Archives for the month of: August, 2012
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Teacher Survivor Contest: Rural Edition

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
9

Earlier today, I suggested a “teacher survivor contest” and invited readers to propose candidates to teach, as well as the rules of the competition. A reader suggests that teaching in an urban classroom is no more challenging than teaching in a rural classroom. I did not specify teaching either in an urban or a rural setting. She proposes a rural edition of the contest:

I’d like to see the contest as the RURAL edition. Bill Gates and the Waltons assigned as the teacher in a 1 or 2 room school, teaching from 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM, 4 days a week with students in grades K-8. Lunch is a brown-bagger with students. There is a morning nutrition break, which the teacher must prepare, serve, and clean-up.The teacher has all duties, and there are no “specials”, except music for 45 minutes, once a week, about 3 out of 4 weeks per month. Of course, there is no on-site special education teacher, so the classroom teacher must make all accommodations and modifications within the regular classroom, and/or must facilitate, (in the regular classroom with all other students to attend to) therapy via computer teleconferencing.The teacher(s) must provide lesson plans for every grade, every subject, every day, with reference to state and common core standards. There are no colleagues within a 75 mile radius. All disciplinary problems must be handled by the teacher, on site.Parents may show up at any time and may remove their children for such reasons as “he [a 5-year old] is needed to work the round-up”, or “he [an 8-year-old] has to go on the deer hunt with me if we are to have any meat this winter”. Oh, also, on a fairly regular basis, the teacher must deal with scorpions and with sidewinders on the playground, and the yearly tarantula migration that goes right through the school yard. No special training is provided or required to deal with these issues, and of course, they were not likely covered in the 5 week training (or even in a 4-year course). The teacher is expected to live on-site in a trailer. The nearest grocery store and gas station is 75 miles away, and the prices are much higher than in the city.None of this is made up or exaggerated; these are the actual working and living conditions in a Nevada rural school where I taught for 3 years., and the same conditions still apply. More often than not, the teacher hired for this position has little or no experience teaching, so perhaps the 5-week preparation isn’t all that much of a factor. I’m betting the oligarchs wouldn’t last a month, but if they should survive, they get the lowest pay in the state for their efforts, and if they leave before their year’s contract is over, their contract specifies that they will be billed for the cost of finding a replacement for them. Of course, they could also be sued for “abandonment” in this state, and lose their teaching license into the bargain.
Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

Science As Taught in Some of Bobby Jindal’s Voucher Schools

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
20

Some of the schools getting voucher students–not all, but a significant number–use textbooks that teach creationism.

Jonathan Pelto posted what is found in a science textbook used to teach creationist “science”:

 

  1. “Biblical and scientific evidence seems to indicate that men and dinosaurs lived at the same time…. Fossilized tracks in the bed of the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas, also give evidence that men and dinosaurs existed simultaneously. Fossilized human footprints and three-toed dinosaur tracks occur in the same rock stratum…. That dinosaurs existed with humans is an important discovery disproving the evolutionists’ theory that dinosaurs lived 70 million years before man. God created dinosaurs on the sixth day. He created man later the same day.”

    The ACE, (Accelerated Christian Education®) curriculum is being used in a number of Louisiana schools that receive public funding as a result of Jindal’s publicly funded voucher program.

    ACE claims that it maintains “high Biblical and academic standards and remained committed to setting children on a path for success. The goal is the same today: to prepare children for the world today and give them the academic and spiritual tools necessary to achieve their God-given potential.”

  2. “In a desperate attempt to keep the ‘sinking ship’ of evolution afloat, recent ‘scientists’ have proposed a new theory. This theory states that certain organisms experienced (for some unexplained reason) a dramatic genetic disturbance that hurled them across the gap left by the missing links. This theory, called the ‘hopeful monster’ theory, has no scientific basis.” ( Accelerated Christian Education, Science 1107)

Categories Curriculum, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Vouchers

Is Compromise Possible? Wise?

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
23

Nancy Flanagan was a music teacher for thirty years in Michigan and a National Board Certified Teacher. She writes a smart blog at Education Week called “Teacher in a Strange Land,” which is an apt title for the disjointed and bizarre times we live in. Her perspective is rooted in her deep experience. I always learn something new when I read her posts.

Her current post is called “Sleeping with the Enemy.” She asks why can’t we all just get along? Can the lion and the lamb lie down together? She offers James Carville and Mary Matalin as a case in point. It can happen.

And she writes about the pent-up anger among so many teachers, who don’t understand why they are treated so abusively in the media and by the policymakers who have never taught a day or maybe taught for a few months or even two years.

Nancy is clearly conflicted. She can’t decide whether compromise is possible, whether there is a middle group between the corporate reformers and the nation’s battered teachers. Or whether compromise reveals a lack of moral conviction.

