not the formula of any high-performing nation in the world.

An editorial writer for the Detroit Free Press sees an issue with the Snyder approach. His column is called “It’s Time to Reshape Public Education.” My suggestion, take care not to destroy it. The entrepreneurs who will flood the new marketplace will care more about their bottom line than about children. Surely, Governor Snyder knows that. This is the governor’s prescription for education spending:

“Any time, any place, any way, any pace.”

It’s a catchy way of saying state money should follow students through all kinds of educational options, from traditional neighborhood schools to charters and online coursework — whatever best enables the student to learn.

Snyder calls it “unfettered flexibility” and hopes to foster more “free market ideas for public schools in Michigan.”

Sounds good, but let’s make sure we have quality controls in place for educators who want to set up shop here and take in our tax dollars.

And let’s not leave decisions about learning entirely up to the students. A few may do just fine taking a physics class online at 2 a.m. from a teacher based in Arizona. But most will probably be better served by a little more structure — and a mandatory gym class.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Michigan, Privatization
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