Archives for the month of: February, 2014
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New Mexico Teacher: Skandera Is No Friend of Education

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2014 //
34

David Aram Wilson offered this testimony at the confirmation hearings of Hanna Skandera, who is acting secretary of education in New Mexico and chairperson of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. Skandera has been importing “the Florida model” of high-stakes testing and accountability to New Mexico. She worked for Bush when he was governor of Florida and for Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. At the hearing, Skandera was not confirmed. She remains acting secretary.

Wilson writes:

Copy of an e-mail I sent February 17, 2014 to the New Mexico State Senate Rules Committee concerning the confirmation hearings for New Mexico Secretary Designate of Education Hanna Skandera.

Honorable Senators:

My name is David Aram Wilson. I was born right here in Santa Fe, just a few short blocks north of this great building. I am speaking to you this morning as a teacher of 34 years; a 27-year veteran of New Mexico’s public schools; a Tier III teacher for 12 years; a PhD student in Bilingual Education at the University of New Mexico; a part time instructor in UNM’s College of Education; a husband of a teacher; a brother and son of a teacher; a brother-in-law and son-in-law of teachers; and the father of two public school students. In a word, I was born New Mexico and I am a qualified, licensed, and experienced educator.

The same cannot be said of the secretary designate. As you know, she possesses not even the minimum credentials for this office. State law mandates the secretary of education be highly qualified and experienced. She is neither. She does not have a degree in education. She has never been a teacher. She has never been an educational assistant. She has never been a school administrator. In fact, she has never worked in any school in any capacity for any meaningful length of time.

Yet, despite these astonishing lack of credentials, she has been in Santa Fe for the last three years, unconfirmed, making educational policy as if she knew what she was doing. Honorable Senators, she does not know what she is doing. And for that reason the students and teachers in our public schools suffer more each day due to the misguided and damaging policies she promotes, often by circumventing the legislative process.

Last year you heard testimony from the secretary designate’s advocates in the business community. They claimed that everyone, including her, is essentially a teacher, and therefore has the right and even the duty to determine education policy in New Mexico. Senators, I am a teacher and I know teachers. The secretary designate is not a teacher. Instead, she is an impostor whose illegitimate actions should not be validated by an affirmative vote of this committee.

The secretary designate has stated recently that, contrary to the perceptions of thousands of educators in New Mexico, she is not their enemy but their friend. Senators, she is not a friend of education and here are some of the reasons why:

No friend of public education would advocate assigning letter grades to schools based primarily on invalid and illegitimate test score data. Some of the best schools in the state received Ds and Fs while some of the worst received As and Bs. What’s more, the A schools have extremely low rates of poverty while the F schools have the highest rates of poverty. The B, C and D schools have rates of poverty commensurate with their letter grade. If this isn’t blaming the victims, I don’t know what is.

No friend of public education would advocate the wholesale retention of third graders who, according to dubious and subjective measures, are deemed “below grade” level in reading. Nor would any friend of education deny parents the right to challenge a retention based solely on whether their child reads on grade level at an arbitrary point in time.

No friend of public education would base teacher evaluations primarily on their students’ standardized test scores. The test companies themselves have emphasized that their tests were NEVER designed to evaluate teachers and should never be used for that purpose.
No friend of public education would instruct principals to artificially evaluate teachers lower in the fall and higher in the spring in order to demonstrate growth over time and to prove that the growth occurred because of the evaluation process. Nor would any friend of education instruct principals to place the teachers in their schools on a bell curve so that the results of the evaluations correspond to the erroneous and ungrounded assumption that most of the teachers in the school are either merely “effective” or “minimally effective.”

No friend of education would advocate for merit pay for teachers based primarily on student test scores. In Tennessee, where the only large scale, longitudinal study of merit pay was conducted, researchers found that, after the first year of implementation, teacher effectiveness actually decreased in successive years as teachers realized that the process was rigged in favor of teachers who cared not about teaching, but about teaching to the test and gaming the system.

No friend of education would neglect, ignore, and disparage the educational needs of New Mexico’s Hispanic, African American, Native American, immigrant, and non English speaking students. In a state that was the first minority-majority state and has the largest minority population per capita, her negative attitude and damaging actions toward these majority populations is astonishing.
No friend of education would submit proposal after proposal that directly contradicts what the preponderance of research has concluded about education policy and practice in New Mexico and beyond.

