Archives for the month of: May, 2014
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Weingarten and Darling-Hammond Call for a New Accountability

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2014 //
93

Randi Weingarten and Linda Darling-Hammond have co-authored a major new statement on accountability.

They write that:

“If we assume that the goal of accountability should be better education, the test-and-punish approach must be replaced by a support-and-improve model. A new approach should ensure that students get what they really need: 1) curriculum, teaching, and assessment focused on meaningful learning, 2) adequate resources that are spent wisely, and 3) professional capacity, so that teachers and school leaders develop the knowledge and skills they need to teach much more challenging content in much more effective ways.”

They add:

“Implementing the standards well will not be accomplished by targets and sanctions. It will require more adequate and equitable resources and greater investments in professional capacity, especially for currently underfunded schools that serve the highest-need students.

“Raising standards in ways that punish children and educators for not meeting them produces the wrong responses from schools. Evidence shows that, rather than improve learning, sanctions tend to tamp down innovation, incentivize schools to boost scores by keeping or driving out struggling students, hasten the flight of thoughtful educators from the profession, and disrupt learning for students whose local schools are shut down.”

They use Néw York as an example of how do accountability wrong, and California as an example of how to do it right.

There are some very good ideas in their statement. I would add my two cents: when some children and families live in such desperate circunstance, not even the best standards, curriculum, assessments, and professional development will be enough to create equality of opportunity. Some kids have tooany strikes against them, and that is a societal failure.

Categories Accountability, California, Common Core, New York

Strauss: What Does Arne Think of New VAM Studies?

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2014 //
39

Valerie Strauss notes the growing number of studies that debunk the value of judging teacher quality by the rise or fall of test scores, and naturally she wondered what Secretary Arne Duncan thought about them.

There was the report of the American Statistical Association, which said: l

“VAMs should be viewed within the context of quality improvement, which distinguishes aspects of quality that can be attributed to the system from those that can be attributed to individual teachers, teacher preparation programs, or schools. Most VAM studies find that teachers account for about 1% to 14% of the variability in test scores, and that the majority of opportunities for quality improvement are found in the system-level conditions. Ranking teachers by their VAM scores can have unintended consequences that reduce quality.”

Days ago, a new Gates-funded study found no correlation between “quality teaching and the appraisals teachers received.”

Another study by a team led by Marianne P. Bitler, an economist at the University of California, said that VAM ratings had about the same relationship to reading and math scores as to changes in a student’s height.

VAM is the centerpiece of Race to the Top..

Strauss called the u.S. Department of Education to ask whether Secretary Duncan was aware of the research and whether it had changed his views. The answers: yes, he was aware of the research; no, it had not changed his views.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Bob Braun: Cami Will Lay Off 500, including 200 Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2014 //
27

The election for Mayor of Newark is over, but state-appointed superintendent Cam Anderson reminds everyone she is still in charge of the schools.

Bob Braun reports that Cami will cut 500 Newark public schools employees, “including 200 teaching positions, 200 central office employees, and nearly 100 non-instructional workers, including clerks and aides. The resulting layoffs will follow tenure and seniority laws and regulations despite Anderson’s apparently failed effort to obtain permission from the state to ignore seniority.”

Categories New Jersey

Peter Goodman: The Only Way Obama Can Avoid Defeat in November is to Fire Arne

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2014 //
124

Peter Goodman, a political analyst who is close to the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, concludes that the November elections are looking increasingly bleak for President Obama and the Democrats. It is beginning to look like Democrats could lose control of the Senate, which would leave Obama with little more than veto power.

This could have serious consequences. Credit Obama with two excellent Supreme Court appointments–Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. With a Republican Senate, there would be no more. A Republican House and Senate would spend two years rolling back whatever Obama has done.

The election will turn on motivating core constituencies and getting them out to vote.

One of the most loyal Obama blocs has been teachers. To say the least, they are angry and alienated by Arne Duncan’s policies.

There are three million teachers who may sit on their hands on Election Day because of the misguided policies of Race to the Top.

Goodman says that if President Obama has any hope of winning back the teacher vote, he must fire Arne.

That would be a start. But he also would have to fire Ted Mitchell, who was just confirmed as Undersecretary of Education. Mitchell is a prominent proponent of privatization, charters, and for-profit colleges. Almost all of Duncan’s assistant secretaries share his love of high-stakes testing.

Would Obama fire his basketball buddy? Not likely. But what if he could find a new job for him in another agency or make him an ambassador? If control of the Senate is the prize, firing Arne might not be such a bad idea.

