Archives for the month of: January, 2013
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Nevada Set to Replace Career Teachers with TFA

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
43

This is a disturbing interview with Nevada’s State Superintendent of Instruction James Guthrie.

Nevada is 18th in the nation in teachers’ salaries but Guthrie seems to think they are overpaid.
He is certain there are large numbers of bad teachers in the state.

He has the governor’s ear. In his State of the State address, Governor Sandoval made clear that he wants more of those TFA to come to Nevada and raise scores and close the achievement gap.

In his State of the State, the governor said,

“”One of the most successful programs in the country today is Teach for
America – a unique corps of brilliant young leaders from America’s top
universities, who give their time and talent as teachers in schools
that need them most.

“These teachers help spur innovation and creativity in instruction that
makes the entire system better.

“Teach for America has helped make a difference in the lives of
hundreds of Nevada’s students.

“But we can do more.

I am proposing a new investment in Teach for America to help recruit,
train, develop, and place top teacher and leadership talent in
Nevada.”

So instead of investing in career educators who plan to stay with their schools for the long run, the governor plans to invest in 22-year-old college graduates who have 5 weeks of training and commit to stay for only two years.

Dumb thinking. Poor planning.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Nearly 200 Chicago Schools May Close

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
16

The Chicago Board of Education and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who controls the board, have a plan. They want to close down many public schools and open many charter schools. As many as 193 elementary schools may close. One advantage of the plan from the mayor’s perspective, is that the closing schools are unionized but the charters are not.

One of the schools on the potential closing list is the elementary school attended by Michelle Obama.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools

Jersey Jazzman to NY Taxpayers: Thank You!

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
24

Jersey Jazzman wrote to thank the taxpayers of New York, whose dollars subsidize his blog via advertising by Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy network (formerly known as Harlem Success Academy).

JJ notes that this charter chain spends millions of dollars each year on recruitment, advertising, public relations, and marketing. This is a necessary business expense to drum up thousands of applications for a small number of seats. The lottery–and the drummed up demand–makes a case that more charters are needed. That seems to be the business plan.

The lottery is a clever marketing tool. It occurs to me that it’s the same marketing approach used by Teach for America. The more applicants they have, the more they can turn down, and the better the brand looks. There is a certain snob appeal to having a few winners and a lot of losers.

Not like those public schools that take any student who walks in off the street.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization

When Students Awaken, Everything Will Change

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
13

It is beginning. Teachers, superintendents, local school boards, parent groups, and now students: all are saying the same things. Stop destroying education with high-stakes testing. Stop the chaos and disruption of school closings. Support and encourage, don’t humiliate and destroy.

Are you listening, Secretary Duncan?

Here is a new student group in New Orleans demanding quality education and equity.

Dear Friends,

United Students of New Orleans (USNO) is a coalition of students organizing
and advocating for fairness and justice in public schools across New Orleans. Starting with students from four schools: Walter L. Cohen, L. B. Landry, G.W.Carver, and Sarah T. Reed, it has grown to include students from seven schools across New Orleans, including both public and charter. Schools came together, and they united under the understanding that they were being denied their civil rights and an access to a real education.

Our purpose, as USNO, is to elevate the voices of public school students and push for equity, justice and resources in public education. We demand quality teachers, adequate study materials, and a safe environment free of discrimination and mental stress. We work to ensure that high school students, like us, get the resources needed to succeed in school, so that they can compete in the global market or enroll in higher learning institutions. Since our organization gathers and supports the student leaders of each school as separate entities and as a collective whole, we have learned what it means to give every student a fair and equal education with adequate resources. We also train other students to use their voices to inform the community about the issues in public schools that directly impact our daily lives.

Next week, USNO will travel to Washington DC to testify at the US Department of Education Hearing: The Impact of School Closings, Turnarounds, Phase-outs and Co-locations. To help these students attend the JOURNEY FOR JUSTICE or to help them with their campaign or to just help them to make it easier to get through and navigate the current school system, we need a little more help from our friends and supporters. $10, $25, $50, $100, or whatever you currently can give will be truly appreciated. We can go to FFLIC’s website http://www.FFLIC.org to the WEPAY, but make a note in contact organizer that this donation is for USNO or you can make to wepay or check payable to FFLIC for United Students of New Orleans at 1600 O.C.Haley blvd, New Orleans, La 70113 or cash. If you can’t donate money, can you support us with our fight for an adequate education? All you have to do is have a video, phone, or Youtube statement in which you give support such as “My name is (your name) and I’m an (occupation) and I support United Students of New Orleans.” Such support will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Terrell Major Student Co-Founder of USNO Meagan McKinnon Student Co- Founder

18 CITIES CONVERGE IN WASHINGTON D.C ON “JOURNEY FOR JUSTICE,” CALLING ON DEPT. OF EDUCATION TO END TOP-DOWN, DISCRIMINATORY CLOSINGS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS
National Movement Forms In Wake Of Mass School Closings & Turnarounds That
Violate Civil Rights & Promote Divestment In Low Income, Students Of Color

WHAT: Students, parents and advocacy representatives from 18 major United States cities will testify at a hearing before the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. on the devastating impact and civil rights violations resulting from the unchecked closing and turnaround of schools serving predominantly low-income, minority students across the country.

More than 10 cities have filed, or are in the process of filing, Title VI Civil Rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, citing the closing of schools and the criteria and methods for administering those actions as discriminatory toward low-income, minority communities. Representatives from 11cities will testify at the hearing on the impact of school closings including the civil rights violations and the destabilization of their children and their communities resulting from the criteria used for school closings and the current accepted movement to privatize schools.

Demands of the Department of Education include a moratorium on school closings until a new process can be implemented nationally, the implementation of a sustainable, community-driven school improvement process as national policy, and a meeting with President Obama so that he may hear directly from his constituents about the devastating impact and civil rights violations the current policy is perpetuating.

The hearing will be followed by a procession and candlelight vigil at the Martin Luther King Memorial to continue to raise the voices of those impacted by the destabilization and sabotage of education in working and low-income, communities of color.

In the wake of the hearing, the 18 participating cities, along with additional cities in the process of organizing, are forming a national movement to unite students and advocacy organizations across the country to spread awareness of mass school closings and their impact on targeted communities.

WHO: Approximately 500 students, parents and community representatives impacted or at risk of impact by school closings representing 18 cities across the country will attend the hearing including: Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; Cleveland; Detroit; District of Columbia; Eupora, Miss.; Hartford, Conn.; Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; Newark; New Orleans; New York; Oakland, Calif.; Philadelphia; Wichita, Kan.; Wilmington, Del.

WHEN/WHERE: Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
2:00 p.m.– 3:55 p.m. 5:00 p.m. EST
U.S. Department of Education [Room XXX] Martin Luther King Memorial
Washington, DC Washington, DC

WHY: Cities across the country are experiencing the results of neglectful actions by the closing of schools serving predominantly low-income students of color including displacement and destabilization of children, increased violence and threats of physical harm as a result of re-assignment, and destabilization at schools receiving the displaced students.

Despite current research showing that closing these public schools does not improve test scores or graduation rates, closings have continued primarily because current federal Race To The Top policy has incentivized the closing and turnaround of schools by supporting privatization. However, the privatization of schools has resulted in unchecked actions and processes where the primary fallout is on those in low-income, minority communities. The devastating impact of these actions has only been tolerated because of the race and class of the communities affected.

Categories Closing schools, Education Reform, New Orleans, Students, Testing

Eli Broad Will Introduce Rhee in L.A.

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
20

A friend in Los Angeles sent the following notice of Michelle Rhee’s coming appearance before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

I hope someone will ask her about the cheating scandal that was described on PBS’ Frontline recently.

Ask if she thinks a 30-point jump in proficiency rates in a single year is suspicious.

Ask if she still believes that “dozens and dozens” of schools improved.

Ask why D.C. has the largest black-white and Hispanic-white test score gap of any city in the nation, which did not decrease during or since her tenure.

Ask why D.C. has the lowest graduation rate of any big-city district in the nation, according to PBS?

Ask if she thinks that D.C. Is now a model for the nation after five years of her policies.

And please tell Eli Broad about the huge improvement in U.S. scores on the recent TIMSS, as well as the Rothstein-Carnoy report showing that the U.S. is fourth in the world in reading and ranks tenth in the world in reading.

And, while you are at it, please ask Mr. Broad how he feels about the U.S. ranking first in the world among advanced nations in child poverty.

The LAWAC invites you to a Lunch:
Michelle Rhee

Former Chancellor of Washington D.C. Public Schools

Making the U.S. Educational System Competitive Globally
Special Introductory Remarks By
Eli Broad
Founder of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation


Thursday, January 31, 2013 – 12:00 Noon Lunch

The Luxe Hotel, 11461 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90049
Eli Broad, Los Angeles’s much-celebrated philanthropist and a board member of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, will be making some remarks to introduce Michelle Rhee at lunch on Jan 31st at the Luxe Hotel. Ms Rhee, who moved aggressively to reform education in D.C. from 2007 to 2010, will be talking to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council about how our schools are underperforming compared to international competitors – and how we can fix that.Eli Broad and his wife Edythe, both graduates of Detroit Public Schools, are founders of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, a philanthropy that seeks to ensure that every student in an urban public school has the opportunity to succeed. The Broad Foundation has invested $370 m in student learning since 1999, and continues to bring together top education experts and practitioners to find ways to enable students of all backgrounds to learn and thrive.It is no secret that the US is falling behind its international competitors in terms of education. A recent report by the education company Pearson comparing 39 developed countries and one territory (Hong Kong) – put the US in 17th position, way behind the leaders – Finland, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. Another report from Harvard University found that despite all the politicking and debate about education here, American students are not catching up academically with their foreign peers – quite the opposite. Students in Latvia, Chile and Brazil are improving three times faster than American students, while Portugal, Hong Kong, Germany and Poland are seeing improvements twice the rate of the US.

Rhee believes strongly that the US should overhaul teacher tenure, apply standardized test scores to performance evaluations, and expand charter schools. StudentsFirst is an advocacy organization that pushes for reforms across the country. A recent report from the organization ranking US states on a scale of A to F gave California its lowest grade, an F. Ms Rhee’s views have created passionate debate within the education field, and are opposed by many educators and school system administrators. We hope her presentation will create more debate in Los Angeles on this subject, which is so vital to our future.

;

Ticket Information – Lunch

Michelle Rhee

LAWAC members:

Guests of members:

General Admission:

Table of Ten:

 $53$63$78$530


Reserve your seats today by calling the LAWAC office at: (424) 258-6160.
LAWAC is online at ;www.lawac.org – And visit us on ;Facebook
Categories Broad Foundation, Education Reform, International, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle

The Secret Strategy of Corporate School Reform?

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
80

I want to test out a theory. I invite you to tell me what you think. It’s a thought experiment but very close to reality.

Suppose you wanted to destroy public education.

Suppose you wanted to make it so unpleasant to be a teacher or a student in a public school that everyone began to long for a way out. What would you do?

Let’s see. You would subject kids to tests repeatedly to the point that their parents complained bitterly. You would take away art and music, maybe physical education too, to make more time for testing. You would open a few charters, which would scoop up the best students, the strivers, and exclude the troublemakers. You would leave the public schools as refuges for the kids rejected or unwanted by the charters. Wouldn’t it be likely that all the motivated parents would clamor for a way to get their kids out too? Then there would be charters for the “good” kids and the public schools would be the dumping grounds.

Do the same for teachers but in different ways. Threaten them with termination if they don’t comply. Tell them their experience and education don’t count. Tell them their quality will depend on their students’ test scores. Watch their spirits droop as their best students leave for charter schools. Be sure to put non-educators in charge and lecture them regularly about how they are responsible if any child should fail. Snap the whip to keep them on their toes. Never treat them as professionals but as lazy time-servers who need constant reminders of their inadequacy.

In time, public education would be stigmatized and avoided by all who could get away. Is this where Race to the Top is going?

These thoughts, which have been percolating, were inspired by the following comments from a reader.

She wrote:

I was pleased to learn, thanks to Diane Ravitch, that the head of the principals’ association here in NC came out against testing last week. Ironically, my state superintendent just announced that NC will be paying (millions, I assume) to Pearson, a British company, to create tests that I and other NC teachers will have to give. NC is a nightmare to teach in right now. There have never been unions, so teachers have always been asked to do things administration could never get away with in a union state, but every work day this year is devoted to Race to the Top. My next semester begins on January 23 and the work day on the 22nd is occupied with RttT instead of finalizing my grades or planning for new students and courses. One of our RttT workshops involved using string, tape, spaghetti, and marshmellows to construct something. We also watched 30 second Disney/Pixar clips which were referred to constantly as “authentic texts.” I have been teaching English since the 1970s, and I have never seen anything like the direction public schools are going in now. I know Ms. Ravitch is strongly against charters, but I am for anything that is exempt from this madness that has over-taken public education. Public education is apparently for sale, and teachers and students are the victims. Like the Titanic, I am not sure it can be saved.

Categories Budget Cuts, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Hilarious! Louisiana’s New Website

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
9

Crazy Crawfish is a blogger who worked in the Louisiana Department of Education. He cares a lot about accurate data. He noticed, as did other researchers in Louisiana, that all the historical data for the past ten years disappeared overnight and have been replaced by press releases about the glorious success of Governor Jindal’s marketing slogan, which the Jindal team calls “Louisiana Believes.”

Don’t miss this one. It is called “Louisiana Believes Anything.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Honor Roll, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Privatization

Good News: Major Re-Analysis of International Tests

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
30

Richard Rothstein and Martin Carnoy, both highly accomplished scholars, have reanalyzed the international test score data and arrived at some startling and important findings.

Their study is titled “International Tests Show Achievement Gaps in All Countries, with Big Gains for U.S. Disadvantaged Students.” It includes not only their major analysis of international test scores, but critiques by the leaders of OECD and PISA, and their response to the critiques.

This important study should change the way international tests are reported by the media, if they take the time to read Rothstein and Carnoy.

In every nation, students from the most affluent homes are at the top of the test scores, and students from the poorest homes are at the bottom. In other words, there is an “achievement gap” based on social class in every nation.

They point out that the big assessment programs—PISA and TIMSS—do not consistently disaggregate by social class, which creates “findings” that are misleading and inaccurate.

Rothstein and Carnoy note that American policymakers have been disaggregating by income and other measures since No Child Left Behind was passed, yet they gullibly accept international test score data without insisting on the same kind of disaggregation.

In other words, we know that a school where most of the students live in affluent, college-educated families will get higher test scores than a school in an impoverished neighborhood. But we don’t ask the same questions when we look at international testing data.

Rothstein and Carnoy diligently asked those questions and reached some very interesting conclusions.

*”The share of disadvantaged students in the U.S. sample was larger than their share in any of the other countries we studied. Because test scores in every country are characterized by a social class gradient—students higher in the social class scale have better average achievement than students in the next lower class—U.S. student scores are lower on average simply because of our relatively disadvantaged social class composition.” In other words, we have more poverty than other nations with which we compare ourselves, and thus lower scores on average.

*They discovered that “the achievement gap between disadvantaged and advantaged children is actually smaller in the United States than it is in similar countries. The achievement gap in the United States is larger than it is in the very highest scoring countries, but even then, many of the differences are small.”

*The achievement of “the most disadvantaged U.S. adolescents has been increasing rapidly, while the achievement of similarly disadvantaged adolescents in some countries that are typically held up as examples for the U.S.—Finland for example—has been falling just as rapidly.” (I asked Rothstein whether the gains were attributable to NCLB, and he replied that the gains for the most disadvantaged students were even larger prior to NCLB.)

*The U.S. scores on PISA 2009 that so alarmed Secretary Duncan were caused by a sampling error. “PISA over-sampled low-income U.S. students who attended schools with very high proportions of similarly disadvantaged students, artificially lowering the apparent U.S. score. While 40 percent of the PISA sample was drawn from schools hwere half or more of students were eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, only 23 percent of students nationwide attend such schools.”

*If the PISA scores are adjusted correctly to reflect the actual proportion of students in poverty, the average scores of U.S. students rise significantly. Instead of 14th in reading, the U.S. is fourth in reading on PISA. Instead of 25th in mathematics, the U.S. is 10th. “While there is still room for improvement, these are quite respectable showings.”

*Because of PISA’s sampling error, the conclusions expressed by politicians and pundits were “oversimplified, exaggerated, and misleading.”

Rothstein and Carnoy identify important differences and inconsistencies between PISA and TIMSS, and between these assessments and our own NAEP. Taken together, these differences should remind us of the many ways in which the assessments confuse policy and policymakers, the media and the public.

As they note in their conclusion, “it is not possible to say whether the results of any particular international test are generalizable and can support policy conclusions.”

They conclude: “We are most certain of this: To make judgments only on the basis of national average scores, on only one test, at only one point in time, without comparing trends on different tests that purport to measure the same thing, and without disaggregation by social class groups, is the worst possible choice. But, unfortunately this is how most policymakers and analysts approach the field.”

Categories Accountability, International, Testing

Teachers at Roosevelt HS Support Colleagues at Garfield

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
1

Forty-Three Roosevelt High School teachers (colleagues in Seattle Public Schools with Garfield High School teachers) signed this Letter of Support (on Jan. 23, 2012) for GHS teachers and a call to for expedient dismissal of the MAP exam because it has not proven to be useful or reliable. (PDF of original with signatures available upon request).

This We Believe:

Teachers, parents, students, school board members and the administration of Seattle Public Schools owe Garfield High School teachers their gratitude and thanks for speaking the truth.

We believe that any reprimand or negative consequences imposed by Seattle Public Schools, the superintendent or administration on the truth-telling teachers of Garfield High School would be unjust. Garfield High School teachers should be given public commendations for rightly raising their professional concerns and specific critique of our district’s choice and misuse of the Measures of Academic Progress® [MAP] testing.

An unspoken truth is that most all Seattle Public School stakeholders already knew that the MAP test was expensive and of little practical use in supporting our students’ learning, or in evaluating their classroom teachers before the Garfield High School teachers spoke up publicly.

We believe that effective teaching and learning must utilize meaningful tests, authentic assessments, and multiple-measures to evaluative what a student knows and can do. These measures are also critical to improve teaching practice, reflect on curriculum, and to evaluate school and district-wide policies. We want students who are struggling and those who have mastered skills and content to be identified and to be offered meaningful support to succeed and excel. We want teachers who are struggling in the classroom to be identified, offered useful critique and professional support. We believe that after due process, if these teachers are unable to meet the high standards we hold ourselves to as educators these individuals should be removed from their teaching positions. We wish to continue to improve our schools which are already rated as one of the best K-12 public school districts in the state and nation. To quote Garfield High School teachers, “The MAP test is not the way to do any of these things.”

We support an expedient dismissal of the MAP exam because it has not proven to be useful or reliable in its given tasks. We ask Superintendent Banda to reconsider his call to wait for a general evaluation of all Seattle Public Schools assessments as that report is not due out until the end of the school year. If MAP testing is already paid for this school year shouldn’t we finish out the school year with the planned MAP testing days? Budgets are in some ways both complex and simple. Seattle Public Schools annual “operating budget” for this year is around $566 million; delivering 180 days of school to our students. Rounding down the cost is still over $3 million-a-day to operate our schools. If we end MAP testing now millions of dollars of this year’s district’s operating budget would be spent on school days of teaching and learning instead of on ineffective MAP-testing.

We believe that process employed by Seattle Public Schools administration, school board, and (initially) by our professional association (SEA) in accepting this testing regime was flawed. We request an administrative and public review of the procedures related to these kinds of important adoptions needs to be established that engages all stakeholders to help prevent unworthy, expensive, MAP-like mistakes in the future.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned Teachers of Roosevelt High School.

Categories Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, Washington State

Detroit: 28 More Schools Will Close to Cut Deficit

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2013 //
5

To his eternal shame, emergency manager Roy Roberts will close down more public schools in Detroit to cut the deficit. Who knew that public schools were supposed to turn a profit/surplus?

Roberts is carrying out the orders of Governor Rick Snyder, who views public education with contempt.

Privatization proceeds. Public education in Detroit will be extinguished if the Governor and his willing accomplice have their way.

Shameful.

Categories Closing schools, Detroit, For-Profit, Michigan, Privatization
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