No friend of public education would kowtow to business interests, such as Pearson, Achieve, the Gates, Broad, and Walmart Foundations, and the various initiatives of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, of which the secretary designate is a member, that seek to siphon enormous amounts of public money destined for public schools and redirect that money to private or semi private educational institutions in which they may have a financial interest.

No friend of education would hold artificial, “kangaroo court” -style hearings around the state with the express purpose of promoting her misguided agenda while categorically denying the public the right to speak publicly about their concerns.
No friend of education would attempt to coerce the state’s 89 superintendents into signing a “petition” that would oblige them to uphold her dubious “reforms” known collectively as Students First, New Mexico Wins. Thankfully, only a handful of superintendents signed the document, which is more evidence of the fact that the opposition to her confirmation extends into the highest reaches of New Mexico’s educational hierarchy.

The secretary designate is no friend of education. Rather, she is the fox guarding the chicken coop that is Public Education in New Mexico. We need a secretary of education who is highly qualified and experienced—as per state law—and who, instead of standing in judgment of teachers, stands in awe of them and everything they do. Senators, I ask you, I implore you: vote no on her confirmation.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, New Mexico

Florida Outrage! Junk Science Ratings Will be Released to Media

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2014 //
60

The following notice was sent to all teachers in Florida from the State Commissioner of Education, letting teachers know that their names and evaluations will be released to the media. Most teachers do not teach tested subjects and grades, so their ratings are based on the test scores of children they never taught.

This is Junk Science at its worst, another front in the battle to destroy public education and dismantle the teaching profession. No matter how many esteemed researchers say this is wrong, judging teachers by test scores–anyone’s test scores–is the battering ram of choice for the corporate reformers.

The only way to stop this juggernaut of destruction aimed at our nation’s teachers is to refuse to give the tests–not one teacher but entire schools.

Here is the letter:

As many of you know, we at the Department of Education have been fighting for you and for all teachers in an effort to maintain the confidentiality of teachers’ names and their individual value-added data.

We took on this fight because I believe the teacher-principal relationship for professional development is supported when evaluation information has a period of protection. Your work and dedication have helped to create a bright future for our state and our children, and I want to support that work in any way that I can.

Recently, the department – and our co-defendant, the Florida Education Association – lost a lawsuit filed by a news outlet to gain access to teachers’ individual value-added data. This data is calculated on behalf of school districts to complete their teacher and principal evaluations.

Later today, the department is providing these data, as required by the First District Court of Appeals, to the media who have requested it. We expect this information will be posted online and individual teacher names and value-added data will be publicly available.

The department will not post this information on its website, but is presenting answers to frequently asked questions and other information to the public at http://www.fldoe.org/profdev/studentgrowth.asp.

As a former teacher, I know that teaching is hard work. And, I’m confident that teachers in Florida are among the nation’s best in helping students succeed.

Growth in student achievement is an important part of an educator’s evaluation in Florida, which is the way it should be. As important as growth in student achievement is, our evaluation systems also include evidence of other important and essential aspects of teaching.

Despite being compelled to release this information after mounting our best legal efforts to protect the confidentiality of teachers’ information, we remain encouraged and feel that we have an opportunity in front of us.

We are encouraged because through this information, we can celebrate the achievement of Florida educators – the teachers who have led students to success in their classrooms, as well as the programs that trained those teachers, the school and district leaders who supported them, and the families and communities who trusted them.

We also feel we have an opportunity because when we look at the data, we can see where we should allocate our resources and attention to continue improving.

While releasing these data as a public record is not our chosen path to increase its usefulness, we will make this an opportunity to improve communication and understanding about what these data can – and cannot – tell us, and how they support better decision-making when analyzed in combination with other information about teaching and learning.

And, that is what we as professional educators are all about: improving teaching and learning. Until every teacher in every child’s classroom in every school has all the support and expertise necessary to add maximum value over the course of a year, we cannot rest.

Our work together on this will not be slowed. We do this work with the support of Governor Scott, whose budget proposal includes a record amount for Florida’s schools including over $8 million for the express purpose of providing the professional development school leaders need to improve student achievement. And, we do so with the support of our State Board of Education that is constantly focused on the best policies to help teachers and students succeed.

I look forward each day to our continued work to ensure Florida’s students receive a high-quality education so they may succeed in college, career and life. Thanks again for all you do each and every day.

Sincerely,

Commissioner Pam Stewart

Florida Department of Education

Categories Florida, Teacher Evaluations

Schneider: Why Is NEA Joining Forces with Teach Plus?

