Archives for the year of: 2013
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Robert D. Shepherd on inBloom

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2013 //
41

Robert D. Shepherd, curriculum writer and author, left the following comment following Andrea Gabor’s post about the data collecting and data mining business called inBloom.

He writes:

“There were 55,235,000 K-12 public school students in the US in 2010. At $5.00 apiece for inBloom, that would amount to $276,175,000 a year. And if inBloom had a large existing database, it would become a monopoly provider. Switching from it would be next to impossible.

But that’s just the beginning. The whole point of gathering this real-time data on student responses is to link it to online adaptive curricula, with inBloom 2.0 as the gateway, the portal, for delivery of that curricula–

serving up the mind-blowingly inane online worksheet on the schwa sound to little Yolanda and the Powerpoint-like online worksheet on the foil method for factoring to little Kwame. The fans of this online adaptive curricula are the sort of people who think that all learning can be reduced to bullet points on a screen.

At any rate, when the inBloom database becomes the portal for curricula, that’s when the big bucks start rolling in, from inBloom’s “partners,” like Murdoch’ and Klein’s Amplify, for example. And inBloom has made it VERY clear from the start that that’s their plan. That’s the “promise” of having such a database.

Quite a promise.

In short, inBloom is a strategic powerplay for the education market.

I dearly hope that people will have the sense to stop this Orwellian operation before it sinks its data-gathering tentacles into our nation’s children.

Think of it, a nationwide portal for delivery of curricula, a gateway with inBloom as toll-taker.

As Arne Duncan’s office put it, “The new standards are about creating a national market for products that can be brought to scale.”

Bill Gates earned his billions by selling a small amount of stuff to practically EVERYONE.

It appears that inBloom has a very similar long-term business model.

It gets even worse. Read the Department of Education’s Report on “Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century.” This report envisions hooking kids up to real-time monitors of their affective states and feeding THOSE into the database as well so that grit, tenacity, and perseverance can be measured continually.

This kind of thing goes WAY BEYOND Orwell’s Telescreens in 1984. The whole concept is sickening.

And Arne Duncan’s Department of Education is serving as the facilitator for the creation of this Orwellian Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth (Minitrue).

You have to give it to these guys for cooking up such a diabolical strategic plan. And almost no one seems, yet, to be hip to what this national data-gathering is really about over the long term. Such plans could be carried out only if people weren’t really paying attention. So far, that’s worked well for the, ahem, “reformers.” We have new NATIONAL “standards” even though most U.S. citizens have never heard of them and haven’t a clue what they are, what’s in them, who paid for them, who created them, what consequences they will have for curricula and pedagogy, and so on. All that new standards and testing stuff was done with NO national debate and with no vetting.

I’m sure that the inBloom folks were hoping for the same here. And the truly frightening thing is that their hopes might well be fulfilled.

Totalitarianism can come about through violent revolution. It can also come about because no one is paying attention.”

Categories Data and Data Mining, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Technology, Computers

One of the “Best and Brightest” Has a Message for Jeb and Other Reformers

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2013 //
18

A comment on the corporate reformers who say they want to attract “the best and brightest” into teaching:

“Attract the “Best and the Brightest” – please !!! I have 2 masters and have taught for 18years – in Miami – I make less than $44,000 … . Thanks Jeb – teachers are now starving and losing their homes in Miami

* was told last week we may get a big $2000 – $4,000 dollar raise … Please, after FL teachers have taken past cuts that combined equal 1 year pay – thanks
I lost my house because for 4 years I did not get a Salary step increase”

Categories Bush, Jeb, Corporate Reformers, Teachers and Teaching

A Brilliant Post Wherein “Hamlet” Exposes the Guilty Conscience of NY’s King

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2013 //
4

We have heard numerous calls for NY’s Commissioner of Education John King to resign. He disrespects parents. He brooks no dissent. He accuses them of refusing to engage in dialogue after they sit patiently through his hour-plus monologue. And when they boo and hiss him, he storms away and cancels all future scheduled meetings with parents, fearing, no doubt, the same humiliating response.

This blogger, Teacherbiz, has a fresh look at the whole sorry episode. She sees the event presaged in “Hamlet” and demonstrates how literature helps us to understand life (with apologies to David Coleman, who may find greater meaning in “informational text”).

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Common Core, Parents, Testing

New York Study: Teacher Evaluations Are Flawed

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2013 //
42

A study commissioned by the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents found that the state’s educator evaluation system is flawed in multiple ways and does not produce reliable ratings.

The state’s formula gave less credit to teachers serving disadvantaged students, judged some teachers on the performance of too few students, failed to measure key variables such as student mobility and did not clearly signal how schools can assist teachers or students, the study found.

“Our fears were realized,” said Harrison Superintendent Louis Wool, who was president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents when the study was started in the spring. “The first round of assessments did not accurately measure the value of teachers whose students are in poverty, in special education or speak limited English. We are concerned that we have spent countless hours and millions and millions of dollars to produce results that are not comparable across the state and do not inform teacher practice or student learning.”

Perhaps it is studies like this that have caused Bill Gates to declare that we won’t know if “this stuff” works for at least a decade. But by the time the decade is over, how many careers will have been destroyed, how many lives ruined by the hunches of Bill Gates and Arne Duncan?

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations

Bruce Baker: Teacher Evaluation Is Still Junk Science

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2013 //
38

Bruce Baker has watched the evolution of the effort to create that magical metric that will identify the best and worst teachers so they may be evaluated, rewarded, warned, and/or fired. He concludes that the great “value-added and growth score train wreck is here.”

Despite the billions that Arne Duncan has thrown into them, and despite the hundreds of millions that Bill Gates has targeted on a few selected districts, they are still shockingly unreliable. Baker writes:

A really, really, important point to realize is that the models that are actually being developed, estimated and potentially used by states and local public school districts for such purposes as determining which teachers get tenure, or determining teacher bonuses or salaries, who gets fired… or even which teacher preparation institutions get to keep their accreditation?…. those models increasingly appear to be complete junk! 

He analyzes the research and experience of several districts and states.

Did it occur to anyone that none of the high-performing school systems in the world are doing this disservice to their teachers?

If we continue to use junk science to rate teachers, who will want to teach?

Categories Accountability, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Why Charter Schools Do Not Close the Achievement Gap

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2013 //
22

This article in the Buffalo News by two distinguished scholars analyzes recent charter studies and concludes that charter are unlikely to close achievement gaps.

Adeline Levine and Murray Levine review the studies and conclude:

“Charter schools are protected by powerful, wealthy individuals and foundations that profess free-market choice and hold anti-union sentiments and pro-privatization beliefs; some advocates are pursuing profit motives. The advocates seem not to be influenced by data despite their insistence they are data-driven.

“The reality is that problems associated with a history of discrimination and the complex negative effects of poverty are not easily solved. The solutions require an enormous, long-term societal commitment. The current reforms, however, threaten the very existence of our public schools, which have long been the envy of the entire world.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform

New York Commissioner King and Regents Plan 16 Meetings to Sell Common Core But Skip One City

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2013 //
33

Having been thoroughly embarrassed by his haughty showing in Poughkeepsie, where parents booed him as he lectured them and brushed off their questions, Commissioner John King and the State Board of Regents want to prove they are not afraid to meet parents. They have scheduled 16 meetings across the state.

With only one exception: there are no meetings scheduled in New York City, where 1/3 of the state’s children are enrolled.

Has he learned to listen? We will see?

Has he learned to treat parents with respect? We will see.

Will we find out why he is skipping the state’s biggest district?

Maybe it was an oversight.

Categories Common Core, New York

New York Regent: We Will Not Fire John King

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2013 //
46

The New York Board of Regents has demonstrated that they are out of touch with the people they serve.

One of the few independent-minded Regents, Harry Phillips of Westchester, said recently that the Regents would not fireccommissioner John King despite his arrogant, dismissive treatment of parents at a community forum in Poughkeepsie.

Leave arise for the moment that nearly half the principals in the state have put their name on a petition objecting to his half-baked, destructive educator evaluation plan. The other half were not willing to stick their necks out, in a climate characterized by fear and intimidation emanating from Mr. King.

The issue at hand is that Mr. king announced five public meetings at which he promised to engage in dialogue with parents and listen to their concerns. What happened in Poughkeepsie was no dialogue. Instead, Mr. King lectured parents for over an hour, then gave them two minutes each to respond. He frequently interrupted parents to disagree with them. When the meeting degenerated into boos and catcalls, Mr. King stalked off, claimed that the meeting had been captured by “special interests,” and canceled the four other scheduled meetings around the state.

Many parents have stepped forward to say that their “special interest” is their child, and the only person trying to manipulate the meeting was Mr. King, who clearly had no interest in hearing from parents unless they agreed with him. He made the mistake of thinking he was in North Korea, but he was in Poighkeepsie, where parents rightfully believe that the state commissioner is a public servant, not their supervisor or boss.

So the Regents will keep John King. Will he take lessons in listening instead of lecturing? Will he learn how to show respect to the parents who care more about their children than he does? Can he pretend humility?

Although John King and Arne Duncan claim that the only critics of the Common Core standards and testing are Tea Party fanatics, we have learned in recent days that the man who is most effective in building opposition to the Common Core in New York is John King himself. Parents have learned that the state does not care what they think, does not care about the damage they see done to their children, and is deaf to their voices.

We will watch with interest to see how the next parent meeting with John King goes, if there is one.

Categories Common Core, New York

Why School “Reform” Fails

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2013 //
26

A reader attended my presentation last night at Politics& Prose, a great DC bookstore that regularly hosts authors p. y
The reader explains that the reform movement ignores science, which dooms it to failure:

“Dear Diane, As a loyal follower of your blog I enjoyed your last evening’s visit to Politics and Prose in D.C. I would like to add, because I am a Professor of Neurology, Pediatrics and Psychiatry with 40 years of research into developmental disabilities of the “mild/nearly normal variety” ( allowing me huge control groups of typically developing children) that all of the initialives of the last nearly 15 years, not only Common Core, are failing also because they ignore the brains of developing children and all learning theories relevant to education. Because their eyes are on “benchmarks” they mistakenly think that pushing skills earlier at every level will hit the testing “benchmarks,” so they are entirely unrealistic about developmental readiness and essentially do the equivalent of “trying to get blood from a stone.” Gesell Institute experts addressed this, as cited in your blog, for early childhood. And it is equally true of starting middle school too early, giving homework too early in the school career, and starting Algebra in seventh grade, all of which reflect ignorance of where the executive functions of the majority of children are/are not ready for more time management, materiel management, organization/prioritization of study, and so forth. Needless to say, being neurodevelopmentally ill equipped to tackle skills thrown at them leads to hatred of school, anxiety and depression about themselves, and longlasting damage, even in affluent “good” schools. This ignoring of the developmental appropriateness of demands for skills at every step K-12 has worsened what were the “good” public school systems and certainly carry part of the blame for “failure to thrive” in those schools in which, as you so eloquently expressed last evening, poverty, instability and cultural deprivation carry the majority of the variance in which schools “succeed” and which “fail.” Do you think it would do any good to carry this message to the ignorant test obsessed “reformers” so that even complacently good schools can see the harm done to developing children and adolescents, how we are literally pushing more of them over the “learning disabled” border by “racing to the top” as much as with “no child left behind” ?”

Categories Class size, Corporate Reformers

When Should Students Use Calculators?

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2013 //
62

Far be it from me to reignite the Math Wars of the early 1990s, but I found this article–and the underlying debate–so interesting that I decided to share it.

The question is, when should children use calculators for solving math problems?

Thoughtful people are on opposing sides. On one side are those who say that students learn to do the calculations themselves, without the aid of a device, or the device will do the work for them, and the students won’t understand the mathematical principles. On the other are those who say that people have created and used devices like the abacus to make the use and learning of mathematics more efficient.

I have no opinion since this is not my field. I am glad I learned the times table many decades ago, and it sits securely in my head. But my anecdote is just an anecdote.

Math teachers, what do you think?

Categories Curriculum
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