Archives for the month of: October, 2013
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The Biggest Obstacle to Punitive “Reforms” Is…

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2013 //
8

Jonathan Lovell, who teaches writing at San Jose State, believes that it is time to stop the punitive reform train that seeks to crush public education and brand it a failure with phony metrics.

The Krytonite of our cause: Passion and Practice.

Lovell writes:

Please bear with me for a moment as I place our five years of work in producing Passion and Practice within a larger picture. It’s one I find both compelling and disturbing.

As Diane Ravitch, along with several others, have begun to say with greater and greater clarity and force(see https://dianeravitch.net/2013/08/24/the-biggest-fallacy-of-the-common-core-standards-no-evidence/), the “roll out” of the Common Core Standards represents the culmination of a 13 year “educational reform narrative” that has labeled K-12 schools as failing and teachers, and teachers’ unions, as the primary cause of this failure.

In an essay I wrote earlier this fall on income inequality and student achievement (see http://jonathanlovell.blogspot.com) I address the question of who is most likely to gain, and who to suffer, from the spring 2015 implementation of the CCS assessments. I’ve received slightly over 2700 “page visits” to this essay over the past two months, using the simple but apparently effective technique of sending it out to friends and colleagues and asking them to so the same, if on reading the essay they find it thought provoking.

I wonder if I might ask you as well to do the same: take the 15 minutes I’m told it takes to read this essay, and then send it along to friends and colleagues, asking them to do the same?

My hope is that, acting together,we might bring a modicum of common sense to the seeming juggernaut of the national accountability movement. It’s also my hope that we might be able to do so before this quite small group of high level “educational reformers” takes the entire system of public education over a cliff in the spring of 2015–when the “results” of the nationwide testing of K-12 students in relation to their CCS proficiency levels are quite likely to be used to demonstrate that public education, “just as we’ve been told,” is indeed going to hell in a hand-basket.

I believe that there are two potentially effective ways to counter this narrative. One is to become as familiar as possible with the counter arguments that Diane Ravitch makes so eloquently in the opening chapters of Reign of Error (see https://dianeravitch.net/2013/10/12/jonathan-lovell-channels-john-keats-while-reading-reign-of-error/ for my own “review” of this book), and to write and talk about these “facts” vs the “hoaxes” we’ve been subjected to with as many different audiences as possible over the next year and a half. The other is to demonstrate as clearly as we can that the “teachers are failures” part of this argument is demonstrably false.

I hope that Passion and Practice will be seen, in years to come, as the opening salvo of this larger national “counter-narrative.”

My very best,
Jonathan Lovell, Director, San Jose Area Writing Project

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers

Parent: “These Reforms Are Not About Education”

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2013 //
10

This parent testified at the state’s public hearing in Portchester, Néw York. She concluded that John King must resign. Read her explanation:

“Dear Diane,

Last night I attended the Common Core Forum in Port Chester, NY. I was number 6 to speak.It was an incredible feeling to finally be able to look Commissioner King in the eye and say what I have been wanting to say to him for the past 6 months, and to know that this time, he would have to hear me. But that’s the thing, he didn’t hear me or anyone else for that matter.

I brought my almost 80 year old father to the forum. Before last night he was only peripherally aware of education reform. As we left, he was holding back tears, overwhelmed by the pain that he heard parents and teachers expressing and moved by the dozens of parents, teachers and administrators who had spoken so eloquently on behalf of children. I too was moved but I was also angry.

Despite being forced to listen to dozens of parents, superintendents and teachers say over and over again that the current education reform is hurting children and public education, Commissioner King was unmoved. King had not heard me or anyone else for that matter. Despite his 12 stop mea culpa tour, King is going full steam ahead with his corportate, hostile takeover of education.

Back when I was a 28 year old mother of 2 children on the Autism spectrum, I worked hard to return to graduate school and become a teacher. During my teacher training I lost my little brother to cancer and watched my son undergo numerous surgeries. Through it all I continued my graduate work and maintained a near perfect GPA. I don’t tell you these things because I want sympathy or accolades, but to make the point that I know perseverance, I know struggle…the qualities that commissioner king believes that 8 and 9 year olds should experience as the means of motivating them to achieve career and college readiness. And part of what has helped me to persevere and to push through the tough times is my ability to stop and reflect, to change course when one paradigm no longer works. I am saddened and angered that public education is led by someone who is willing to do neither.

I have attached my testimony from the forum below. This is what our commissioner of education didn’t hear.Commissioner King must resign because as parents and educators, we deserve better.

Sincerely,
Bianca Tanis
Parent, educator and co-founder of New York State Allies for Public Education

“My son has autism and your reforms have hurt him. You mandate schools to share sensitive student data. You force students with disabilities to submit to inappropriate and humiliating testing. Only now, 5 months later, after you have had to endure public outcry, are you willing to consider changes. Where was common sense and decency 5 months ago when parents begged to for their children to be exempt and when children with disabilities were being tortured. You should be ashamed.

“These reforms are not about education. They are about the agenda of billionaires with no teaching experience. The fact that your close advisors are the mysterious Regents Fellows, individuals with little to no teaching experience, who are paid 6 figure salaries with private donations by Bill Gates and Chancellor Meryl Tisch, speaks volumes. Private money comes with a price tag and that price tag is influence. We reject leadership that allows public education to be bought. That is not democracy. By the way, the Regents Fellow job description does not mention teaching experience as a requirement.

“It has been said that parent opposition is typical when change is introduced. There is nothing typical about the present response. The incompetent roll out of the common core and the naked disregard that has been shown for developmentally appropriate and educationally sound practice is unacceptable. Your recent concessions are disingenuous and a case of too little too late. They do nothing to reduce the hours of testing or the inappropriate level of test difficulty. They do nothing to make cut scores reasonable or address serious problems associated with high stakes testing.

“In addition to hurting children, your policies promote social inequality. Private school parents, such as your self have the opportunity to say to no to harmful testing and data sharing while public school parents are not afforded the same rights. Are you afraid of what would happen if you gave all parents a choice?

“The inadequacy of our schools is a manufactured crisis. Poverty is the number one indicator of student achievement. When you factor in poverty, US schools are at the top. New York deserves real leadership that addresses real issues. If you won’t provide that leadership, we need someone who will.”

Categories Common Core, New York, Parents, Testing

NC: The Great Tablet Mess

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2013 //
10

A reader in North Carolina updates us on the great tablet fiasco, the recriminations, and the eternal question: who is making a lot of money? Hint: not the teachers.

The reader writes:

Add to this fiasco ANOTHER one from North Carolina. (Greensboro’s NEWS AND RECORD has created a page for the great Tablet Deal Gone Wrong):

http://www.news-record.com/news/schools/collection_9555d386-2551-11e3-a120-0019bb30f31a.html

Scroll to bottom article discussing current Guilford County Schools Sperintendent Maurice Green’s connection to Peter Gorman, current senior vice-president for AMPLIFY and former superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools ( i.e. Green’s former boss). Green kept mum about the connection.

Key excerpt below from:
http://www.news-record.com/news/schools/article_9c78ebb8-bd9a-11e2-9fc2-0019bb30f31a.html

Gorman joined Amplify after serving as superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools from 2006 to 2011. Green was his deputy superintendent before leaving in 2008 to lead Guilford County Schools.

“It raises an eyebrow,” said Linda Welborn, school board member. “I could see the concern and possibly the perception from other people that are aware of the connection.
“Had I known, I probably would have asked more questions.”

Welborn and board members Ed Price and Darlene Garrett said staff should have mentioned that history when they recommended Amplify for the four-year contract.
But Price and Welborn said Amplify seemed worthy of the contract because it had the lowest bid and met the district’s criteria.

“The fact that (Gorman) worked there, that in and of itself would not have stopped me from voting for them if they had the best deal,” Price said.