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2014 //
44

NEA, the larger of the nation’s two teacher unions, never ceases to surprise.

In December 2011, Dennis Van Roekel co-authored an article in USA Today with Wendy Kopp of Teach for America, expressing their agreement on how to improve the preparation of teachers. Needless to say, the article provoked outrage among some NEA members, especially those who rightly see TFA as a placement agency for inexperienced, ill-trained youngsters who provide staff for a growing number on non-union schools.

Now NEA has announced a new partnership with the Gates-funded Teach Plus, which advocates for the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. Its model is Colorado’s SB 191, one of the nation’s harshest laws, where student test scores count for 50% of a teacher’s evaluation. Bear in mind that evaluating teachers by the scores of their students has been shown by researchers to be inaccurate and to punish teachers whose classes include the neediest students. See here and here, for example.

Mercedes Schneider here explains why Teach Plus is a strange bedfellow for NEA.

She assumes that the teachers’ union wanted “a seat at the table” by aligning with an organization that is deeply embedded in the corporate reform movement. She warns that the union and experienced teachers will be “at the table,” but they will not have a seat. They will be on the serving platter.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, Unions

Indiana: The Voucher Shell Game

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2014 //
12

Mark Giaquinta here explains the hoax of vouchers in Indiana. He served as president of the Fort Wayne school board. It was my privilege to visit some of that city’s excellent public schools when I lectured there a couple of years ago.

Vouchers were sold under the pretext of “helping poor kids escape from failing public schools.” So said the sponsors of the legislation.

In fact, the vouchers are now available for students who never attended public schools. They are a direct subsidy of religious schools.

One church, as Phyllis Bush pointed out in a guest post for Anthony Cody, is using the voucher windfall to repair its steeple.

Is this what the people of Indiana want? Or is it ALEC at work again, undermining a democratic institution?

Mark writes:

Greetings:

The voucher program in Indiana was defended as a method that would allow poor Hoosier children to escape from failing schools. Of course, many of us knew that was nothing more than a slogan. There never was a voucher requirement that to become eligible, the student leave a poor performing school or apply to a higher performing school (putting aside the problem of defining either). In addition, the income requirements extended well into middle class. Finally, the program was expanded to those who never attended public schools, thus eliminating once and for all the “help those poor kids escape” illusion.

The vast majority of voucher money is now spent by those desirous of a religious education; a facet of the educational experience with which public schools cannot compete. The recent release of the Voucher Study details the number of students receiving taxpayer assistance and the names of the various Catholic, Lutheran, Islamic and non-denominational schools they attend. There are approximately 2800 voucher students within the FWCS boundaries. (FN1) FWCS estimates it lost about 500 students to vouchers; therefore more than 80% of the recipients were already parochial school students.

More alarming, the common school fund has not grown to accommodate the policy decision to fund both public and private schools. The result is fewer dollars for all public schools as the common school fund is diverted to ….. church steeples! Yes, you read that correctly. In a recent address to parish members, Rev. Jake Runyon , Pastor of St. Jude Parish, spoke at length on the importance of parishioners applying for the tax funded choice scholarships. His remarks were recorded and are available on the parish web site. Pastor Runyon made it clear that increasing the number of voucher students will, “ease the financial burden on the parish.” He then went on to explain to parishioners that expanding the tax supported scholarships will make it less difficult, “for me to do some certain thing on the Church side of things like fix the steeple, paint the roof and maybe grow the ministries we can do, you know, on the Church side of things.” (at 13:00 to 14:00).

I love my Catholic faith and I am proud of my Catholic education, paid for by my dad. I even introduced a Resolution to the FWCS Board a few years back congratulating our Catholic colleagues for Catholic Schools week. My grandfather, Thomas Kelly, stood in for Bishop Noll and broke the ground for Central Catholic High School (with Superintendant Abbot turning dirt beside him). I am, nonetheless, dismayed and disappointed at this acknowledgement that the common school fund has become part of a shell game to support religious activities. It is my hope that community leaders will speak out forcefully to legislators and bring this sorry chapter of constitutional contempt to an end. I fully understand the consequences of speaking out on this issue but I have no desire to serve on the school board and witness its demise as the result of policies which I believe would shock the consciences of the delegates to our Constitutional Conventions of 1816 and 1850.

Thanks for your consideration.

