Archives for the year of: 2014
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Jesse Hagopian: Dr. Frankenstein Meets His Monster

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2014 //
34

Jesse Hagopian, a teacher at Garfield High School in Seattle, here describes the decision by the Gates Foundation to delay the high-stakes consequences of the tests promoted by—-the Gates Foundation.

Hagopian writes:

“How do you know the United States is currently experiencing the largest revolt against high-stakes standardized testing in history?

“Because even the alchemists responsible for concocting the horrific education policies designed to turn teaching and learning into a test score have been shaken hard enough to awaken from the nightmare scenario of fast-tracking high-stakes Common Core testing across the nation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation issued a stunning announcement on Tuesday, saying that it supports a two-year moratorium on attaching high-stakes to teacher evaluations or student promotion on tests associated with the new Common Core State Standards.

“Labor journalist Lee Sustar put it perfectly when he said of the Gates Foundation’s statement, “Dr. Frankenstein thought things got out of hand, too.”

“The mad-pseudoscientists at the Gates Foundation have been the primary perpetrators of bizarre high-stakes test experiments in teacher evaluations, even as a growing body of research—including a report from the American Statistical Association—has debunked the validity of “value added method” testing models. The Gates Foundation has used its immense wealth to circumvent the democratic process to create the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with very little input from educators.”

After dissecting this surprising and welcome retreat, Hagopian calls on resisters to join a demonstration on June 26 and continue the mass civil resistance to the Gates Foundation’s undemocratic takeover of American education:

“This latest backtrack by the Gates Foundation shows they are vulnerable to pressure. But the question remains, will the Gates Foundation pursue its call for constraining the testing creature it created with the same zeal as it showed in creating the Common Core? Will the Foundation use its undue influence and wealth to pressure states to drop the use of high stakes testing attached to Common Core tests? On June 26th, public education advocates from around the country will arrive in Seattle to protest at the global headquarters of the Gates Foundation. You should join them and find out if the Gates Foundation is brave enough to answer these questions.

“While the Gates Foundation may be bending to the will of a popular revolt, it will take nothing short of mass civil rights movement to defeat its grotesque monster of high-stakes testing that is menacing our schools.”

Categories Common Core, Garfield High School, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Why the Los Angeles School Board Ousted Stuart Magruder

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2014 //
21

Columnist Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times explains why the school board did not reappoint Stuart Magruder to the “independent” Bond Oversight Committee: He asked too many questions about why Superintendent Deasy was tapping the school bond fund to buy iPads instead of spending the money as voters intended, for construction and repairs.

Magruder “just had to speak up. The arrogance, the temerity, the insolence. How dare he challenge the leadership of the Los Angeles Unified School District?”

What did he ask that got him bounced?

“There’s not enough space here to itemize all the issues raised at various times by Magruder and other committee members, along with members of the media.

But to name several:

Why iPads versus other, possibly less expensive tablets or laptops?

Why did the need for detached keyboards, at a cost of millions, seem to be such an afterthought?

Why did the district buy software sight unseen and only partially developed?

Why had there been so little teacher training and preparation?

Why so little consideration of who would be responsible for lost and damaged tablets?

And how useful could the tablets be if, by one legal interpretation, students wouldn’t be allowed to take them home each night?

“I’m invested in this,” said Magruder, who has two kids in L.A. Unified and got a first-hand look at the problems when his daughter’s school was included in an early phase of the iPad rollout.

Magruder didn’t find the programming engaging, compelling or linked to a larger curriculum strategy in a way that had been explained to teachers, parents or students.

“Technology doesn’t solve problems unless humans and teachers use it well,” said Magruder, who noted that the software company did manage to neatly promote itself to students with a logo on its programs.

“Not an ‘M’ for math or an ‘E’ for English, but a big ‘P’ for Pearson,” he said.”

The board will reconsider his ouster at its meeting on Tuesday. Here is hoping they restore this watchdog to his role as watchdog.

Please sign this petition calling on the LAUSD school board to re-appoint Stuart Magruder.

Categories Los Angeles, Pearson, Technology, Computers

Peter Greene: North Carolina Has the Worst Legislature in the Nation

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2014 //
57

Peter Greene has scoured the nation to determine which state legislature is most hostile to teachers. Here he explains why North Carolina wins that dubious title.

He begins:

“There are several state legislatures that are working hard to earn the “Worst Legislature in America” medal. Florida, where it’s cool to use terminally ill children as political tools and their families as punching bags, has always been a strong contender. New York State staked its claim by taking the extraordinary measure of overruling local government because they didn’t like its decision. Several states have worked to promote the teaching profession by stripping it of any professional trappings like decent pay and job security.

“But when it comes to suck, North Carolina is a tough state to beat.

“The legislature tried to make tenure go away entirely, but was frustrated to discover that they could not legally revoke tenure for people who already had it. But the wily legislators realized that they had a unique piece of leverage in a state where teachers’ real-dollar wages have dropped every year for seven years.

“The proposal is simple. NC teachers can have a raise, or they can have job security. They cannot have both.

“They may have a raise. And who knows. Some day they might get another one. But they can also be fired for being too expensive. Or they can have job security, but Senate Leader Phil Berger warns that they will probably never see another raise again.

“The message is as clear as it is simple:

“North Carolina legislators do not want teaching to be a career in their state.

“If you want to devote your career, your lifetime of work, to teaching, you cannot do it in North Carolina.”

Categories North Carolina, Teachers and Teaching

Philadelphia: Much Reform, Little Change

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2014 //
10

In this article, veteran journalist Dale Mezzacappa reviews the tumult in Philadelphia and interviews people who have known the issues for 20 years or more. Given the high poverty in the district and the state’s neglect, not much has changed for the better.

Mezzacappa says there are more choices than ever. But the district is in terrible trouble:

“The state took over the District’s governance. Charter schools proliferated. Dozens of neighborhood schools were closed, including such landmarks as the 99-year-old Germantown High.

“Despite the state takeover, the District’s financial condition has only become more desperate.

“State and federal pressure to intervene in schools with consistently subpar performance mounted; standardized testing became the major driver of school rankings. ”

“All these changes have happened within larger shifts – demographic, political, social, and economic. Philadelphia has become the country’s most impoverished big city, with 13 percent of residents – an astonishing 200,000 people – living in deep poverty, or on less than $9,700 for a household of three.”

“As income and wealth inequality have worsened, the dividing lines in this region by race and income are starker than ever. Philadelphia school enrollment is mostly Black and Hispanic and low-income, while the surrounding districts are mostly White and middle- or high-income. Spending gaps between wealthier and poorer districts have never been bigger. Philadelphia schools struggle harder to overcome the effects of concentrated poverty – all while the District’s funding base has crumbled.”

Now charters and district schools compete for limited funds. Schools are stripped to bare essentials.

Read what the veterans say.

Lots of reform. Not much progress.

Categories Charter Schools, Philadelphia, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Anthony Cody Refutes John Merrow on Vergara

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2014 //
24

Anthony Cody calls out John Merrow for inconsistency on the Vergara decision. Merrow, Cody notes, has become increasingly outspoken as a critic of high-stakes testing, et fails to appreciate that his support for the Vergara decision is support for bubble testing as the ultimate judge of teacher quality.

Cody writes:

“The Vergara decision follows the poorly founded logic of the Chetty study, which makes dubious claims of future student success based on differences in test score gains between teachers. What is the effect on teachers and students when “student performance” becomes a factor in teacher evaluation – as Merrow advocates here? Student performance is almost always measured by test scores, and we already have many states that have gone down this path, and are using Value Added Models to predict what student test scores should be, resulting in poor evaluations for teachers whose students don’t grow as fast as the VAM system predicts they should. English learners, special ed, and even the gifted and talented tend to perform poorly in these systems, meaning that teachers who work with these students are likely to suffer from poor evaluations. And ALL teachers will be obligated to make whatever tests are used for these purposes central to their teaching, to avoid being terminated.

“Merrow closes his post with this statement:

“The effort to blame poor education results on teachers and unions is misguided and malicious. It’s scapegoating, pure and simple, but-it must be said-protectionist policies like those in California play into the stereotype.

“Let’s think about what this stance suggests we ought to do.

“In spite of the fact that the effort to blame poor results on teachers and unions is totally wrong, we should capitulate to the central demands of the “reformers.” Get rid of seniority. Base evaluations – and the decision as to who is terminated — more on student performance (test scores) and principal judgment.

“The result will be to make a profession that has become less and less desirable, even less so.

“Turnover has already been on the rise. Charter schools already are demonstrating the model at work, and have significantly higher teacher turnover to show for it. Moving public schools in this direction will drive turnover upwards there as well. Turnover has been shown to have a strong negative effect on student performance. This report should not be forgotten. It found that:

“For each analysis, students taught by teachers in the same grade-level team in the same school did worse in years where turnover rates were higher, compared with years in which there was less teacher turnover. 


“An increase in teacher turnover by 1 standard deviation corresponded with a decrease in math achievement of 2 percent of a standard deviation; students in grade levels with 100 percent turnover were especially affected, with lower test scores by anywhere from 6 percent to 10 percent of a standard deviation based on the content area.


“The effects were seen in both large and small schools, new and old ones. 


“The negative effect of turnover on student achievement was larger in schools with more low-achieving and black students.”

Cody maintains that low-performing schools need a policy of teacher retention, not teacher firing.

Categories Teacher Tenure

Leonie Haimson: Come to NYC Hearings to Fight for Class Size Reduction

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2014 //
12

Leonie Haimson of ClassSizeMatters calls on NYC parents and concerned citizens to attend public hearings about allocation of money.

Starting Tuesday of this week, the NYC Department of Education will hold mandated hearings in each borough on the use of more than $500 million in state Contracts for Excellence funds – which, according to state law, is supposed to include a plan to reduce class size.

Right now, class sizes in the early grades are the largest in 15 years, despite the fact that smaller classes are the top priority of parents in the DOE’s own surveys, and the constitutional right of NYC students, according to the state’s highest court.

Yet instead of allocating specific dollars for this purpose, the DOE has left it up to principals to decide which among five programs they would like to spend these funds. To make things worse, in an Orwellian bit of doublespeak, the DOE will allow principals to spend these funds not to lower class size – but if they merely claim that they will be used to minimize class size increases.

Please attend these hearings and speak out; more information and a schedule is here, and a petition you can sign is here.

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320
leonie@classsizematters.org
http://www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com

Categories Class size, New York City, Parents

Gary Rubinstein: Did Kane’s Testimony in Vergara Make Sense?

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2014 //
52

Gary Rubinstein notes that the two expert witnesses for the plaintiffs were Raj Chetty, the nation’s leading advocate for VAM (basing teacher evaluation on student test scores) and Thomas Kane, who led the Gates’ Measures of Effective Teaching study.

Chetty throws in his speculation about how much money an entire class loses by having even one “ineffective” teacher, and Kane speculates that students learn nothing when they have an ineffective teacher. Neither the judge nor the experts cared that there was no testimony showing that any of the nine plaintiffs had any ineffective teachers, not even one.

Rubinstein wonders in this post about Kane’s definition of months of learning. He thinks that even the judge found it hard to accept his extreme views and ignored some of them.

Categories California, Teacher Tenure

Corporate Reformers Hope to Bring Vergara-Style Litigation to Connecticut

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2014 //
37

Spokespersons for the corporate reform movement hope to launch legal attacks on tenure and seniority in Connecticut, following the example of the Vergara case in California.

Even though the laws in the two states are quite different, the corporate reformers object to any job security at all for teachers, and they assume that low scores anywhere must be caused by teachers who should be fired.

Here is one of Connecticut’s leading corporate reform voices: “”The Vergara case exposed the fact that children have unequal access to quality teachers in California. This problem exists in Connecticut as well,” said Jennifer Alexander, chief executive officer of ConnCAN, an organization that supports school reform.”

The head of the corporate reform Connecticut Parents Union said she wants a judge to rule that teachers in low-performing schools should have neither tenure or seniority.

But Connecticut has a much longer waiting period for tenure than California. In the latter state, teachers may win tenure in 18 months, but in Conne it cut, tenure is awarded after four years of teaching. In California, dismissing a teacher is a long and costly process, but in Connecticut, according to Cindy Mirochine, president of the Danbury Teachers Union, the time allotted to the termination process is limited: “”We reduced the time for due process,” Mirochine said, adding that the maximum time from notice of termination until termination was reduced from 125 days to 85 days.

Given the differences between the two states, it becomes clear that the goal of a lawsuit in Connecticut would be to remove any and all job protections for teachers so that they could be fired promptly, for any reason. There is no reason to believe that such changes would increase the number of “great teachers” or have any beneficial impact on students with low test scores.

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Teacher Tenure

Florida: Parent and Educator Groups Urge Governor Scott to Veto Voucher Expansion

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2014 //
4

Parents and educators are urging Governor Rick Scott to veto the expansion of vouchers, which drains money from public schools.

Scott is up for re-election.

“Members of the Florida PTA, grass roots parent groups, the Florida Conference of NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the statewide teachers union have launched a campaign against the bill, which they say will drain taxpayer dollars from already cash-strapped public schools.

“We stand united in our opposition to voucher expansion,” said Mindy Gould, who oversees legislative affairs for the PTA. “The governor needs to know that…..

“Other groups involved in the campaign against the proposal include the Florida School Boards Association, the League of Women Voters, the Spanish American League Against Discrimination, and the Sant Le Haitian Neighborhood Service Center in Miami, according to the PTA.”

Scott, a conservative who supports privatization, has until June 28 to act.

Categories Florida, Vouchers

David Sirota: When Philanthropy Replaces and Controls the Public Sector

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2014 //
45

David Sirota explains in the journal “In These Times” that there is a conflict between big-time philanthropy and democracy. He describes recent conference where the tech industry wrung its collective hands about inequality without acknowledging that it is a source of frowing inequality.

“Indeed, there seems to be a trend of billionaires and tech firms making private donations to public institutions ostensibly with the goal of improving public services. Yet, many of these billionaires are absent from efforts to raise public resources for those same institutions. Zuckerberg is only one example.

“For instance, hedge funders make big donations to charter schools. Yet, the hedge fund industry lobbies against higher taxes that would generate new revenue for education.

“Meanwhile, Microsoft boasts about making donations to schools, while the company has opposed proposals to increase taxes to fund those schools.

“To understand the conflict between democracy and this kind of philanthropy, remember that private donations typically come with conditions about how the money must be allocated. In education, those conditions can be about anything from curriculum to testing standards to school structure. No matter what the conditions are, though, they effectively circumvent the democratic process and dictate policy to public institutions. While those institutions can reject a private donor’s money, they are often desperate for resources.
In this, we see a vicious cycle that undermines democratic control. Big money interests use anti-democratic campaign finance laws to fund anti-tax policies that deprive public institutions of resources. Those policies make public institutions desperate for private resources. When philanthropists offer those resources, they often make the money contingent on public officials relinquishing democratic control and acceding to ideological demands.

“Disruption theory is usually the defense of all this—the hypothesis being that billionaire cash is the only way to force public institutions to do what they supposedly need to do. But whether or not you believe that theory, Gore is correct: It isn’t democratic. In fact, it is quite the opposite.””

Categories Broad Foundation, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Walton Foundation
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