Archives for the month of: May, 2014
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Update after Knee Surgery

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2014 //
148

I haven’t been able to write before now. The pain after surgery was so bad that I was kept on various drugs to keep me sedated. I spent two days in the recovery room, then moved to a regular room. But my health remained fragile, On Sunday, the surgeon sent me for a CT scan, where I learned I had a blood clot in one of my lungs. My greatest fear about surgery was triggering a clot, which could go to my brain or lung or heart . There were many conversations among the various specialists about whether I should get a filter inserted in my blood vessels to prevents clots from traveling. The consensus was no, so didn’t. The consensus was wrong.

Well, I am still here but it is not easy, I can’t get out of bed without help. I can’t walk. The pain in my knee remains intense. The rehab will go slowly because of the pulmonary embolism.

I won’t travel as much as I used to. But I promise to support you in your work and use my voice as best I can. Let’s work hard to support our children and their teachers, to do what is best for them, and to believe in our cause because it is the cause of democracy, justice, and real education.

Diane

Categories Personal

OECD Sponsors School Level Tests to Foster Test Mania and Its Own Control

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2014 //
20

The OECD has created tests that schools can administer to their students in order to compare them to the nations of the world.

Some schools have gleefully administered the tests, happy to discover how their students compare to children of the same age in the rest of the world.

Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg, a visiting professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education this year, warned that it was not valid to compare schools to national systems.

The OECD test has sponsors now but it will eventually be a money-maker:

“Although these early administrations have been partly subsidized by private philanthropies, most districts will have to pay $11,500 per school in order to participate starting next year, according to Peter Kannam at America Achieves, a nonprofit that has been recruiting new schools and coordinating exchanges among participants.”

http://www.americaachieves.org/oecd#faq

“The development of this new diagnostic tool by the OECD was made possible by America Achieves, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carnegie Corporation of New York, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Kern Family Foundation. Additional support was provided by the Craig and Barbara Barrett Foundation, National Public Education Support Fund, the Stuart Foundation, and the Rodel Charitable Foundation of Arizona.”

Many educators can’t resist the temptation to administer yet another test. What would they do without data? Would they know how to diagnose children’s needs and plan for education without external tests to guide them? Surely, they cannot trust teachers to write their own tests or evaluate student needs.

In the ideal world of the future, school will be devoted entirely to testing, preferably to tests created solely by Pearson and/or the OECD. All learning will be standardized, and all children will be test-taking machines, programmed to find the right answer to every question. Th questions and the answers will be the sole property of Pearson and/or OECD.

Any learning not on the test will be considered a waste of time. Those who choose to think for themselves will be considered outliers, rebels, outcasts, possibly dangers to society. All “knowledge” will be strictly monitored by the Pearson/OECD bureaucracy.

The rules of life in this new society will be:

“We measure what we treasure.”
“You can’t control what you can’t measure.”
“Whatever cannot be quantified does not matter.”
“All problems can be solved by measurement and data.”
“Test scores determine one’s life potential.”
“Test scores are the best measure of students, teachers, and schools.”

Welcome to our Brave New World.

Categories Data and Data Mining, Education Industry, International, Standardized Testing, Testing

What Would Happen if You Let Joy Enter the Classroom?

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2014 //
30

From Bellevue, Nebraska, watch a video of classes where joy, caring, and compassion have crowded out rigor and grit.

Nothing said about being a global competitor.

Nothing about college and career readiness.

Just the joy of learning and sharing and caring.

Categories Real Education

Who or What is the “American Federation for Children”?

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2014 //
9

This is news you need to know.

The American Federation of Children is a rightwing organization that spends heavily to promote vouchers and to support candidates in state and local races who support vouchers.

When Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin was under siege for attacking public sector workers, he was honored (along with Michelle Rhee) by the AFS.

The AFS is funded by the DeVos family, whose fortune comes from its ownership of Amway.

It belongs to ALEC.

AFC is opposed to public education.

It is one of the main forces funding privatization, along with the Walton family of Walmart fame and fortune.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Why Empathy for Children Matters

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2014 //
20

A reader posted this comment:

 

It is obvious that the designers and supporters of CCSS do not have empathy for children. Narcissism is on a spectrum and intensifies with chronic stress. This is evident in how the Common Core Environment has created systemic Narcissism from the top down:

 

The antithesis of narcissism is empathy. If you have unconditional love for children and can be an empathic, you are not a narcissist. Empathy is the ability to get into someone else’s shoes and validate what they are feeling. The art of empathy is being there on this same level to hear and nurture feelings but is different from sympathy. Sympathy often feels to others like we are putting ourselves above them and feeling sorry for them. This does not bring comfort to most. But, if I express sadness, frustration or any myriad of emotions, and you are able to be with me, hear me, acknowledge the feelings and not judge… you are exhibiting an empathic response. If you jump to solutions or tell me what to do, are judgmental or critical, tell me what you do to solve your problems, or feel sorry for me, this is not practicing empathy!

 

When teaching children, creating an empathic environment is crucial for their development of self. Children need to know their feelings matter. It makes them feel real, noticed, seen, heard and visible. When feelings are attended to, the child then learns to trust their own feelings and can continue to grow up feeling empowered by their inner thoughts and emotions. This is in contrast to living in an adult world of crippling self-doubt because they were not heard in their early development.

 

Empathy does not mean you have to agree. Feelings are feelings are feelings. We can be critical of someone’s thoughts as thoughts can be distorted, but what we feel, we feel. Emotions need to be processed. Empathy with others is not about agreeing, but it is about getting into children’s emotional realm so you can understand them. . One minute in time can make a difference in someone’s life. It has happened to me and likely has happened to you. These moments are never forgotten, but in reverse, when not heard, that recollection can also stay on memory lane.

 

Narcissists are not accountable. They blame others, project their feelings, and are not able to tune in. As a parent, being accountable and honest is crucial. This is also a key to not raising a narcissistic child or a child who can’t believe in themselves because they were never validated. When adult children in recovery confront their narcissistic parents
and narcissistic teachers, they usually meet with defensive reactions, shame, humiliation, and judgment. How helpful is this? People make mistakes because we are all obviously and painfully human. When your child or student confronts you about your behavior, don’t be defensive. Be honest and listen.

 

The greatest gift you can give children as a parent or teacher is empathy.
To do this, requires a level of maturity so you are not acting defensive or hurt. Keep the door open for emotional connections and great things can happen. This includes compassion and comfort for pain, but also celebration for joy and success. If you find you cannot do that, consider getting therapeutic help. Learning how to tune in emotionally is an art and it can be taught.

 

Remember that putting work in front of a child is not teaching. That is punishment.

 

Real teaching is about inspiring children to use their own imagination and curiosity for self-discovery. The only way to do that is to guide, teach, nurture and listen to what is going on inside that person, and then to be there for them. It is not about “this student scored low, or this student was the top of the class. Most adult children of narcissistic parents report that their parents have no idea who they really are. While each child and adult has an outer life with accomplishments and “doing”, each one has an inner life about “being.” If you are tuning into the inner side of your children, you are not a narcissistic teacher or parent. Think about how it feels for you when you have someone really listening and caring about what is going on in your emotional world. In our narcissistic and technologically oriented culture, people are hungry for emotional intimacy… especially our precious children.

 

“ To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.” Stephen Covey

Categories Common Core, Education Reform

Innovation Ohio: State Shortchanges Public Schools, Favors Charters

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2014 //
13

A new report from Innovation Ohio shows that the state regularly Shortchanges public schools to favor charters. Charter operators give generous campaign contributions to the governor and legislators.

“Proponents have long claimed that community or ‘charter’ schools are the cure for much of what ails Ohio’s education system. If only parents had more “choice” over where their children attend school, they say, competition and the magic of the market would surely improve all schools.

“Equally important, boosters claim that charter schools are cost neutral to the state. Unfortunately, a data set recently produced by the Ohio Department of Educationi explodes that particular myth. According to the data, the way charter schools are funded in this state has a profoundly negative impact on the resources that remain for the overwhelming majority of kids — 1.6 million — who stay in Ohio’s traditional public schools. Actually, it’s even worse than that. In the vast majority of cases — even in many urban school districts — the state is transferring money to charter schools that perform substantially worse than the public schools from which the students supposedly “escaped.”

“Here are the facts:

 Because of the $774 million deducted from traditional public schools in FY 2012 to fund charters, children in traditional public schools received, on average, $235 (or 6.5%) less state aid than the state itself said they needed.

 More than 90% of the money sent to rated charter schools1 in the 2011-2012 school year went to charters that on average score significantly lower on the Performance Index Score than the public schools students had left.ii

 Over 40% of state funding for charters in 2011-2012 ($326 million) was transferred from traditional public districts that performed better on both the State Report Card and Performance Index.

“IO [Innovation Ohio] does not claim that all charter schools are bad, or that charters don’t have a place in Ohio’s education landscape. We do say that the way Ohio’s political leaders have chosen to fund charters has had a profoundly negative impact on the children who remain in traditional public schools.

“That impact can no longer be ignored, and IO believes it is incumbent on the Governor and the General Assembly to develop a funding system that is not detrimental to the majority of Ohio’s school children.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ohio

Why Congress Can’t or Won’t Abandon the Failed NCLB

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2014 //
84

Thanks to Mercedes Schneider for bringing this article to my attention.

 

If you have ever wondered why Congress refuses to abandon or revise or do anything to the failed No Child Left Behind, this article explains why.

 

NCLB declared that all schools would have 100% proficiency by 2014. Even in 2002, after the law was signed, it was already obvious that many members of Congress did not believe that 100% proficiency was possible. As one superintendent in the article says, the law demands that immigrant children who have been in the country for one year must be 100% proficient in reading and math, and that is impossible. Others pointed out that no country in the world has 100% proficiency.

 

Yet Congress clings to NCLB because no one will say that some children might not be proficient. So a law that is harmful, punitive, impossible, and already a manifest failure, remains on the book.

 

By the year 2014, all children in grades 3-8 will be proficient in math and reading.

