One of our Marion’s leading experts on teacher evaluation, Audrey Amrein Beardsley, here evaluates Michelle Rhee’s efforts to promote her failed ideas in South Carolina.
Rhee trots out her familiar rhetoric about bad teachers and failing schools in one of the nation’s poorest states, urging them to buy her snake oil. Will they buy? Or will they do some research?
The Vergara trial is an effort by a wealthy tech entrepreneur to win a judgment that any due process rights for teachers harms the civil rights of minority students.
The defense (the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers) called Harvard professor Susan Moore Johnson to testify. Johnson is one of the nation’s leading authorities on the teaching profession. Plaintiffs’ lawyer attempted to rattle her by asking narrow questions about California law and pointing out that she had studied only one district in California, as though the laws there operate in a vacuum. Here is an account from a corporate reform source.
In contrast, the following was sent by a colleague with access to the trial transcript:
“Diane –
“I wanted to let you know that Susan Moore Johnson testified on Tuesday at the Vergara trial. Her testimony was rock star stuff because of her credentials and I thought it’s worth sharing with you for your blog. The plantiff’s tried to say that she wasn’t very qualified to testify because she had only studied a few districts in California directly in the course of her work on the issues that the trail was about. They also admitted that income inequality, poverty and other issues were at play in high poverty schools but they said those things are irrelevant because they only want to focus on taking away teachers rights. You can see some quotes below.
“In Vergara v. California, evidence won the day. Dr. Susan Moore Johnson took the stand on February 18 and 19, using a lifetime of experience and research to back up her testimony that due process allows teachers to do their best work.
“Some highlights from her testimony:
“Due process allows teachers to do their best work: “It’s essential that the people who work with students, primarily the teachers, are able to do their best work, and that means that the conditions of their work have…to ensure that they have the resources they need, the time they need and the conditions they need to teach well.”
“Better working conditions mean greater student improvement: “When we took the data from the surveys and identified the schools that were rated as very favorable working environments, favorable working environments, unfavorables, and we linked that to student achievement using a student growth measure which is used in the state of Massachusetts, we found that student improvement was greater in schools where teachers reported better working conditions.”
“Laws around tenure, seniority and due process help retain good teachers: “Teachers remain in schools where there are strong and effective principals who deal fairly with them and with students and create environments where they can do their best work. Teachers want to be able to teach effectively, and schools that enable them to do that are schools where they will stay. And that’s regardless of the income level of the school.”
“Interestingly, during her testimony, the plaintiff’s lawyer admitted that there were other factors of inequity at play. He said, “”[T]here are other things that can contribute – like racism, etc. That is not relevant.”
“Bottom line:
“Parents, teachers and students are fed up with the inequities that too often plague our classrooms. Schools are under- and unfairly funded. Classrooms are overcrowded. Segregation is still a reality, decades after Brown v Board of Education. Some kids come to school hungry. Others leave with no home to go to.
“If those who brought this case really cared about making a difference for kids, they’d be working with trachrs and parents to find and implement evidence-based solutions – early childhood education, small classes, project-based learning, wraparound services, professional development, fair funding formulas and more.
“Blaming teachers’ work conditions for the inequities in public education is a misdirected, ideological argument.”
Jonathan Pelto reports that Connecticut districts are spending lavishly on Google Chromebooks, while Google admits it is data mining to promote advertising and sales.
Google to Connecticut: Thank you!
Race to the Top provides incentives for unprecedented collection of student data. Bill Gates and Rupert Myrdoch created a new corporation called inBloom to collect and store this data. They say it is good for students and teachers but it is hard to understand why the government and private corporations need so much confidential data about everyone.
Here is one article that creates a context.
It is about the huge new industry called data mining. Every time we open the Internet or swipe a credit card, our data are added to a profile.
“The industry of collecting, aggregating, and brokering personal data is known as “database marketing.” The second-largest company in this field, Acxiom, has 23,000 computer servers that process more than 50 trillion data transactions per year, according to The New York Times.1 It claims to have records on hundreds of millions of Americans, including 1.1 billion browser cookies (small pieces of data sent from a website, used to track the user’s activity), 200 million mobile profiles, and an average of 1,500 pieces of data per consumer. These data include information gleaned from publicly available records like home valuation and vehicle ownership, information about online behavior tracked through cookies, browser advertising, and the like, data from customer surveys, and “offline” buying behavior. The CEO, Scott Howe, says, “Our digital reach will soon approach nearly every Internet user in the US.”
Big data. The answer to everything except our privacy.
An antique concept: privacy.
New York officials say they will release confidential student data in July to Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates’ inBloom, despite parental protests and a futile lawsuit. Why the unseemly rush to give away student information?
Meanwhile a California legislator has introduced a proposal to protect student privacy.
The California law is sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg:
“A leading California lawmaker plans to introduce state legislation on Thursday that would shore up privacy and security protections for the personal information of students in elementary through high school, a move that could alter business practices across the nearly $8 billion education technology software industry.
“The bill would prohibit education-related websites, online services and mobile apps for kindergartners through 12th graders from compiling, using or sharing the personal information of those students in California for any reason other than what the school intended or for product maintenance.
“The bill would also prohibit the operators of those services from using or disclosing the information of students in the state for commercial purposes like marketing. It would oblige the firms to encrypt students’ data in transit and at rest, and it would require them to delete a student’s record when it is no longer needed for the purpose the school intended.”
What part of “privacy” do New York officials not understand or care about? Or is their zeal to share a part of the ill-fated Race to the Top project to build a massive data warehouse for vendors?
Mercedes Schneider and Peter Greene, both high school teachers, had different responses to NEA President Dennis Van Roekel’s acknowledgement that implementation of the Common Core standards has been highly problematic, er, disastrous.
Give Dennis credit for recognizing that things are going very badly.
Teachers are beginning to recognize that they are not prepared and that the boom will be lowered on their heads.
Mercedes thinks that the NEA sold its independence to Gates.
Peter G is thrilled that NEA recognizes that the standards themselves need a state-level rewrite, by teachers, not DC bureaucrats. That alone would be a huge improvement, and he welcomes Dennis’ turnabout.
(fYI: No mention of the increasingly toxic CCSS; could this be a change of course? First, NEA, now AFT? A sign of change or oversight?)
WASHINGTON—Statement by Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, urging governors to provide the same access to a quality public education for all children as is done in other industrialized countries. The National Governors Association is meeting in Washington, D.C., this weekend.
“Governors can and should make a difference in the lives of every child in America by giving them access to a high-quality public education that includes programs and services to mitigate poverty. Continuing to ignore the lessons of top-performing industrialized nations impedes our children’s opportunity to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to compete in the 21st century global economy.
“The 2014 agenda of every governor should address the needs of today’s students by ending futile policies of over-testing, closing schools and sanctioning teachers and by supporting programs that actually will move our kids forward. As is done in the top-ranked industrialized nations, we should address socio-economic disparities by providing wraparound services in schools to meet students’ health and social service needs—which are essential given a U.S. child poverty rate of 23 percent. States should direct resources to the schools and students with the greatest needs, ensure that teachers are well-prepared and supported, provide all students with a robust curriculum, expand and enhance partnerships with parents and community, provide multiple pathways to graduation like career and technical education, and ensure there is high-quality, universal early childhood education.
“Governors must summon the political will to embrace what works in high-performing countries so that we can reclaim the promise of public education.”
Good news!
The Washington State Senate, rejecting federal bribes and threats, voted NO to evaluating teachers by student test scores. The fact that this method has failed wherever it was tried may have influenced their decision. Also, the state senators may have been aware of the research showing the utter failure of this way of evaluating teachers, which reflects who was in the class, not teacher quality.
Sorry, Arne!
Here is the story:
“OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Education officials say the state will be limited in the way it can spend about $44 million in federal dollars after the Senate on Tuesday turned down a proposal that would have mandated the use of statewide standardized tests in educators’ evaluations.
“Senate Bill 5246, which failed by a 28-19 vote, would have revised the state’s new teacher-principal evaluation system to accommodate a demand from the federal government to mandate using statewide standardized tests as a factor in evaluations.
“Washington state has a waiver from provisions of the so-called No Child Left Behind law. It could lose the waiver and some federal money by not changing the current law, which only suggests the tests be used in evaluations instead of mandating them.
“Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, said she voted against the bill because using state tests to measure student growth has not been proven to be an effective way to judge teachers.
“Nationwide we are a leader in the teacher-principal evaluation system,” she said. “Why would we allow the federal government to break a system that is working?”
The North Carolina state constitution clearly says that public funding is for public schools, but the Governor and General Assembly passed voucher legislation so parents can use public funds to send their children to schools run by religious groups.
Now a high-powered law firm backed by the Koch brothers has entered the lawsuit to defend vouchers.
They want more children to learn Biblical science and history and to be well prepare for the jobs of the 17th century.
Doug Noble is a member of Rochester’s Coalition for Justice in Education. He wrote this letter to the editor of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
.
Editor:
The D&C Feb 11 editorial “Committed to Common Core” reveals a
remarkable willingness to swallow the Common Core Kool Aid
and to accuse of “posturing” its many critics, including parents’
groups, teachers and their unions, who have moved Regents and state leaders to action.
This long overdue resistance, though, is hardly “posturing.” These
critics, with counterparts across the country, have conducted “close
readings” of the curriculum and policy materials while documenting the
damage done to children and to schools. They have analyzed the
glaringly inappropriate pedagogy, researched the dubious corporate
history, and understood fully the premature, flawed implementation.
They could serve as a perfect role model of the very “critical thinking” the Common Core allegedly champions.
The D&C editorial explains that “systemic change is never easy,”
unmindful that the Common Core, rather than any kind of change, is
really more of the same.
Common Core has been in the works for decades. It is nothing but the
culmination of more than 25 years of a well financed, power-brokered
campaign orchestrated by opportunist politicians seeking a
standardized silver bullet for education and by corporate profiteers
seeking a national education market ripe for their ventures and wares.
These antidemocratic intrusions of standards, curricula, tests, and
management schemes have been distracting schools and educators from
authentic improvement for decades, with such labels as “America
2000,” “Goals 2000,” No Child Left Behind, “Race to the Top,” and now “Common Core,” all with the identical agenda.
The D&C editorial reminds us that “lost amid all this posturing are
New York’s students, including those in Rochester’s schools.” As if
all these concerned teachers and parents have somehow forgotten them.
As if enthusiastic, autonomous and unafraid teachers are somehow not
essential to helping them. And as if Common Core curriculum standards
will somehow address the grueling concentration of child poverty that
is the real source of poor student performance. No, the critics have
not lost sight of the students, as Common Core evangelists repeatedly
insinuate. On the other hand, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, trumpeting students’ welfare while throwing them under the bus in the name of reform is the last refuge of education’s scoundrels.
Doug Noble
268 Brunswick St, Rochester, NY 14607
Diane Ravitch's blog 