A reader wrote this morning to complain about a biased and ill-informed CNN program.
Teachers, parents: When you see shows like this, call the network’s 800 number and tell them you want to complain. Be specific. Next time Rhee is on a program complaining about the “failure” of U.S. schools, tell the network to ask about the cheating scandals in D.C. and the achievement gaps in D.C.
They take notes. If they get hundred of calls, they listen:
This morning, CNN devoted two segments on how American education is failing compared to the rest of the world. Of course, Michelle Rhee was interviewed and the segment was completed one sided with no counter arguments presented. I wish they would have had you on to debunk Rhee’s false claims. I wrote the following complaint to CNN:
This morning 8/4/12 you had a completed one-sided story about US education which included Michelle Rhee. The entire premise of the segment is that the US is failing in education compared to the rest of the world. You even used a biased chart of nation rankings in education from the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC. Rhee, other corporate “reformers” like Bill Gates, and ALEC has one mission-to privatize public education. Rhee’s organization, Students First demonizes teachers and wants to set up more charter schools which perform in many cases no better than public schools. Rhee and other “reformers” never talk about how the US has one of the highest poverty rates of all the industrialized nations. Research indicates poverty has the greatest impact on student performance. So instead of dealing with poverty issues in America, Rhee looks to blame teachers and unions. Moreover, when controlling for poverty, the US ranks in the top 10 of nations in education. In fact American schools have been improving not failing. The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows steady gains in reading and larger gains in math over the years. Why doesn’t CNN act like a responsible news organization and do some actual research about education before having someone like Rhee on the air? Why not have someone to counter her false claims about education like Diane Ravitch? Shame on you CNN for not doing your homework! |
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Please post the CNN number to call and their email, to encourage people to take action.
Can you post an email address and phone # for CNN?
Here is the CNN feedback page: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/
There is also an 800 number.
but I don’t have it at hand.
CNN
One CNN Center, Box 105366, Atlanta, GA 30303-5366
Phone: 404-827-1500
Fax: 404-827-1906
I could not find an 800#
I think the answer to your question is no.
Teaching Economist: Please explain what you mean.
A shill is an acomplice in a con game who presents themselves as an independent citizen. The person who wins in the three card monte game while you watch on the street corner, for example. That person is actually a partner in the con, but pretends to be independent in order to make the object of the con more comfortable.
Dr, Ravitch’s question is if CNN is part of a con group that is trying to deceive the public about education reform. I do not believe that CNN is part of any such group, hence my answer no.
I believe that CNN presented a very shallow story because it was easy to do. They have many hours to fill and probably have an overworked staff. In general if I am faced with two possible explications, one which requires an undetected conspiracy and the other that requires people be lazy and/or simply tired, I think the second is more likely to be true. Do you go with the secret conspiracy?
If CNN presents ALEC’s ratings of states as fact, then it is in fact shilling for ALEC.
ALEC is a biased source. Read about it. It has an agenda of privatization. It writes “model legislation” that is anti-teacher, anti-public education, and pro-privatization.
Would you also post the name of the program on CNN? I would like to see it. Thank you!
Thank you. I just sent CNN a message.
Thanks for the links to contacting CNN.
I just e-mailed CNN with a complaint. There is a place on the contact page where you can click to report an error on CNN TV. Everyone needs to complain about this. They will respond to numbers.
if you hit 2 on the opening menu of the 404 #, you will get the chance to leave a message as well…
So much for trusting the “Most Trusted Names in News”, I’m going to send a copy of your email and another one that I wrote to Howard Kurtz by email and good old fashioned regular mail. And just for good measure, maybe a tweet or two for good measure on Sunday. I’m glad I was out. It’s so sad to see CNN outsourcing its data and charts to ALEC. Sloppy and no doubt, unethical, unless the data and charts were fact checked. It is however a new low in journalism, especially for CNN.
I’m hoping and praying that someone will ask her (Rhee) one day what she means by “failing schools”, how destroying and privatizing public education will help the schools be successful, DC’s “achievement gap” that she turned into a ‘chasm’, the multi- year cheating scandals we endured in DC Public Schools, the five hundred (500+) plus teachers who have been fired with no recourse or due process appeals because of her ‘innovative’ IMPACT evaluation system, why DC tests scores have remained flat and in most cases declined after her revamping of the system (5 years of no sustained growth or change- except teacher and principal churn-those numbers are frightening).
