Mercedes Schneider continues her patient and painstaking dissection of the National Council on Teacher Quality board.
In earlier posts, she reviewed the qualifications of Wendy Kopp, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein and others. In this post, she discovers some real educators on the board of this organization. NCTQ is especially important because it is rating the nation’s teacher education programs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Even for those that are given an “OK”…
Check:Two actual teachers. No check: Two Ivory tower Psychologists.
When do we become less infatuated with research/writing academics and become more reliant on practitioners.
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This is off point, but I just heard news that floored me. I heard that this is Recovery School Districts last year. Any public school that is still open will become charters next year or it will just close down. I just can’t see how they can do that, absolutly no public schools in the district.
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They have pretty much done that in New Orleans already. What I want to know is what will they do with the kids that charters refuse, like severely handicapped ones, especially those with activist parents. Nothing is more troublesome to amateurs than a parent of a special needs child who is not getting what she needs in school.
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I found this out yesterday, so I called a couple of friends and they confirmed it. I asked the same question you just did and they didn’t know. Maybe someone out there has the answer.
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Any school that is now labeled RSD came from another district originally. I don’t see these schools going down without a fight. Many have been asking to be reconnected to their original districts. I think there will be a number of individual school battles, including lawsuits. Some will be restored to their districts; others will be handed over to charters. Jindal and White will paint whatever happens as “evidence of success.” May they hang themselves in their own noose.
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Let me clarify: It may be difficult to trace because of so much charter turnover, but the original schools came from a school district.
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Many board members and officers with NWEA (the company that administers MAP) and their affiliated “independent” research group the Kingsbury Institute have connections both present and former to the reform movement. I have compiled a list and will email it to anyone who is interested. Let me know on here and we can figure out a way to email the word document to you.
Jim
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An undergraduate or graduate degree in education is hardly a standard for measuring an individual’s effectiveness as a teacher and commitment to improving teaching and student learning. Most of the unproven policies that burden schools and teaching and which teachers for decades have complained about started in and/or have been widely and uncritically spread by schools of education. I am referring to “teaching to multiple learning styles,” “differentiated instruction,” “4×4 bloc schedules,” “higher order thinking skills” detached from subject/discipline content, “authentic instruction,” etc.
Hasn’t anyone noticed that all of these fads are stock in the trade of edu-reform crowd?! The false dichotomy of guilt by association vs. innocence or virtue by association is not a very useful guide.
Instead of dismissing or marginalizing the work of Dan Willingham, what has he written that is not supported by classroom experience?
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I wonder whether many of the educational fads to which we are subjected come from someone trying to, in today’s eduspeak, “scale up” a practice that worked for someone in their classroom and got discussed in some graduate course, eventually turning into a research project, which turned into a PhD thesis, which turned into a book,… The ones that didn’t work for most of us faded away; now, they get bought by Pearson.
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Thanks for posting the latest in this series. It does reflect a lot of work.
One of the things that strikes me is this paragraph, referring to a teacher who is an advisor: “Like Suzanne Wilson, Amy Jo Leonard is the genuine article. She is not a reformer. She is a teacher.” I think this can be an artificial distinction.
For some, being a teacher also means being a reformer. A reformer sometimes of youngsters, who may come to school angry, alienated…and great teachers help youngsters overcome at least some of that. A reformer in the sense that great teachers help young people learn far more than they thought they could.
Some great teachers decide that they do want to change arrangements in education. For example, some have decided they do not like the more traditional elementary approach of 1st graders in one classroom, 2nd graders in another, 3rd graders in still another. So they have convinced authorities to have schools (or schools within schools) that have classrooms serving students simultaneously of different ages.
One of our children attend a ST. Paul Public School using this approach, founded by parents and teachers. The school also was heavily influence and used the ideas of Howard Gardner.
Yesterday the Mn Association of Alternative Programs had its statewide conference. More than 500 teachers and administrators met to talk about how they are serving students with whom traditional schools have not succeeded. These folks see themselves as educators and reformers. They also, for example, are very leery of extensive reliance just on traditional standardized multiple choice tests to show what’s happening with a student or a school.
A person can see herself as both without agreeing with all suggestions of people like Michelle Rhee.
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Joe,
This is not the blog to push charter schools. At this point in time, the charter school movement has been highjacked by people who are more interested in $$$ than children. We could probably agree that there are exceptions to the rule but not here. Public dollars are too scarce, and we have seen the damage that has been caused.
I’m not sure how I feel about magnet schools. We have this “thing” about equal opportunity that always complicates the conversation. Are we treating kids unequally if some get to go to a magnet and others don’t? How do we level the playing field for those who have no idea where the playing field is? There are a lot of important questions that we have not answered, but on this blog, we want to focus on how to answer those questions within the public schools. Most of us are in agreement that charter schools do not meet the criteria of being public schools. That’s just the way it is. Because you consider them to be public schools, your posts are misleading. The programs offered, I’m sure, are exciting. They could be just as exciting if they were offered within the public schools. That’s another discussion for another point in time.
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Dear 2old2tch,
thanks for your comment. It’s interesting to read here, as I’ve learned a lot about concerns that some people have. I am not interested in “pushing” charter public schools, or magnet public schools or district public schools or any other kind of public school.
I am interested, as I think many people who post here are, in helping more students achieve their potential, and in helping more educators feel good about the work that they do.
Some people disagree with what I’ve written, and that’s fine. Some others sometimes agree with me, and some don’t. Seems to me that one of the central characteristics of a democratic society is that we gain when we listen to and learn from others.
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My point, poorly made, is that if you are talking about a charter (public) school, please identify it as such. If you are talking about a traditional public school with an innovative program, identify it as such. The distinction is important to most people posting on the blog.
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Seems like a fair request. Will do.
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John Merrow, Education Correspondent for PBS, is looking for some teachers to write about why they teach. Details here: http://whyiteach.learningmatters.tv/?page_id=48
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I certainly view myself as a reformer and have challenged poorly documented social studies standards and curricula, blown the whistle on altered grades and “social graduation” – and met with almost every new supt and chancellor (Rhee & Henderson) to show them what I was aware of that impedes improvement.
(You may recall the ugly battles around the Minn. Social Studies Standards in 2003-04. Commissioner Yecke invited me to be one of the reviewers. None of the seven reviews were posted as had been promised. Apparently, her staff denied that they existed. I then sent mine to Minn journalists and several dozen Minn. history professors at several universities and members of the education committees of the state legislature. The resulting outcry exposed the suppression of the reviews and soon all were found and posted: http://www.dcpswatch.com/martel/040124.htm and the MPR report: http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/02/17_pugmiret_standards/ ).
I did that as a reformer, at that point, with 35 years in the classroom. The previous year, I blew the whistle on altered teachers’ grades and “fixed” graduation lists. An independent review confirmed my reports and found the same in all DC high schools (www.dcpswatch.com)
I knew that the way to get attention was to report to the supt – AND to the media and elected officials. I did it again in 2006. I welcomed Rhee, hoping that she would be a genuine reformer. What a disaster that was. She got her way. The same foundations that love her love the charters.
I didn’t initially criticize the charter movement, because it was clear that their attraction was due to failures of the “traditional” public school system. Eventually, by researching enrollment, I realized how the charters attract the generally more engaged parents, enroll their children, then transfer out a large number of students with academic and behavior problems, then, as the recent Mathematica report on KIPP shows, enroll “replacement” students whose pre-KIPP standardized scores are higher than the similar scores of KIPP’s entry grade students. That’s not random selection. In addition, the same fads are firmly in place with the charters.
The DC Public Charter School Board with the support of the mayor and deputy mayor along with Chancellor Kaya Henderson (who is also seeking chartering authority) all want to bring in “experienced” (code for “not successful”) online, for-profit charter companies: Rocketship (courted by the charter board & chancellor) Nexus (seeking a tie with Connections-Pearson, Flex-DC, which uses Kto12 Inc.: They plan to use New Leaders, TFA and, for the two or more hours per day that kids will sit in front of computers, paraprofessionals (Nexus calls them “success coaches”!).
There will be no transparency, but inflated graduation and test scores.
In DC, the charters are part of a campaign to dismantle the DC Public Schools and turn teachers into fearful widgets, all teaching to the same evaluation instrument, a convenient checklist for “leaders” who have never taught or did so for a short while. They enjoy the privilege of enrollment at any time, selective retention of students, transfer (far greater than expulsion) of the unwanted. 40% of the charter school 9th graders (October enrollment audit) are transferred before they take their grade 10 standardized test in April of gr10 (there is no 9th grade standardized test).
Next, I will post some questions re Minn. charter schools, which I hope you can answer.
Erich Martel
Retired DCPS hs teacher
(1969-2011: Cardozo HS, Wilson HS, Phelps ACE HS)
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Joe,
Here are my questions. They pertain to both charters and the traditional public schools.
1) Is there a single statute or set of statutes that governs Minn charters?
2) Can the Minn State Bd of Education (whatever it’s now called), state commissioner of education, local city/county/town council or board of education make local changes to the charters in their jurisdiction?
3) Where charter schools are located, do they draw enrollment from the same attendance zone as the traditional public school? If not, how are their attendance zones defined?
4) Can charter schools enroll a student coming from the traditional LEA in which they are located at any time during the school year? If not, when?
5) Is there any statutory requirement that a student enrolled in a charter school must remain their for the balance of the school year or may a student be transferred to the traditional LEA at any time?
6) Is the traditional LEA the only school “of right,” i.e. the LEA that must enroll a resident school-age student not in any other legal school program?
7) How is charter school enrollment determined, by lottery (when demand exceeds available spaces) or other method?
Are special provisions for siblings, relatives, children of staff (if yes, even if the staff member lives out of the school district or even in an adjoining state?
Are there special provisions for school age children on Native American reservations?
When demand exceeds availability of spaces, what happens to those not admitted? Is there a mandatory waiting list?
How long must that be adhered to, if at all?
8) What body or bodies have statutory oversight authority over Minn charter schools?
Where can I find their reports?
9) Where can I find the NCLB standardized testing reports of the Minn charters and Minn traditional LEAs and their individual schools?
For example: DC’s enrollment reports are at: http://www.osse.dc.gov/data
DC’s nclb testing reports, by grade level (gr 3-8 & 10) are at: http://www.nclb.osse.dc.gov
10) Where can I find the results of Minn charters and traditional public schools’ PSAT, SAT, AP, ACT and IB results?
Do they post their annual College Board LEA and School Integrated Summary, which shows the details of PSAT, SAT & AP results, the latter broken out by subject, nr of students receiving each score, comparison to state public and national public testers? (no confidential information or teachers’ names are shown; there’s no FERPA limitation). Here’s an online example from California. The report is usually available by mid-August and is also available in a state and LEA format:
Click to access HenryMGunnIntegratedReport.2012.pdf
If the results are posted elsewhere, where can I – or a Minnesota parent – find them?
11) Do any Minn. charters or traditional schools or LEAs employ
a) credit recovery courses?
b) If yes, where can one find the data on the number of students requiring credit recovery courses to complete their high school credits?
c) Does Minn have online schools or “blended learning” schools?
Is there any other information that would help me – or a Minnesota parent – better understand the roles of charter schools and traditional public schools in Minn.?
Thank you for considering this request.
Erich Martel
Retired DCPS high school teacher
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Erich, I have tried 3 times to post a response. I am not sure if I am making a mistake or if my responses are being blocked. Joe
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Erich, it appears that my brief comments are make it through but longer comments don’t (I’ve tried posting 4 times). If you or anyone else who wants to the responses to Eric’s questions, please send an email to joe@centerforschoolchange.org
Sorry, I have not figured out how to post a longer response.
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Joe,
Every one of your responses has been posted in full.
I am the sole moderator of this blog.
Diane
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Try writing your long posts in a word processing program and then copy/paste into the blog.
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Reponses Erich M
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Sorry, something is wrong. I’ve tried posting 9 times.
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