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

Dinner with Julian Vasquez Heilig Is More than Eats

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2014 //
14

As this post demonstrates, when you have dinner with Julian Vasquez Heilig, you dine with a very active and imaginative mind.

There you are thinking of a stiff drink, and he is thinking of the Odyssey! You are blowing off steam about the latest outrage from Washington, and JVH is cogitating.

You are comparing notes on how California and New York are dealing with federal pressure to conform and buckle, and his mighty brain is acting like a filing cabinet.

I am honored that he thinks of me as a mentor. I think of him as one of our bravest and most valuable young scholars. Those of us who hope for a better day for our society, now steeped in a dog-eat-dog culture, place our hopes with Julian and his peers to lead us out of this dark wood.

Categories Personal

David Sirota: Rahm’s Secret Slush Fund Rewards Friends, While He Cries Deficits

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2014 //
48

David Sirota, who has become one of our nation’s top investigative reporters, here tells the story about how Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel says there is no money, that public pensions have emptied the city’s coffers, and that he has to close schools because of a huge deficit. But Sirota says that the Mayor has found plenty of money for favored projects, funded by his “Tax Increment Financing districts.” This is a shocking story though not many who live in Chicago are likely to be surprised. During the teachers’ strike in 2012, when the city claimed it could not afford smaller classes or libraries or anything that the schools needed, there were many complaints about the use of TIF funding for an unnecessary stadium. Read on.

 

Sirota writes:

 

This same story, portraying public employees as the primary cause of budget crises, is being told across the country. Yet, in many cases, we’re only being told half the tale. We aren’t told that the pension shortfalls in many US states and cities were created because those same states and cities did not make their required pension contributions over many years. And perhaps even more shockingly, we aren’t being told that, while states and cities pretend they have no money to deal with public sector pensions, many are paying giant taxpayer subsidies to corporations — often far larger than the pension shortfalls.

Chicago is the iconic example of all of these trends. A new report being released this morning shows that the supposedly budget-strapped Windy City – which for years has not made its full pension payments – actually has mountains of cash sitting in a slush fund controlled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Indeed, as the report documents, the slush fund now receives more money each year than it would cost to adequately finance Chicago’s pension funds. Yet, Emanuel is refusing to use the cash from that slush fund to shore up the pensions. Instead, his new pension “reform” proposal cuts pension benefits, requires higher contributions from public employees and raises property taxes in the name of fiscal responsibility. Yet, the same “reform” proposal will actually quietly increase his already bloated slush fund.

But it gets worse: an investigation by Pando has discovered that Emanuel has been using that same slush fund to enrich some of his biggest campaign contributors.

How a “shadow budget” is bankrupting Chicago

The new report, from the taxpayer watchdog group Good Jobs First, shows how Chicago’s roughly 150 “tax increment financing” (TIF) districts divert property taxes out of schools and public services and into what is now known as Chicago’s “shadow budget.” That’s a slightly nicer term for what is, in practice, Emanuel’s very own sovereign wealth fund.

Living up to his billing as “Mayor 1%,” Emanuel has used the fund to (among other things) offer up $7 million of taxpayer cash for a new grocery store, $7.5 million for a proposed data center, $29 million for an office high rise and $55 million for a huge new hotel (and that latter project is on top of $75 million more in tax money Emanuel has offered up to build a private university a new basketball stadium). And these are just a few of the corporate subsidy proposals in a $300 million spending spree Emanuel has championed at the very moment he has pled poverty to justify pension cuts, property tax increases and the largest school closure in his city’s history.

Categories Chicago, Pensions

Peter Greene: Why Standardized Tests Are Meaningless

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2014 //
33

Our policy makers are in love with standardized tests. They
can’t talk about education without talking test scores. If I could
wave a magic wand, I would have every politician, every pundit, and
every state commissioner take the 8th grade math test and publish
their scores. Or take the PARCC test for 8th grade. If they did,
the results would be interesting and there might be less
complaining about our kids, our teachers, and our schools. Peter
Greene explains
here why standardized tests are meaningless. I think they
may be useful for diagnosing problems and helping kids. I think
they are useful for trends. But their limitations and gym flaws are
too great to use them to rank and rate children or determine their
life chances.

Categories Standardized Testing

My Favorite Line from Arne Duncan: What is Yours?

