Archives for the month of: September, 2013
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Cody: Will Education Nation Allow Dissenting Voices?

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2013 //
22

Anthony Cody writes another brilliant column, this time questioning NBC’s Education Nation about whether it truly intends to sponsor a dialogue about education issues or just another Gates-funded celebration of “reformers” who don’t like public schools.

Since Anthony asked, I told him I was invited to be a part of Education Nation—as a member of the audience. Unless I am invited to speak, I won’t be there. I am not interested in hearing about the joys of high-stakes testing (for other people’s children) and the great promise of privatization.

Categories Education Reform

FairTest Fact Sheet About Common Core Tests

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2013 //
4

FairTest released the following fact sheet about the Common
Core tests:

Common Core Assessment Myths and Realities:
Moratorium Needed From More Tests, Costs, Stress

Under No Child Left
Behind (NCLB), each state set its own learning standards and
developed tests to measure them. But NCLB’s failure to spur overall
test score gains or close racial gaps led “reformers” to push for
national, or “common,” standards. With millions in federal Race to
the Top money and NCLB “waivers” as incentives, all but a few
states agreed to adopt Common Core standards. Two multi-state
consortia — the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and
the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers
(PARCC) — won federal grants to develop Common Core tests, which
are due to be rolled out in 2014-15.

Here are the realities behind major Common Core myths.

Myth: Common Core tests will be much
better than current exams, with many items measuring higher-order
skills. Reality: New tests will largely
consist of the same old, multiple-choice
questions. Proponents initially hyped new
assessments that they said would measure – and help teachers
promote – critical thinking. In fact, the exams will
remain predominantly
multiple choice. Heavy reliance on such items continues
to promote rote teaching and learning. Assessments will generally
include just one session of short performance tasks per subject.
Some short-answer and “essay” questions will appear, just as on
many current state tests. Common Core math items are often simple
computation tasks buried in complex and sometimes confusing “word
problems” (PARCC, 2012; SBAC, 2012). The
prominent Gordon
Commission of measurement and education experts
concluded Common Core tests are currently “far from what is
ultimately needed for either accountability or classroom
instructional improvement purposes” (Gordon Commission, 2013).

Myth: Adoption
of Common Core exams will end NCLB testing
overkill.
Reality: Under
Common Core, there will be many more tests and the same
misuses. NCLB triggered a testing tsunami
(Guisbond, et al., 2012); the Common Core will flood classrooms
with even more tests. Both consortia keep mandatory annual
English/language arts (ELA) and math testing in grades 3-8 and once
in high school, as with NCLB. However, the tests will be longer
than current state exams. PARCC will test
reading and math in three high school grades instead of
one; SBAC moves
reading and math tests from 10th grade to 11th. In PARCC states,
high schoolers will also take a speaking and listening test. PARCC
also offers “formative” tests for kindergarten through second
grade. Both consortia produce and encourage additional interim
testing two to three times a year (PARCC, 2012; SBAC, 2012). As
with NCLB, Common Core tests will be used improperly to make
high-stakes decisions, including high
school graduation (Gewertz, 2012), teacher
evaluation, and school accountability.

Myth: New multi-state assessments will
save taxpayers money. Reality: Test costs
will increase for most states. Schools will spend even more for
computer infrastructure upgrades. Costs
have been a big concern, especially for the five states that
dropped out of a testing consortium as of August 2013. PARCC
acknowledges that half its member states will spend more than they
do for current tests. Georgia pulled out when PARCC announced costs
of new, computer-delivered summative math and ELA tests alone
totaled $2.5 million more than its existing state assessment
budget. States
lack resources to upgrade equipment, bandwidth and
provide technical support, a cost likely to exceed that of the
tests themselves (Herbert, 2012). One analysis indicates that Race
to the Top would provide districts with less than ten cents on the
dollar to defray these expenses plus mandated
teacher evaluations (Mitchell, 2012).