“I do not question Mo Green’s integrity, and I don’t think he would have done something just because of his past relationship with Peter Gorman.”

Nora Carr, the district’s chief of staff, said Green purposely excluded himself from the review process so as not to influence the staff’s decision.

“He certainly made every effort to remove himself from the process so that the team could make decisions that were based on facts and the individual strengths of the proposals,” said Carr, who also worked for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools before coming to the district in 2008.

Carr said business connections in the education sector are common. Green had a previous work history with an employee of another company that bid on the PACE project, she said.

And he developed relationships with executives at Apple, which provided iPads to Montlieu Academy of Technology.

Green and school board Chairman Alan Duncan also used to work for the same law firm.
“Education is a small world,” Carr said. “If we ruled out every company that had a connection with us, we would have a very small pool to draw from.”
Still, some board members were not satisfied with the review process — either because the project team did not include teachers or because details weren’t provided on the other vendors.

Garrett, who voted against the Amplify contract, said she wanted to hear presentations from other companies.

“We should have had more information,” Garrett said. “We should have asked for it, but I think we were in a rush to approve it.”

The school district won a $30 million federal Race to the Top grant in December and is on a tight schedule to put digital devices in the hands of most middle school students this fall. The initiative is part of national efforts to improve student learning through digital technology.

But some people wonder who stands to benefit more from the trend — the students or the companies selling the technology.

“There is the concern that once you’re locked in there, what happens after the four years?” Welborn said about the devices. “This new age of electronic teaching is going to be huge money.”

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, North Carolina, Technology, Computers

New York Principals: Why the Common Core Tests Failed Our Students and Your Children

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2013 //
14

This is a very important letter from the New York principals who have led the fight against high-stakes testing and the state’s invalid educator evaluation system.

Here is an important excerpt. Read the letter in its entirety.

 

Here’s what we know:

1)    NYS Testing Has Increased Dramatically: We know that our students are spending more time taking State tests than ever before. Since 2010, the amount of time spent on average taking the 3-8 ELA and Math tests has increased by a whopping 128%! The increase has been particularly hard on our younger students, with third graders seeing an increase of 163%!

2)    The Tests were Too Long: We know that many students were unable to complete the tests in the allotted time. Not only were the tests lengthy and challenging, but embedded field test questions extended the length of the tests and caused mental exhaustion, often before students reached the questions that counted toward their scores. For our Special Education students who receive additional time, these tests have become more a measure of endurance than anything else.

3)    Ambiguous Questions Appeared throughout the Exams: We know that many teachers and principals could not agree on the correct answers to ambiguous questions in both ELA and Math. In some schools, identical passages and questions appeared on more than one test and at more than one grade level. One school reported that on one day of the ELA Assessment, the same passage with identical questions was included in the third, fourth AND fifth grade ELA Assessments.

4)    Children have Reacted Viscerally to the Tests: We know that many children cried during or after testing, and others vomited or lost control of their bowels or bladders. Others simply gave up. One teacher reported that a student kept banging his head on the desk, and wrote, “This is too hard,” and “I can’t do this,” throughout his test booklet.

5)    The Low Passing Rate was Predicted: We know that in his “Implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards” memo of March 2013, Deputy Commissioner Slentz stated that proficiency scores (i.e., passing rate) on the new assessments would range between 30%-37% statewide. When scores were released in August 2013, the statewide proficiency rate was announced as 31%.

6)    The College Readiness Benchmark is Irresponsibly Inflated: We know that the New York State Education Department used SAT scores of 560 in Reading, 540 in Writing and 530 in mathematics, as the college readiness benchmarks to help set the “passing” cut scores on the 3-8 New York State exams. These NYSED scores, totaling 1630, are far higher than the College Board’s own college readiness benchmark score of 1550. By doing this, NYSED has carelessly inflated the “college readiness” proficiency cut scores for students as young as nine years of age.

7)    State Measures are Contradictory: We know that many children are receiving scores that are not commensurate with the abilities they demonstrate on other measures, particularly the New York State Integrated Algebra Regents examination. Across New York, many accelerated eighth-graders scored below proficiency on the eighth grade test only to go on and excel on the Regents examination one month later. One district reports that 58% of the students who scored below proficiency on the NYS Math 8 examination earned a mastery score on the Integrated Algebra Regents.

8)    Students Labeled as Failures are Forced Out of Classes: We know that many students who never needed Academic Intervention Services (AIS) in the past, are now receiving mandated AIS as a result of the failing scores. As a result, these students are forced to forgo enrichment classes. For example, in one district, some middle school students had to give up instrumental music, computer or other special classes in order to fit AIS into their schedules.

9)    The Achievement Gap is Widening: We know that the tests have caused the achievement gap to widen as the scores of economically disadvantaged students plummeted, and that parents are reporting that low-scoring children feel like failures.

10) The Tests are Putting Financial Strains on Schools: We know that many schools are spending precious dollars on test prep materials, and that instructional time formerly dedicated to field trips, special projects, the arts and enrichment, has been reallocated to test prep, testing, and AIS services.

11) The Tests are Threatening Other State Initiatives: Without a doubt, the emphasis on testing is threatening other important State initiatives, most notably the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Parents who see the impact of the testing on their children are blaming the CCSS, rather than the unwise decision to implement high stakes testing before proper capacity had been developed. As long as these tests remain, it will be nearly impossible to have honest conversations about the impact of the CCSS on our schools.

 

 

Categories New York, Principals, Students, Testing

A Message to the Los Angeles United School District Board

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2013 //
34

Dear Board Members,

As you are well aware, friends of Superintendent Deasy in the business community and the charter corporate community plan a massive rally to show you how badly L.A. needs Superintendent Deasy.

Please do not forget that you were elected by the people of Los Angeles to use your own judgment, not to be swayed by billionaires and their minions.

Superintendent Deasy let it be known that he probably would resign. This in retrospect appears to have been a clever ploy to mobilize the corporate leadership that backs him.

I don’t know Superintendent Deasy, so I don’t now judge him as a person.

What I do know about him is that he does not have the support and confidence of those who do the daily work of educating the district’s children.

You cannot be a leader if the troops don’t trust you.

A leader must be able to inspire, encourage, and support those he leads. Superintendent Deasy has not been able to do this.

If he wants to go, let him go.

Do not allow yourselves to be pressured into capitulating.

If you capitulate,  you make yourselves puppets; you place him in charge of the district, and the board becomes an afterthought.

If you allow yourselves to be browbeaten, you will find that John Deasy has become your boss.

This corrupts democracy. The billionaires who tried and failed to buy the elections last spring will have won, even though they lost at the polls.

Time to defend those who elected you.

Categories Los Angeles

A First-Person Report on John King’s Meeting in Portchester, New York

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2013 //
35

As John King dutifully carries his “listening tour” to a dozen localities in New York state, touting the virtues of Common Core and high-stakes testing, he is running into a problem: No one likes what he is selling.

However, as the report below indicates, he doesn’t care. He listens without hearing. It doesn’t matter what parents and educators say. His mind is made up. He is going through the motions.

This reader writes:

56/57 people spoke at the Portchester Middle School, including numerous superintendents, teachers, parents and one student. Many articulate, passionate variations of same theme: Not research based; hurting children; lowering curriculum standards; hurting teachers and administrators. Seemed like standing room only. King’s only response: we are going forward with CCSS. We heard you. (This is paraprasing).  A lot of face saving on their part. After hearing person after person speak about how children had been harmed, Chancellor Tisch looked bored, and all Comissioner King (with all his three years teaching experience in charter schools) could say was basically, “We will move forward with this and we’ll be committed to high standards.” Not an “I’m sorry children have been hurt. I’m sorry teachers have had to work overtime. I’m sorry the curriculum was delivered to teachers the day before school began.” Not, “I can see we’ve made some mistakes and I’ll make sure that I include your points in our next discussion.” Were we shocked? No. Just what we expected and feared. Our hope: He will hear the same message in the next 13 (?) meetings. My political science spouse said, “you need to tell people to focus on the legislators who attend these meetings: Let them know their job is on the line with your vote. King & Tisch feel quite secure in their jobs. Make sure the legislators don’t feel the same security. Then maybe you’ll  make the changes that need to be made. My note: make sure you organize. Get the people out.

Categories Common Core

Providence Journal: Analysis of a Hatchet Job on Me

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2013 //
46

The Providence Journal ran an article by journalist John Hill about my book and my appearance at the University of Rhode Island that was intended to discredit me. It declared that my arguments were “mostly false,” based on the writer’s skewed interpretation of the facts presented in my book,

Read it for yourself.

As best I can tell, the writer is defending No Child Left Behind, and was deeply affronted that I criticized NCLB. He doesn’t seem to know that NCLB has very few defenders.

Nonetheless, I am printing my response to the Providence Journal here because I don’t expect ProJo to print it; neither the editor nor the journalist has acknowledged receipt of my letter. So I post it here.

This was my letter to the Providence Journal:

To the Editor:
 
Providence Journal writer John Hill has contorted the facts about American education in his effort to discredit my well-documented book “Reign of Error.” Every claim in the book is accompanied by evidence, most of which comes directly from the U.S. Department of Education website. 

 
I contend in the book that test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are at a historic high point for white students, black students, Hispanic students, and Asian students. Nothing in his article disputes those facts. It seems that his goal is to defend the high-stakes testing and accountability regime created by George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, passed in 2001 and signed into law in 2002.
 
On the regular NAEP, given every year since 1992, the biggest increase in test scores occurred from 2000-2003, before No Child Left Behind was implemented. The biggest decrease in the achievement gap between blacks and whites occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, long before the passage of No Child Left Behind.
 
On the Long-Term Trend NAEP, the gains for black and Hispanic students from 1973 to 2008 were astonishingly large for every age group, as I show on page 52 of my book, using data from the U.S. Department of Education’s website. 
 
During that 35-year period, white students at age 9 gained 14 points; black students at age 9 gained 34 points; Hispanic students at age 9 gained 25 points.
 
White students at age 13 gained 7 points; black students at age 13 gained 25 points; Hispanic students at age 13 gained 10 points.
 
White students at age 17 gained 4 points; blacks students at age 17 gained 28 points; Hispanic students at age 17 gained 17 points.
 
Mr. Hill misinterpreted what I said or misunderstood what I wrote. I said at my lecture that I withheld publication of the book until June 2013, waiting for the update of the NAEP Long-Term Trend report, hoping that the great progress of the era from 1973-2008 would be sustained. Unfortunately, the 2012 report (released in June 2013) showed that the gains came nearly to a halt during the period from 2008 to 2012. This was reported on page 357, footnote 7. Perhaps Mr. Hill doesn’t read footnotes.
 
No Child Left Behind is generally considered to be a failure by everyone other than those who wrote that burdensome law. Apparently, I should have included John Hill as one of the few Americans who still defends NCLB.
 
I encourage Mr. Hill to continue to educate himself about the facts of American education. Our nation’s public education system is performing very well; we are the most powerful nation on earth. Our economy is the largest on earth. We lead the world in technological innovation. Low academic performance is highly correlated with poverty. Our genuine crisis is not with our public education system but with the failure of our political and economic system to reduce poverty. If we want to improve academic performance, we should address the fact that 23% of our children live in poverty, which is the highest of any advanced nation in the world (second only to Romania, whose economy is far smaller than our own and whose resources are far smaller).
Diane Ravitch
I was not the only one who read the bizarre article in the Providence Journal (ProJo).
John Thompson, teacher and historian, wrote this letter to ProJo, unbeknownst to me (he sent me a copy):
To the Editor:
You owe Diane Ravitch a retraction. 
 
