Rachel Swarms writes for The New York Times. This is a very personal column. When her 7-year-old asked her whether police officers are ever arrested, she began to wonder what he knew. She wanted to shield him. She knew she had to talk to him. This is a conversation that I, as a mother of white sons, never had with my children. I didn’t need to. She did. This is a heartbreaking column.
Archives for the year of: 2014
Indiana has a new charter school called Early Career Academy. The great thing about this school is that students can earn an associate’s degree when they graduate high school, and it is all free!
However, there is a catch: Only one college will accept the credits earned for an associate degree from ITT Tech charter school, and that is the sponsor of the charter school, which is a for-profit college called ITT Tech.
Stephanie Wang of the IndyStar writes that “the degree comes with a catch: The credits from that degree likely will not transfer to any major university in the state if the students want to pursue four-year degrees.
“There is, however, one institution guaranteed to accept the credits — the for-profit college sponsoring the charter school.
“And that college — ITT Tech — is being sued by the federal government over claims that ITT provides an inferior education, charges steep tuition, and uses high-pressure sales techniques to lock students into an education most are unable to finish and into loans many are unable to pay off.”
When states allow these kinds of practices, it leaves the ordinary citizen feeling befuddled and outraged. How dare they! Why should taxpayers pay for this?
CORRECTION: the Indy Star contacted me to say that their story contained inaccuracies and omissions. The editor are still discussing corrections. The email included this statement:
“Omissions in the Star story are a matter still under discussion. However, you are blatantly wrong when you say only ITT will accept the credits. That needs to be corrected as soon as possible, especially since you have highlighted the post in your Twitter news feed.
“Additionally, the following paragraph included in your post has already been revised by the Indy Star due to inaccuracies. This needs to be corrected as soon as possible.
“And that college — ITT Tech — is being sued by the federal government over claims that ITT provides an inferior education, charges steep tuition, and uses high-pressure sales techniques to lock students into an education most are unable to finish and into loans many are unable to pay off.””
From Diane:
Readers in Indiana are welcome to take note and comment.
Elfrieda H. Hiebert and Heidi Anne E. Mesmer published an article in a recent issue of Educational Research about the problems posed by Common Core’s demand for “rigorous” and complex text in the early grades.
The researchers show how the writers of the Common Core have raised expectations and “text complexity” for children in the early grades, even though research is scant. Most children do not reach the level that NAEP define as “proficient.” The Common Core tests will raise demands on students in second and third grades to prepare them for college-readiness. The authors ask the obvious question: “When a majority of students is already failing to attain the proficient level, will pushing down demands increase their engagement?”
Hiebert and Mesmer urge that more study and research are needed before raising the bar so high that many more children will fail. They conclude: Increasing the pressure on the primary grades—without careful work that indicates why the necessary levels are not attained by many more students—may have consequences that could widen a gap that is already too large for the students who, at present, are left out of many careers and higher education. How sadly ironic it would be if an effort intended to support these very students limited their readiness for college and careers.
New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) released the following reaction to John King’s departure as State Commissioner of Education. They urge that Governor Cuomo not interfere in the process of selecting a replacement:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 11, 2014
More information contact:
Eric Mihelbergel (716) 553-1123; nys.allies@gmail.com
Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) – http://www.nysape.org
John King Resigns: Parents & Educators Call for a New Direction from the Regents and
Demand NO Interference from Governor Cuomo
Late Wednesday, the New York State Education Department announced that Commissioner John King is resigning effective the end of this year to accept a new post in Washington as an advisor to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Last year NYSAPE, parents, and educators from around the state called for Commissioner King to step down. After many months of frustration and outrage from parents and educators across New York State, the chapter closes on an embattled commissioner who failed to address legitimate serious concerns.
Eyes from all corners of the Empire State now turn on Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, the Board of Regents, and the legislature to ensure the next commissioner represents the substantial change in direction that public school parents demand from a responsive government that serves the people. NYSAPE calls for the Regents to adopt an open, inclusive selection process and stresses the importance of input from parents, educators, and other stakeholder groups in appointing a commissioner who will be more accountable to the public at large.
