Archives for the month of: March, 2013
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Father Sends Email to State: DO NOT RELEASE MY CHILD’S DATA

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
13

Louisiana has agreed to turn over the confidential personal data of all its students to a corporation created by the Gates Foundation and Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation (it is called inBloom).

Many parents are furious and want to know what they can do.

This father sent an email to the State Department of Education directing them not to release his child’s data to inBloom. He cited FERPA, the law intended to protect the privacy of student data. He made clear that he is prepared to take legal action to protect his children.

Here is the email he sent:

john.white@la.gov

My name is (PARENT’S NAME) and I am a parent of children in Louisiana public schools. This is to formally inform you that you do not have my permission to share my children’s personally identifiable student information with any external agency, researcher, non-profit group, vendor or government or quasi-government agency under any circumstances (specifically, name, DOB, SSN). They are public students in the (parish/city/parochial) school system and you have not asked my permission to share their information as required by law. I am purposefully informing you that you do not have permission to share their information unless I provide appropriate parental guidance. Their/his/her name(s) is/are (STUDENT’S OR STUDENTS’ NAME[S]). If you already have, I would like you to promptly request that his/her/their information be expunged from any data set you have already shared.

Mr. White, on the basis of your e-mails it appears you are planning on sharing this data and I will hold you personally responsible for any subsequent violations. I will be recommending that other parents likewise notify you if they do not wish their information to be shared with corporations/vendors whom you have agreed to not hold liable for any security breaches or unauthorized releases (which I don’t believe you have a legal right or authority to do). Moreover, any such release of personally identifiable information without each parent’s express permission will be a direct violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and a willfully unnecessary one since you have non-personally identifiable student identifiers and have taken great pains to claim FERPA exclusions for all other releases of de-identified student data to the media, researchers, and the general public.

Please note the section in the last paragraph below. Schools may disclose, without consent, directory information. But you must notify us when doing so. You, however, do not have my consent and you are not a school. You have my absolute, unequivocal, official refusal on record.

You also do not have a legal right to require social security numbers from any student in Louisiana. I will be recommending parents and school districts to promptly stop providing them as you seem unwilling to guard this information as required by law.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

(PARENT’S NAME)

 

Categories Education Reform

What Emergency Managers Do

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
26

Pontiac, Michigan, has had three emergency managers since 2009. They have gotten rid of most public services, either by outsourcing or privatizing them.

A powerful quote in this NY Times story:

“An emergency manager is like a man coming into your house,” said Donald Watkins, a city councilman. “He takes your checkbook, he takes your credit cards, he lives in your house and he sleeps in your bed with your wife.” Mr. Watkins added, “He tells you it’s still your house, but he doesn’t clean up, sells off everything and then he packs his bag and leaves.”

Categories Michigan

Why Did the Teachers Strike in Chicago?

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
16

For more than a week in September, the nation was astonished to see thousands of Chicago teachers on strike.

The media treated it as an old fashioned dispute over wages and hours, which it was not.

Many of us who follow education issues knew that the teachers were striking against nearly 20 years of nonstop ill-considered “reforms” imposed on teachers by politicians and uninformed policymakers.

The bottom line: Enough is enough.

This excellent article explains the teachers’ strike and puts it into a larger context.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Unions

Martel: How the Reform Agenda Got Hijacked by the 1%

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
20

Erich Martel, an award-winning social studies teacher who retired after teaching for many years in the D.C. Public schools, here explains how unrealistic expectations set up the schools for failure and a hostile takeover. In doing so, he quotes my words back to me:

Martel writes:

How the Bipartisan Education Reform Party (forget right-wing vs left-wing; it’s a distraction) hijacked the social justice movement.

Here are just a few and their statutory icons:

Barack Obama & Arne Duncan & George Bush & Michelle Rhee & Joel Klein & Jeb Bush & the Broad Foundation & the Walmart Foundation & the Walton Family Foundation & the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation & Gov. Christie & Gov. Cuomo & Gov. Walker & Al Sharpton & Mitt Romney & NCLB & ESEA & RttT & Common Core, etc. & et al. (i.e. the bipartisan consensus)

In your “Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms” (2000), you wrote:

“Throughout the twentieth century, progressives claimed that the schools had the power and responsibility to reconstruct society. They took their cue from John Dewey, who in 1897 had proclaimed that the school was the primary means of social reform …”

“This messianic belief (more recently, “the social justice movement”) in the school and the teacher actually worked to the disadvantage of both, because it raised unrealistic expectations. It also put the schools squarely into the political arena, thereby encouraging ideologues of every stripe to try to impose their social, religious, cultural and political agendas on the schools. What was sacrificed over the decades … was a clear definition of what schools can realistically and appropriately accomplish for children and for society.” (p. 459)

If teachers’ decades-long claim that every up-from-poverty success “can thank a teacher,” then persistent school failure, the reformers say, must be teachers’ fault. This simple message reversal was available for any politician in need of a campaign slogan couched in civil rights language.

Deregulation, the new cyber-wealth, hostile takeovers, restructuring, leveraged buy-outs, etc. created concentrated super-wealth in search of investment that would appear socially progressive and a class of managers and politicians eager to adapt the business model to restructure public education. The siren song of Reform immobilized normal caution.

Categories Corporate Reformers

The Myth of Principal Empowerment in NYC

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
16

Marc Epstein is an experienced history teacher in NYC who holds a Ph.D. In Japanese history. When the Department of Education closed his historic high school (Jamaica High School), Marc joined the ranks of teachers who are assigned to different schools weekly. He has written many articles for Huffington Post and New York City dailies.

He writes:

The Myth Of The Empowered Principal

The “empowered” principal was supposed to be the agent of radical change for the New York public school system. With every passing day it appears that the empowerment model has resulted in the death of institutional memory, atomization, and the end of accountability for anyone above the level of principal.

You need look no further than the scheduling and staffing fiasco that enveloped the new multi-million dollar high school located in one of New York’s most stable middle-class neighborhoods. The school is only three years old and is already being administered by its second principal.

The trouble first began when the administration proved incapable of programming students into their required courses when it opened.

New York 1 (the local TV news station) reported that students complained that they had no science teacher, and were taught by rotating substitutes; “…they were handed new schedules, with different teachers and courses, almost once a week.”
http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/151185/doe-officials-try-to-address-queens-high-school-s-massive-scheduling-headaches

The deputy chancellor for instruction claimed that the problem was rare, but at the same time was kept busy fending off parent protests over the same problems at Long Island City High School just a few miles away. For those of you who are unfamiliar with New York, the schools are located in Queens, the borough considered to have the most functional schools in the massive school system in years past. But all that has changed.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/english-class-frederick-douglass-academy-queens-a-regular-teacher-months-article-1.980188

There’s more to the Metropolitan High School story. Fixing a programming glitch is easy enough. All you need do is bring an experienced programmer on board.

The news stories about the scheduling snafu made no mention of the former principal’s pedagogical decision to enroll the freshman class in Physics, before taking Living Environment (biology), or Chemistry. Physics is considered the most difficult of the Regents science courses and is usually reserved for the most capable students in their junior or senior year.

What’s more, we have no idea if this foolhardy decision was reviewed and approved before its implementation. I’m told that she actually presented this radical reorganization of curriculum as a selling point when she applied to the job!

If you want to make sense of this administrative breakdown you need look no further than the resume of Metropolitan High School’s former principal.
Her entire teaching experience consisted of seven years of teaching, with only three of them in a public school setting. Prior to that she worked variously as a marine biologist, and educational consultant observing teachers in various settings for her father who was a retired principal.
http://www.timesnewsweekly.com/news/2010-03-18/Local_News/NEW_HS_LEADER______VISITS_FH_CIVIC.html

After that, it was on to the vaunted Jack Welch Leadership Academy established by Joel Klein, where graduates are molded to incorporate the ways of the business world into the management of schools. Think of it as a Wharton School for principals with a dollop of West Point discipline thrown in to keep teachers productive and in line.

This business model stresses teacher accountability based on a bottom line calculated by student test results. The institute purposely recruits candidates with minimal classroom experience, believing that experience outside of public education is preferential. So in this regard the Metropolitan High School principal fit the 21st century principal profile Mike Bloomberg wants running his schools.

But the evidence indicates that the principal wasn’t versed in the nuts and bolts aspect of the job that it takes to put a school together and run it. After watching events at the school unfold, I’m reminded of Donald Sutherland’s line to Robert Ryan after inspecting a line of soldiers arrayed in their spit and polish dress uniforms in the Dirty Dozen; “very pretty, colonel, but can they fight?”

That’s because the pre-Bloomberg route to the principalship of a new high school would involve years of seasoning in the classroom before a series of administrative jobs in the program office, the dean’s office, and as an assistant principal, before being given command of a school.

A school like the new Metropolitan High School would be handed to someone with twenty to twenty-five years experience in the system who had a proven record of successful supervision.

That principal would bring an experienced staff on board in order to ensure a successful shakedown cruise and hand off a functioning institution to the next principal some years down the line. Instead what we are witnessing is a new managerial class running schools aground on a regular basis.

Perhaps the most dramatic proof that principal “empowerment” is little more than managerial “newspeak,” is evident in the staffing crisis throughout the school system. That’s because the new business model actually constrains the principal’s ability to hire the best possible staff.

The so-called Bloomberg-Klein business model demands that teacher salaries come directly out of the school-operating budget. Under the old system a school was charged the same amount for a teacher line regardless of the teacher’s salary or seniority. This was a rational approach to staffing in a system of eighty thousand teachers and constant turnover.

But budget cuts to a system that has more than doubled its operating costs to over $22 billion dollars over the past ten years, have forced principals throughout the city to skimp on hiring qualified teachers while administrative costs have ballooned. The result has been the hiring of the cheapest day-to-day substitutes, many of whom aren’t certified to teach the courses they are covering, in lieu of using experienced teachers who are held in a reserve pool because their schools are either being closed or their student populations have dropped.

None of this makes any business or pedagogical sense to anyone but a willful mayor who seems only capable of demolishing what was once a functional system. Education has taken a back seat as the new school leaders ply the only trade they know by following Abraham Maslow’s maxim; “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Bloomberg, Michael, Education Industry, Education Reform, Klein, Joel, New York City

“A Teacher in Charterland”: True and Sad

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
9

EduShyster here shares a video of a teacher who thought she had found her dream job teaching performing arts in a charter school in Massachusetts. But then she learned what mattered most: testing.

Categories Charter Schools, Massachusetts, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

NAISON: Why I Am Speaking at Occupy the DOE

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
12

There will be a demonstration at the U.S. Department of Education from April 4-7.

One of the speakers will be Mark Naison, who teaches African-American studies at Fordham University.

Here he explains why he will be there:

I am coming to Washington because our public education system is being systematically dismantled by people whose power derives solely from the unprecedented concentration of wealth in a small number of hands. Without the Gates, the Broads, the Waltons, the Bloombergs and the hedge fund executives, the three bulwarks of current Education Reform policy- privatization, universal testing and school closings- would have never gained traction because they are unsupported by research and are abhorred by most educators.. What we are facing is not onlythe degradation of the teaching profession and the transformation of the nation’s classrooms into zones of child abuse, but an attack on what little democracy we have left in this country. Therefore, I am not only coming to Washington defend the integrity of the profession I have dedicated my life to, but to join a movement which is one of the most important fronts of resistance to Plutocratic Rule

I also come to Washington, as a scholar of African American History, and a long time community activist, to strip the false facade of “Civil Rights” legitimacy from policies which promote increased segregation, push teachers of color out of the profession, open our schools to profiteering by test companies,and promote narrow workforce preparation as a substitute for the creation of active citizens who can change the world. So I will not only be calling out the billionaires and those who are directly on their payroll, but those who call themselves “progressive- who give aid and comfort to those policies, either because of the hope of political gain or a deficit of courage.. ,

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Race to the Top, Support for public schools

Parents Debate How to Opt Out

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
34

This is part of an email conversation that I received. It is an exchange between two parents:

The first one writes:

“Hello Everyone!

“Well…it is that time of year again…TCAP testing. I really hate this time of year.

“As I have done for the past TEN years for all of my children, I opted my daughter out of the test. I sent my letter to the school district and of course, I am met with anger and tons of letters from the superintendent of Colorado schools saying that it is illegal for me to take my child out of this test. My daughter’s teachers are threatening her that she will be put in all remedial classes next year if she doesn’t take it and I am required to sign something that says I am aware of how wrong my actions are. Last year, my youngest daughter was met with such criticism and animosity that she begged me to take the test so people would leave her alone. Her teachers and the principal were so mean to her that she was afraid to go to school and afraid to not take the test. My youngest daughter has an anxiety disorder which comes with terrible panic attacks. The children are under so much pressure to do well on this test that she is up puking and crying before every testing day. I am so excited to do that again this year. :0(

“My question to all of you is….do you all have to deal with this? Does the admin at the schools that your children attend give you a hard time over this? The people at my kids’ school make me feel like an uneducated ignorant horrible parent. I’m just getting so tired of it and wondered if anyone out there feels the same.”

“Thanks for listening,”

Here is one of the answers she received:

“First of all, I wouldn’t sign a damn thing for that school.

“Secondly, if your child has an anxiety disorder then your child qualifies for a 504 since she has a ‘hidden disability’ under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ask your child’s therapist and/or pediatrician for medical documentation recommending she not be tested. This is what I have established for my kids and it is written into the 504 they are NOT taking TCAP or any other standardized district, state or national test.

“The school doesn’t bother me.