You wrote that the word “until” implies that progress stopped with NCLB and RttT.  Where did you get that from?  How is that the implication?
 
The reality was that decades of growth “slowed” after those reforms.  Ravitch’s statement is also consistent with her carefully worded explanations that the education system, as a whole, has improved while failing poor children. We’ve had forty years of growth, but progress stagnated after NCLB.
 
And, that raises the question of whether you read Ravitch’s entire book, footnotes, and tables.  Are you aware of the issues she is addressing and how they have been framed by various schools of thought?
 
It also raises the question of whether you read other NAEP reports.  The one you link to did not track low-income students.  That is a huge problem because the prime purpose of NCLB and RttT, like all federal education spending, is helping disadvantaged students.  Other studies have shown that the income-based achievement gap stalled after NCLB.
 
Apparently your methodology was to parse wording and look at numbers.  As I will explain, you don’t seem to understand what is behind the numbers.  That would be fine – you aren’t an expert, I assume – but it is not enough for grading the work of experts.
 
So, to quickly address your parsing of language, of course there are small dips over the decades. For instance, with black 8th grade reading, you see a 21 point increase from 1971 to 1988, which shows outstanding growth, almost certainly increased by desegregation and old-fashioned school reforms (now derided as “input”-based reform), but probably offset at the end by deindustrialization. Then as deindustrialization, crack, and the economic decline and damage to the family grew further, scores dropped 7 points until the economy recovered. Starting in 1996, scores increased by ten points and then progress slowed after NCLB.
 
Similarly, Hispanic reading increased by 10 points before NCLB and then one point afterwards.
 
Both would make Ravitch’s case even better if low-income and low-perfoming deciles were factored in, as can be done if you read other NAEP studies.
 
And, while I’m still on the point of parsing language, are you saying that NCLB worked, or wasn’t a failure? If so, you are virtually alone.  You grade Ravitch down for making a point that the overwhelming majority of scholars would endorse.
 
Moreover, you ignore the fact that slower gains occurred AFTER tens or hundreds of billions of NEW money (depending how you calculate it) was invested. This point is doubly important for the RttT, the SIG, and other Obama “reforms.” They threw billions of dollars at schools for poor children of color, and the best evidence was that they drove down student performance in a large minority of schools and produced few gains with that unprecedented and unrepeatable investment.  That is why the best single appraisal of school reform is Paul Tough’s.  The NY Times Magazine writer had supported reform, which he characterized as “liberal ptsd” from not winning the War on Poverty. Reform, at the cost of billions, helped some (who were “creamed” off into lower-poverty selective schools,) but damaged the poorest by leaving more intense concentrations of poverty and trauma and more teach-to-the-test malpractice.  That was certainly true of my inner city school.
 
Study NAEP and cognitive science and you will see why all its numbers are not created equally. The obvious example is scores for 17-year-olds, which are virtually meaningless.  More importantly, NCLB-type accountability has had successes in increasing math scores but not reading. There are cognitive reasons for that.(Its known as the Matthew Effect. If you don’t learn to read for comprehension by 3rd grade then you won’t read to learn.  NCLB reforms were based on the idea that that reality can be overcome by accountability, and they have, again, been proven wrong.)   I argue that 8th grade reading is, by far, the most important NAEP metric, and I would be glad to explain why.  Districts known as reform successes, such as D.C., have seen actual declines in low-income and black 8th grade reading (after years of progress.)
 
And that gets to the reason why you owe a retraction and, I’d say, an apology.  I don’t know how many hours you put into your evaluation of the years of work, building on decades of knowledge, of one of the nation’s top education experts. But, you didn’t put in nearly enough.
John Thompson

 

Categories Education Reform

Deasy Resignation Drama Diverts Attention from iPad Fiasco

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2013 //
23

Benjamin Herold of Education Week has written an excellent overview of the confusion surrounding Los Angeles’ iPad purchase for every student in the district.

The cost–anticipated ultimately to be in excess of $1 billion–is one concern at a time when classes are overcrowded, and many schools are in need of repair, and thousands of teachers were laid off.

The uncertainty about how the iPads will be used, whether at home or in school; the uncertainty about the quality of the Pearson content; the certainty that the license on the Pearson content will expire in three years; the confusion about whether it was proper to divert funding from a 25-year construction bond to purchase tablets…..all of this and more should be closely scrutinized.

Instead, the district and its leadership will be bogged down in an extended discussion of John Deasy’s future; whether he resigned or only threatened to resign; whether the business community and the mayor can prevail; whether Deasy will ultimately make the board powerless by asserting that his power base is stronger than theirs, even though they were elected by the people.

One happy note: Pearson is happy with Los Angeles’ decision to give Pearson control of the content of the iPads.

I hope you can gain access to the article behind Education Week’s paywall. Here is a sample:

But the new software from the publishing giant Pearson that has been rolled out in dozens of schools is nowhere near complete, the Los Angeles Unified School District is unable to say how much it costs, and the district will lose access to content updates, software upgrades, and technical support from Pearson after just three years.

The situation is prompting a new round of questions about an initiative already under withering scrutiny following a series of logistical and security snags.

The Common Core Technology Project, as Los Angeles Unified’s iPad initiative is formally known, is among the first attempts in the country to marry digital devices with a comprehensive digital curriculum from a single vendor. The ambitious effort makes the 651,000-student school system a bellwether for districts seeking a soup-to-nuts solution that implements the new Common Core State Standards, increases students’ access to technology, and moves away from paper textbooks.

“I think it’s the front end of a wave,” said Karen Cator, the CEO of the Washington-based nonprofit Digital Promise and a former director of the U.S. Department of Education’s school technology office.

But just weeks before the Los Angeles school board decides whether to authorize the initiative’s second phase—expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars—implementation problems related to the new digital curriculum are rearing their head.

Pearson’s Common Core System of Courses, meant to eventually become the district’s primary instructional resource in both math and English/language arts for kindergarten through 12th grade, currently consists of just a few sample lessons per grade, resulting in widespread frustration and confusion among classroom teachers.

In addition, the amount the district is paying to Pearson remains a mystery, leading to increasingly pointed questions from the school system’s divided school board, which called a special meeting to discuss the overall iPad initiative next week.

 

Categories Los Angeles, Pearson, Technology, Computers

Indiana: The Injustice of A-F Grading Systems

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2013 //
16

Jan Resseger here describes the eloquent case that Fort Wayne’s Mark GiaQuinta made against the A-F grading system.

Fort Wayne refuses to grade its schools by A-F because the board, of which GiaQuinta is president, understands that it will stigmatize schools attended by poor children but do nothing to improve them.

The A-F system was created to set schools up to fail and be handed over to charter operators or to discourage parents so they would abandon their school and seek vouchers.

There is no state where the A-F system makes schools better.

It is a tool of corporate reform, whose only purpose is to stigmatize schools,  destroy the school community, encourage public officials to abandon them, and hasten the cycle of decline.

Labeling schools A-F is not accountability; it is a ranking system that has no redeeming feature.

 

Categories Accountability

John King Meets the Public Again

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2013 //
19

After his fiasco in Poughkeepsie, and his hasty decision to cancel all future public forums, the New York Regents sent John King out on the road again.

His next meeting in Portchester was not the disaster of the Poughkeepsie meeting, For starters, he didn’t lecture the audience for over an hour.

He showed a certain openness to dialogue, though little evidence that anything he heard would change his mind.

He was there to convince parents and educators that he was right about Common Core and high-stakes testing, both of which he advocates.

If he had been listening, he might have backed down and showed some reflection because the audience was clearly not supportive of the Regents’ agenda.

But King and the Regent present engaged in dialogue and will now move on to the next event in the traveling road show.

Opponents of the Regents’ agenda may find that King is doing their work for them in rallying parents and educators against high-stakes testing.

Categories Common Core, New York, Testing
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