Paul Thomas is an articulate and prolific critic of the status quo of free market reforms.
In a new article, he analyzes the nature of “no excuses” schooling and why it fails.
Thomas says that the debate about metrics is irrelevant. Getting higher test scores and graduation rates, he argues, doesn’t matter so much as how those rates are produced.
He writes:
The education reform debate is fueled by a seemingly endless and even fruitless point-counterpoint among the corporate reformers—typically advocates for and from the Gates Foundation (GF), Teach for America (TFA), and charter chains such as Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP)—and educators/scholars of education. Since the political and public machines have embraced the corporate reformers, GF, TFA, and KIPP have acquired the bully pulpit of the debate and thus are afforded most often the ability to frame the point, leaving educators and scholars to be in a constant state of generating counter-points.
This pattern disproportionately benefits corporate reformers, but it also exposes how those corporate reformers manage to maintain the focus of the debate on data. The statistical thread running through most of the point-counterpoint is not only misleading (the claims coming from the corporate reformers are invariably distorted, while the counter-points of educators and scholars remain ignored among politicians, advocates, the public, and the media), but also a distraction.
Since the metrics debate (test scores, graduation rates, attrition, populations of students served, causation/correlation) appears both enduring and stagnant, I want to make a clear statement with some elaboration that I reject the “ends-justify-the-means” assumptions and practices—the broader “no excuses” ideology—underneath the numbers, and thus, we must stop focusing on the outcomes of programs endorsed by the GF or TFA and KIPP.
Instead, we must unmask the racist and classist policies and practices hiding beneath the metrics debate surrounding GF, TFA, and KIPP (as prominent examples of practices all across the country and types of schools).
Whether you agree or not, Thomas’s views deserve a wide hearing.
Let’s discuss what he says. Let’s think about it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thomas is Absolutly right! These policies are racist and classicist at their very core. Putting black and Hispanic kids through through quasi-military training says they lack discipline, structure, and need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. It denies poverty as the real reason for the struggling these kids endure. Yet, what do these wealthy reformers know about poverty and it’s destructive influence? They read some reports, some endless, useless data, and quantify the lives of these kids.
Ask teachers about what poverty does, and what education policies these reformers have championed do to kids already suffering the affects of lack. Ask them about “academic” policies that prohibit teachers from teaching cursive in the third grade, so math scores can improve. Ask teachers about these now ninth grade urban kids who can’t write or read cursive, and are now an underclass of kids who can’t sign their own name! Are suburban kids subject to such humiliating policies?
Corporate reformers’ manipulation and misuse of data is a consistent hallmark. The media has often reported data that is incomplete, unreliable or devoid of context. To me, it is all a cynical marketing campaign for profit and political gain. The classist and racist outcomes are a result of market segmentation. It is easier to push these policies and products on the poor and isolated. It is harder to do it on the educated middle classes.
They also juke the stats and move the shells around to report faux progress. This is about the self proclaimed reformers creating a reputation for themselves. It is sickening and it is happening here in CT:
But the flier circulating at the Aug. 22 meeting suggests that these claims are not entirely credible. Regarding the graduation rate, the flier claims that Adamowski “imposed a minimum failing grade of 55 for all students, whether or not they attended classes.” This resulted in a “system in which many students attended for only one quarter of the year, yet they passed.” Regarding improved test scores, the flier claims that “Adamowski achieved an approximate 10-percent increase in CMT scores by identifying those students who couldn’t pass the test and moving 9.8 percent to the MAS Modified Connecticut Test in lieu of making real gains.”
“It is a simple matter for the state to look into student grades during the Adamowski reign in Hartford,” he continued, “checking to see how many students failed to complete any work over three marking periods, and yet received grades of 55 instead of zero for those periods. Then, these same students were able to earn a sufficiently high enough grade during the fourth marking period to ‘earn’ an overall course grade of 60. Then, balance those grades of 55 against the attendance for those marking periods. Invariably, the state would determine that such students attended only one marking period yet passed the entire course under Adamowski’s policies.”
Anne DeGraff, a retired counselor from Hartford’s Bulkeley High School upper school (grades 11-12), provided further evidence that students were leaving Hartford public schools ill-equipped under Adamowski. “During Mr. Adamowski’s tenure in the Hartford school system, we were working diligently at BHS upper school to make sure the transcripts reflected rigor and college-ready courses,” said DeGraff. “Much to our chagrin, the transcripts we received from the lower school (grades 9-10) were anything but. Despite complaints to administrators and the board, the lower school continued to produce transcripts reflecting students taking the same course over and over again, despite having passed it. I can’t help thinking that this did not help our students enter college.”
Read the full article:
http://www.remindernews.com/article/2012/08/26/parents-teachers-oppose-special-master-methods
“we must unmask the racist and classist policies and practices hiding beneath the metrics debate surrounding GF, TFA, and KIPP.” I couldn’t agree more. We also must proffer an alternative.
Guy Donno:
I agree. My alternative: Assure same education the affluent children receive for ALL children.
Yes, by offering the same professional opportunities to learn for all students, with adequate and equal funding. It is hardly ethical to make teachers and administrators responsible, even in part, for educational outcomes. All we can do is lead the proverbial horse to water.
If we are to truly improve education, we ought to hold students accountable for their work – it should be mandated that students create a project based portfolio for every class in middle and high school. These portfolios would be managed by the teachers, with intermediate checks, and finally presented to a teacher or a panel of teachers. Let’s forget standardized testing and put kids in charge on their learning – REAL learning.
But even before we incorporated such tactics the first and foremost thing to do is to strip our legislators of their rights to mandate and legislate educational policy. If we could allow educators to make the rules, the rules might make sense.