Edushyster noticed a strange phenomenon.
A charter school received a $1.5 million grant to close the achievement gap.
Edushyster noticed that its first class had 47 students. But 17 eventually graduated.
Then it was explained.
This is called success by attrition. It is usually associated with miracle schools, where 100% of the students graduate (of those that make it to senior year). For more on miracle schools, check Gary Rubinstein’s blog.
Stephanie Simon of Reuters has written one blockbuster story after another. She has done the digging and investigation that make her stories genuinely valuable. In education, as more newspapers cut back their in-depth education reporting, this kind of investigative journalism is becoming increasingly rare.
She wrote stunning articles about the privatization momentum in Louisiana, about TFA, about profiteers jumping into education, about the parent trigger, and about testing in kindergarten.
She is truly fair and balanced, never taking sides, but clearly explaining the issues in context, with attention to their consequences.
Recently, a newly elected member of a school board asked me to suggest background reading. So I put together a list of the reviews I have written for the New York Review of Books in the past two years. When I get some time, I will suggest a reading list of books.
I think you will enjoy them.
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This is a review of Steven Brill’s book “Class Warfare” and Janet Mayer’s “As Bad As They Say.”
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This is a review of “Waiting for ‘Superman'”
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This is a review of Pasi Sahlberg’s book “Finnish Lessons”
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This is a continuation of the previous review, and it reviews Wendy Kopp’s latest book about Teach for America:
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This is a review of the report by a task force chaired by Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice, which claimed that public education is so terrible that it is a “very grave threat to national security
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As a bonus, this is a post I wrote for CNN explaining why Michelle Rhee is wrong.
Dear Mr. President,
I have received your daily emails and phone calls – please take me off your lists.
I gave you some money in May, even though I didn’t want to – your phone volunteers are very persuasive!
I voted for you in 2008, and I will again in November.
What choice do I have? The alternative isn’t better, and probably worse overall. Though, I will vote for you reluctantly as I know your policies, and those of your Secretary of Education, like those of your predecessor, are destroying the profession I love and harming the students I teach.
I will instead be using my “$14 or more” to help fight childhood poverty. I will give one of my students a grocery gift card. I wish I had enough money to provide each of my students a healthy dinner at home with their families.
i will do this instead of donating to your campaign as you and many in the Democratic party will not acknowledge the devastating effects of poverty on children’s lives, and then blame teachers and schools.
Our schools need to improve, incompetent teachers need to be fired – as it is in EVERY other profession (including corporations and the financial industry – how is accountability working out there?)
But do not destroy public education because you will not tackle the real problems that face communities – violence, hunger, illness, homelessness…and hopelessness.
I know dealing with these issues is not as easy as a test score, and carrots and sticks. It would probably cost more money. Making education about winners and losers does not have a home in my classroom, and it is not good for our schools.
If our school had a library full of books (or digital readers), access to a full and holistic core curriculum, ability to enjoy art and PE every day, had adequate health care (and didn’t have to miss school for the free clinic), had a clean (and warm) place to live, were able to have a healthy meal, and were able to go home not worrying about having their basic needs met…it would go a long way toward improving student academic performance.
I had “hope,” I believed in “change,” now I’m a pragmatist when dealing with my elected political leaders.
It’s a Sunday night. I’ll go back to grading papers, giving my students formative feedback, and preparing lessons for tomorrow… trying to find one of my students a place to live in since she and her daughter were kicked out of a low income apartment (her income is too high now because of a new job), and secure childcare for another student so he can access an after school arts program. I will be organizing volunteers for a faith based organization trying to solve the issue of homelessness in our community, and will need to figure out which day I can volunteer for our Optimist club’s Christmas tree lot – all proceeds going back to our youth organizations.
I teach at an alternative school that keeps at-risk students and teen parents from dropping out. I see the effect of poverty each day. It’s tough for a teen mom who has been up all night with her own child to perform well on a one-time assessment, let alone graduate on time with the skills necessary to be successful.
As a parent, I am appalled by the 8 days of testing my 6 year old son will endure this year. I have excused him of all testing and data collection that does nothing but line the pockets of Pearson and ETS – The same folks who will be making a LOT of money off of the new Common Core Standards and ancillary products that will be peddled to our schools. Yes, I’ll sign him out of the new Common Core testing too.
If you’d like to talk some time, ring me up. I have many stories to share and ideas about how things could change for the better. Though, teachers are never asked what they think. Politicians and corporate donors get the most airtime – even though most of them have never spent a day in a classroom. I suppose it is because they have deep pockets. Money “talks” right?
Maybe if I had donated 10K or 100K to your Super PAC I could meet you and share my ideas. Perhaps if I started a non-profit that solicits money from corporate donors, then works to privatize schools you would listen to me. But I don’t have the money, and my ethics keep me from using public schools for profit…
Please consider the professional experience of your teachers in the trenches. It’s hard work helping our students achieve their dreams. We are willing to do it even after the bell rings at the end of the day. We teach because we believe in our students, our schools, and America.
I’ll be expecting the requisite form letter…so thank you in advance for listening.
Your constituent,
Ed
New York had the bad luck to win $700 million in Race to the Top funding.
The politicians thought it would help balance the budget, not realizing that the grant would not be available to plug budget holes.
Now we know that principals think the costly, time-wasting evaluation system is useless. Eighty percent find it inaccurate.
Money will be wasted on this invalid system even as budgets are cut.
Some day we will look back at Race to the Top and wonder, “What were they thinking? $5 billion for that?”
Was it intended to demoralize teachers or was that an unintended consequence?
Linda in Connecticut is one of the regular commenters on the blog and also one of the wittiest. She often makes me laugh out loud.
But her last comment was serious, and other readers responded positively. She said we should write a letter to the President. And she wrote a draft indicating what she thought it should contain.
Here’s the thing. President Obama is preferable to Mitt Romney, who would dismantle public education without a second thought. But Obama has so demoralized teachers that many may sit home or not encourage family and friends to vote. The teachers who feel betrayed by this president might cost him the election. He doesn’t seem to have noticed.
So the letter must help him change his policies so that teachers feel excited about him again.
What do you think of Linda’s letter?
In this atmosphere of teacher bashing, it’s imperative for teachers to go on the offensive and come up with their own answers. I too am incredibly disappointed with President Obama and have refused to send money this time around (But I will vote for him – what choice do I have?)
For me, a far better approach would be to stress what we know in regard to the education of impoverished kids and then ask the President to support these measures. We need to remind him that he wanted to be the “data president” but he is in fact ignoring over 50 years of data on education. He is also ignoring what we know from countries such as Canada and Finland. Everything about Canada is so similar to the USA that there should be no reason why we trail them in education. Let’s just find out what they do and copy it.( Oh, I forgot that our country doesn’t do that. Sorry).
So basically I would like us to ask President Obama if he would take the common sense applied to the education of his own daughters and apply it to other children, at least to some degree. He needs to be reminded that other kids also need good health care, two teachers to a room (with one being experienced) low class size and an enriching curriculum devoid of a year of test-prep. We need to remind him of the voluminous research that informs us of the critical importance of the child’s first five years of life. He needs to be reminded that testing experts have told us repeatedly that test scores correlate with the socioeconomic status of the child and not the perfomance of a teacher. To evaluate a teacher fairly other professionals must be personally familiar with the progress of the students in her class. I’m certain he is smart enough to know that this can’t be done with one whole group test!!! ( But Arne Duncan doesn’t seem all that bright and likely does not understand the function and limitations of standardized tests. I’d be willing to bet that he thinks the kids at Sidwell Friends score above the 90th percentile because they have “good” teachers while the kids in Chicago public schools have low scores because they have “bad” teachers).
And of course I’m certain the President knows that our American habit of educating kids by zip code is a national disgrace that has to stop now. Is there something he could do to support low-income housing in ALL communities? Could he stop our American tradition of placing the least experienced teachers in schools located in the poorest neighborhoods? How about open enrollment for all public schools?
About twenty years ago I sent a letter to the Department of Education telling them that we need to have high quality preschool for all impoverished children so as to get them ready for formal education. I received a reply from an “aide” who told me that “everyone” suggests that. If this is the case why don’t we do this one thing to help our least privileged children?
It’s time for parents, professors and teachers to go on the offensive. There is a mountain of research telling us what to do. How about a letter citing that research and asking the President to respond to the data?
(Yes, I’ve done it myself but my writing skills never get more than a form letter in response. A better writer needs to do it.)
Diane Ravitch's blog 