Archives for the month of: July, 2013
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Pennsylvania Releases Some Findings on Cheating

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
20

Apparently in response to Daniel Denvir’s article accusing the state of Pennsylvania of dragging its feet on an investigation of cheating on state tests, the state released some information.

Just remember whenever you hear a governor or other politician boasting about test scores that they have no idea (and neither will you) whether the gains were produced by mindless test prep (where students learn how to guess the right answer), by teaching to the test (where teachers abandon their professional ethics), or by cheating (by teachers or principals or students or superintendents or the state education department).

In a high-stakes environment, the pressure to raise scores renders them meaningless. See “Campbell’s Law.”

Categories Campbell's Law, Pennsylvania, Testing, U.S. Department of Education

Before Detroit’s Fire Sale Begins, Call the Experts

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
6

With bankruptcy looming, buzzards are flying by to pick meat off the Motor City’s bones. Before they do, someone should talk to experts on the dangers of privatization:

Contact: Richard Allen Smith

July 23, 2013 rasmith@inthepublicinterest.org

**** MEDIA AVAILABILITY****

As Detroit Contemplates a “Fire Sale” of its Assets, Privatization Experts are Available to Discuss the Dangers of Selling Public Assets and Services

Washington, DC – As the City of Detroit faces an $18 billion Chapter 9 bankruptcy, there has been much discussion of a “fire sale” of public assets and services to private interests as a way to inject quick cash into the city’s budget. Across the country, for-profit corporations seek to capitalize on the misfortune of cash-strapped cities like Detroit, but in nearly all cases, the outsourcing of public services has resulted in a loss of public control over quality of life issues, reduced jobs and benefits for public employees, greater cost to taxpayers and a lower quality rendered service.

As Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr and various judges weigh in on what comes next, experts on privatization and responsible contracting are available to discuss the consequences of outsourcing, and what may be next for the City of Detroit.

Donald Cohen is the founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting. Donald is a founding board member of the Partnership for Working Families, a national federation of metropolitan-based research, policy and action centers. He is on the board of Green For All, the Ballot Initiatives Strategy Center, and the Center for Effective Government. Donald has recently published opinion pieces about privatization issues in Reuters and Huffington Post.

Shar Habibi is the Research and Policy Director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting. She previously worked on issues related to state government contracting at a policy and research organization in Texas, where she focused on the privatization of social services. Before that, she worked for a government procurement consulting firm. She received a Masters in Public Affairs and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.

To schedule interviews with them, please contact Richard Allen Smith at rasmith@inthepublicinterest.org or (202) 327-8435.

###

Categories Detroit, Privatization

How Enron $till Put$ Student$ Fir$t

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
10

Enron may have gone bankrupt, and its employees may have lost their life savings, but it left some people very rich.

Here EduShyster tells the story of Texas billionaire John Arnold. He is one of the lucky few who managed to walk away from the Enron debacle with more than $3 billion. Some former Enron execs are doing time. Not Arnold. You know he must be smart because he got out before the roof fell in, and the bottom fell out.

And how does he spend his vast wealth?

He does what canny investors do: he pours millions into the struggle to privatize American public education. He has given millions to KIPP, StudentsFirst, and TFA. And he has a special interest in making sure that teachers don’t have pensions.

Billionaires have a hard time understanding why anyone needs a pension. They don’t need pensions. Why should teachers get them?

Categories Charter Schools, KIPP Charter Schools, Luna, Tom, Pensions, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching

NYC Educator: Making Big $$ in Bloomberg’s NYC

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
30

Arthur Goldstein, who teaches English language learners in a high school in Néw York City, realized he is missing out on the way to get very rich in Mayor Bloomberg’s education system.

Certainly not by teaching because the mayor doesn’t care for teachers.

It is not by teaching in a charter but by operating a charter like Eva and Geoffrey. The teachers turn over rapidly but the CEOs do very well indeed.

They have figured out that the secret to success is not accepting many ELLs or kids with disabilities.

Works like a charm.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, New York City, Teacher Evaluations

Kevin Huffman and the Mind of a Reformer

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
69

Kevin Huffman, Tennessee state education commissioner, has decided that children with disabilities need to take the same standardized state tests as other children.

For many years, children with severe disabilities took an alternative test, but Huffman wants to put an end to that.

He says it is time to stop lying to these children.

“For years, the state has been hiding children with disabilities by giving them them the alternative test instead of the TCAP, Huffman said.

“They didn’t perform well on their first TCAP test, but “it’s important that we’re stopping the lying,” he said.

Please, dear readers, help me understand the mind of someone who thinks he is helping children with severe disabilities by requiring them to take a standardized test that many cannot read.

Is he launching a research project?

He certainly does not display any knowledge of the reasons for IEPs, so perhaps he acts from ignorance.

He must know that many severely disabled children will fail and feel deep anguish. So is he acting maliciously? Or, knowing the distress he will cause so many severely disabled children, is it sadism?

Whatever it is, it is not equity, it is not in the best interest of these children, and it is not reform.

Why not give them the same care provided by Harpeth Hall, a private school in Nashville where one of Huffman’s daughters is a student? Harpeth Hall does not give standardized tests. If Huffman is right, the school is hiding something and “lying” to their students by not testing them.

Categories Special Education, Tennessee, Testing

Bruce Baker: One of the Dumbest Ways to Evaluate Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
5

Bruce Baker here examines a “graduate school” created by charter schools where their inexperienced teachers train new teachers how to produce high test scores.

The model is a charter in New Jersey called North Star that gets great “growth scores” but has remarkably high attrition rates, especially among black boys.

Baker writes:

“But is a school really successful if 50 enter 5th grade, 1/3 are gone by 8th grade and only a handful ever graduate?

“Is this any indication of the quality of teaching, or pedagogy involved? I won’t go so far as to suggest that what I personally might perceive as offensive, demeaning pedagogy is driving these attrition rates (okay… maybe I just did).

“But, at the very least, I might argue that a school that loses over half its kids from grade 5 to 12 is a failing school, not an outstanding one. Whether that has any implications for labeling their teachers as “failing” and their preparation programs as “failing” is another question entirely.

“It is quite simply completely and utterly ridiculous to suggest that Relay GSE is an outstanding graduate school of education as a function of measured test score gains of the few students who might stick around to take the tests in subsequent years.

“No secret sauce here… just a boatload of bogus policy assumptions creating perverse incentives and taking our education system even further in the wrong direction.”

Categories Charter Schools, Teacher Evaluations

How Many Times Can Charter Operators Fail and Still Survive?

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
6

Darcie Cimarusti—aka Mother Crusader—has done some heavy duty investigation and research. She was trying to figure out who were the movers and shakers behind the Jersey City Global Charter School. She knew that New Jersey Commissioner of Education Chris Cerf boasted about the care with which he selected new charter schools and their operators. But she was not convinced.

It didn’t take much digging for her to discoverthat the operator of this charter was a central figure in one of the nation’s biggest charter school scandals.

If Mother Crusader could get to the bottom of this quagmire, why couldn’t Chris Cerf or his crack staff at the New Jersey Department of Education?

Categories Charter Schools, New Jersey

Daniel Denvir: Pennsylvania Covering Up Major Cheating Scandal

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
7

Daniel Denvir, crack investigative journalist in Philadelphia, reports that the state has dragged its feet on an investigation of a major cheating scandal.

Despite evidence of high rates of erasures, the state has done nothing and refuses reporters’ requests for information.

Denvir writes:

“Over the last two years, inquiries were closed or altered with little explanation, and state and school administrators refused to answer basic questions about the investigations’ nature or methods. Some schools were left to investigate themselves. Only a handful of administrators and one teacher have been publicly held to account.

“It’s dragging on at an incredibly slow pace compared to investigations elsewhere,” says Bob Schaeffer, public-education director at FairTest, an organization critical of high-stakes testing. “And it makes you wonder: What’s going on?”

“The Notebook and, to a lesser extent, the Inquirer have covered each turn in this story. But despite continued questions, few answers have been forthcoming. “Some people probably want this story to go away,” says Notebook editor Paul Socolar. “Some people may think it has gone away because there hasn’t been a lot of information coming out about what actually happens. That’s not for lack of effort. We’re not getting a lot of information from the authorities about what they found out in their investigations.”

“After all, politically, the state would have a great deal to lose by prosecuting cheaters. Some of the most damning evidence of cheating has come from Philadelphia, a district run by the state since 2002, and from charters, including a Chester school run by a prominent leader in Pennsylvania’s self-described school-reform movement who is a backer of Gov. Tom Corbett. But more than that, bubble tests have become the high-stakes centerpiece of American public education; when the scores are tainted, it could throw an entire way of running schools into question.

“Given the scope of the issue and the lack of action since, it appears Pennsylvania is covering up one of the country’s largest cheating scandals — and doing so in plain sight.”

The pursuit of ever higher scores, Denvir reports, has produced not only massive cheating, but also intensive test prep, narrowing the curriculum, unjust firings and school closings.

Categories Closing schools, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Superintendent or CEO?

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
12

A reader encourages us to watch our language and use the right titles:

“PLEASE, PLEASE stop referring to Paul Vallas or Arne Duncan as “Superintendent” of Chicago Public Schools. They were CEOs – because in Illinois, they were unqualified to be Superintendents. If you’re the CEO, you don’t need an education background.”

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Corporate Reformers

This Post Went Viral Today

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2013 //
7

Congratulations to Yevonne Brannan, whose post about the legislative attack on public education in North Carolina went viral today. Nearly 30,000 people read her post. That is amazing!

Congratulations, Yevonne, and forgive me for misspelling your first name in the post.

Yevonne is one of the leaders of Public Schools First NC.

She and other devoted parents, teachers, and citizens will win this battle. Not today, not this year, maybe not next year, but they will win.

Here is the announcement of the formation of her group of brave fighters for the common good. They got started only last February. They are determined. They will take back NC from the cultural vandals. It will happen. They have just begun to fight.

Public Schools First NC Forms to Champion Public Education

We are pleased to let you know that a a new statewide, non-partisan, grassroots advocacy group committed to high-quality public schools for North Carolina has formed. Public Schools First NC is a group of citizens, parents, teachers, businesses and organizations joining together out of a deep concern about the growing threat to privatize and weaken North Carolina’s public schools.

Public Schools First NC’s common sense agenda includes:
Adequate, equitable funding reflecting at least the national average for North Carolina’s school district
A limited number of truly innovative charter schools designed to work with local school districts, managed with careful local and state oversight.
Excellent educational environments that are partnerships between schools, families, teachers and the community.
Increased support for pre-school, because high quality, early childhood education is a wise investment for communities and has lifelong, positive results for children.
Programs that encourage the training and retention of professional experienced teachers and principals.
Take the next step for public education in NC!

Join Public Schools First NC to receive news, information, and important action alerts: http://www.publicschoolsfirstnc.org/join-us/
Like Public Schools First NC on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/publicschoolsfirstnc
Follow Public Schools First NC on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ps1nc
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Categories North Carolina, Vouchers
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