Archives for the year of: 2014
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Helen Gym: What It Means to be a Champion of Change

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2014 //
10

I previously commended Helen Gym for her activism as a parent advocate for public education in Philadelphia.

She is on the honor roll as a hero and an exemplar. And, boy, Philadelphia needs her now!

Philadelphia is Ground Zero for the fake reform movement.

The fake reformers are well on their way to obliterating public education in that great American city and proud of it.

With all the wealth and power concentrated in that city and state, the power brokers and financiers have decided to extinguish public education.

One person standing in their way is Helen Gym.

Read about what she has done these past few weeks.

She gave a TED talk (and look at that slide over her head: $26,000 per child in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, vs. $14,000 in Philadelphia).

She was named one of the most powerful people in Philadelphia.

She was selected by the White House as a “champion of change.” (Ha! fighting the Obama administration’s rightwing education policies.)

She helped other parents fight the parent trigger.

She joined me at AERA and chastised the nation’s education researchers for abandoning cities like Philadelphia.

Helen Gym is a hero and an inspiration for us all!

 

Categories Honor Roll, Parents, Philadelphia

EduShyster: “Fishin’ 4 Schools” Is For Sale

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2014 //
6

Jon Hage cashed in on the charter industry in a big way. And where else but Florida, where for-profit schools are welcome no matter what their quality.

EduShyster tells the story here of Jon Hage, a non-educator who is one of Florida’s most successful charter entrepreneurs.

“Have you ever encountered a story so sadly tragic that you were forced to break your own rule regarding pre-noon winebox decanting? I have… Hankies at the ready, reader, for we are *going there.* I’m talking about the super sad true tale of Charter Schools USA founder and CEO Jonathan Hage and his wrenching decision to part with his yacht: the aptly named Fishin’ 4 Schools. In other words, onto every teak deck a little salt water must spray. It’s time to don your stripes, reader; we’re goin’ fishin’.”

She says the boat has been listed for sale for $350,000. Just like your typical superintendent’s boat.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit

Texas Superintendent Asks for Help in Stopping Failed VAM

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2014 //
20

This superintendent posted a request for help. I will be posting a summary of research on value-added-measurement later today. I think it is fair to say that while economists like VAM (they measure productivity), education researchers overwhelmingly oppose VAM because they know that most of the factors affecting test scores are beyond the control of the teacher.

 

 

I am a Superintendent in Texas and I’m looking for some insight into a connection I just became aware of. The state of Texas has begun the process of revamping principal and teacher evaluations. Recently (in the last few months) the Commissioner of Education reached a compromise with the USDE about NCLB requirements. Part of the compromise required Texas to include test scores in the teacher evaluation tool.

Now I see, taken from the SEDL website ( http://txcc.sedl.org/our_work/), that the states’ work on both the Principal and Teacher Evaluation systems are based on the priorities of the USDE. Unless I’m mistaken, the USDE priorities have been in place for several years. That would make the Commissioner’s “compromise” essentially a lie. He planned all along to implement a system like this. The best remedy to this kind of “in the dark” activity is sunlight.

Can anyone help explain these connections? I realize my explanation is short on details, best I believe the answers could be very enlightening when you consider the following points:
-Texas, especially our governor, has made a point of opposing EVERYTHING Washington
-Texas filed a waiver from NCLB and then pretended the result was the best it could do
– Educators are about to have an evaluation system imposed on them that will for all practical purposes, reestablish High Stakes Testing as a priority in this state by requiring student test scores be a SIGNIFICANT (emphasis TEA) portion of their evaluation

This stuff is not a coincidence, just look at the pattern of reform initiatives in other states. Its only just begun here in Texas.

My email is bendeancarson@gmail.com

THE BELOW INFORMATION IS FROM THE SEDL WEBSITE REFERENCED ABOVE

This project relates to the following USDE Priorities:

Identifying, recruiting, developing, and retaining highly effective teachers and leaders
Identifying and scaling up innovative approaches to teaching and learning that significantly improve student outcomes

 

Categories Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Texas

Update on United Opt Out Website

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2014 //
5

You may recall that the website of United Opt Out was hacked and taken down on the first day of state testing. It provides information to parents in every state on how to opt out. Here is the latest:

Diane,

I posted a fundraising account for the new website online this past Sunday. By the time I got home from work on Monday/yesterday we had raised the full amount – see here 🙂 http://www.gofundme.com/83if88 . Seriously overwhelmed by the kindness of everyone.

