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

TFA: The Kids Are Not Alright

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2014 //
48

When asked about Teach for America, I always answer that the recruits are terrific, very smart, very idealistic, but the organization is greedy, self-serving, and power-hungry. This commenter disagrees. He/she thinks that the recruits should know better. She/he thinks that if they are smart, they should know they are being used by an organization that is using them to build its power base, and they should know that they can’t overcome poverty by serving for two years in a hard-pressed district or by taking a job away from an experienced teacher.

 

Says the commenter:

 

I’m tired of people saying “well the kids who do TFA are alright it’s the organization that’s the problem.”

It’s not true. Without recruits, there would be no TFA. I consciously decided not to join the organization because I recognized that teaching without experience was a disservice and injustice to our nation’s underserved youth. Without members there can be no organization. There is no excuse for supporting an organization that exacerbates injustice and for being an uninformed member of the TFA corps.

And not all of its members are so idealistic. Most people I know joined it for a blip on their resume, because they needed a boost for law school. Using underserved youth to get into law school is not idealistic. It’s borderline imperialistic and absolutley unethical. TFA corps members have college degrees. They should know better.

Categories Education Reform

Jack Schneider and Pat Jehlen: Test Scores are a Lousy Way to Measure School Quality, But…

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2014 //
21

Jack Schneider of the College of Holy Cross and Pat Jehlen of the Massachusetts’ Senate Committee on Education have a sensible article about the use and misuse of test scores to measure school quality.

 

As they point out, test scores are highly correlated with socioeconomic status, so schools that serve low-income students look like “bad” schools even when they are doing a good job of educating the students.

 

The matter of how a state identifies the “lowest performing” schools is a high-stakes enterprise. After all, labeling a district as such can lead to the flight of quality-conscious parents—weakening the district’s capacity and increasing segregation by class. And additionally, schools identified among the lowest ten percent of performers face the charter “cap lift” provision, allowing the state to send up to 18 percent of the district’s funds to charter schools — twice as much as in other districts. When the cap is raised and more charters are granted, students leave, budgets are cut, and schools can close. While some families now have a new choice, others find their chosen school closed.

To be clear: some districts really are ineffective. And no one wants children to be trapped in failing schools. Yet the simple truth is that current approaches for measuring effectiveness are methodologically weak and ethically dubious.

Standardized test scores, which constitute the lion’s share of how we evaluate school effectiveness, are highly problematic. Standardized tests capture a narrow slice of life in schools and reflect only a fraction of what the public values. They are designed to be time efficient and cost-effective rather than to align with what we know about cognitive development. And they are subject to gaming.

 

Although they recognize that standardized tests in general capture only a very small aspect of what schools and teachers do, they think that they could be used more wisely.

 

Instead of judging schools solely by test scores, they might be judged–at least in part–by student growth.

 

This is certainly wiser than what Massachusetts and most other states do now.

 

But if you bear in mind that standardized testing itself is highly contested, even student growth scores will contain defects–just different defects.

 

Imagine living in a world without standardized testing. That might be bad for Pearson, but just imagine it.

 

Such a world exists.

 

It is found in almost every private school in America, where teachers make judgments about their students’ progress and their needs.

 

It is found in Finland, where teachers teach as if they were in an American private schools.

 

Why are we so wedded to those standardized tests, which originated as IQ tests, filled with racial and ethnic and class bias?

 

Which state or district will be first to try a new way of assessing school quality, for example, with an inspectorate of expert educators?

Categories Charter Schools, Massachusetts, Testing

Schneider Reviews a 6-Minute Video Starring Bill Gates

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2014 //
38

Mercedes Schneider has been working hard to understand Bill Gates’ view of the origins, development, andurpose of the Common Core standards.

In this post, she reviews his short speech at the American Enterprise Institute, an institution to which he has generously contributed. She must have watched this six-minute video repeatedly because she discovers nuances and contradictions in his version of how the CCSS came to be, even though he has put more than $2 billion into making it happen.

Watch along with Mercedes.