She ends with a story about a colleague who is attending a conference where he will display his best lessons, in hopes of being chosen to attend an international conference. And she wonders, as do I, why Bill Gates appointed himself to choose America’s best teachers. As do I.

She leaves us pondering that compromise, pondering what we give up and what we gain. And who really wins.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Who Cares about Privacy Rights?

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
11

Sheila Kaplan’s organization “Education New York & Information Policy Watch” is zealously devoted to protecting the privacy rights of students.

In response to a post about whether the U.S. Department of Education was overreaching with the latest expansion of its regulatory power, she sent the following comment:

The US Department of Education is overreaching in more than one area. This is why EPIC is suing US ED under APA. EPIC v US ED:http://educationnewyork.com/files/1-main.pdf EPIC v US ED motion:http://educationnewyork.com/files/11-main_epic_USED.pdf

What is this about? The U.S. Department of Education unilaterally rewrote the regulations governing the release of information about individual students. Their right to privacy was eroded, the lawsuit says, without Congressional hearings or legislation or oversight.

As Kaplan writes on her website, “EPIC has filed a lawsuit under the Administrative Procedure Act against the Department of Education. EPIC’s lawsuit argues that the agency’s December 2011 regulations amending the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act exceed the agency’s statutory authority, and are contrary to law. The agency issued the revised regulations despite the fact that ‘numerous commenters . . . believe the Department lacks the statutory authority to promulgate the proposed regulations.'”

What’s with this administration? What’s their goal? How does it improve education if student information is made available to marketers and snoopers? Why the obsession with data? Why doesn’t Congress rein in this out-of-control federal agency?

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Students, U.S. Department of Education

Why Incentives Fail in Education

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
1

This reader notes that people attracted to work in education are different from those who choose to work in risk-taking occupations. I would disagree only to this extent: Read Deming, Pink, Ariely, and Deci, who say that extrinsic rewards don’t work in the corporation either; that people, regardless of occupation, are motivated by idealism, a sense of mastery and autonomy, and other factors intrinsic to the work, not by bonuses. We are today seeing a resurgence of early twentieth century Taylorism, scientific efficiency, low-level behaviorism, which repudiate what cognitive psychologists have learned about what motivates people to do their best.

And one other thing: These days, education is a risk-taking occupation.

The reader writes:

Many of the reform efforts are attempts to use incentives and external
motivations, to get students and teachers to do what the reformers want, namely to
perform better on tests. It is a counterproductive approach. Firstly, teachers “differ from
those who select corporate careers. Education attracts people with both a strong service
ethic and a desire for job security, not entrepreneurs with a thirst for risk and
competition” (Evans, 2000).

Secondly, their “occupation permits them maximal freedom and minimal
supervision” and they “cherish their freedom and tend to see themselves—and to behave–as artisans in their separate studios, practicing their craft as they see fit” (Evans, 2000).

External incentives tend to dampen internal motivation (Deci, 1971; Deci,
Koestner, and Ryan, 1999; Fehr and Falk, 2002; Kohn, 1999). Critics of teachers are
operating under Theory X, that most workers are lazy and irresponsible, rather than
Theory Y that assumes teachers are self-motivated and responsible. This is a false
assumption.

Categories Education Reform, Merit pay

Bobby Jindal vs. Science

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
15

Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, knows a good bit about science. He was a biology major at Brown University, one of the nation’s finest universities, and a Rhodes Scholar.

An excellent article in Slate explains how Jindal has sacrificed the principles of science for political expediency.

As the author notes, “…in his rise to prominence in Louisiana, he made a bargain with the religious right and compromised science and science education for the children of his state. In fact, Jindal’s actions at one point persuaded leading scientific organizations, including the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, to cross New Orleans off their list of future meeting sites (PDF).”

In 2008, Jindal signed the “Louisiana Science Education Act,” which undermined science by encouraging the teaching of creationism. Earlier this year, Jindal pushed through his voucher program, which will send millions of dollars to religious schools that teach only creationism.

University scientists have testified that they have lost strong candidates for faculty positions because scientists are reluctant to move to a state that is antagonistic to science. When you see what is happening in Louisiana, you can see why teachers need tenure–or they will be fired for teaching science. But of course, Jindal’s legislation took tenure away. To quote the article, ” Gov. Jindal has given wholehearted support to a program that will use public money to teach scientific nonsense to the young people of his state.”

What’s worrisome here is that Jindal is perceived as Romney’s spokesman on education, despite the fact that he has identified himself with hostility to science.

Some see Jindal as a contender for the vice-presidential nomination.