Categories Democrats, Duncan, Arne, Obama

Another Principal in Chicago Speaks Out Against Political Interference

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2014 //
11

A few days ago, I posted a letter by Troy LaRavalierre, a principal in a Chicago elementary school, protesting the administration’s indifference to the views of the system’s professionals. He wrote boldly about efforts to stifle criticism and enforce a compliant attitude.

Happily he is not alone. Another principal Adam Parrott-Scheffer, principal of Peterson Elementary School, has joined in protest in the pages of Catalyst.

Parrott-Scheffer says he was supportive of the “reform” agenda. But he became increasingly alienated as he encountered total disrespect for the voice of teachers and principals.

He writes:

“Most policies enacted over the past two years demonstrate both a complete incompetence in the ability of this administration to implement anything effectively, and an intentional disregard and disrespect of those charged with improving the lives of our city’s children on a day-to-day basis.”

Implementation of the reforms has been so poor, it borders on malpractice. So, for example, when teachers were given a new evaluation system,

“…there was little district-wide thought given to training and developing teachers on what level of performance was expected of them on each criterion. The bulk of the decisions related to this tool were made during summer 2012, so teachers had, at most, one to two days to understand this major shift in expectations. It was only through that fall’s strike that teachers were able to negotiate a much-needed practice year with the rubric….

“As troubling as the introduction of the new teacher evaluation system was, the rollout of the revised principal evaluation system comparatively looked like operational excellence. The 18-page rubric evaluating 34 indicators of principal success was not finalized until the beginning of February of the year it would first be used. It was provided to principals for the first time in the middle of February, and principals were told they would be evaluated on it beginning three days later.

“This meant that school leaders were not even provided the expectations for their work until more than two-thirds of the school year had already passed. Common sense would suggest that CPS should have introduced the new tool the following school year to allow principals adequate time to understand it, but this was not the path it chose. CPS crammed two principal evaluations into the final three months of the school year and linked these ratings to job retention.”

The incompetence of the system frustrated educators, but hurt children.

While Mayor Rahm Emanuel boasts of his great victory—a longer school day–principal Parrott-Scheffer tells a different story. He writes:

“The longer school day added 30 minutes to my school’s day. Of that time, 15 minutes were allocated to “transition,” or moving through the hallway. Another 15 minutes extended teacher preparatory time and gave students additional time in art, music, physical education, technology, and library. The impact of this change was that it became more difficult to run after-school or before-school programs, and we lost 30 minutes of collaborative time each week. After two years of implementation, I would be hard-pressed to claim that our students have reaped any instructional benefit from this increased time, especially when I consider the strain on my school caused by the two-week strike.

“CPS now expects its schools to provide daily physical education classes and intervention blocks, as well as several hours each week of arts instruction and English Language Learning intervention. This instruction is obviously important, but CPS did nothing to enable principals to really enact these new initiatives. It has been incredibly difficult to find time in the instructional day on top of two-hour literacy blocks and other lengthened core subject times, much less the accounting around how to fund these positions when the resources are not provided to cover all the mandates.

“CPS has left principals with the choice of where to fail students, rather than the choice of how to ensure each student has an education that is holistic, community-based, collaborative, evidence-based, equitable, and student-centered.”

When more and more school leaders are willing to tell the truth, the politicians won’t be able to fool the public. The time has come for collaboration and respect. Politicians should not take responsibility for pedagogy. Those who work in the schools must be treated as professionals and encouraged to share their best work. The adults responsible for educating children should operate in an atmosphere of trust, not fear and blaming.

Such a change will happen as veteran educators speak out, fearlessly, to defend their students and their profession.

Categories Education Reform

Peter Greene: Why the U.S. DOE Will Soon Send an Ambassador to YOU

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2014 //
13

Peter Greene is convinced that Arne Duncan is about to launch a series of new Ambassador programs, to spread the good word about the GREAT job that he is doing.

Why hide your light beneath a bushel or a barrel or a boxcar when the DOE has so many successful initiatives (especially if you work in its public relations department)?

Greene says keep your eyes peeled for these great initiatives:

“Ambassador Librarians

“Ambassador librarians will be embedded in school libraries, where they will make sure that students are following federal guidelines for reading selections. Should a student attempt to check out a book below his grade level for some lame reason like “he enjoys it,” the ambassador librarian will apply a federal ruler rigorously to the child’s hand.

“Ambassador Lunch Ladies

“Ambassador lunch ladies will be placed in cafeteria lunch lines, where they will make sure that every student takes some federal cheese (motto: still smelly after thirty years). Ambassador lunch ladies will also circle through the dining area to scold all students who have not eaten all their vegetables. They will also be responsible for monitoring the federal grumpiness guidelines, and report to the department any other lunch ladies who are too often cheerful.

“Ambassador Bus Drivers

“Ambassador bus drivers will be responsible both for making sure the bus travels where it is supposed to and also for making sure that all the passengers are happy about it. Ambassador bus drivers will be trained in leading the new federally-produced cheerily-engineered songs “If You’re Happy I Should Know It” and “It’s For Your Own Good.”

“Ambassador Parent

“Let’s face it. One of the major factors in student learning is the home situation, and we have learned that many of you weak, lying, sad excuses for parental units would rather talk about “love” and “support” and your precious baby than give the child the rigorous ass-kicking he probably needs. So this federal program will put an additional federally-funded parent in your home to monitor your proper use of motivational techniques and to oversee homework production. Families will also be instructed in proper use of federal bed time standards as well as the federally-approved manner for tucking small children in without exceeding the federally-supported number of bedtime kisses.”

Categories Duncan, Arne, Humor

Katie Zahedi Explains Why Many Educators Reject PISA

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2014 //
8

Educator Katie Zahedi and Professor Heinz Dieter Meyer wrote a letter critical of PISA’s emphasis on high-stakes testing and global competition. The letter has been translated into several languages and has gathered more than 1,000 signatures.

If you wish to dign the letter, it is here.

Andreas Schleicher, director of PISA, disagreed with their letter and denied their critique. Since it is impossible to draft a response by more than 1,000 people in a timely manner, signers of the letter were invited to respond to Dr. Schleicher on their own.

This is Katie Zahedi’s response.

She writes:

“Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain: PISA and the OECD Agenda”

Andreas Schleicher has responded to an open letter that critiques OECD’s PISA league tables:

http://www.oecdpisaletter.org. Defending the OECD’s grand role in education policy, his response denies the letter’s concern that PISA drives reform toward short term fixes by saying that performance has improved in Germany and Poland. Of course he equates progress with improvement on the PISA, which is precisely the short term fix we decry.

The Open Letter addresses widespread concerns with the PISA. Yong Zhao of the University of Oregon refers to the damaging effects of PISA as: “…an ironic tragedy of the 21st Century born out of ignorance.

While Dr. Schleicher hopefully takes a moment to do a closer read of the open letter, I would like to explain the intent of the critique and counter proposal signed by Heinz-Dieter Meyer and myself.

We were in the audience at Schleicher’s presentation at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Philadelphia April, 2014. After Schleicher’s presentation of colorful graphics, tracking the purported educational status of nations (based on one test) fellow panel member Martin Carnoy of Stanford explained why the PISA scores may not matter! Heinz-Dieter Meyer drew attention to a profound shift from nation-state level leadership to a global educational governance structure. I lamented his cavalier construction of variables, i.e., in which he provided correlations to a tag he referred to as “similar social background” in discussing counties as different as Luxembourg, Ghana and the U.S. One can assume he was referring to a rudimentary conception of students’ local economic status by deciles.

The meeting ended with an incredulous group of scholars and professionals congregated at the back of the hall discussing the lack of substantive insight, while alone at the front of the room on his laptop, was a “Great and Powerful Oz” …the curtain parted, sitting in the gray hue of a conference screen gone blank of its colorful graphs and reductionist explanations. A scholar from Shanghai (whose question was brushed aside by Schleicher) restated his unresolved concern: “what if by focusing on what we can measure, we end up marginalizing things that cannot be measured?”

The motivation of the letter was that I felt sorry for a man, who unfortunate destiny had placed at the helm of an ill-informed, grand design. The open letter is an extended helping hand, reaching out to improve understanding of where we are headed with education policy. In inviting my colleagues to write, and/or attempt to meet with Schleicher, Meyer initially chuckled, but thankfully took it on. The letter was reviewed by peers Diane Ravitch (NYU) and Stephen Mucher (Bard College) and signed by over a thousand others whose educational homes have been spinning in PISA’s cyclone… and who are clicking their heels in hopes of leaving the strange land of testing Oz.

Katie Zahedi

Categories Accountability, International, Resistance, Testing

The Day Mark Naison Caught the Attention of TFA (LINK FIXED)

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2014 //
70

Mark Naison, a co-founder of the Badass Teachers Association (BATS), is America’s Education Gadfly par excellence (that is, assuming that a BAT can also be a gadfly).