Categories Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

TFA Alum: Why I Am Ashamed

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2014 //
24

A comment from a reader:

“I’m ashamed of doing TFA and I was a 96 Corps Member. I don’t put TFA on my resume or fess up to it unless directly asked, because I value my reputation as a dedicated, knowledgeable, lifelong educator. I have spent 18 years watching Corps Members come and go. So many things have disappointed me about TFA over the years, but my recent experiences as an instructor in their JHU Masters program left me feeling that there is no hope for this organization to regain its moral compass. While preaching the power of high expectations, TFAers leave Johns Hopkins University with artificially inflated GPAs and a Masters degree that they do NOT deserve. They have done a fraction of the work that other Grad students in similar programs in the School of Education are required to complete, with virtually no expectations as to the quality or timeliness of their assignments. The courses are created by Laureate Education and the professors are almost all TFA alums, some of whom have as few as 5 years experience and manage to teach 5 graduate level TFA sections while working for Baltimore City Schools full time as well. I keep hoping that someone will write an article about this part of the TFA attempt to convince the world that CMs are the smartest and hardest working teachers around, especially now that they have expanded this rigorous program, that was so carefully crafted to bring about transformational teaching, to several other regions. Of course nobody wants to talk about these things because that MS Ed degree is pretty much a jobs program for the alums that are “teaching” the 85+ sections of TFA only classes. If I were a student at Hopkins, I would be livid that other grad students can submit all assignments as late as they want (with strict limits on the amount of points that can be deducted) and resubmit every assignment to ensure that they can get a better grade. If I were a parent of a student in a public school, I would be outraged that my child’s teacher could plagiarize graduate work with impunity while standing in a classroom lecturing students about integrity and perseverance.”

Categories Teach for America

New York Times: Can Charter Schools Teach Public Schools Their Secrets?

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2014 //
35

Who Needs to Learn from Whom? What Public Schools can Teach Charter Schools About Teaching All Students. The New York Times published a story about what public schools can learn fro charter schools. But the most important lesson is to be careful which students are admitted.

The role of charter schools in public education continues to be a subject of heated debate. The House of Representatives recently passed a bi-partisan bill that would provide additional sources of funding for charter schools. At the same time they rejected rules that would require charter schools to report teacher attrition rates, student discipline data, and enrollment data. They also rejected conflict of interest guidelines for charters.

Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, is visiting a charter school in New York City today “to rip Mayor de Blasio over charter schools.” He has repeatedly said that de Blasio’s skepticism about charters is a “war on kids.” The very same day the New York Times published a story on the “chasm” between public and charter schools. The story, which mentions the school that Cantor is planning to visit, spins a story about how charter schools should be “test kitchens for practices that could be exported into the traditional schools.” It praises two charter schools (Kings Collegiate Charter School and Bronx Charter School for Excellence) that share their insights with two neighboring public schools (Middle School for Art and Philosophy and P.S. 085 Great Expectations).

But the numbers raise some questions. The school that Cantor visited today, the Bronx Charter School for Excellence, serves 72% fewer English Language Learners and 55% fewer special needs students than its neighbor, P.S. 085. The charter school serves exactly zero of the highest need special education students– while over 16% of the public school’s students are highest need special education. And the charter school has a student population that is over 210% more economically privileged, as measured by the New York City Department of Education’s economic need index, than the public school’s.

The other charter to public school comparison shows the same pattern. The Times claimed, “it too, served large numbers of low-income black students, many from the same neighborhoods.” This is inaccurate. King Collegiate serves a student population that is 35% more economically privileged than the Middle School for Art and Philosophy, as measured by the New York City Department of Education’s economic need index. The charter school has 95% fewer English Language Learners and 55% fewer special needs students than the public school. The charter has exactly zero of the highest need special education students while, in the co-located public school, over 11% of the student population consists of the highest need special education students. Even with these advantages only 12% of the 8th graders who graduate from the charter school stayed on-track in credit accumulation in 9th grade versus 80% of the public schools students.

