Archives for the month of: May, 2013
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Tennessee Teacher on PARCC Testing

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
24

A reader comments:

Wow, for those opposed to T-cap, wait until you get a good look at common core and the PARCC assessment. The nightmare is about to get worse. As a teacher, I have been working with the debut of common core in Tennessee this year. I don’t even know where to begin to express my frustration with the entire common core movement. It combines an exceptionally narrow curriculum with testing that is vague and open to interpretation (when our group of 6 teachers scored student work we frequently came up with three different scores). The narrow focus of common core does not coincide with the broad based knowledge required for ACT/SAT testing. So until they get all testing aligned, students caught in the middle are screwed. (I have one of these students)

The PARCC assessment is proposing to do away with students accommodations (for students with disabilities) because it invalidates the test! So we now have TESTING dictating what accommodations a special education student may receive. All students besides the very most severe will be expected to sit in front of a computer and take the test. If a special education student didn’t have a disability they wouldn’t need accommodations!

The worst crime of state assessments is that they they fail to recognize the individuality of learning. Students have brains that mature at different rates, learn at different rates, learn in different ways, and benefit from testing in different ways.

It is all insane!

Categories Common Core, Tennessee, Testing

In Los Angeles, Both Mayoral Candidates Want to Publish Teacher Ratings

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
44

In 2010, the Los Angeles commissioned a rating system based on test scores and published the individual names of teachers and their ratings. New York City did the same last year. To say this was controversial is putting it mildly.

Many researchers opposed it, as did Wendy Kopp and Bill Gates. If the purpose of the ratings is to help teachers improve, how exactly does it help to publish those ratings? Shouldn’t they be part of a discussion between principals and teachers? Right after the ratings went public in Los Angeles, a fifth grade teacher committed suicide. His name was Rigoberto Ruelas. Collateral damage, you might say.

John Ewing, the head of Math for America, called this thuggish use of data “mathematical intimidation,” and said that mathematicians have an obligation to speak out against it.

Nonetheless, both candidates for mayor in Los Angeles say they approve the practice.

Is there any evidence that the public releases in either L.A. or NYC improved teaching?

Please, someone, get some informed advisors for these candidates.

Categories Accountability, Los Angeles, Teacher Evaluations

Why Rhee’s Test-Driven Incentives Always Fail

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
16

In this thoughtful article, Charles Taylor Kerchner of Claremont Graduate University explains that Michelle Rhee’s belief in using test scores to reward and punish teachers is guaranteed to produce adverse consequences like cheating.

Her reliance on test scores plus her “fear-based management style” is the Achilles’ heel of reform policy, he says.

“This is the lesson of organizational history, not an isolated “bad judgment” aberration. It’s about more than school test scores in the District of Columbia, Atlanta, Texas or even Rhee’s possibly outsized claims of how well her students did during the three years she taught school in Baltimore. The policies Rhee endorses create bad incentives. Bad incentives lead to disastrous results. They certainly played a part in the largest business collapses in recent history: Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers and the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.”

There is a way to build better schools: “What motivates teachers most? Student success: If an organizational system of curriculum, pedagogy, professional training and school organization helps students experience success, then teachers are highly motivated. Teachers are motivated by being part of a winning team, a school that does well at its own mission, which most often is not test score maximization. Teachers are motivated by being part of an occupation that is honored and trusted. These are the lessons from a century of study.”

This is worth reading and pondering.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Iowa Teacher: Save This Noble Profession Before It Is Too Late

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
30

Amy Prime, who teaches second grade in Newton, Iowa, noticed that many of the teachers she knows and admires are counting the days until they retire or quit.

She writes:

“If you teach, you don’t need to get online to read these thoughts. You hear them every day as you pass your colleagues in the halls, at sporting events, at church and in the grocery store. Teachers who are close to retirement crunch the numbers to see if they can make it financially if they leave a year or two earlier. Newer teachers wonder if the degree they earned in education might transfer to another type of job.

“If we don’t stop, take a serious look at what we are doing, and make a huge change, then we will have destroyed a noble and essential profession. This is not imagined. The attacks on teachers have been steadily increasing.”

Politicians and pundits overlook the root causes of poor achievement and blame teachers.

But, says Prime, we must not give up. Teaching is a great job, a great challenge, and every day is different. Besides, she writes, the people she works for give her hugs.

Her advice:

“To veteran teachers I say: Don’t go yet. You were here before No Child Left Behind. You were here before threats of unfair merit pay systems and micromanaging. We need you to remember the good that went on in schools then and fight for the return of those positive things. Your experience and wisdom cannot be replicated.

“To the young people who want to teach I say: Don’t be afraid. Join us. Teaching is a calling that can’t be denied. But be prepared to stand up and fight for what you know is right and good for kids. Don’t close your door and do your thing while hoping no one walks in to see that you’ve strayed from the script. Instead keep the door open and defend your good teaching practices when questioned.

“Fight for fun, creativity and laughter. Fight for art and music and drama in your room and in your district. Fight for smaller class sizes and for time to plan and prepare great lessons for your kids. Fight for better wages and improved benefits.”

Thank you, Amy, for good advice, for a vision of better days ahead, and for encouraging your colleagues to stand and fight for what they know is right for their students.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Is There Any Organization That Is Not Funded by Gates?

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
29

Obscene amounts of money translate into power.

Obscene amounts of money–billions–often translate into the ability to buy elections. But not always, as we saw in the recent school board election in Los Angeles, when the candidate of the Billionaire Boys Club was beaten by Steve Zimmer.

Billionaires don’t just try to buy elections.

They try to buy anyone who might help them or hinder them in their quest for power.

The Gates Foundation, for example, underwrites almost every organization in its quest to control American education. It supports rightwing groups like Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence and Ben Austin’s Parent Revolution. In the recent past, it gave money to the reactionary ALEC. It pays young teachers to oppose unions and to testify against the rights of tenured teachers. It also pays unions to support its ideas about evaluations, despite their flaws. It spends hundreds of millions of dollars to support “independent” think tanks, which are somewhat less independent when they become dependent on Gates money.

The other day, I reported that the ACLU had persuaded the U.S. Department of Justice to take action against voucher schools in Milwaukee that discriminate against students with disabilities. My source at the ACLU, who sent me the DOJ statement and the ACLU press release, mentioned in passing that the National Urban League had turned its back on the ACLU’s efforts to make private choice schools non-discriminatory.

Wonder why? Here is a possible answer.

Switch to teacher evaluation.

Some teachers in New York have wondered why their state union organization is not fighting the misuse of test scores as the basis of evaluation.

Wonder why? Here is a possible answer.

Power corrupts. So does money.

Categories ALEC, Bush, Jeb, Common Core, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Will Rhode Island Continue to Defend the Misuse of NECAP for Graduation?

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
9

Tom Sgouros has written repeatedly about the inappropriateness of using NECAP as a graduation requirement for students in Rhode Island.

This is the same issue that produced the activism of the Providence Student Union.

Commissioner Deborah Gist insists that the critics don’t know what they are talking about.

In this post, Sgouros points out that the test-makers say clearly that the NECAP is not intended for graduation. He cited this sentence:

“NECAP is only one indicator of student performance and results of a single NECAP test administration should not be used for referring students to special education or for making promotion and/or graduation decisions.” (page 6)

Gist immediately pounced on the word “single” to defend her insistence on NECAP, saying that students who failed could take it again.

Get the importance of that word “single”? It is huge.

Then Sgouros made an amazing discovery. He did some internet digging and learned that the word “single” was added in 2011. It still does not appear in the guide for NECAP science.

Until sometime in 2011, the guide for NECAP said: “NECAP is only one indicator of student performance and should not be used for referring students to special education or for making promotion and/or graduation decisions.”

That seems straightforward and clear. But it was changed with the addition of that one word.

Sgouros concludes in a warning we should all heed:

“What we’re talking about here is dishonesty. This isn’t the same as simple dishonesty, or lying. This is intellectual dishonesty, and here’s the problem with that. The world is what it is. The facts of the world do not care about your opinion, or your triumph in some argument. Intellectual honesty is important in science because it’s the only way to get our understanding of the world to approach the world. Fudge your results, and you’ll find that your cure for cancer doesn’t work, that your miracle glue is really an explosive, or that your economic policy just makes things worse. This is why science is supposed to progress by scientists checking and criticizing each others results: that’s how you maintain intellectual honesty. Sometimes the disputes get personal or political and distract from the real aim, but the real aim is to get at the truth via intellectual honesty, enforced by the scientific community.

“The truth is that the NECAP wasn’t designed to be a graduation test, and this was obvious from the very beginning. It has been coerced into the role not because it was good for kids, but because it was cheaper than designing a dedicated graduation test. The features that make it a bad graduation test are objectively true facts about the test and its design. Neither editing technical documentation, committee-hearing filibusters, or cutting off public comment at Board of Education meetings will change those facts.

“I have no doubt at all that the commissioner can fend off challenges from the public over these matters, indefinitely. But reality will — as it usually does — have the last word. And children will pay the price. The question for Board of Education members, legislators, school administrators, teachers, and parents is which side they want to be on.”

Sgouros got a response from RIDE, but it was as nonsensical as the department’s claim that taking the same test again and again is the same as “multiple measures.” Sgouros is right. When people use the term multiple measures, they mean essays, projects, teacher recommendations, other evidence of satisfactory work, not a chance to take the same test many times.
;

;

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents

Kevin Welner: How Charter Schools Game Their Enrollments

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
23

As we have seen again and again in recent years, charter schools have mastered the secret of school success. The most predictable way of getting those highly prized test scores is to have the “right” student body.

Want to learn the tricks?

Kevin Welner of the University of Colorado and the National Education Policy Center reveals here the 12 most effective methods to get high test scores, even to be called “a miracle schools.”

Categories Charter Schools

Network for Public Education Endorses Monica Ratliff

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
1

This is the first endorsement by the Network for Public Education.

After a careful review by the board, we endorse Monica Ratliff for school board in Los Angeles.

We promised we would support candidates who support public education.

We don’t have the money to compete with the billionaires.

But we hope our support will persuade parents and teachers to get out and vote.

This is a run off and will be a low turnout.

We urge everyone to get out and vote.

Here is the NPE endorsement:

NPE’s First Endorsement: Monica Ratliff

Underdog candidate in Los Angeles School Board race

Our First Endorsement: Monica Ratliff, a Teacher, for Los Angeles School Board

The Board of Directors of NPE has voted to endorse Monica Ratliff in her runoff election for Los Angeles school board. The election will happen on May 21st.

We asked both Ratliff and her opponent, Antonio Sanchez, to complete a detailed candidate questionnaire. Monica Ratliff’s responses revealed someone who is a working 5th grade teacher, well acquainted with the challenges faced by the schools of Los Angeles. Sanchez did not respond.

Ratliff understands that testing has gotten way out of control. She told us:

“Teachers constantly check for understanding. LAUSD spends too much money on periodic assessments and other tests that waste money and, more importantly, precious instructional time. We need less purchased standardized testing. One standardized test at the end of the year is acceptable – depending upon its use. ”

She opposes merit pay based on test scores, and the sharing of student data without explicit parental permission.

Her opponent, Antonio Sanchez, has received the full backing of corporate reformers, including donations from New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, and billionaire Eli Broad. According to the Los Angeles Times, which endorsed Ratliff, Sanchez “lacks educational expertise and his positions are unclear. He tends to speak in political platitudes about key issues rather than offering specifics.”

Students of Los Angeles need school board members who are independent of the corporate reform machines. They need people who understand education issues in depth, and that is why we are endorsing Monica Ratliff.

NPE President Diane Ravitch endorsed Ratliff last week, writing:

“Monica will be overwhelmingly outspent. She can win if friends of public education turn out to vote.
She needs our help. If everyone who loves teachers sends Monica a gift of any size, she would be the best-funded candidate in the race. Send whatever you can afford.”

It is of vital importance that we elect independent candidates like Ratliff. Please visit and donate what you can to her campaign.

Categories Los Angeles

Will the Children of Buena Vista Go Without an Education?

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2013 //
7

The public schools of Buena Vista are closed. The teachers offered to work for free, but they were rebuffed. Some have filed for unemployment. The children are out of school, and no one knows when school will open again. Or if it will.

Joy Resnovits is following this story on Huffington Post.

Buena Vista is a town that got left behind when the American auto industry collapsed.

As more rust belt towns die, the question will come up again and again. Can we stop educating children when localities get washed away by economic recessions and depressions?

Categories Economy, Michigan

Michigan in a Nutshell

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2013 //
11

A comment on the blog about the state of public education in Michigan:

I am a retired high school English teacher in Michigan. After I retired I served 8 years on our board of education. I retired in 2000 and have a son, daughter and daughter-in-law in the teaching profession.

What has happened in Michigan since I retired is appalling. Our teachers are being demoralized, our school aid fund has been raided to give tax breaks to big business, tenure is gone, and evaluations are being based on test scores. Benefits have been reduced for teachers and right to work is in play.

Our legislators believe the EAA which has taken over some schools in Detroit should be expanded when it hasn’t even been in effect for year and so far doesn’t have a good track record.

The latest I have read is that there in now contemplation to raid the school aid fund again to pay for roads. There is also word that teacher pay will be tied to student performance.

Governor Snyder sends his child to a private school where small class sizes exist, many types of classes are offered and standardized testing is not an issue.

Dick DeVos and the Mackinac Center along with Michelle Rhee seem to have a big influence on our governor and right wing legislators. We need a great deal of help in our state to restore public education to what it once was.

Cyber schools, charter schools and private takeover will destroy our state if we don’t start electing people who can turn it around. I told my son that “this too shall pass,”, but I worry daily.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Michigan
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