Archives for the month of: April, 2013
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Tennessee Legislature Back on Track to Gut Local Control

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2013 //
11

Last year, the Metro Nashville school board rejected Great Hearts Academy four times because it insisted on locating its charter school in the city’s most affluent neighborhood, with no plans for diversity. The rejection was entirely appropriate inasmuch as the new charter would be the equivalent of a publicly-funded private school for affluent white students.

In Arizona, Great Hearts was known for high test scores, but also for expecting parents to contribute $1,200-1,500 annually to defray school costs and keep classes small. For parents thinking of private schools, that’s a bargain, but it’s not public education. Last year, Great Hearts acquired a certain notoriety when the Arizona Republic wrote about how the school directed $1 million in textbook purchases to a board member, who gave generously to the school.

The Arizona Republic wrote:

“The 15 schools under the non-profit Great Hearts Academies offer a college-preparatory curriculum that stresses classic literature. That means students get an intensive reading regimen.

“To supply the books, the schools have been making regular purchases for at least the last three years from a Tempe-based textbook company called Educational Sales Co. Daniel Sauer, the company’s president and CEO and a shareholder, is also an unpaid officer of the Great Hearts Academies non-profit.

“Since July 2009, the schools have made $987,995 in purchases from the company.

“Great Hearts also gives parents the option of buying books directly from the company. Six of the Great Hearts school websites feature links only to Educational Sales’ website for parents who want to buy a second set of books for use at home.

“Great Hearts CEO Dan Scoggin said he doesn’t believe there is a conflict of interest because Great Hearts has no mandates on where its schools buy books. Many Great Hearts schools use several vendors based on pricing, service and availability, he said.

“Great Hearts schools are exempt from state purchasing laws.”
*********************

State Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman (Michelle Rhee’s -ex, whose sole previous education experience was TFA) was furious that Metro Nashville turned down Great Hearts. He withheld $3.4 million in state funds owed to the children of Nashville to punish the board for defying him.

Why such fierce devotion to this particular charter operator when there are so many other charter chains? It is a puzzlement.

Then House Speaker Beth Harwell (R) expressed her displeasure by introducing ALEC legislation to create a state charter commission to authorize charter schools at will, without regard to the wishes of elected local school boards. This made other Republican legislators uncomfortable, some because they remembered that local control is (or used to be) a conservative idea, others because they worried that charters for inner-city kids might open in their own neighborhood.

So the legislators dropped Harwell’s ALEC proposal and shifted to a bill saying that the state board of education should have the power to override local school board decisions.

That way they can protect their own neighborhood schools from those “poor kids trapped in failing schools,” while making it possible for the state board to open publicly financed private schools in white neighborhoods.

The bill seems sure to sail through the legislature. Great Hearts will get its charter, maybe several charters, and local control in Tennessee will be eviscerated in the service of corporate chain schools.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Tennessee

Florida: Now the Lawsuits Begin

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2013 //
18

Teachers in Florida are suing because they are being evaluated on the basis of students they didn’t teach and subjects they don’t teach.

This is manifestly unfair.

Imagine being fired because the scores didn’t go up in someone else’s class.

Let the lawsuits begin.

In time, the madness will end, and those who created it and perpetuated will be covered with shame and disgrace.

Categories Florida, Teacher Evaluations

Walton Family Foundation Supporting Mass School Closings in Chicago

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2013 //
24

The Walton Family Foundation has an overriding interest in school pro privatization. They commit about $160 million each year for charters, vouchers, Teach for America, think tanks, and media. Everything they do has the singular goal of dismantling public education and opening the schools to untrained, uncertified teachers.

Here is news from the Chicago Teachers Union about the role of Walton in the proposed closing of 54 public schools.

NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin
April 17, 2013 312/329-6250
StephanieGadlin@ctulocal1.com

Walton family school “reform” initiatives in Chicago reveals true education agenda

CHICAGO – The Walton Family Foundation, led by heirs to the Walmart fortune, says it wants to improve education. But the public is increasingly asking whether the WFF’s corporate-style, privatization-oriented approach to reform, based on the mistaken premise that competitive market dynamics apply to K-12 education just like they apply to Walmart stores, is right for our schools. The family’s recent involvement in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) school closing controversy is a prime example of the ways in which Walton family’s education agenda can actually harm schools, communities, and students, according to the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).

Citing budget deficits and lower enrollments, CPS officials—led by the Broad Foundation’s Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who previously led mass school closures and teacher firings in Cleveland and Detroit—announced last month as Chicago’s new schools chief that the district would close 54 “underutilized” schools, mainly in majority black, low-income neighborhoods. (The mayor-appointed Board of Education is set to vote on approving the closures May 22.) Defenders of public schools say that CPS has sought to weaken and close public schools in order to open more charter schools, which are often under-regulated, lack adequate oversight, and cherry-pick top students while leaving behind others. In 2011, CPS’s Chief Operating Officer even admitted that the system was intentionally underinvesting in low-performing schools that it might close someday.

As CPS prepared its closure list, the Walton Family Foundation bankrolled a “community engagement process,” with meetings led by Walton-paid consultants, to provide the illusion that the school closure process was open and democratic. Meanwhile, the Waltons also paid $3.8 million in 2012 to open new charter schools in Chicago. Given the Waltons’ strong support of school vouchers and charter schools, public school supporters were deeply skeptical that public opinion was truly meant to be heard and fully considered at these meetings. Media were banned from attending, but Walton Family Foundation staff attended. Now the family is funding a series of ads and videos that the system is using to try to justify the closings.

“If the Waltons were serious about improving education or children’s’ lives, they would do anything possible to prevent disruptive, harmful school closures, rather than encourage them,” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “We continue to fight for a full moratorium on all school actions this year. It is imperative that we force the district to take time to study the impact of these closings and other failed experiments have had on our students.”

According to a University of Chicago study of recent Chicago school closures, only six percent of students whose neighborhood school closed moved to an academically sound school. In addition, the study found that school closures are a “substantial burden” on students, families, communities, and school staff: Students face difficult adjustments to new schools, neighborhoods lose a community anchor, and school staff becomes unemployed. Parents in Chicago are also acutely concerned about the safety of their children if they are sent to schools outside the neighborhood, possibly into gang territory.

The way the Walton family has interfered in Chicago, working to shutter public schools while simultaneously opening unproven, under-regulated alternatives, makes it clear that their primary interest is not better education for kids, but rather undermining public schools in order to promote an alternative, private-style school system, Lewis said. It’s even worse that they are interfering in a community they are not part of, where they can use their wealth to push their beliefs on other people’s children, avoid any of the impact or risks, and escape accountability. Corporate reformers insist that students and teachers have to be accountable, but apparently will give a pass to the nation’s wealthiest family.

Ironically, one of the things shown repeatedly to improve academic performance is improving the economic situation for children and their families. While the Walton family likes to talk about how they value all children, Walmart, which the family controls roughly half of, continues to keep many of its associates in poverty, with low wages, poor benefits and the kinds of unpredictable schedules that make parenting even more difficult. If the Waltons were truly concerned about lifting all boats, they could start with something directly under their control—living wages for 1.3 million Walmart workers in the United States alone.

In the ideal Walton world, schools would compete against each other for students, resources, and test scores. But there’s a problem: When there is a competition with winners and losers, there are inevitably losers. Chicago parents don’t want their children to be on the losing team in the Walton-engineered competition.

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Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Walton Foundation

High-Stakes Standardized Testing: A Zombie Policy

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2013 //
4

Ilena Ewen and Pamela Grundy are parents in North Carolina.

They say that the standardized tests are like zombies.

“How are standardized tests like zombies? They’re mindless, and they just keep coming. For more than a decade, North Carolina schools and students have suffered from an onslaught of high-stakes standardized tests. These zombie tests have invaded our schools, sucking time and money from teaching and learning. They’ve deadened creativity and original thought, squashed imagination, stripped both teachers and students of dignity.

“Like zombies, these tests just won’t die. Despite conclusive evidence that the explosion of testing under No Child Left Behind did more harm than good, the numbers and the cost of tests continue to multiply.”

Ewell and Grundy say it is madness. They call on their legislators to spare their children. Enough is enough.

Read more here:

Categories Testing

When Students in New Orleans Got a Chance to Speak

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2013 //
14

NBC’s “Education Nation” has proved to be a forum for the advocates of high-stakes testing, closing schools, privatization, and charter schools.

When they filmed in New Orleans, students got a chance to be heard, and their views were illuminating.

Despite the drumbeat of Race to the Top and Bobby Jindal in support of evaluating teachers by the scores of students, the students had their own ideas. When asked if it was right to judge their teachers by student scores, 81% of the students said no.

The interesting question is why the students know so much more than the U.S. Department of Education, the governor, and their state commissioner.

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Students

Duncan Urges US Chamber of Commerce to Defend Common Core

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2013 //
52

Arne Duncan is concerned about the backlash against the federal government’s heavy-handed imposition of the Common Core.

At a speech to business leaders in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he urged their support for Common Core.

He probably forgot that the U.S. Department of Education is legally prohibited from being involved in any matters that prescribe curriculum or instruction to the nation’s public schools.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne

Investigative Reporter: The Stories Behind the “Parent Trigger” UPDATE

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2013 //
34

Yasha Levine is an investigative reporter. He became interested in the “parent trigger” and wanted to see what was going on in Adelanto, California, the only place in the United States where the parent trigger has been “fired” to turn a public school over to a charter operator.

Just as an aside, I find the rhetoric of a “parent trigger” to be loathsome after the Newtown massacre. But that’s just me.

This article is now behind a pay wall. With this kind of investigative reporting, you might consider subscribing. We need more digging by smart journalists instead of the regurgitated press releases that we so often read and see in the major media.

Regretfully, I cannot post the full text onmy website.

This story deserves wide attention. If you have to pay to read it, please do.

Here goes:

When NSFWCORP sent me to Victorville this January, I little expected that the neighboring town of Adelanto would become ground zero for a fight between billionaires like Anschutz on one side, and poor, vulnerable minority parents and children on the other.

I first heard about the fight through the local right-wing paper, the Victorville Daily Press, which gleefully announced on its front page that a local school, Desert Trails Elementary, had just made history as the first school in the nation to be privatized under California’s new “parent trigger” law. The paper described the takeover as “promising a fresh start to the failing elementary school,” and claimed it had received widespread support from parents.

The national press gushed in similarly glowing terms. The LA Weekly described the Adelanto privatization as an “historic moment for the education-reform movement picking up steam across the nation.” The New York Times dutifully compared the takeover of Desert Trails to “Won’t Back Down.” An “issues” movie starring Face of Indie Maggie Gyllenhaal, “Won’t Back Down” promotes the parent-trigger law as a panacea for America’s public-education problems, one that “empowers” parents to fight back against self-interested public school teachers and their union.

All in all, everyone agreed that this takeover of Desert Trails Elementary represented a triumphant moment for parents and their children, a victory for the people over rapacious elementary school teachers and their unions.

But something didn’t seem right about this story — it was too pat, too much like a triumph-of-the-spirit Disney tale, too much like Maggie’s movie. So I made some calls and started spending some time in Adelanto, to find out what really went on there…….

* *

* *
I would spend several weeks talking to the parents of children enrolled in Desert Trails Elementary, meeting with them in local taco joints and strip mall diners and talking about what happened. As I had suspected, their version of events turned out not to match the Disney version in national papers.

The parents told me that a Los Angeles-based group calling itself “Parent Revolution” organized a local campaign to harass and trick them into signing petitions that they thought were meant for simple school improvements. In fact those petitions turned out to be part of a sophisticated campaign to convert their children’s public school into a privately-run charter — something a majority of parents opposed. At times, locals say, the “Parent Revolution” volunteers’ tactics were so heavy-handed in gathering signatures that they crossed the line into harassment and intimidation. Many parents were misled about what the petition they signed actually meant. Some told me that the intimidation with some of the undocumented Latino residents included bribery and extortion.”

.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Parents, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Mother Crusader Opted Out! LINK ADDED

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2013 //
49

News from parent activist Mother Crusader:

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

I’ve Opted Out And You Can Too!

This morning I spoke with the Assistant Superintendent of my district, and was told it’s no problem to opt my 1st graders out of the NJPASS. This is not a mandated test, and the results are not reported to the state. It is given mostly to prepare students for taking the NJASK in 3rd grade – so in my estimation, it’s all but useless for my kids and a waste of money for the district.

The OK to opt out this year came with a warning that once my girls hit 3rd grade this would not be such a cake walk. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

For now, I feel an incredible sense of relief.

Relief that my girls won’t lose almost 7 hours (I was told it sucks up 2 hours and 15 minutes on 3 consecutive days – they’re SIX!!) to a standardized test that has next to no meaning for them or their teacher. Relief that my district was accommodating (they can spend the time at home or will be invited into a Kindergarten classroom). Relief that I have taken the first step to giving my daughters a K-12 education without the stress and burden of high-stakes standardized tests.

Here’s a generic version of the letter I sent to my district. I took out identifiers and specifics, so if you are inspired to join me, feel free to cut and paste parts that resonate for you and create your own letter. Or steal the whole thing.

It’s my gift to you for taking the brave step to tell the powers that be, “You can’t sort and label our children! We opt out!!”
I have been informed that first graders will take the NJPASS on May 7, 8 and 9. It is also my understanding that these scores will not be reported to the state, and do not have high stakes attached to them. However, I fail to see the benefit of starting my child(ren) on a standardized testing path that I know is leading to their class being the first group of 3rd graders to take the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Carriers (PARCC) assessments in the 2014/2015 school year.

In the current education reform culture, standardized test scores are used less often to improve outcomes for students by reinforcing skills that have not been mastered, and more to evaluate teachers, schools and districts. Student test data provides the state false justification to take over districts, close schools, and open charters; all “reforms” that have not been shown to significantly improve student outcomes and instead serve to further weaken traditional public schools and the communities they serve.

Starting next year, AchieveNJ will be implemented statewide, and education advocates and legislators are still debating with Education Commissioner Chris Cerf how much of a teacher’s evaluation will be based on their student’s standardized test scores. These tests were never created to evaluate teacher performance, and the use of Student Growth Percentiles (SGP) and similar Value Added Modeling (VAM) to evaluate teachers has proven highly controversial in other states.

This is not the only way student data is being misused. Testing companies have begun collecting student data, including “information about the children’s hobbies, attitudes, and interests” as well as “(d)isciplinary records, attendance records, special-needs records, testing records.” This information is then shared with other testing and educational companies without parental consent. Parents have not been given the opportunity to opt-out of the database, and the data will be used to tailor educational products to parents.

And as you well know, standardized testing creates a financial burden for districts across the state. The infrastructure needed for the coming PARCC assessments is as of yet undetermined for our district, but is anticipated to be quite onerous. As PARCC is administered entirely online, it will require large purchases of technology and increased bandwidth, in addition to the cost of the test itself. Paired with the loss of almost $5 million in state funding our district has suffered since Governor Christie took office, the additional expense could be devastating.

For all these reasons and more (teaching to the test, narrowing of curriculum, cheating scandals, etc.) I am ardently opposed to the testing culture that has been inflicted upon public schools, and the over reliance on data driven instruction in a never ending quest for evidence that students are “college and career ready.” To be clear, I am not implying that our district is engaged in ANY of these practices. These are my observations of the national discussion on standardized testing, and the impact the overreliance on test scores has had on public education nationwide.

I trust my daughters’ teachers to make sound judgments regarding their education, and the district has my full support in administering any teacher or district created assessments as deemed necessary. I whole-heartedly object however to any state-wide standardized tests the district chooses to administer, or must administer according to state mandates.

Therefore, my husband and I respectfully inform you that we have decided to opt our child(ren) out of the NJPASS. We have decided to join the growing number of parents across the state that have similarly decided to opt their children out of high stakes standardized tests.

Ours is a progressive district committed to public education. I would love to see a broad conversation in our schools, purposefully framed to include parents, teachers, administrators and board members, about the effects this nation’s obsession with standardized testing is having on the education of our children.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Respectfully,

Darcie Cimarusti

If you are interested in the opt out movement, reach out to me in the comments. A group of New Jersey parents and educators have already started a supportive Facebook group that you can join, and you can also find information at United Opt Out.

The NJDOE is using our kids’ tests scores as the basis for their attempts to privatize and take over our public schools. Opting out is the best way to tell the state we want nothing to do with the destructive war they’ve waged against our schools, and we won’t allow them to use our kids as a weapon to fire their teachers and close their schools.

Parents and teachers know that standardized tests are antithetical to learning. We need to stand up for what we know.

In solidarity,
Darcie

Categories New Jersey, Parents, Testing

“Don’t Cut Down the Tree of Knowledge”

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2013 //
7

Jewish leaders in Chicago stand in solidarity against mass school closings:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Release date: April 15, 2013
Chicago, IL

Contact:
Miriam Grossman, Jewish Solidarity and Action for Schools
miriamlevia.grossman@gmail.com
(609) 273-4932

JEWISH COMMUNITY RALLIES AGAINST SCHOOL CLOSINGS WITH LETTER TO MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL

Jewish community members will gather on Thursday, April 18th at 4:30pm to deliver a letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel that demands an end to the planned CPS school closings. Organized by the group Jewish Solidarity and Action for Schools (JSAS), the letter calls on Jews and the greater community “to show our public officials, Jewish and non-Jewish, that while CPS’s ill-conceived and destabilizing reforms put some children at risk more than others, the resistance will come from people of all ages, races, and neighborhoods.”

In this spirit the group will arrive at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office with cries of “Don’t cut down the tree of knowledge!” and “What would your Bubbie say?” There, Rabbi Brant Rosen will lead the group in prayer before the delivery of the letter.

Citing the disproportionate effect of the school closings on African American and Latino neighborhoods, the letter expresses outrage at the racism inherent in the school closings. It reads: “These discriminatory school closings fly in the face of our Jewish and human values…The proposed school closings would exacerbate inequity, particularly along lines of race and class. They would undermine the promise of our education system to be open to all of us, no matter what neighborhood we live in… Although injustice may not affect all of us equally, we all must struggle together for our liberation.” The letter is signed by over 150 Jews including important Rabbis and religious leaders from the Chicago area.

This event is part of JSAS’s ongoing participation in the movement to stop school closings, led by the Chicago Teachers’ Union and Grassroots Education Movement. JSAS formed as a place for the Jewish community to stand in solidarity and act for education justice in the city of Chicago and beyond.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Emanuel, Rahm

Governor Hunt, Where Are You?

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2013 //
9

Governor Jim Hunt spent years persuading the North Carolina legislature to reduce class size.

Now he is out of office, and the radicals in the legislature want to abolish all limits on class size, allegedly in the interest of “flexibility.”

It is certainly not in the interest of improving education or helping kids. The research showing the benefits of small classes in the early grades, especially for the neediest children, is powerful.

North Carolina is ready to throw the neediest children under the bus.

Governor Hunt, where are you?

Categories Class size, North Carolina
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