Archives for the year of: 2013
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The Ordeal of the D.C. Whistleblower

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
28

If you have followed the story of the D.C. Cheating scandal, you know that suspicious test scores were flagged at a large number of schools in the district during Michelle Rhee’s tenure. Rhee met with every single principal and got a commitment to raise test scores or be fired. This pressure was effective in perverse ways.

Jay Mathews here explains what happened in stark and alarming detail.

The epicenter of the cheating scandal was Noyes campus, where the gains were meteoric. The principal, Wayne Ryan, was given star treatment and elevated to the central office. The school received a Blue Ribbon award for its incredible test score gains.

Ryan’s successor, Adele Cothorne, came from Montgomery County, a high-performing district in Maryland. She quickly realized that the students’ skill levels did not match the claims. She suspected cheating. She reported her suspicions to two administrators in central office. (One of them, Josh Edelman, is the brother of Jonah Edelman, head of Stand for Children.)

But who got into trouble? The principal who reported her suspicions.

Now, the matter is in the courts. Adele Cothorne has left education, and D.C. officials deny all her claims, as they deny that there was ever cheating, anywhere, in any school. They apparently hope the matter will disappear if they stand together, attack Cothorne’s credibilty, and deny everything.

Just close your eyes, click your heels twice, and try to believe that passing rates can jump up by 40 points, bonuses given out, high-fives for all, then drop down another 40 points. But nobody did nothing.

Move on, move on, nothing to see here.

Categories Rhee, Michelle

Expert: Why Cheating in DC Was Never Investigated

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
29

Mary Levy is a veteran civil rights lawyer and budget analyst in Washington, D.C., who has reviewed developments in the D.C. Public schools for more than 30 years. She wrote the following description of the D.C. cheating scandal, which was revealed by USA Today in March 2011 but never subject to a full and independent investigation:

Re: the U.S. Department of Education Inspector General’s “investigation” of cheating in the DC Public Schools on D.C. standardized tests

It is always interesting to watch power and ideology corrupting people’s judgment, in this case the belief that Michelle Rhee’s approach to education reform must be shown to be effective. There have been no meaningful investigations of the evidence of widespread cheating on DC’s state tests between 2008 and 2010. The ED IG’s statement implies that he relied on the DC IG, who only investigated one school. How could either know about the 102 other DCPS schools flagged for possible cheating? And why is the Department of Education so casual about test integrity? Why did Arne Duncan not ask his IG for a broader investigation?

I’ve studied DCPS data, policies, budget, and history for over 30 years. People with personal knowledge of what occurred during the testing aren’t talking to me any more than to anyone else, but my own data analysis supports the need for a real investigation. Among the top 10 DCPS erasure schools (over one-third of their classrooms flagged over a three year period), scores plummeted at all but one by 2010. At four-fifths of the top 20 erasure schools, scores fell by ten percentage points or more. These are schools with one quarter or more of their classrooms flagged. The bottom dropped out by chance at all those schools?

Contrary to Michelle Rhee’s assertion of “dozens and dozens of schools [with] “very steady gains” or even “some dramatic gains that were maintained,” DC CAS test scores rose significantly after 2008 at only a small number of schools (I counted). Ironically, several of those have been closed or are on the current closing list. Security was only tightened gradually, and is still vulnerable to exploitation, so we’re not at the end of the possibilities even now.

Over the months of preparing the Frontline documentary broadcast on Tuesday, January 7, John Merrow tried very hard to break through on investigating the evidence of cheating. He asked me and my colleagues for contacts and data often, and he actively and persistently sought out witnesses. But witnesses aren’t talking. They’re afraid. People in authority tend to dislike and distrust not only whistleblowers, but critics, even the friendly ones. Principals in DCPS serve at will, and the IMPACT evaluation system makes it easy to terminate teachers who displease their superiors. And after all, since cheating is so unimportant to the Department of Education and the leadership in DC, those who could bear witness can expect no result but retaliation.

Mary Levy
January 9, 2013

Categories Philadelphia, Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, U.S. Department of Education

To N.C. Board of Education: Please Vote NO Today

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
15

Today, the North Carolina Board of Education will vote on whether to permit for-profit online corporations to enroll children as young as five.

I hope they reject this terrible proposal, for the following reasons:

1. Online home-schooling is developmentally inappropriate for young children.

2. Study after study has shown that students who get their schooling from online corporations have lower test scores and lower graduation rates than students in real schools.

3. Every student who enrolls in an online school takes money away from a community public school that does a better job.

4. For-profit schooling profits the corporation, not the kids.

Categories Education Reform

John Merrow: D.C. Whistleblower Under Attack

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
19

If you saw John Merrow’s program “The Education of Michelle Rhee,” you will remember that there was one educator willing to go on camera and say, “Yes, I saw cheating. I locked the tests up and the scores dropped.” That principal is now under attack by Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s successor.

I urge you to read this article.

This is the chilling inside story that did not appear on the air. This is a story of fear and intimidation, of cheating and covering up. This is a story of people afraid to talk and people who did not want the truth to come out.

How I wish this shocking story had been on the air instead of the tripe about eating a bee.
.

John Merrow writes on his blog:

Friends,
I’d like you to know more about Adell Cothorne, who spoke openly about what she saw at one school in Washington, DC. You met her briefly in last night’s Frontline program, and she’s being attacked openly now by the current Chancellor. I applaud her courage and want you to know that she was one of a very small handful of people in the know who were willing to speak on the record about Michelle Rhee.

As we pointed out on Frontline, the widespread erasures (almost always ‘wrong’ to ‘right’) on the DC-CAS during Michelle Rhee’s first year, 2007-2008, were never investigated. In her year at Noyes Education Complex, Cothorne insisted on tight security, and test scores dropped–plummeted is a better word.

The details are in this post, along with more from Adell Cothorne. http://bit.ly/TLEsou

I will be writing more about this in the near future.

Please comment on the blog. Write me directly if you would rather not receive these notes.

John

John Merrow
Education Correspondent,
PBS NewsHour, and President,
Learning Matters, Inc.

My blog:
http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/

Categories Rhee, Michelle

The Key to Understanding Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
3

If you want to understand what is happening in state after state, district after district, read Lee Fang’s article here. I have read it again and again, and every time I read it, I see something I didn’t see before and understand the national picture better than I did before. I have published this before. I may publish it every few months to make sure that everyone sees it. Or has a reminder to read it again.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Privatization

Is Corporate Reform Like Vietnam?

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
14

I hesitated to post this because it refers to me.

But I decided to post it because the author, Mark Naison, makes a powerful point about the present moment.

What is happening in education today is ignorant, willful, and dangerous.

Thoughtless politicians and self-seeking entrepreneurs are hurting children, damaging public education, and demeaning the teaching profession with their misguided policies. They welcome for-profit schooling, they are closing down urban education in city after city, and they want a “free market” in schooling. At the same time, they acquiesce to deep budget cuts in essential services for children. Is there a parallel with Vietnam in the 1960s? Naison thinks so.

Categories Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

Will Massachusetts Open a Charter to Skim $$ from a Great Public School?

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
15

Brockton High School has been hailed as one of the best high schools in the nation, celebrated for its excellent programs and high test scores. What makes its success especially impressive is that the school has 4,100 students and a large immigrant population.

Now enters the SABIS for-profit charter chain, seeking to compete with Brockton High School. In this report, EduShyster has a guest blogger explain.

Clearly, SABIS won’t be “saving poor kids from a failing public school,” because Brockton High is one one the best high schools in the state.

So why would the state allow the charter to open and lure students and resources away from a fine public school?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Massachusetts, Privatization

Bruce Baker on Rheeformy Logic & Goofball Rating Schemes

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
2

Bruce Baker has prepared what may be the most devastating critique of Michelle Rhee’s absurd state rankings. The criteria are without merit, as are her policy ideas.

Best of all, Bruce says he is eager to see some well-known reformers move to Louisiana to take advantage of the schools that Rhee gave top billing in her report.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Merit pay, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Hari Sevugan Responds: UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
34

A few days ago, I posted a letter from Hari Sevugan on this site, in which he defended Michelle Rhee’s agenda of privatization and high-stakes testing. Sevugan was (according to Wikipedia) the former national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee and was the senior spokesman for the Obama campaign in 2008. In June, 2011, he became vice-president of communications for Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

I invited him to post again. I wrote:

“I hope he will write again to explain why he thinks that Rhee’s support for for-profit charters, for vouchers, and for the agenda of rightwing governors helps our society’s most vulnerable children.”

Rhee has worked closely with Governor Scott Walker, Governor John Kasich, Governor Rick Scott, and other Republicans who want to privatize education, curtail collective bargaining rights, and take away any job protections for teachers.

Many readers of the blog wrote responses to Sevugan. He responded with a letter this morning (I confess I missed it and read it first on the Huffington Post). He did not answer my questions, but he did respond to a letter from a Florida teacher and parent. I am updating this post because I did not see his comment on the blog (unlike Rhee, who has a large staff, I have no staff, not even a secretary; I read all comments myself, and I write all the responses myself, I write all my own tweets, all my own articles, all my own books, no ghostwriters).

In his comments to Huffington Post, Sevugan scoffs at the success of Massachusetts and Maryland because “only 40-50%” of students in those states are proficient on NAEP. I don’t think he knows much about NAEP’s achievement levels. “Proficient” on NAEP is not above average. It represents solid achievement. I spent seven years as a member of the NAEP governing board. Proficient on NAEP is like getting a B+ or an A. Massachusetts can be proud that half its students have such outstanding performance.

Sevugan fawns all over Florida, because Rhee gave Florida and Louisiana her highest grades. (He doesn’t even try to defend Louisiana, one of the nation’s lowest performing states on NAEP.)

But why is he so admiring of Florida? True, it is overrun with charters, both nonprofit and for-profit. But it doesn’t come close to Massachusetts (or Maryland) on NAEP.

Florida (whose education policies are tightly controlled by Jeb Bush) is far behind Massachusetts on NAEP. In fourth grade math, for example, an astonishing 59% of students in Massachusetts rank proficient (which is outstanding), as compared to 37% in Florida (slightly below the national average of 39%).

In eighth grade math, an impressive 51% in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to 28% in Florida (well below the national average of 34% proficient).

In reading, the story is the same. Massachusetts students far outperform those in Florida. In fourth grade, 51% of Massachusetts students are proficient, as compared to 35% in Florida (the national average is 32%).  In eighth grade reading, 46% of students in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to only 29% in  Florida.

Michelle Rhee gave one of her highest grades on her report card to the D.C. schools, despite their low test scores, low graduation rates, and scandalous achievement gaps. Michelle Rhee and her successor have been in charge of the D.C. public schools since 2007, yet the black-white achievement gap and the Hispanic-white achievement gap there are the largest of any city or state in the nation and they are even larger now than when Rhee took over.

If Michelle Rhee knows how to reform schools, why did she fail to do so in D.C.?

Sevugan’s letter is just more of the public school-bashing and teacher-bashing that StudentsFirst has perfected. He thinks our nation and our schools are failing. He is wrong. Our nation is the most powerful, most creative, most innovative in the world, and 90% of Americans were educated in public schools.

Sevugan obviously has never  looked at NAEP scores. If he had, he would know that the scores for black students, white students, Hispanic students, and Asian students in 2011 (the latest NAEP) were at their highest point in history.

Sevugan has a lot to learn about education. I’ll be happy to help him. The first thing he needs to learn is that the doom-and-gloom narrative of the corporate reformers is wrong. It is factually untrue, and I’ll demonstrate how wrong it is in my next book.

We have heard the same doleful complaints since the 1950s, and the peddlers of decline have been wrong every time. They are wrong now too.

Diane

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Massachusetts, NAEP, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Georgia Has a Group Supporting Public Education

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
3

After I wrote about a new parent group in Tennessee, I received a comment about a similar group in Georgia, protesting budget cuts and legislation hostile to public schools.

Be sure to checkout their website, which has excellent resources for parents, educators and other concerned citizens: http://empoweredga.org/

“Here’s a similar group in Georgia, where we need it more than ever as we brace for the usual fun and games of the upcoming session: http://empoweredga.org/

“Op-Ed in yesterday’s Atlanta Constitution by the group’s founder, a Teacher of the Year from south Georgia named Matt Jones: Lawmakers ignore their moral and constitutional duty to support public education, http://bit.ly/VNJA9p Someday this headlong rush to easy “fixes” and snake-oil “solutions” will stop– but the opposition is clearly coming from grassroots efforts of people forming these groups. Let’s hope this someday is soon before there are no schools left worth fighting for.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Georgia
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