Archives for the month of: March, 2014
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Vivian Connell: The Face of a Hero

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2014 //
19

On February 11 of this year, I met Vivian Connell. She was on a panel at the North Carolina Emerging Issues Forum moderated by John Merrow. Vivian was one of six people who explained why she left teaching. She described the disrespect in which the current leadership of North Carolina holds teachers and the deterioration of working conditions. She said she decided to go to law school, yet she missed teaching. She loved teaching; she misses her students. A few weeks later, I met Vivian at the Network for Public Education conference in Austin. She is beautiful, vibrant, thoughtful, filled with passion for life and service to others.

This morning I received a copy of a message that Vivian posted on Facebook. I am in awe of her spirit, her courage, her determination to make a difference and to help others. In facing life and in facing whatever happens to her, she is truly a hero, a champion of children, a champion for democracy, a woman of valor.

I will think of Vivian every time I hear the hireling of a plutocrat tell me that those of us who fight for free, high-quality public education are “on the wrong side of history.” I want to be on the side of history with Vivian.

She is the real thing. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Vivian is one of those people who are bending the arc of the moral universe. I want to be on her side. She gives all of us inspiration and hope.

 

This is what Vivian posted:

 

 

OK. Big news; long post. (Longest. Post. Ever.)

On March 12th, after months of investigating leg weakness that started just before I took (and passed, thank God!!) the NC bar exam, I was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It is progressive and terminal. My likely life expectancy is 2-7 years, but more likely 3-5 years. 

And I am at absolute peace with this. Of course, it will be harder on friends and family I leave behind, and I want to inform you all. I have, of course, told family and closest friends, but many of you-

My delightful and beloved former students with whom I LOVE staying connected;

My law school friends and colleagues who participated in one of the most worthy experiences of my life;

My old friends with whom I’ve been able to reconnect and whom I’ve really enjoyed keeping up with through this crazy social media thing;

My newer but no less dear friends and associates whom I’ve met advocating for issues about which we are passionate: consumer protection, the preservation of free quality public education, and campaign finance reform – all issues serving the ideals of genuine liberty and justice for all; and

My family, friends, and neighbors from many seasons of life –

You are all important to me in diverse ways, and I do not have the energy to tell you all individually!

Everyone asks, “What can I do?”

What can you do, you ask?

Well, I made a handy dandy list of affirmative steps and invite you to consider doing one or more of them:

1) PLEASE Read this whole post and LIKE it. I will know that your LIKE does not mean that you are glad to hear that I am terminally ill. But I do want to know who knows!!

2) Do respond in any way you like through a Private Message or email, but please don’t post about it on my wall. ALS will win this war (unless I am 1 in 1700 or unless some miracle happens in clinical trials – and you can feel free to hope for that!) but I intend to win all the daily battles. I want to continue to work on issues I care about and interact here on Facebook as I always have. I am determined, as I write in my first blog post, not to have my life become “The ALS network: All ALS, All the time.” I have a LOT of living to do. I get to participate in the internationally known Duke ALS clinic and will likely have more months of quality life because of that, so I feel blessed among the cursed . There is no fighting this and no painful treatments or chemo to endure – I get to plan and enjoy the rest of my life for as long as I can, which is a genuine silver lining.

3) Help my two children know and remember their crazy mom. If you have a memory or story you’d be willing to write and share, that would be the greatest gift. Formers, some of you have written very touching and complimentary notes and messages of thanks. I have saved lots of these and will be collecting them for my kids. So any stories or comments anyone is willing to relate would be deeply appreciated by me and probably treasured by my kids after I experience my “early check out” from this big hotel where we are all staying! Leaving my children as much of me as I can is my #1 priority. I have created email accounts for each of them and I am trying to write them a message a day for the remainder of my life. If you snail mail something, I will put it in the photo and scrapbooks I am starting; alternatively, you can send your remembrance(s) it to their email accounts; message me for info about this if you are so inclined.

4) Help me do THIS: I want to raise about $15k to take our 32 students at the alternative high school here in Chapel Hill to the US. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Many of them have never even left the area, much less the state, but they are fascinated when we teach about the Holocaust. Many of them have also encountered racism and cultural hatred, and a full day at the USHMM would make a permanent positive impact in their lives. I probably cannot work another year; therefore, it is important to me to make this happen for these young people – “my kids.” I hope to have the crowdfunding site up within the week, and I will post the links in the comments here as well as in a separate post. (Many of you know that I was a world and American lit specialist. I was also a Belfer Teaching Fellow at the Holocaust Museum and taught the Holocaust for many years; therefore I am uniquely qualified to prepare our students, train chaperones, and take steps to maximize the benefits of this trip for my students.) So when I post it, you can make a small donation, then share it with friends and family; this will be my last major act as a teacher.