Myth: New assessment consortia will
replace error-prone test manufacturers.
Reality: The same, incompetent, profit-driven
companies will make new exams and prep
materials. The same old firms, including
Pearson, Educational Testing Service and CTB/McGraw-Hill, are
producing the tests. These firms have long histories of mistakes
and incompetence. The multi-national Pearson,
for example, has been responsible for poor-quality items, scoring
errors, computer system crashes and missed deadlines (Strauss,
2013). Despite these failures, Pearson
shared $23 million in contracts to design the first
18,000 PARCC test items (Gewertz, 2012).

Myth: More rigor means more, or
better, learning. Reality: Harder tests
do not make kids smarter. In New York,
teachers witnessed students
brought to tears (Hernandez & Baker, 2013),
faced with confusing instructions and unfamiliar material on Common
Core tests. New York tests gave fifth graders questions written at
an 8th grade level (Ravitch, 2013). New York and Kentucky showed
dramatic drops in proficiency and wider achievement gaps. Poor
results hammer students’ self-confidence and disengage them from
learning. They also bolster misperceptions about public school
failure, place urban schools in the cross hairs and lend ammunition
to privatization schemes. If a child struggles to clear the high
bar at five feet, she will not become a “world class” jumper
because someone raised the bar to six feet and yelled “jump
higher,” or if her “poor” performance is used to punish her coach.

Myth: Common
Core assessments are designed to meet the needs of all
students.
Reality: The
new tests put students with disabilities and English language
learners at risk. Advocates
for English
language learners (Maxwell, 2013) have raised
concerns about a lack of appropriate accommodations. A U.S.
Education Department’s technical review assessed the consortia’s
efforts in July 2013 and issued a stern warning, saying that
attempts to accommodate students with disabilities and
ELLs need
more attention(Gewertz, 2013).

Myth: Common
Core “proficiency” is an objective measure of college- and
career-readiness.
Reality: Proficiency
levels on Common Core tests are subjective, like all performance
levels. Recent disclosures demonstrate
that New York State set
passing scores arbitrarily (Burris, 2013). There is
no evidence that these standards or tests are linked to the skills
and knowledge students need for their wide range of college and
career choices (Ravitch, 2013). In addition, school officials have
often yielded to the temptation to cheat and manipulate test
results to bolster the credibility of their favored
reforms. Examples include
Atlanta, New York, Washington, DC, Indiana, Florida, and more
(FairTest, 2012).

Myth: States
have to implement the Common Core assessments; they have no other
choice.
Reality: Yes
they do. Activists should call for an indefinite moratorium on
Common Core tests to allow time for implementation of truly better
assessments. High-quality assessment
improves teaching and learning and provides useful information
about schools. Examples of better assessments include
well-designed formative
assessments (FairTest, 2006), performance
assessments that are part of the curriculum (New
York Performance Standards Consortium), and portfolios
or Learning
Records (FairTest, 2007) of actual student
work. Schools
can be evaluated using multiple sources of evidence
that includes limited, low-stakes testing, school quality reviews,
and samples of ongoing student work (Neill, 2010). It’s time to
step back and reconsider what kinds of assessments will help our
students and teachers succeed in school and life.

References

Attachment Size
CommonCoreTestsMyths&RealitiesFactSheet.pdf 576.04 KB

Categories Education Reform

FairTest: Common Core Tests Are Same Old Standardized Tests

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2013 //
2

FairTest says that the new Common Core tests do not live up
to the claims by proponents about a new era of tests that measure
higher-order thinking and really show what students know and can
do. FairTest
National Center for Fair & Open Testing for further
information: Dr. Monty Neill (617)
477-9792 Bob Schaeffer (239)
395-6773

DISSECTING
COMMON CORE ASSESSMENT MYTHS AND REALITIES;

DESPITE HYPE, PLANS CALL FOR MORE
HIGH-STAKES TESTS, COST AND STRESS;

MORATORIUM ON NEW EXAMS
NEEDED

A new fact sheet shows
that the Common Core Assessments, which are being rolled out for
widespread implementation in the 2014-2015 school year, are not
significantly different from the standardized exams currently
administered in many states. At the same time, plans call for more
high-stakes tests with even greater costs. “Despite proponents’
claims that the Common Core would lead to a new breed of
assessments that focus on higher-order, critical thinking skills,
the planned tests are predominantly the same-old multiple-choice
questions,” explained Dr. Monty Neill, Executive Director of the
National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). Dr.
Neill continued, “Rather than ending ‘No Child Left Behind’ testing
overkill, the Common Core will flood classrooms with even more
standardized exams. Their scores will continue to be misused to
make high-stakes educational decisions, including high school
graduation. They will also end up costing taxpayers millions more
for new tests and the computer systems required to deliver them.”
The FairTest fact sheet also challenges the notion that harder
tests are automatically better. It states, “If a child struggles to
clear the high bar at five feet, she will not become a ‘world
class’ jumper because someone raised the bar to six feet and yelled
‘jump higher,’ or if her ‘poor’ performance is used to punish her
coach.” Scores recently plummeted in New York State and Kentucky
where Common Core tests were initially administered. Based on its
analysis, FairTest is calling for an indefinite moratorium on the
Common Core tests. “As the prestigious Gordon Commission of
educational experts recently concluded, these exams are not the
better assessments our schools need,” Dr. Neill concluded.
“Instead, a system of classroom- based performance assessments,
evaluations of student work portfolios, and school quality reviews
will help improve learning and teaching.”

–
– 3 0 – –

The fact sheet is online at: http://fairtest.org/common-core-assessments-factsheet

Categories Common Core, Testing

Duncan: “Not Familiar” with Voucher Lawsuit

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2013 //
28

When questioned about the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Louisiana’s voucher program, Secretary of Education Duncan said he was “not familiar” with it. DOJ is suing to block vouchers in districts that are under desegregation orders. DOJ recognizes that vouchers will exacerbate racial segregation.

This was reported on politico.com’s morning education edition, a valuable resource for breaking news:

“DUNCAN ‘NOT FAMILIAR’ WITH DOJ VOUCHER LAWSUIT – The Education Secretary made the rounds for back-to-school interviews Wednesday and ducked a question about the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit (http://bit.ly/15cDXFA ) over Louisiana’s voucher program. The department is trying to block vouchers for the 2014-15 school year in districts under desegregation orders, arguing that the vouchers set back desegregation efforts. It’s been the focus of a high-profile campaign by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, both Republicans, who accuse the Obama administration of trapping poor, minority students in failing schools. “I’m not familiar with that lawsuit,” Duncan said in response to a question on public radio’s Diane Rehm Show. “That’s between the Department of Justice and the state of Louisiana.” Jindal’s Wednesday op-ed for the Washington Post is here: http://wapo.st/1dHSDFK”

Categories Duncan, Arne, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Vouchers

Indiana Governor Determined to Make Elected State Superintendent Powerless

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2013 //
14

Governor Mike Pence was elected last fall with fewer votes
than State Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz. Ritz,
you may recall, beat Tony Bennett, despite his 10-1 advantage in
money. Bennett was the author of the state’s A-F grading system,
which fell into disrepute when it was revealed by the Associated
Press that Bennett rigged the grades to favor a politically
connected charter school. Bennett was also a staunch advocate for
charters, vouchers, for-profit charters, cyber charters, and
anything else that would privatize and undermine public education
in the Hoosier state.

Since the election Pence has made it clear
that he will stop at nothing to strip away the powers of the state
superintendent.

This is a summary of the latest power grab, as
reported by the Indiana State Teachers Association:  

It appears as though there are no bounds to the State
Board of Education and the Governor’s march to power-over and
over-power Indiana’s duly-elected state superintendent of public
instruction, Glenda Ritz.

Today’s lengthy SBE meeting began and ended with twin power grabs
targeted squarely at Ritz.

The first resolution offered by member Dan Elsener called for him to chair a
new committee that is tasked with setting the goals for Indiana’s
education system-something that has always been within the purview
of the State Superintendent’s office-who also happens to be the
lawful chairperson for the State Board of Education. The
publicly-funded “Elsener Committee” will contract out with outside
consultants, spending additional taxpayer dollars along the way to
do the Department of Education’s work. Elsener did not give Glenda
Ritz, as chairperson, the courtesy of prior notice of his
resolution and then called for action on the resolution even though
it was not part of the meeting’s agenda. Ritz suggested Open Door
Law issues with this and then abstained from voting.

After over six hours of handling bona fide agenda items,
the power grab continued with another resolution (again, with no
prior notice to Ritz) indicating that the State Board of Education
was hiring its own executive director, its own general counsel, and
will use the Governor’s new Special Assistant, charter school
advocate Claire Fiddian-Green as its “technical advisor.” Ritz was
the sole opponent to this move.

“Both of these resolutions are thinly-disguised vehicles to wrest authority over
public education policy-making from Indiana’s duly-elected state
superintendent and they not only disregard Glenda Ritz but the 1.3
million voters who supported her,” said ISTA President Teresa
Meredith. “These attempts at discrediting,
diminishing, and disrespecting Glenda Ritz and the agency she leads
are partisan arrogance at the least and voter nullification at the
worst,” added Meredith.

Categories Indiana

Interpreting Those Indiana E-Mails

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2013 //
10

From now on, public officials will be more careful about what they write in emails.

Tom Lobianco, the investigative journalist, hit a treasure trove when he filed a Freedom of Information Act request for government emails.

But what does it all mean?

Karen Francisco, the editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, explains it here.

The fix was in. The backroom deals were made. The plan: vouchers and privatization.

Categories Indiana, Privatization

Krazy TA’s Reading List

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2013 //
33

In response to another reader, our frequent commenter Krazy TZ offered his reading list:

 

 let me give my advice by [painfully] putting a few books into first, second and third groups. These are based solely on those that have been the most helpful for me because they were well-written and meant for a broad audience, generally jargon-free, shorter and smaller, and [not the least important consideration] cheaper. Other folks may have other picks or rankings.

First group. Someone is just starting out. High-stakes standardized testing and the charterite-privatizer complex built on it seem so, you know, scientific and objective and all. Well, gag me with a spoon why don’t you! If someone reads MAKING THE GRADES: MY MISADVENTURES IN THE STANDARDIZED TESTING INDUSTRY by Todd Farley (2009, paperback) s/he now realizes that the puny man behind the curtain is the real Wizard of Obfuscation, er, Oz. Lively, entertaining, uplifting, heart-breaking. But what about the numbers?!?!? Darrell Huff, HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS (paperback, original 1954, reprinted many times, I have the 1993 Norton paperback version). Big help in beginning to demystify stats/numbers and in inoculating one against mathematical intimidation. If you’ve made it through the first two, then on to Banesh Hoffman THE TYRANNY OF TESTING (1964, original 1962, Dover edition 2003). Straightforward explanations of the fundamental problems with high-stakes standardized testing. Relevant to today’s ed debates. And to put a little historical perspective on all this, MANY CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND: HOW THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT IS DAMAGING OUR CHILDREN AND OUR SCHOOLS (2004, paperback, includes Deborah Meier, Stan Karp, Monty Neill, Alfie Kohn, Linda Darling-Hammond, and Theodore R. Sizer). The train wreck was anticipated long before it happened.

All paperbacks, all cheap, all written for the non-specialist.

Second group. You now want to get your hands dirty with some of the technical, er, “stuff.” THE MYTHS OF STANDARDIZED TESTS: WHY THEY DON’T TELL YOU WHAT YOU THINK THEY DO by Phillip Harris, Bruce M. Smith, and Joan Harris (hardcover, 2011). I can’t praise this enough; difficult questions and answers made accessible. Now you will really start to understand what Todd Farley and Banesh Hoffman were getting at. Follow that up with Daniel Koretz’s MEASURING UP:WHAT EDUCATIONAL TESTING REALLY TELLS US (2009, paperback) and you can start confounding friend and foe alike with such gems as “differential item functioning” and “reliability is consistency of measurement” and why a percentile is, er, a percentile on a norm-referenced test and what the heck a percentile is in the first place. Koretz is an expert and experienced psychometrician but pretty much blows holes in every major charterite/privatizer claim about high-stakes standardized testing. To continue to fortify yourself in the testing arena, COLLATERAL DAMAGE: HOW HIGH-STAKES TESTING CORRUPTS AMERICA’S SCHOOLS by Sharon L. Nichols and David C. Berliner (2007, paperback). Again, the damage to public education, people young and old, and democracy is laid out in painful detail. And then to further strengthen us non-math majors in the defensive arts when it comes to warding off the evil magic of mathematical intimidation, there’s Daniel Best’s 2012 updated version of DAMNED LIES AND STATISTICS: UNTANGLING NUMBERS FROM THE MEDIA, POLITICIANS, AND ACTIVISTS (hardcover). As a famous [infamous?] Supreme Court Justice might say, ‘Whoop De Damn Do!”

Third group. In a sense I’ve saved the best for the last. If you’ve read the first two sets of books you are in for a real treat. Two paperbacks by the late Gerald Bracey; he died in 2009. Perhaps of him it could be said, “we will not see the like again” or “when they made him they broke the mold.” An absolutely indomitable figure in the ed debates, a fierce defender of public education who I firmly think would have approved heartily of the subtitle of this blog: “A site to discuss better education for all.” Want to know how to lay waste to the morally and intellectually bankrupt arguments of the leading charterites/privatizers? EDUCATION HELL: RHETORIC VS. REALITY (Transforming the Fire Consuming America’s Schools) of 2009, paperback, and READING EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH: HOW TO AVOID GETTING STATISTICALLY SNOOKERED, 2006 paperback. The 2006 book is especially helpful because it embodies a principal well-articulated by one of those old dead white guys “NO problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking” [Voltaire].

Where would I put Diane’s THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM and the soon-to-be-here REIGN OF ERROR? Wherever you like—beginning, middle or end. Perhaps it depends if people are reading them in solitary fashion or as part of a study group.

This list is not exhaustive, even of the books I’ve read. But I think in this case brevity is the soul of, er, usefulness.

I hope this helps.

Categories Education Reform

The Daily Howler: Another Take on the Massachusetts Miracle

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2013 //
2

Bob Somerby, who writes The Daily Howler, covers the media. He is especially good on education. When the TIMSS results came out, showing that the US made a strong showing, he was quick to call out the major media for the usual doom-and-gloom headlines.

Today, he critiques the New York Times article about the Massachusetts miracle. It is an entertaining and insightful critique of our nation’s most important newspaper.

Categories Massachusetts

A Hero Superintendent in Illinois

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2013 //
20

Scott Kuffel is the superintendent of the Geneseo schools,
District 228, in Illinois. He has been superintendent of schools
there for five years. When he learned that the State Education
Department had decided to raise the passing marks (cut scores) so
that more students would be rated as failing, he was not at all
pleased. The state claimed it was lowering scores to get students
and teachers ready for the new Common Core standards and the PARCC
assessments. Superintendent Kuffel joins our honor roll because he
fearlessly blasted this callous indifference to the students and
teachers. It is great when leaders show leadership. He wrote to his
parents and community that the State Board of Education
was shoving schools and kids off a cliff. He sent out this public
letter to explain how the state was manufacturing failure:
  Last week school districts across the state
received an email from Illinois State Superintendent Chris Koch
pertaining to the proposed increase in “cut” scores used for the
Illinois Standards Achievement Test ( ISAT) that is administered
each spring to students in grades 3-8. Cut scores are used to
determine a range of scores necessary to assign a student an
overall performance level of “exceeds standards,” “meets
standards,” “below standards,” or “academic warning,” in the areas
of reading, math, and science.
Superintendent Koch stated in his email to schools that
“the increase in performance levels will align our expectations for
our grade 3-8 students with the more rigorous standards of the new
Common Core State Standards that are focused on college and career
readiness.” ISBE staff has made it clear to districts that the
increase in cut scores is part of the transition to the new
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers
(PARCC) assessment that all schools will be required to administer
beginning with the 2014-2015 school year.
The impact of these new cut scores will be
dramatic. Geneseo CUSD 228 staff applied the proposed new cut
scores to third grade math results from the 2012 ISAT tests. This
would change the number of third grade students who failed to meet
state standards in math from 1% to 17%. Similar trends will be seen
across all grade levels in districts across the state. ISBE has
advised school administrators to prepare to have “tough”
conversations with the many parents who will be alarmed that their
child is now performing “below” standards on the same state
assessment that in previous years they earned a “meets” or
“exceeds” designation. Essentially, Geneseo Schools will become
part of a traditional “bell shaped curve” to inequitably sort and
separate students, for purposes no one really seems to
know. ISBE acknowledges
that Illinois’ previous expectations for grade 3-8 students did not
align to the new Common Core State Standards that are now focused
on success in college and the workforce. So, why are schools
wasting valuable instructional time and resources by continuing to
administer a test that fails to produce meaningful
results? Perhaps the
most distressing aspect of the “transition” from the ISAT to PARCC
assessments and the increase in cut scores is the disregard how
these changes will impact the children in our classrooms. Why are
we subjecting thousands of children and teachers to the stress of
ISAT administration for the next two years and the humiliation of a
pre-determined course of failure on the ISAT? How do school staff
and parents explain to a 9-year-old that their failure to meet
state standards is to due to a statistical adjustment that will
enable ISBE to avoid the public relations disaster of a dramatic
drop in test scores with the new PARCC assessment? How do school
administrators explain to their dedicated teachers that they are
doing an outstanding job of working with children despite a
dramatic downturn in test results?
Furthermore, we will continue to administer a
test in the spring of 2013, called “The Illinois Standards
Achievement Test” (ISAT), but this year it will contain 20% of the
questions that we will eventually see on the PARCC assessment, and
100% of the test questions in 2014 will be Common Core-type
questions. So again, Illinois schools see a “double whammy”, this
time in the form of assessment coupled with increased cuts in state
funding. School
districts across the state face historic cuts in state funding
coupled with an overwhelming increase in state mandates, rules and
regulations. The pace of these changes under the guise of
“reforms,” has accelerated at the same time that schools face
unprecedented budget deficits, due in part, to existing state
mandates. This latest decision by ISBE illustrates the complete
disconnect that has developed between the agency and the dedicated
school administrators and teachers who work every day with the
children in our school districts. It also represents a further
erosion of the local control of duly elected school board members,
who represent the very property tax owners who are paying an
increasing percentage of the cost of education while the state
abdicates its responsibility to fund our schools. Most importantly,
it is not good for the children that we serve.
   

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Honor Roll, Illinois

Koch Brother Pours $$ into NYC Mayoral Race

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2013 //
14

The New York Times reports today that David Koch, one of the rightwing billionaire Koch brothers, is buying broadcast ads to support the candidacy of Joseph Lhota, who is running for mayor as a Republican.

The Koch brothers can be counted on to subsidize almost any effort that privatizes the public sector and guts government programs that help people. After all, they don’t need government programs, why should anyone else?

Meanwhile, Bill de Blasio has emerged as the strong front-runner in the Democratic primary, and the latest poll shows him with 43% of the vote. If he wins 40%, he would avoid a run-off. De Blasio has positioned himself as the most progressive candidate in the race, while Christine Quinn is widely perceived as Mayor Bloomberg’s torch-bearer. Bill Thompson, who was endorsed by the UFT, is in the same range with Quinn, around the 20% mark.

De Blasio issued a press release strongly criticizing the co-location of charter schools into public schools without community input. He said that if elected, he would develop a process to hear from the community, and in the meanwhile, would impose a moratorium on co-locations. This infuriated Eva Moskowitz, the CEO of the Success Academy charter chain, who immediately blasted de Blasio as an enemy of “good schools,” i.e., her schools.

Categories Charter Schools, New York City
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