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2014 //
93

For five years, I have listened to Arne Duncan lecture the American people about how terrible our public schools are.

 

He goes on at length about our ignorant students, our misguided parents, our ineffective teachers, our failing public schools.

 

In his eyes, we seem to be a nation of slackers, bums, ignoramuses, fools, and failures.

 

We know that he likes: charter schools, Teach for America, closing public schools and handing them over to corporate management, and “graduate schools” that have no scholars, no researchers, just tutors of test-taking skills. And of course, he loves the heavy emphasis on test-taking in places like Shanghai and Singapore. Test scores are his North Star. He wishes we could be like Shanghai, and that all our moms were “Tiger Moms,” cracking the whip over the children and making them get ready for the next test. All work, no play. He dreams of a new America of test-taking grinds. Arne Duncan is our Mr. Gradgrind, and if you don’t know who that is, google it.

 

Every once in a while, he launches a campaign calling for “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” but no one believes him. They know it is just empty PR.

 

So, I wonder, what are the unforgettable phrases of Arne Duncan that will be his legacy, the words that encapsulate his unique combination of certainty and cluelessness.

 

Entry one must be his immortal comment about Hurricane Katrina, which caused the deaths of over 1,000 people and wiped out public education and the teachers’ union in New Orleans: He said that Hurricane Katrina was “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.” Forget the fact that the great majority of charter schools in New Orleans today are rated either D or F by the state of Louisiana (which favors them). According to Secretary Duncan, every major city needs a Hurricane Katrina or some other natural disaster to demolish public education and eliminate teachers’ unions so they can be replaced by privately managed charter schools and Teach for America. Of course, then Teach for America would have to train 1,000,000 teachers a year instead of only 10,000, and it would put an end to the teaching profession, but Arne hasn’t thought that far in advance.

 

Entry two was captured by Gary Rubinstein in this post on his blog: At Teach for America’s 20th anniversary celebration, Arne Duncan was a featured speaker. He told the story of a school that had only a 40% graduation rate. The school was shut down and replaced by three charter schools. One graduated all of its students, and all were accepted into college. Duncan said: “Same children, same community, same poverty, same violence. Actually went to school in the same building with different adults, different expectations, different sense of what’s possible. Guess what? That made all the difference in the world.” Gary pointed out that the students were not the same kids, and that the 107 who graduated were not the same as the 166 who started in the class. Yes, the graduation rate was higher, but it was not the 100% that Arne implied. And to make matters worse, the students at that particular “miracle school” had lower test scores than the Chicago school district. But Arne was trying to promote his theory that schools get better if everyone is fired and the slate is wiped clean.

 

Then there was the time last year when he sneered at parents in New York state who objected to the absurd Common Core tests as “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.” He quickly tried to walk that one back, but it stuck. He deeply believes that our kids are dummies and their parents want to believe that they are smart when they are not. I guess you need to have a Harvard B.A. to be so arrogant about the brainpower of other people’s children.

 

My personal favorite occurred when he visited a charter school in Brooklyn. He told those assembled that the United States is facing both an economic crisis and an educational crisis. And then came this immortal line: “We should be able to look every second grader in the eye and say, ‘You’re on track, you’re going to be able to go to a good college, or you’re not,’ ” he said. “Right now, in too many states, quite frankly, we lie to children. We lie to them and we lie to their families.”

 

The claim that we are “lying to our students” or “we are lying to our children” is like a mantra for Arne, so that’s not new. What is special about this line is the idea that you should be able to look every second grader in the eye and be able to tell them that they are on track to go to a good college. Since I have a grandson who is in second grade, I know how absurd this is. I look into his eyes and I see a laughing, happy child. That’s what I want to see. Sometimes I see a sad child, and I want to know what’s wrong and can I help. I see a child who loves to read and loves to play. The last thing in the world that would occur to me as a parent, a grandparent, or an educator is to ask whether he was on track to go to a good college. I want him to be on track to be happy, healthy, curious about the world, eager to learn, and secure in the love that surrounds him.

Julian Vasquez Heilig collected his Top Ten of Arne’s Inanities.

The reality is that it is easy to find Arne’s clueless remarks. They occur whenever he goes off script.

 

What is your favorite Arne Duncan line? I have known almost every Secretary of Education since the U.S. Department of Education was created in 1980. I have never known one who had so little respect for students, educators, parents, school boards, or public education as our current Secretary. Nor have I known one who had so little understanding about what constitutes genuine learning. Not test scores, but a love of learning, a love of tinkering, a love of knowledge. It is innovation, creativity, imagination, curiosity, wit, and the pursuit of new knowledge that is the genius of our nation. Those who care not to preserve those essential aspects of education are not educators, but technicians, bureaucrats, and bean counters.

 

My wish: Arne Duncan should take the PARCC test for eighth graders and publish his scores.

 

Categories Charter Schools, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, New Orleans, Teach for America

A Teacher Offers Sound Advice to Tom Friedman

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2014 //
30

John Ogozalek teaches in upstate Néw York. He read Tom Friedman’s column in the Néw York Times on Sunday and had a strong reaction of cognitive dissonance, as in, why can’t Tom be consistent?

Tom Friedman’s describes a thrilling ride on a nuclear submarine, where there is no room for error. At one point, an admiral says, “There is no multiple-choice exam for running the sub’s nuclear reactor.” If you want to be certified to run any major system on this ship, he added, “everything is an oral and written exam to demonstrate competency.”

John hopes that Tom will remember that when he returns to land.

John writes:

So, Tom Friedman gets a free ride on the U.S.S. New Mexico under the Arctic ice, leading him to gush warmly in today’s Sunday Times. “My strongest impression… was experiencing something you see too little of these days on land: ‘excellence'”, he wrote.

What was so excellent? “‘There is no multiple-choice exam for running the sub’s reactor,'” according to an admiral Tom quotes with obvious admiration, noting that the commander added, “‘Everything is an oral and written exam to demonstrate competency.'”

Okay, Tom. So, mind-numbing, idiotic multiple-choice exams are okay on land, as long as you’re sitting high and dry in public school classrooms across our country. But somehow the laws of physics (not to mention basic common sense) function differently under water?

Is Tom Friedman a hypocrite or is he simply blind to the crappy, half-assed testing being inflicted on our students each day -thanks to the rush to implement the Core-porate curriculum?

Tom, here’s a REAL lesson for you about excellence. One of my former students has served bravely on an attack sub. He’s one of those smart, dedicated young sailors you admire. He stopped by my house not that long ago when he was home on leave. We were talking and, at one point, he dropped the phrase, “NUB”, as in, “That guy was a real nub”.

N.U.B. translates to “Non-useful body”, he told me. It refers to a person not pulling his or her weight on the sub. It’s a big insult, Tom. It’s the people who just use up good air.

You want to improve education? Start with getting the adult NUBs who are clogging our schools off our backs. Who am I talking about? Let’s start with the overpaid consultants who never really teach, useless state bureaucrats spewing their political doublespeak, corporate greed heads peddling nonsensical tests and those hedge fund managers who would last about ten minutes running a real classroom.

Next thing you know Tom Friedman and his cronies at the Times will be supporting efforts to put charter school students on nuclear submarines.

On the sub, “The sense of ownership and mutual accountability is palpable,” according to Tom.

Wouldn’t it be nice if he had the same goals for our children and their teachers back here in the United States.

-John Ogozalek

Categories Common Core, Standardized Testing

Andrea Gabor: Charters Are Harming Public Schools by Pushing Out Kids with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2014 //
48

Andrea Gabor, the Michael Bloomberg Professor of Journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York, has an opinion article in today’s New York Times, where she patiently explains that charter schools enroll a smaller proportion of students with disabilities, causing the neighborhood public schools to have a larger proportion of the students with the highest needs than the charter schools.

 

She writes:

 

In Harlem, there is a marked disparity between the special-needs populations in charter and traditional public schools, according to the city education department’s annual progress reports. In East Harlem, data for the 2012-13 school year shows that most of the public open-enrollment elementary and middle schools have double, and several have triple, the proportion of special-needs kids of nearby charter schools. At most of these public schools, at least a quarter of students have Individualized Education Programs, or I.E.P.s, which are required for children who receive special-education services.

 

Read that again slowly: the local public schools “have double, and several have triple, the proportion of special-needs kids of nearby charter schools.”

 

Noting that the latest legislative boon to favors allows them to expand at will inside public school buildings, pushing out the students who are there, Gabor asks the obvious question:

 

“Is there a point at which fostering charter schools undermines traditional public schools and the children they serve?”