Of course, the teachers at these schools should continue to collaborate and share ideas with one another. But what is not OK is the big lie that is being told about the relative success of the schools. If there is a war being waged on kids, as Cantor has claimed, it is the charter schools and their supporters who are waging war on English Language Learners, on students with special needs, and on poor students.

The data show that the biggest ingredient of the charter school recipe is that they educate students with greater incoming advantages than public schools. Many also kick out students who don’t do well on tests. This is not a lesson we want public schools to learn. We want our public schools to teach every single child. We do not need charter schools to know that schools that serve more privileged groups of student have higher test scores.

The skepticism that de De Blasio has expressed about charters is well earned. As long as charter schools as a sector refuse to educate the neediest students, they are best viewed as the mechanism for ultimately sorting all of the neediest students into the educational equivalents of Bantustans. Those Bantustans will be called “public schools.” As long as charter school interest groups are able to get politicians to vote against transparency for charter schools we will never be able to hold them to the mission of public education– which is to educate every single child.

Categories Bill de Blasio, Charter Schools, Education Reform, New York City

Chutzpah in Louisiana: Crazy Crawfish Will Run for State Board Seat

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2014 //
12

Jason France, better known in the blogosphere as Crazy Crawfish, plans to run for the seat on the state board of education now held by Chas Roemer, son of a former governor, and brother of the head of the Louisiana charter school association. Jason is one brave man. He is a Crazy Crawfish, and all those who want to see a change in Louisiana’s heedless, madcap, irresponsible privatization should support him.

 

Press release (Professional design)

Contact: Debbie Sachs: Press Secretary and Media Relations: 985-626-3595

Press Release

2015 BESE election to have a fresh face: Jason France, a.k.a. “The Crazy Crawfish” seeks to remove Chas Roemer as he announces his candidacy for the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) district 6.

Jason France, a father of two East Baton Rouge public school children in BESE district 6, former Louisiana Department of Education Employee, controversial education blogger, and nationally recognized privacy and public education activist has announced his intent to seek a seat on BESE.

 

Baton Rouge, LA, April 7, 2014: Jason France has announced his candidacy for the district 6 seat on Louisiana’s State Department of Education. The district 6 seat is currently held by longtime politician, BESE President Chas Roemer, the son of former Governor Buddy Roemer, whom has not indicated whether he will seek another term. District 6 encompasses the eastern half of East Baton Rouge Parish, Ascension Parish, Livingston Parish, Washington Parish, Tangipahoa Parish and the City of Bogalusa.

 

Jason will be a dramatic change from the current office holder in charge of the state’s public schools and students, Chas Roemer, who has never attended a public school or university, and who sends his children to a non-public school that does not endorse Common Core because they find the standards inferior and does not participate in PARCC testing because they believe those tests are a waste of learning time and money, and yet actively promotes CCSS and PARCC for other children’s kids.

 

Since resigning from the Louisiana Department of Education over 2 years ago Jason has been active in fighting for student, parent and teacher privacy rights and for Louisiana to drop the substandard federally funded and promoted curriculum known by the misnomer as the Common Core State Standards as the State takeover of local schools and school districts and the rubber stamp approval process of substandard voucher and charter schools throughout the state.

 

Jason has been one of the driving forces behind the grassroots movement organizing to preserve Public Education in Louisiana. Jason hopes that by seeking this office he will be able inspire others to enter races across the state and to undo the damage wrought by influence bought by large national and multi-national corporations and organizations, as well as out-of-state billionaires seeking to profit from Louisiana children and de-professionalize the teaching profession in favor of temporary low cost, low quality alternatives.