I filed a report with the FBI last Thursday. Have yet to hear anything. We are rebuilding our website with the K-12 News Network (see here https://k12newsnetwork.com/ ) who already hosts some amazing public education websites. They also offer a lot of additional tools and supports within the website that previously we had to seek elsewhere. Very excited and very very grateful.

Cynthia Liu – owner of K-12 News Network says she should have quite a bit of the website ready to go in ONE WEEK. Cynthia is also on the committee (along with Fairtest and United Opt Out) which created the resistthetest.org site which was launched shortly before the NPE conference. We are in good hands!!!! Just had to share the fabulous update.

Best,
Peg
http://www.unitedoptout.com (Rebuilding!!! We will be STRONGER AND BETTER!!!!)
http://www.pegwithpen.com

Categories Testing

Teacher: The Joy of Teaching Is Gone

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2014 //
25

A teacher in Syracuse writes, in response to comments by another teacher:

Teaching has lost its joy and spontaneity. It has become “all work and no play, which makes Johnny a very dull boy.” (that goes for teachers too)!

At least one third of the teachers in my elementary school are now looking for work outside the profession. My kinder class is doing literacy curriculum with imaginative play completely phased out and only 20 minute recess daily. It is a stressful, rigid, boring environment that causes children and teachers to lose their spirit.

There is very little opportunity for social interaction between the children, since most of their CCSS worksheets are designed for independent work. There is no opportunity for relaxed conversation or spontaneity in our classroom, since our rigid schedule is demanding and inflexible. I don’t really have an opportunity to get to know my students on a personal level, since we are expected to maintain our detached business like atmosphere. We do have one art/music/pe class weekly, but when those go away it will be very depressing. The atmosphere of our school has become gelotophobic.

As a teacher, I feel restricted and controlled in everything I do. I have no freedom to use my own creativity in designing lesson plans, which causes me to think I could easily be replaced by a computer. Maybe that is the goal of CCSS and the reformers?

Your choice of the word “eerie” is true: ” It’s eerie to see CCSS stamped on all current material and resources. Education has been branded like cattle.”

That is a good description because the hostile corporate takeover is turning schools into systems of management like those used for livestock! It is all about “conditioning” children to “perform for tests”, like little workaholics who can follow commands, but cannot think for themselves or be creative. Work and boredom has become normal.

I think it is “eerie” to see children who have blank stares and work in silence most of the day without spontaneity, imagination, or play. I think the reason Pearson designed CCSS materials to be confusing and frustrating is part of the plan to dismantle public schools. The more parents recognize their children are having anxiety and depression, the more they will be inclined to put them into private or charter schools.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core, Real Education, Teachers and Teaching

Williams and Kilfoyle: Reformers, We Will Not Let You Steal Our Children, Our Schools, Our Democracy

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2014 //
5

Dr.Yohuru Williams and Maria Kilfoyle, NBCT, have a message for the corporate reformers: We will never surrender.

They write:

“Public education… is the cornerstone of democracy. It helps students acquire civic knowledge so that they can become participants in their democracy. It also requires students and communities to reflect on a continuous basis, through school board meetings, referendums and countless other exercises of local politics, on the nature of the democratic process. Public education further requires parents, teachers, and communities to work in partnership to solve problems on behalf of the public good. If we were to sit passively by and allow unscrupulous politicians and corporations to auction public education off to the highest bidder, we would also be complicit in its demise, but we, and scores of others do not intend to allow that to happen. For the future of our kids and these democratic ideals, we will fight.”

The corporate reformers claim the sky is falling, play on public fears, and advance “solutions” that have not a shred of evidence behind them.

They write:

“Even though democracy has been frustrated and many communities have fallen under the sway of the harmful machinery of Corporate Education Reform, we will not tire or retreat. We will stand and fight the deformers in the town hall meetings, in the governors’ offices and on the floors of state legislatures, on the local school boards, on the campuses of the nation’s colleges and universities, we will even fight at the gates of the White House and on the steps of Capitol Hill; we will never surrender.

“We will never surrender because the real issue that hinders education for children, poverty, needs to be addressed not ignored. The sound bites of education disaster that deformers thrust upon the public never mention child poverty. In fact, they go out of their way to marginalize it and ignore it. We will force the public and governments, at both the federal and state level, to address this.

“We will never surrender because the very social inequalities that deformers like Gates, Duncan, Rhee, and Broad are using to claim their agenda for public education are full of lies, a lack of research, and an alternate agenda that isn’t about equality or justice; it is about the dollar and continued oppression of the poor. Nothing they have presented as an agenda for education will cure child poverty or social injustice. We will never surrender until this lie is exposed and destroyed. Finally, yet importantly, we will never surrender because principle, morality, democracy, and justice are on our side. Our hearts are not bought by The Gates Foundation or The Broad Foundation – Our hearts belong to the children we teach, and the communities we invest in. For that, we will never surrender.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Students, Teachers and Teaching

MARCH for Public Schools This Thursday: NYC, 4 PM

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2014 //
7

Dear Public Education Supporter:

The CEC/Citywide Working Group is a coalition of elected District and Citywide Education Councils across New York City. We – along with numerous other public school parent and pro public education groups including the Alliance for Quality Education, New York Communities for Change, Change the Stakes, Parent Voices and many others – will be convening a rally on the steps of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue and 41st Street at 4:00PM this Thursday, April 10th. We will then march to Governor Cuomo’s office, 633 Third Ave at 40th Street. (See attachments. This is the corrected time and location)

The rally and march have been called in the face of provisions in last week’s budget which promote the pitting of parents against parents and the willful destruction of public education in New York City by Governor Cuomo and the New York State Senate, all at the direction of the hedge fund-run charter school lobby.

Specifically, Governor Cuomo and the State Senate-led budget provide for the following:

– The de Blasio administration MUST offer space to EVERY charter school rubber-stamped in the final weeks of the Bloomberg administration. Mayor de Blasio previously approved 14 of 17 charters; now he MUST move forward with all 17 – regardless of the fact that autistic and severely emotionally disturbed children will be moved out of their own buildings, or public high schools must step aside to make room for elementary charters.

– EVERY charter now located in public school buildings MUST be allowed to EXPAND as much as the charter wishes. If public school class sizes and building enrollment increase to unsustainable levels, too bad. If it means giving control of entire buildings to charters by pushing out all public school students, so be it.

– ALL new charter schools requesting NYC public school space – and there will be dozens and potentially hundreds more – MUST be provided it or must pay for private space for the charters. No rent can be charged in public or private spaces. Public schools have no such rights.

– The Mayor, the City Council, the CEC’s and the Community are effectively removed from space decisions, giving the charter lobby more say over our public school buildings (and capital budget) than any of our elected officials.

– Per pupil funding will be increased to ALL charter schools despite the millions they receive from Wall Street and the fact that collocated charters already receive thousands of dollars more per pupil than our public schools. Meanwhile the State refused to fund the court ordered CFE decision whereby billions are owed to New York City schools. Instead the budget provides tax cuts to millionaires.

For the first time, parents across the City have united to make our collective voice heard. We seek to ensure that the 94% of New York City students in public schools are treated fairly and equally to the 6% in charters. We ask that you mobilize your parents, your students, your elected officials, your teachers and community members to attend this historic rally. Attached is a flyer with information, and multiple ways of reaching rally organizers, as well as some points of interest about our cause. Please contact us with any questions or information at SaveNYCSchools@gmail.com as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance for your support of public education and all our children. We know you are bombarded with many invitations, but this rally will prove to our legislators that we stand as one.

The CEC/Citywide Council Working Group

email: SaveNYCSchools@gmail.com
Like us on FaceBook: Save NYC Public Education

noah eliot gotbaum
community education council district 3 (cec3)
noah@gotbaum.com
twitter: @noahegotbaum

Categories New York City

Yong Zhao: PISA and Illusory Models of Excellence

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2014 //
4

Yong Zhao, who was born and educated in China, is a sharp critic of standardized testing. This article is the third in a series in which he criticizes PISA for misleading the world and promoting standardization and uniformity.

In this article, he reviews the many critiques of PISA by testing expert in other actions.

He writes:

“From the start, the entire PISA enterprise has been designed to capitalize on the intense nationalistic concern for global competitiveness by inducing strong emotional responses from the unsuspecting public, gullible politicians, and sensation-seeking media. Virtually all PISA products, particularly its signature product—the league tables, are intended to show winners and losers, in not only educational policies and practices of the past, but more important, in capacity for global competition in the future. While this approach has made PISA an extremely successful global enterprise, it has misled the world down a path of self-destruction, resulting in irrational policies and practices that are more likely to squander precious resources and opportunities than enhancing capacity for future prosperity.”

He reviews the OECD’s claim that the children of factory workers in Shanghai had higher scores than the children of professionals in the U.S. and finds it misleading.

Then he adds the “so what” factor:

“Even if PISA had done everything properly and indeed children of factory workers in Shanghai scored better than children of lawyers in the U.K. and the U.S., it does not necessarily mean they are better educated or prepared for the modern society, considering the limitation of PISA test scores as I discussed in Part 3 of this series. It could mean something entirely different: while PISA scores can be achieved with little resources and intense repetition of narrowly defined, uniformly prescribed content and skills, what truly matters—talent diversity, creativity, and entrepreneurialism—cannot. The multiplication table can be learned with a piece of paper, but it would be difficult to force anyone to play the piano without a piano. Everyone can be forced to memorize Hamlet, but it is unlikely to force anyone to invent the iPhone.”

Categories International, Testing

At Least 33,000 Students Opted Out of State Tests in New York State

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2014 //
7

Preliminary figures indicate that at least 33,000 students opted out of state tests in New York.

This is a huge increase from last year, when only a few hundred students refused to take the tests.

Given the growing criticism of the tests, which many teachers and principals say were “terrible” or developmentally inappropriate, the opt put movement will continue to grow.

It is an awful burden to place on children to tell them–and, yes, they know– that their test score will determine whether their teacher will be fired or their school will be closed.

As more states begin taking the Common Core-aligned tests, more parents will say no. We have heard from industry spokesmen that the online tests will be data mining, collecting information about children for future use, perhaps for vendors. Parents will say, “No thanks.” And they are right.

Categories New York, Resistance, Testing

What Eva Won. Thanks, Billionaires!

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2014 //
41

Now that the New York state legislature has passed a law written specifically to permit Eva Moskowitz to expand her elementary school–presently co-located inside PS 149 in Harlem–into a middle school, students with disabilities will be removed from PS 149. No one knows yet where they will go, but the city has to find a place for them.

 

That $5 million ad campaign attacking Mayor Bill de Blasio was all about the “eviction” of Eva’s students. She was outraged because the mayor said she should open a middle school somewhere else and not push out the students with disabilities. But the billionaires wanted the space presently occupied by the kids with disabilities–the ones that would never be accepted into Eva’s Success Academy. After all, if they have serious disabilities, they might pull down the test scores, and that is not acceptable, is it? Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and Mort Zuckerman’s New York Daily News chimed in to support Eva’s smart kids. They were not being “evicted,” they were expected to move from their elementary school to a middle school in a different building, as most children in New York City do. But most children do not attend Success Academy!

 

So here is another demonstration, this time by the supporters of the children with disabilities. They will be evicted to make room for Eva’s new middle school. Will any billionaire run ads to protest the genuine “eviction” of these kids? No, they are powerless. And they don’t have high test scores. And in this society, if you don’t have high test scores, you have fewer rights and privileges:

 

 

Media Contacts:
Julian Vinocur. 203.313.2479. julian@aqeny.org

* Media Advisory for Tomorrow, April 8, 9:15a.m.
Steps of Dept. of Education, 52 Chambers St., Lower Manhattan *

Harlem Parents to Protest Gov. Cuomo for Forcing Damaging Co-location With Success Academy

*Elected Officials, NAACP’s Hazel Dukes, Parents will Rally to Save Key Services for Special Needs Students at Mickey Mantle School*

WHO: State Senator Bill Perkins; Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer; Councilmember and Chair of the Education Committee Daniel Dromm; Council Member Antonio Reynoso; President of NAACP NYS Conference Hazel Dukes; Harlem parents to be co-located with Success Academy, at PS 149/811; parents and advocates from the Alliance for Quality Education, NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, New York Communities for Change and Make the Road New York.

WHAT: At a major rally tomorrow, parents and teachers from the Mickey Mantle school PS 811 and PS 149 in Harlem, will protest Governor Cuomo for strong-arming a damaging co-location with Success Academy that will severely impact 109 special needs children. Affected parents and teachers will detail the imminent loss of vital programs and services, resulting from a forced co-location previously rejected by Mayor de Blasio’s administration, but pushed forward by Governor Cuomo during state budget talks.

– Participants will be tweeting using #SavePS811-

WHERE: Steps of the Dept. of Education, 52 Chambers St., Lower Manhattan.

WHEN: Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 8th, 9:15am.

Categories Charter Schools
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