Archives for the month of: February, 2013
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The For-Profit Tutoring Experience—Ugh!

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2013 //
7

A reader recently wrote what it is like to work for a for-profit tutoring company:

I am a teacher in a Catholic school and I work for one of these for profit tutoring companies in Chicago. I provide small group instruction to children in math and reading.

Although I feel that I am conscientious and try my best to provide the best services I can for my students, the company I work for pays teachers very low salaries and forces them to teach extremely unreasonable number of hours per day with almost no preparation time. I, for example, teach nine, 40 minute classes per day with a 20 minute lunch.

The company is squeezing teachers more and more so that the company makes lots of money for their shareholders (because they are paid by the head).

The company cares only about paperwork, and does not care one iota about whether the children learn anything at all. I love the school I work at and the children I teach, but the many, many layers of management add no value whatsover to the end product and provide zero professional development to their teachers.

If more people understood what these companies are doing, they would be outraged!

Categories For-Profit, Privatization, Testing, Tutoring

More on Charter Legislation in Tennessee

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2013 //
10

The Tennessee Legislature is rushing to pass legislation that would allow charters to apply to the state to get authorization, instead of the local school board. As noted in an earlier post, the legislation would apply only to Nashville and Memphis.

Note the rationale for targeting these two districts: they already have the most charter schools, so they of course need many more and the state must do it, not the local board.

This legislation–gutting local control–comes right out of the ALEC playbook, which considers privatization to be a higher value than local control. This is evidence not of conservatism–which respects local control–but of radicalism in the service of corporate interests.

ALEC pushed through the same idea as a constitutional amendment in Georgia, and big-money came from the Waltons and others interested in increasing privatization while claiming they are doing it “for the children.”

 

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Privatization, Tennessee

Michael Johnston, Colorado Boy Wonder of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2013 //
5

Who is the miracle reformer of Colorado? Who wrote its law to evaluate teachers by their test scores? Who claimed that his high school graduated 100% of its seniors and sent them to college? Who so lauded by President Obama and DFER? Whose legislation became a model for ALEC? Why, Michael Johnston, of course.

Mercedes Schneider continues her portrait of the board of NCTQ by looking into Johnston’s history. NCTQ is the organization that tells the nation how to get high-quality teachers.

Previous posts by Schneider have included Wendy Kopp, Michelle Rhee, and Joel Klein, who have a cumulative teaching experience of three years among them (Rhee’s).

Categories Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, International, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ)

Tennessee Republicans Seek to Gut Local Control

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2013 //
12

The Republican super-majority in the Tennessee legislature introduced legislation to strip away the the power of the school boards in Memphis (Shelby County) and Nashville to authorize charter schools.

The power would be moved to a state authority.

This move is retaliation against the Metro Nashville school board, which rejected an application from the Great Hearts charter school academy of Arizona. The school board rejected Great Hearts four times! The problem was that Great Hearts wanted to open in a mostly white, affluent neighborhood and had inadequate plans for student diversity.

In an exposé in the Arizona Republic a few months ago, Great Hearts was singled out for dubious financial self-dealing. See here and here. Arizona blogger David Safier reported last fall that Great Hearts expects each family to make a contribution of at least $1500 to defray costs.

Metro Nashville decided it didn’t want Great Hearts to open in its district.

Nashville’s insistence on turning down this particular application infuriated State Commissioner Kevin Huffman (whose prior experience is limited solely to TFA). Huffman withheld $3.4 million that the state owed to Nashville. The governor and legislators were angry too that Nashville acted to exercise local control. They are now talking about vouchers.

Huffman and the state’s far-right Governor and legislature are determined to privatize as many schools as possible as quickly as possible in Memphis and Nashville.

Local control be damned!

Question: why are the Republicans in Tennessee so determined to destroy public education in their state? Has anyone in the state read the research on charters and vouchers? Or are they taking marching orders from ALEC?

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Privatization, Tennessee

Please Give Your Advice to This Reader

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2013 //
65

I received the following sincere request for advice. I replied that I would ask readers to share their views. My own view is that RTTT is promoting privatization and standardization and offers little that will enrich education or improve the teaching profession. But I think the reader should hear from you.

She writes:

Diane. I read your blog and other resources about education because I earnestly want to understand all that is going on in education. I read things that make it seem as if education around us is blowing up and yet I see leadership going about equally as earnestly trying to do what I imagine they have interpreted to be appropriate for education. I don’t know what to make if it all yet, except that I know my contributions to education will need to be building back up what is blown up, if that is what is happening, and bring on board with what leadership points me towards as an educator. I am interested in the opinions of people more experienced than I am. I guess so I can be prepared to lead myself one day (since chance favors the prepared mind). So I wonder what do you have to say about the reports states who have adopted RttT share with their education work force. For example,
These links:

2. Dr. Atkinson Talks About the Common Core in Her Latest Blog
In her blog post for Feb. 7, State Superintendent June Atkinson talks about the Common Core State Standards and what they mean for educators and students in North Carolina. This blog post and earlier entries are available at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/statesuperintendent/blog/.

3. Updated Timeline for Measures of Student Learning on the Web
The Measures of Student Learning timeline has been updated and is available on the Educator Effectiveness website at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/educatoreffect/measures/. The Measures of Student Learning are common exams in selected subjects and grades that are not part of the state testing program, or assessments used in promotion decisions for students. The Measures of Student Learning are tools for school districts and charter schools to utilize as one part of the evaluation process for teachers.
——-
When I read these links they seem nebulous enough for a certain comfort level and forward-thinking optimism. Am I missing something? What is it I don’t see that has many of your frequent readers fired up? Anything? Trends towards anything? Or is it possible for a state to make the best of RttT? To churn out something productive and lasting even where other states might be set back? I genuinely want to hear viewpoints. I don’t know what to think except that I want to be a good educator and a good employee and a responsible citizen.

Categories Common Core, Privatization, Race to the Top, U.S. education

Big Business Supports the Common Core

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2013 //
28

Yesterday, 72 business corporations published a full-page advertisement in the New York Times supporting the Common Core State Standards.

The ad asserts that the CCSS will prepare all children “to be successful in a competitive global economy.” How do they know that since the standards are only now being implemented and have never been demonstrated to be successful?

The ad says that “the need for a strong employer voice is greater than ever.” Why would that be? Is it because so many educators are concerned that the Common Core standards will bust the budgets of their district?

The ad says that the big corporations support “these new, tougher academic standards that are currently being rolled out in classrooms across the country.” Are they concerned that tougher standards might widen the achievement gap?

The ad gives no indication that any of its signatories has ever read the CCSS.

This ad is very curious.

Why would business leaders take out a full-page ad to urge support for something that 46 states and the District of Columbia have already agreed to do?

I am reminded of the wacky report from a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations a year ago (co-chaired by Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice), which claimed that the public schools posed a “very grave threat to national security.” Its three recommendations: 1) open more charters and vouchers; 2) adopt the Common Core standards; and 3) create a “national security readiness audit” for every school. Thus: privatization and the Common Core are necessary for our survival as a nation.

All very puzzling. How will the Common Core standards protect our national security?

Why are 72 corporations lined up to pledge support for standards that are already adopted but never field-tested?

Do they sell products that have never had a trial?

What gives?

Categories Common Core

What Is “Cage Busting”? EduShyster Explains It All to You

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2013 //
10

EduShyster wants to help promote Rick Hess’ new book, Cage Busters….or does she?

It is a ritual. Every author of a public policy book must launch it with a panel discussion at a think tank in DC. It’s a way of showcasing the book and branding it

Hess runs the education program at the American Enterprise Institute so he chose his panel. Hess branded his book by offering the views of people he sees as cage busters: Michelle Rhee, Kaya Henderson, Deborah Gist, Chris Barbic, and a little known principal from New York.

EduShyster deconstructs the cage busting concept. In the end, we are left to wonder who is in the cage, why it needs busting, and where these cage busters are taking the children and teachers of this nation.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Rhee, Michelle, Standardized Testing, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Tennessee

Breaking News: Mayor Bloomberg Gives $1 Million to L.A. School Board Candidates

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2013 //
48

This is an astonishing development.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, a multibillionaire, is giving $1 million to support three candidates in the Los Angeles school board election.

The candidates he is backing are in favor of privately managed charter schools and are generally anti-union.

The people of Los Angeles will decide in next month’s election whether the super-rich elite can buy control of the public school system and impose their pet project of privatization.

This bold effort to buy the school board is an affront to democracy.

Are the public schools of Los Angeles for sale to the highest bidder?

 

 

 

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Los Angeles

Kevin Drum: Another Bogus Ed Reform

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2013 //
6

Kevin Drum is a respected writer and blogger. He doesn’t usually write about education.

However, he has heard the claim that the best way to improve academic performance is to make school harder: higher standards, harder tests.

The San Jose school district tried this approach. It said that every student must take college prep classes. This is what Drum found:

“Do high schools with higher standards get better performance from their students? If you require everyone to take college prep classes, will more kids go to college? The San Jose school district has long been a poster child for this notion, but guess what? It turns out it was all a crock:

“San Jose Unified has quietly acknowledged that the district overstated its accomplishments. And a Times analysis of the district’s record shows that its progress has not, in fact, far outpaced many other school systems’….In 2000, before the college-prep program took effect, 40% of San Jose graduates fulfilled requirements for applying to University of California and Cal State University. In 2011, the number was 40.3%.”

Reality is a hard and pitiless teacher. Someday our policymakers will understand that saying something should happen will not make it happen. Like, for example, passing a law in 2001 declaring that all students would be proficient by 2014. Didn’t happen.

More on this story from Matt Di Carlo, who reminds us that it I’d always wise to be cautious and skeptical.

I would add that it is always wise to doubt miracle claims. They have an annoying habit of falling apart under scrutiny.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform

In Praise of Senator Lamar Alexander

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2013 //
31

Some 20 years ago, I worked as Assistant Secretary of Education in the administration of President George Herbert Walker Bush.

I was in charge of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement and also Counselor to the Secretary of Education, who was Lamar Alexander.

Secretary Alexander took a big risk with me because I was a Democrat with no prior experience in government.

I developed great admiration for him as a thinker and leader. He understood the limits of federalism and he was always careful not to use the power of the federal government to force states or localities to do what he or his party wanted.

Now he is a Senator and is the ranking Republican member of the Senate committee that oversees the Department of Education.

At hearings about the NCLB waivers last week, he expressed puzzlement that state officials want Washington to tie their hands and give them mandates.

This was the most interesting exchange, as reported in the New York Times:

At a Senate education committee hearing on Thursday to discusswaivers to states on some provisions of the law, Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, forcefully urged the federal government to get out of the way.

“We only give you 10 percent of your money,” said Mr. Alexander, pressing John B. King Jr., the education commissioner for New York State. “Why do I have to come from the mountains of Tennessee to tell New York that’s good for you?”

Dr. King argued that the federal government needed to set “a few clear, bright-line parameters” to protect students, especially vulnerable groups among the poor, minorities and the disabled.

“It’s important to set the right floor around accountability,” Dr. King said.

Now, here is the question: Why does New York State Commissioner John King fear that children who are poor, minorities, and the disabled will be neglected by his state if the federal government doesn’t demand higher test scores from them?

Does he fear that the New York Board of Regents will abandon these children?

Will Commissioner King abandon them if the federal government retreats from its unrealistic expectation that 100% of them must be proficient on state tests?

Why does he want a federal law to force him to do what he wants to do anyway?

Reading this exchange, I am reminded of Lamar Alexander’s down-home wisdom.

Please, Lamar, repeal the accountability provisions of NCLB. Restore federalism. Stop the assault on state and local control of education.

Compel the U.S. Department of Education to do what it is supposed to do by law: to protect the rights of children; to distribute federal funds where they are needed most; to collect information and conduct impartial research on the condition of American education.

And to stop imposing failed ideas on the nation’s public schools.

Categories Federal Waiver, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing, U.S. Department of Education
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