When you see how a man with the best education imaginable has sold out basic principle for political advantage, it makes you worry about the future of our nation.

Categories Curriculum, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana

A Better Way to Improve Schools

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
4

Our education leaders are in love with ideas that are proven not to work and they ignore evidence that their preferred strategies don’t work.

After a decade of No Child Left Behind, Congress won’t admit that it failed. There are still many millions of children left behind–not “no child”–yet Congress can’t bring itself to ditch its failed program. 

Every day brings new evidence that the policies of Race to the Top are hardly different from those of NCLB. They rely on the same strategies of testing, punishment, and choice, with an added dollop of privatization. Why is a Democratic administration so devoted to a Republican policy agenda? Why is a Democratic administration even more devoted to privatization than NCLB?

If we ever come to our senses, there is a better way. Our policymakers decided to treat schools as totally separate from society, to ignore the social and economic conditions that affect student performance. This is wrong. Here is a nice summary of policies that have worked wherever they were tried, but are ignored by our leaders. The formula is simple: Improve the lives of children, and their academic performance will improve.

When will they wake up? When will Arne Duncan and President Obama and the governors and legislators and state chiefs and mayors wake up? When will Stand for Children start standing for children? When will StudentsFirst actually put students first, not teachers last? When will the education reformers realize that schools and society are intertwined?

Categories Accountability, Duncan, Arne, Parents, Students

This is What People Will Say in 20 Years, I Predict.

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
8

When we look back 100 years, or even 50 years, we can see things that people did that seem bizarre to our modern eyes.

How could they have done that? That’s so cruel, that’s so inhumane, that’s so barbaric!

The thought occurred when a friend sent this article from the archives of the New York Times about a plan to “electrify” a classroom for children with special needs (they did not use such a polite term in 1912).

What were they thinking? How could they have thought of these children as lesser human beings, as subjects for experimentation?

Don’t you wonder what people will say about us 20 years from now, or fifty years from now?

Maybe they will be amazed that we ate meat or that we smoked little sticks with tobacco in them.

For sure, they will wonder why our public officials decided to ruin our education system, which produced the most successful nation and the greatest economy and most vibrant culture in the world.

What were they thinking, they will say. How could they have been so harsh and mean-spirited towards children? How could they have treated teachers with such disdain and condescension? Why did they let corporate greed take over their schools? It will seem so puzzling to them in the future.

I hope it won’t take 20 years to realize how stupid our policies are.

Please don’t lose your sense of ethics, your capacity for moral outrage.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform

A New Contest: Teacher Survivor!

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
29

A comment by a reader suggests a new contest. Who would you like to see assigned to teach for a year and under what conditions? What are the terms of the contest and how would you determine the winner?

Put your thinking caps on. The contest lasts for 24 hours only and may be shortened or extended by the decision of the judge (me).

Ready, set, go!

Sounds like a good show but I’d prefer to watch “Survivor Inner City Edition” where in September they put ed reformers like Gates, Broad, various politicians and members of the Walton family in a city like say Newark with only 5 weeks of TFA training. They would have to live on a 1st year teacher’s salary and use only the resources available in that school. Of course they would get that extra “loss aversion” incentive money but they won’t be able to spend it until the following year when their test results are finally posted. The one who makes it to June wins! What you ask? The chance to do it all again the next year! But then again if their scores didn’t improve well then maybe not.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

The Common Core Is Not the Problem

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2012 //
6

A reader proposes a way to make the Common Core work for students:

I would use the Common Core standards a bit differently. I’d expand on what I did a couple of years ago when I was in the classroom teaching with Moodle and Google.docs and a variety of devices. See-http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/writing-the-elephant-in-the-living-room.html where I wrote about it.

With the Common Core, I’d encourage the students to try to make sense of the wording in the CC and then to choose which ones they’d like to accomplish and let them decide how they would accomplish that learning. They could post their learning products in a Moodle Database and let their peers and their teachers comment. Anyone with appropriate access could also see the learning products and comment. Some of those products could be posted on district-wide learning product showcases. I think with a litttle effort all of the schools in the country could do a collective learning fair on the standards, ribbons optional. There would be all kinds of different examples of how students from around the country demonstrated their learning of each standard, or as many as they got to that year.

Schools and teachers can choose not to use the standardized tests that the big corporations sell; they’re free to build their own assessments and correlate them to the standards. I’m an advocate, too, of using technology like iPads and BYOT environments to do formative assessments; multiple choice questions can be great learning tools if used right. See – http://www.naiku.net/

Teachers and schools just need to stand up and speak up. The standards aren’t the problem. Claiming authority of teaching and learning is the issue. Teachers and schools need not abrogate authority to entitiies outside of their schools.
Categories Common Core
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