Archives for the month of: January, 2013
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Time to Divest?

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
22

A reader sent along a story that the California teachers’ pension fund, the second largest in the nation, has decided to divest from corporations that manufactures weapons.

That’s a good start. Now how about divesting in Walmart, which is the biggest retail outlet for assault weapons like the one used in the Newtown massacre? Another reason to divest in Walmart is that the Walton family is one of the biggest sponsors of vouchers and charters–all non-union–of course. Why should teachers invest in corporations that want to cut their pay, eliminate their job security, tie their profession to unreliable test scores, and break their union (if they have one)?

Teachers often act powerless but in fact their pension funds wield a lot of power in the marketplace. Others use their economic power to attack public education. Why shouldn’t teachers and administrators use their economic power to defend this citadel of democracy?

The reader asked the following question:

Why can’t we ask our retirement funds to divest from at least those companies that directly profit from the corporate education reform movement, like testing companies, education management companies, and the for profit charter companies?
There is another way to get at the same effect is to move districts and states toward open source textbooks and testing, that are developed by educators collaborating and offered to schools at minimal cost.  The state of California passed a law setting up a project to do this at the college level for the most commonly used course textbooks.  I can’t imagine collaboratively developed tests would be as expensive as the corporate ones, and politicians would have a hard time arguing against the cost savings as well.  
 
We need to stop giving money to companies that are slowly strangling our public schools.
Categories Education Reform

Breaking News: Astonishing Exchange about PBS on Rhee

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
55

This is a remarkable exchange of correspondence about the PBS program “The Education of Michelle Rhee.”

Many readers on this blog thought the documentary was too favorable towards Rhee, recycling a lot of old footage in which she is shown as a courageous upstart who did it all “for the kids.” They thought it provided far too rosy a portrait of a woman who provided lessons in how NOT to be a leader, not only because she used pressure tactics to demand higher scores, but because she repeatedly showed herself to be heartless, callous and indifferent to other human beings.

Others, however, thought it was unfair to Rhee.

Chancellor Kaya Henderson wrote a statement to the PBS ombudsman to complain about the program’s portrayal of the (alleged) cheating scandal. She believes that the investigation by the D.C. Inspector General cleared the district of any suspicion.

Someone who describes herself as a DC parent also wrote to the PBS ombudsman to complain that the program harped on a non-existent cheating scandal.

As you will see, both the statement and the letter attack the credibility of former principal Adell Cothorne, who told John Merrow that she witnessed staff changing test sheets.

PBS stands by the documentary. The exchange is well worth reading.

Categories Michelle Rhee

How Can Parents Fight School Closings?

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
14

Jersey Jazzman explains what is now obvious: School closings have a disparate impact on children and communities of color. Community schools are closed, destabilizing the neighborhood. Charter schools open, which choose and reject those they want or don’t want. Most charters don’t want the kids with the greatest needs.

A new parent group has formed in Newark, which has been a playground for the rich and famous, who move around Other People’s Children like pieces on a chess board. It has lodged a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Will OCR find policies supported by the U.S. Secretary of Education discriminatory?

Let’s watch and see.

If that doesn’t happen, the parents should go to court. We still have an independent judiciary.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Detroit, New Jersey, New York City, Parents

Kasich Pulls a Fast One

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
15

A reader sent this notice of a major change in teacher evaluation in Ohio, slipped into legislation at the last minute, with little discussion. The governor is determined to follow the Rhee script and bombard teachers with test-based accountability, despite evidence to the contrary. I have a suggestion for Governor Kasich: How about if you take the students’ end of course exams and publish your test scores?

The bottom line:

If you’re not familiar with legislative language, here’s the summary 

HB 555 radically changes the method of calculating evaluations for about 1/3 of Ohio’s teachers. If a teacher’s schedule is comprised only of courses or subjects for which the value-added progress dimension is applicable – then only their value-add score can now be used as part of the 50% of an evaluation based on student growth. Gone is the ability to use multiple measures of student growth – ie Student Learning Objectives or SLO’s.

Teachers and school districts have spent countless months collaborating on the development and implementation of an evaluation system originally detailed in HB153 – only to now find the rules of the game changed at the 11th hour. Furthermore, the change is regressive. We have detailed the growing list of research that demonstrates the very real and serious problems with heavy reliance on value-add, and the need to offset these problems by using multiple measures of student growth.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Ohio, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Equity Investors See Big Profit$$ in Education

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
14

This is the end game of the current reform movement: financializing public spending on education.

Education is now seen as an emerging market, ripe for the picking.

Time to get in on the ground floor.

You don’t need to know anything about education.

What an opportunity!

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

Listen to this Radio Show Tonight

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
8

Tim Slekar is a battler for public education.

He has made videos, written articles, testified before every committee that will listen, and runs a weekly radio program.

He is dedicated to stopping the corporate reform assault on public education.

Listen to this program tonight (and browse his archives, because he has interviewed so many of the teachers, principals, superintendents, parent activists and others engaged in our struggle).

@ the chalk face internet radio. Tonight at 5pm EST. Talking with Mercedes Schneider and the looming Louisiana teacher evaluation disaster. Where is the media coverage of Garfield, Ballard, Hamburg? Right here of course! Listen:http://www.blogtalkradio.com/chalkface/2013/01/13/at-the-chalk-face-progressive-edreform-talk

Categories Education Reform

A Math Teacher on Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
146

Stephanie Sawyer gives her view of the flaws of the Common Core math standards:

I don’t think the common core math standards are good for most kids, not just the Title I students. While they are certainly more focused than the previous NCTM-inspired state standards, which were a horrifying hodge-podge of material, they still basically put the intellectual cart before the horse. They pay lip service to actually practicing standard algorithms. Seriously, students don’t have to be fluent in addition and subtraction with the standard algorithms until 4th grade?

I teach high school math. I took a break to work in the private sector from 2002 to 2009. Since my return, I have been stunned by my students’ lack of basic skills. How can I teach algebra 2 students about rational expressions when they can’t even deal with fractions with numbers?

Please don’t tell me this is a result of the rote learning that goes on in grade- and middle-school math classes, because I’m pretty sure that’s not what is happening at all. If that were true, I would have a room full of students who could divide fractions. But for some reason, most of them can’t, and don’t even know where to start.

I find it fascinating that students who have been looking at fractions from 3rd grade through 8th grade still can’t actually do anything with them. Yet I can ask adults over 35 how to add fractions and most can tell me. And do it. And I’m fairly certain they get the concept. There is something to be said for “traditional” methods and curriculum when looked at from this perspective.

Grade schools have been using Everyday Math and other incarnations for a good 5 to 10 years now, even more in some parts of the country. These are kids who have been taught the concept way before the algorithm, which is basically what the Common Core seems to promote. I have a 4th grade son who attends a school using Everyday Math. Luckily, he’s sharp enough to overcome the deficits inherent in the program. When asked to convert 568 inches to feet, he told me he needed to divide by 12, since he had to split the 568 into groups of 12. Yippee. He gets the concept. So I said to him, well, do it already! He explained that he couldn’t, since he only knew up to 12 times 12. But he did, after 7 agonizing minutes of developing his own iterated-subtraction-while-tallying system, tell me that 568 inches was 47 feet, 4 inches. Well, he got it right. But to be honest, I was mad; he could’ve done in a minute what ended up taking 7. And he already got the concept, since he knew he had to divide; he just needed to know how to actually do it. From my reading of the common core, that’s a great story. I can’t say I feel the same.

If Everyday Math and similar programs are what is in store for implementing the common core standards for math, then I think we will continue to see an increase in remedial math instruction in high schools and colleges. Or at least an increase in the clientele of the private tutoring centers, which do teach basic math skills.

Categories Common Core, Curriculum

Who Is SFER?

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
9

An organization called Students for Education Reform is popping up on various campuses to advocate for corporate reforms.

This article by George Joseph in The Nation explores who they are and who funds them.

It is hard to understand why students would demand more standardized testing and why they would support a movement that attacks teachers and wants teachers to be held accountable for what students do. Shouldn’t students be held accountable for what students do?

All around the nation, brave students are saying “no” to the corporate reform movement that wants to turn them into standardized data points.

But not SFER, which is an offshoot of the Wall Street hedge fund managers’ group called DFER. They want to be standardized. They want to be data points. They want more tests. Please, won’t someone test them and publish their scores?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Students

D.C. Teacher: The Return of a Dual School System in D.C.

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
6

Washington, D.C. has an articulate new education blogger. She knows more than the policy wonks at Brookings, AEI, Education Sector, Thomas B.Fordham Institute, the Center for American Progress, and the other guru shops. She teaches in the D.C. schools.

Florence realizes that the city now has a dual school system, one for the winners, another for the losers.

Some historians think that it is very hard, if not impossible, to break free of deeply ingrained patterns. Washington, D.C. seems to be reverting to a familiar format.

Categories Charter Schools, Privatization

Sage Advice From Adam Urbanski, Rochester Teachers Union

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2013 //
22

Adam Urbanski, head of the Rochester (NY) Teachers Union, offers this advice:

“In his letter from the Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King wrote, ‘There are just laws and unjust laws. And we are obligated to disobey the unjust laws.’ A nationwide movement of creative insubordination may be the only way to put a stop to the injustice now imposed on America’s public schools, teachers and especially students.”

Categories Unions
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