Archives for the year of: 2014
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JCGrim: Is Your Child “Pre-School Ready?”

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
18

Reader JCGrim wonders when the testing mania will end. It will end when enough parents band together and demand it. When they say they will not allow their children of every age to be subjected to hours of testing. When they opt out en masse. When enough parents say loudly, “Stop! Enough!”

Grim writes:

“If you think Arne couldn’t be any more incompetent, think again. His newest absurdity is special education’s birth to 3yrs early intervention programs.

“According to IDEA, every state must have an early intervention system that serves children with disabilities from birth to age 3 yrs. (public school takes over services for kiddos with disabilities at age 3yrs.) The feds are requiring state systematic improvement plans with “measurable & rigorous targets.”

“TN’s early intervention system (TEIS) must provide “measurable and rigorous results” for infants & toddlers with disabilities & their families. The data must show that early intervention is “closing the achievement gap” and provide the percent of infants & toddlers who are “preschool ready.”

“You read that right “preschool ready.” What does that even mean? Preschool is where kids get their first ever experiences away from their caregivers. Preschool is the first time kids find out they can smear paint on their hands & paper, play with other kids by sifting through a big bin of rice, dance in big circle with a partner, chase butterflies in a butterfly tent, or turn pudding in plastic ziplocs into a snack.

“When will this insanity end? Enough is enough.”

Categories Duncan, Arne, Special Education, Testing

Robert Rendo Writes Karen Lewis

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
4

When Karen was well, she read this blog every day. Sometimes she left comments. I hope she is reading this now and feeling the love that we are sending her.

Robert Rendo writes this to Karen:

“Karen,

“My wife and I are both public school teachers, and we cannot tell you enough how much we love and respect you. You will pull through this because you are enveloped by love, energy, and the will of the rest of us who you have inspired, catalyzed, and lead.

“You are a national figure, but you feel as though you are right here at our kitchen table or on our sofas in our living rooms. You are family to us advocates.

“Know that you are loved and that love and good always triumph over evil . . . “

Categories Education Reform

California: Wall St Profiteers and Waltons Back Tuck

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
16

The leading advocates for privatization are funding Marshall Tuck’s campaign for State Superintendent of Education in California. If you want to get rid of public schools, Tuck’s the guy. If you want to improve public education, vote for Tom Torkakson.

From the Torlakson website:

Pension/School Privateers Invest in Tuck for Schools Chief

A handful of ultra-wealthy donors who support school privatization and cutting public pension systems are behind a flood of spending supporting former Wall Street Banker Marshall Tuck’s campaign for state schools superintendent, campaign disclosure records show.

Far from “Parents and Teachers for Tuck,” the $4.7 million collected so far comes instead from sources that support school vouchers, privatization of public pension systems and using disruptive business tactics to overhaul public schools.

Major funders include:

$500,000 from Carrie Walton Penner, whose family made its fortune running anti-union, low-wage paying Wal-Mart. The Walmart 1% website reports that Penner’s biography includes serving on the board of the Alliance for School Choice – a school voucher advocacy group.

$300,000 from John D. Arnold, a former Enron trader and funder of efforts to persuade governments to cut public employee pensions. In February, the New York Times reported that a public television station returned $3.5 million Arnold’s foundation had paid to underwrite a series examining the economic sustainability of public pensions.

$1 million from corporate CEO Eli Broad. He drew statewide attention when it was revealed he had donated $500,000 to a group with ties to the Koch Brothers to defeat Proposition 30 and pass Proposition 32.

Here’s how Parents Across America, a public school advocacy group, described Broad’s approach: “Broad and his foundation believe that public schools should be run like a business. One of the tenets of his philosophy is to produce system change by ‘investing in disruptive force.’ Continual reorganizations, firings of staff, and experimentation to create chaos or ‘churn’ is believed to be productive and beneficial, as it weakens the ability of communities to resist change.”

Categories Broad Foundation, California, Corporate Reformers, Pensions, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

L.A. Officials Blame Teachers for Their Mess at Jefferson High School

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
8

Talk about cheek! Officials in Los Angeles created dysfunction at Jefferson High School by installing a computer system that screwed up student schedules, then blamed the teachers!

A judge ordered Superintendent John Deasy to fix the problems he had created at Jefferson, and Deasy hailed the decision as a victory for the students. This is Wonderland, when the people in charge wash their hands of all responsibility. And blame teachers.

Here is the best comment on the article:

Offred Gillead on October 14, 2014 8:32 am at 8:32 am said:
Normally I would come up with some sort of response but…

–but, I’m stumped.

Truly nothing is coming to me.

I’m just typing because I’m drawing a blank.

How does one respond to this?

Jefferson as a plane crash. That’s the analogy? A confluence of factors.

Okay. Well what ISN’T a plane crash? Name a single thing in the existence of the universe that ISN’T a confluence of factors?

Some days you just want to throw in the towel as a teacher when you see who is the pilot of this plane. I get on a plane and there’s John Deasy and Tommy Chang in the cockpit?

Sorry. Stewardess! I don’t want another seat! I want another airline! I want the FAA to be on it and not take the word of the drunken pilots!

Board of Ed!

Mayday! Mayday!

What will it take for you to see us circling helplessly? A Ukrainian Ground-to-air missile? Our pilots went to some Florida flight school (paid for by Eli Broad) and seem determined to ram this school system into some buildings and THEN blame the passengers! Didn’t the White House get the briefing earlier? Oh good God. The briefing went to Arne Duncan.

Teachers! Students! Parents!

IPads are where our parachutes should be.

Categories Los Angeles

Peter Greene: Is Your Five-Year-Old College Ready?

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
54

Peter Greene here tackles one of the grand ideas of our strange era of unrealistic goals and expectations: Can you tell if a five-year-old is college-ready?

 

He makes a great point: If you knew that your five-year-old was college-ready, why would he or she need to take an SAT a dozen years later? Why not just put the college applications in at age six?

 

Perhaps Peter has never encountered one of Arne Duncan’s most memorable lines.

 

“We should be able to look every second grader in the eye and say, ‘You’re on track, you’re going to be able to go to a good college, or you’re not,’ ” he said. “Right now, in too many states, quite frankly, we lie to children. We lie to them and we lie to their families.”

 

Some teachers know when their students are leaving kindergarten. Others know in second grade. Are you college ready? But when you ask the kids themselves, as one of the commenters says on Peter’s blog, they say they want to grow up to be a ninja or something else utterly improbable. They want to be a cowboy or a football star or a singer. Why aren’t they thinking of Harvard or Princeton or Yale?

Categories Common Core

K12 Stock Is Sinking as Empire Totters

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
12

K12, Inc., the virtual charter chain founded by the Milken brothers, is in big trouble, according to politico.com. Its stock is tanking, and its legal troubles growing. Its virtual charters seldom get good academic results, but a heavy investment in marketing and recruiting have kept the profits flowing. Until now. I have never liked virtual charters. I think they are a rip-off of kids and taxpayers.

Writes politico.com:

TOUGH TIMES FOR K12, INC: The nation’s largest for-profit operator of public schools, K12, Inc., has had a bumpy ride of late. Its stock closed Friday at a 52-week low of 13.82 per share, down from a recent peak of 36.78 in September 2013. What’s behind the slump? For one thing, the company’s astronomical growth has slowed significantly. Just last fall, K12 executives were projecting revenue of $987 million for fiscal year 2014. But actual revenue for the year came in under $920 million. In a conference call last week, executives projected revenues would rise only slightly in the next fiscal year.

– Meanwhile, K12’s academic empire has been in turmoil. The board of Agora Cyber Charter in Pennsylvania, which is one of K12’s largest and most profitable online schools, has signaled its intent to seek new management (though it will continue to buy digital curriculum from K12). Colorado Virtual Academy broke ties with K12 before the start of the school year. And late last week, Delaware’s state board of education voted to close another struggling school operated by K12, the Maurice J. Moyer Academic Institute. Trouble also looms in Tennessee, where Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman has ordered the K12-operated Tennessee Virtual Academy to shut down after this school year unless it shows big gains in academic performance. And last spring, the NCAA said it wouldn’t accept coursework completed at any of two dozen K12-operated schools as proof of a student’s eligibility to compete for Division I or II colleges and universities.

– To top it all off, K12 faces a trademark infringement lawsuit in Florida. The state Supreme Court last month ruled that Florida Virtual School – which was founded in 1997 – could sue K12 Inc. for opening a slew of competing online schools under the name Florida Virtual Academies. Pro Education looked at K12’s business model and examined the shaky performance of online schools in general in a series last fall:

http://politi.co/ZznuQd and http://politi.co/ZUDaOW

Categories K12 Inc., Virtual Charter Schools

Francesca Lopez Responds to Robin Lake

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
11

I posted a summary of Professor Francesca Lopez’ review of a charter school meta-analysis published by the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. In my introduction, I referred to CPRE as a “leading proponent of charter schools.” Robin Lake wrote me to challenge that characterization. I associate CPRE, which receives extensive funding from the Gates Foundation, with the idea of portfolio districts, in which struggling public schools are replaced by a portfolio of privately managed schools. I invited Robin to send me any CPRE publications critical of charter schools, and I will post about them when I receive them.

Dr. Lopez writes:

Recently, I wrote a think tank review for NEPC on a CRPE report that was summarized on Diane Ravitch’s blog. I was contacted by Adam Gish, an English teacher at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington, who had read the blog post and then asked CRPE’s Robin Lake about her opinion of the NEPC review. Mr. Gish sent me the exchange with Dr. Lake’s response, which he gave me permission to publish, with the thought being that a public exchange could help prompt a larger dialogue.

Here’s what Dr. Lake wrote:

“I patently disagree with the review. It seems to present statements out of important context and ignores what the authors say. For example the authors say that the time trend is positive but not statistically significant but the review cites the authors as having called the trend significant. That’s either a misunderstanding of basic statistical analysis or an intentional misrepresentation. There are numerous other inaccuracies and misinterpretations.

Julian Betts is one of the most cautious, rigorous, and respected analysts I know. That’s why we chose him to do this review. His analysis made minimal and evenhanded conclusions and was peer reviewed by one of the best statisticians in the country.

I really don’t see any legitimate critique here.

Hope this helps you know my view.

Best,

Robin”

Mr. Gish, in his note to me, asked “what [my] rebuttal would be,” so I would like to offer it here. It is Dr. Lake who is incorrect; nowhere in the NEPC review did I “cite the authors as having called the trend significant.” What I do point out is the authors’ claim that there is a positive trend, which is a misleading claim since they also (as I explain on pages 3 and 4 of the review) reported non-significant findings. To use the phrasing of Dr. Lake, this is “basic statistical analysis.” One cannot call something “positive” or “negative” when it is not significant. The point of the trend analysis was to determine if the trend was positive or negative. Because it was not, calling it “not significant” while at the same time calling it “positive” is inaccurate and misleading.

Dr. Lake did not offer sufficient details for a more elaborate rebuttal, but I welcome a discussion regarding what her perceived “numerous other inaccuracies and misrepresentations” might be.

Francesca López

Categories Charter Schools, National Education Policy Center

Ernest Anemone: Market Reforms and the Threat to Democracy

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
29

Ernest Anemone, lawyer and teacher, describes here the growing opposition to market-based reforms such as school choice, test-based accountability, and Common Core. He praises the Badass Teachers Association for bringing out not only the grievances of teachers but giving them a vehicle to fight such powerful figures as Bill GTes and the Walton family.

What is at stake, he avers, is the future of democracy.

He writes:

“On one side of this battle are a powerful group of self-proclaimed reformers inspired by market values and financed by billionaire philanthropists like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Reed Hastings and the Walton Family. They believe that the purpose of education is to prepare children for the labor market by teaching them a “Common Core” of subjects which emphasize English and mathematics. Student proficiency is measured by standardized tests in these subjects, and classroom innovations are supposedly spread to the ‘best performers’ through the mechanisms of competition and ‘school choice.’

“On the other side of the battle are groups like the Badass Teachers, the teachers’ unions, and organizations like FairTest and the Network for Public Education who believe that schools should prepare children to be active agents of democracy, while providing them with a potentially-transformative experience. In their vision of education, students are engaged in cultivating their own moral voices through critical reflection, so educational achievement cannot be reduced to a standard curriculum or measured by standardized test results.

“Although classroom innovations are important, educational success is defined by broader factors outside of the school’s control—especially poverty. According to education historian Diane Ravitch, “poverty is the single greatest determinant of low test scores.” However, the standard package of reforms that is pushed so hard by Gates and others lacks any practical understanding of what it means to teach the 45 per cent of American children who come from struggling families, including the 16 million who live in abject poverty.

“The implication of ‘school choice’ programs is that good choices by ‘consumers’ lead to good results, and poor choices lead to poor results. But recasting poverty as a choice is not only misguided but damaging to the fabric of democracy. High-stakes standardized testing also creates a marketplace of shoddy comparisons—a marketplace that fails to see the strength in certain types of variation because it erroneously regards all variation as weakness.

“Against this background, it’s vital to protect the ability of schools to cooperate with each other (not to compete), and to model other aspects of democratic culture. When teachers, parents and children collaborate in a common search for solutions they increase their democratic capacities. It’s a fundamentally egalitarian vision that rejects the view of education as a commodity that can be quantified, bought and sold.”

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Resistance, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, Vouchers

Karen Lewis Had Surgery for Brain Tumor

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
19

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis underwent five hours of surgery for removal of a brain tumor.

Those of us who admire her, love her, and are inspired by her will continue to pray for her complete recovery. We need her.

Kisses to you, Karen, from your friends.

Categories Chicago

Pennsylvania: Is Corbett for or Against Common Core? Or Both?

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2014 //
2

Politico.com reports today that Corbett is against the Common Core but maybe he is for them, or was until the election:

“NEW SITE FOR KEYSTONE STATE STANDARDS: Pennsylvania state education officials say a website for collecting public comment on the state’s new academic standards will be live sometime this week. Gov. Tom Corbett, currently fighting an uphill battle for a second term, called for public hearings on the standards in math and English last month. That confused some state lawmakers who thought Corbett backed the standards, which were approved last year by the state Board of Education and look like a slightly tweaked version of the Common Core. But Corbett said the public hearings were “the final phase” in a three-year fight “to permanently roll back” the Common Core. The new website will be interactive, a state education official told Morning Education, and anyone interested can submit their comments or feedback through the website. It will act as a repository for two to three months before state officials schedule public hearings on the standards.”

Categories Common Core, Pennsylvania
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