Archives for the month of: August, 2013
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U.S. Department of Justice to Bobby Jindal: The Voucher Program is Illegal!

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
40

This post by one of Louisiana’s great bloggers reports that the state’s voucher program undermines federal desegregation orders.  Pesky things, the Constitution, the law, and court orders.

Cenlamar writes:

Yesterday, the United States Department of Justice asked Judge Ivan Lemelle to issue an injunction preventing the State of Louisiana from providing taxpayer-subsidized school vouchers in 2014 to students residing in any of the thirty-four parishes currently subjected to federal desegregation orders. In simple terms, Governor Bobby Jindal, Superintendent John White, and the Louisiana Department of Education have been completely unable and unwilling to provide the federal government with sufficient evidence that their controversial school voucher program complies with the law. Because Superintendent John White and his team at the Louisiana Department of Education could not or would not provide the federal government with documentation demonstrating their compliance, the Department of Justice was, essentially, forced to go to court. Quoting from the lawsuit (bold mine):

Only after filing multiple motions in this case and receiving an order of this Court (see Record Docs. No. 109-202), did the United States finally receive, in March of 2013, the information and data it requested from the State. After analyzing the data, the United States determined that the State’s voucher awards appeared to impede the desegregation process in 34 schools in 13 districts. On May 17, 2013, the United States sent a letter to the State… requesting that the State cease its practice of awarding vouchers to students attending school districts operating under federal desegregation orders unless and until it receives approval from the presiding federal court. The State has not responded to that letter and, on information and belief of the United States, has already awarded vouchers for the 2013-2014 school year to students attending school districts operating under desegregation orders.

….

To date, the State has awarded vouchers for 2013-2014 to students in 22 of the 34 school districts with pending federal desegregation orders. See supra at notes 3-4 and Exhibit E. Upon information and belief, the State did not seek the approval of the appropriate federal court prior to awarding the vouchers to students in these districts. Further, the State did not contact the parties to the federal desegregation cases prior to awarding vouchers. Upon information and belief of the United States, the State did not evaluate the impact the vouchers would have on the desegregation process in any of the school districts operating under a federal desegregation order.

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Vouchers

Teachers Are Not Robots: Let Me Inspire Again

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
24

A teacher wrote this comment about school “reform”:

One thing I loved about teaching when I first began, 24 years ago, was the degree of inspiration and creativity I could bring to my lesson plans. It made teaching and being a teacher exciting for me. My excitement was the motivation, it was infectious to the students and learning was the natural by-product.

Now, everything is highly structured and scripted. We are told the objectives, and given a highly methodical method of lesson design and expected to do it, regardless of whether it makes sense with the content. Talk about boring “cookie-cutter”!

This is classic organizational theory (a business model) where everyone is seen as a machine that can be tweaked to increase production. We are not seen as experts or professionals, just workers who couldn’t tie our own shoes without the supervisor’s policy detailing the method.

I for one wish this corporate-management/student-consumer mentality would leave the public school system. Teachers are not like assembly-line workers putting together a widgit, and learning is not a product that can be pre-packaged and sold at market.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Reader: How to Make a Standard That Works

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
4

This arrived as a comment on a post about the Common Core:

 

“Say I am designing a fastener for a product. I can VOLUNTARILY choose a standard fastener for less cost off the shelf. That will guarantee interchangability. I also have a certain degree of confidence as to the characteristics about the fastener in terms of strength and corrosion that the standards give me. But I also limit my design to that fastener. If I need to innovate or the standard fastener cannot fit my particular design because it is unique, then I will design my own fastener. But I must build it carefully to match my individual needs and I must test it thoroughly in prototypes before rolling into production on a large scale. I will likely have to modify the original design from my testing. Why should our MOST precious resource, our children, be afforded less concern than a nut and bolt?

When I was working in tech, a standard was rolled out called SGML. It was promising but was unwieldy, bloated, restrictive, and impractical. Companies that tried to force it into designs found failure. An innovation called XML (or HTML for that matter) spontaneously evolved from SGML that was VOLUNTARILY adopted and proved very successful. That standard was nimble, extensible, and allowed companies to use it as needed and innovate.

Common Core is lemmings going over a cliff. The standards are unproven and overly restrictive. They specify HOW teachers must teach in addition to what and when. The wide spread adoption is more political and economic than educational. The associated tests are flawed, too objective, and imprecise as a measurement tool.

Common Core should be a diagnostic standard. It is time to declare a moratorium on testing to these standards, cleanse them of politics, and require further study.”

Categories Common Core

Florida BATS Launch Attack on Common Core

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
13

Investigative Kathleen McGrory reports in the Miami Herald that Common Core has critics on the left.

This is noteworthy, because Secretary of Education Arne Duncan insists that the main criticism of Common Core comes from extremists and fringe groups like the Tea Party. He also insists that the federal Department of Education has had nothing whatever to do with the Common Core standards; after all it is illegal for the federal Department of Education to interfere in curriculum or instruction. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. Everyone knows that 45 states would not have endorsed the Common Core standards without the lure of $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top dollars, offered as an incentive for those who signed on to standards they may never have seen.

McGrory discovered critics of Common Core on the left, and lo and behold, they are teachers.

To be specific, they are the Badass Teachers Association.

McGrory writes:

The 25,000 BATs, as they call themselves, are pushing back against the national standards with Twitter strikes, town hall meetings and snarky Internet memes. They have no qualms with the theory behind the new benchmarks, but they fear the larger movement places too much emphasis on testing and will stifle creativity in the classroom.

“It’s not just the Tea Party that’s skeptical of the Common Core,” said Bonnie Cunard, a Fort Myers teacher who manages the Facebook page for the 1,200 Florida BATs. “We on the left, like the folks on the right, are saying we want local control.”

The BATs represent a new wave of liberal opposition to the Common Core standards, which includes some union leaders, progressive activists and Democratic lawmakers. They are joining forces with Tea Party groups and libertarians, who want states like Florida to slow down efforts to adopt the new benchmarks and corresponding tests.

They face an uphill battle. The Common Core standards have a strong base of support that includes both Democrats and Republicans. What’s more, the standards are already being taught across all grade levels in Florida.

It’s not only the BATs.

“The sand is shifting for us on Common Core,” said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association.

Ford fears teachers weren’t adequately prepared for the transition to the new standards, even though they will be evaluated — and in some cases, compensated — based on how well their students perform.

For Susan Smith, who heads the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, the greatest concern is the testing that will accompany the new benchmarks.

“We shouldn’t be revamping our education standards without first considering if we are overtesting our kids,” Smith said. “That’s putting the cart before the horse.”

The Wall Street hedge fund managers’ group Democrats for Education Reform loves the Common Core and the disruptive effects of the testing that comes with it.

So does the Obama administration, and so do many teachers and parents who hope it will help their schools.

But so does Florida’s Republican legislature, which leaves no stone unturned when it comes to looking for ways to privatize public schools and demoralize classroom teachers.

But the opposition is strong enough that state Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami, is calling for a review before Florida moves further ahead with the standards and accompanying exams.

“I get what the intention was with Common Core,” said Bullard, a Miami Democrat and teacher. “But it got lost in the shuffle with all of the other education reform policies. Now, you might as well scrap the whole idea.”

Categories Common Core, Florida

I Recommend This Book

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
13

This is a book written by John Owens, who left his own comfortable job in publishing to become a teacher in a high-poverty school in New York City. His eyes were opened by what he saw. This is his story of what he learned.

“An explosive new look at the pressures on today’s
teachers and the pitfalls of school reform,
CONFESSIONS OF A BAD TEACHER
presents a passionate appeal to save
public school education, before it’s too late.

“When John Owens left a lucrative publishing job to teach English at a public school in New York City’s South Bronx, he thought he could do some good. Instead, he found an educational maelstrom that robs students of real learning to improve school statistics at any cost, cons parents and taxpayers into thinking their children are being educated, and demonizes its own support system: the teachers.

“The situation has gotten to the point where the phrase “Bad Teacher” is almost interchangeable with “Teacher”. And Owens found himself labeled just that when the teaching methods that were inspiring his students didn’t meet with the reform mandates.

“With first-hand accounts from teachers across the country and practical tips for improving public schools, Confessions of a Bad Teacher is an eye-opening exposé of the dire state of American education and galvanizing call-to-action to embrace our best educators and incite real reform for our children’s futures.”

Open the link to order the book.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Liz Hallmark for School Board in Rochester

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
7

Wouldn’t it be great if more teachers ran for school board
and for the legislature? Then when policies are written and
implemented, there would be an experienced voice at the table,
explaining the consequences of decisions made far from the
classroom. I don’t know Liz Hallmark, but I am very impressed that
she knows teaching and learning, she cares passionately about the
arts, and she would be a great school board member. This is the
letter she sent to potential supporters:  
August 15, 2013
Dear Colleagues,
My name is Liz Hallmark and I am running for School Board
this fall. I’m writing to tell you why I’d like to serve on the
board. First of
all, I am a teacher with a background in the performing arts. I
began my work in schools as a dance-teaching artist who planned and
co-taught integrated lessons with classroom teachers, working
through organizations such as Wolf Trap Early Learning in the Arts,
Aesthetic Education Institute, Young Audiences, and Empire State
Partnerships. I have also run professional development on
curriculum design for teachers through BOCES and cultural
organizations within the City of Rochester. I earned my doctorate
in Education at the University of Rochester, teaching writing
classes to freshman while I was a graduate student. I now manage an
educational project through RIT and teach teacher-candidates at
Nazareth College and Warner School of Education as an Adjunct
Professor. My children both attended and graduated from City
schools. Because
of my teaching experiences in primary, secondary, college and
beyond, I have had classroom, staff, and building experiences that
captured a sense of the district as a whole. I know the challenges
of teaching within changing assessment metrics, in the face of
scarce resources, and despite demonizing messages about teachers. I
am wary of reform initiatives that exclude the voice of teachers,
the very people who know what students’ learning needs are. I want
to help improve schools – and believe this cannot be really be done
without having at least one Commissioner on the board who
understands instruction and learning from the inside
out. If elected to
the board, I would call for more teacher leadership in improving
instructional practice in schools because this is where it must
start. I would better link classroom practice and district policies
by advocating for flexibility in programmatic implementation at the
building level. Please take a moment to visit
http://lizhallmark.com for more of my platform, and consider
supporting my candidacy by talking to friends, coming to house
parties, placing signs, or contributing financially. I ask for your
vote on September 10th and hope to hear from you by email or phone
call. Both are below.
Sincerely,
Liz Hallmark
358 Mulberry St Rochester, NY
14620 http://lizhallmark.com
efhallmark@gmail.com
585-414-7285  

Categories New York

Larry Lee Writes to Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli about Alabama Accountability Act

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
9
Larry Lee is a native of Alabama who has taken a great interest in community schools. A few years ago, he was the lead author of a report about ten outstanding rural schools in Alabama. If you read it, you may find yourself crying when you learn how hard parents, teachers, principals, and communities are struggling to educate the children of poor rural communities. He wrote about the importance of creating a culture of expectations and building trust among parents and the community.  He wrote about schools that “build a sense of family.” Larry, who is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education, was not a supporter of the Alabama Accountability Act. He didn’t see how it would help build the trust and community support that he knew was crucial to these rural schools that were struggling to do their best against the odds. When he read an article in the Alabama press written by Beltway insiders Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Michael Petrilli, he was not at all pleased. He wrote a letter.
Dear Mr. Finn,
You and Michael Petrilli recently had an op-ed piece on al.com that stated in the lead paragraph….
Cotton State conservatives are rightfully proud of the brand-new Alabama Accountability Act, which will allow thousands of students to escape failing public schools starting this fall, and take publicly-funded scholarships to the private schools of their choice. Experience from other states indicates that these scholarships will provide a lifeline to the children in the 79 failing schools recently identified by state superintendent Tommy Bice.
Since I live in Montgomery, Alabama, and spend a great deal of time staying abreast of education issues in this state, I would like to comment on your op-ed.
Obviously you have little knowledge of the Alabama Accountability Act, and even less knowledge of Alabama and the “failing” schools identified.  (which are 78, not 79 as stated in your article.)
School began here on aug. 19, the day your article appeared, so those students from “failing” schools who are availing themselves of the opportunity to transfer have largely done so by now.
and you might be interested in knowing that rather than the “thousands of students” you predict will escape, the number as of thursday afternoon was 6.  as in SIX.  that’s right, out of nearly 30,000 kids who attend these 78 schools, only six (as of the afternoon of aug. 22) were transferring.
After all the chest pounding and grand standing by those legislators who passed this law and boasted that they made sure no one in education knew what they were doing, after all the work done by the state department of education and the revenue department to come up with data, to reprogram computers, to come up with new rules, to set up new units to deal with this law, after more than $50 million was set aside from this coming fiscal year’s education trust fund budget to offset the impact of this law—it is a HUGE FAIL.
It is the Hindenburg of Alabama legislation.  and I’ve been watching for a long time since I am older than you are.
The numbers never worked.  It was no more than a fairy tale.  It defied logic.  It ignored reality.
Rather than asking two very important questions 1) why are these schools failing and 2) what can we do to help them, it instead twisted the old adage “if you are in a hole you need to stop digging,” into “if you are in a hole, you need a bigger shovel.”
My hope and prayer is that if we learned just one thing from this very expensive and pointless exercise, it is that anytime this state sets out to develop education policy, professional educators should be at the table.
Larry Lee
334-787-0410Education precedes Prosperity
Categories Accountability, Alabama, Students, Supporting public schools

Why Microsoft Declined: A Rotten Employee Evaluation Rating System

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
17

An article by Will Oremus in Slate blames the decline of Microsoft on its poisonous stack-ranking system for evaluating employees. This system involves ranking employees in each unit from best to worst, then firing those with the lowest rating. This is demoralizing and causes bitter rivalries and office politics.

Jack Welch is credited with devising this system of internal competition. It sets employees against each other, all fighting for survival.

A brilliant article last year by business writer Kurt Eichenwald in Vanity Fair predicted that stack-ranking was destroying Microsoft’s culture, causing it to lose ground to Apple, Google, and other nimbler corporations. He was right.

Unfortunately, Bill Gates imposed the same toxic methods on the nation’s public schools. He still can’t understand why stack-ranking has not produced the great results he predicted in schools nor why it has engendered a hostile response from teachers, even those who get high ratings. He can’t figure out why they prefer collaboration with their peers rather than the internal competition that is causing his company to fall behind the high-tech companies that treat their employees with respect and that build a culture of teamwork.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations

The Onion on TFA

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
4

What does The Onion think about Teach for America?

This article provides the young corps member’s view, and the reaction of a student.

I posted this when it first appeared, but it up is such a funny satire that I had to post it again.

Categories Humor, Teach for America TFA

Civil Rights Groups Call for Duncan’s Ouster

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
53

A large national alliance of civil rights organizations has joined under the umbrella heading of “Journey for Justice.”

This coalition has called for the resignation of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

To understand why, read the flyer it distributed.

Anyone who thinks that closing public schools and replacing them with privately managed charters and with vouchers is somehow part of the civil rights movement has no understanding of the purposes of the civil rights movement.

It was not to destroy the public sector but to assure access to good education, decent housing, and jobs without any racial discrimination.

It struggled for equality of educational opportunity, not privatization or a “race to the top.”.

It did not claim that poverty could be cured by “fixing” schools or privatizing them.

It demanded an end to poverty by creating jobs and justice.

It fought segregation in schools and housing.

That vision is not the vision of the corporate reform movement in education today.

It fights not for equality of opportunity but for a market-based system of winners and losers.

It accepts segregation as tolerable.

It is not a civil rights movement.

The Journey for Justice calls out these contradictions and speaks truth to power.

“A National Grassroots Education Alliance”
COORDINATING COMMITTEE:National

Alliance for Education Justice

Washington, DC

Empower DC

Chicago, IL

Kenwood Oakland Community Organization

Baltimore, MD

Baltimore Algebra Project

Detroit, MI

Keep the Vote, No Takeover

Black Parents for Quality Education

Newark, NJ

Parents United for Local School Education

New York, NY

Alliance for Quality Education

Urban Youth Collaborative

Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia Student Union

MEMBERS:

National

Leadership Center for the Common Good

Oakland, CA

Oakland Public Education Network

Los Angeles, CA

Labor Community Strategy Center

Hartford, CT

Parent Power

Atlanta, GA

Project South

Miami, FL

Power U

Chicago, IL

Action Now

Wichita, KS

Kansas Justice Advocates

New Orleans, LA

Concerned Conscious Citizens Controlling Community Changes

Coalition for Community Schools

Boston, MA

Boston Youth Organizing Project

Boston Parent Organizing Network

Detroit, MI

Detroit LIFE Coalition

Minneapolis, MN

Neighborhoods Organizing for Change

Eupora, MS

Fannie Lou Hamer Center for Change

Camden, NJ

Camden Education Association

Englewood, NJ

Citizens for Public Education

Jersey City, NJ

Parent Advocates for Children’s Education

Concerned Citizens Coalition

Paterson, NJ

Paterson Education Organizing Committee

Philadelphia, PA

Action United

Youth United for Change

ALLIED MEMBERS

National

Annenberg Institute for School Reform

Chicago, IL

Teachers for Social Justice

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Laurie R. Glenn

Phone: 773.704.7246

E-mail:lrglenn@thinkincstrategy.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2013

MEDIA ALERT 

25 CITIES KICK OFF NATIONAL CAMPAIGN CALLING FOR RESIGNATION OF U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION DUNCAN
Journey for Justice Demonstrations Spearhead Campaign To Restore United Nations’ Proclaimed Human Right To Education 

WHAT:   In light of a rash of school closings targeting low income communities of color in cities throughout the country, a national 25-city coalition is calling for U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s resignation. In the midst of the 50th anniversary for the March On Washington, which sought to end segregation and job discrimination, members of the Journey for Justice Alliance have banded together to fight the continued privatization of public schools under Secretary Duncan’s leadership.

Students, parents and advocacy representatives all over the country will come together in local actions to demand a stop to the destabilization of low-income communities of color and restore the human and civil right to a quality and safe education for all children.

National Journey for Justice Alliance demands include:

  • ·         Moratorium on school closings, turnarounds, phase-outs, and charter expansions.
  • ·         It’s proposal for sustainable school transformation to replace failed, market-driven interventions as support for struggling schools.
  • ·         Resignation of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

WHO/WHERE:   Journey for Justice members and groups will hold local actions in 25 cities across the country including: Oakland, Calif.; San Jose, Calif.; Los Angeles; Hartford, Conn.; District of Columbia; Atlanta; Miami; Chicago; Wichita, Kan.; New Orleans; Baltimore; Minneapolis; Camden, N.J.; Englewood, N.J.; Paterson, N.J.; Jersey City, N.J.; Newark; New York; North Carolina, Boston; Detroit; Eupora, Miss.; Jackson, Miss.; Philadelphia; South Carolina.

WHEN:   Events will be held Monday, August 27th – Thursday, August 29th, 2013

WHY:  A clear pattern of racial and economic discrimination documented by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform has demonstrated that while there have been advances in the nation, as shown by the election of the nation’s first black president, the federal administration’s policies have embodied education strategies that continue to perpetuate racial and class bias and support inequality in education.

Despite research showing that closing public schools does not improve test scores or graduation rates, the federal agenda has incentivized the privatization of schools with primary fall out on low-income communities of color. Explosive school closings resulting from this agenda violates the United Nations proclamation of 1948, Article 26 (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml) establishing the inalienable human right of every child – regardless of race, income or community — to receive a quality education in a safe environment.

JOURNEY FOR JUSTICE ALLIANCE
Journey for Justice is a national grassroots alliance whose goal is to bring the voice of those directly impacted by discriminatory school actions into the debate about the direction for public education in the 21st century and to promote equality in education for all students and sustainable, community-driven school reform for all school districts across the country.

####
Categories Closing schools, Poverty, Privatization, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Supporting public schools
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