NAISON, a professor of African-American studies at Fordham University, knows how to get under the skin of the powerful.

He recently released a sharp video from his very own EduNews, criticizing Teach for America.

TFA—that financial and political powerhouse—promptly responded with a video on its website.

The BATS were delighted that Mark’s video struck a TFA nerve. Now, they are hopeful that TFA might respond to Julian Vasquez Heilig’s review of the evidence about TFA.

Categories Teach for America

The Nation Investigates: Teacher Jail in Los Angeles

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2014 //
50

Are classrooms overflowing with sexual predators? Some school leaders in Los Angeles think they are.

The Nation reports on a special investigation where teachers are challenged to clear their names.

It starts here with the question of how teachers can prove their innocence.

“Iris Stevenson hurt no child, seduced no teenager, abused no student at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. This is what her supporters say in rallying outrage that this exemplary teacher has languished for months in the gulag of administrative detention known as “teacher jail”: she doesn’t belong there.

“And she doesn’t.

“Days before being removed from her music classes in December and ordered to spend her workdays isolated on a floor of the LA Unified School District (LAUSD)HQ with other suspect teachers, Stevenson, a legend in South LA and beyond, was at the White House directing the renowned Crenshaw Elite Choir as it sang for President Obama.

“She has not been officially informed of the charges against her. Unofficially, Stevenson is said to have swept off the choir to perform first in Paris and then in Washington without permission—an absurd claim, since parents had to consent, and Stevenson has conducted such foundation-supported field trips untroubled for decades. District authorities say only that Stevenson is under investigation.

“If she were a de facto kidnapper, police should have been called long ago. But, no, this is not about criminality or even misconduct; it is about a larger game of control being played by School Superintendent John Deasy. That game owes quite a lot to sex, because a few years ago a scandal tripped the panic button, which Deasy has kept his finger on ever since, exploiting justified public anger over a classroom pervert to pursue a war on teachers.

“The political question, then, is not just whether Stevenson belongs in teacher jail but what this institutionalized containment regimen, this sub-bureaucracy of punishment, exists for in the first place, and how the specter of sex is the cowing excuse to go after anyone.

“Some form of disciplinary netherworld has long existed in the LAUSD, but teacher jail, also known as “housed employee” locations, entered its high rococo period in early 2012, not long after Mark Berndt, a teacher at Miramonte Elementary School now serving twenty-five years in prison, was arrested for lewd conduct.

“For years, administrators had swatted away complaints about Berndt. When he came under suspicion in January of 2011, they removed him from the classroom but initiated a secretive internal process to pay him to resign. Following his arrest a year later, instead of making a sober assessment of administrative accountability, Deasy pulled the entire staff out of Miramonte. All but the principal were sent to an empty school; there, custodians, cafeteria workers and office staff would perform their regular jobs while seventy-six teachers were to sit facing the wall for six hours for the rest of the school year. The leadership of the teachers union was paralyzed. (It was recently swept from office by a progressive reform slate.)

“The teachers, too, were paralyzed initially but resisted the seating plan and made the best of it together over four months, while the media made hay. The LAUSD’s questioning was minimal. Most were never interviewed by police. All were cleared. Not all got their old jobs back, because in the interim Deasy restructured Miramonte, cutting the teaching staff by almost 50 percent. The new form of district discipline was set.

“Now about 450 teachers languish in sites around the city. They are given no formal explanation. Overwhelmingly, they are past 40. Disproportionately, they are black; disproportionately, they are LGBT, according to Alex Caputo-Pearl, a leader of the union’s progressive slate and the likely next union president. Some, like Stevenson and Michael Griffin, also from Crenshaw, who spent more than a year in teacher jail before the district acknowledged there were no grounds, have actively opposed efforts to privatize their schools. (The district’s “reconstitution” of Crenshaw is its own story.)”

Teachers are guilty until proven innocent.

Categories Los Angeles, Teachers and Teaching

Family Cat Saves Boy from Vicious Dog Attack

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2014 //
57

This is a wonderful video posted on YouTube of a cat saving a little boy from a vicious dog.

Does it have any meaning for the world of education? Maybe not. Maybe so, but I won’t strain the obvious metaphor.

Is your child that little boy? Who is the dog? Who is the cat? What is the evidence? Use your critical thinking skills.

Categories Resistance
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