5) Follow my blog: vivcon.wordpress.com. Post comments there, and I will be both grateful and excited. I will be as prolific as I can after this academic year ends. I will blog primarily about the issues that drove me to law school and have become passions. After every quarterly visit to the ALS clinic, I will post an update on the progress of my disease, as well as an update on my family. Chances are I’ll feel pretty free to speak my mind on a number of issues, so you should feel free, but not obligated, to join me in this journey.

6) Make a donation to the Duke ALS clinic. The international ALS community is currently excited about a recent clinical trial that shows great promise, though it is in early stages, and, I should be frank, is unlikely to change my fate. It is a stem cell procedure that for the first time, actually reversed the progress/damage in mice. One of the 12 patients who participated in the first human trials has responded similarly. Only one. But this is one more than has ever improved in the history of the disease, so we’ll take it. Duke is trying to raise $2 million to run a trial on 5 patients. Yep. It’s $300k per patient. And there is no great lobby for ALS research: patients do not live very long, and only 1 in 100,000 people develop ALS. (See. I always knew I was special. You are supposed to laugh.)

7) If you benefited from my passion/efforts as a teacher and/or are so inclined, please support Public Schools First, NC. LIKE their Facebook page and pay attention to what is happening in this state. Resist market-based education reforms and fight to maintain in your communities and state the equitable access to quality education for EVERY CHILD that is ESSENTIAL to a just society and a healthy democracy. Like I said every time we “pledged allegiance” in my classroom: “ . . . with liberty and justice for all . . . SOMEDAY, IF WE ALL WORK AT IT.” 

8) Reach out or visit if you are inclined! We are selling our Charlotte home and putting down roots here in Chapel Hill, where we plan for the kids to finish school while I receive care at Duke. Call or visit. Things are pretty crazy now, but chances are, if you are someone who would want to visit, then you are someone we would love to see.

9) And finally, share and tell others so that I do not have to have this conversation ad infinitum!! To my wonderful new NPE friends from Austin: I took so many business cards from wonderful education advocates, but I may never get to contact everyone. Please make sure everyone knows why.

10) I have few regrets and feel very privileged to have lived the life I was given. Do not feel sorry for me or for my family; I am confident that the Maker of All Good Things will manufacture blessings from my experience. I certainly hope to walk this path in a manner with gratitude and grace.

I have enjoyed, and will continue (hopefully for several-many more years) to enjoy walking through this life with all of you. And I certainly plan to spend my time investing in my kids and advocating for a better North Carolina, a better nation, and a better world. That seems good practice, even if one does not have ALS, right?

As my students have heard me say, regardless of what we each believe about our ability to “Change the World,” we all DO change it: we each make it a little better or a little worse. I have tried to live with a determination to be on the right side of history and, when I could muster the strength, the generous side of kindness. I certainly have won some and lost some – I am not the gentlest or most patient soul – but I hope I have made the world a bit better, and I have a very short bucket list. I wish you all the courage to aspire to your highest ideals and the blessing of facing the end of your days with as few regrets as I have. 

THANKS for reading to the end, and please LIKE the post. 

Not my will, but God’s will be done. It’s really OK.

 

Categories Honor Roll, North Carolina, Teachers

Teacher: When Will We Be Able to Think of Children Again?

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2014 //
13

This teacher explains: She loves teaching. She loves her
students, but she wants the high-stakes testing and the Race to the
Top to stop. She knows that her students are set up to fail. It is
all so wrong, so mean-spirited, so cruel. This is what she knows:
“I am a NYS certified public school teacher teaching 3rd grade in
an economically disadvantaged school district in rural upstate New
York. I happen to be one of the unfortunate teachers in a “test
grade” and am in fear of loosing my job, my livelihood, and the one
thing I used to enjoy waking up to every morning (my students)!!!!!
I went into teaching to teach precious little minds to learn and
not fear the consequences if they do not get something. “That has
all changed in the last several of years as state and federal
politics have stepped in to tell us how poorly our students are
doing. We, as teachers, are so under pressure to make a round peg
fit into a square hole with these new core standards. The people
who write these tests and demand that all students achieve at the
same level have never stepped foot into a classroom to see the
diversity of the students we work with everyday. “Last year during
the first year of the common core testing, I had students who were
crying because they did not understand the question, did not have
time to finish under the allotted time, or were just simply
overwhelmed by the complexity of the test. Is that why I became a
teacher, no it is not! I teach because I want to see my students
learn, but as more and more pressure comes down on us as teachers
so too does it in our students! “There has to be a time when we
stop thinking about the race to the top and start thinking about
the children we are supposed to be encouraging to want to learn!
The only thing we are doing with these common core state tests is
setting them up for failure and in the same process making teachers
look like they are not doing their jobs. “I’m tired of people who
have never stepped foot into a classroom telling me that I am not
“effective” because my 8 year old students can’t pass a test that
even a college graduate has difficulty completing!!!!!!! Whether I
am effective should not depend on how my students do on a three day
test, it should be based on whether they show growth from beginning
to end, just like they should not be considered as not meeting an
impossible state mandated goal in a three day test!!! Enough is
enough, let us get back to teaching and let our kids be kids,
after-all your childhood only lasts so long!!!!!”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Race to the Top, Students, Teachers and Teaching

Jason Stanford: A Hard Choice in Texas: $100 for a Graphic Calculator or $15 for an App?

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2014 //
5

Jason Stanford is a political journalist in Texas who keeps
a close watch on the nexus between money, politics, and education.
He is especially interested in how lobbyists shape decisions about
where the education money should be spent. In this post,
he sees the usual lobbyists pressing to make more money for their
clients: Forcing schools to buy a graphing calculator for
every single 8th grader in Texas would make Texas Instrument
probably in excess of $1 million at a time the state is failing to
increasing funding to keep up with population growth. And you can
only use a TI graphing calculator to do one thing; schools can use
tablet computers for innumerable purposes. In a state that prides
itself on being miserly with the public purse, you’d think this
would be a no-brainer. Enter Sandy
Kress, a lobbyist for
Pearson (the testing company), for Amplify (Robert
Murdoch’s pre-K tablet company), and, as it turns out,
for Texas
Instruments as well. And initially, Texas Education
Agency commissioner Michael Williams sided with Texas Instruments,
saying that using a tablet could help students cheat on tests.
Using the calculators would prevent that, he claimed. This might be
true if the kids have never heard of YouTube where one can find
numerous tutorials on how to use TI graphing calculators to cheat
on tests…   Read more to see what happened.
Win some, lose some.

Categories Texas

From One Teacher to Another: VAM is Junk Science

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2014 //
20

After Kafkateach stated that his/her VAM scores were poor because he/she is a teacher of gifted students and have no way to go higher, this response came from Chris in Florida:

We’re in this together here in Florida, kafkateach. I am National Board certified, have 2 masters degrees (only 1 is in education), 20+ years of experience, and was named a Teacher of the Year by three different programs in my district.

Now my Title I school is graded “F” after they hiked the cut scores yet again last year and I will be following you to the unemployment office in another year or two. Should be interesting to see how they plan to staff the school after they have fired the roughly 85% of us who work in “failing” schools around the state.

My VAM came from 4th and 5th graders’ scores — students I have never taught because I moved to this school a couple of years ago, and I teach 1st grade.

 

Here is my advice to teachers who are unfairly rated by the spurious method called “value-added assessment”: Sue them.

VAM was first developed by an agricultural statistician, not an educator. It has been imposed by the U.S. Department of Education as a condition of applying for Race to the Top funding.

It has no basis in science, unless you are a vegetable or a grain.

Categories Education Reform

Mother: My Son Hates School, How Can I Help Him?

