A charter chain that has run into legal problems in Philadelphia
and Chicago plans to open
three schools in North
Carolina. Lindsay Wagner of the NC Policy Watch writes in the
“Progrssive Pulse”: “The NC Department of Public Instruction
received 171 letters of intent last week from charter school
operators keen on opening up new schools in time for fall of 2015 —
the highest ever received since lawmakers lifted the 100-school cap
in 2011. “ASPIRA is a national advocacy organization dedicated to
developing the educational and leadership capacity of Hispanic
youth. ASPIRA also supports the charter school movement in
districts where significant numbers of Latino students are failing.
“In Chicago, ASPIRA has run into allegations of financial
corruption and misconduct at its charter schools. Last year, the
CEO of ASPIRA Illinois, Jose Rodriguez, was fired by the charter
operator’s board. “And in troubled Philadelphia, ASPIRA Inc. of
Pennsylvania owes more than $3 million to four charter schools it
runs, according to the Philadelphia City Paper. That money,
according to school district officials, is taxpayer funds intended
to fulfill the purposes of the charters. The organization has also
spent $17,000 to a union-busting law firm to deal with a “teacher
unionization issue,” according to the City Paper.” – See more at:
http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/09/13/troubled-charter-operator-aspira-intends-to-open-three-charter-schools-in-nc/#sthash.ccu4IQJ5.O3QpNDSH.dpuf
Red Queen in LA writes a snappy and irreverent blog.
This post is her best ever, or at least the best I have read.
In it, she decimates the decision by Los Angeles school officials to spend $500 million on iPads–using money from bonds that will be paid off in 25 years–and another $500 million to upgrade the schools for Internet connectivity, plus $38 million for keyboards, plus untold millions for professional development and other unforeseen needs, at a time when teachers are laid off, class sizes are huge, facilities are crumbling, and programs are cut.
This was not a wise decision for many reasons, she argues. For one thing, “tablets” are no substitute for computers:
We all know this about tablet “computers”: they are not real “working” machines. When I proposed buying a tablet for my student the dude behind the counter told me: “Don’t do it. You’ll have to buy a keyboard, it has way less memory and no ports, a smaller screen and slower speed: it’s just not what a serious student needs. By the time you’re done adding on, you’ll have a machine almost as expensive as a real computer with far less functionality”.
Any parent will have received that advice from just about any computer salesman. And while there are a few serious students out there who no doubt feel otherwise, I think it’s a fairly safe bet that the word on the street is: tablets are no substitute for a computer; students need computers.
But she is even more outraged that the district leaders pulled a bait and switch, first asking voters for permission to sell 25-year bonds to repair the schools, then using that money to buy tablets with a short lifespan. She writes:
“A fool and his money are soon parted”; common sense dictates a little skepticism be employed in warding off financial chicanery. There are so many get-rich – excuse me, get-“smart”-quick schemes floating about EdReform/Common Core Land that their sheer volume belies legitimacy.
No one purchases a car with a 30-year loan. Long-term financial “instruments” are intended for a more “durable” purchase like, say, a house. Or a school building. If you purchased your Honda Civic with a house mortgage, you would find yourself paying for that auto to the tune of several times its original worth, a dozen years or longer beyond when it was melted into candlesticks. How does it make sense that LAUSD stakeholders should be purchasing ephemeral electronic equipment with long-term constructionbonds? Where’s the common sense in hoodwinking tax-payers with such a scheme that doesn’t even seem legal? When will the average voter ever agree again to finance any child’s public educational needs when there are only foxes in charge of the hen house?
And more:
Maybe this is all more complicated than it seems. But since it was we taxpayers who invoked the common sense solution of approving bond money to maintain school facilities sufficiently, we deserve transparency regardingdecisions that reverse course on how this money is spent. And we deserve legal redress should the caretakers of our money not spend it according to our wishes.
Our children need teachers — more teachers — who can conduct school within classrooms of a manageable, teachable size. Our children need a village-worth of support staff to enable and assist those teachers to engage their learners. Our children need to attend school in facilities that are clean, commodious, safe and stimulating. Diverting funds from rank-bottom pedagogical necessities in favor of frivolous electronics in service of opaque commercial ends, just makes no Common Sense.
Our frequent commenter KrazyTA was not pleased when Arne Duncan told California it could not stop state testing while introducing Common Core testing.
This was his observation:
This latest statement by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan needs to be viewed in context.
If you read his speech to the April 2013 American Education Research Association he is: for standardized testing and against it; it is useful and not useful and somewhat useful; education is all about testing and not all about testing and somewhat about testing; tests measure and mismeasure and somewhat measure learning and teaching; and to get to the point before his distinguished audience, schools and test experts need to get their testing act together. The clincher: “Some schools have an almost obsessive culture around testing, and that hurts their most vulnerable learners and narrows the curriculum. It’s heartbreaking to hear a child identify himself as “below basic” or “I’m a one out of four.””
Link: http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation
What is one to make of all this ‘word salad’ that wanders all over the place and seeks to placate and deflect? Teresa Watanabe let the cat out of the bag in the LATIMES of 8-29-13, “State academic performance slips, but L.A. Unified improves.” Her first paragraph: “California public schools lost ground this year in overall academic performance for the first time in a decade, but more than half met state goals for achievement on reading and math standardized tests.”
So just how important are standardized tests in the overall scheme of things?
“The achievement ratings, called the Academic Performance Index, are based on a 1,000-point scale compiled from standardized test scores. They are widely viewed as a comprehensive marker of school quality, affecting property values and triggering penalties, among other effects.”
Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-api-scores-20130829,0,447246.story
In other words, the quality of schools and student achievement and teacher effectiveness = scores on high-stakes standardized tests.
Am I exaggerating? Taking him out of context? Obviously not, for even when for good reasons—within the very strictures imposed by high-stakes standardized testing!—state officials take obvious action to forego for a short time one round of the Holy Edumetrics of $tudent $ucce$$ in order to prepare for another, the Secretary of Education suddenly grows a backbone and speaks his mind plain and simple:
“If California moves forward with a plan that fails to assess all its students, as required by federal law,” Duncan said in a statement released Monday night, “the Department will be forced to take action, which could include withholding funds from the state.”
Link: [the second above in Diane’s posting]
One of the great functions of this blog: to make it possible to put such folks on the spot with their own public words and actions!
Duane Swacker: I think this is a rare instance of you and I parting company on measuring qualities by quantities. I think that blind acceptance of the all-importance of the scores of high-stakes standardized testing can give us an excellent measure of the LACK of: creativity, critical thinking, curiosity, civic-mindedness, compassion, empathy, courage, imagination, and humility [not to mention others]. [taken from Gerald Bracey, EDUCATION HELL, 2009, p. 4].
Just look at the current Secretary of Education. He passed the high-stakes standardized test of “LACK of” with flying colors! He scored a perfect 100 out of 100!
🙂
Lastly, on the misuse and overuse of standardized testing in general, from THE MISMEASURE OF EDUCATION (2013) by Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn, p. 147:
“When the right thing can only be measured poorly, it tends to cause the wrong thing to be measured, only because it can be measured well. And it is often much worse to have a good measurement of the wrong thing—especially when, as is so often the case, the wrong thing will in fact be used as an indicator of the right thing—than to have poor measurements of the right things. —John Tukey mathematician Bell Labs and Princeton University”
This letter was posted as a comment: “I just sent the
following post to the White House: Dear David Simas, I have
supported President Obama and the Democratic Party for some time.
However, I’m totally fed up and dismayed by Arne Duncan and the US
Department of Education’s assault on Public Education in America.
There are a lot of subjects I don’t have much in-depth knowledge
about. However, I have been a science teacher for the past 27 years
and I believe that I do know a little about educating children. I
want to tell you that the Race To The Top and it’s predecessor, No
Child Left Behind along with the excessive emphasis on Standardized
Testing are KILLING PUBLIC EDUCATION. “There are a lot of
experienced, knowledgeable, and well educated, respected educators
who are screaming at you to please stop this nutty policy which
includes Pay for Performance and the Common Core Curriculum. It is
certainly true that public education in America can be improved,
but not with the solutions that are now being implemented (without
documentation that they will actually work). “These thoughtless
policies are destroying communities, families, children and
teacher’s lives–all in the name of “improving education”. I now
believe that RTTT, NCLB, and the associated standardized testing
that now drives instruction throughout the country is doing greater
harm to our nation that George Bush’s War in Iraq. In its simplest
terms, children cannot be effectively educated by a top down,
force-fed curriculum. They hate it, get bored, and don’t see the
relevance of this test driven education to their lives. “Teachers
are not given the freedom to teach to the kids where they are and
build on their knowledge base. Curriculum content is dictated from
on high. This is the same concept that Joseph Stalin had in Russia
with his 5-year central economic plans. Didn’t work then, won’t
work now. “Educating children is a complex undertaking. It requires
two way, personal interaction between a teacher and student. If
class sizes are too large, that just can’t happen. If a teacher
cannot get his/her students interested and excited about learning,
educating the child is not going to be effective. There are 4 basic
ingredients to a good education: 1) Well trained and dedicated
teachers, 2) small class sizes, 3) adequate resources and a decent
environment to teach in, and 4) giving the teachers freedom to
teach. “Some will argue that this will just cost too much money and
that there are cheaper ways to educate kids. But it just ain’t so.
“Education is not about the money, it’s about the kids. It’s not
about international competition on standardized tests. Those tests
actually measure the wrong things anyway and cost waaaay too much
money. Public education is perhaps the most important bedrock
pillar that makes our nation great. Policies now being put in
place, including RTTT and Common Core Curriculum are destroying it.
Our children and our nation deserve better from you. I will no
longer support this President or the Democratic Party if they
continue on this self destructive path. “Al Tate
altate1122@gmail.com”
A reader posted this comment in response to the article in the New York Times that was a profile of me:
I wrote to the Times public editor. The “portrait” twice quotes unnamed “critics”, a practice I believe is forbidden under NYT editorial rules. The language used is loaded. Her words on her blog are “barbed” and convey “righteous anger”. She displays a “quick temper” and “skewers” individuals. The evidence for that claim? Her new book “devotes a chapter to Michelle A. Rhee”. What does the chapter have to say? We aren’t told. Other “individuals” she allegedly skewers are education politicians in public office. We aren’t told what she had to say about them. Political office-holders have to endure criticism all the time. Is it common practice for the NYT to use such loaded terminology about political disagreements? Of course not. And of course, the darlings of NYT education reform cult don’t “skewer” their opponents ‘ they make reasonable arguments. But woe if you disagree with them, you are a mean-spirited loudmouth.
Herb Bassett is a teacher in Louisiana. He teaches music, but like Jersey Jazzman, has the ability to understand statistics and how they work in real classrooms.
This is a letter that he wrote about Louisiana’s new teacher evaluation system, which is as incoherent as teacher evaluation systems in other states:
Susan Ohanian addressed
this letter to the top officials of the state of Vermont.
She asks straightforward questions about the claims made for Common
Core: what is the evidence? Who wrote them? Where is TE evidence
that Vermont schools were doing a poor job? What will it cost to
implement the Common Core? What makes the new assessments better
than current ones? Bottom line: where is the evidence? Or, look
before you leap.
When California officials decided to skip its regular state tests while making the transition to the new Common Core tests, Secretary Arne Duncan warned them that he wouldn’t permit it.
California’s leaders ignored Duncan’s warnings and threats. The state legislature passed the legislation to suspend the state tests.
What a paradox! No one has pushed harder for states to adopt the Common Core (untested) standards than Duncan, yet here he was threatening to punish a state that was doing what he supposedly wanted.
Lewis Freedberg of Edsource in California commented:
“Veteran education watchers in California could not recall a presidential cabinet officer ever attempting to block state legislation and certainly not in the heavy handed way U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan attempted to do on Monday night.”
Federalism seems to be an unknown concept to Duncan.
..
Butch Cassidy asked the
Sundance Kid about their pursuers, “Who ARE those guys?”
We could well ask the same about the posse now hoping to
standardize the nation’s children and teachers. What qualifies
Governor Cuomo, Chancellor King, and those others who are
cheerleaders for the Common Core (e.g., Joel Klein, Jeb Bush,
Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) to know
what children in the early and middle grades need to know to be
ready for college and careers?
This teacher writes: “As a 6-8 math
teacher in NYS, what I would like to see or find commentary on is
this question, “What qualifications do the Governor, Mayor,
Commissioner King, and others have to pinpoint precise benchmarks
toward ‘college and career ready’ in 3rd – 8th graders? I just
don’t believe the glide path toward readiness is accurate. Each
student’s path may be as varied and diverse as their own
backgrounds and motivations.”
Nearly half the superintendents in the state of Tennessee took the unusual step of signing a letter in opposition to State Commissioner Kevin Huffman. They were clearly frustrated by Huffman’s arrogant style of leadership. Huffman was chosen to be state commissioner even though he has only three years of experience as a teacher in Teach for America and no administrative experience. When he was hired, he was in charge of communications for TFA.
Superintendents felt that Huffman was rushing his changes without bothering to consult them. Teachers, they said, felt “voiceless and powerless.” Governor Haslam defended Huffman.
The letter says Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman’s office “has no interest in a dialogue” with local school leaders, and adds that superintendents’ efforts to improve their schools are being thwarted by low teacher morale because of policy changes on the state level.
“It has become obvious to the signees that our efforts to acquire a voice within this administration is futile,” according to the petition. The author of the letter said “his concerns were sparked when Huffman and the Haslam administration last decided to withhold $3.4 million in state education funding from Nashville over its school board’s refusal to authorize a charter school.”
To say the least, it is unusual for local superintendents to speak out against the state commissioner. Huffman’s autocratic, dictatorial decision-making is causing unrest among not only superintendents and teachers, but parents as well, who created a Facebook page calling for Huffman’s ouster.
If the rebellion grows, Huffman may make Haslam a one-term governor.