Mark E. GiaQuinta

FN 1: I have not distinguished between a voucher and a “Choice Scholarship” because both direct public dollars from the common school fund to religious education and because the tax funded scholarship program creates voucher eligibility in subsequent years. It is disappointing that so very few taxpayers and “tax watchdogs” understand how the Scholarships work. A taxpayer creates a scholarship of at least $1,000 for her student at a particular school and receives a tax credit (50%) which is taken from the common school fund. The private school can pay the balance of the tuition because the scholarship is a gateway to a voucher in subsequent years.

Mark E. GiaQuinta, Esq.
HALLER & COLVIN, P.C.
444 East Main Street
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46802
Telephone: (260) 426-0444
Facsimile: (260) 422-0274
E-mail: mgiaquinta@hallercolvin.com
Legal Assistant: Carrie Thomas, (260) 399-1528, cthomas@hallercolvin.com

Categories Indiana, Vouchers

Another Step Forward by Chancellor Farina in New York City

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2014 //
27

New York City’s Chancellor Carmen Farina is step-by-step reassembling the essentials of a functional public school system after a dozen years of Mayor Bloomberg’s “creative disruption.” The Bloomberg regime quickly established its preference for inexperience over experience and its distaste for veteran educators. It created a “Leadership Academy” to turn teachers with one or two years of classroom experience into principals. The graduates of the Leadership Academy were held in low regard by the experienced teachers whom they commanded. Many got into major trouble. Yet the media loved to tell the stories of whiz kids who became principal at the age of 26 or 28, bypassing the time that others spent learning to teach, winning the respect of their colleagues, then learning the ropes as an assistant principal.

Now Chancellor Farina has issued new regulations: experience is a pre-condition for a school principal and assistant principal. What a novel idea! Another setback for corporate reform.

AMENDMENTS TO CHANCELLOR’S REGULATION C-30—REGULATION GOVERNING THE SELECTION, ASSIGNMENT AND APPOINTMENT OF PRINCIPALS AND ASSISTANT PRINCIPALS

I. Description of the subject and purpose of the proposed item under consideration.

Chancellor’s Regulation C-30 governs the selection, assignment and appointment of principals and assistant principals. The following amendments are proposed:

· Principals must have at least seven years of prior full-time pedagogic experience to be eligible for selection and appointment. Qualifying prior pedagogic positions for principals are: classroom teacher, dean, instructional coach, guidance counselor, school social worker, assistant principal, teacher assigned, education administrator, and all pedagogic supervisory titles contained in the collective bargaining agreement between the CSA and the DOE.
· Effective for the 2014-2015 school year, assistant principals must have at least five years of prior full-time pedagogic experience to be eligible for selection and appointment. Qualifying prior pedagogic positions for assistant principals are: classroom teacher, dean, instructional coach, guidance counselor, school social worker, teacher assigned, education administrator, and all pedagogic supervisory titles contained in the collective bargaining agreement between the CSA and the DOE.
· Applicants with fewer than seven years of prior pedagogic experience are eligible to be evaluated for admission to the Principal Candidate Pool, but are not eligible to apply for principal positions unless they have at least seven years of prior pedagogic experience.
· Interim acting principals must have at least seven years of prior full-time pedagogic experience to be eligible for assignment.
· Effective for the 2014-2015 school year, interim acting assistant principals must have at least five years of prior full-time pedagogic experience to be eligible for assignment.
· The Office of Leadership will promulgate guidance regarding the prior pedagogic experience requirements for principals and assistant principals.
· Assistant principal, principal and executive principal appointments in community school district schools are subject to rejection for cause by the Senior Deputy Chancellor or his/her designee on behalf of the Chancellor.
· Interim-acting principals must be in the Principal Candidate Pool, except in exigent circumstances, when the Senior Deputy Chancellor or his/her designee may authorize assignment of an interim-acting principal prior to completion of an evaluation for the Principal Candidate Pool.
· Requests for waivers from the Chancellor regarding the new pedagogic experience requirements shall be directed to the Senior Deputy Chancellor or his/her designee, 52 Chambers St., Room 320, New York, NY 10007.
· Attachment No. 1 (members of Level I Committee) has been revised for clarity.

II. Information regarding where the full text of the proposed item may be obtained.

The full text of the amendments to the regulation, and the regulation in its entirety, can be found on the main page of the website of the Panel for Educational Policy: http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/leadership/PEP/publicnotice/2013-2014/April9PEPRegulations

III. Name, office, address, email and telephone number of the city district representative, knowledgeable about the item under consideration, from whom information may be obtained concerning the item.

Name: Marina Cofield
Office: Office of Leadership
Address: 52 Chambers Street, Room 315, New York, NY 10007
Email: RegulationC-30@schools.nyc.gov
Phone: 212-346-5211

IV. Date, time and place of the Panel for Educational Policy meeting at which the Panel will vote on the proposed item.

April 9, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.
Prospect Heights Campus
883 Classon Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11225

Categories Bill de Blasio, Farina, Carmen, New York City

New York Post Reveals Another Part of the Bloomberg-Klein “Failure Factory” Legacy

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2014 //
32

Over the past dozen years, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his schools’ chancellor Joel Klein had total control of the New York City school system. The Mayor controlled the “school board,” which dared not ever vote no. They could do whatever they wanted, and their PR team cranked out press release after press release. The news of the “New York City miracle” spread around the world, buoyed by phenomenal test score gains every year. Australia and other nations swallowed the story whole.

When the New York State Education Department admitted that the test scores had been manipulated by lowering the passing mark, the city switched its success story: now the “miracle” was soaring graduation rates.

But all the while, the Department of Education was closing schools with low scores, opening new schools, and warehousing low-scoring students in schools that sooner or later would also be closed. Schools opened, schools closed. She’ll game.

Now the New York Post tells the story of what was once a well-regarded high school that was turned into a dumping ground. After the Post wrote about Murray Bergtraum High School as a failure factory–a school that is within sight of the New York City Department of Education headquarters, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge–students at the school wrote letters of complaint to the Post. The letters were filled with errors of grammar and syntax. The Post took this as evidence of a failed school system. The letters are indeed evidence of the quality of the school system where these students spent 11 or 12 years.

If they graduate, it will be a triumph of “credit recovery,” which the DOE encouraged to boost the graduation rate.

Conclusions: there was no New York City miracle. Judging school quality by graduation rates encourages credit recovery and fraud. What’s needed most now is a Truth Commission to sweep away false claims and to establish a record unsullied by boasting and pretense. It is not likely to happen, unfortunately, given that the de Blasio administration wants to ease quietly into a new and better world, without publicly airing the dirty laundry left behind. More revelations like this one, however, and the truth will out.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Corporate Reformers, Graduation rates, Klein, Joel

Teacher Exposés Graduate of Bloomberg “Leadership Academy”

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2014 //
26

The New York Post has been a vocal cheerleader for the hacksaw education policies of the Bloomberg administration, yet its reporters are usually first-rate journalists, and they exposed terrible conditions at PS 106. Now, it published an article by an experienced teacher who left the school.

The Post exposed dreadful conditions at P.S. 106, where the principal ruled with an iron hand when she was present. The school had no curriculum, no textbooks, no discipline, and the Post called it “the School of No.”

The principal was just fired by the de Blasio administration after an investigation.

There is more to the story. The principal was a graduate of Bloomberg’s celebrated Leadership Academy, a fast-track program to train school leaders and eliminate the usual training and experience needed to become a school principal. Many in the city called it “the Jack Welch Academy,” to acknowledge the GE leader’s role in designing the program. The CEO of the program was a software executive who never taught or worked in a school. These new leaders were supposed to bring business efficiency to Bloomberg’s hundreds of new schools. Toughness was in, kindness was out.

Patricia Walsh, the special education teacher who wrote this article, said:

“Retaliation was common. When a teacher signed her name to a letter sent to officials expressing her concerns about educational practices that are adversely affecting children in our school, she was reprimanded for more than one hour by two supervisors from the Department of Education. Teachers learned to remain anonymous.

“Letters began to flood the district office, superintendent’s office, mayor’s office, chancellor’s office, UFT and the special commissioner of investigation just three months after Sills took the leadership position. But rather than addressing our concerns and dealing with the cause, the staff was reprimanded and scolded for not signing individual names. Now see why! Sills strategically targeted and harassed staff.

“Meetings, letters, e-mails, reports to the teachers union . . . all proved to be futile. Every letter, every complaint reiterated her absence, lateness, inappropriate interaction with children, parents, staff, even falsification of reviews….

“What happened of course is that anyone who could left PS 106.

“The transfer rate of staff members soared to 60%.

“Then the students left. Parents transferred their children to other public schools and charter schools to escape what they saw as an institution that the city had given up on.

“Enrollment declined from more than 600 students to just 250….

“To show just how clueless and uncaring the administration was — in December 2013, PS 106 received a glowing report. At the time, there was no mandated gym, no special-education teacher (I had left and wasn’t replaced), no books, no art and no extended-day services!”

“Patricia Walsh, a graduate of Teachers College at Columbia University, taught for 27 years, and was a special education teacher at PS 106”

Categories Education Reform

What I Read on Vacation

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2014 //
66

I took two books with me on vacation.

One was Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

The other was Walter Kiechel III, The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World

I also brought a copy of the New York Review of Books, which had a good article about data mining and what a big business it is.

The thesis of Carr’s book is that the ubiquity of the Internet makes it very hard for us to concentrate on reading books. I kept wondering why he wrote a book to say that.

What made his book worth reading was one stunning chapter about Google. It explains in exquisite and alarming detail that Google ‘s business is built on data mining. If you want to understand how data mining works, read this chapter.

The entire Google enterprise is built on the principles enunciated by Frederick Winslow Taylor a century ago. Taylor conducted time-and-motion studies, clocking how many minutes it took workers to complete various jobs, and believed that there was a best way to perform every job. Everything that matters can be measured and turned into a system. Taylor’s method is the foundation of industrial manufacturing. Now it is the foundation for Google and its competitors. He writes, “The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient, automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its legions of programmers are intent on finding ‘the one best way’–the perfect algorithm–to carry out the mental movements of what what we’ve come to describe as knowledge work.” Google’s CEO says the company is “founded around the science of measurement” and is trying to “systematize everything” it does. It is data-driven and seeks to “quantify everything.” Carr writes, “What Taylor did for the work of the hand, Google is doing for the work of the mind.”

Google, he writes, is the “Internet’s high church, and the religion practiced inside its walls is Taylorism.”

Every time you click on a link, an advertiser pays, and your data are recorded in a database. Your preferences, your interests, your searches, become part of the database, which enables vendors to target you efficiently for their goods and services. Every time you click on an advertisement, you build the Internet database about yourself, “and Google rakes in more money.” The more we rely on the Internet to seek information and buy things, the fuller our profile of data for others to use for advertising and selling.

It is a hugely profitable business, and you are part of building it. Almost everything that can be known about you, everything you typed into the Internet, is in your database.

The other book, The Lords of Strategy, tells the story of the business consulting industry. It was written by the former editorial director of Harvard Business Publishing. If you really want to know how the world works, read this book. It begins with the story of Bruce Henderson, who founded the Boston Consulting Group. BCG–which is now advising school districts like Philadelphia on how to shed their primary mission and to privatize more public schools–was created to advise businesses on strategy. BCG virtually invented the idea of “strategy.” That meant studying your competitors’ business and figuring out ways to compete more effectively (e.g., lower your cost, increase your volume, become the market leader). BCG then gave birth to Bain and Company, which was even more competitive than BCG. Then came the revival of McKinsey as a force in strategizing how to win in the game of corporate dominance.

Reading this book was not easy. Household names come and go and disappear. Corporations are taken over by men who think of profit only, never of people. There is never any extended discussion of the obligations of a corporation to the public or to its employees. People’s lives are treated as unimportant. All that matters is market share, shareholder valuation, and profit. The winners get very rich, the losers, well, who cares?

These books have obvious relevance to the plight of education today. Both refer often to the Taylorism that underlies their activities–that is, the belief that measurement matters above all, and that whatever matters can be measured.

Kiechel speaks repeatedly of “the Greater Taylorism,” that is, the firm belief that data answer all questions, and the more data the better the strategy.

People don’t matter. Data triumph.

Except at the end of his book, he notes that all the strategies cooked up by the great minds from Harvard Business School have essentially failed. The theories conflict with one another. One supercedes another. But the economy crashed in 2008 anyway, despite the brilliant minds.

Kiechel is minimal in his skepticism. Perhaps on purpose.

My skepticism grew as I read, along with a sense of revulsion for these “lords of strategy,” these “masters of the universe” who use their minds to control our lives but regard the rest of us as ants in a terrarium of their design.

Next time, I will bring Agatha Christie to the beach.

Categories Personal

A Teacher’s Advice to Bill Gates

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2014 //
36

A teacher sent me this letter offering helpful advice to Bill Gates. He hopes that someone will see it on the Internet and pass it along to Bill.

Dear Mr. Gates,

“I don’t know many business leaders who are satisfied with America’s schools. In fact, just about every CEO I know is worried that this country simply isn’t producing enough graduates with the skills they need to compete globally.” – Bill Gates

I find it ironic that you opened your notes with this remark just prior to a story was published about two hundred wealthy and famous Wall Street figures to the Kappa Beta Phi dinner in New York City. It consisted of a group of wealthy and powerful financiers making homophobic jokes, making light of the financial crisis, and bragging about their business conquests at Main Street’s expense. The reporter who witnessed this dinner didn’t mention any CEO’s worried about the plight of the American schools.

As a 7th grade middle school Social Studies teacher in Carmel, NY, I never thought about the need to satisfy business leaders. I focus on teaching students to value American History and to question the choices that have been made in the past. Since the Industrial Revolution, business leaders have been given enormous opportunities in this country and throughout the world. The technology has made American lives remarkably more convenient but certainly at a price to our environment and to economic equality.

As a teacher, I am worried that this country simply isn’t producing enough CEO’s with the moral and ethical skills they need to create a sustainable future. The news is constantly reporting on chemicals being leaked into drinking water or how the CEO of McDonald’s makes $8 million a year compared to his employers making minimum wage and yet nothing gets done to make it better. The Common Core Standards do not address how our future CEO’s will be prepared to make compassionate and ethical decisions that will benefit all of humanity.

The public is skeptical about Common Core because they see the individuals who are backing this privatization of education. The public views the standardized testing and modules being produced by Pearson Corporation as products that Americans are being forced to purchase. These tests will not produce the leaders with the collaborative and innovative skills to solve the problems of the 21st century. The public views Common Core as a marketing scheme designed to make a few CEO’s and the shareholders billions of dollars. Your foundation money has bought off our elected officials and teacher unions but the public outcry remains.

Mr. Gates, I’m sure that you are an excellent CEO and I hope that your heart is in the right place when it comes to your educational endeavors. I am offering you insight into why you are facing backlash about Common Core. K -12 education is a very human and personal experience with complicated interactions that Common Core is trying to standardize and dehumanize.

Our American experience is to be individuals who make our own decisions about our lives and our children’s education. By your remarks you are making it very clear that your priority is only to care about CEO’s and not the American public. It is not a myth that the business CEO’s are primarily concerned about profit and are going to benefit the most from Common Core implementation. It is a fact. In the future, please come clean with the American public and admit to the flaws of Common Core. If you are committed to improving American education, it will require collaboration and an understanding of United States history.

Thank you for your time. I hope that this response from a Social Studies teacher will help you. Please feel free to contact me if you would like my insight on teaching in a public school.

Sincerely,

Keith J. Reilly

Categories Common Core, Economy, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Will Florida Pass Law to Exempt Severely Disabled Children from High-Stakes Testing?

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2014 //
12

Andrea Rediske appealed to Florida officials to exempt children who suffer extreme pain from high-stakes testing.

This post contains her moving testimony about the ordeal her son Ethan experienced when he was compelled to take the state’s exam. Even when he was dying in hospice, the state harassed him to take the test.

The state imposed cruel and unusual punishment on this child, violating his Constitutional rights.

His mother, an experienced educator, explained:

“I have a passion for education and I know how to write an exam that accurately assesses the abilities of my students. Not only was the Florida Adapted Assessment inappropriate for the level of my son’s abilities, it endangered his health – the long, stressful testing sessions requiring him to sit in his wheelchair caused pressure sores, fluid to pool in his lungs, and increased seizures and spasticity that contributed to his deteriorating health. Only after climbing a mountain of paperwork and garnering media attention was Ethan granted a medical waiver for the FAA. Despite assurances at his IEP meeting that the waiver would be granted again for this school year, the school district demanded paperwork proving his continued medical fragility. The insult to this injury was that he was on his deathbed – the school district and the state of Florida required a letter from hospice care stating he was unable to take the FAA. This incident caused anguish to my family and his teacher, and shows a stunning lack of compassion and even common sense on the part of the Department of Education. His exceptionally talented teacher faced threats and sanctions because she continued to work with him even though he wasn’t preparing for the FAA. I wonder if these administrators are more concerned with policy, paperwork, and their bottom line than the children they have been elected to serve.”

She was right to wonder. Has the state of Florida no decency, no compassion, no capacity for thought? How can they teach critical thinking when they lack the capacity to do it themselves?

Categories Florida, Special Education, Testing
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