 

In 2002, I asked my former boss at the U.S. Department of Education, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, whether he believed that the goal was feasible. His answer, in a public forum at the Willard Hotel in Washington, was: “No, Diane, I don’t believe that, but it is good to have goals.” In this article, he is quoted five years later saying there is no way to abandon that impossible goal:

 

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a former U.S. education secretary and supporter of the law, said Americans don’t want politicians to lower standards.

“Are we going to rewrite the Declaration of Independence and say only 85 percent of men are created equal?” Alexander asked. “Most of our politics in America is about the disappointment of not meeting the high goals we set for ourselves.”

 

Will we ever have public officials–elected and appointed–who are willing to level with us, to recognize failure of their legislation and programs when it stares them in the face, to get out of the business of telling educators how to educate children? Will we ever have public officials who do what they were elected to do instead of meddling in institutions they do not understand and setting utopian goals that create failure, disruption, and demoralization?

 

 

Categories Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

The Magical Numbrt of 12

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2014 //
53

Today this blog reached the number 12 million page views.

That means that in the past two years of its existence, someone has read articles posted here.

Some were written by readers, some by me.

Together, we have provided support and encouragement to one another, as well as resistance to privatization and attacks on students and educators.p

But the number 12 has another meaning for me personally.
On 12-12-12, I was married to my partner of the past 28 years. Her name is Mary Butz.she is a career educator in public schools.. She went to Catholic schools– elementary, secondary, and college, all in Brooklyn. She taught social studies, served in various administrative roles, and founded her own small public high school in Manhattan, which was associated with Ted Sizer’s and Deborah Meier’s Coalition of Essential Schools.

What I love about her is not her résumé but her kindness, her humor, and her overall goodness and generosity. Life with her is fun.

So, once it became legal for two people of the same gender to marry in New York, we did.

I established a scholarship in her name at her alma mater, St. Joseph College at 245 Clinton -Avenue Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11205. It is earmarked for a student who is first in his/family to to to college. It is a wonderful liberal arts college that has proved well-educated graduates for many fields, especially education.

If you are ever moved to support a cause that I support, please consider a gift to the Mary Butz Scholarship Fund.

Categories Personal

Teachers Are Artists

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2014 //
13

Bryan Ripley Crandall, director of the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University, has high praise for teachers.

He says they are the artists of our age. They deserve our praise, our gratitude, our admiration.

He writes:

“Teaching is a unique profession that requires an expertise in history, research, lived experiences, language, culture, sociology, psychology, mathematics and the humanities.

“Those who spend time in the classroom quickly learn to be the greatest proponents of American democracy. Every classroom, even the homogenous one, is a heterogeneous pastiche of individuality and personalities. Teachers are listeners, mentors, experts, coaches, entertainers, wizards and scientists. As John Mastroianni, Connecticut’s 2014 Teacher of the Year, recently stated, “Teaching is an art.” So, teachers are artists, too.”

Dr. Crandall writes, in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week:

“Our nation’s recent test-crazed anarchy provides better data for political avarice and shortsighted hubris than it does for what educators accomplish in their classrooms when they are given time to actually teach. We know that the best work occurs when teachers are provided resources, when they are treated as professionals, and when they are trusted to do what they’ve been hired to do.

“So this is a “shout out” for the teaching-artists of Connecticut: you sculpt, you shape, you design, you envision, you imagine and you provide hope for a better tomorrow. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! You deserve better than what’s been given you these last few years. You deserve to be admired.”

Categories Connecticut, Teachers and Teaching

Paul Karrer: Who Are Those Bad Teachers?

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2014 //
34

Paul Karrer, who teaches fifth-grade in Castroville, California, takes a look at our policymakers’ obsession with bad teachers. Who are they? How can they be found out and fired?

Here is one example of a bad teacher:

“The Low Score bad teacher — Education reformers want high-stakes testing to be a prime determinant in teacher evaluation. But if one looks under the tests, interesting facts pop up. Often, teachers who were Teacher of the Year find they are considered bad teachers in the following years. How can this be? Because class composition changes. Teaching assignments (grade-level) change. And unlike charter schools, which expel obstructive, destructive and obnoxious kiddos — those in the public realm must teach all the kids. Just one grade-A-whack-a-mole angry student can destroy a classroom. Many teachers have many more than one. Such a child’s presence is subtractive to the learning environment of others.”

There are more.

But who is behind this pursuit and does it make sense?

“My point in all this is to show that variables — normal life variables — impact classroom outcomes. When pregnant teachers, their compassionate spouses and ill teachers are labeled as bad teachers, something is very, very wrong.

“The profit-oriented talking heads of education reform want to monetize public education. Ed reformers would have us believe poverty, trauma, parental drug use, violence, incarceration and homelessness have no impact. Teachers are losing their profession. Kids are losing their teachers. And communities are losing the democratic concept of public schooling.

“In the end, it is the wealthy profiteers and captains of privatization who are pointing fingers at hard-pressed teachers who work in communities of failure. It is a much easier political fix to scream “fire” than it is to acknowledge the conditions of poverty. And it makes money for a few too.”

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching
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