Archives for the year of: 2013
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Bruce Baker Challenges the Logic of Privatization

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2013 //
6

Bruce Baker of Rutgers is one of the wisest and sharpest critics of the privatization movement (aka “reform”).

In this post, he analyzes two favorite terms of the privatizers: “relinquishment,” which means “give up,” abandon your antique belief in public education, turn your school over to private management and get over it. The other is “sector agnosticism,” which means pretty much the same thing as relinquishment.

You have to wonder where these guys get this jargon. Do they make it up all by themselves? Or do they hire Republican pollster-linguist Frank Luntz to help them figure out words and terms that will make them sound high-minded, thoughtful, and important as they scheme to dismantle and hand off the public schools?

Then there is that term that Baker refers to here: The privatizers want “not a great school system,” but “a system of great schools.”

I first heard Joel Klein use that term about a decade ago, and I didn’t fully understand what he meant by it.

Now I understand.

It means that the privatizers have no idea how to improve low-performing schools, so they close them. Then they hope that some entrepreneur will step up and offer to take some of the students and start over. The others, well, they are out of luck; they will be bounced around from school to school. If the new school doesn’t work out, then the privatizers close that too.

At some distant point in the future (or never), the city will have only “great” schools because all the “bad” schools were closed. But that point never arrives, as we have learned in New York City. Instead, the Mayor just keeps closing schools every year, the schools that enroll the kids that no one wants.

The bottom line: the privatizers will keep trying to persuade you to give up (relinquish) as they hand off the students, the buildings, and the funding to private operators. The private operators won’t do any better, if they take the same students, but that doesn’t matter. The victory (for them) comes as a result of the dissolution of public education. Once gone, can it be reassembled? The loss (for us) comes as a result of the destruction of one of our great institutions of democracy.

Categories Education Reform

Schneider: Arizona, the Land of Conflicts of Interest

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2013 //
11

Mercedes Schneider takes a close look at Arizona, known as the Wild West of charters.

What she finds is a state where the ethics laws are even laxer than those of her home state of Louisiana.

The charter sector in Arizona is unregulated, unsupervised, and has a firm lock on the taxpayers’ dollars.

Money rules.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

G.F. Brandenburg on the Rhee “Smoking Memo”

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2013 //
22

G.F. Brandenburg has covered the reign of Rhee for years.

Here he explains the key insights in the memo leaked to John Merrow.

His summary:

“(1) Rhee gave lots of money to adults who cheated

(2) She put impossible pressure on principals to cheat; they, in turn, put that pressure on their teachers

(3) The achievement gap between white and black students, and between poor kids and wealthier kids, increased on Rhee’s and Henderson’s watches; any increases in NAEP scores are continuations of trends that began under her predecessors; and DCPS students’s scores are still at the bottom of the nation

(4) Rhee, Henderson, Kamras, and IG Willoughby have steadfastly refused to investigate the cheating seriously and to do the sort of analysis that actually shows malfeasance

(5) Turnover among administrators and teachers in DCPS has turned a revolving door into a whirlwind

(6) The idealistic principal who followed Wayne Ryan at Noyes, and who was originally a great admirer of Rhee, found a lot of evidence of cheating there, but her whistleblower suit was dismissed, and she now runs a cupcake store

(7) Despite noises to the contrary by Rhee, the number of highly-paid central-office administrators has jumped; DCPS has the highest administrator-to-student ratio anywhere in the region

(8) Funds that should have been used to help students who were behind were, instead, used to pay illegitimate bonuses to dishonest adults.”

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Testing

Breaking News: John Merrow Finds Mystery Memo in Rhee Scandal

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2013 //
52

Someone in the District of Columbia education department leaked a memo to John Merrow about the cheating scandal. The memo warned Chancellor Michelle Rhee about the likelihood of widespread cheating in the DC Public schools. Rhee did not act on it. She should have. The allegations were not investigated. They were brushed aside.

This is a very important post.

It is a bombshell.

Merrow calls the post “Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error.” It is funny that he borrowed the title of my new book, which will be published September 3. The “Reign of Error” applies not only to Rhee but to No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the whole lot of “reforms” that are in reality a soul-crushing, data-driven approach to education. The so-called reform movement is bad for students, bad for teachers, bad for principals, and ruinous to education.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Testing

Florida: The “Parent Trigger” Scam

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2013 //
13

In this article columnist Daniel Shoer Roth explains how parents at the Desert Trails school in Adelanto, California, were hoodwinked into turning their public school over to a charter operator.

Under the Florida proposal, charters can set their own rules for eligibility, and many students will be excluded from the school that once was their neighborhood school.

Roth writes:

“Some local students will not meet the new strict admission rules. This includes students with learning disabilities and those in ESOL classes, as well as many racial and ethnic minority children. A number of surveys have demonstrated that there is a higher incidence of segregation in charters than in traditional schools. The excluded students will carry to their next school the same unsolved problems that contributed to the failure of the converted school, often related to poverty and a range of health and safety challenges.”

“The chain reaction from these student migrations subjects yet another school to low ranking and can put it on the conversion chopping block, too. It’s a vicious cycle.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/10/v-fullstory/3336512/the-dark-side-of-parent-trigger.html#storylink=cpy

Categories California, Florida, Parent trigger

Breaking News: Providence Students Win Major Victory!

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2013 //
10

Congratulations to the Providence Student Union, which exposed the inadequacy of the NECAP (New England Common Assessment Program) as a high school graduation test. As a result of their activism, the Boston Globe today opposed the use of NECAP for that purpose.

Instead of just protesting or writing letters to the editor or to elected officials, the PSU engaged in political theater. They invited 60 accomplished professionals to “take the test,” a test made up of released math items. And of that group, 60 percent would not have received a high school diploma.

Way to go, Providence students!

 

Dear Linda,

This just in: The Boston Globe published an Editorial  this morning calling on Rhode Island’s Department of Education to reconsider using the NECAP as a graduation requirement!
You’ve got to read this.

EDITORIAL

Flunking the test

  APRIL 11, 2013

STARTING THIS spring, Rhode Island high school seniors will have to pass the New England Common Assessment Program to get their diploma. The new requirement is the latest effort by the Rhode Island Department of Education to improve low-performing high schools. But does high-stakes testing ensure the state’s students are properly prepared to succeed in a 21st century workforce? A group of local high school students is raising the question.

  

The Providence Student Union, a student-led advocacy group, last month organized an event at which 50 prominent Rhode Islanders took a shortened version of the math NECAP. Sixty percent of the test-takers – among them elected officials, attorneys, scientists, engineers, reporters, college professors, and directors of leading nonprofits – failed to score at least “partially proficient,” the standard education officials have set for graduation. Under the new rules, many of those 50 successful individuals would not have been allowed to graduate.

  

The good news is Rhode Island’s 11th-graders do score slightly better than the adults. In October 2012, 40 percent failed to achieve “partially proficient” for math, and 8 percent fell short in reading. And those who didn’t pass will have another chance to take the test next fall.

  

The fundamental problem, though, is that the test wasn’t originally designed to be a graduation requirement and isn’t suited for that purpose. Schools need more high standards and accountability, and the NECAP was designed not to evaluate individual students’ proficiency, but to rank the quality of the schools they attend. Unlike tests meant primarily for student assessment, such as the MCAS in Massachusetts, the NECAP expects a certain portion of test-takers to fail. Research suggests that percentage will likely come from low-income, working-class neighborhoods – the students who are least likely to return for a fifth year of high school, even if skipping it means going without a diploma.

  

Plus, as the adults’ mock exam suggests, the NECAP may not even be testing the right skills. The Rhode Island Department of Education should reconsider its graduation requirement – and not only to salve the embarrassment of so many high-salaried professionals.

Wow — strong words and strong points from The Boston Globe!
More and more community leaders, testing experts, and publications are beginning to join students in questioning this misguided policy. But if we’re going to change this diploma system, we need you to make your voice heard.
Will you take one minute to call Governor Chafee’s office at 401-222-2080 and tell him to repeal the NECAP graduation requirement?
 
Thanks. We can’t do this without you.
Sincerely,
Aaron
P.S. When you’re done calling the Governor, please take a few more seconds to leave a message for Chairwoman Mancuso at the Board of Education, 401-456-6002!
Categories Testing

Do Bobby Jindal and John White Hate The Poor and Disabled?

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2013 //
23

I read this post by Louisiana’s Crazy Crawfish with a sense of disbelief.

I could not believe that any human being would expend so much effort to crush the poorest and neediest citizens of his state.

Can you believe that John White is going to apply value-added assessments to determine the funding for students with disabilities? If they don’t get higher test scores every year, they lose funding. He will do the sameto gifted students.

Is this mean or mad?

Read Jindal’s spending cuts. Unbelievable. For example, he cut the budget for higher education by more than half. He proposed a tax plan to raise taxes on the poor (by raising the sales tax) while eliminating taxes on the rich (by eliminating the personal income tax and the corporate income tax). He closed most of the state’s mental hospitals and all of the charity hospitals.

Louisiana is rapidly retreating to the industrial era, where there were no protections for workers, no safety net for the needy. It may be 2013 in America, but it’s 1913 in Louisiana and the clock keeps moving backward.

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Special Education

Ladd to NC Legislature: Do Not Privatize Public Education

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2013 //
7

This article by Helen Ladd of Duke University is absolutely “must” reading.

Ladd is a major economist of education.

The same article might be written for many states.

North Carolina was once renowned for its commitment to public education.

But now the legislature is starving the funding for public education: “Per-pupil spending on K-12 education in North Carolina is now 46th in the country, teacher salaries are 48th and the General Assembly has been cutting funding for our university and community college systems, once the envy of other states.”

Worse, the legislature seems determined to create a dual school system, one public, the other run by privately managed charters, vouchers, and for-profit vendors.

Here is the utterly predictable result:

“Proponents of this private vision push for reduced spending on traditional public schools, unfettered expansion of charter schools, transfer of school management to private firms that view education as a business opportunity, school vouchers that shift public funds to private schools and scholarships for private school tuitions financed by tax breaks to corporations and wealthy individuals.

“This private vision espoused by Republican leaders diverts attention from the public purposes of schooling and reduces accountability for the use of public funds. Perhaps most important, this anti-public education vision leaves little room for principles of social justice and the commitment to equal educational opportunity for all students.

“When education becomes primarily a private affair, benefits flow disproportionately to those with the most means to work the system to their advantage. The losers are typically disadvantaged children who end up in under-resourced traditional public schools with large concentrations of low-performing and challenging-to-educate students. The role of education as an engine of opportunity for every North Carolina child is downplayed in favor of greater benefits for those already advantaged.”

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/04/10/2816261/the-perils-of-a-private-vision.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, North Carolina, Vouchers

Comment by a Charter Teacher in Ohio

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2013 //
8

This arrived in response to the post about the poor results of charters in Ohio:

“My first teaching job out of university was a charter high school in Toledo. The director’s husband was convicted of stealing public funds and sent to prison. The politically connected company that held the charter cut off the faculty’s health insurance without telling us midway through the year and didn’t plan on paying us once summer hit. The charter company closed the school immediately after the last day. If those who run charters are willing to steal and lie and cheat teachers out of their salaries, they’ll be willing to cheat on graduation rates and in-house test scores too.

“One more note: The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools just sold my current charter school a “data collection system” that we’ve spent every single PD day working with, and in conjunction with the Ohio Dept. of Education, both enthusiastically push vendor assessment on us as the best path. If I could find a public school position, I’d leave and never enter a charter again. 90% of the charters I’ve worked with or subbed at in Ohio are an affront to our system of education.”

Categories Charter Schools, Ohio

Comment by a Charter School Teacher

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2013 //
15

In a post today, a comment by a charter school teacher explains the high turnover in charter schools.

“Sadly, JUST like the teachers in KIPP, I got a job in a charter school WELL before realizing what this whole “school reform” movement was all about… didn’t know the difference between charter/public/private… and it’s only been over the course of several years, total exhaustion, and in the last few months of being enlightened about the “school reform” movement that I now understand what type of system I’m working in. Although I work with some wonderful people, I’ve seen the toxic result of the reform movement creeping in … always expecting more, doing more, giving more… . If you find ANY work/life balance, you “appear” lazy and you earn a reputation for “not doing your job” (because some of the expectations are through the roof. I’m sticking it out this year, but looking for either a public school position in a high SES neighborhood (where parents work with their kids and it doesn’t fall all on the teacher)… or a parochial school (where if I have to push kids so hard, at least I can pray with them too!) “

Categories Charter Schools, KIPP Charter Schools, Teachers and Teaching
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