Archives for the year of: 2013
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Cleveland Charter Officials Accused of Stealing $1.8 Million

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2013 //
69

The scandals at charter schools keep happening, and no one seems to care.

Here is the latest: officials at a Cleveland charter accused of stealing $1.8 million.

It happens because charters are deregulated and unsupervised. Deregulation invites plunder and fraud.

Isn’t that what we learned when Wall Street nearly collapsed the economy in 2008? Isn’t that what we learned from the Madoff scandal?

Charter defenders will send an article about a principal who pocketed $2,000 in loose change.

But I defy them to find an example of a public school where the people in charge wrote themselves checks for nearly $2 million.

Categories Charter Schools, Ohio

As Reforms Fail, Will Duncan Make Mid-course Correction?

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2013 //
18

Norm Scott, retired New York City teacher and inveterate blogger, notes the mid-course corrections of some of the corporate reform cheerleaders. He is especially impressed by John Merrow’s change of views about Rhee. He wonders whether Duncan too will change course, though he doubts that he can do so.

Scott, by the way, refers to the present misguided education movement not as corporate reform but as education deform. Scott was the film-maker for the film made by teachers and parents called “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Rhee, Michelle

Help the Providence Student Union Organize Other Youth Activists

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2013 //
1

I am a huge fan of the Providence Student Union.

I just donated to them to help them continue their movement and to encourage students in other cities and states to organize against high-stakes testing. Please consider going to their web page and supporting them.

I love their energy, their idealism, their wit, and their creativity.

I share their belief that education should be engaging, exciting, and a source of inspiration and joy.

They have energetically protested the soul-deadening emphasis on high-stakes testing in Rhode Island. And they have expressed their own vision for real education.

Best of all, they have mastered the art of political theater to publicize their work.

First, they held a zombie protest in front of the Rhode Island Department of Education building, protesting the state’s dead zombie policies.

Then, they persuaded accomplished professionals to take a test made up of released items from the NECAP test, which the state has inappropriately made a graduation requirement.

Just days ago, they delivered their First Annual State of the Student Address, describing their vision for real education. They timed it so that it was one hour before the State Commissioner Deborah Gist’s annual state of education address to the Legislature. Gist, you may recall, won national acclaim for threatening to fire every employee of Central Falls High School due to its low test scores.

Because of the PSU’s political theater, the Boston Globe came out against the use (mis-use) of NECAP as a graduation requirement.

The Providence Student Union represents the best of American youth. They are independent, creative, active, fearless. They are what we hope for our nation in the future. Help them thrive.

Categories Students

We Cannot “Measure What We Treasure”

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2013 //
37

On several occasions, I have heard high-level education officials defend standardized testing with the phrase “we measure what we treasure.”

I heard it first from an Assistant Secretary of Education who worked for Arne Duncan. Just recently, Texas State Commissioner of Education Michael Williams said it. Williams, it should be noted, is not an educator; before Governor Perry named him to his post, he was in charge of regulating the very lightly regulated energy industry in Texas.

But is it true that we measure what we treasure?

No. Absolutely no.

What do most people treasure? Family. Friends. Home. Pets.

How do you measure your love for your spouse or your children? Do you give your children standardized tests to measure their value as human beings? Do you give them a score? Do you do that to your friends?

Do you love art? Travel?

I suspect that our society’s current obsession with test scores represents the (momentary) ascendancy of people who got high test scores and think that entitles them to rank and privilege. We can never measure what we treasure.

Anyone who uses that phrase “we measure what we treasure” should immediately agree to take the high school graduation test in his state and publish his scores.

Categories Testing

Top 10 Reasons to Rally for Public Education in Albany, New York, on June 8

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2013 //
10

Testing in New York has turned into the Monster that Ate the Children.

Teachers plan to rally at the state capitol in Albany on June 8 to support public education and protest the deluge of high-stakes testing.

This was written by the leader of the teachers’ union in the Averill Park school district in upstate New York.

TOP TEN reasons to March on Albany in the Rally for Public Education:

10. You have realized public education is being hi-jacked by for profit organizations.

9. You are tired of reading about how ineffective you are at your own profession by people who know nothing about education.

8. You believe high stakes testing is out of control in NY.

7. You believe you have not had enough time to learn the Common Core yourself, let alone have your students tested on it!

6. You believe your students’ personal information, including their state assessment results and their IEPs and other personal data should be kept confidential.

5. You believe your effectiveness rating should be kept confidential, and don’t want a link on the district web page to this information or directions given to get this information.

4. You believe that NYS should report to the public the amount of tax payer money spent on developing, administering, grading and reviewing state assessments.

3. The word PEARSON makes your skin crawl.

2. You work in Averill Park (Insert your own school district.)and have lost about a quarter of your faculty due to unfair state budget cuts!

AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON….

1. You are a caring professional who wants the BEST public education for your own students, children, and grandchildren and you know this isn’t it!

Michelle Smead

Averill Park Teachers’ Association

Categories Education Reform, New York

Di Carlo: Assessing Ourselves to Death

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2013 //
49

This is Matt Di Carlo’s best post ever.

Matt is a brilliant and careful social scientist who has more faith in quantification than I do.

But I read what he writes because I almost always learn something.

In this post, he explains that tests are not a cause of success in life, they are a signal.

Our policymakers think that if they can just get scores higher and higher, everyone will succeed, but this has led them to overdose on testing. They assume that more tests cause higher scores, and that higher scores will produce many other good results. As a result, they are investing scarce public resources in testing, instead of using the tests as a measure and a signal.

 

Categories Testing

Why Invest in Early Childhood Education?

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2013 //
25

Here is a stunning infographic that demonstrates the value of early childhood education.

It appears on Julian Vasquez Heilig’s website called “Cloaking Inequity.”

We know how busy our elected officials are. They don’t have time to read research papers. Just show them this simple yet profound illustration of the benefits of early childhood education.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K

Teachers, Staff in UNO Charters Vote to Unionize

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2013 //
20

From an AFT press release:

CHICAGO—Teachers and staff in the one of city’s largest charter school networks overwhelmingly have chosen the Chicago Alliance of Charter School Teachers and Staff (Chicago ACTS), an affiliate of the 1.5 million-member American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, as their bargaining agent.

The decision involves more than 400 teachers and staff in 13 schools operated by the United Neighborhood Organization. In March, UNO and the AFT reached a neutrality agreement under which UNO agreed not to take a position on whether its teachers and staff organized. Some 87 percent of the 415 workers who voted approved Chicago ACTS as their bargaining agent.

The decision by UNO employees to join Chicago ACTS means that more than 20 percent of Chicago’s charter school teachers and staff are now unionized—the highest union density where charter school employees do not automatically have a union.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Unions

Principal: “I Quit”

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2013 //
13

The Bush-Obama education policies have led to a destructive overemphasis on testing. The very nature of schooling is changed for the worse when higher scores become the goal of education. As we lose sight of the true purpose of education, we lose many fine educators who will not abandon their principals. Here is one whom we have lost due to misguided federal policy.

Categories Principals, Testing

Trigger-Happy Florida Senators

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2013 //
4

Just hours after the defeat of parent trigger legislation, some of its advocates moved key portions into another bill.

In this case, this provision was salvaged:

“A bill focused on charter schools (HB 7009) was amended Tuesday afternoon. It now requires that children in classes taught by teachers with an “unsatisfactory” or “needs improvement” ratings during the current school year could not be taught by similar teachers in the same subject next year.”

Sounds reasonable except that the state’s evaluation system is ineffective.

Never say die, especially if there is a chance at harassing public school teachers.

More of the “punish don’t support” theory.

Categories Florida, Parent trigger, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching
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