Lastly, and this is a topic that I can’t understand or wrap my head around. Why does she get a free pass on her joking claims of duct-taping an entire class of African-American students to get them to be quiet? First, something is perversely wrong with a person who makes a statement like this in public, especially to a group of new teachers. Had you, I or anyone else made a statement like this, well-I’m guessing that an investigation might take place, followed by our resignations. Instead, and maybe it’s the power of the media and celebrity, nothing happens. There were also the charges by the OIG that her husband, Kevin Johnson was up to no good with a female minor (not the first time- Phoenix police investigated him in 1995 for a similar charge) that he supervised at his charter, St. Hope Academy and that Rhee while DC Chancellor (and on DC’s time flew back and forth to Sacramento, covered for him and stipulated that he was a “good guy” See story and docs by karoli- at:
http://crooksandliars.com/node/60045/print
Now we have former CNN anchor, Campbell Brown shilling or projecting for StudentsFirst NY on the premise that the UFT and the AFT protect child sex abusers and predators. Wouldn’t it be ironic, that while raising these charges, the House of Rhee collapses?
Howard Kurtz hosts a Sunday morning problem Media Matters where he turns a “critical lenses on news media coverage”. He is a former Washington Post reporter who wrote on the media for several years.
He can be found on Twitter: @howardkurtz
CNN’s Bio Profile and his blog with preview. If he can’t address it this week, then maybe next if enough people contact him. Maybe a suggested segment on people who get free passes or who invent their own truth and reality like MIchelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Rep. Louie Gohmert, Mitt (Retroactive) Romney, and last, but not least Michelle Rhee.
Lets drop Howard a line and see what happens
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/kurtz.howard.html
http://reliablesources.blogs.cnn.com/
Here is the video segment on education “reform” with Michelle Rhee this morning (8/4/12) on CNN:
http://cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2012/08/04/seg-education.cnn.html
Correction to my original email about this segment: the ALEC chart used by CNN was on state education rankings not country rankings. Regardless, CNN should not use data from ALEC!
I can’t watch. It will ruin my weekend and I have heard her lies TOO many times.
ALEC is a strong voice for privatization. It is a biased source. CNN should not use its rankings for anything. ALEC ranks states by whether they follow the ALEC agenda of vouchers, charters, for-profit online charters, test scores as the measure of all, alternative certification, etc. Why would CNN use a rightwing measure to evaluate the nation’s schools?
I think they did it because it was easy to do. Newspapers will often take a press release, change a scentence, and print it. My guess is that when they have a slot to fill, ALEC is allways willing to go on with what is probably a canned talk.
I certainly agree that CNN should do a much better job reporting on education, and everything else for that matter. Certainly they should read a Supreme Court decision before they report on the contents.
My concern is your use of the word shilling. The implication is that CNN and ALEC are actively conspiring together. That is what a shill does. I don’t believe they are conspiring together.
If you had asked something like “is CNN only reporting one side of the educational reform story?”, I would have agreed.
When a major cable news network presents the views of a highly partisan group as “news,” call it what you will. It’s not news, it’s not impartial, it is propaganda, it might even be shilling.
I think it matters what you call it. Being stupid, being a shill and being a propagandist are three very different things. You chose your words carefully, so I assume thet you mean to suggest that CNN is intentionally inaccuratly reporting, they are deliberately manipulating the news to increase the profits of private schools so that CNN can take their cut.
I think you are incorrect.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Evening,
CNN (and its affiliate Headline News “HLN”), has been promoting an anti-union and anti-teachers that are union members agenda for several years and continue to do so with its “Big Gun,” Mr. Steven (Steve) Perry of the “Capital Preparatory Magnet School” in Hartford, Connecticut.
Whether it is Soledad O’Brien, Anderson Cooper, Carol Costello, etc, those hosts and hostesses will have Mr. Perry on their show (either without someone to give the viewers an opposing view or they will have someone on who is “weak” in offering (i.e., Randi Weingarten) an opposing viewpoint).
Mr. Perry, at times during his appearances, spews venom and lies and half-truths about teachers and those hosts and hostesses on CNN and HLN rarely if ever challenge Mr. Perry’s assertions. And when they do ask his to elaborate further, Mr. Perry continues to use distortions and lies. They will be no further demands made on Mr. Perry to produce proof to corroborate his allegations, lies and truths.
Mr. Perry, may still be doing his “Notebook” show on HLN.
One of the persons to combat and debate Mr. Perry, Geoffrey Canada, Michelee Rhee and their “family members” of pro-profit education is Mr. Jeff Huart of the United Federation of Teachers.
Sincerely,
Donavin White
US is probably doing even better than the top 10 when you control for poverty. American 15 year olds attending schools with less than 10% of students eligible for free/reduced lunch scored 551 on 2009 PISA Reading Test. Only higher score was posted by Shanghai (not a country), and US was ahead of high scoring Hong Kong (not a country) and Singapore (sort of a country; actually a city). Even those attending schools with 25% of less eligible for free/reduced lunch scored among the highest in the world. Our overall scores are unspectacular because of our high poverty rate. US ranks 34th out of 35 economically advanced countries in percentage of children living in poverty, with 23%.
I am very new to this, but virtualy all the posters here, including Dr. Ravitch’s, say that all standardized tests are useless for evaluating academic knowledge. I would link to the posts, but they are simply too numerous. Would everyone agree, especially Dr. Ravitch’s, that these numbers tell us nothing about education in US schools relative to other schools in other countries?
“. . . but virtualy all the posters here, including Dr. Ravitch’s, all standardized tests are useless for evaluating academic knowledge”
Not just standardized tests but educational standards in general along with grading, sorting and separating students have all been proven to be rife with logical errors and therefore invalid (useless) by Noel Wilson in “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577 and “A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” found at: http://www.edrev.info/essays/v10n5index.html
There are some posters (Ed T, Marshall) here who support standardized testing but they have never debunked/rebutted what Wilson has proven-other than one comment about Wilson’s work being a “post modern” critique, as if that debunked/rebutted his argument.
I urge you to read and understand what Wilson has written to understand the sheer idiocy of using educational standards and standardized testing for “evaluating academic knowledge”.
And if you think the numbers are meaningful, you need to compare apples to apples. You compare the scores for schools with relatively few students from poor households in the US to scores from all schools in these other countries. If you want to make a meaningful comparison, you need to compare rich school scores to other rich school scores.
TE,
As I was looking back to the prior thread on standardized tests, I see that you asked me a question. Let me answer now if I may. You stated/asked: “When teachers grade work done by students, what is that grade based on? You say it is in principle impossible that it can be based on student learning, yet a wide range of grades are given to students in the same high school.”
The grade is based on many different things depending upon which teacher is doing the “grading”. Which by the way makes things like grades and GPAs in general such a waste of educational teaching and learning time as from one teacher/class to another there is absolutely no commonalities in assigning them. Even if a school has a “strict” grading system, let’s say everyone has to have 50% of points from tests/quizzes, 20% from projects, 20% from home/classwork and 10% from a semester cumulative final, the end results are not comparable because as the each teacher “grades” items from each category differently.
Now, that might be seen as an argument for standards and standardized testing but due to the logical errors involved those are invalid. Wilson explains the problem of “frame of reference” of the teacher/grader/assessor and the logical problems involved when shifting from one frame to another in the above mentioned work.
Basically, grades assigned by teachers are based on nothing logically or rationally “solid” and are a chimera and a falsehood, which by the way I discuss with my students at the beginning of the year.
I am not against assessing where a student is in his/her learning process in conjunction with said student and parents. If I want to teach I have to assign a grade (in my case actually it is a percentage of total points that is converted to a letter grade by the system-I’m just a scorekeeper is what I tell my students). But I make sure the students know it’s nowhere near a true assessment.
None of the nations compared has the level of child poverty that is found in the US. We have a far greater income gap than any of the other nations in PISA. And nearly 25% of our children live in poverty. The figures are far lower in the advanced nations of Europe and Asia.
And if you read my post about Japan, you really must ask why the scores are so important. Japan has had high scores for many years–at least since the 1980s. And their economy is in deep trouble–not because of their test scores but in spite of them.
It may well be that the average school in the us has more poor children then the average school in these other countries (though we would have to work hard to show that. Comparing poverty rates across countries is very difficult. Each country uses its own methodology), but that does not matter for my point.
