Archives for the month of: April, 2013
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Children: Get High Scores or Your Teacher Will Be Fired: LINK FIXED

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2013 //
37

This is such a powerful post that I hope you will read it in full. It was written by a parent in California.

The testing mania is spinning out of control. It is turning into child abuse. It demoralizes teachers. It offers the fodder to kill schools. It must be reined in. What kind of person would claim credit for such madness?

Start here:

A parent’s vignette of the CST from child-level:

Two minutes late for the appointed retrieval time, I receive a frantic phone call from the middle-schooler. By the time I arrive tears cling to her chin, her face is blotchy and she looks just terrible. I know why without asking, because this is not the first or even sixth time during the past two months that I have seen these symptoms: acute anxiety is easy to spot.

Alerting the grandma on the telephone of imminent need for sage advice, we embark on this well-frequented, no-win exchange: “Please tell me what’s the matter”?! “It’s the CSTs, I’m going to fail them, I’m going to do a terrible job and my teacher will be in trouble and my school will be in trouble and I’m going to fail my class and everyone will know I’m a failure”.

The tirade borders on hysteria for approximately 5 minutes before any word can be uttered edgewise.

Can any non-parent truly appreciate the toll these tests extract emotionally? The cost in terms of ‘man-stress-hours’ is excruciating to contemplate, excruciating to experience. Stress is generated, in its full destructive, wasteful glory, in every conceivable direction: from the teachers regarding students, from the students regarding teachers, from the parents for the students, from administrators regarding teachers, from everyone for their school Š on and on and on. My child has endured at least three full-blown bouts of insomnia replete with physical manifestations of shaking and mental manifestations of worry just for fixating on the implications of these tests. As a result several hours of actual, literal sleep have simply been lost: gone. Insofar as a child’s purpose is to grow and learn, any loss to this end amounts to permanent, irretrievable damage.

I have had to drop my own adult work, to sit through long, iterative, pointless expressions of the child’s pent-up terror surrounding these tests and their implications. I have repeated the same lecture at least a half dozen times: ‘these tests are of the teacher, not of you; your performance is essentially your gift to the teacher, to the school. You will not be, should not be, penalized for your performance. You should do the best you can because you want to demonstrate what you know; no one can expect more than that. Think of the tests as a mental exercise, like the crossword puzzles grandma loves. Sit and puzzle, do your best, reflect your abilities faithfully and that is enough’.

But it isn’t enough. Not for the children from whom these tests extract punishing, arbitrary adjudications of the very teachers they are meant to have developed a relationship with. Whatever the child does, it will not be enough: if under-par, their performance could be the agent of trouble for their teacher or school. The guilt of responsibility for a consequence meted out upon a third party is fierce, worse, even, than any personal consequence. But in this particular case the third party is the superior, the role-model. What can it mean for the subservient to be in charge of the fate of the mentor? This is an unnatural, discombobulating fear.

At par, their performance would fail to demonstrate the super-teacher status necessary to deliver the properly transferred teacher-friend from the jeopardy of the school’s intensely-charged, jobs-at-stake atmosphere. Above-par and the responsibility for salvation is sharpest of all. Anything shy of a perfect score unveils the child-defined tyranny of magic. The kids feel it is up to them now to deliver protection for their entire school community from the trauma of educational “reform”; school co-locations, enrollment loss, library-closings, staff and services dropped, and other sequelae of a society setting priority for their education way down at rank bottom. The standard these kids are setting for themselves in just retaining status quo, is nothing less than perfection.

Thus, a perfect storm for misery. On top of the impossible expectations is testing of “standards” not even in the curriculum. As a working parent I must first deal with panicked shrieking over question topics that the teacher “has not even taught and which have never been seen before”. The pervasive negativity that “I cannot do this” is unnerving and necessitates my attention to the exclusion, even, of work deadlines.

Countless wasted stress-hours multiplied across a half-million families across the city. Across the country. Among teachers’ and administrator’s families’, among staff’s families. Because make no mistake, the drama of these tests shuts down functioning far beyond the classroom; it extends into households and across families and generations far and wide. When a system as systemic as our public schools turns dysfunctional in the wake of these foolish tests, tendrils of its effect suffuse the fiber of our very society.

This is not a trivial matter, turning over our children’s schooldays to high-stakes, high-anxiety, disproportionately affective testing. We are subjecting our youngest and most vulnerable members of society to the impossible task of righting trends they are innocent of starting. More pernicious, we are saddling them with responsibility for it. They shoulder culpability at a group-level (among teachers or school) for the consequence of their work collectively when they contribute to its measurement only as an individual. Whichever way they turn results in irreparable consequences Š to someone or something else.

We are torturing our children by relegating them to such feelings of doom and despair. Why do we coerce our kids to participate in an exercise the only solution to which is personal, inherent failure? Whom is this all for?

Obviously it’s not for the kids, but neither is it for the teachers or administrators – all this testing seems intended for no one in sight. It’s for an idealized paradigm of our ability to tease out some truth statistically. But this is a capacity that just doesn’t even exist, at least not with such a clear signal. No given test or even battery of tests can ever accurately rank a teacher’s or schools’ quality or worth. But the process of asserting otherwise itself conveys a signal of the strongest measure: all the collateral, ancillary unrest surrounding the testing is in itself, destructive beyond compare.

Categories California, Testing

Cody: Teachers Had No Role in Writing the Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2013 //
21

While David Coleman insists that the Common Core standards were written by primarily by teachers, Anthony Cody wrote in 2009 that the standards were drafted by “the secret 60,” only one of whom was a classroom teacher.

The drafting process was done in secret sessions, said Cody, with no input by teachers.

Categories Common Core

David Coleman: Teachers Wrote the Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2013 //
61

This is a very interesting story on NPR that pits one education expert against another.

On one side, David Coleman, the acknowledged architect of the Common Core standards. He thinks the standards will make all students ready for college or careers.

On the other, Karl Krawitz, the principal of Shawnee Mission East High School in Kansas. His school sends 98% of its graduates to college. He says his school doesn’t need Common Core.

Coleman: “The most important thing to know is that it was actually teachers who had the most important voice in the development of the Common Core standards,” he says.

Krawitz: “In fact, I think Common Core [is] going to set education back even further because you’re dictating curriculum,” he says, “what people are supposed to regurgitate on some kind of an assessment that’s supposed to gauge how well kids have learned the material and how well teachers have taught the material. The reality is tests don’t do either one of those things.”

Coleman: “Those kids who scored 30 percent lower, that’s the number of kids who are on their way to remediation in college,” Coleman says. “So they may have been passing previous state tests, those tests were presenting kids as ready who were not.”

Krawitz: “Kansas is struggling right now. I mean, my goodness, we’re still trying to figure out whether or not evolution should be taught,” he says.

Coleman: “Coleman says it is worth it because too many students, especially poor minority children, aren’t being challenged. “These standards are the most serious attempt this country has yet made to come to grips with those early sources of inequality,” he says.

Krawitz: He worries that the standards ran more testing. “I would do everything I can to keep Common Core out of this school,” he says.

What do you think?

Categories Coleman, David, Common Core, Education Reform, Testing

Will Florida Pass Parent Tricker Bill?

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
7

Last year, Florida State Senators failed to pass a parent trigger bill because not a single parent group in the state supported the bill. Parents came from across the state to testify against the legislation. They accurately saw the bill as a transparent effort to trick parents into handing their public school over to a charter corporation.

The bill comes up for a vote in the next few days. Jeb Bush and his surrogates are working hard to get the bill through this time. Senators have offered a flurry of amendments to try to remove some offensive features.

But Florida parents remain united in opposition to this blatant effort to enrich charter corporations.

Every Florida legislator should read the exposé of the parent trigger that was reported here by Yasha Levine..

Categories Bush, Jeb, Florida, Parent trigger

What Michelle Rhee Told the LA Times About Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
22

Michelle Rhee was recently invited to meet with the Los Angeles Times editorial board.

The interview occurred after John Merrow published his bombshell post about the mysterious memo, the one showing that Rhee was informed about the likelihood of widespread cheating and did nothing about it. Rhee forgot about the cheating memo or didn’t think it important.

In the same post on his blog, Merrow said that the public schools were worse off after the Rhee-Henderson years than when Rhee started, by every measure, like test scores, graduation fares, teacher turnover, truancy, enrollments, etc.

Nonetheless, the Los Angeles Times wanted to gain Rhee’s wisdom on teacher evaluation. Read the interview. It is clear that she doesn’t know the research, nor has she learned that the high valuation she placed on standardized testing (50% of a teacher’s rating) contributed to the cheating she ignored.

She has her narrative, and she is sticking to it. The Times needs to hear from other people, like David Berliner, who can explain what the research says.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations

Nine of the Ten Richest in US Are Attacking Unions

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
88

Leo Casey explains here that there really is “class warfare” in the U.S. today.

It is not the 1% that is attacking unions and working Americans.

It is the 1% of the 1%.

Nine of the ten richest Americans–all billionaires–are united in opposition to rights for working people.

They don’t want working people to have an assured pension.

They don’t want teachers to have any job security.

They want to roll back the New Deal.

They want capital to be unfettered.

They want teachers to have no rights at all.

They want to open up public education for entrepreneurs and profiteers.

They want privatization of public education.

But do not despair.

Armed with knowledge, we can beat them where it counts: at the polls.

Categories For-Profit, Privatization, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching, Unions, US Education

New York: Tests Will Remain Secret

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
122

Parents in New York want to see the contents of the Pearson tests that are aligned with the Common Core but officials are adamantly opposed to releasing the tests.

Parents want to review the tests to see if the questions and answers are reasonable. That is not going to happen. Teachers have been warned that they may be disciplined if they reveal any questions. Unless students spill the beans, there will be no review of the test content. There will be no Pineapplegate this year, as there was last year.

It is odd that the state is so quick to defend Pearson’s right to privacy and yet so fast to release confidential student information to Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch.

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, New York, Testing

For Shame, Commissioner John King!

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
69

Peter DeWitt, an elementary school principal in upstate New York, tells a shocking story here.

New York requires students with disabilities to take grade level tests that are far beyond their ability. Some children who literally cannot read are expected to take the same tests as other students of their age.

What purpose does it serve to put these children through this ordeal?

I think of two ways to characterize this behavior on the part of officials: either “educational malpractice” or “child abuse.”

Here is Peter DeWitt’s account:

“Most Special Education Students Couldn’t Read the State ELA Exam

Our special education students had a major issue last week. They couldn’t read the 3rd-5th grade NY State ELA exams they were supposed to complete. The tests are written FAR above the level that most can understand. Our most proficient fifth grade special education students with a Lexile level of 400 had to take an exam with a Lexile level of 700.

Students sat with rigid fists, tears and frustration. Their teachers tried to alleviate their anxiety, although all of this frustration would end up with a 1 or a 2 at best. How couldn’t it? They couldn’t read the exam.

All of this could be equated to taking an exam in a foreign language they have never learned. It had vocabulary they have never seen. They couldn’t sound out the words, and could not ask for help from their teachers. Some of my students could not get past the second word on the 3rd grade exam, which was Tarantula. A few students put their pencils down and wouldn’t budge. Imagine what it must feel like to not be able to read the 2nd word on a 70 minute exam.

Accommodations That Lack Common Sense

Students are classified as special education for numerous reasons (i.e. OHI, LD, etc). Where assessments are concerned, states offer accommodations. In the logic of state education departments, there are students who qualify for time and ½ or double-time so they can take their time through each passage or question. In some cases students are allowed directions read, scribe or passages read. However, some of these accommodations were not allowed for students because the ELA exam is about what students comprehend, and allowing an adult to read it would not give the evaluators a true measure of what students comprehend.

In an interview for the School Administrators Association of N.Y. State (SAANYS) that I did with Commissioner John King, I asked about sending students in to take an exam that they cannot read. Dr. King replied that they require special education students to take on-grade level assessments so the state education department can, “Avoid the scenario where schools essentially are absolved from responsibility for a whole set of students.”

Unfortunately, this is another aspect to accountability. In an effort to make sure that schools do not hide low-performing students under a special education classification so they can boost overall test scores, schools are being forced to make sure that all students take on-grade level exams, even if they cannot read it.

It seems like educational malpractice to force students to sit down and try to take an exam that they cannot possibly read. These students, who in many cases suffer from low self-esteem because of their academic challenges, feel even worse when they sit down to take an exam they can’t read. So they sit there for two hours if they get time and ½ and over 3 hours if they receive double time. In some cases, these students have to eat lunch aside from their general education peers because they missed their original lunch due to their “accommodations.”

What’s worse, is that on the second day of the ELA exam there were two booklets, which had two sets of directions. Given that not all students will finish the first booklet at the same exact time, the directions for both booklets had to be read before both booklets could be completed. This requires students to remember directions for book two that were read 30 to 40 minutes prior to when they opened the booklet.

If you have ever spent time with students between the ages of 8 and 11 you understand that students cannot be read directions for two booklets and be expected to remember those directions 40 minutes later after they finish one section of an exam. We had students put their pencils down and sit there feeling defeated.

True Assessments

The truth is that our special education teachers are some of our most gifted assessors of student progress. They write IEP’s that reflect what a student knows and what a student needs to know the next year. They progress monitor weekly or bi-weekly to make sure their lessons meets the needs of the diverse learning that special education students have.

Special education teachers find value in assessing student progress. Whether it’s through formative assessment or summative assessment, special education teachers assess students with dignity.

The point is for them to use data to drive instruction, not to use it for accountability. In the words of Jonathan Cohen from the National School Climate Center, “Data is being used as a hammer and not as a flashlight,” and the state education department doesn’t seem to care about the social-emotional state of students as they use their hammer.

Categories New York, Special Education, Testing

The Attack on Unions: Which Side Are You On?

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
123

The attack on unions flared into public view in 2011, when Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin attacked public sector unions, and thousands of people surrounded the State Capitol in protest.

Since so many radical Republicans took office in 2010, the effort to destroy public sector unions–especially the teachers’ unions–has accelerated.

Leo Casey explores the context of the anti-union movement here.

In state after state, legislatures have wiped out collective bargaining rights. That meant teachers would have no voice in the funding of public schools or their working conditions. Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.

The so-called reformers are closing public schools and turning the students over to private corporations. 90% of charters are non-union.

The questions that I keep asking are, where was Barack Obama as the efforts to destroy America’s workers gained momentum? Why didn’t he go to Madison in the spring of 2011? Why did he go instead at the very height of the Wisconsin protests to hail Jeb Bush in Miami as “a champion of education reform?”

Why did his Secretary of Education effusively praise some of the most anti-union, anti-teacher state commissioners of education in the nation, like John White in Louisiana and Hanna Skandera in New Mexico? Why have Secretary Duncan and President Obama said nothing in opposition to the attacks on teachers, the mass closure of public schools, and the growing for-profit sector in education? Why was the Democratic National Convention of 2012 held in North Carolina, a right-to-work state? When was the last time that the Democratic Party held its convention in a right to work state?

Categories Duncan, Arne, Economy, Education Industry, For-Profit, Obama, Privatization, Support for public schools, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Unions

The Failure of Market-Based Reforms

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
11

What is presently called “reform” consists of market-based policies such as school choice, high-stakes testing, evaluating teachers by test scores, and closing schools.

The Broader Bolder Approach to Education just released a report on what they call “market-oriented reforms.” The report analyzes performance data in three “market-oriented” cities–Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New York City–and concludes that in these districts, the rhetoric trumps the reality. Non-market-oriented districts consistently outperformed the three “market reform” districts.

The authors say in summary:

“Top-down pressure from federal education policies such as Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind, bolstered by organized advocacy efforts, is making a popular set of market-oriented education “reforms” look more like the new status quo than real reform. Reformers assert that test-based teacher evaluation, increased access to charter schools, and the closure of “failing” and under-enrolled schools will boost at-risk students’ achievement and narrow longstanding race- and income-based achievement gaps. This new report from the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education examines these assertions by comparing the impacts of these reforms in three large urban school districts – Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago – with student and school outcomes over the same period in other large, high-poverty urban districts. The report finds that the reforms deliver few benefits, often harm the students they purport to help, and divert attention from a set of other, less visible policies with more promise to weaken the link between poverty and low educational attainment.”

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Teacher Evaluations, US Education, Vouchers
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