Archives for the month of: October, 2012
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Millions of Federal $$$ Wasted in Louisiana

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
7

When reformers say that New Orleans is a success, bear in mind that it is a low-performing district in a low-performing state, ranked 69th out of 70 districts in Louisiana. In addition, New Orleans got many millions in federal grants and private philanthropy to “prove” that privatization works.

A reader from Louisiana writes:


http://www2.ed.gov/programs/teacherincentive/2012awards.html

I was just studying the Louisiana grants awarded this round and back in 2010. Astounded at the amounts of money coming from Feds to subversively promote their agenda. In 2010 New Schools For New Orleans received millions. Now, understand that NSNO is basically an arm of TFA. A major purpose of this grant is to develop effective CAREER teachers. I am going to file a public information Request to both the Feds and LDOE for the requisite progress reports that NSNO had to file. Opening this link will also provide the full grant applications and the inflated/misrepresented claims about the success of RSD schools. Very interesting reading.

This is taxpayer money!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Louisiana, Teach for America TFA

The Bammy Awards

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
7

This was the first year of the Bammy awards, an effort to acknowledge educators who have achieved distinction in many different sectors of education. The Bammies are supposed to be the new equivalent of the Oscars for educators, presented by the Academy of Educational Arts and Sciences.

Emmy award-winning producer, broadcaster and journalist Errol St. Clair Smith organized this event, with red carpet, black tie and a sense of grandeur.

I was one of three who received awards for lifetime achievement. The others were Linda Darling-Hammond and John Merrow.

Many other Bammy awards were given to outstanding educators, and if you check the website you will see them (Linda received two!).

Randi Weingarten presented the award to me, and I must say she was at her best. I thought you might want to see this.

Categories Education Reform, Ravitch, Diane

New York City’s Absurd School Grades

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
7

I live in a wonderful neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. For years, the local public school struggled. It had a poor reputation. Then a new principal arrived, attracted a stable and experienced staff, and the school flourished. Neighborhood families that once sought private school alternatives enrolled in the public school. It became the pride of the community.

A few years ago, when the city’s Department of Education started giving out letter grades to every public school, our neighborhood school got an A. Everyone was very proud. The mayor and the chancellor attended a ceremony at the school to salute its stellar performance and to announce the building of an addition.

But six weeks after the ceremony, the new letter grades were posted, and the neighborhood school got an F. Nothing had changed: Same principal, same staff, same program, mostly the same students.

The next year, the school’s grade went up, but the after-effect of the yo-yo grading left parents disillusioned–not with the school, which they knew and trusted, but with the city’s grading system. They realized that it was meaningless.

Now the latest report cards are out. They are as meaningless as ever. As Leonie Haimson, our city’s leading parent advocate puts it, “no one in his right mind should believe the school grades or the teacher growth scores.”

Some schools plummeted from A to F; others, including highly respected schools, fell to C. No one knows why.

The grades are based mainly on the same test scores that are being used to evaluate teachers. The whole enterprise stinks.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, NYC, Testing

After a Decade, Bloomberg Reforms Still Failing

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
8

Mayor Bloomberg prides himself on being data-driven. And he has certainly turned the public schools into data-obsessed institutions. Test scores rule all decisions. Accountability matters more than anything else.

One of the proudest achievements of Mayor Bloomberg and former Chancellor Joel Klein was the adoption of report cards for schools, with a single letter grade for each school. Unfortunately, the latest report cards show that the Mayor’s reforms have failed. The Mayor decreed that any school that received an F or a D or three consecutive years of a C is a failing school. After a solid decade in which the schools were controlled solely by the mayor, more than a quarter of the schools are “failing schools.”

By any measure, ten years should be enough to prove that your strategies have worked. But failure continues, year after year, with no victory in sight.

As we see in the following post by a New York City data analyst, New York City’s public schools continue to show dramatic disparities along lines of poverty and disability and language. And large numbers of schools, by the city’s own data, are failing.


How can we improve schools if we refuse to tell the truth?
The recent release of school report card grades in New York City provides another opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of educational initiatives in the nation’s largest school system. As this is the New York City’s Department of Education’s own data it would seem reasonable to expect that the mayor and his education appointees would use it to evaluate whether or not the things they are doing work.
So what does their data tell us about charter schools? What does it tell us about whether or not New York City’s schools are getting better? Are schools who educate the city’s neediest students getting the support they need? Are the reforms in New York City working? Are the people who run the system willing to accept what their own data is telling them? Or does dogma rule. Let’s look at the facts.
1) What does the Department of Education’s own public data tell us about charter schools in New York City?
Here is the data:
Charter Schools Non-Charter Public Schools
% of special education students 14.2 18.1
% of special education students in “resource room” 5.8 4.4
% of special education students with intermediate needs 3.9 5.9
% of special education students with the greatest needs 2.1 7.7
% of English Language Learners 6.0 14.1
Economic need index .63 .67

What it says:
Charter schools in New York City are not serving the same population as New York City schools overall and certainly not the same population as the other schools in the needy districts they initially opened in. And they are definitely not educating students with the most needs. They serve fewer students with disabilities, fewer English Language Learners, a more economically advantaged population and fewer of the highest needs students. Recent research has shown that charter schools in New York City have a tendency to use suspension and other means to get rid of challenging students. So why does the mayor insist on claiming that charter schools are putting non-charter public schools to shame? Why do his educational appointees repeat the same tired lines? Do they not know that their own data shows that charter schools are not serving the neediest students? Or will they insist of touting charter school no matter what the facts say?
Whatever the answer is, as citizens we must acknowledge that the neediest students deserve an education too and schools that work with such students should not be shamed publicly for taking on the challenge.

2) What does the Department of Education’s own public data tell us about tell us about schools that work with the neediest students?
Here is the data:
Poorest 20 Schools Richest 20 Schools
Average % of students proficient in English 30 88.6
% of students proficient in English in
lowest school in category 8 79.9
% of students proficient in English in
top school in category 59.4 99.5
Average % of students proficient in Math 45.7 91.9
% of students proficient in Math in
lowest school in category 21.4 80.4
% of students proficient in Math in
top school in category 61.8 100

What does it say?
The lowest performing rich school has a 20% higher level of students scoring proficient on the New York State English test than the highest performing poor school. The lowest performing rich school has an almost 20% higher level of students scoring proficient on the New York State Math test than the highest performing poor school.
Although the mayor and his appointees in education insist that poverty is irrelevant their own data suggest that it isn’t. Although they claim that there are schools that prove that poverty is irrelevant their own data shows that the highest performing poor schools don’t even come close to the lowest performing rich schools. This does not mean that we should throw up our hands in despair. What it does mean is that the mayor and his education appointees need to face reality and take ownership of and responsibility for the situation. They need to fund poor schools, at the very least, at the same level as the rich schools. Right now they are giving the rich schools more money than the poor schools. They also refuse to look at what needs to happen inside and outside of schools to help them meet the needs of students from challenging circumstances. They would rather refuse to admit the facts that their own data reveals. Why? Is it because it is easier for them to deny the truth? Is it because they have no idea what to do?

3) What does the Department of Education’s own public data tell us about tell us about the last 10 years of education reform in New York City?
The Data (New York City grades schools on a curve so the number of grades in each category in a single year are predetermined):
23 schools got Fs

80 schools got Ds

114 schools got Cs or lower for each of the past 3 years

3 schools got As that got Fs last year

12 schools got As that got Ds last year

8 schools got Bs that got Fs last year

16 schools got Bs that got Ds last year

6 schools got Cs that got Fs

Roughly 40 other schools got Ds or Fs in one of the 2 years prior to this one, but did not get a C or lower 3 years in a row.

What does it say?
Based on the New York City Department of Education’s own method of school evaluation over 25% of their schools have been deemed failures and worthy of closure (not including schools they are already closing). Of course, although the mayor and his educational appointees swear that the school report card grades are accurate they must know otherwise. After all, they haven’t attempted to close a quarter of all New York City schools!
They claim that the school grades are steady from year to year and point out that only 14% of schools moved more than one grade this year. Of course, since there are only 5 possible grades that doesn’t mean very much. It is like a teacher telling a student “your test grades have held steady between 30% and 90%.”
They give 60% of schools A or B grades but only 10% of schools have 75% or more of their students reading on grade level.
Again we wonder if they know their own data or refuse to acknowledge it for other reasons. Is it easier for them to assign grades with little underlying meaning than to help schools improve?

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, NYC

Will the White House Listen?

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
14

A reader suggests we try these routes to get the attention of the White House. As you know, they take teachers and principals for granted and they don’t hear our voices. They assume our votes are already counted. Let’s help President Obama by contacting him and sending him a message.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/frequently-asked-questions
Who will review petitions that cross the signature threshold?

The White House will convene a regular meeting with representatives from all of the major policy offices (like the National Economic Council, Domestic Policy Council and others) that will review petitions that have crossed the signature threshold for a response. This group will help determine which policy office in the White House or federal agency should review and respond to petitions and ensure that petition responses are posted as quickly as possible.

Categories Obama

A Line in the Sand

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
2

The billionaires want charter schools in Washington State.

It is very distressing to them that the voters have already turned down charter schools three times. So they have put up a few millions to try again. This time the charter referendum closely tracks the rightwing ALEC model. It allows either a majority of parents or teachers to give away the public school to a private charter corporation, even if the school is a good school. It also creates a super-commission to create more charters over the opposition of local school boards.

These are mechanisms found in ALEC’s privatization model laws.

Here are the facts from Melissa Westbrook of “Say No on 1240,” the parent group that is fighting to protect public education and to stop privatization of education stave in Washington State. Please help them if you can:

Dear Dr. Ravitch,

I’m a long-time public education activist in Seattle and also write a blog, Seattle Schools Community Forum. I am also now the Chair of the No On 1240 campaign here in Washington State. You mentioned our efforts recently in your blog.

We are once again – for the 4th time – fighting off the establishment of a charter school system here in Washington State. We have fought off charters three times at the ballot box – 1996, 2000 and 2004 – and multiple times in our Legislature.

We are only one of nine states that do not have charters and we are virtually the ONLY state that has ever brought the establishment of charters to the ballot.

The Washington State Supreme Court ruled this summer that the Legislature is not fully-funding our existing schools; Washington State does not even fund our schools to the national average. So it begs the question of bringing on more underfunded schools and thinning the pot of education dollars to already struggling schools.

As in previous elections, this one is back by wealthy businessmen and this being Washington State, that would be Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft fame. The entire Yes campaign is made up of about 10 families, all with connections to Microsoft and Amazon to the tune of $4.5M. They also include a Walmart heiress from Arkansas and the head of Netflicks in LA.

Our campaign, No On 1240, is a grassroots campaign of parents and community members. (There is another No campaign started by the teachers union, the Washington Education Association, that we are working with but we wanted to be a separate campaign so that pro-charter supporters could NOT say the only people saying no were unions.)

Beyond the interesting fact that Washington State has fought off charters before, here are some other key issues that make this of national interest:

– a trigger section is embedded in this initiative. As you likely know, all other trigger laws are separate but the writers of this initiative put it into the initiative. The trigger is the harshest in the entire country.

It would allow a charter group, as part of the proposal, to submit a petition with a majority of signatures by EITHER teachers or parents to take over ANY existing school, failing or not.

It is breathtaking in its aggressiveness. The charter then takes the school community, building and all, with no public notification that this is happening. They would not have to pay rent to the district and the district would have to provide major maintenance to the building.

– it would give charters the right of first refusal to any school building for lease or sale at or BELOW market value. If you are a cash-strapped district, you have problem and, of course, it is never a good deal to have to sell public property for less than it is worth.

– it creates a Charter Commission that is politically appointed, once appointed has no oversight from anyone, elected or not, AND all members have to be pro-charter (this is actually in the initiative wording). I note that in Georgia they have a ballot measure about having a charter commission being able to ok charters.

Our campaign is having a Money Blast on Thursday, October 11th to try to get a one-day blitz of fundraising.

We are hoping to raise awareness about the charter issue here in Washington State as well as the Money Blast.

If we manage, against Bill Gates & Company, to fight off charters – for the 4th time – it will be a major national line in the sand. I know that other states are starting to look around and ask, “Where are these results charters promised? Where is the accountability and ease of closing low-performing charters that was promised?”

I think the question is out there – are charters really that great and is it worth the investment of our scarce education dollars?

Attached is more information about the campaign and the initiative text.

Could you please write a thread about our fight and our one-day Money Blast on Thursday the 11th? We have to fight off Bill Gates and the charter movement that wants to take over our public schools.

Do not hesitate to contact me for more information.

Best wishes,
Melissa Westbrook, Chair
No On 1240

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Washington State

Putting a Stake in the Heart of the Vampire

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
14

On Sunday evening, after I spoke to the joint meeting of the Texas School Boards Association and the Texas Association of School Administrators, and after I spoke to parents and teachers at Eastside Memorial High School, I met Abby Rappaport, who writes for The American Prospect.

Abby knows Texas politics well. She asked me many good questions, and reprinted a slightly edited version of the interview. I boiled down everything I said to TSBA and TASA in the interview. I told her what I thought about high-stakes testing, about the Chicago strike, and about choice.

The only thing with which I disagree in her post is that I was not famous for promoting the “reform movement.” The so-called reform movement of today didn’t exist until about five years ago, and by then I was on my way out the door.

I don’t know if I was famous, but I’d like to think I got to be known among educators for the histories that I wrote, like The Great School Wars (a history of the NYC schools) in 1974; The Troubled Crusade (1983); Left Back (2000); and The Language Police (2003). Those books survive, and none is about testing/accountability/choice/competition.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Unions, US Education

Michelle Rhee’s Plan to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
33

Michelle Rhee is is a one-person PAC. She is raising hundreds of millions of dollars from rightwing billionaires and foundations and corporations to subsidize her program.

What is her program? Destroy teachers’ unions; eliminate tenure and seniority; privatize public education. Having failed to transform the public schools of the District of Columbia, she now wants to privatize public education everywhere.

When I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I learned from a Democratic state senator that Rhee had poured $105,000 into a race between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Democrat. The difference between them? The conservative Democrat supports vouchers. My informant said, “Candidates here will jump through hoops for a contribution of $1,000. Getting $105,000 is unimaginable.” Rhee bought the election. The voucher-loving Democrat won. He added: Most of Rhee’s money goes to conservative Republicans.

She is trying to buy a seat in Connecticut now. A reader writes:

Rhee’s fraud of an organization has nothing to do with students, teaching or learning. It is a political lobbyist group that secretly slithers around the nation passing our billionaire donated cash to influence and bribe politicians. Her dirty donations push the privatization, anti-union, anti-public school, collective bargaining busting, teacher trashing dogma down their throats. Here she is a pariah and getting her money is the kiss of death here in CT:

http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/10/01/michelle-buy-yourself-an-election-rhee-returns-to-undermine-democracy-in-connecticut/

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/is_michelle_rhee_trying_to_buy_a_seat_in_the_5th/#comments-31483

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, For-Profit, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Tennessee, Unions, US Education, Vouchers

Testing and Accountability in the UK (part 2)

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
1

Robin Alexander, who directed the UK’s Cambridge Primary Review, has shared the findings of that major review of the primary grades. They are contained in this brief two-page statement, and I urge you to read them. Every one of them reflects our own discussions–from recognizing the influence of poverty on student performance in school to a proposal to abandon the misuse of testing and assessment.

I had planned to reproduce the two-page statement in its entirety, but every time I hit the “save” button, the whole thing disappeared. So I offer you the link and urge you to take the time to read this important and stimulating document.

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

A Visit to Austin, Texas

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
7

I just concluded an amazing visit to Austin.

I love going back to Texas. It’s my native state. I am a graduate of the Houston public schools. I like the sounds of Texas voices. I like the twang, the earthiness. These are the accents I grew up with.

I like meeting with racially integrated groups. I attended segregated schools in Houston. I’m proud that public education led the way in creating a racially diverse society, a society where people of all colors interact as equals.

I like the friendliness and openness, the lack of pretense and stuffiness that characterizes Texans. I have lived most of my life in New York City, but my heart belongs to this crazy state.

I arrived on Saturday and was met by Sara Stevenson, the tireless librarian at O’Henry Middle School, who has written many opinion pieces and letters to the editor in support of public education. Sara brought me to my hotel, where I met Karen Miller, a vigorous parent leader from Cypress-Fairbanks, who frequently sends me links to important news articles about corporate raiders of public education. It’s people like Sara and Karen who are the front-line combat troops defending our public schools, and they do it out of a fierce devotion to the common good, a sentiment that corporate reformers don’t understand. People like Sara and Karen are our secret weapons.

After an hour of rest (tweeting and blogging), I met two of the “fighting professors” of the University of Texas, Angela Valenzuela and Carolyn Heinrich. These scholars have been warning about the inequity of high-stakes testing for years, and their careful work will eventually turn the tide against the high-stakes mania. (By coincidence–or not–Sandy Kress, the architect of NCLB and now a lobbyist for Pearson, had an opinion piece in the local newspaper extolling the success of NCLB. He and Margaret Spellings may be the last two living defenders of that failed law.)

Saturday night, I had dinner with about forty superintendents from across the state who told me how frustrated they are with high stakes testing, how much time is wasted every year. A group of them have been working for several years on what they call their “visioning project.” Working with Phil Schlechty, they’ve been trying to dream up the kind of education they want for the children in their districts.

Last year, the Legislature passed a law allowing 20 districts to opt out of the state accountability system, which gets more onerous every year. The legislators just keep piling on more and more tests. The superintendents plan to use their autonomy to reinvent accountability and reduce the burden of testing.

Phil Schlechty gave a passionate five-minute talk about how our idea of democracy depends on the connection between the community and its public schools. He warned that if we lose public education, our democracy will be at risk. Phil also talked about his grandson, who made a video for school on “the value of doing nothing. The value of lying on your back and looking at clouds. The value of watching a caterpillar crawl on a branch. The value of counting the leaves on a tree.” Beautiful.

On Sunday morning, I spoke to a general session of the annual convention of the Texas School Boards Association and the Texas Association of School Administrators. More than 800 school boards have passed resolutions against high-stakes testing. I encouraged them to stand strong and to carry their righteous protest to the next level.

I asked, What if an entire district said to the state, we are not giving the tests this year? If the whole district says no, they can’t stop you. What if many districts opt out? If everyone does it, they can’t punish you. They-the legislators and other officials–will have to pay attention. They will have to stop and think of better ways to monitor the progress of education.

There is power in saying “no.” The more people say it, the more powerful it is. Texans have a long history of independence. Texans don’t like to be bullied. I would love to see a bunch of districts try it.

Sunday afternoon, I spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of parents and teachers at Eastside Memorial High School. The district has already promised to give the high school to a charter chain, and the community is furious. They didn’t ask for a charter, and they don’t want to lose their school. They are angry about the way the Broad-trained superintendent of the Austin Independent School District insisted on giving their local elementary school to the same charter chain, over the loud objection of the parents and local community. AISD was not responding to local demand (most of the local students abandoned the school when the charter opened last month). The locals are still angry, and they intend to hold onto the high school if they can.

Austin has several activist groups that are working to stop the encroachment of privately managed charters into the district. They are mobilized to elect school board members in November who will support community sentiment in favor of public schools.

Sunday night I went for Texas barbecue with local parent leaders.

Monday morning, I met with legislative staff to discuss the big issues in Texas. One is funding: the state cut $5.4 billion from the schools in the past two years. Another is the growth of online for-profit charter schools, which take public dollars with minimal accountability and poor results.

I ended my visit with an interview by Evan Smith before a live audience, on his PBS show “Overheard.” Wonderful audience, great questions, a good opportunity to address issues that are important to Texas and the nation.

I had a wonderful time in Austin, experienced a whirlwind of activity, and enjoyed the chance to meet so many people who care about children and our future.

Diane

Categories Parents, Privatization, Ravitch, Diane, Testing, Texas
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