Thanks to G.F. Brandenburg for finding this astonishing piece of investigative journalism.
You have to read this article. It is amazing.
It helps us understand the cronyism between the D.C. Office of State Superintendent of Education, Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, the Broad Superintendent’s Academy, nd Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation.
Two key Republican state legislators in Wisconsin said they would not permit an expansion of vouchers unless there was a local vote.
Voucher proponents oppose local referenda.
No wonder. Vouchers are very unpopular and have never won a popular election.
Supporters say children need choice to go to a better school, but there is no voucher program in the US where vouchers have unequivocally outperformed the public schools.
And yes, vouchers drain money from the public schools and cripple the community schools.
Everyone is hurt when public funds are divided into two or three competing sectors. And no one wins.
Friends and foes of the Common Core standards packed a meeting room in Indiana to discuss its future.
This issue creates strange alliances. The new state superintendent Glenda Ritz opposes them. So does the Tea Party. But other hard-right conservatives like former superintendent Tony Bennett and Jeb Bush are strong advocates for CC.
Mike Petrilli of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute urged the legislators to stay the course because the CC will raise performance (how does he know?), the states started the standards (not really), and the states will get lots of innovation once there is a national marketplace (a new era for edu-entrepreneurs).
It is impossible to know how the CC standards will work, since no one knows. Most people think scores will drop, since that happened in Kentucky. New York state’s leaders have already predicted a big score decline. Will there be more and better academic achievement? No one knows.
With PBS preparing a documentary about her and investigators looking at the cheating scandal, Michelle Rhee hired a well-known criminal defense attorney.
Jersey Jazzman wonders why.
This is a statement by Leonie Haimson, founder of Class Size Matters in NYC and a founder of Parents Across America on the collapse of negotiations over a teacher evaluation deal between the city and union:
If the Governor goes ahead with punishing NYC children for the mayor’s failures by subtracting $250 million from state aid, it will be terribly unfair. Yet there is little doubt that most parents will blame Bloomberg for this latest fiasco, as the just-released Quinnipiac poll shows that NYC voters trust the UFT by 53 to 35 percent over the mayor. And 63 percent of those polled believe that the mayor should share power, compared to only 13 percent who say he should continue to have complete control, without any checks and balances. http://shar.es/4S0Ai
In response to new bills introduced in the Legislature to undo mayoral control, the mayor’s spokesperson said that no one should want to return to “those bad old days of dysfunction and corruption.” http://shar.es/4StUP
Actually those days look pretty good compare with the collapse of negotiations over a new teacher evaluation system, along with the bus strike, the largest class sizes in 14 years, and million dollar contracts awarded vendors who have been shown to have stolen millions in the past. (The latest beneficiary of the DOE’s largesse is Champion Learning, which was awarded $4.5 million by the Panel for Educational Policy in November, despite having found to have overbilled DOE by many millions and being under federal investigation. http://shar.es/4StiX )
The legislature should take note, and refrain from punishing NYC students, by insisting that their schools are fully funded and that no future mayor has the unilateral ability to so damage our schools and hurt our kids again.
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320/917-435-9329
leonie@classsizematters.org
http://www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson
Follow me on twitter @leoniehaimson
Subscribe to Class Size Matters news by emailing classsizematters-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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AFT Stands with Garfield High School Teachers
Washington—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued this message of support to Seattle’s Garfield High School teachers standing up against the use of high-stakes testing.
Dear Garfield High School Teachers:
Thank you. Thank you for taking a courageous stand against the fixation on high-stakes testing and its harmful impact on our ability to give our students the high-quality public education they deserve.
Your actions have propelled the national conversation on the impact of high-stakes testing. Every educator understands that appropriate assessments are an integral part of a high-quality education system. But an accountability system obsessed with measuring, which punishes teachers and schools, comes at a huge cost to children. This fixation on testing has narrowed our curriculums and deprived our students of art, music, gym and other subjects that enrich their minds and make learning fun. Teachers have been forced to spend too much time on test preparation and data collection, at the expense of more engaging instruction. Ironically, this fixation on high-stakes testing actually does the opposite of what its proponents tell us it will do.
Learning is more than a test score, and teaching and learning—not testing—should drive classroom instruction. We need to be focused on growing and nurturing the minds of our students—to ensure that they can think creatively and analytically. It’s no longer enough to teach kids to memorize a bunch of numbers and terms; they must think critically and be able to absorb and interpret knowledge. We must ensure that our children are able to not only dream their dreams but also achieve them. At the same time, we must prepare students for civic engagement and to value that we all have a collective responsibility to one another.
The AFT and tens of thousands of educators, parents and students stand with you in this effort. The AFT passed a resolution at our national convention last summer focused on rebalancing our national education priorities and ensuring that teaching and learning drive our education policies. And we are focused on uniting communities across the country around this issue.
Thank you for leading this conversation.
Randi Weingarten
AFT President
Randi Weingarten proposed a national bar exam for future teachers, and it stirred quite a reaction. Most worrisome is that the idea appeals to certain figures in the public eye who are known for making negative comments about teachers.
Some on this blog complained that Randi was echoing the corporate reformers’ complaint that teachers are the problem and must be blamed for the achievement gap, low scores, and every other issue.
But I’m inclined to agree with Randi that the profession needs higher entry standards or it will never get the respect it deserves.
One of the admirable aspects of Finnish education is that there are high standards for entry into teaching. Only 1 in 10 applicants is accepted into teacher education programs. Teachers have high prestige, as high as other professions. There is no Teach for Finland.
By contrast, many US states have low standards for entry into teaching and welcome teschers with little or no professional preparation. Growing numbers of teachers acquire their masters degree through dubious online “universities.”
I don’t think that a bar exam, by itself, will make much difference, although in the long run it may raise the prestige of the profession.
The question that must be faced is that any such exam is likely to have a disparate impact on minorities. The courts might even strike down an exam that excluded disproportionate numbers of black, Hispanic and Asian applicants. And there are unintended consequences; I am thinking of a story I read a year or two ago about a great music teacher, beloved by his students, who had to leave teaching because he could not pass the math section of the state test.
It’s always wise to look before you leap.
Leonie Haimson, head of Class Size Matters in New York City, explains why the teacher evaluation pact failed.
The National Opportunity to Learn Campaign has one of the very best critiques of Michelle Rhee’s report card for the states. The states doing the least for children get the highest scores. The states enacting policies that ignore the needs of children do best by her logic.
In the 990 form for StudentsFirst, it says the organization defends the interests of children.
The National Opportunity to Learn Campaign says it does not.
Jesse Hagopian a teacher at Garfield High School in Seattle, explains why every teacher in the school voted to boycott the MAP test.
The teachers at Garfield are an inspiration to friends nd supporters of public education acros America.
They are champions of students, and they are already on the honor roll for their courage and heroism.