 

Gabor makes a sensible recommendation:

 

If charter schools are allowed to push out existing public schools, they should, at the very least, be subject to the same accountability measures for enrollment, attrition and disciplinary procedures, to ensure that the neediest students are being treated fairly.

 

Gabor did not mention that charters do not accept the same proportion of English language learners, which causes the nearby public schools to have higher proportions of these students as well. One wonders why the reporters at the New York Times have not discovered these obvious disparities, which can easily be found in public records? Any school that manages to enroll fewer needy students and can push out those it doesn’t want will have higher scores than any school that must accept those that were unwanted by the first school. This is the charters’ secret sauce.

 

Gabor concludes, We should not allow policy makers to enshrine a two-tier system in which the neediest children are left behind. 

 

But with the latest favors to the billionaire-supported charter industry, that is exactly what New York legislators are doing. The legislature guaranteed that charters don’t have to pay rent, even though the latest legal ruling says that they are not “technically” units of the state and cannot be audited by the State Comptroller. The legislature guaranteed that if the charters rent private space, the New York City public schools must pay their rent. The legislature said that if they are already co-located in a public school building, they can expand at will and take public school space away from the children who are already enrolled there, who have far higher needs. The legislature also reversed Mayor de Blasio’s decision to deny approval to three charter proposals–all belonging to Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy–because she wanted to place elementary schools in high school buildings and because she wanted to grow an elementary school into a middle school in a Harlem public school, which would require the relocation of students with severe disabilities.

 

The legislature accepted the charters’ claim that the needs of children with high test scores trump the needs of children with disabilities. They assume that those with high scores deserve the right to kick out those with disabilities. There is an ideology behind this but I forebear from naming it.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, New York City, Privatization, Special Education

Michelle Rhee: Why Parents Must Never Opt Out (Unless Their Children Go to Private Schools)

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2014 //
71

I came across an article in the Washington Post by Michelle Rhee, in which she chastised parents who opted their children out of state tests. This article made me happy, because it shows that the Queen Bee of high-stakes testing is worried. She is worried that the opt out movement is gaining traction. She is worried that parents are sick of the Status Quo of the past dozen years. If parents opt out, there won’t be enough data to fire teachers, to give bonuses, and to close schools. The Status Quo might collapse. How will we know how students are doing if we don’t test them? How will we know if their teachers are any good without standardized tests? How will we know if their school should be closed?

I must say that I was brought to a sharp halt in my reading of this article when Rhee spoke of what happened when her daughter came home from public school, relieved that the last test was over. This puzzled me because Rhee lives in Sacramento, and her daughters live in Nashville. I wondered, was she visiting Nashville that day? Then I remembered that one of her daughters goes to a public school, and the other goes to an elite private school that does not give standardized tests. How does she know how the daughter in the private school is doing? How can she judge her teachers? How will the principals in that school know if the teachers are doing a good job if the kids don’t take standardized tests? It is very puzzling.

And I wondered about one other thing: Michelle Rhee is a fierce advocate for charters and vouchers because she believes in choice. Why doesn’t she believe that parents should be able to choose to say no to state testing? Many voucher schools are exempt from state testing but I haven’t heard her demand that legislators include them. How will they know how their children are doing?

I wasn’t going to write about Rhee, because she seems so yesterday, but then Peter Greene sent me this hilarious post, and I realized I had to write too. But he is so funny! he calls it: “The WaPo Wastes Space on That Woman.”

Categories Closing schools, Education Reform, Parents, Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Kline and Miller Seek More Federal $$ for Charters

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2014 //
17

The charter schools are making the big money grab. Not content to have the full support of both ALEC and Obama, of hedge fund managers who control billions of dollars, of the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Dell Foundation, the John and Laura Arnold Foundation, and scores more foundations, they now seek additional federal funding. Having seen the havoc that the charter schools wreaked in New York City in the past two weeks, I don’t see the need for more federal funding when so many philanthropists are pouring millions into charters, and our urban schools are in dire need of help. Instead of pumping more money into the hedge funders hobby, save the public schools of Philadelphia, for example.

I remember back in 1988-90, when charter advocates said they would cost less because of lacking a bureaucracy. Ho, ho, ho.

John Kline is a Republican. George Miller is a Democrat who is a favorite of DFER, the hedge fund guys who love privatization. Happily, Miller is retiring and might be replaced by a progressive Democrat.

Here is the press release:

 

 

From: “Education and the Workforce Press”

Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2014 11:18:55 AM
Subject: Kline, Miller Introduce Legislation to Support Quality Charter Schools

Congressman John Kline, Chairman

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 1, 2014 CONTACT: Alexandra Sollberger, Brian Newell

(202) 226-9440

Kline, Miller Introduce Legislation to
Support Quality Charter Schools

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Senior Democrat George Miller (D-CA) today introduced the Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act (H.R. 10), legislation to encourage the growth and expansion of quality charter schools.
“I had the opportunity yesterday to visit two exceptional charter schools in Minnesota: Global Academy and Aspen Academy. Through conversations and classroom visits with students, parents, and teachers, I saw firsthand the remarkable progress that can happen when we encourage creativity, flexibility, and choice in education,” said Chairman Kline. “The Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act will strengthen our education system and help more children access the excellent education opportunities they deserve. I’d like to thank Mr. Miller for his hard work and collaboration on this legislation, and urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to lend their support.”
“Charter schools play an integral part in our public education system,” said Rep. Miller. “In many ways, these innovative schools have been teaching us what is possible when it comes to educating kids—and the work of charter schools helps break down many of the stereotypes that often plague kids who happen to be from the wrong zip code. But we must not sacrifice quality for quantity. Through a reauthorization of the federal Charter Schools Program that emphasizes quality, equity, and accountability, we are not only ensuring that federal funds go to expand high-quality schools that serve all students, but we are also working to uphold our commitment to ensuring that every neighborhood has high-quality public schools.”
Under current law, the federal Charter School Program awards grants to states for the development of new charter schools, but does not include support for the replication or expansion of successful charter schools. H.R. 10 will modernize the Charter School Program to better support state efforts to develop and expand successful charter schools.
The Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act:
Improves the Charter School Program by authorizing the replication and expansion of successful charter models;

Promotes state efforts to develop, expand, and authorize high-quality charter schools;

Supports the sharing of best practices between charters and traditional public schools; and

Encourages charter schools to reach out to special populations, including at-risk students, students with disabilities, and English learners.
To view a bill summary, click here. To read a fact sheet, click here.

# # #

Categories Charter Schools

Testingtalk.org Website Gets 150,000 Hits in a Couple of Days

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2014 //
61

The new website where teachers and parents can comment on the new tests has registered 150,000 hits in the 2 or 3 days since it was launched, according to Susan Ochshorn of ECE Policy Matters.

A great place to hear from teachers.

Categories Common Core, Parents, Resistance, Teachers, Testing

Pearson Wants You!

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2014 //
44

This confirms what Todd Farley wrote in his book about the testing industry, “Making the Grades,” and what Dan DiMaggio wrote in “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Test Scorer”:

A reader in Austin sent this ad on Craig’s List:

Posted: 25 days ago

Seeking Talented And Qualified Individuals To Score Essays! (Austin, Texas)

compensation: $12.00

Use Your Degree To Make A Difference!

Pearson Wants You!

Pearson is the most comprehensive provider of educational assessment products, services, and solutions. We are looking for qualified college graduates to read and score student essays on a temporary basis at our Austin Scoring Center. Paid training will begin on April 7 for this 6 week scoring session. Successful employees may be asked to work additional projects.

Use your qualified college degree to make a difference! Day shift is 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., M-F. Evening Shift is 5:30 p.m to 10:00 p.m

Compensation may vary based on the project:

Hourly: $12.00/hour. Employees compensated a flat hourly rate for time worked on this project.

Requirements:

Bachelor degree required

Proof of degree and eligibility to work in the U.S. required (documentation required for an I-9)

Please apply at our website:

https://sites.google.com/a/pearson.com/regional-scoring/home
and click on APPLY HERE
Complete the short survey.

New Location:

3800 Quick Hill Road
Bldg 3 Suite 100
Austin, TX 78728
*Located in the La Frontera area (Round Rock, TX)
https://sites.google.com/a/pearson.com/regional-scoring/home

Pearson Educational Measurement is committed to hiring a diverse workforce. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer EOE/M/F/V/D and a member of eVerify.
Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
do NOT contact us with unsolicited services or offers
OK to highlight this job opening for persons with disabilities
post id: 4368426307 posted: 25 days ago updated: 25 days ago email to friend ♥ best of [?]

Categories Pearson
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »