Archives for the month of: January, 2014
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

U.S. Department of Education Rejects Charleston Request to Delay VAM

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2014 //
27

VAMboozled reports here that the U.S. Department of Education rejected a request by the school district of Charleston to delay implementation of value-added measurement of teachers.

District officials asked for an extra year to phase in the evaluation of teachers by the test scores of their students, but the DOE said no.

District officials thought it was better to wait until 2016-17, when they might have more confidence in the methodology.

The district needs federal officials’ permission for the delay because the federal government gave the district the $23.7 million Teacher Incentive Fund grant to develop and implement BRIDGE, which is the new evaluation and compensation systems.

The evaluations are being pilot-tested in 14 schools this year, and the district promised in its grant application to expand the evaluation in 2014-15 to all teachers in BRIDGE schools, as well as to core academic subject teachers in grades 4-8 across the district.

Padilla [speaking for the DOE] pointed out in her letter that the application required a timeline, and the district was approved based on its assurance that it would meet the grant’s requirements, including that timeline.

McGinley said earlier this week that she wasn’t inclined to move forward with any district-wide evaluation system until she had more confidence in it than she does right now.

Patrick Hayes, a third grade teacher who leads the education advocacy group EdFirstSC, said he didn’t see how the district could stick to its proposed timeline when officials have indicated they aren’t where they need to be.

“It seems to me that the path forward is clear,” he said. “It’s time to let go of the grant.”

Categories Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations

New York Parent to Mrs. Obama: Save Our Children!

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2014 //
94

Jill Berardi is the parent of a child in kindergarten in New York. She is also the assistant principal of a middle school in Red Hook, New York, in the Hudson Valley. Here she appeals directly to Michelle Obama to take action to help children like her own. Please feel free to share this letter on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. Maybe The First Lady will read it.

Mrs. Obama: Save our Children!

Dear Mrs. Obama,

Your husband, our president, is surrounded by policymakers who are not listening. It is high time that mothers evaluate what is best for our children! I am writing you an open letter because you receive much mail and my letter could be tossed aside by one of your aides. I am also interested in consensus and feel that this is a time when the more voices that are heard, the better our correction course may be!

My son started kindergarten this year and one of the first letters home was about the Common Core Curriculum and how there would be homework every night. And so it began, it is mid-year and I have hundreds of worksheets at home. This is because I only allowed him to do what could be done in a half an hour. He started the school year at four years old and needs time to play, eat and talk with his parents.

Had I allowed him to do all of the nonsensical worksheets that were stamped Engage NY from the New York State Education Department, his parents would have spent more than an hour every evening with a child, who according to good education theory should not be holding a pencil yet.

Those who can afford prestigious private schools are buffered from the impact of U.S. education policy gone very wrong. For the rest of us, our children are being oppressed by developmentally inappropriate curricular materials designed by non-educators. Some of the worksheets are not understandable to me and I find myself wondering how much stress this must cause to mothers who have several children and do not have a Master Degree in Education, as I do.

You see, I am writing to you as a parent, but I am also an assistant principal in a high-performing middle school. In response to this outrage, I am writing a curriculum that will address the “whole child.” Like teachers, children cannot be reduced to a numeric score! The fragmentation that some cavalier policy entrepreneurs think will help kids excel is in danger of producing stress, breakdown and the first generation of American conformists as everyone competes for the correct answers. This unfortunate situation is motivating the design of my social curriculum, which is based on brain-based theories of development related to the main principles of healthy communication, working with others, working independently, empathy and evolution of personal strengths. Personal resilience and wellbeing are the educational foundation that all children deserve so they can learn, thrive and grow.

There are so many things wrong with politically driven education reform that it is difficult to figure out where to start to make sense of a high jacked domain! As a parent of a kindergarten student and an assistant principal in a high-performing middle school, I am asking you to stop the test score harvesting debacle known as RTTT. By removing the number score on teacher evaluations that is related to student performance, much of the unhealthy tension and nonsensical tests and formulas will be lifted off U.S. public schools.

If you would like to meet or speak with me, I would be very happy to come and help you understand how as First Lady you can save a generation of students from the fall-out of a failed education policy.

Jill Berardi

Categories Education Reform

Jersey Jazzman: Why Would Arne Duncan Try to Block Joshua Starr’s Appointment in NYC?

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2014 //
36

According to a report by Valerie Strauss in the “Washington Post,” Secretary Duncan urged Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio not to appoint Joshua Starr, superintendent in Montgomery County, as chancellor of the NYC public schools. This allegedly was Duncan’s revenge for Starr’s public call for a three-year moratorium on standardized testing.

Testing, of course, is the linchpin of Duncan’s Race to the Top. Duncan may be touchy because Race to the Top has no new funding, gets poor results, is losing steam and its luster, or because of growing popular resistance to Common Core, which is a high priority for the Department of Education, even though it is legally prohibited from attempting to influence curriculum or instruction in the nation’s schools.

Why would Duncan intervene in a strictly local personnel decision, which is unusual, to say the least, for a cabinet member?

Jersey Jazzman explains it here.

Bottom line, according to JJ: Duncan is jealous of Starr because he is a real educator, unlike Duncan.

He writes:

“Maybe this is what bothers Duncan the most about Starr: unlike the SecEd, Starr has displayed courage on the thorny issues of tracking, race, and desegregation. Unlike Duncan, Starr has stood behind teachers, working with them to continue using a model teacher evaluation system, and fighting to keep it even as Duncan pushes his test-based evaluation madness. Unlike Duncan, Starr appears to have the respect of his parents, teachers, and students; even the reformies give him back-handed compliments. And, unlike Duncan, Starr is thoughtful and articulate.”

– See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-petty-jealousy-of-arne-duncan.html#sthash.cFpXm5hZ.dpuf

Categories Duncan, Arne, Race to the Top, Testing

The Myth of the Hero Superintendent: Don’t Wait for Superman

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2014 //
44

This is a fascinating article from the Texas Observer that explores the myth of the hero superintendent, the popular delusion that one transformational leader can “save” a school district. The idea was shaped by the Rhee story, the TIME cover implying that she held the secret to “fixing America’s schools,” a myth that persists despite the absence of any objective evidence.

The focus of the article is the first year of Dallas superintendent Mike Miles, who arrived as a superstar and barely survived an effort to fire him a year later.

The good news in the story is that belief in the hero superintendent idea–the man or woman who rides in as a miracle-worker on a white horse–is fading. Common sense is slowly returning. Maybe.

Improving schools requires teamwork, collaboration, professionalism, and a steady course. Stars come and go. The builders are steady, reliable, consistent, persistent, dedicated to ideals greater than themselves.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Texas

John Hechinger Exposes the Terrors of Fraternity Hazing

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2014 //
16

John Hechinger is one of the most brilliant investigative journalists now writing. His specialty is higher education.

This harrowing in-depth article describes fraternity hazing. A young man who suffered weeks of cruelty, degradation, and humiliation dropped out of the initiation process, told his story to university officials, and spoke to Hechinger.

The story reads like something out of a horror movie.

It begins:

“On a chilly March night, Sigma Alpha Epsilon brothers ordered Justin Stuart to recite the fraternity’s creed.

“The true gentleman,” said the 19-year-old freshman, shivering in the backyard, “is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies.”

“It wasn’t easy to get the words out. Stuart was naked, except for his underwear, and standing in a trash can filled waist-deep with ice. Fraternity members sprayed him with a hose and poured buckets of water over his head. Convinced that SAE would bring him social success in college and then a Wall Street job, the lanky recruit from suburban Maryland endured the abuse.”

Categories Higher Education

What Matters More Than Test Scores?

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2014 //
27

A reader comments:

“I do the alumni newspaper for Normandy High School in suburban St. Louis, a school which has lost its accreditation and gotten nothing but grief from the state education folks and certainly no realistic help. I think, however, that is about to change. The state people finally brought in experts who told them no school district serving needy communities anywhere in this country has managed to get its test scores up where the standards demand they be. What is needed is not this myopic obsession with standardized teaching and test scores but an educational philosophy where the talents and dreams of each and every child are identified and educated with that in mind and communities get help TO help children who come from one-parent homes, broken homes, multigenerational homes and blended homes and start school with almost none of the cultural equipment kids in the well-to-do-suburbs have, not to mention parttime parenting, nourishment problems, health problems and emotional problems. The parents are often working multiple jobs to keep a roof over their families’ heads and food in the kids’ mouths and it drives me nuts when THEY are blamed as the problem. They are doing the best they can. I’ve written extensively about this. I am a journalist and a teacher in his 50th year of teaching (look me up on google).”

Wayne Brasler

Categories Education Reform, Missouri, Poverty

Should Duncan Meddle in Local Issues?

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2014 //
81

On January 1, the Washington Post reported that Arne Duncan and at least one other aide pressured NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio not to choose Joshua Starr as the schools’ chancellor because of his opposition to high-stakes testing, the centerpiece of the Bush-Obama “reforms.”

Politico reports the story and notes that this is not the first time Duncan has interfered in purely local decisions.

It writes:

“DID DUNCAN PICK NYC’S NEW CHANCELLOR?: The Education Secretary lobbied against Montgomery County, Md., Superintendent Joshua Starr, the Washington Post reports: “It was an unusual move by the nation’s top education official and came in the wake of Starr’s vocal criticism of some of the Obama administration’s school reform policies.” Education Department spokesman Massie Ritsch declined to comment to the Washington Post on “private conversations between the mayor and the secretary.” The article: http://wapo.st/1cn9tr7

“–Duncan has endorsed school leaders in the past: When Rhode Island state superintendent Deborah Gist’s contract was up for a vote last summer, Duncan spoke to reporters on her behalf. [http://bit.ly/1a2h5iV] He also offered support to D.C. schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, reaching out to the mayor to keep her on permanently. [http://wapo.st/1g2CetY] And he’s never been shy about weighing in on other state and local decisions, either.”

I recall that Duncan tried to help DC Mayor Fenty win re-election so that Michelle Rhee would survive, but that didn’t work.

Duncan became involved in New York politics in 2009, when mayoral control was up for renewal by the legislature. An independent civic group called Citizens Union was about to issue a report that endorsed mayoral control but requested that the legislature change the law so that members appointed to the city board served for a set term, not at the pleasure of whoever appointed them. This would assure members a degree of independence, so they could vote their conscience. This infuriated Mayor Bloomberg, who believed that mayoral control should have no limits whatever.

I happened to be at the meeting when the issue was decided. I came to speak on behalf of set terms. Then someone read a letter just received from Secretary Duncan, explaining why set terms were a bad idea and why the mayor needed unlimited power to reform the schools as he saw fit. The recommendation to preserve independent voices was snuffed out.

As I read about the latest example of Duncan’s desire to manipulate city and state leadership so it supports his failed agenda, I thought about the two years I served in the U.S. Department of Education under Lamar Alexander, from mid-1991 to January 1993. Secretary Alexander was scrupulous about not interfering in local decision making. He used his bully pulpit, as all cabinet secretaries do, but he never tried to influence the choice of local leaders. He respected the principle of federalism. Apparently, Duncan missed the class on federalism.

Somehow I got the impression when I worked at the US Department of Education that it was illegal for Cabinet members to get involved in local elections or appointments, but I must have been wrong. Let’s just say it was generally understood to be inappropriate.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Duncan, Arne, U.S. Department of Education

Idaho: TFA Should Not Teach Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2014 //
54

Levi Cavener wrote this article about why young college graduates with only five weeks of training are not qualified to teach students with disabilities.

Levi B Cavener is a Special Education teacher at Vallivue High School, Caldwell, Idaho.

He wrote it after attending a local school board meeting, where a TFA representative claimed that TFA recruits are well prepared to teach students with high needs:

“At a December 10, 2013, Vallivue School Board meeting I listened to Nicole Brisbane, Idaho’s TFA point person, pitch her product. (The J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation, a heavy donor to the district, called the board members to see if they would meet with Ms. Brisbane.) During the presentation, board members inquired about TFA’s ability to provide staffing for “hard-to-fill” positions, particularly special education. Brisbane was clear: TFA can provide “highly qualified” special education instructors.”

In Idaho, one foundation calls the shots for education: the Albertson Foundation. This foundation promotes privatization, charters, online learning, and TFA.

Categories Idaho, Special Education, Teach for America TFA

Stephanie Simon Interviews Nancy Carlsson-Paige

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2014 //
0

Stephanie Simon had the wisdom to interview Nancy Carlsson-Paige, who has steadfastly taught, written about, and advocated for letting children be children. She has old-fashioned belief in the joy of play and creativity, imagination and fun as intrinsic motivation for learning.

Nancy is a hero of American education and a champion of the rights of childhood. She joins our honor roll because she never trimmed her sails, never put her finger in the air to know which way the wind was blowing. She knows true North. Her internal compass is undisturbed by fads.

If only there were more people in higher education and public life with her quiet courage and unwavering integrity. If childhood survives this “dark time” of data-driven decision making, we will remember Nancy and be grateful for her persistence.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Honor Roll

Timothy Pratt: The Walmarts of Higher Education?

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2014 //
30

Over the past decade or more, we have seen and heard a lot of duplicitous rhetoric about rhetoric: we have heard politicians speak about the importance of education as they cut the budget and increase class size and slash the jobs of teachers, librarians, social workers, and others. We have learned to live with cognitive dissonance as our “thought leaders” say one thing but mean something else, often the opposite..

Now it is happening to higher education. We hear that U.S. higher education is the best in the world, but the state and federal governments are demanding cuts that will affect the quality of education.

Timothy Pratt writes that “We Are Creating Walmarts of Higher Education.”

He writes:

“Universities in South Dakota, Nebraska, and other states have cut the number of credits students need to graduate. A proposal in Florida would let online courses forgo the usual higher-education accreditation process. A California legislator introduced a measure that would have substituted online courses for some of the brick-and-mortar kind at public universities.

“Some campuses of the University of North Carolina system are mulling getting rid of history, political science, and various others of more than 20 “low productive” programs. The University of Southern Maine may drop physics. And governors in Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin have questioned whether taxpayers should continue subsidizing public universities for teaching the humanities.

“Under pressure to turn out more students, more quickly and for less money, and to tie graduates’ skills to workforce needs, higher-education institutions and policy makers have been busy reducing the number of required credits, giving credit for life experience, and cutting some courses, while putting others online.”

Categories Higher Education
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »