Archives for the year of: 2013

Mercedes Schneider, who teaches in a public high school in Louisiana and holds a Ph.D. in research methods, wrote a post about the transaction in which Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify bought the rights to Core Knowledge ELA for 20 years.

She wrote:

A quick summary: A 2012 American Educator article notes that CK materials are free for teachers both in New York and across the nation to download. The CK website has some (but not all) CK ELA free materials, but only to read, and these have been recently “updated” (according to the CK site record) but are amazingly outdated. So, for usable, truly updated CK ELA K3 materials, one can go to the CK website, but one is redirected to Murdoch’s Amplify, where one must purchase these now-certainly-not-free CK ELA K3 materials.

When she went to the Amplify website, “The cheapest item by far is $650 for a CK ELA kit to serve 25 children. That’s $26 per student– just a few dollars shy of the cost per student for a Jeb-Bush-promoted PARCC assessment.”

“As a teacher, I realize the importance of schools’ purchasing teaching materials that are reproducible. Most schools do not have the funds for substantial annual curricular purchases for all subjects. And yet, the Amplify CK ELA materials are not reproducible, which means that a school would have to pay some serious money each year in order to use materials that are deceptively publicized as “free.”

E.D. (Don) Hirsch, Jr., has never profited from the Core Knowledge materials or program. He has placed every dollar from the royalties of his books into the Core Knowledge Foundation, which exists to disseminate his ideas about the importance of content. Let me repeat: Hirsch has not profited from the selling of any CK materials.

I asked Hirsch to respond to Mercedes Schneider’s blog post above. This is his response:

Dear Mercedes Schneider:

I noticed from the latest update of your blog that you have found the site where you can download all the latest files and materials from Core Knowledge Language Arts pre-K-3, — available to all under a creative commons license, which means that anyone can print, amend or use in any other way for their school or personal use, so long as they don’t try to sell it. If you were a first grade teacher you could print up copies for yourself and any number of students, You would not be charged a penny by anyone, and Amplify would not earn a penny.

In your update you complain that this web address is hard to find. I’m not great on computers, but here’s the way I found it. I went to the Core Knowledge web site, which appears when you google “Core Knowledge.” Then I wrote “CKLA download” which brings you to a web page that has a “free download manager.”

One of the reasons we put this site up is our dissatisfaction with the New York State website. As you note it still has the old 2010 pilot version of the materials when they were first sites being worked on, and did not want them downloaded yet. The NY site also has the up to date current version . You are right that those old sites old are still live, and we have urged that they be taken down. Those old sites have all the “still under construction” warnings that discourage distribution. We continue to try to get those out of date sites taken down. But we have no control over the bureaucracy of NY state.

The only way Amplify can make money from CK Pre-K-through 3 is if a school or district doesn’t want to bother with printing, and therefore orders from them. But this also means that Amplify would need to offer the materials at an attractive price.

And there’s another twist you could not have known about. We were pretty good bargainers on behalf of the public in this deal. Amplfify helped pay for the development of grade 3. But we insisted grade 3 also got put up for free.

You need to consult with Amplify where they expect to make money from all this. They are underwriting the development costs of grades 4 and 5, and our contract with them is a regular 20 year publisher’s contract with royalties to CKF. They probably hope that having the whole pre-K 5 package, with pre-k 3 available for free will make 4 and 5 attractive. You’ll have to ask them. Our view is: we want the get these coherent, knowledge-based materials available to as many schools as possible. And for as many grades as possible for free.

Don Hirsch

Steven Cohen is superintendent of the Shoreham-Wading River
Central School district on Long Island in Néw York. At a time when
others quietly acquiesce, Superintendent Cohen spoke out in
“Newsday.”

He wrote that the schools are being swamped by a
tsunami of untested “reforms,” at the same time that their budgets
are restricted by Governor Cuomo’s 2% tax cap, which voters may
override only by winning 60% of the local vote. Costs don’t stop
rising, so many district will be forced to cut teachers and
essential services to students. He bravely calls out the state
Regents for forcing a “reform agenda” on public schools that may
yet hurt children.

For his courage, insight, and willingness to
speak against an unjust status quo, Steven Cohen is a hero of
public education.

“By Steven Cohen Shoreham-Wading River Central
School District

“Shoreham-Wading River’s greatest challenges in the
2013-14 school year are the same as those of sister districts
throughout Long Island and the rest of NYS. Will we find ways to
preserve, and where possible improve, valued educational programs
without having sufficient resources to cover increasing costs? Will
NYSED’s demands to implement untested — and very controversial —
changes in curriculum standards and assessment, called for in the
Regents Reform Agenda, help or hurt children?

“We do not control increasing pension costs. We have little control over increases in
the cost of medical benefits. We have little control over costs
associated with state mandates. We are bound by the new tax levy
limit. What we do control is the size of our teaching and support
staffs. So if we do not get help to meet increases in pension
costs, health costs and mandate costs, either we must ask our
communities to provide greater resources by a supermajority vote
(while the economy continues to sputter), or we must increase class
size, eliminate valuable programs, or do both. And while we
confront these difficult fiscal problems, we are required to train
new teachers and retrain veteran teachers to instruct students
according to new, untested, curriculum standards, and assess both
students and teachers by methods whose reliability is highly
uncertain.

“Our public schools are being told to do things that no
private schools are forced to do. Private schools have not embraced
the so-called benefits of the Regents Reform Agenda (why not?). An
entire generation of children is being put at risk of receiving a
defective — and perhaps damaging — education should these
untested “reforms” prove to be what many of us fear: false gods.
Will the Regents, many of whom send their own children to private
schools that are not hobbled by insufficient resources, or subject
to their own “reforms,” insist that all children — whether they
learn in public, private or parochial schools — be forced to
benefit from their recommended improvements? “These are the
challenges we face in 2013-14.”

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the realities behind major Common Core myths.

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

Myth: Adoption
of Common Core exams will end NCLB testing
overkill.

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

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

Myth: New assessment consortia will
replace error-prone test manufacturers.

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

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

Myth: Common
Core assessments are designed to meet the needs of all
students.

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

Myth: Common
Core “proficiency” is an objective measure of college- and
career-readiness.

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

Myth: States
have to implement the Common Core assessments; they have no other
choice.

Reality: Yes
they do. Activists should call for an indefinite moratorium on
Common Core tests to allow time for implementation of truly better
assessments.
High-quality assessment
improves teaching and learning and provides useful information
about schools. Examples of better assessments include
well-designed formative
assessments
(FairTest, 2006), performance
assessments
that are part of the curriculum (New
York Performance Standards Consortium), and portfolios
or Learning
Records
(FairTest, 2007) of actual student
work. Schools
can be evaluated
using multiple sources of evidence
that includes limited, low-stakes testing, school quality reviews,
and samples of ongoing student work (Neill, 2010). It’s time to
step back and reconsider what kinds of assessments will help our
students and teachers succeed in school and life.

References

Attachment Size
CommonCoreTestsMyths&RealitiesFactSheet.pdf 576.04 KB

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

DISSECTING
COMMON CORE ASSESSMENT MYTHS AND REALITIES;

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

MORATORIUM ON NEW EXAMS
NEEDED

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

–
– 3 0 – –

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But what does it all mean?

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope this helps.

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

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