Archives for the month of: August, 2012
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

How Turnarounds Create Failure

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
4

Thanks to reader Linda for sending this important article:

The Paradoxical Logic of School Turnarounds: A Catch-22

by Tina Trujillo — June 14, 2012

In the 1955 classic novel Catch-22, Joseph Heller chronicles the absurdity of the bureaucratic rules and constraints to which a conflicted Air Force bombardier and others are subjected. Each character lives under the absolute, yet illogical, power of these policies. The Obama administration’s current school turnaround policy is a catch-22. This policy mandates that low-scoring schools fire principals and teachers and change schools’ management. Such reforms engender the exact conditions that research has linked with persistent low performance—high turnover, instability, poor climate, inexperienced teachers, and racial and socioeconomic segregation. In this way, the policy presents potential turnaround schools with certain impossible dilemmas, or catch-22s, because implementation is likely to lead schools back to the original problems that the turnaround was supposed to solve.

Full article: http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=16797
Categories Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Race to the Top

Future Meetings of the Cuomo Commission

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
5

Educators of New York state. Make time to attend a meeting of the Cuomo Commission. As reported here, the meetings in New York City and Buffalo were stacked with charter school advocates, TFA, and StudentsFirst. But as principal Carol Burris notes below, it is important that you are there. Sign up to speak. Who knows, you might be called to testify. Be there to witness. The future of the education profession and public education in New York is on the table.

Carol Burris writes:

Please attend future hearings. Although they provide the opportunity to testify, I cannot tell you based on my experience, that the selection process is fair.  I can tell you, however, it is worth the try AND it is worth being present.  Even if you do not speak, be there.  If you are allowed to testify, speak up for the profession that means so much to you and to the schools that mean so much to your children. 
 
Here is the schedule
 

 

 

 

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, Education Reform, New York, Principals, Privatization, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations

NYC Reformers Killing Another School

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
6

I recently wrote a post about how the NYC DOE kills schools. It does this because it wants their real estate. It wants to place four or five small schools or charter schools in its building or find another use for the building. So the DOE starts the killing process first by calling the school a “failing school,” which causes many students and families to avoid it. Then the DOE cuts back on resources and staffing and programs, because the school has fewer students, and it plunges the school into a death spiral. i have heard from many teachers who were immersed in this horrible scenario, but unable to stop it. Several from John Dewey High School and Jamaica High School have told me what is happening at these once estimable schools.

Here is another story from someone caught in the middle as the authorities seek ways to sink a school:

Jamaica H.S. is not alone in this regard. I work at The H. S. of Graphic Communication Arts in midtown west Manhattan and the DOE has done everything in its power to close this school. We are a CTE school who have students from all 5 boroughs on our roster. We do not get to pick and choose who our student body is but we accept with open arms so many of the students that no other school wants. We have worked very hard to improve attendance, graduation rates, and test scores but every time we improved, the DOE raised the levels needed to achieve a good school rating- surely, we do want to do better but the DOE has pre-determined that our school, also in a VERY desirable location, should close. They have lowered our incoming class each year, added one, two, then three schools to the “campus” and made us a “turnaround model” school last year, basically telling parents “Do NOT send you children there,” even though our student body, parents and staff members all agree that we do a wonderful job under the worst of circumstances. Mayor Bloomberg and the DOE lost that battle in the courts BUT they have won the battle because so many schools that were good places for students, have been turned into schools that are now fighting to stay alive and having difficutly in doing so. It is a sad day in education when non-educators not only think they know what is best, but try to force their views and ways upon those of us who know differently!
Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, NYC

Good News and Bad News from Texas

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
8

First the good news. School boards in Texas continue to pass a resolution opposing high-stakes testing. As of this date, 610 school boards representing more than 3.6 million students have passed the Texas resolution. That 59% of all school boards in the state, representing 74% of all students in Texas public schools.

Texas, as we know from its role in originating No Child Left Behind, is a state that is test-obsessed and test-centric. Its leaders assumed that testing would solve all problems, raise everyone’s performance, close the gaps between races and income levels, and maybe do the dishes as well. No one figured out that a standardized test by design is normed, meaning that half are above and half below average; no one realized that standardized tests accurately reflect poverty and affluence. Tests do not teach. Tests instead displace instruction and control and direct instruction into the path ordained by the tests.

Texas, be it noted, is paying $100 million a year to Pearson to design tests. Texas officials should be asking Pearson why New York pays only $32 million annually. Are the Pearson tests for Texas three times as good as Pearson’s tests for New York? Are the Texas officials being treated as dumb rubes who will buy just anything sold by someone with a British accent? As a Texan, I’d like to know why my state got sold something for triple the price of what they were selling to NY.

Now for the bad news.

Disappointed with the results of three decades of testing, disappointed with the poorly prepared students who enter college, Texas officials have just given a contract to the College Board to develop a new test! This would be a placement exam for all students entering any college or university in Texas.

Meanwhile, the cuts to public education are something like $4 billion in the past few years. Teachers, librarians, other have been laid off. Class sizes have gone up.

But there is always enough money for new tests.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Testing, Texas

What You Need to Know about For-Profit Online Schools

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
5

This is a stunning article. A real journalistic achievement.

It shows in remarkable detail how certain politicians and investors and entrepreneurs are working together to privatize public education and to generate huge profits for certain companies.

Read this.

Categories ALEC, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Florida, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, K12 Inc., Luna, Tom, On-Line Education

Another Way to Take a Stand

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
2

A group of principals in Long Island, New York, went to training sessions about the state’s evolving educator evaluation plan. When they realized that teachers would be graded on a curve and that half would be rated ineffective by design, they were horrified. When they realized that teachers who didn’t produce higher test scores would be rated ineffective no matter how highly they were rated by their principal, they were outraged.

And they wrote a petition to the State Education Department asking for a trial of this potentially injurious system.

Please sign their petition, no matter where you live:

1508 NY principals …over 1/3 of NYS, signed a letter, a detailed research based letter, against evaluating teachers by test scores. A few thousand teachers signed too. How about 1/3 of NY teachers signing?
Www.Newyorkprincipals.org

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, New York, Principals, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Another Phony Cuomo Commission Hearing

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
1

The Cuomo Commission held a “hearing” in Buffalo too.

And once again, pride of place went to charter school leaders and their supporters.

Charters enroll about 5% of the students in New York state.

Why does Governor Cuomo think they should own the agenda?

Why not  listen to public school principals and teachers?

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York

Read This. Share My Rage.

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
22

This story is heartfelt and it makes me very sad. It also makes me angry. What are the politicians and policymakers doing? Why aren’t they giving teachers the support and respect they need to do their work? When I read this, I wonder if the Rhees and Kleins and Gates and Broads and Waltons and all their buddies can look at themselves in the mirror and feel good about what they are doing to education in this country.

After 27 years, I, too, retired last August. Yes, it was a legitimate choice. I had always thought I’d teach at least 31 years; that was my unspoken goal.
Teaching has been my passion, having told my principal three years prior to my retirement that I had the best position in the district (elementary art teacher, pk-4). At the time, he argued, saying that he had the best job as the newly assigned elementary principal after having been a teacher only a handful of years. We laughed as we argued, and I told him with his leadership, our school would soar.
Unfortunately, this same man was soon named superintendent. Transitioning from teacher to principal to superintendent in such a short span of years, changed the person I thought I knew. Or maybe it just opened my eyes.
As superintendent, his new theme at last year’s opening inservice became “Get on the treadmill with me or get off.” Honestly. Together, the district staff watched a ten minute motivational youtube video of “Will Smith’s Wisdom” in which Smith (the actor) urged listeners to “get on the treadmill” as he stressed work ethic and journeying for success.
I had never thought of the parallels of education and treadmills. However, as I thought about the idea, the treadmill connection was apparent. So many of us are running ourselves ragged just by trying to stay on the treadmill. Even Race to the Top is a treadmill…state against state on the treadmill, with only a few winning those precious carrot-dollars.
After the third day of inservice last year, I submitted my request for retirement. I had to get off the treadmill. This was the day before the official school start. I had a 2 1/2 hour meeting with my superintendent (and NEA Uniserve Director) sharing with him my reasons, my concerns, and my fears for education locally and at state and federal levels.
I’m not certain he actually heard me, but I said my piece. It felt good. I highly recommend it.
I packed my 27 years of teaching and moved out by midnight that very night. Of course, before I locked my room for the last time, I left a lesson plan for each grade level for the next morning with each level’s supplies set out, the all-so-mighty curriculum book that I’d put my blood, sweat and tears into developing, a brief statement about how to use my filing system of three filled five-drawer file cabinets, the updated inventory, the short list of new inventory, blank seating charts for each class, the class lists—if you’re a teacher, you know the routine. It IS all about the kids, even as one is leaving.
Now, after a year of retirement, I know I’ve done what I needed to do for me and for my mental health.
In the nick of time, I might add. Next week, my district begins implementing a four-day school week. Oh, all the money we’ll save, AND it’s “all about the children.” Who are we kidding?
And thus, I can be an advocate for children in other ways. I am. I will forever be.
Categories Teachers and Teaching

Teachers and Principals Together

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
8

A wonderful comment by a principal. Build alliances:

Please do not assume that administrators are not every bit as disheartened as teachers at what is happening in public education. I am a principal. I taught for over 20 years. I became a principal because I knew that teachers need administrators who know how hard they work, how dedicated they are, and how much they give to the children in their classes. I became an administrator to ‘stand in the gap’ and allow teachers to teach, even in this high stakes testing, anti-teachers environment. It breaks my heart every single day to see what is happening to our schools. Every day my goal is to help the teachers in our school build the learning environment where our kids find joy in learning and our teachers find joy in teaching. And trust me, it is not easy. Sometimes I feel like the only way to DO my job well is to put my job on the line every day.

 
Categories Principals, Teachers and Teaching

This Teacher Invites Michelle Rhee to Come Home to Ohio

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
17

This reader has some ideas for Michelle Rhee and an invitation:

 As a teacher from a small city in Ohio, I resent Michelle Rhee making statements about my teaching based on a small sample set from inner city schools hundreds of miles away. The next question is- What sort of administrative support did these “poor experienced teachers” receive?Dear Michelle- You came from northwest Ohio. Why don’t you come back and talk to some of us? Talk to the many outstanding public school teachers who do great things every day. The one thing we have here is support. We support each other as fellow teachers where there is no or little administrative support. We can identify strengths in each other when YOU and so many others try to beat us down. When, due to your example, administrators tell teachers that, as a building, they are broken, we are able to look at each other and lift each other up again. That is what makes great teachers. We also have parents who support us, in spite of our administrators. Did your sample set have this?

It is disheartening to speak with younger teachers this summer. They are away from each other, and many are not looking forward to the new school year. Why should they? When they come together for convocation day, they will be put down by their administrators, told they are broken, and need to change or get out. Who, in any job, would want to work under those conditions? But they will. And when the administrators are gone, the teachers will again lift each other up, and remember why they are there- for the children. They will squeeze in ‘real teaching’ in between testing teaching, when the administrators aren’t looking. What part of this looks like freedom, or the United States I grew up in?

How different would our country be if all of us and our children saw our leaders complimenting each other rather than bullying each other. What if they could model working together for all of us? And isn’t it sad that this will never be anything but a dream?
Categories Education Reform, Rhee, Michelle, Teachers and Teaching
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »