Archives for the month of: June, 2013
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The End Result of the Parent Trigger Is….?

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
23

An anonymous comment from an educator poses an important question:

Parent Revolution must be trying to figure out what to do with themselves. Publicly, they can try to positively frame the debate using language such as “parent empowerment” and “parent choice” and “we can’t wait” and “won’t back down” and “kids can’t wait” and “this is a failing school”…but in the end, it’s just a bad idea and a bad policy. Get 50% + 1 of parents to sign a petition, cause disruption, cause parents to protest against each other, cause staff members to feel terrible about their jobs so that they update their resumes and look elsewhere, and let the kids watch as they ask their moms and dads and teachers what the hell is going on. Then, if the trigger is successful, gamble on restarting an entire community and school culture from scratch, and try to recruit people who would want to work in a school that was shot down by the trigger. You might find younger folks who want to teach temporarily, but you’ll destabalize the school, and the teaching profession. Why would any new teacher who wants to teach more than…2 years…want to ever teach in a low income school anymore?

Is this the “courageous leadership” that politicians who support Parent Revolution claim will help students or is this a misguided, short sighted law?

Categories Parent trigger

Memories: My Mother’s Piano

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
17

Gayle Greene, a professor of English at Scripps College in California, wrote this beautiful tribute to the meaning of the arts in her life. She reflects on her mother’s piano, the beautiful music that somehow inspired her own love of words and literature.

When you read about her mother’s piano, you will for a brief time be carried back to an era when education had nothing to do with data, metrics, test scores, and choice. Will the statisticians and economists, the standardizers and technocrats kill that era or do we have a chance to reclaim it from them?

Categories Arts Education, Curriculum

Pennsylvania Can’t Afford Good Schools But Corporate Tax Breaks Are OK

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
16

Pennsylvania blogger Yinzercation reviews the state budget and notes that the legislators are fine with cutting the arts, kindergarten, libraries, books, supplies, and teachers, but they won’t touch the numerous tax breaks available to corporate interests.

This is a good post because it not only bemoans the loss of essential services in schools but lays out specific budget items favoring corporate interests that could be used to provide good education.

Clearly the legislators are doing exactly what they want to do: Cutting schools to the bone, wrecking public education, while assuring that those who fatten their campaign coffers make money.

Categories Budget Cuts, Pennsylvania

Governor Rick Perry’s Worst Veto

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
12

Governor Perry of Texas vetoed HB 2836. This was a bill that would have reduced the pressure to test and test and test, then test some more, in the early grades.

He earlier approved a bill to reduce the amount of testing for high school students but the anti-testing moms forgot about the elementary school children.

So Governor Perry vetoed a bill that would have cut back on testing the little ones.

Jason Stanford explains what happened here and why Perry did it.

The bill he vetoed was passed unanimously in both chambers.

This isn’t over.

Categories Testing, Texas

Corbett’s Budget Cuts in Pa. Target Poor, Minorities

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
0

The Public Interest Center of Philadelphia analyzed Governor Corbett’s budget cuts. It should be no surprise to learn that the cuts fall most heavily on the neediest children, the children who are low-income and children of color. Their communities are not Governor Corbett’s political base. Even so, most public schools across the state have suffered because of the cuts.

The report found:

“In 2011 Governor Tom Corbett cut $1 billion in public school funding. As a result of these cuts 70 percent of school districts have increased class sizes, 44 percent slashed extracurricular activities and 35 percent eliminated tutoring programs. He has maintained this cut for the past two budgets and now proposes to increase public school funding by a mere $90 million. This still leaves a massive funding gap that 75 percent of public schools must account for by continuing to lay off teachers and staff this coming year. Because of this gap, Philadelphia school district is $300 million short of the budget needed to maintain its current minimal programs, forcing it to lay off 3,800 persons and strip its schools of all except mandated teachers and a principal; allowing no counselors, aides, or even a secretary to answer the phone.”

Categories Education Reform

Sarah Darer Littman: How to Create a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
10

Sarah Darer Littman watches in wonder as the Gates Foundation uses its billions to reorganize public education in Connecticut.

Their goal: more Achievement First charters, regardless of their high suspension rates for children in kindergarten and their poor record relating to students with disabilities.

Gates wants close collaboration with AF and other “high performing” charters. It wants them to be treated equitably, as if the generous support of Connecticut’s equity investors was not enough of a cushion.

What do they want? A dual school system of regulated public schools and unregulated charters, free to exclude, expel, or suspend any child?

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Special Education

The Problem with Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2013 //
34

Michael Weston of Hillsborough County, Florida, explains what is wrong with teacher evaluation:

“Of course we use the Danielson rubric in Hillsborough County Fl, where it forms one of the three pillars of the Gates funded “Empowering Effective Teachers”. The second pillar is value-added, the third is duplicity / deception.

Quite frankly, whether Charlotte is spelled Charlatan, whether her rubric is valuable or trash, whether her resume is padded…..none of this matters to me. What matters is what it is being used for. Teacher evaluation. Not a good use of money.

Teachers are not the major problem in education. The major problem in education is quite simple, well researched and accepted by everyone except Michelle Rhee.

The problem is the income gap.
The income gap causes an achievement gap.
The achievement gap causes efforts to close it.
The efforts to close it are misguided, destructive and tainted by greed and politics.

The pain, effort and treasure spent on teacher evaluation will produce miniscule returns, if any. The higher likelihood is that teacher evaluation schemes will have a negative net effect. The morale issues are huge and have yet to be quantified.

Most unfortunately, here is where the third pillar, duplicity / deception comes in to play. These schemes are “doomed to succeed”. Why? Because the big money behind them demands they succeed. How easy is it for the Gates Foundation to publish its own results. Very easy. How many School Districts will admit to having poisoned the well of education?”

Categories Teacher Evaluations

Carol Burris Reviews John King’s Evaluation Plan and Finds It Wanting

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2013 //
14

Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in Rockville Center, Long Island, spent her Saturday analyzing State Education Commissioner John King’s Educator Evaluation plan. Here is her review:

“When I took a look at the details of the plan imposed by Commissioner King on NYC, I was taken aback. The first thing I noticed was how low the points in the Effective range in the final 60 (other measures) were. These are the points assigned by the principal according to the rubric. I could not understand how the points in the Effective range could be as low as 45. A teacher could be rated effective in the first component, with a growth score of 9 points, effective in the second component the local measure with a score of 9 points and receive 45 points in the effective range established by the commissioner in the final 60 (see page 70) here http://files.uft.org/teacher-evaluation/13%20Attached%20Documents%20to%20NYCDOE%20APPR%20Plan%20Review%20Room%20Submission%20-%20Teachers%20and%20Principals.pdf , but she would be rated Ineffective overall.

“If you add up the points, 9+9+45=63.
In other words, the teacher is rated INEFFECTIVE overall, even though she is Effective in all three categories. At least that is what the statute 3012c would say.

“Let me explain. 3012c, which you can find here: http://www.regents.nysed.gov/meetings/2012Meetings/March2012/312bra6.pdf states on page 46 the following when describing points awarded for the local measure:

“(ii) an Effective rating in this subcomponent if the results meet district-adopted expectations for growth or achievement and they achieve a subcomponent score of: (a) 9-17 for the 2011-2012 school year, and for the 2012-2013 school year and thereafter for teachers and principals whose score on the State assessment or other comparable measures subcomponent is not based on a value-added model; or (b) 8-13 for the 2012-2013 school year and thereafter for teachers and principals whose score on the State assessment or other comparable measures subcomponent is based on a value-added model.

“In other words, if the teacher receives a score of 9 – 17 on the local measure, prior to VAM, she is in the Effective category. After VAM, it changes to 8-13. That is defined in the statute. Now look on pages 35 and 36 of the plan imposed by the Commissioner:

Click to access 13%20Attached%20Documents%20to%20NYCDOE%20APPR%20Plan%20Review%20Room%20Submission%20-%20Teachers%20and%20Principals.pdf

“On these pages you will find matrices that award points on the local measure. However, a score of 9 is not in the Effective range as 3012c requires. Rather, a score of 9 is in the Ineffective range. A teacher has to accrue 15 of the 20 points to be Effective without an approved VAM, and 13 out of 15 if there is an approved VAM.

“The entire section is confusing, because it has typographical errors, as it tries to explain the ratings with or without VAM. However, even if VAM is approved this year, the statute does not change. In fact, Effective moves down to 8 points., according to the 3012C.

“Unless I am missing an additional conversion chart, it appears to me that this plan violates 3012C. It gives a weight to test scores that was never intended, and it explains why the points are so low in the final 60. They can be low because John King raised the bar in the local measure, expecting very high student performance, for a teacher to be rated effective in that measure, and that is not in accordance with the statute passed by the legislature.”

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations

RRatto on Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2013 //
36

I agree with the following comment by RRatto. If checklists for teacher evaluation were so great, how come they are never used in the nation’s elite private schools? They are a remnant of factory thinking, and unworthy of any profession. Checklists are great for auto mechanics and home builders. They are distinctly non-professional.

RRatto writes:

“anyone who claims they know how to measure a teacher’s effectiveness is full of #%^.

Because of our immensely diverse population and the need to differentiate I can tell you most teachers must change the way they teach almost daily. There is no magic rubric that can measure that.

Once we start aiming to check off the must do’s of a rubric we are no longer are teachers. We become circus monkeys performing for our masters.”

Categories Teacher Evaluations

Do Low-Income Parents Want Charters or Great Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2013 //
41

Katie Osgood refers obliquely here to the famous John Dewey quote that what the best and wisest parent wants for his children is what we should want for all children:

“Here is the fundamental question: If low-income parents were offered fully-funded neighborhood schools with all kinds of “choice” offered within the schools like arts, music, sports, technology, supplemental services, libraries, world language, special education services, small classes, experienced/stable staff with low-turnover, etc (like what kids in Winnetka are offered)-would they EVER choose the charter school with inexperienced teachers, harsh discipline, long “rigorous” school days with little access to music/art, prescriptive curriculum, non-unionized/exploited and overworked staff–>high turnover? If the answer is “no” then what we need is equity, equal access to quality learning environments, and not “choice”.

“As an aside, parents in Chicago came out by the thousands to beg, plead, yell, and protest to keep their underfunded neighborhoods schools open, but the school board still voted to close 50 of those schools. We don’t even have “choice” here, we have sabotage and a privatization agenda.”

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Support for public schools
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