The poster is comparing test results from schools with the lowest percentage of poor students in the US to test results from the average school in foriegn countries. The average poverty rate in those foreign schools will be higher then the average poverty rate in US schools with very few poor children, no matter what the average childhood poverty rate is in the US compared to the foriegn country.
What do you think about NAEP scores showing US achievement at its highest point in history–for whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians–in fourth grade and eighth grade, in reading and math?
TE,
In response to your response @ 9:19.
One of the things that is overlooked in these cross country/cultural comparisons is “What is the fundamental purpose of education in each country?” I have not read any study to answer that question, not that I have looked yet. If anyone knows one please let me know. And the US has at least 50 different fundamental purposes of public education as each state’s constitution is the authorizing document. And just as not all the states have the same “philosophy” of education as per their own constitution neither do the countries have the same “philosophy”.
Yes, the founding intention/philosophy as developed and implemented over time by the various states and countries can, should and do result in varying outcomes for the population. Any attempt to rank them-PISA etc. . . , therefore, (and leaving aside Wilson’s complete destruction of standardization) will be full of error due to those differing assumptions of the function of schooling in society.
does result not do result
Duene,
I think we are close to agreement on grading being arbitrary and half a point differences between students GPA’s are not informative though we treat it as such.
Dr. Ravitch’s-I have no doubt there are very important links at a fundamental levels between education and growth, but with all that is going on in Japan, most importantly the long run demographic transition and short run natural disasters, it is illegitimate to draw any conclusion about testing from Japan’s recent economic performance.
Again please excuse my ignorance, but is the NAEP a reasonably accurate metric of learning? Has it been reasonably consistent over time? How long has the metric been used?
If it is, I am surprised given the postings here that public education has been destroyed. Perhaps it is getting better! Except, I guess for native Americans and pacific islanders that is.
If it is not a reasonably accurate metric, then it provides no evidence about much of anything.
I think you should learn more about NAEP. It is the federal testing program that has existed for 40 years and is considered the gold standard of educational testing.
To Teaching Economist,
You wrote:
The poster is comparing test results from schools with the lowest percentage of poor students in the US to test results from the average school in foriegn countries. The average poverty rate in those foreign schools will be higher then the average poverty rate in US schools with very few poor children, no matter what the average childhood poverty rate is in the US compared to the foriegn country.
We all make typos, but I have a pet peeve for then vs. than. I make sure my 7th graders have this down before they leave me. Quick refresher:
The English words than and then look and sound a lot alike, but they are completely different. If this distinction is harder than it should be, read this lesson and then try again.
Than
Than is a conjunction used in comparisons:
Tom is smarter than Bill.
This is more important than you might think.
Is she taller than you?
Yes, she is taller than I.
Technically, you should use the subject pronoun after than (e.g., I), as opposed to the object pronoun (me). However, English speakers commonly use the object pronoun.
Then
Then has numerous meanings.
1. At that point in time
I wasn’t ready then.
Will you be home at noon? I’ll call you then.
2. Next, afterward
I went to the store, and then to the bank
Do your homework and then go to bed
3. In addition, also, on top of that
He told me he was leaving, and then that I owed him money
It cost $5,000, and then there’s tax too
4. In that case, therefore (often with “if”)
If you want to go, then you’ll have to finish your homework.
I’m hungry!
Then you should eat.
The Bottom Line
Than is used only in comparisons, so if you’re comparing something use than. If not, then you have to use then. What could be easier than that?
I am reading the 2011 math report right now. In your opinion, are these score correctly asses student learning? Can they be used to evaluate students? To make judgements about schools? Education reform? You have often posted that standardized exams have no value. Is this the exception?
NAEP tests have no stakes attached to them. They are used solely for informational purposes. No one has an incentive to cheat or game the system. They are more trustworthy than high-stakes tests. I served on the NAEP governing board for 7 years.
Linda, thanks for your help.
Do you agree with the argument?
Great to have a metric.
Are there concerns about motivation for the students? I heard a very interesting discussion on Talk of the Nation about the Collegete Learning Assesment. A student called into the show to say that her college, Arizona State I believe, found that it had to pay students to take the test and the students often left well before the end of the time available.
