Jason Stanford is an Austin-based writer who has come to understand the sham of the Texas accountability system.
He knows that there is an old tradition in Texas called “brags.”
Back in 2000, a candidate for the presidency named George W. Bush bragged about the “Texas miracle.”
He said that testing every child every year from grades 3-8 would bring about amazing progress.
He said that in Texas, they did this and the dropout rate fell, the graduation rate rose, test scores went up, and the ahievement gap was closing.
Stanford shows that it was pure baloney.
There was no Texas miracle.
People in Texas know this.
School boards know it. Parents know it. Teachers know it.
But Governor Rick Perry doggedly sticks with the miracle tale.
Parents across America are outraged. So are school boards and educators.
It’s time to get organized and stop the farce.
Time’s up.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dear Diane,
Do you listen to WNYC? I do, and I send them part of my public school teacher’s salary (except for a brief hiatus when I was angry at them for humiliating me by posting those value added Teacher Data Reports on their website). But since I’ve been reading your book and blog, another veil has started to lift: the influence of corporate reform dollars. In response to WNYC’s latest pledge drive, I sent them this “listener challenge:”
Dear Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield,
After years of contributing to your station with part of my public school teacher salary (same salary that is often depleted to provide basic supplies to that public school classroom and students who can’t afford their own notebooks and pencils), I swore to stop pledging my money to WNYC when you decided to publicly humiliate me on your station’s website. Remember? That was when you chose to lend credence to the “Teacher Data Reports” designed by the NYC Department of Education, based on a thoroughly unproven “value-added” data analysis method of judging a teacher’s “effectiveness” by analyzing the progress made on standardized tests by his or her students.
At the time, I was naive enough to think that your decision to castigate dedicated public school teachers in the town square was an editorial one, in keeping with your mission to inform the public of all sides of an issue. Of course, I completely disagreed with this move, especially since WNYC completely failed to look critically at what the DOE, Bloomberg, Klein (and the yes-women and men that followed) were up to with their “business model” approach to education “reform.” Eventually, my anger waned and my better instincts about the value of (and my enjoyment of) public radio took over, and my husband and I decided we still wanted to support your station.
But lately, after reading Diane Ravitch’s book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, another veil has been lifted from my eyes. This is the very sinister veil of corporate foundation dollars and their influence on education “reform.” I call it sinister because these foundations always cloak their agendas in beneficial sounding goals: “every person should have the chance to lead a healthy and productive life.” Sound familiar? Who could disagree with that? Certainly not you at WNYC, who are supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The same foundation whose dollars supported the small school movement, a disastrous failure that never gets mentioned anymore. (Too embarrassing for the all powerful corporate money dispensing king, Bill Gates! Say too much about his failures–which have caused extensive suffering in communities affected by public school closures all in communities all over the United States–and the money might stop flowing to YOUR organization.)
Today, during the OTM pledge drive segment, my ears perked up when I heard Brooke mention those corporate dollars that help run your station. I think the gist of her comment was that corporate dollars do help, but it’s the LISTENERS’ dollars that play the more important role. Well, that would be good news!
And so, in the spirit of Brooke’s assurance, I would like to issue a challenge to OTM, WNYC, Brooke, Bob, Brian, Ira, and anyone else who has a stake in public radio’s integrity. In the tradition of your piece about the liberal media’s bias in political reporting, why not do a segment looking into the influence of corporate reform dollars on your reporting, specifically as regards to educational issues? No easy challenge, since you’d have to look into all your editorial decisions about reporting on education, especially the “reform” movement, and an even harder look at the foundations like Gates’ true agenda: privatization of public school dollars, promotion of the replacement of community public schools with unproven and unaccountable charters, union busting, the scapegoating of teachers as a way to divert the public’s attention from the real issues of poverty and social degradation. All while taking corporate dollars with one hand, and your listeners’ hard-earned money with the other!
Let me know when it will be airing.
(And by the way, I never heard the apology or retraction or even reporting on the complete discrediting of the value-added system that you had such confidence in before. It’s now called “junk science,” and even its developer has said it shouldn’t be used in decisions about a teacher’s performance. Or were you too worried about losing those corporate dollars?)
With high hopes that public radio really can still provide a fair look at all sides of an issue,
Your listener-member,
Samantha Deutsch
Sent from my iPad
LikeLike
Wow, Samantha…great letter. I may save when our local fund drives come along, too: radio and CPTV. Thank you for the inspiration.
LikeLike
Yeah, I am with Linda.
Permission to edit and use for the next local fund drive here?
Thanks.
LikeLike
And, the Texas Miracle was taken to the White House – and then in the shadow of 9/11 when no one was paying attention to anything else but security (understandably) and the President’s approval rating was out of the roof (understandably), Congress slipped in NCLB in January, 2002!
And, generalized low test scores became their WMD.
The outcry was minimal except by a few of us who had a commentary printed in local papers here and there. Then the corporations had someone to blame (public schools) and the politicians got statistics to tout that they would “fix” – and that was a match made in “follow the money” heaven: Politicians needing quick fixes and profit seekers with something to fix.
It’s time for some sanity.
3, 5, 8, & 10
ELA and math only.
Turn high-stakes testing back into meaningful, periodic benchmark assessments.
Measure schools; not teachers.
Use standardized assessment to assess how a curriculum is measuring up to standards; not to measure an individual teacher whose “scores” are contingent on dozens of variables.
LikeLike
Or give districts grades, based on how equitably they distribute funds from the state and local levies to the schools within.
LikeLike
Excellent idea.
LikeLike
Here’s an eerie parallel: Bush brought along Rod Paige to be his Secretary of Education touting the great work he did in Houston where he opened the door to privatized charter schools. And President Obama’s choice? He, too, opened the door to privatized charter schools in a major urban district. Did either district’s test scores improve? So now we have an entire generation of students whose school experience has been dominated by standardized tests, a narrower curriculum, and disheartened teachers… and nothing to show for it except happy shareholders at testing companies and privatized charters.
LikeLike
Just wondering about the guy who continued that policy….the one from Illinois. I expected better from someone who promised us hope and change. Neither delivered. I smell a lot of money in politician’s pockets from rich test-makers.
LikeLike
Diane references the “Texas miracle” in this April 2012 interview (aired later) she had with Charlie Rose: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/23/the-great-texas-mirage-er-miracle-debunked/#respond
LikeLike
Sorry. Here’s the Charlie Rose interview link:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12375
LikeLike
Smoke and mirrors are the fare of the day now.
LikeLike
I taught in Dallas/Fort Worth when “W” instituted this and HIS family started raking in the bucks on test booklets, test prep GARBAGE, etc. A real Texas gusher! It kicked education out the door, forced teaching to the test, and cast a malaise over teachers from the Texas boonies to the oil barons fiefdoms! Lying about the tests results? The perfect example of governmental justifications of the ends justifies the means. After all, if a President can get away to grossly fudging figures to lead us like sheep to an unjustified war, making BILLIONS for the military/industrial/congressional complex and NO ONE is held accountable, even when the vast majority KNOW it was a baseless, cook the books travesty, well then, doing the same in public education is just another hapless victim of Washington’s GREED and public APATHY!
LikeLike
Great points Mary! George W Bush is a disgrace to Texas and a disgrace to America and our Constitutition, and our forefathers who bleed n died to give us our great Democratic Republic. He, ane Cheney, and the rest of his Cabinet should be in prison. The W in his name stands for Wicked, and upside the W is an M, which stands for Moron. Was it an act or was he really a moron? The great JFK movie told re our movement into a Fascist Nation, and I pray, with G W Bush living in Dallas on the 50 th Anniversary of JFKS Assassination the truth will come out re big name people involved in the conspiracy. The Senate Select Committee in 1979 found that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. The worlds richest Oil man lived in Dallas then and Kennedy wanted to cut into the oil profits. The Bushes also made their fortunes in oil. Some of the children of the perpetrators live in Dallas today.
LikeLike