Detroit is the saddest school district in the United States.
It is a petri dish for every failed corporate reform idea.
The schools are at the bottom on federal tests.
The city has suffered de-industrialization, unemployment and extreme poverty.
And the state’s answer?
Privatization and budget cuts, merit pay and testing.
Maine’s Governor Paul LePage is really upset. The state’s charter school commission turned down four out of five applications. Two that were rejected were online schools. LePage has benefited in the past from campaign contributions from this sector.
If you really want to know why the governor was upset, read this expose published last year about ties between the LePage administration and the online charter school industry.
But the state commission did due diligence and reached its decision based on what they saw as the best interests of children in Maine. What a novel idea!
Governor LePage has called on them to resign (he did not appoint them), but they are standing fast.
Good for them.
Imagine: people who think for themselves and do what’s right for kids.
Let’s hope to see more of that approach in other states.
A comment came in last night from a KIPP teacher in DC. She provides interesting insight about how charter schools can manufacture high test scores. She asks for advice about the TerraNova tests. Can you help her?
I teach Kindergarten at a “no-excuses” charter school in Washington, D.C. The accounts of cheating on which you report are certainly appalling and unsurprising, but – as you’ve mentioned – they are only the tip of the iceberg. Even if scores were left unaltered, and even if these tests measured knowledge that we as a society deem important, we mustn’t forget that these assessments are so poorly designed that they lack validity or reliability. One telling example: my school has adopted the TerraNova as our indicator of choice. Our status as a DC charter, our funding, our esteem in the reform community and our enrollment all hinge on the TerraNova scores that we report out. Since the start of the school year, administration has drilled staff on the importance of this one test. Teachers are pressured to study copies of last year’s test (legal? ethical?), instructional coaches design unit tests to mirror exactly the questions that appeared on last year’s TerraNova, students are prepped extensively on the importance of filling in only one bubble, and all dialogue about student learning has been framed around what they “need to know for the TerraNova.” Of course none of this is uncommon in schools such as mine. However, today I was informed that this year’s test will be *identical* to last year’s. Apparently the test makers only revise the test every few years. So we are quite literally training our students to answer this one set of questions correctly. And schools across the country do the same thing, resulting in higher and higher scores, despite lower and lower levels of actual knowledge. What sort of game our we playing? It’s like we’re stranded in the desert, racing toward a well of water that turns out to be nothing but a mirage. We as a country need, first of all, to have a national conversation about the purpose of public education; perhaps then we will come to realize that putting all our energy toward scoring well on a meaningless test is doing our children nothing but harm.
On another, related note… Part of the conversation about the meaning and purpose of public education is the status of teachers and the teaching profession. TCRecord recently published a commentary I wrote regarding the failure of teacher preparation programs, the danger of alternative certification, and the need for a respected, professional knowledge base among educators. I hope you’ll check it out: http://www.tcrecord.org/Opinion.asp
Lastly, I haven’t been able to find any information about the TerraNova, its creators, or its reputation. Are you familiar with the test? Do have any data about it?
In case you wondered what Adell Cothorne, the star of the PBS Frontline special about Michelle Rhee’s cheating scandal, is doing now, she is very happy making gourmet cupcakes. Thanks to reader Linda of Connecticut for finding her on the web. I wish we lived close to Ellicott City, Maryland, so we could sample her cupcakes.
Adell is in business with Bill Kerlina, another ex-principal from D.C.
As you know from reading the posts on this blog, Adell filed a whistleblower complaint against the leadership of the D.C. school system. Chancellor Kaya Henderson denies that there was widespread cheating, denies that Cothorne complained about cheating, denies that Cothorne met with administrative staff, believes that the cheating scandal never happened, and alleges that Cothorne is pursuing her claim for financial gain.
So, we must rely on John Merrow to follow up this story. It matters for Adell Cothorne, but it also matters for the children of D.C. and for educators across the nation, who are sick of being bullied by administrators who tell them to produce higher test scores or get out.
Hari Sevugan, the ex-Obama spokesman and ex-StudentsFirst spokesman, has twice commented on this blog in defense of charters and high-stakes testing. In his comments yesterday, he pointed to Florida as a model of excellence, while putting down Massachusetts as not all that it claims to be. In my response, I compared Florida’s NAEP scores to those of Massachusetts. Massachusetts is consistently #1, while Florida ranks about average among the 50 states. I assume that Hari was promoting Glorida because Michelle Rhee ranked it at the top of her personal report card. It is certainly way ahead of Massachusetts in authorizing charter schools, for-profit charters, vouchers, high-stakes testing, and stripping teachers of tenure.
Today, I received a letter from a teacher in Nashville, who asked me to post the following questions to Hari. If he answers, I will post his reply.
“I am a teacher in Nashville Public Schools, who has been teaching for 14 years. I have to be honest that since I have been working on a Masters in Educational Leadership, current reform policies have been gaining my interest. I read Hari’s response on your message board, and I would like to ask him why he would slam Massachusetts’s NAEP results and in the same response hold TIMSS and PIRLS results for Florida as a progressing miracle.
“The same studies that he and the likes of him quote to put schools down and compare us to higher achieving nations are the same tests he uses to hold up academic progress for states that are using the current GERM model. I am fascinated with his spin and ability to turn the student achievement of a state rejecting (for the most part) GERM and yet in the same breath hold up a state that does not perform near Massachusetts as a model for reform.
“Please, have him explain his answer as to why bashing the progress of Massachusetts yet holding up Florida and Louisiana as the proof reform is working. In this country it is so hard to measure which reform is working due to all of the different reforms taking place. But, I do not believe Hari’s and StudentsFirst type of reform will give us sustainable results. So, this letter is really directed to Hari, I just don’t know how to get it to him.
“I hope all is well with you and the rest of your readers and please continue the good fight. The future of public education is relying on this conversation.”
By unanimous vote, the entire faculty at Garfield High School in Seattle voted not to administer the MAP test of reading and mathematics.
This is the first time, to my knowledge, that the faculty of an entire school refused to give mandated tests.
The action of the Garfield High School faculty could have national ramifications because it shows other teachers that there is strength in unity and that they do not have to endure unethical demands with passivity and resignation.
For their courage, their integrity, and their intelligence, I add the faculty of Garfield High School to the honor roll as champions of public education.
The teachers agreed that the tests are a waste of time and money. Students don’t take them seriously because they don’t count toward their grades. But teachers will be evaluated based on the results of these tests that students don’t take seriously. Even the organization that created the tests say they should not be used for teacher evaluation, but the district requires them anyway.
I hope that the example set by Garfield High School will resonate in school districts across the United States and around the world. High-stakes testing is bad for students, bad for teachers, and bad for education.
This is the statement by the teachers of Garfield High School:
SEATTLE – In perhaps the first instance anywhere in the nation, teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School will announce this afternoon their refusal to administer a standardized test that students in other high schools across the district are scheduled to take in the first part of January. Known as the MAP test, it purports to evaluate student progress and skill in reading and math. The teachers contend that it wastes time, money, and precious school resources.
“Our teachers have come together and agree that the MAP test is not good for our students, nor is it an appropriate or useful tool in measuring progress,” says Kris McBride, who serves as Academic Dean and Testing Coordinator at Garfield. “Additionally, students don’t take it seriously. It produces specious results, and wreaks havoc on limited school resources during the weeks and weeks the test is administered.”
McBride explained that the MAP test, which stands for Measure of Academic Progress, is administered two to three times each year to 9th grade students as well as those receiving extra support services. The students are told the test will have no impact on their grades or class standing, and, because of this, students tend to give it little thought to the test and hurry through it. In addition, there seems to be little overlap between what teachers are expected to teach (state and district standards) and what is measured on the test.
Despite this flaw, McBride states, results of the MAP tests will be used by district officials to help evaluate the effectiveness of instructors who give the test. “Our teachers feel strongly that this type of evaluative tool is unfair based on the abundance of problems with the exam, the content, and the statistical insignificance of the students’ scores,” she says.
Refusing to administer a district-mandated test is not a decision the school’s teachers made casually, or without serious internal discussion.
“Those of us who give this test have talked about it for several years,” explained Mallory Clarke, Garfield’s Reading Specialist. “When we heard that district representatives themselves reported that the margin of error for this test is greater than an individual student’s expected score increase, we were appalled!”
After the affected faculty decided unanimously to make a stand against the MAP test, they told the rest of Garfield’s faculty of their decision. In a December 19 vote, the rest of the school’s teachers voted overwhelmingly to support their colleagues’ refusal to administer the test. Not a single teacher voted against the action. Four abstained from voting. the rest voted to support it.
“We really think our teachers are making the right decision,” said student body president Obadiah Stephens-Terry.“I know when I took the test, it didn’t seem relevant to what we were studying in class– and we have great classes here at Garfield. I know students who just go through the motions when taking the test, did it as quickly as possible so that they could do something more useful with their time.” History teacher Jesse Hagopian said, “What frustrates me about the MAP test is that the computer labs are monopolized for weeks by the MAP test, making research projects very difficult to assign.” Hagopian added “This especially hurts students who don’t have a computer at home.”
The $4 million MAP test was purchased by Seattle Public Schools during the tenure of former Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, who left her position in 2011 and sadly passed away in 2012. Goodloe-Johnson sat on the board of directors of Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), the company that markets the MAP test. At the time, some pointed out this potential conflict of interest for Goodloe-Johnson, but the district went ahead with the purchase nonetheless. NWEA itself warns that districts should not use the map test to evaluate teachers. We teachers of Garfield High School believe that the NWEA is right—this test should not be used to evaluate teachers. For secondary teachers the test cannot provide useful information about students’ skills and progress. Still worse, this test should not rob students of precious class time away from instruction. “We believe the negative aspects of the MAP test so outweigh the positive ones that we are willing to take this step,” said Language Arts teacher Adam Gish.
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The final MET study supposedly show that value-added modeling really does work and that test scores really do show who the best teachers are.
But Bruce Baker says the study is full of holes and circular reasoning.
When Bill Gates and the top executives at Microsoft put their own children in schools that use test scores as the measure of good teaching, then we will know that they believe in what they advocate.
This is the kind of school that the connoisseurs prefer. True, the school is in Silicon Valley, not Seattle, but I expect the education at the Waldorf School of the Peninsula looks a lot like the Lakeside School (where Bill Gates went) or Maumee Valley Country Day School (where Michelle Rhee went).
There was a school shooting in a California high school. One student was shot by another student, who was wielding a shotgun.
A teacher and a guidance counselor persuaded the student with the shotgun to put down his firearm.
We don’t yet know their names.
They put themselves in harm’s way and saved the lives of their students.
North Carolina is a plum market for the online for-profit charter industry.
Today, the state board of education agreed to allow them to open in the state but set some limits.
Here is a link to a report on the decision by North Carolina Policy Watch:
Paul Thomas recognizes that the big corporate media have bought into the corporate education spin and hype.
But he was baffled that PBS used most of an hour to recycle Rhee’s self-promotion.
By the way, our one consistent ally on national television is the great Jon Stewart. His mother was a teacher, and he knows how hard she worked. Having The Daily Show on our side is great stuff. Jon is more influential than all the others put together. When I appeared on his show, his booker told me I would never be invited on Stephen Colbert’s show because his booker is Jonathan Alter’s wife. Alter is one of the media cheerleaders for corporate reforms. He appeared in “Waiting for Superman” to say, “We know what works. Accountability works.” I am not sure who that “we” referred to.
Diane Ravitch's blog 