“Then, I would take my husband, brother or big burly male neighbor with me and tell the principal that if one more person at the school threatens my child you are going to sue and follow that up with a call to the district. Talk to the teachers at conferences and tell them the same thing. Tell them you will sue them individually; it’s child abuse.

“Next, those jerks have to leave school sometime; be waiting for them off school grounds. I saw my son’s ex-principal in Barnes and Noble and she couldn’t get out of that store fast enough when she saw me coming. She knew I’d make a scene and I would have.

“Lastly, tell your story of child abuse to the media and tell the principal and superintendent you’re doing it. Tell the principal and superintendent you’re going to picket outside the school and hand out leaflets telling parents how to refuse testing. Intimidation works both ways.”

Categories Parents, Special Education, Testing

Are Conservatives Spending Scarce Tax Dollars Wisely?

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
5

Paul Thomas chastises conservative leaders in South Carolina for doing the same thing over and over for thirty years and expecting to get different results.

Thirty years of testing, accountability, and choice have been expensive and have not solved the state’s education problems. The testing corporations have benefitted, but not students.

Meanwhile the root cause of poor academic performance is unaddressed: grinding poverty.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Charter Schools, Common Core, Education Industry, Poverty, Privatization

Pennsylvania Parents: This Is Our Vision for Great Public Schools

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2013 //
4

Yinzercation, a terrific blog in Pennsylvania, describes a concerted effort by citizens to define great public schools.

What would you change?

This is their vision:

“What is your vision for great public education? If you could wave your magic wand today and create the perfect public school in your neighborhood, what would it look like? At the Rally for Public Education last month, over 320 people from our grassroots movement thought about just this as they filled out postcards addressed to Governor Corbett, answering the questions, “I came to the rally today because …” and “If our priorities were in the right place, and everyone paid their fair share, our public schools could/would …”

From those postcards, messages on Facebook, the blog, Twitter, and in conversations with others in our movement, a common vision for public education has begun to emerge. We shared some of our insights with the coalition that produced the Vision Statement for Pittsburgh schools, distributed Monday evening at the PIIN town hall meeting. Today, A+Schools released its own Vision Statement focused on the city school board races. The grassroots vision is broader than these two, more detailed, and includes elements relevant to schools both in and outside the city of Pittsburgh.

Having a vision statement is useful as a framework for guiding our work. It identifies our shared priorities and reminds us of what we are working towards. Here is what our movement’s shared vision for great public schools is starting to look like. What would you add?

A Vision for Great Public Schools

Every child has the right to a great public education. As parents, students, teachers, and community members we are committed to great schools for all children. That means we are focused on equity, on the experience of the whole child, and on the larger role schools serve in our neighborhoods. We seek adequate, equitable, and sustainable public funding as well as public policies that support our public schools. We believe public education is a public good.

Our shared vision for our public schools:

A rich, engaging, and culturally relevant curriculum for every student with full art, music, library, science, history, and world language programs in addition to reading and math.

Safe, orderly, respectful and nurturing learning environments.

Appropriate facilities and adequate books and materials in every school.

Smaller class sizes (research shows any reduction in class size produces positive learning results and there is no magic threshold that must be reached before students benefit: our goal should be class size reduction, not expansion, as it currently is).

Meeting the needs of every child with a qualified and high-quality teacher in every classroom, using truly differentiated instruction.

Restoration of tutoring programs.

Early childhood learning opportunities and full day Kindergarten so every child has a solid foundation.

A full-time librarian in every school so that students can use their libraries, learn critical information searching skills, and find support for their classroom learning (new research unequivocally demonstrates the learning benefits for students with a full time librarian).

The return of rest time and playtime for Kindergartners.

The return of adequate, daily recess for all students.

A full and varied athletic program.

Restoration of student transportation.

Reducing the focus on and time spent on test prep and high-stakes-testing; changing the culture from “achievement” to “learning.”

Serving the special education needs of all our children.

Mental health, community based programs, and wrap around services for children and families.

Nurses and social workers in our schools every day of the week.

Bully prevention programs in every school.

Disciplinary policies applied equitably to all students; the use of alternative / in-school suspensions and positive behavior programs.

Attracting and retaining excellent teachers by supporting their work with enhanced professional development and paraprofessional staff who help create the best learning environment.

Support struggling schools most in need without threatening to close them down.

Recognition and accommodation of school-specific needs (for instance, a parent engagement specialist at one school, a tutor at another).

Making local schools hubs of community life, in which parents and community members can engage in meaningful dialogue with educators and collaborate to help our children learn and grow.

This means an emphasis on preserving neighborhood schools and recognizing that school closures rip the fabric of communities.

Ensuring all schools have an open-door, welcoming policy that encourages family engagement in student learning.”

Categories Pennsylvania
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