Governor Andrew Cuomo will also be watched very closely to ensure he does not overstep the constitutional authority of the Regents and interfere in any manner with the selection of a new commissioner of education. For innumerable reasons, New Yorkers are very glad to live within a NYS Constitution that does not grant Governor Andrew Cuomo authority when it comes to oversight of education in New York. They will be watching very closely both Governor Cuomo, who called public schools a “monopoly” to be broken, and his private backers with financial interests in the privatization of our public schools.
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Westchester County
“It is time for the Board of Regents to move in a very different direction. The Regents dismal track record of refusing to heed warnings and address significant parental concerns with excessive testing, student data privacy, and school privatization leaves no room for error with the selection of the next commissioner and must not allow for any interference from Governor Andrew Cuomo or his backers,”
said Lisa Rudley, founding member of NYSAPE and Westchester County public school parent.
New York City
“John King was the most unpopular commissioner in the history of NY State. He showed no respect for parents, teachers or student privacy. Ironically, he was intent on protecting his own privacy, and routinely withheld public documents; our Freedom of Information request of his communications with inBloom and the Gates foundation is more than 1 ½ years overdue. His resignation is good news for New York state; hopefully he will be unable to do as much damage at the US Department of Education,” Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters.
Long Island
“This is bittersweet news for the parents and educators of New York. For the past few years we have endured an education commissioner that has repeatedly ignored our pleas for help. He has heard our stories of our children suffering as a result of the Board of Regent’s corporate reform agenda, and replied, “full steam ahead”. New York has seen the largest testing revolt and parent uprising in known history under his regime. This outrage and pushback from parents and educators will continue to grow until the Board of Regents and the State Education Department put their focus where it belongs: on our children. The future of education for the children of New York now rests with the selection process of his replacement, and parents demand to see educators on this search committee. Our hope is that his replacement will finally begin to listen to parents and educators, put our children first, and protect our NYS public education system,” stated Jeanette Deutermann, founder of Long Island Opt Out and Nassau County public school parent.
Dutchess County
“John King had many successes as commissioner of education. He was successful in creating a polarized, toxic situation and shutting down dialogue on important education policy matters such as common core, high stakes testing and student privacy. King earned a prestigious vote of “no confidence” from the state’s largest teachers union. King successfully hurled accusations and insults against parents, educators and concerned citizens and was able to deflect responsibility for his actions. King was successful in shortchanging the democratic process. King managed to avoid accountability to the Regents for demonstrated incompetence and lack of professionalism. In his short reign as commissioner of education, King was successful in mobilizing and forcing parents, educators, and concerned citizens to call and write state politicians demanding the he resign or be removed. King provided great advice and leadership that advanced charter, corporate education and other interests at the expense of public school children,” said Anna Shah, Dutchess county public school parent.
Otsego County
“The news of Commissioner King’s resignation is a victory for everyone in NYS who has repeatedly called for this moment. I am hopeful that a replacement commissioner will be appointed who has enough integrity to heed the concerns of stakeholders rather than blatantly ignore them. We must insist on an educational leader who will represent the best interests of students, parents, teachers, and schools,” Danielle Boudet, founding member of NYSAPE and Oneonta Area for Public Education.
Oneida County
“The students, parents, and teachers of New York State must insist that Mr. King be replaced with a commissioner that will actually put the needs of students’ first. Under John King’s watch, New York State embraced a reform agenda set forth by billionaires, a reform agenda designed to falsely label public schools as failing, widen the achievement gap, and portray hard working professional educators as the problem. This trend will only continue unless the citizens of New York demand better for our children. Mr. King’s departure provides the true stakeholders of public education-children-the hope that our next commissioner of education be courageous enough to defend our public schools by challenging the false narrative currently put forth by reformers,” said Jessica McNair, Oneida County public school parent and educator.
Erie County
Eric Mihelbergel, founding member of NYSAPE and Erie County public school parent stated, “On October 15 of 2013 we called for the resignation of NYS Education Commissioner John King after he proved his complete disregard for parents and the public by cancelling all scheduled Town Hall meetings across New York State. Now, over a year later, he is leaving New York State education in far worse shape than he found it. The New York State Board of Regents must step and do what they could not do before. They must appoint a new commissioner that puts the needs of our children ahead of the agenda of corporate education reformers.”
“Considering the many problems from Common Core, testing, and the failing APPR educator evaluation system, it is time that New York State has an experienced educator who has worked as a public school classroom teacher, principal, and superintendent as its next commissioner,” Chris Cerrone, Erie County public school parent and board of education member.
Statewide
Marla Kilfoyle, General Manager of the BATS stated, “John King has disregarded the voice of the practitioners in the classroom which soundly told him that the policies he promoted were hurting children and destroying their education.”
New York State Allies for Public Education consists of over 50 parent and educator advocacy groups across New York State. More details about our education positions and advocacy can be found at http://www.nysape.org.
###
Jan Rsseger here reviews the CREDO report on charters in Ohio. Jan lives inn Cleveland and has watched ruefully as civic leaders have anandoned the public schools.
She writes:
“Charter schools in Ohio are notorious because the state legislature, filled with money from supporters of some of the worst charters, has chosen hardly to regulate the charter school sector at all. On Tuesday, the Stanford Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) released a new study of the academic effectiveness of Ohio’s charters (as measured by standardized test scores).
The report is scathing: “First, recent efforts across Ohio to improve the quality of charter school performance are only dimly discernible in the analysis. Overall performance trends are marginally positive, but the gains that Ohio charter school students receive even in the most recent periods studied still lag the progress of their traditional public school peers… Despite exemplars of strong results, over 40 percent of Ohio charter schools are in urgent need of improvement: they both post smaller student academic gains each year and their overall achievement levels are below the average for the state. If their current performance is permitted to continue, the students enrolled in these schools will fall even further behind over time.”
“Compared to the educational gains that charter students would have had in a traditional public school, the analysis shows on average that the students in Ohio charter schools perform worse in both reading and mathematics.”
Market-based “reform” doesn’t work in education.
Nicholas Tampio, a professor of political science at Fordham University, dislikes David Coleman’s approach to teaching literature even more than Peter Greene. He believes that Coleman has no appreciation for literature.
Coleman writes about the joys of “wonder,” says Tampio, but the methods he imposes are sure to suffocate and penalize wonder:
Coleman’s pedagogical vision stifles this kind of wonder by imposing tight restrictions on what may be thought — or at least what may be expressed to earn teacher approval, high grades and good test scores. He expects students to answer questions by merely stringing together key words in the text before them. This does not teach philosophy or thinking; it teaches the practice of rote procedures, conformity and obedience.
The first standard is the foundation of his vision. “Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it,” it reads, and “cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.” According to Coleman, the first standard teaches a rigorous, deductive approach to reading that compels students to extract as much information from the text as possible.
Throughout the document, he reiterates that students need to identify key words in a text. He analyzes passages from “Hamlet,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” the Gettysburg Address and an essay by Martha Graham. There is minimal discussion of historical context or outside sources that may make the material come alive. For instance, he suggests that teachers ask students, “What word does Lincoln use most often in the address?” rather than, say, discuss the Civil War. In fact, he disparages this approach. “Great questions make the text the star of the classroom; the most powerful evidence and insight for answering lies within the text or texts being read. Most good questions are text dependent and text specific.”
A recurrent defense of the Common Core is that the standards are good but the implementation has been bad.
As a professor, of course I demand that my students provide evidence to support their arguments. Coleman’s pedagogical vision, however, does not prepare students for college. He discourages students from making connections between ideas, texts or events in the world — in a word, from thinking. Students are not encouraged to construct knowledge and understanding; they must simply be adept at repeating it.
His philosophy of education transfers across disciplines. After analyzing literary passages, he observes, “Similar work could be done for texts … in other areas such as social studies, history, science and technical subjects.” Like a chef’s signature flavor, Coleman’s philosophy of education permeates the myriad programs that the College Board runs.
Computers can grade the responses generated from his philosophy of education. Students read a passage and then answer questions using terms from it, regardless of whether the text is about history, literature, physics or U.S. history. The Postal Service sorts letters using handwriting-recognition technology, and with a little tinkering, this kind of software could seemingly be used to score the SAT or AP exams.
Coleman’s vision will end up harming the U.S. economy and our democratic culture.
The U.S. should be wary of emulating countries that use a standards-based model of education. In “World Class Learners,” the scholar Yong Zhao commends America’s tradition of local control of the schools and an educational culture that encourages sports, the arts, internships and other extracurricular pursuits. In diverse ways, U.S. schools have educated many successful intellectuals, artists and inventors. By contrast, the Chinese model of education emphasizes rigorous standards and high-stakes tests, pre-eminently the gaokao college entrance exam. Chinese policymakers rue, however, how this education culture stifles creativity, curiosity and entrepreneurship. The Common Core will lead us to the same trap. Educators should not discard what has made the U.S. a hotbed of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Democracy depends on citizens’ treating one another with respect. In perhaps his most famous public statement, Coleman told a room of educators not to teach students to write personal narratives, because “as you grow up in this world, you realize that people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think.” This statement expresses, albeit more crassly, the same sentiment as his essay on cultivating wonder. He demands that students do what they are told and not offer their own perspectives on things. Ideally in a democracy, by contrast, citizens have a sincere interest in what other citizens have to say. As John Dewey argued in “Democracy and Education,” the purpose of the schools is to create a democratic culture, not one that replicates the worst features of the market economy.
A recurrent defense of the Common Core is that the standards are good but the implementation has been bad. Even if Coleman’s educational vision is perfectly actualized, it is still profoundly flawed. Under Common Core, from the time they enter kindergarten to the time they graduate from high school, students will have few opportunities to ask their own questions or come up with their own ideas. It’s time for Americans to find alternatives to Coleman’s educational vision.
Nicholas Tampio is associate professor of political science at Fordham University. He is the author of “Kantian Courage: Advancing the Enlightenment in Contemporary Political Theory.” He is currently researching the topic of democracy and national education standards.
Peter Greene, a high school teacher in Pennsylvania and blogger extraordinaire, here reviews David Coleman’s approach to teaching literature and finds it wanting.
This matters because David Coleman is both the architect of the infamous Common Core standards and the CEO of the College Board, which administers the SAT for college admission.
Greene examines how Coleman would teach Hamlet, Huck Finn, the Gettysburg Address, and a few other well-known literary works and shows what Coleman does not understand about teaching.
I hope not to spoil your pleasure in reading Greene’s analysis by sharing his concluding thoughts:
Coleman repeatedly fails to distinguish between his own experience of the text and Universal Truth. This leads him both to believe apparently that if he just figured something out about Bernardo, he must be the first person ever to see it, that his own reaction to a line is the universal one, that his path into the text is the only one, and that things that do not matter to him should not matter to anybody. Of all the reformsters, he is the one least likely to ever acknowledge contributions of any other living human being. For someone who famously said that nobody gives a shot about your thoughts and feelings, Coleman is enormously fascinated by and has great fait on his own thoughts and feelings.
The frequent rap on Coleman’s reading approach is that it is test prep, a technique designed to prepare students to take standardized tests. But the more Coleman I read, the more I suspect it’s the other way around– that Coleman thinks a standardized test is really a great model of life, where there’s always just one correct answer, one correct path, one correct reading, and life is about showing that you have it (or telling other people to have it).
Sadly, it often seems that what David Coleman doesn’t know about literature is what David Coleman doesn’t know about being human in the world. Life is not a bubble test. There is a richness and variety in human experience that Coleman simply does not recognize nor allow for. His view of knowledge, learning, understanding, and experience is cramped and tiny. It’s unfortunate that circumstances have allowed him such unfettered power over the very idea of what an educated person should be. It’s like making a person who sees only black and white the High Minister of National Art.
Senator Tom Harkins of Iowa, who is retiring this year, has long been known as a liberal and a champion of students in higher education. However, he recently proposed to cut the Pell grant program for low-income students while increasing payments to loan contractors. This is bizarre, to say the lease.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate education committee and the appropriations subcommittee in charge of federal education expenditures, has proposed taking $303 million from the Pell grant program to increase revenues for some of the nation’s biggest student loan specialists, according to a July 24 version of a 2015 fiscal year spending bill now being negotiated by congressional leaders.
Student advocates and congressional aides largely missed Harkin’s move last summer — partly because the full text of the spending bill wasn’t publicly released until six weeks after Harkin’s subcommittee approved it. They only noticed it in recent days as congressional negotiators work off his bill in the rush to finalize discussions on the federal government’s 2015 spending plans….
Student advocates said they’re outraged.
“I am appalled that Senator Harkin would put servicers — who profit by hundreds of millions of dollars a year — over the needs of low-income students,” said Alexandra Flores-Quilty, vice president of the United States Student Association. “Taking funding out of Pell and using it to pay private student loan servicers goes directly against the interests of students.”
Harkin has also floated the possibility of taking $2 billion out of the Pell program to use for other federal programs, according to Democratic and Republican congressional aides. Harkin reportedly dismissed concerns that such a move would affect students, according to Politico.
It was unclear Friday whether congressional negotiators were still discussing the $2 billion cut. Student advocates warned that if it were to occur, the Pell program would face a $3.6 billion deficit in the fiscal year beginning next October and the likelihood of deep cuts.
For Harkin, a longtime liberal who retires from Congress in January after a 30-year Senate career, the move risks damaging his reputation as an advocate for college students struggling to afford rising tuition.
“Senator Harkin has built a legacy on being a champion for students trying to afford college. We’d be deeply disappointed to see his subcommittee abandon its support for the Pell grant and jeopardize the aspirations of millions of low-income young people,” said Jennifer Wang, policy director at Young Invincibles, an advocacy organization that represents 18 to 34 year-olds.
The weekly report on testing from Bob Schaeffer of Fairtest:
FairTest provides these weekly summaries of news clips and other resources as a tool to build the national assessment reform movement. We encourage parents, educators, students, administrators, community organizers, researchers and other allies to draw on the positive initiatives described in these links as models for their own local campaigns.
If you have similar materials to share, please send them to us for possible inclusion in future editions.
Some States Rush to Tie Common Core Tests to Graduation
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2014/12/04/three-states-rush-tie-common-core-testing-graduation
California Rethinks How to Report Test Scores
Colorado Legislators Express Bipartisan Skepticism About Testing at Pre-Session Hearing
http://co.chalkbeat.org/2014/12/03/testing-standards-skepticism-surface-at-pre-session-legislative-hearing/#.VICAsHvvcZx
Connecticut Working to De-emphasize Testing in School Accountability
http://www.courant.com/education/hc-school-accountability-1204-20141207-story.html?dssReturn&z=33957
Florida School Boards Association Takes a Stand Against Over Testing
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/florida-school-boards-take-a-stand-against-over-testing/2208695
Text of Florida School Boards Resolution
Click to access FSBA_resolution.pdf
Opposition Grows to Illinois’ Use of PARCC Common Core Test
http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/illinois-set-test-common-core-standards
Louisiana Political Struggle Over PARRC Testing Continues
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mercedes-schneider/parcc-is-down-to-dc-plus-_b_6286010.html
How Massachusetts Teachers Defeated a Test-Based Evaluation Plan
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/11/no-more-backroom-deals/
New Jersey Parents, Teachers Talk About Opting Out of PARCC Test
http://unionnewsdaily.com/news/county/15753
Mom Dares New Jersey Gov. Christie to Defend Common Core Exam After Taking It
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/08/mom-to-common-core-task-force-take-the-4th-grade-parcc-practice-test-i-dare-you-to-tell-me-it-makes-sense/
Judging New York’s Education Chancellor By Her Own “Standards”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/08/if-teachers-are-judged-by-student-test-scores-how-about-the-state-chancellor/
Ohio’s Harmful Obsession with School Testing
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2014/12/05/1-obsession-with-testing-can-be-harmful.html
PTA in Oklahoma Calls for End to High-Stakes Testing
http://www.news9.com/story/27530693/oklahoma-pta-calls-for-end-to-high-stakes-testing
Oklahoma PTA Resolutions on Testing
http://www.okpta.org/advocacy/2014-convention-resolutions/
Dallas, Texas, School Board Responds to Parents Call for Less Focus on Testing
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20141203-3-dallas-isd-trustees-call-for-reducing-focus-on-testing.ece
What Might a Republican Rewrite of “No Child Left Behind” Look Like?
http://blogs.edweek.org/campaign-k-12/2014/12/what_might_a_republican_no_chi.html
Duncan’s Hammer: Test Scores
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/road-trips-in-education/2014/12/duncans_hammer_test_scores.html
National Secondary School Principals Group Criticizes Value-Added Measurement
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2014/12/principals_group_latest_to_critize_value_added.html
First Step to Close Test Score Gap: Reduce Poverty and Segregation
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2014/12/06/first-step-should-reducing-poverty-segregation/KGXehFsSBLyXB2ri9wUdbL/story.html
To Fix School Problems: Listen to Experienced Education Experts
http://lancasteronline.com/opinion/columnists/to-fix-problems-in-schools-listen-to-the-educational-experts/article_7caf17ca-7a6e-11e4-a57f-a7f0c85121a8.html
Standardized Testing a False Solution to Attacking Educational Racism
http://www.alternet.org/books/people-who-have-experienced-racism-schools-standardized-tests-can-seem-solution-its-not
Beware of Another Standardized Test: This One on Civics
http://contextflorida.com/martin-dcykman-watch-yet-another-standardized-test-one-civics/
Corruption and Cheating Increase with Imposition of School “Accountability” Schemes Says Finnish Expert
https://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/12/04/corruption-and-cheating-increases-with-accountability-says-finnish-expert.aspx
The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed with Standardized Testing — forthcoming book available for pre-order now
Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing
office- (239) 395-6773 fax- (239) 395-6779
mobile- (239) 699-0468
web- http://www.fairtest.org
Larry Miller is a member of the Milwaukee school district. Milwaukee has been a district subjected to the reform nostrums of choice for the past 25 years. It has a large charter sector and a large voucher sector. The shrinking public schools have a much larger proportion of students with disabilities than the other two sectors, which don’t want them. Despite the skimming practices of the two privatized sectors, neither the charter or voucher sectors outperform the public schools. Choice has not lifted all boats; in fact, it has shown no results other than to shrink the public schools. The city’s “independent” evaluator says that the voucher schools have a higher graduation rate, but that higher rate is accompanied by a 44% attrition rate.
Now the business community and other “reformers” in Milwaukee decided that having lots of charters and voucher schools is not enough. They want the whole district to be converted to a New Orleans-style charter district. Apparently no one told them that the majority of charter schools in the Recovery School District in New Orleans are rated D or F by the charter-friendly state. Or that the New Orleans district is ranked 65th out of 68 districts in the state in academic performance.
Milwaukee school board member Larry Miller here briefly reviews the nation’s four “recovery-style school districts”: the one in New Orleans, the Achievement School District in Tennessee, the Education Achievement Authority in Michigan, and the Opportunity Educational Institution in Virginia. The bottom line: parents lose representation and voice; staff are fired; academic achievement is stagnant.
Diane Ravitch's blog 