2015 BESE election to have a fresh face: Jason France, a.k.a. “The Crazy Crawfish Jason has attended Magnolia Woods Elementary Magnet School, South East Middle School and is
a graduate of Scotlandville Magnet School Engineering Program in East Baton Rouge Parish, and is a
proud graduate of Louisiana’s flagship public university, LSU, where he obtained his BA in Business
Administration. Jason blogs under the pseudonym “Crazy Crawfish”, at The Crazy Crawfish blog. Jason
is also a featured writer at the National Education Policy Center and at Public School Shakedown, and a
strong ally of the Network For Public Education, Parents Across America, Class Size Matters and the
Southern Education Foundation and has contributed his opinions and analysis to articles featured in the

New York Times, Reuters, Monroe News Star, The Advocate, and Washington Post. For more information about the campaign please go to http://www.JasonFrance4LA.com

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Louisiana, Privatization, Vouchers

Why the Common Core Standards for Grades K-3 Are Wrong

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2014 //
59

A group of early childhood educators explain here why the Common Core is inappropriate for children in grades K-3. This statement is an excerpt from their joint publication “Defending the Early Years.”

 

The first mistake of the Common Core is that it “maps backwards” from what is needed for high school graduation and ignores the kind of learning that is developmentally appropriate for young children. “An example of a developmentally inappropriate Common Core standard for kindergarten is one that requires children to “read emergent reader texts with purpose and understanding.” Many young children are not developmentally ready to read in kindergarten and there is no research to support teaching reading in kindergarten. There is no research showing long-term advantages to reading at 5 compared to reading at 6 or 7.”

 

The second mistake is that the CCSS assumes that all children learn at the same rate and in the same way. However, “Many of the skills mandated by the CCSS erroneously assume that all children develop and learn skills at the same rate and in the same way. Decades of child development research and theory from many disciplines (cognitive and developmental psychology, neuroscience, medicine and education) show how children progress at different rates and in different ways. For example, the average age that children start walking is 12 months. Some children begin walking as early as 9 months and others not until 15 months – and all of this falls within a normal range. Early walkers are not better walkers than later walkers. A second example is that the average age at which children learn to read independently is 6.5 years. Some begin as early as 4 years and some not until age 7 or later – and all of this falls within the normal range.”

 

Part of the second mistake is that young children are being assessed in ways that make no sense: “The CCSS are measured using frequent and inappropriate assessments – this includes high-stakes tests, standardized tests and computer-administered assessments. States are required to use computer-based tests (such as PARCC) to assess CCSS. This is leading to mandated computer use at an early age and the misallocation of funds to purchase computers and networking systems in school districts that are already underfunded.”

 

A third mistake was that those who wrote the CCSS did not include anyone knowledgeable about early childhood education: “The CCSS do not comply with the internationally and nationally recognized protocol for writing professional standards. They were written without due process, transparency, or participation by knowledgeable parties. Two committees made up of 135 people wrote the standards – and not one of them was a K-3 classroom teacher or early childhood education professional.”

 

A fourth mistake was that “There is a lack of research to support the current early childhood CCSS. The standards were not pilot tested and there is no provision for ongoing research or review of their impact on children and on early childhood education.” Those of us who urged field testing of the standards were ignored.

 

Read the rest of the article to read the other mistakes that CCSS made in writing standards for K-3. Then you will understand how foolish it was for a kindergarten class to cancel the annual class play because the children needed more time for rigorous academic studies. If educators think that CCSS cancels out the well-researched principles of child development, they make a terrible mistake.

 

Categories Education Reform

Christine Langhoff: Massachusetts’ “Churnaround” Plan is Not Working

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2014 //
22

Reader Christine Langhoff sent the following information about some “turnaround” schools in Massachusetts. Having won “Race to the Top” funding, the state has taken Arne Duncan’s advice to fire everybody and start over, which seems to be his deep thinking on how to improve schools, not through collaboration and steady work, but through fear tactics.

 

She writes:

 

The state of Massachusetts has recently taken over two Boston elementary schools. Each has been “turned around” (I think of it as churned) several times. This has included mass staff dismissals and new staff have been hand picked by new administration, yet the schools have remained as Level 4 schools. That the schools have populations of about 88% poverty, 40% English language learners and 20% SPED kids will surprise no readers of Diane’s blog. (Remember too, some number of these kids have hit a triple, i.e. they are members of all three groups: poor special needs kids who are learning English – is there a VAM algorithm for that?)

 

Under the state takeover, our state commissioner, Mitchell Chester (national chairman of PARCC) has unilaterally given both schools over to charter management organizations (Bluepoint and UP Academy) to run. The first move that has been made at the Dever School has been to kill the dual-language program. That no one with a linguistic background has been included in the decision is obvious; Chester seems to believe that instruction in languages holds back language development. (See: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/04/06/dever-school-parents-teachers-assail-state-plan-scrap-dual-language-program/qfQea68Wy0qeV9Chs7jCiJ/story.html )

 

The second move has been to force teachers to work an extra 700 hours over the school year for a stipend which comes to $2.75 an hour. So who is going to staff the schools? Professional status teachers have been churned out. Other professional status BTU members are unlikely to volunteer for 700 extra hours at virtually no compensation. I’m at a loss to understand how education for some of our most needy kids is going to be improved.

 

Here’s a link to the state plan for the Dever. If you go to page 6, there’s a chart (which I could not paste here) with proficiency scores for ELA. They are unsurprising, given the school’s population. Actually, that 16% of 8 year old kids in such challenging circumstances score so well in a test in a language that is not their first is a testament to their teachers’ efforts and professional training.

 

http://origin.library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1101436635842-1144/Dever+Preliminary+turnaround+plan+submitted+March+7+2014.pdf

Categories Massachusetts, Race to the Top

Peter Greene: Can We Make a List of the Things That Every Educated Person Should Know?

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2014 //
76

If you ever watch The Food Network or something similar, you have probably seen Chef Bobby Flay and his “throw down” with a competing chef. Sometimes Bobby goes into a little known neighborhood and challenges a local chef who is famous for a regional dish, sometimes he takes on another famous chef. And you never know who will win.

In this post, Peter Greeene, Pennsylvania high school English teacher, has a throw down with an unnamed Other. That Other is E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Hirsch has argued in several well-known books that there are certain facts, ideas, and concepts that every American must know. He calls it cultural literacy. Others might call it background knowledge. In general, I agree with Hirsch’s idea that we need to accumulate background knowledge so as to have a conversation about the past, the present, and the future.

Peter Greene, however, has lost faith in the idea that there are certain things all educated persons must know. He explains why here.

He thinks there might be some things we should all know, but his list is short, and he is conflicted.

He writes:

“I think any person would be better off knowing some Shakespeare. I think every person would benefit from being able to express him/her-self as clearly as possible in writing and speaking. I think there’s a giant cargo-ship-load of literature that has important and useful things to say to various people at various points in their journey through life.

“But this is a fuzzy, individual thing. Think of it as food, the intellectual equivalent of food. Are there foods that everybody would benefit from eating? Wellll…. I would really enjoy a steak, but my wife the vegan would not. And given my physical condition, it might not be the best choice for me. On the other hand, if I haven’t had any protein in a while, it might be great. And a salad might be nice, unless I already had a salad today, because eating a lot of salad has some unpleasant consequences for me. Oh, and I do enjoy a lobster, which is fairly healthy, unless I’m have to eat while I’m traveling– lobster makes very bad road food in the car. You see our problem. We can agree that everybody should eat. I’m not sure we can pick a menu and declare that every single human being would benefit from eating exactly that food at exactly the same time.

“Ditto for The List. I mean, I think everybody should learn stuff. Personally, I’m a generalist, so I think everybody would benefit from learning everything from Hamlet to quantum physics. But then, I know some people who have made the world a better place by being hard core specialists who know nothing about anything outside their field.

“So if you ask me, can I name a list of skills and knowledge areas that every single solitary American must learn, I start to have trouble. Every mechanic, welder, astronaut, teacher, concert flautist, librarian, physicist, neurosurgeon, truck driver, airplane pilot, grocery clerk, elephant trainer, beer brewer, housewife, househusband, politician, dog catcher, cobbler, retail manager, tailor, dentist– what exactly does every single one of those people have to know?”

Maybe we could get gather if we talk about the principles of government. Shouldn’t we all know about the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Aren’t there signal events in American and old history that we should all know about?

Maybe it is just a difference in fields, but I think that history might be less arbitrary than English. Or is it?

Categories Curriculum

Gene Glass: The Strangest Academic Department in the World

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2014 //
164

The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has an academic department in its College of Education & Health Professions that
is one of the strangest I have ever seen.

It is called the Department of Education Reform, and the strangeness starts right off on the department’s webpage: edre/uark.edu
There one sees that the department is the “newest department in the College of Education and Health Professions, established on
July 1, 2005. The creation of the Department of Education Reform was made possible through a $10 million private gift and an
additional $10 million from the University’s Matching Gift Program.” One is never told — anywhere — that the gift was from a foundation set up by the Walton family of Wal*Mart fame. Of course, the Walton family has sunk more than $330 million into one in every four start-up charter schools in the past 15 years. This is pretty dark money since few know how deep into education reform the Waltons are. And the University of Arkansas is not advertising on their web site that an entire department was created by one very ideologically dedicated donor.

This lack of acknowledgement of the ties between the department and the Waltons goes even further than the unwillingness to advertise who is paying the department’s bills. The January 2014 issue of the Educational Researcher — house organ of the American Educational Research Association — carried the report of a study that alleged to document a very impressive benefit to children’s critical thinking abilities as the result of a half-hour lecture in an art museum. Pretty impressive stuff, for sure, if it’s true. The article was written by Daniel H. Bowen, Jay P. Greene, & Brian Kisida. (Learning to Think Critically: A Visual Art Experiment) Now it is never disclosed in the article that the art museum in question is Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, the creation of Alice Walton, grande dame of the Walton family, or that the authors are essentially paid by the very same Waltons. Now the authors should have disclosed such information in their research report, and the editors of the journal bear some responsibility themselves to keep things transparent.

One thing among several that is truly odd about the Department of Education Reform is that when you click on the link to the department (http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/) you are taken immediately to http://www.uaedreform.org/, which appears to be a website external to the University. Huh? What gives? The University doesn’t want to be associated with the department? Or the department doesn’t want to be associated with the University of Arkansas?

Once you are at the internal/external website (www.uaedreform.org) for the Department of Education Reform, you can’t get back to the University of Arkansas or its College of Education. Even clicking on the University’s logos at the top of the department’s homepage leaves you right there at http://www.uaedreform.org. So the department is really in the University of Arkansas, but it seems to act like it would rather not be associated with it.

Among the activities of the department supported by the Walton money is the endowment of six professorships. Well, there are only six professors in the entire department, and only one of those is not sitting in an endowed chair. I know of no other department in which 5 out of 6 faculty occupy an endowed chaor of some sort or other. Well and good. Professors work hard and they deserve support and many have labored for decades without such reward. However, the five endowed professors of the Department of Education Reform appear to be a tad different from most endowed professors. In fact, only one of them strikes me personally as having the kind of record that would deserve an endowed professorship at any of the top 100 colleges of education in the country.

Among those surprising recipients of endowed professorships are four others. Robert Maranto has a doctorate from the Univ. of Maryland in 1989 and had only risen to the rank of Associate Professor at Villanova when he was hired by the department in 2008 to fill the Chair in Leadership.

Gary Ritter earned a doctorate from Penn in 2000, and less than a decade later is awarded an endowed professorship by the department.

Likewise for Patrick Wolf who made it to Associate Professor at Georgetown before being named 21st Century Chair in School Choice in the department. And the department chair, Jay Greene, never made tenure at a university before logging five years at the notoriously right-wing Manhattan Institute and then jumping into the 21st Century Chair in Education Reform at the University of Arkansas.

Question: Who is making these decisions? How does this department relate to the College of Education & Health Professions? Does a university committee vet these appointments to endowed chairs? What role do outsiders play in hiring decisions? The department administers the University’s PhD in Education Policy. The department uses the University’s imprimatur in much of what it does. Does the University have any sayso in what the department does? And the bigger question: Is everything for sale today in American higher education?

Gene V Glass
Arizona State University
National Education Policy Center
University of Colorado Boulder

Categories Education Reform, Higher Education
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »