Archives for the month of: November, 2013
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ALEC’s Next Meeting: DC, December 6

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2013 //
12

ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) is the corporate-controlled organization that is pulling the strings on behalf of the privatization movement.

Its next meeting will be held in Washington, D.C., on December 6 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on H Street. Here is the agenda. If any reader of this blog attends, please send a report about the model laws that are adopted to destroy public education, reduce the status of the teaching profession, and mine the public treasury on behalf of private corporations.

Its model legislation for charter schools, vouchers, eliminating tenure and collective bargaining, and promoting virtual learning, has been adopted in state after state, especially where reactionary governors and legislatures are in control. ALEC has a detailed plan to privatize public education and create profits for entrepreneurs.

True conservatives do not support ALEC’s well-coordinated attack on public education. True conservatives respect the traditional institutions that have made America a great country. True conservatives do not blow up democratic institutions.

Keep us informed about the doings of this shadowy but powerful organization, whose members include some 2,000 state legislators, and whose donors include America’s largest corporations.

To learn more about ALEC, read ALEC Exposed, a website to tracking its activities and goals.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

A Texan Responds to Frank Bruni About “Coddling” and the Common Core

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
28

This comment came from a reader:

Diane,

In response to the Frank Bruni article in the NYT I wanted to share with you what I shared with my colleagues at the Schlechty Center. I am a Senior Associate with the Center, a former school superintendent in Texas and was heavily involved in the effort of the Texas Association of School Administrators in developing the document, “Creating A New Vision for Public Education in Texas”, with which you are familiar. Here is what I shared:

We have always had some parents who were over protective, but to use current parental reactions to Common Core and abusive uses of standardized tests as evidence that todays children are being “coddled” is a gross misinterpretation of what parents are saying. The “suburban white moms” comment from Secretary Duncan, which was the trigger for this article, is a misinterpretation and a misrepresentation as well as a mischaracterization. The suburban schools I am familiar with are highly competitive environments and in many cases a lot of children are pushed too hard, are expected to be involved in numerous organized activities in and out of school, leaving little time to “be children”.

More disturbing is how dismissive the author is of the critics of Common Core and the associated testing. He categorized the critics from extreme conservative to extreme liberal and those engaging in imaginary conspiracies about privatization. The latter is a veiled slap at the work of Diane Ravitch. The criticism of CC and the test-based accountability are real, growing, and based on legitimate concerns. The privatization movement is well substantiated. To reframe the discussion as “too much coddling” may be an attempt to shift the focus of the debate. The fact that 17 states are now backing away from Common Core is probably alarming to the so-called “reformers”, Secretary Duncan, Jeb Bush, etc. –and perhaps to this author.

If one looks closely at the criticisms, they are more about the standardized tests, arbitrary cut scores, and failing labels, etc., as the single means of assessing and reporting on the Common Core, than they are about the standards themselves. As Phil has asserted for years, when high stakes are attached to the assessments, the assessments become the standards.

John Horn

Categories Common Core

A Very Bad Joke

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
8

A reader commented, with reference to Arne Duncan’s infamous remark, followed by Frank Bruni’s column on “coddling” our kids:

 

Really, it’s like a very bad joke: a food critic and a basketball player walk into a bar and insult white suburban mothers and their kids, twice.

Wish I could find the humor in it.

Categories Humor

Sue Peters: A Hero of American Education

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
6

Sue Peters is a parent activist who had the courage to run for election to the Seattle school board. The big money bet against her. They were wrong. Sue won, and she won decisively. I am happy to say that she was endorsed by the Network for Public Education, and I hope that our endorsement got her a few extra votes.

Sue wrote a letter to thank the board of the NPE and to describe the tough campaign in which she prevailed. Her victory gives heart to all of us who are pushing back against the corporate reform movement. We will make our public schools stronger and better for all, not by handing them off to private management, but by engaging the public in the work of supporting them.

Dear Diane and members and supporters of the Network for Public Education,

Once again, I am pleased to extend my thanks to you and NPE for your invaluable support and endorsement of my grassroots candidacy for Seattle School Board. I am thrilled to announce that we won – convincingly!

On Election night, we led by 51-48 percent, and that lead has only grown with every new vote tally. We are now approaching a 9-point margin, at 54-45 percent. That is nearly a 14,000-vote lead.

Why Our Win Matters:

This is a victory not only for my campaign, but for communities, families, and educators everywhere who are the key stakeholders in public education, but whose voices are not always heard in the national debate over education reform, or in our own local school district.

This is also a victory for authentic, grassroots democracy. Seattle voters did not allow a small group of moneyed interests to buy this election.

My opponent’s campaign and political action committee (PAC) spent a record-breaking $240,000+, much of it on negative campaigning, most of it bankrolled by a small group of wealthy proponents of corporate ed reform and charter schools.

The PAC attacked my candidacy four times throughout the campaign with progressively more mendacious and offensive mailers. The attacks focused almost entirely on defending the Gates Foundation, in a bizarre and unsuccessful attempt to discredit me, and completely ignored the important issues facing our school district like overcrowding, inequity of resources among our schools, excessive testing and low teacher morale.

This amount of money and such tactics are unprecedented not only in Seattle but Washington State for a school board race.

Thankfully, voters were not fooled by the distortions and diversions.

I am proud of my authentic, fiscally responsible, volunteer-driven campaign, which remained focused on the issues and maintained its integrity.

I am also grateful to everyone who helped us counter the barrage of misinformation, and to those of you who promoted my candidacy personally. I want to particularly thank Dr. Diane Ravitch, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education and national education historian, who recognized that my campaign represented a national battle over the integrity and future of public education. Her support gave important legitimacy to our campaign and to my efforts over the years to engage on education issues, as both a journalist and parent.

I believe my near decade of experience with the Seattle Public School District resonated with voters, as well as my clear commitment to keeping the public in public education.

Thank you again.

Sincerely,

Sue Peters
Parent, journalist, public education advocate,
and Seattle School Board Director-Elect

Categories Honor Roll, Parents, Supporting public schools, Washington, DC

Gary Rubinstein: My Daughter’s Common Core Workbook in Kindergarten

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
53

If you really want to know what the New York City public schools are doing to make sure that five-year-olds are on track for college and/or careers, read Gary Rubinstein’s description about his daughter’s Common Core workbook for kindergarten.

State officials claim they don’t want to test children in k-2, but that is not what the workbook says.

Gary notes:

Each page of the book features in large letters the words ‘TEST PREP’ so any administrator who claims that they don’t encourage test prep for kindergarteners is lying.  Also notice that these kindergarteners are getting early practice in bubbling. 

He reproduces example after example of math questions that the students are supposed to answer.

These five-year-olds are expected to know how to add and subtract and to do problem-solving. There is even some algebra thrown in for good measure.

Gary thinks the $30 that this workbook cost would be better spent on field trips and activities.

One of his commenters said that the workbook is not itself Common Core but a publishing company’s effort to implement Common Core.

I expect we will see many publishers using their resources to make school as “hard” as possible so that five year old children are on track for college and careers.

Categories Common Core, Curriculum

An Inside Look at the Opt-Out Movement

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
12

Robert Kolker has written an excellent analysis of the anti-testing movement. The central figures are not “white suburban moms,” but a family from the Dominican Republic. Young Oscar, who loved school, loses interest when his favorite subjects and activities are replaced by test prep. The larger the test looms, the less Oscar cares about school.

Into this vivid story, Kolker weaves an overview of the opt out movement. For years, it was small but noisy. With the advent of Common Core testing, which failed 70% of students in New York State, the movement is flourishing. The more disgusted the students and parents are, the more their education is turned into endless testing, the more the movement finds new converts.

Categories Common Core, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students

Missouri: Corporate Reformers Want to Put Standardized Testing for Teacher Evaluation into State Constitution

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
44

I wrote an earlier post about how the State Commissioner of Education in Missouri, Chris Nicastro, is working closely with a libertarian, free market group–funded by a billionaire hedge fund manager– to draft language for legislation to strip teachers of tenure. As a reader pointed out, it is actually worse than I wrote.

The goal is to put an initiative on the ballot to revise the state Constitution, not only to remove teachers’ right to due process, but to insert test-based accountability into the Constitution of Missouri and to make sure that teacher evaluation is not subject to collective bargaining in the future. This is horrific. It is not based on research or evidence but on ideology. It ties education in Missouri to the standardized testing industry.

Most scholars agree that test-based accountability is unstable and inaccurate. The teacher who gets a high rating one year may get a low rating the next year, because the ratings fluctuate depending on who is in the class, not teacher quality. The so-called “reformers” appear to be completely ignorant of or indifferent to the research documenting the unreliability of test-based accountability.

The reader from Missouri writes:

This is not draft legislation, but rather language for an initiative petition to change the state Constitution. The ballot language approved by the Secretary of State follows.

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:
•require teachers to be evaluated by a standards based performance evaluation system for which each local school district must receive state approval to continue receiving state and local funding;
•require teachers to be dismissed, retained, demoted, promoted and paid primarily using quantifiable student performance data as part of the evaluation system;
•require teachers to enter into contracts of three years or fewer with public school districts; and
•prohibit teachers from organizing or collectively bargaining regarding the design and implementation of the teacher evaluation system

If enough signatures are gathered this could appear on the ballot in November of 2014.

Categories Education Reform, Missouri, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Jason Stanford: What Texas Moms Can Teach Arne Duncan

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
5

Jason Stanford explains why it won’t be easy for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to “walk back” his insulting remarks about “white suburban moms.”

When defenders of the testing industry in Texas tried the same tactic, they succeeded in strengthening the backlash against high-stakes testing.

It was not just “white suburban moms” who objected to the overemphasis on testing, but moms and dads of all races, living in not only suburbs, but cities and rural areas.

They organized, they pushed back, and they beat the testing industry, which had for many years successfully gotten hundreds of millions of dollars for more and more testing, even as school budgets were cut to the bone.

Stanford concludes:

As in Texas, Sec. Duncan’s attempt to blame mothers has caused a backlash. Sec. Duncan’s half-hearted apology for his “controversial-sounding soundbites” and “clumsy phrasing” has done nothing to quell the full-throated opposition. Critics have started a petition on WhiteHouse.gov to remove Duncan as Secretary of Education, and a Facebook group called Moms Against Duncan (MAD) had more than 3,500 members.

The apology is beside the point. Parents of public school students — myself included — are mad that our education system is still based on standardized tests that are developmentally inappropriate, unable to measure classroom learning, and over-emphasized to the point of corrupting the curriculum. Moms (and dads, for that matter) will not be happy until we put developing children and not raising test scores at the center of our education policy. We’re just waiting for Sec. Duncan to realize that he isn’t as brilliant as he thinks he is.

 

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Testing, Texas

Anthony Cody: Common Core and RoboGrading

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
12

Anthony Cody wonders in this post whether the Common Core standards are designed to facilitate computer grading of student essays.

Cody includes a commentary by Alice Mercer, who describes a writing task on the Common Core test. She reaches the startling conclusion that the standards were written to accommodate computer testing, which explains the limitation on background knowledge.

She writes:

“Even if my assertion that the standards were written to accommodate testing, and more specifically machine scoring of writing are wrong, these are still lousy tasks that are very low-level and not “rigorous” or cognitively demanding.”

Cody, reflecting on Mercer’s observations, writes:

“This reveals one of our basic fears as educators and parents about the Common Core and associated tests. The project is an attempt to align and standardize instruction and assessment on an unprecedented scale. The future, according to the technocrats who have designed these systems, involves computer-based curriculum and tests, and frequent checks, via computer, on student performance. And as this report in EdWeek indicates, there is great deal of money to be made. Los Angeles Unified has already spent a billion dollars on iPads, and one of the chief justifications was to prepare for computer-based assessments such as these.”

Categories Common Core, Technology, Computers, Testing

Confessions of a Good Test-Taker

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2013 //
57

The thought has often occurred to me that current federal and state policy was created by people who got high scores on standardized test takers. Maybe they hope to create a pure meritocracy, in which only those who get high test scores rule everyone else. The problem with my theory is that the real consequences of this approach are too dumb to have been created by the smartest people. Maybe they were the ones who got high scores but were nonetheless not very smart, not at all creative, incapable of thinking outside the box, just good test-takers. And they want all the rewards to go to people just like them.

Here is another take by a Montessori teacher:

“The confession of a good test-taker: I never read an assigned book in entirety when I was in high school. It was part of my secret, quiet, rebellion against the obsession of acquiring points and the focus on testing. I remember thinking to myself that these authors, who poured their souls into creating what was now considered a classic, didn’t write their novels so they would one day be plopped into the lap of a teenager whose only focus was getting the most points on a test. However, I still got good grades because I am good at taking tests.

“I learned early on that tests, especially standardized tests, are a game of strategy. When I took these tests, I didn’t do them from the point-of-view of the test-taker but that of the test-maker. My grades and scores were not a reflection of what I knew or how hard I worked but of how well I could play the game of collecting points. I gained enough points to do well at a large suburban school district, be accepted into a good university, and receive a degree.

“I think that today’s reformers loved collecting points and valued it as students. Maybe it helped them understand their world and gave them a sense of order and meaning. The way I perceive my world and what I value is very different; for me, acquiring knowledge and understanding is very personal and private because it becomes part of who I am.

“So here is yet another message to all of the people in power who are “reforming” our nation’s schools; we do not all think like you or value what you do and that is how it should be. Along with the power that you possess, you also have the responsibility to have empathy, humility, understanding, and respect in order to be good leaders.”

Categories Testing
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