Perhaps it is a bigger issue for older students who think they have something better to do, but do the students have any incentive to do well on the exam?
Also good to hear you talk about the importance of incentives on behavior. You will be thinking like an economist before you know it.
TE,
I hope to god I never think like an economist! “. . . importance of incentives on behavior”-Ay Ay Ay, ¡Qué tal raza! (In plain English slang-WTF!). That statement is why I never hope to think like an economist.
“You have often posted that standardized exams have no value.. . . ” The distinction that Diane is trying to make is between a standardized test and a “high stakes” standardized test that has sanctions and/or rewards attached to the results.
Personally, I don’t make that distinction because educational standards, standardized testing and grades are all fraught with so many errors involved that it makes them completely invalid. See Wilson’s work referenced above.
But the concept of “grading” students is so imbedded/ingrained into our consciousness that to question it is to be blasphemous. To question it is to upset the “social order”. To question it is seen to be as delving into chaos and anarchy. No “good” society should allow that to happen!!!
I know that you will say all exams have no value, but I can’t believe you are right that Dr. Ravitch is making the distinction this way. The standardized test and what you do with the scores on the standardized exam are two different things.
If you think an exam does not measure student learning it does not measure student learning, no matter if there are consequences attached or not. If a test does measure student learning, it measures student learning no matter if there are consequences attached or not.
The difference in stakes create incent……..ops almost said the bad word………creates a desire to game the system and/or cheat on the part of the people administering the test.
Standardized tests are best used for information. When rewards and punishments are attached to them, the tests distort education, and they become pernicious. High-stakes testing is associated with score inflation, gaming the system, narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, and cheating. I have told you this about six times and you never listen. Why? I am beginning to think it is a waste of my time to say the same thing over and over because you are impervious to anything I say. You really need to learn more about testing. Read the report of the National Research Council, which you said you would not do. Read Daniel Koretz. Inform yourself before uttering opinions without fact.
I guess I have not been clear about drawing the distinction clearly enough.
1) From reading this blog I have concluded there that some (and many active posters think all) are useless in measuring student learning No matter if they are high stakes, low stakes or no stakes. Several of your posts argue that some exams, Pearson in Texas for example, have a flawed design so are not usefull under any circumstances.
2) You have argued that other exams can tell us about student learning, the NAEP tests, for example.
3) You further argue that if an exam is high stakes for the teacher and administrators, teachers and administrators will reat strongly to the incentives by gaming the system and cheating, among other things.
Point number three is NOT the same as point one, and we need to think about the two differently. I am sorry that I was not making that clear.
Should have had the word test in they first point.
“If a test does measure student learning, it measures student learning no matter if there are consequences attached or not.”
No, a test “measures” nothing. It may hint at what a student knows but that is all. It is impossible to get into the head of a student and “measure” the learning as one day what was learned may be there, the next day gone and three years later be back in there for days or weeks or even the lifetime of the learner. Any test is a very, very crude instrument used in trying to assess what a student may or may not know.
It seems to me that you are blinded by an economist epistemology that all human relations/interactions can be best explained through “measuring” and/or “monetizing”, i.e., putting a monetary value on, human relations. Not all human interactions, but especially the art of teaching and learning can be adequately and rationally described in economic terms.
Economic theory cannot be logically ascribed to all aspects of life. What is the economic “value” of the kiss that one receives from a lover, or the hug that a little one gives to his/her mom, dad, brother or sister. There is none! Because that is an illogical way to view those human interactions. Those interactions belong in the realm of “beauty”, “transcendence” and/or “feelings” that are immune to “measurement”.
Teaching and learning, being the amorphous interaction between the teacher(s) and learner(s), certainly belongs in the “beauty and transcendence” realm and falls out of the purview of economic theory. To use an economist lens to view these interactions is illogical and irrational and can only lead to invalid conclusions.
Duane-
I had you in mind when I wrote that many posters think all standardized exams are useless in measuring learning.
The second point is not what I think about the NEAP, I was citing Dr. Ravitch’s opinion of that exam. She believes it to measure learning, and from her posts on here, I think it unlikely that she is blinded by “economist epistemology”
”The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from [businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the
most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”
— Adam Smith
(1723-1790) Scottish philosopher and economist
Allways good to see Adam Smith quoted. The introduction to the wealth of nations is just amazing.