Archives for the year of: 2013
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What Happens When “Disruption” Fails?

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2013 //
19

It seems like only yesterday the New York Times magazine published a lengthy article about the powerful and transformative tablets that Joel Klein’s company Amplify had sold to the Guilford County, North Carolina, schools. The writer, Carlo Rotella, was appropriately cautious in assessing what it meant when students had most of their lessons on a tablet, but nonetheless there was a tone (encouraged by Joel Klein)
of “this is the future, get used to it.”

Well, maybe it is the future, but not yet. On Friday, the Amplify tablets were recalled because of multiple technical glitches. The schools are suspending their use until problems can be ironed out.

According to a local business blog,

Guilford County Schools is suspending the use of 15,000 tablet computers that are part of its signature learning technology initiative because of cracking screens and potential safety problems. Those tablets were supplied by a company called Amplify, which is a collaboration betweenNews Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) and AT&T(NYSE: T).

The district said it turns out those tablets were not manufactured with the proper damage-resistant screens, and about 10 percent of the district’s devices have had to be returned to the company because of broken displays. Another 2,000 tablet cases supplied by Amplify have also had reported defects.

Also, at least one student turned in a charger that had overheated, melting its plastic casing. That’s a potential safety problem, and it prompted district officials to go ahead and suspend the entire program until Amplify and its suppliers can fix the problems.

The Amplify tablet was heavily marketed as the Next Big Thing, with profits unlimited, but it was not adequately tested. The success of the marketing campaign seemed to assure the success of the product.

This brings to mind two other heavily marketed, expensive products that were not properly tested or implemented.

Los Angeles continues to struggle with its $1 billion iPad problem. The kids cracked the security code in no time, using the expensive devices as toys. Some were withdrawn, some were lost. Meanwhile, the district has crumbling buildings (that should have been repaired with the money from the 25-year construction bond that was used to pay for the iPads), and classes are overcrowded.

And then there are the Common Core standards. The Gates Foundation assumed that if it gave a few millions to every significant organization inside the Beltway, the whole country would quietly acquiesce and accept the product that Gates paid for. That venture is experiencing meltdowns in state after state because it was hurried into production and deployed without trial runs and without consultations with the end users.

At some point, all this “creative disruption” will run into a wall. Perhaps it already has. Parents, students, and educators can take just so much at one time. Then “reform fatigue” sets in.

Categories Common Core, Technology, Computers

Meridian, Mississippi: Yes, The Tide Is Turning

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2013 //
18

No wonder the corporate reformers are nervous.

The American people are wising up. The slanders against our public schools are
being exposed.

One by one, the Reformy House of Cards is coming
down.

Imagine this scenario: the editorial board of the Meridian
Star toured Meridian High School. The students are 89% African American, and 80% free/reduced price lunch (the federal measure of poverty). What were their expectations? Did they expect to see gangs roaming the halls, graffiti on the walls, lazy teachers with their feet up on their desks? If so, they saw something quite different. They had an epiphany.

They saw with their own eyes what was happening in the
school. They learned what Big Data could not tell them. They
realized that the A-F grading system was wrong. In fact, it is a
hoax meant to label and demean schools. They discovered a good
school in their community.

Here is the editorial in today’s
newspaper:

“Meridian High School a pleasant surprise”

“We have run our share of local stories in The Meridian Star pages of youth
violence, teenagers involved in area crimes and allegations of
school to prison pipelines. And we make no apologies for that.
People want to know what is going on in their communities and our
job is to keep you informed of the good and the bad — and we try to
give you both.

“The Meridian Star devotes a lot of space to school
accomplishments; from students who have achieved academic
excellence to teachers who have gone above and beyond to ensure
their students are provided the best education possible.

“But even we, collectively as a news gathering organization, are surprised
sometimes — ocassionally pleasantly so. One of those pleasant
surprises came recently during a tour of Meridian High School
attended by members of The Meridian Star Editorial Board.

“School Principal Victor Hubbard walked us throughout the school, taking
time out of his busy day to point out steps taken to address prior
problems, recent accomplishments and future goals. What we found
was an energetic and optimistic administration and staff; students
eager to learn and an impressive campus that is immaculate and well
equipped.

“Walk down the halls and you’ll find signs that encourage
students to excel, while others clearly outline school
expectations. For example, one sign directs students to walk on the
right side of the hallway in single file; and they do. In fact, as
Hubbard points out, students will often politely inform visitors if
they are walking up the wrong side of the stairwell.

“At every class we stopped, the students we met were engaged, polite and
respectful. We were also impressed with the school itself, which
boasts nine fully equipped classrooms/labs with 24 computers each.
In fact there are more than 250 computers at the school, all with
Internet access. There is a video interactive classroom used for
distance learning and video production and a Career Center
dedicated to helping students find and obtain college scholarship
funding.

“The school’s vision statement is, “Meridian High School is
committed to developing a community of life-long learners through
rigor, relevance and relationships.” The motto is “Moving from Good
to Great.”

“Listed on the MHS website are the school’s beliefs, some
of which are:

* Every student can learn to become a contributing
member of society.

• Students must be challenged to learn problem
solving techniques, develop healthy self-concepts, and learn to
work with individuals of different cultural, ethnic and
socioeconomic levels.

* Administrators, parents, teachers, students
and the community must share the responsibility of education and
the advancement of the school’s mission.

• Students must be provided a safe and orderly environment in which to learn.

All are lofty goals. And the school has shown improvement, moving up a
letter grade this year from a D to a C, which is reason to
celebrate. Based on our tour of the school, the school’s grade
should be higher. School performance is not always accurately
measured solely by test-based accountability ratings like “A,” ”
B,” or “F.”

“We challenge our state legislators to tour Meridian
High School and other schools where passionate teachers are working
with willing students. Perhaps then they might take another look at
the standardized test-based accountability laws that govern our
schools and take other factors into consideration as well.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the naysayers spent a day in a public school and informed themselves, as the editorial board of the Meridian Star did. Better yet, let them spend a day as a teacher and see the skill and judgment it requires. We have everyday heroes on our midst.

Categories Supporting public schools

My Conversation with Valerie Strauss

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2013 //
10

Valerie Strauss has been a beacon of light and hope for the nation’s educators during these years in which teachers and principals have been blamed for the social ills of the nation and treated with disrespect. That never happens on Valerie’s blog “The Answer Sheet” at the Washington Post. Not only has she been a trenchant critic of high-stakes testing and other misguided policies, but she has opened her space to others who are reality-based educators.

She recently invited me to engage in an email interview, and this was the result.

Here is an excerpt:

 Q) Did you learn anything while researching the book? And what do you think will be the most surprising thing that readers who don’t follow your work on a regular basis learn from reading the book?
A) I learned how a number of states have allowed campaign contributions to determine their education policies without regard to the well-being of children. Two classic examples are Ohio and Pennsylvania. I document in the book how wealthy entrepreneurs have created businesses to run charter schools that get terrible results but are never held accountable because they are major campaign contributors. I found that shocking.

The big news takeaway from the book, I believe, is the discovery–I didn’t realize it until I started my research on the website of the U.S. Department of Education–that our schools are doing very well indeed in terms of test scores, graduation rates, and dropout rates. This flies in the face of everything we have heard in the national media since “A Nation at Risk” in 1983.

Do we have problems in American education? Of course we do! Our single biggest problem is that our policymakers have ignored the toxic effects of poverty and segregation. Our inner-city kids have low academic performance because they are poor, and worse, their schools are being stripped bare by budget cuts. The kids who need small classes are getting larger classes; the kids who need guidance counselors and social workers are in schools where they got laid off. The kids who need the joy of the arts are in schools that can’t afford them. What they can afford is more and more testing.

So, let me be clear. I am not at all happy with the state of American education. I think our kids are overtested, and our teachers and principals are demoralized. Beloved community schools are being closed because their kids have low test scores. Our school system, once the pride of our nation, is beset with terrible policies and impossible mandates. And at the same time, we are failing to address the real needs that children and families and communities have, wasting billions on testing and consultants and opening new schools that will, in their turn, fail because we did not do anything that met the needs of the students.

Categories Reign of Error

This Parent at Jenks Middle School Supports Rob Miller

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2013 //
7

A comment by a parent at Jenks Middle School, where the principal, Rob Miller, is being investigated for encouraging parents to opt out of a field test. (I mistakenly referred to him as the superintendent, he is the principal).

As you will read here, the parents are fed up with the endless testing:

“As a JMS opt-out parent, I can attest that this was a parent-led move. Of course Principal Miller had contact with Ms. Barnes and those who had questions, but there’s a difference between answering questions and instigating trouble. Barresi’s vindictiveness is well established; her SDE had earlier published personal details of students appealing the withholding of their diplomas. These details included troubled home life and disability information — all identifiable by name for the world to see.

“Jenks parents are nowhere near finished standing up for our kids by challenging the takeover of our classrooms by the corporate assessment complex. And Barresi is gone after Nov. 2014, if not in the primary. It’s just a question of how many backs she’ll try to stab on the way out.”

“

Categories Oklahoma, Principals, Testing

Principal Rob Miller: A Profile in Courage

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2013 //
17

Earlier today, I posted
a story about a brave principal in Oklahoma, Rob
Miller, who is under investigation by the State Education
Department for encouraging parents to opt out of a field test. The
parents said they did it on their own.

Principal Miller said he obeyed the law. It was clear that he would not let the State
Superintendent Janet Barresi, a member of Jeb Bush’s dwindling
Chiefs for Change, Intimidate him.

I just received the following communication from Mr. Miller. He is a man of courage. He belongs
on our honor roll. He responds here to those who sent him words of
support.

He writes: “I am very humbled that Diane chose to post
this story. We truly have a State Superintendent in Oklahoma who is
out of control. Thanks to all for your words of support and
encouragement! I also want everyone to know that my district
leadership and BOE are 100% supportive. This is clearly an attempt
by one of Jeb’s Chiefs for a Change to silence a critic. Thank you,
David for sending a response to our SDE. I think Barresi needs to
know the size of the army she is about to engage with.
Collectively, we are impossible to stop. And, Teresa, I truly am
proud to be called a Bad Ass!”

Note to John Merrow: Yes, there are
heroes in education. They are fighting for our kids. They are
fighting for good education. They are fighting for
integrity.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Chiefs for Change, Honor Roll, Oklahoma

Ogden, Utah, Decides to Let Non-Educators Try Their Hand

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2013 //
12

Two years ago, after the resignation of their superintendent, the Ogden, Utah, school board chose one of its own members to take over as the leader of the schools. Brad Smith, a lawyer, may be the only superintendent in the state who has never been a teacher and has no credentials.

This is innovative, for sure. Nations like Finland and Korea would never allow a non-professional to take over a leading role in the profession. It demeans all those who worked so hard to darn credentials.

Things did not go well for Superintendent Smith. Last spring, angry parents crowded into a meeting to complain about budget cuts, overcrowded classes, and layoffs for librarians (aka “media specialists”). Smith boasted that there had been more change since he took over than in the previous two decades, but a local university professor responded that students’ lives are harmed by too much disruption.

Smith managed to find the funding to retain 7 out of 20 media specialists, but parents worried that veteran teachers were leaving the district.

Some community members complained that the source of the budget shortfall was not teachers’ salaries but administrative bloat.

Despite community concerns, the board voted two weeks ago to renew Smith’s contract. The head of the Democratic Education Caucus was baffled by the superintendent’s bonus in a time of austerity.

She said: ““We’re hearing of classroom sizes of 38, and even as high as 45 in core classes,” she said, noting national recommendations were for 26 in a secondary class. Irvine also criticized Smith’s performance-based bonuses.

“Based on an article in the Standard recently, we discovered the superintendent has received bonuses in the last years upwards of $50,000 total. How can this be when this year librarians have been eliminated, teacher and staff assistants have been either eliminated or cut full time to part time?”

Clearly, Ogden has decided to utilize a business plan. The superintendent has no education background. Class size doesn’t matter. Librarians don’t matter. The voices of concerned parents are ignored. As long as those test scores go up, the school board will declare success. After all, trained seals can perform no matter how many are in the pool.

Categories Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers

Julian Vasquez Heilig: Who Is Living in an “Alternate Universe”?

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2013 //
12

The ever-dazzling Julian Vasquez Heilig here addresses the burning issue of the day: whose opinion matters?

Or stated another way: who lives in an “alternate universe”?

Categories Duncan, Arne

When Are Reformers Accountable?

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2013 //
13

This reader wants to know:

“I think at some point they have to be able to point to some tangible benefit of “reform” to the majority of people. It’s been more than a decade. Every year it’s just more mandates and less funding. The funding that does come isn’t towards anything that we find “valuable”. I didn’t ask for an elaborate school grading system that changes every year and I think testing kids in order to evaluate teachers is nutty. I don’t really consider the relationship between my kid and his school to be adversarial or “competitive”. He’s not a “consumer” at school, considering his “options”. He’s an 11 year old. Hopefully they’re working together.”

Categories Corporate Reformers

Fred Klonsky Reviews “Reign of Error”

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2013 //
11

Fred Klonsky came to hear me lecture at Elmhurst College, near Chicago, and writes about how my last book helped him argue against some of the harmful policies mandated from the state and federal government.

He goes on to write that teachers are more than recipients of policy, bad or good, and I agree with him. But as I say in the book, it is important to stop doing the wrong things so that it is possible to start doing the right things–and to allow teachers to teach.

Klonsky writes:

Back when I was a grad student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, my advisor and mentor, Professor Bill Schubert, gave me (or maybe loaned it to me and I didn’t give it back) an old beat up copy of the Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet.

Highet, a British educator, defined what he thought makes a good teacher.

It was someone who knew his or her students. Liked them. Knew their subject matter well. And had a passion for what they taught.

To that, I would add this.

Teachers are more than the beneficiaries of good education policies. We are more than the victims of bad education policies.

It is true about students and parents too.

We are not passive recipients of policies. We are not empty vessels.

Good teachers are engaged in their classroom, their schools, their districts, their unions and in their world.

Books like Ravitch’s focus on the policies.

I remember Highet because he focused on the art of teaching.

Both are important.

I hope Ravitch would agree.

Fred, I agree.

 

Categories Reign of Error

Is Free Speech Dead in Oklahoma?

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2013 //
32

I just learned that Rob Miller, principal of the Jenks Middle School in Oklahoma, is under investigation for possibly encouraging parents to opt out of a field test.

According to the Tulsa World:

Jenks Public Schools participated in and encouraged a movement to opt students out of field tests last April, an Oklahoma State Department of Education investigation found.

In a July 7 report provided to the Tulsa World this week in response to an open records request, the state said it had evidence that Jenks Middle School Principal Rob Miller “initiated a movement to opt out ‘teachers and students’ from all field tests administered at Jenks Middle School. This occurred while on ‘school time’ and through school district email,” the report says.

The parents at the school say that the decision to opt out of field testing was their own, and they acted without the principal being involved:

In April, the school received a flurry of opt-out forms from parents asking that their children not be subjected to field tests, which are used by testing companies to evaluate questions for future use.

They do not count in either a student’s grade or in a school’s state grade.

“Our kids are being used as unpaid subjects by CTB/McGraw-Hill (a testing vendor) without our consent or permission,” PTA President Deedra Barnes said at the time.

She said the opt-out movement was led by Jenks parents who were frustrated by too much testing and who had heard of similar efforts by parents throughout the country.

After hearing about the opt-out initiative, the state Education Department on April 24 requested numerous records under the Open Records Act related to testing from Jenks Public Schools.

The state received 529 pages of documentation, including 216 redacted email communications, as well as around 800 student opt-out letters, according to its report.

But there may be another reason that Principal Miller is under investigation. On his blog, he wrote critically about the State Superintendent Janet Barresi, a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change and former dentist.

Worse, he wrote a dazzling review of Reign of Error.

He started his review with a quote tweeted by the Tulsa World’s education writer, Andrea Eger: “The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose and it will defend itself. – St. Augustine”

Principal Miller went from there to write: “Diane is a lioness of truth who roars with authority, credibility and conviction. She leads a pride of like-minded Americans who believe that corporate reformers have gone too far and that overemphasis on testing and grading of schools has damaged public education and by extension, millions of students and teachers nationwide.”

The parents in Jenks Middle School say they initiated the opt out. In the emails cited in the story, Miller says he tried to dissuade the parents, but he did not seem to be giving them direct orders not to opt out. He walked a fine line.

Trust the parents. Oklahoma should not punish this conscientious educator who is trying to walk a fine line, both to obey his superiors and to listen to his parents.

Will he be punished for (perhaps) expressing his own thoughts? He knows the test doesn’t count.

Is there freedom of speech and freedom of conscience in Oklahoma? Or is obedience to authority, even when authority is wrong, the highest value?

Principal Miller, I hope your parents and community stand with you. Can Oklahoma bear to debate what is right and what is true?

You are my hero.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Oklahoma, Parents, Testing
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