Archives for the year of: 2013
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Sharp Decline in Number of Penn. Charters Making AYP

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2013 //
9

Last fall, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Education tried to play a statistical trick to boost the proportion of charter schools that made Adequate Yearly Progress. He wanted to treat each one as a school district. The U.S. Department of Education said that he could not judge charter schools by laxer rules than district schools.

Now the results are in, and the proportion of charters making AYP dropped from 49% to 28%.

Not a single cyber charter met AYP.

And it is clear why secretary Tomalis wanted to change rpthe reporting rules for charters.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Pennsylvania

How Billionaires Bought New Jersey’s Government

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2013 //
11

Jersey Jazzman explains a simple concept: When private organizations give money to public agencies, it should be fully disclosed. A couple of legislators actually offered legislation to assure proper oversight, but it was vetoed by Governor Chris Christie, exercising a line-item veto.

In this post, JJ shows how private money is being used to privatize public schools in district after district, without public knowledge or consent.

This stinks.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, New Jersey, Privatization

Teaching in an Age of Injustice

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2013 //
63

Not long ago, I published a post by Carol Jago, a former president of the National Council of Teachers of English, about how to teach the Common Core in English.

The discussion that followed her post was disturbing. Several teachers said that in their school or district there was a strong mandate to cut back on the teaching of literature. This is absurd, and nothing in the Common Core says there should be less literature. Indeed, if you look at reading across all subject areas, the amount of time devoted to teaching literature in the English class should be untouched.

But even more disturbing were several comments by a teacher in Arkansas named Jamie Highfill. Jamie is in her 11th year of teaching in the schools of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her students have achieved outstanding results. According to her profile on the district home page, her students consistently outperform district and state averages, and 77% scored advanced in 2011-2012.

In 2011, she was selected as Arkansas’ Outstanding Middle Level English Language Arts Teacher by the Arkansas Council of Teachers of ELA.

Read her resume. The plaudits and commendations go on and on. She is also a veteran of the U.S. Navy in the Gulf War of 1991, where she won many medals for her achievements. She is a leader.

But here is the kicker, which I learned from the comments: This remarkably accomplished teacher has been placed on an “improvement plan.”

How is this possible?

Offline, I emailed Jamie and asked her why she was put in the doghouse. She replied:

I was told that I “failed to properly administer the first quarter writing assessment.” 
 
The “assessment” spanned eight class days, and was to coincide with the lengthy paper the students were required to write under the PARCC Content Model Frameworks.  My principal told me that my students’ papers were “unscoreable,” but I was never given the papers back, nor did anyone explain to me what “unscoreable” meant.  My principal also told me that she would have the district’s ELA facilitator meet with me to explain it.  She never did, but she said she told me that “this cannot happen again.”
 
For the second quarter’s writing “assessment” (which lasted twelve days), my students papers were flagged because they were “too similar,” and “too good.”  My principal told me during the meeting where she put me on improvement status that she was afraid my students were “going to finish the year behind.”
I guess it “happened again.”
 
I have Co-Directed the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project since my own Fellowship in 2004, and have taught writing workshops to my students every year, with the result that my students consistently score among the top students in my state, but standardized testing scores aside, I TEACH my students to write.  Now I’m being told that I cannot teach them to write during joint workshop-assessments.

We live in mean times. We live with laws and policies that are meant to break the spirit of students and teachers.

We must not comply with injustice. When a teacher like Jamie Highfill is told that she needs to be on an “improvement plan,” you know that her school, her district, her state is on the wrong track.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Good News: Pushback to Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2013 //
9

Anthony Cody reflects on a year in which the voices of parents and teachers are at last being heard.

The foundations and the U.S. Department of Education and ALEC were having a field day, pushing untried and noxious policies without debate, until 2012.

Then things got interesting.

Reform hero Tony Bennett was upset by a National Board Certified Teacher in Indiana.

Cody spoke truth to power in his dialogue with the Gates Foundation.

Friends, we are finding our voice.

The public is beginning to understand.

Be strong.

Bad ideas eventually collapse, especially when they have no record of success and a long history of failure and demoralization.

Persist.

Categories ALEC, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Debunking the New Orleans “Miracle,” Part 2

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2013 //
1

In education, as we learn regularly, when a claim seems to good to be true, it is usually too good to be true. (See test scores, Noyes school, District of Columbia.)

Recently, Leslie Jacobs–a founder of the charter takeover in New Orleans–claimed that students in New Orleans had registered graduation rates higher than the state or the nation.

A Louisiana blogger who calls himself Crazy Crawfish found this claim hard to believe. As it happens, this blogger used to work in data analysis at the Louisiana Department of Education.

He tells a cautionary tale. Before you believe the latest miracle story, read this.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, New Orleans

Debunking the New Orleans “Miracle,” part 1

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2013 //
14

Today, a brave and brilliant teacher in Louisiana joins the honor roll as a champion of public education.

Mercedes Schneider is a teacher in St. Tammany Parish. She has a Ph.D. In statistics and research methods.

When she learned about the latest claim of a miracle in New Orleans, she determined to check the facts. At a time when so many teachers are frightened and intimidated, she was fearless. At a time when teachers in Louisiana are losing tenure and any job protections, she proceeded to publish her findings.

Dr. Schneider read that Leslie Jacobs, one of the original promoters of the charter movement in New Orleans, issued a press release claiming that the graduation rate in New Orleans now leads not only the state but the nation. The achievement gap has closed, she crowed.

Here is Dr. Schneider’s analysis.

Categories Accountability, Honor Roll, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, New Orleans

Danger: Privatization in Texas

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2013 //
20

The new leadership of the Texas legislature has a plan. State Senator Dan Patrick, the new chair of the Senate Education Committee, wants vouchers, more charters, and a fast track for closing down public schools. He and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst want to shorten the time that schools have to improve or close–from five years to only two. That should clear the way for lots of vouchers and charters!

Allen Weeks, who heads the Save Texas Schools coalition in the state, wrote an article about the privatization agenda.

He wrote:

“How many schools would close under their two-year axe? Based on 2010-11 ratings, 40 Texas schools — including six charters — would shut down immediately. Dallas would lose seven campuses overnight, including five high schools. Fort Worth would lose two high schools and a middle school. Lights would go out in rural schools like Albany Junior-Senior High School and Hearne High School, triggering long expensive commutes for students to neighboring districts. Another 490 schools, already with one year of academically unacceptable ratings, would likely panic. A second miss by as little as a single student, and that’s it. No school in your community, no football team, no jobs connected to the school — and no guarantee kids will better off academically. Once scores from the new widely-panned STAAR/EOC tests are factored in, the number of “failing” schools may easily skyrocket into the thousands.”

Folks, these gentlemen are not conservative. They are radicals. Why would any sane Texan want to destroy the public schools when there is a boatload of evidence that charters and vouchers don’t do any better?

Allen Weeks is organizing a big rally to support public education in Austin on February 23. I will be there.

Categories Charter Schools, Support for public schools, Texas, Vouchers

More Imagine Charters Close in Indiana

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2013 //
38

Ball State University announced that it was not renewing seven charters.

Among the seven were three Imagine charters, one in Indianapolis and two in Fort Wayne.

Imagine is one of the nation’s biggest for-profit charter operators.

Last year, Imagine lost all its charter schools in Missouri and the remainder of its schools in Georgia.
This year, Imagine was closed in St. Petersburg, Florida, and one of its schools in D.C. is in trouble.
These closures raise an interesting question about the risk involved for corporations that invest in charter schools. Imagine is backed by a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) called Entertainment Properties, which also invests in multiplexes, real estate, and shopping malls. Entertainment Properties owns MASTer Academy in Ft. Wayne and the shuttered Imagine Indiana Life Sciences Academy-East  in Indianapolis. 
Another Imagine school in Indianapolis (also owned by EPR) apparently was not up for renewal this cycle.
The CEO of Entertainment Properties Trust was boasting just last year that charter schools were a stable business opportunity, “very recession-resistant,” and he added: “there’s not a lost of risk, there’s probably risk to everything but the fact is, this has bipartisan support. It’s part of the Republican platform and Arne Duncan, secretary of education in the Obama administration, has been very high on it throughout their work in public education. So we have both political parties very solidly behind it, you have high demand, high growth, you have good performance across the board.”
Well, there is actually quite a lot of risk when the authorizers start cracking down on low performers.
The sad part is that the opening and closing of schools disrupts the lives of children and destroys communities. If it is just another investment, well, so be it. If it is the life of your child or your community, it matters quite a lot.
Need we say it again and again: Schools are not shoe stores or barber shops. They should not open and close at will. Public schools should be a permanent fixture in every community, as assured as roads and police stations. If they need help, they should get it. If they need a new principal, they should get it. That’s the job of public officials, not entrepreneurs.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

A Dream Team for Obama’s Second Term?

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2013 //
17

The American Prospect invited a number of people to propose someone for President Obama’s cabinet in his second term. The basic idea was that this would be a “dream team,” so we could choose anyone we wanted. I was asked to recommend a new Secretary of Education.

Read here and devise your own “dream team” for President Obama.

Categories Obama

How to Get a Docile Workforce

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2013 //
32

Some people have wondered what happened to the much ballyhooed film “Won’t Back Down.”

Recall that it was featured on NBC’s “Education Nation,” which is the showcase for the corporate reform movement; one of its stars was interviewed on “Ellen”; it had an elegant opening party at the New York Public Library; Michelle Rhee hosted showings at the two national political conventions.

Should have been a big hit, right? Wrong.

It opened in 2,5000 theaters and disappeared within a month. Hardly anyone wanted to see it.

But it lives! The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is showing it around the country to business organizations, to convince them that the local public schools are awful and that they must support charter schools. Think of it: Schools where children learn to obey or get kicked out.

Here are the events planned for this week in Birmingham, Alabama, where businesses are still looking for the best way to train their workforce:

 

“Greetings,

On behalf of the Birmingham Business Alliance, I would like to thank each of for agreeing to participate in our panel discussion next week in conjunction with our “Breaking the Monopoly of Mediocrity in Education” tour.  As we continue to work towards providing all students in the state of Alabama with quality education options and creating a dynamic workforce, it is important to have dialogue with those who are not only advocates for better education but, who are also actively working to bring about change.  Attached you will find the final agenda as well as talking points for each panel.  Within each panel, if there is an issue that you feel should be addressed, please don’t hesitate to send your suggestion.  A more detailed email will be sent on Tuesday of next week and will address any concerns or changes that are brought to my attention by panel participants.  Again, we are excited to have each of you participate in this interactive forum.  Please feel free to forward the invitation and registration link to any of your contacts or distribution list who would be interested in attending.

Thank you and we look forward to your participation.

L. Waymond Jackson, Jr.
Director – Education and Workforce Development
birminghambusinessalliance
THE CHAMBER FOR REGIONAL PROSPERITY
505 20th Street North, Suite 200
Birmingham, AL 35203
(205) 241-8117 (office)
(205) 324-2560 (fax)
www.birminghambusinessalliance.com<http://www.birminghambusinessalliance.com/>

On January 24th and 25th please join the Birmingham Business Alliance, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and the Institute for a Competitive Workforce as we kick-off their national tour “Breaking the Monopoly of Mediocrity in Education.”  The tour will focus on the various methods of education reform, business community involvement and engaging the community to become catalyst for change in education and workforce development.  Most recently, this tour has visited cities such as Memphis, Indiana, and Phoenix to name a few.

Day one consists of a screening of the movie “Won’t Back Down” featuring Academy Award Nominee, Viola Davis (The Help), immediately followed by a networking reception and opportunity to discuss the education reform issues addressed in the film.

Day two features a panel discussion comprised of area business and education leaders sharing ideas regarding education reform and how best to align the workforce needs of industry with K-12 , post-secondary, and higher education.  Topics to be discussed include, The Importance of Pre-K and Early Childhood Education, and How to Achieve a Ready to Work and Engaged Workforce.

Registration for this event is free and due to limited seating we encourage you to register before the event.  For a complete listing of panel participants please view the attached agenda; to register click on the link below.  Also, included in your “free” registration on Thursday, January 24th are popcorn, drinks, and hors d’ oeuvres and breakfast and lunch are included on Friday, January 25th.  Thanks and we look forward to seeing you next week.

Categories Accountability, Alabama, ALEC, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Unions
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