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2014 //
54

This comment came from “Albany Mom”:   I
agree with the writer that “if parents do not advocate for their
children, who will?” However, I need help
knowing how to advocate for my child. Who is going to
help? My husband and I have struggled with the
demons of Common Core this year, watching our 9 year old son sink
into what looks like depression. We can’t afford private school, so
I have coerced, offered rewards, and tried everything to encourage
him. He has developed sleep problems, moody and irritable, and
hardly eats. He has impulsive aggression with his younger sister.
He has lost his previous love of creative play, especially with
Legos, and now is chronically bored unless he has a video game. I
have banned video games since I think it is an escape and he is
becoming addicted. He is withdrawing from me, just as he is from
school. When his father is home on weekends, he tries to talk to
him, but it is more like “you don’t have a choice, just man up and
do your best”. It seems like we can’t change the school
environment, so we have to change our son to adapt to
it. Every morning is a struggle just to get
him out the door, and every night is another dismal episode of
boring homework (always worksheets with the “common core” logo at
the bottom). He cries frequently at home, and even broke down two
times at school this year when he became frustrated. I know that
caused a loss of dignity for him, and I met with his teacher to ask
for help. I can sense the teacher feels pressured too, and is
concerned about his test scores. He says son daydreams in class. I
was referred to take him to a child guidance center for counseling,
but that is not helping. A therapist can’t change the school
either, so is just trying to help him adapt to it.
I recognize it is not possible for me to make him like
school, and forcing him to go makes me feel like a bully. He may be
more sensitive than some children, but I think public schools need
to be happy welcoming places for children, and not like “work
camps” that make them feel worthless and trapped. This has caused
our family ongoing stress and fear, and it seems to be getting
worse. This is indeed a “psychological plague”
that is taking my child’s spirit, and I think there
are millions of other children out there experiencing
similar emotional distress from CC. Now I ask
this question to Arne Duncan: “Is it healthy
and realistic to expect the nation’s children to adapt to an
environment that is obviously causing them psychological
distress?”

Categories Common Core, Parents, Students, Testing

Students Organize to Resist Destructive “Reforms”

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2014 //
5

Students have the power to stop the destructive forces that are ruining their education and treating them as data points, not humans who want to learn. They are holding a conference in Los Angeles, where they will discuss strategies to resist school closings, high-stakes testing, data mining, and other current efforts to turn their educational opportunity into an opportunity for entrepreneurs to use them. They can learn from the creative tactics of the Providence Student Union, which has utilized politicl theater to gain public support.

Go, students, go! You own the future. Don’t let the profiteers, bureaucrats, technocrats, and futurists steal it.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Hannah Nguyen
University of Southern California
Phone: (408) 644-9717
Email address: hbnguyen@usc.edu

USC Hosts EmpowerED 2014 Conference to Highlight Student Voice and Organizing in Education

Students everywhere are tired of feeling powerless
when it comes to decisions about their education.
That’s why they’re fighting back.

LOS ANGELES, MARCH 23 — On Saturday, March 29, at the University of Southern California, over 130 youth from all over Los Angeles will participate in EmpowerED: Los Angeles Student Power 2014. EmpowerED is a student-led education conference that will engage the local student community in discussing and strategizing what it will take to transform our education system to serve all students –and incorporate student voices.

EmpowerED 2014 is hosted by Students United for Public Education’s LA Chapter as a part USC EdMonth. This will be SUPE-LA’s first major event and the first EdMonth event to include local students in a discussion about educational policy issues.

EmpowerED will provide an opportunity for students in LA to learn about the student organizing that is expanding throughout the country, raise their voices on important educational issues, develop leadership and organizing skills, and collaborate with their peers on how to build a movement for student power. Israel Muñoz, co-founder of the Chicago Students Union who has spoken about his experiences on NBC and TED, will deliver the keynote address.

“Students spend most of their day in school, but almost never have a voice when it comes to decisions about their education. My fellow student organizers and I are tired of feeling powerless and have organized student unions to make sure our voices are heard,” says Muñoz. “We are very excited to share our stories with LA students, as well as hear their experiences and work with them to build a stronger local and national student movement. I am honored to be a part of a groundbreaking event that fosters peer-to-peer student empowerment and youth voice.”

Israel Muñoz marches with the Chicago Students Union
to protest mass school closings in his community.

The conference will bring together leading high school student activists from across the country who have organized and led student unions in response to the lack of student voice in top-down policies of the current education reform movement, such as high stakes testing, budget cuts, and mass school closings. In Los Angeles, these policies have further destabilized already under-resourced communities through cutbacks on the arts and humanities, mass teacher layoffs, and the reconstitution of major high schools like Crenshaw and Dorsey.

These experiences run nationwide. As such, EmpowerED will host a discussion panel with Providence Student Union’s Cauldierre McKay, Portland Student Union’s Sekai Edwards, Newark Students Union’s Kristin Towkaniuk, LA’s Coalition for Educational Justice organizer Taylor Broom, Alliance for Educational Justice’s Tre Murphy, and Chicago Students Union’s Israel Munoz.

A large part of the event will consist of hands-on, interactive workshops and open forums. There will be workshops led by all speakers and panelists on various topics such as student unionism, creative direct actions, public speaking, social media, and LA-specific movements for educational justice and student voice. Community groups like K-12 News Network and the California Student Union will also lead workshops on student voice in the budget and student organizing at the college level.

At the end of the day, students will have the unique opportunity to generate artwork that portrays their vision for student voice in education. This artwork will then be displayed in an exhibit called Collective Voice: The Wisdom of Young People on Education, at a 2015 national educational conference in Washington DC.

There will be a Livestream of the event for those who cannot make it to LA to attend. For more information about the EmpowerED 2014 conference and to access the Livestream video on the day of the event, go to empowerED2014.com.

View our promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIFz2qCHYcI

Follow Us on Twitter: @empowerED_2014

MEDIA INTERVIEWS

Local media is invited to attend the conference on Saturday, March 29, 2014 to:

Interview EmpowerED attendees and speakers during lunch (12:00 – 12:30 PM)
Capture footage of the featured student organizing panel (12:30 – 1:30 PM)

About Students United for Public Education

Students United for Public Education (SUPE) evolved out of the work of college students involved in defending public education from its attackers. In particular, SUPE was founded to fill a void in the movement for public education — before SUPE, there was no national student organization devoted solely to this cause. Under the guise of “closing the achievement gap” and “school choice,” for-profit corporations and their political representatives have sought to privatize and sell off public education. SUPE understands that a profit motive cannot guarantee a good education. Instead, only a robust and well-supported public education system — along with the courage and will to directly confront problems of racial and economic inequality — can provide a quality education for all.

SUPE is a community based organization because we know that public schools are the heart of every community. In other words, SUPE understands that in order for our goals to be reached, we must fight with K-12 students, parents, teachers, and community members and elevate their essential voices. We aim to work with communities to find out what their needs are, and have them lead the way in the struggle as we work as equals to organize the change they believe is best. Find out more about Students United for Public Education at: studentsunitedforpubliced.org

About USC EdMonth

EdMonth at USC is the first national student-led movement and discussion about the state of education in our country. Downtown Los Angeles and the USC campus will serve as the backdrop for educators, parents, policy makers, business leaders, elected officials, engaged citizens and students to engage in a national, collegiate student-driven discussion on the issue of improving education in our country. USC EdMonth is organized by the USC Academic Culture Assembly and USC Program Board. Find out more at: edmonth.usc.edu

© Copyright 2014 University of Southern California. All rights reserved.

Hannah Nguyen
(408) 644-9717
hbnguyen@usc.edu
University of Southern California | B.A. Sociology
Students United for Public Education | Co-National Organizer
USC EdMonth | Executive Board Member
EmpowerED 2014 | Executive Director

Categories Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Standardized Testing, Students

Ohio: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2014 //
23

A reader in Ohio writes:   This is one
of the people who is making law on public schools in
Ohio: “Powell legislator stirs controversy
over views on public schools Two weeks after
calling public education “socialism” and saying it should be
privatized, state Rep. Andrew Brenner said of those criticizing him
with vulgarities: “I’m guessing those people had a public
education.” The Powell Republican and vice chairman of the House
Education Committee wrote another column this week on his wife’s
website, Brenner Brief News, criticizing those who took issue with
his previous column.” He’s the new vice-chair
on the education committee. His goal is to get rid of our 150 year
old system of public schools, because it’s “socialism”.
When he’s called on it, he responds by attacking every
person in the state who attended public schools, which of course is
the vast majority of people in the state. You
really can’t make this stuff up. It’s like open season on public
ed.

Categories Charter Schools, Privatization, Vouchers

Florida Teacher Evaluated on Scores of Students She NeverTaught: Junk Science Alert!

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2014 //
82

Value-added-measurement (VAM) produce ratings that are
inaccurate and unstable. In Florida, about half of teachers don’t
teach tested subjects, so they are assigned scores based on the
scores of their school, meaning they are rated in relation to the
scores of students they never taught and subjects they never
taught. This
Florida teacher explains why she was rated a 23.6583 out of 40,
even though she teaches a non-tested subject. This is
irrational. Yet Arne Duncan has compelled almost every state to
develop VAM ratings because he believes in them, even though there
is no evidence for their value. How can a teacher’s quality be
judged by the test scores of students she never taught? If that is
not Junk Science, what is? Bill Gates gave Hillsborough County,
Florida, $100 million to evaluate teachers using
value-added-measurement. Here is the formula: Here’s how
the state’s Department of Education explains it, from
a department paper: methods2 I admit I don’t understand it. Many
people don’t understand it. But whoever wrote it understands it.
Bill Gates said recently it would take at least ten years to see if
this stuff “works.” I don’t think we have to wait ten years. “This
stuff” doesn’t work. It doesn’t even make sense. Teachers of the
gifted may be rated ineffective because their students have already
hit the top, and their scores can’t go up any higher. Their ratings
are Junk Science. When the same teacher gets a bonus one year, but
then is rated ineffective the next year, it shows how unstable the
ratings are. That means they are not science, they are Junk
Science. There is so much more to the art and craft of teaching
than standardized tests reveal. What matters most is not
quantifiable although peers and supervisors can indeed judge which
teachers are best and worst. If the measure is not valid, if the
measure in inaccurate and unstable, then it is wrong to use it to
give people bonuses or to fire them. In this post on her
blog VAMboozled, Audrey Amrein-Beardsley reviewed a study
of VAM which again identified the weaknesses of VAM. She writes:
Finally, these researchers conclude that, “even in the
best scenarios and under the simplistic and idealized
conditions…the potential for misclassifying above average teachers
as below average or for misidentifying the ‘worst’ or ‘best’
teachers remains nontrivial.” Accordingly, misclassification rates
can range “from at least seven to more than 60 percent” depending
on the statistical controls and estimators used and the moderately
to highly non-random student sorting practices and scenarios across
schools. Now, think about it. If the VAM rating can be
wrong by as much as 60%, why would any school district use it to
fire teachers? No wonder teachers are suing for wrongful
termination! Call in the lawyers, VAM is Junk Science.

Categories Education Reform, Florida, Teacher Evaluations

Breaking News: Feds Investigate Florida Scholarship Program for Bias Against Minorities, Poor

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2014 //
17

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating the Florida “Brighter Choice” scholarship program, whose criteria were changed in a way that has a disparate impact on black and Hispanic students.

The Miami Herald reports:

“Since the program’s inception, an outsized share of more than $4 billion in scholarships has gone to white or affluent families, at least some of whom were wealthy enough to afford college without any help. In recent years, state lawmakers — concerned about rising costs of the program — changed the standards to make the scholarships even harder to get, raising the minimum SAT and ACT test scores to levels critics charge will only further exclude poor and minority students….

“Similar allegations resurfaced in a public way last spring after a University of South Florida analysis predicted that the new Bright Futures standards would benefit far fewer students — the total number of college freshmen getting scholarships at state universities would drop by about half, from 30,954 to 15,711. The analysis predicted Hispanic students would see a 60 percent drop in scholarships, and black scholarship recipients would plummet by more than 75 percent.

“Of all large counties, Miami-Dade takes the biggest hit from the new criteria. Yet the Legislature’s Florida Hispanic Legislative Caucus, dominated by Republicans from Miami-Dade, has generally supported the revisions.

“At Florida International University, where about three-quarters of students are black or Hispanic, the percentage of incoming freshman qualifying for Bright Futures was once as high as 81 percent. This coming fall, under the new minimum SAT score of 1170, FIU expects only about 14 percent of freshmen to qualify.

“Luisa Havens, FIU’s vice president for enrollment, called it “silly and counterproductive” for the state to place financial obstacles in front of students who want to go to college. The Bright Futures cutbacks are happening at the same time Florida leaders publicly say they want to boost the number of residents with college degrees and make college more affordable.

“Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the harm being inflicted on minority students is “shameful.”…..

“The most significant impact is the poor and minority high school students who, just a couple of years ago, would have had a far greater opportunity of entering college,” he said. “Now, it’s undermined.”

“Bright Futures is funded by the Florida Lottery, which while immensely profitable couldn’t keep up with the growth of the program during the last decade. In 1997, Bright Futures’ first year, the lottery funded $75 million in the scholarships. By 2008, that amount had exploded to $435 million.

“When the costs became too great, the state slashed the value of the scholarships and then cut funding and reduced the number of awards by hiking standards. This year, the Florida Department of Education budget calls for $271 million in Bright Futures funds, reflecting cuts of $38 million and 18,000 scholarships from last year.

“Critics point out an irony in the cuts and changes: Although the lottery is most heavily played by minorities and the poor, they are less likely to benefit from the scholarship program.

“Some who want the program reformed argue a better way to screen applicants is with a “sliding scale” that combines GPA and test scores. In that system, a student with test scores slightly below the cutoff would still qualify if their GPA was very strong.

“Both college administrators and the College Board acknowledge that it is high school performance, and not standardized test scores, that is the best predictor of college success.

“But instead of changing Bright Futures’ minimum 3.0 GPA, Florida lawmakers chose to significantly raise qualifying test marks — from a minimum of 970 three years ago to 1170 now on the SAT. The average Florida combined SAT score was about 982 last year.

“Legislative leaders also have dismissed including a means test that could reduce or restrict scholarships to students from the wealthiest families….

“But in Florida education circles, testing has become the preferred method of evaluating public schools, teachers, and — in the case of Bright Futures — scholarship applicants. Schaeffer said Miami-Dade’s Hispanic Republican lawmakers are wedded to the test philosophy, even in an instance when their constituents suffer the most.

“They are Jeb Bush Republicans,” Schaeffer said. “Jeb Bush is one of the strongest believers nationally in the role of test scores in defining education quality. To come out otherwise would be an insult to their mentor.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/22/4010170/feds-investigate-floridas-bright.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Florida, Higher Education

Boston: Citizens Fight Deformers

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2014 //
18

Boston’s Citizens for Public Schools show how a powerful group of parents, teachers, and concerned citizens can inform the public and keep the heat on legislators. I was unable to repost all the links; there were so many! Go to their website to find them all.

Here is their latest update:

CPS writes:

What a fascinating week it’s been for education news! First, there was the spectacle of leading charter school proponents busting their gaskets at the slow pace of legislative action on lifting the charter cap. Then there was the jaw-dropping statement from a state education official that the state will not force families to participate in PARCC field tests (after an earlier statement that parents had no right to opt their children out of state testing). Scroll down to read about these stories and more. We rely on our members (your voices, your actions and your membership contributions) to keep going, so if you have not yet become an official part of the CPS family, join today by clicking here!

Best regards,
Lisa Guisbond
CPS Executive Director, lisa.guisbond@gmail.com

News You Can Use About Our Schools

The Charter Cap Battle Boils Over

Tempers flared and fingers stabbed out vitriolic editorials at the news that the Joint Education Committee wanted time to hear from voters and think about proposed charter cap and school turnaround legislation.

Sen. Chang-Diaz

First, Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz released a statement announcing the one-week extension. The statement was posted at the Blue Mass Group blog, prompting an interesting series of comments, including an excellent post by CPS member Shirley Kressel.

Sen. Jehlen

The Boston Herald then printed a vicious editorial attack on Senators Chang-Diaz and Jehlen, saying there should be “a special place in hell reserved for those who would deprive children of a way out of a failing school.” On behalf of CPS, my letter to the editor points out, “It takes courage to resist and not kowtow to deep-pocketed charter proponents. Parents see how charter school growth has constricted resources available for basics like art and music, gym and social workers. Lifting the cap will make this bad situation worse.”

Meanwhile, tempers flared at the Pioneer Institute, which launched this public attack on Secretary of Education Matt Malone, saying his views on charters are “characterized by bigotry and demonization.”

Some groups kept their decorum and stuck to the issues, including the Black Educators Alliance Massachusetts (BEAM), which wrote this letter on lifting the charter cap. It says, in part, “The state should not lift the cap on charter schools without addressing the funding inequities imposed on districts such as Boston and the disproportionately lower number of English language learners and students with disabilities enrolled in charter schools.”

Finally, we got a needed dose of delicious satire from EduShyster, who wrote, “a funny thing happened on the way to the charter cap-lifting fête. Lawmakers began to hear from some actual constituents-upon whom they actually depend for actual re-election-about devastated public school budgets, the loss of local control and a growing fear that more charters means dual, and dueling, school systems that educate very different students.” A tip of my cap to you, EduShyster!

Don’t forget that the State Auditor’s Office is close to completing a comprehensive audit of charter school finances and practices. We remain convinced that it would make sense for legislators to read that report before considering changing the charter school cap.

Meanwhile, if you want to add your voice to the fray, here’s a petition from the Boston parent group Quest, seeking investments in Boston public schools and maintaining the cap on charter school growth. And don’t forget to sign on to the Boston Truth Coalition’s Principles of Unity, which include this: “We believe in investing in public schools, which serve the majority of students in Boston, and we oppose lifting the cap on charters, which drain resources from district schools and don’t serve ALL students and their diverse needs.”

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Breaking PARCC News: Parents & Students Have Rights!

The PARCC test controversy continues to rage, with state officials reversing themselves on whether parents have the right to opt their children out of the field tests this spring. Recall that a Feb. 20 letter to the Worcester School Committee from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) said state law did not permit parents to opt their children out of state testing and therefore “participation in the PARCC assessment field test is mandatory.” But this week, at a Framingham forum on PARCC testing, the message was different. In answer to a question, Bob Bickerton, senior associate commissioner at DESE, said “common sense” will prevail, and “We’re not going to force the kids to take the test.”

Meanwhile, add Tantasqua to the list of school committees voting to allow parents to opt out of PARCC field testing.

Todd Gazda
And in Ludlow, MA, Superintendent Todd Gazda wrote a blog post titled, “Enough is Enough!” In it, he decries the top-down imposition of “national standards, increased regulations, standardized testing, and mandates regarding what and how our children should be taught.” He says that assessments are an essential part of education. “However, standardized tests whose scores take months to arrive, often after the student has moved on to another teacher, have a limited utility for shaping the educational environment. I am concerned that we are creating students who will excel in taking multiple choice tests. Unfortunately, life is not a multiple choice test. Enough is enough!”

Boston Globe writer Scot Lehigh interviewed U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan during his Massachusetts visit to plug his favored corporate reforms. To back up his claim that students’ lack of preparedness for college is a state and national emergency, Duncan said that 40% of Massachusetts high school students require remedial coursework in college. This is not true. Thanks to award-winning New York principal Carol Burris for her Answer Sheet blog holding Duncan and the Globe accountable for their misuse of statistics to promote Common Core testing and more charter schools. Burris insisted that Lehigh and the Globe run a “clarification” (at the end of another Lehigh oped) that set the record straight by acknowledging that just 21% of students who attend four-year universities in Mass. take at least one remedial course.

Don’t forget about CPS’s fact sheet: What we know about PARCC test refusal. And we’re keeping track of school committee resolutions on opting out, here. Please let us know if we’ve missed any.

And read all about a successful Take the PARCC test event in Somerville, then think about planning one in your community.

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Reforms We Can Believe In: Equity, Restorative Justice, Diversity

How different from current U.S. school reforms is a system based on equity? In an interview published in the Atlantic, Finnish education chief Krista Kiuru describes a vision close to CPS’s heart, of a whole child education: “Academics isn’t all kids need. Kids need so much more. School should be where we teach the meaning of life; where kids learn they are needed; where they can learn community skills. We like to think that school is also important for developing a good self-image, a strong sensitivity to other people’s feelings … and understanding it matters to take care of others. We definitely want to incorporate all those things in education.”

In the interest of equitable and adequate school funding, public education advocates including the Mass. Teachers Association and the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, along with the Mass. Association of School Superintendents, the Mass. Association of School Committees and others are calling for a commission to re-examine the state’s Foundation Budget (required amount that public schools must spend on education). The budget formula, part of the state’s Chapter 70 education aid law, was passed to ensure adequate funding to meet the education needs of all students. However, the formula has not been updated in 21 years. Read this fact sheet about a bill to establish such a commission.

The Opportunity to Learn Campaign offers a tool kit and illustration of zero tolerance versus restorative justice.

The goal of diverse and inclusive public schools seems to have fallen off the agenda of our political leaders and policymakers. In this report, the author recommends that “policymakers address race-conscious policies, practices and conditions that perpetuate segregation and inequality while simultaneously tapping into the changing racial attitudes of Americans by supporting racially diverse schools.”

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For and About Teachers

Watch this video from Educators for a Democratic Union and listen to these teachers describe the way testing is getting in the way of teaching students the best way they know how.

Inspiration from Seattle teachers in this article about their successful test boycott and plans for more action.

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Upcoming Events of Interest

Charters, Publics, Pilots & Everything In Between

How are the Differences in Schools Affecting Equity in Boston? Monday, March 31 from 5-7 PM at Spontaneous Celebrations, 45 Danforth St in Jamaica Plain.

Citizens for Public Schools, Inc. | 18 Tremont St., Suite 320 | Boston | MA | 02108

Categories Parents, Resistance, Supporting public schools, Teachers
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