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

Letter Protesting PISA Over-Emphasis on Standardized Tests Now Translated into Other Languages

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2014 //
5

I just received notice from the organizers of the letter opposing the league tables of PISA that the letter has been translated into Swedish and German.

 

Hopefully, it will be picked up and translated worldwide.

 

If you are in Korea or Japan or South America or anywhere else where the local language is not English, please translate the letter, send it to the local news media, and let me know about it.

 

OED has created an international competition for test scores that no one asked for and that encourages the establishment of destructive policies like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, both of which have diverted billions and billions of dollars to testing corporations, taking that money away from classroom instruction as well as the services that students need.

 

If you have not done so yet, please take the time to read the letter and if you agree, please sign.

Categories Education Reform, International, Testing

Peter Greene: How to Cash in on the Charter School Craze

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2014 //
8

It is National Charter School Week, President Obama issued a proclamation in their honor (did he forget National Teacher Appreciation Week?), and here is the best piece yet on what a sham industry this is.

 

Peter Greene gives sound advice here on how to score big in the charter industry. 

 

It gets funnier as he goes on, so I am only posting the beginning. You have to read the whole thing to get to the best parts!

**********************

Peter Greene writes:

 

Diversify!

Not the school– your portfolio. Set up multiple companies. Create a holding company that owns the building, and charge the school rent and facilities fees. Create a school management company, and hire yourself to run your school. Form your own custodial contracting company. Write your own textbooks, and then sell them to yourself. Buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and set yourself up as a lunch concession with ten dollar sandwiches.

Don’t Overlook the Obvious

“Non-profit” just means “not wasting money by throwing it away on stockholders.” Taking money hand over fist that you can’t call profit? Just put it all in a big wheelbarrow and pay it to yourself as a salary. There’s no legal limit to what you can be paid as the charter school operator. The only limits to your salary are the limits set by your own sense of shame. If you have no shame, then ka-ching, my friend. Ka. Ching.

Ain’t Too Proud To Beg

Have a fundraiser. When you wave schools and children at people, they fork over money like crazy, whether you actually need it or not. The only way it could work any better would be if you found a way to work in the American flag and puppies.

Students Are Marketing Tools

Students have a job at your charter, and that’s to make your charter look good and marketable. If they won’t do the job, fire them. If they aren’t for sure going to graduate, fire them before senior year (100% graduation rate makes great ad copy). If they are going to create bad press for disciplinary reasons, fire them.

Students Are Also The Revenue Stream

The other function of students is to bring money in while not costing any more than is absolutely necessary. Never take students with special needs (unless you can use them to make the school look good without incurring extra costs). If a student will require extra disciplinary or academic intervention, fire him.

Always remember, however, that students need to be fired during Firing Season– late enough to hold onto the money they bring, but early enough that they won’t hurt your numbers.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Humor, Privatization

Literacy Expert to Obama on PARCC Test: Too Hard, Too Confusing, or Absurd?

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2014 //
50

Rebecca Steinitz is a literary consultant, writer, and editor in Massachusetts. She has a Ph. D. In English, coaches in urban districts, and has a daughter in seventh grade.

She wrote a letter to President Obama about the PARCC Tests, which her daughter must take, but the President’s will not.

Her daughter has always done well in school, but the PARCC test was a trial.

Here is a typical question:

“You have learned about electricity by reading two articles, “Energy Story” and “Conducting Solutions,” and viewing a video clip titled “Hands-On Science with Squishy Circuits.”In an essay, compare the purpose of the three sources. Then analyze how each source uses explanations, demonstrations, or descriptions of experiments to help accomplish its purpose. Be sure to discuss important differences and similarities between the information gained from the video and the information provided in the articles. Support your response with evidence from each source.

“Eva’s comment on this question: “It’s impossible, and there’s like 15 parts.” Just as I feared, she exaggerated. There are only four parts. But take a close look at those parts. Can you figure out what you’re supposed to be doing here, President Obama? And could you have done it in seventh grade?

“I know a lot of seventh graders. They know how to compare and contrast, and they know how to provide evidence, but I’m quite sure that unpacking this prompt, let alone accomplishing it, would feel pretty “impossible” to most of them.”

But that’s not all.

She writes:

“I have a Ph.D. in English, I’ve been in college and high school classrooms for over 20 years, and for much of that time I’ve trained and coached high school English teachers. I was shocked that the ninth grade test included an excerpt from Bleak House, a Dickens novel that is usually taught in college. I got seven out of 36 multiple choice questions wrong on the eleventh grade test. And I had no idea what to do with this essay prompt on the third grade test:

“Old Mother West Wind and the Sandwitch both try to teach important lessons to characters in the stories. Write an essay that explains how Old Mother West Wind’s and the Sandwitch’s words and actions are important to the plots of the stories. Use what you learned about the characters to support your essay.

“Would Sasha have been able to figure this out in third grade? And, more importantly, is there any reason a third grader should have to figure out an essay prompt this broad and abstract?”

If these questions are typical, expect massive failure rates and massive protests. These are not good tests of reading comprehension. They are traps and snares.

Categories Common Core, Testing

I Am in Surgery Today

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2014 //
118

I am getting a total knee replacement today.

 

But don’t think for a minute you won’t hear from me!

 

I have written several posts in advance to cover for my absence today and tomorrow.

 

I will have my iPad in the hospital and in the rehab that follows.

 

Several people asked if they could send flowers.

 

In a word, no. If you want to make me happy, send a gift to the Network for Public Education or to your local organization of parents and educators working together to save public schools.

 

Or, perform an unsolicited act of kindness, to a child, to someone in need. And when you do, send me your love and thoughts.

 

And, if you are so inclined, I am always grateful for prayers.

 

Diane

 

Categories Personal

Republicans Reject Grijalva Efforts to Make Charters Accountable

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2014 //
40

The House Rules Committee, dominated by a conservative Republican majority, rejected efforts by Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva (D) to insert amendments into federal legislation to require charter schools to be transparent and accountable.

Conservative Republicans want deregulated, privately managed charters to be the centerpiece of their privatizing education platform this fall. It is hard to understand why hostity to public education should be a winning issue for rightwingers. Only 6% of US students attend charter schools.

Media Contact
Adam Sarvana (adam.sarvana@mail.house.gov)
(202) 225-2435 (Office)
(202) 573-2562 (BlackBerry)

Grijalva Expresses Deep Disappointment At House Refusal to Improve Charter School Bill, Highlights Findings of Costs to Taxpayers

Washington, D.C. – In the wake of recent news about potentially widespread charter school waste, fraud and abuse, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva today expressed his deep disappointment at the House Rules Committee’s decision last night not to allow debate or a vote on his amendments to HR 10, the Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act. Grijalva’s amendments, which the Committee ruled out of order, would have made charter school operations more transparent and financially accountable to the public.

HR 10 is expected to get a House vote before the end of the week.

As reported by Salon today:

Just in time for National Charter School Week, there’s a new report highlighting the predictable perils of turning education into a poorly regulated business. Titled “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud and Abuse,” the report focused on 15 states representing large charter markets, out of the 42 states that have charter schools. Drawing on news reports, criminal complaints, regulatory findings, audits and other sources, it “found fraud, waste and abuse cases totaling over $100 million in losses to taxpayers,” but warned that due to inadequate oversight, “the fraud and mismanagement that has been uncovered thus far might be just the tip of the iceberg.”

While there are plenty of other troubling issues surrounding charter schools — from high rates of racial segregation, to their lackluster overall performance records, to questionable admission and expulsion practices — this report sets all those admittedly important issues aside to focus squarely on activity that appears it could be criminal, and arguably totally out of control. It does not even mention questions raised by sky-high salaries paid to some charter CEOs, such as 16 New York City charter school CEOs who earned more than the head of the city’s public school system in 2011-12. [. . .]

The report takes its title from a section of a report to Congress by the Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General, a report that took note of “a steady increase in the number of charter school complaints” and warned that state level agencies were failing “to provide adequate oversight needed to ensure that Federal funds [were] properly used and accounted for.”

Grijalva’s amendments, respectively, would:

– require public disclosure of all private contributions made to charter schools.

– require the development and public disclosure of charter school conflict-of-interest guidelines; require open meetings at every charter school governing board, including parent, educator and support staff representatives; require meetings to be held at times when parents can attend, announced in advance, and made open for the public to attend and testify; and mandate that governing board minutes are published and available online.

“Our school system exists to serve students, not to pay for administrators’ personal luxuries,” Grijalva said. “Our children deserve a good education no matter what school they go to, and taxpayers deserve a return on the investment they make in young Americans’ upbringing. This bill leaves a broken system in place, and I will not support it.”

# # #

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers

NAEP Scores for Seniors Are Flat Since 2009

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2014 //
69

This NPR report summarizes the 12th grade NAEP report: Scores for high school seniors are flat. Reading scores in 2013 were lower than in 1992.

 

While there were small gains for each racial and ethnic group since 2005, there were no gains at all since 2009, when Race to the Top was initiated.

 

Achievement gaps among racial and ethnic groups remain wide.

 

Secretary of Education gnashed his teeth and said the results were troubling, and he is right. The chair of the National Assessment Governing Board said the results were unacceptable, and he is right.

 

In mathematics, the states that made the biggest gains in proficient students were: South Dakota, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut and New Hampshire. Only one of these–Massachusetts–won a Race to the Top award.

 

Also in mathematics, the states that had a lower percentage of proficient students than the rest of the nation were: Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Florida. Two of the lowest performing states won Race to the Top awards: Tennessee and Florida.

 

In reading, the states that outperformed the nation were Idaho, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Dakota. Only one of these states–Massachusetts–won a Race to the Top award.

 

Also in reading, the states that had the lowest percentage of proficient students were: Tennessee, Arkansas, and West Virginia. Tennessee won a Race to the Top award.

 

These twelfth graders started school about the time that No Child Left Behind was signed into law, on january 8, 2002. Their entire school lives has been dominated by testing. The survival of their school depended on their test scores. Billions and billions of dollars have been diverted from classroom instruction to testing corporations. Many districts have increased class sizes and reduced services to students. Some leave closed libraries and laid off librarian, social workers, counselors, and psychologists. Many thousands of teachers have lost their job. But the testing industry has grown to be a multi-billion dollar enterprise, fattened by NCLB and RTTT.

 

Secretary Duncan is right. This is indeed troubling. It is time to change course. The policies of the Bush-Obama era have failed.

 

 

Categories Accountability, NAEP, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

House Debates Legislation to Help Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2014 //
15

Under the leadership of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the conservative-dominated House of Representatives is debating a bill today that would reauthorize federal support for the charter school industry and provide $300 million, some of which is for facilities.

 

The members of the House will ignore, of course, the report issued this week showing that charter schools–which are deregulated by design and usually unsupervised– were responsible for $100 million in corruption, fraud, and waste of taxpayer dollars in only 14 states. Obviously, a full accounting would show even more waste, fraud, corruption, and abuse.

 

An informant in Washington passed along the following information:

 

HR10 is the charter legislation now being debated in the House. It it supported by the GOP House leadership, which intends to make its support for charters the major plank of the GOP education platform this fall. The bill is co-sponsored by outgoing Democrat George Miller, who is a favorite of the hedge fund managers group Democrats for Education Reform.

 

The House Rules Committee would not permit debates on the floor on such issues as:

*state caps on charter schools
*whether charter boards are required to hold open meetings
*whether charters are subject to public audit requirements
*conflict of interest guidelines for charter schools (some states exempt charter schools from conflict of interest laws–too intrusive)

 

In short, what the charter industry is lobbying to prevent is any limitation on their growth, any requirements for open meetings, any requirements for public audits of their finances, and any amendments that would bar conflict of interest (only charter schools receiving federal assistance would be required to avoid conflicts of interest). The charter industry wants public money but no public accountability or transparency.

 

This is from Politico.Pro:

 

5/8/14 1:51 PM EDT

The House of Representatives began floor debate on a bill that would reauthorize charter school law in the U.S. this afternoon.

On Friday, after today’s floor debate, the House plans to consider 12 amendments and vote on the bill. There are three bipartisan amendments, three from Republicans and six from Democrats.

The National Education Association, which has maintained a neutral position on the bill, threw its weight behind several amendments today, including two that focus on charter school transparency: One, from Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore, would require charters to disclose private funding sources and another, from Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor, would establish conflict of interest guidelines.

— Maggie Severns

 

If you want to stop the privatization of American public education, if you believe that public dollars should go to public schools, not to corporate charter chains, contact your Congressman and your Senator and tell them to vote no on the charter legislation.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Esquire: Louis C.K. Is Right About Common Core

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2014 //
27

Louis C.K. opened the floodgates of debate about Common Core. Before he started tweeting his complaints, Arne Duncan and Bill Gates had pre-empted the national media coverage. Arne insisted that only crazy people questioned the CC, and Bill paid off every education organization to sing its praises. Who knew that the nation could be so easily bribed and intimidated?

The story of Common Core is reminiscent of Dr. Seuss’s classic Yertle the Turtle. Arne and Bill are Yertle. Louis C.K. Is Mack, the turtle at the bottom of the stack. Mack burped, and the whole pile of turtles tumbled down.

Louis C.K. has been interviewed everywhere , it seems, and he tells a father’s plain truths.

Even Esquire told his story.

Ben Collins of Esquire said that so many kids were sad because of the pressure of testing.

But then he noticed that Louis revealed a powerful idea. You can say no. You don’t have to do what they tell you. You can get up and walk out. They don’t own you or your child. You are free to say no.

“In an America where schooling is becoming nothing more than an attrition test, it’s probably the most important lesson Louie has ever given to kids and adults alike:

“You can just leave. You can just stop.

“If a system or person with no regard for you is sucking the fun out of learning — if that system is making it harder for you to go to school every day — we should be working to fix the system.

“If the system is making most children cry, that’s not the fault of the student. It’s not the fault of the teacher, either. It’s the fault of a system that tries to accommodate everyone, but winds up helping no one.”

Who created this stupid soul-destroying system? Look to D.C. There you will see some people who don’t care about children or learning. They did it. They should be in stocks on the Capitol steps, all of them.

Categories Common Core

NEPC: Charter School “Wait Lists” Are Overstated, Possibly Meaningless

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2014 //
18

A new report from the National Education Policy Center reviews the “wait lists” that charter advocacy groups regularly publicize and finds them to be vastly inflated.

Charter advocacy groups claim that nearly one million students are wait-listed for admission, but they acknowledge themselves that the actual number may be about 400,000. NEPC authors Kevin Welner and Gary Miron say that even this number is an overstatement. Many students apply to multiple charter schools and get double or triple counted. Sometimes, after the students have enrolled in a charter school or a public school, their name may remain on the “wait list” of other charters.

They enumerate other reasons to doubt the “wait list” claims. Essentially, the claims are marketing devices, intended to persuade legislators of a huge, unsatisfied demand for more privately managed schools, funded but not supervised or regulated by the public.

Categories Charter Schools, National Education Policy Center

The Incredible But True Story of the Plan to Destroy Public Education in Bridgeport, Connecticut

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2014 //
14

Jonathan Pelto tells the astonishing story of a calculated effort by Connecticut Governor Malloy and Bridgeport Mayor Finch to destroy public education in Bridgeport. First, starve the public schools of resources that they needed and to which they were entitled by state law; then declare the schools were failing and beyond help; finally, turn over the children to corporate charter chains that would get preferential treatment from the state, whoe commissioner of education founded one of the state’s charter chains.

The story is made credible not only by the facts of deliberate underfunding of the district, but by linking to an article by Bridgeport Board of Education member Howard Gardner, who was initially invited by the mayor to collaborate with the takedown of public education.

Gardner wrote in the Connecticut Post:

“Five years ago I was invited to join a newly formed education reform initiative comprised of Mayor Finch, then Superintendent John Ramos, then Board of Ed chair Barbara Bellinger, other community leaders, heads of local social service organizations, and business leaders. This organization was founded on the pretext of bolstering the performance of Bridgeport public schools, but operated under a hidden agenda shared only by a clandestine subgroup comprised of Meghan Lowney, Nate Snow and Robert Francis, and blessed by the Mayor. Suspecting that the purported agenda was not genuine, I resigned from Bridgeport Partner for Student Success, a.k.a., Excel Bridgeport.

“I walked away from BPSS over four years ago not having a complete grasp of the hidden agenda. However, subsequent chain of events have made its goals crystal clear — allow the Bridgeport Public School to be decimated, undermined; and then, point to the failure of the traditional public school system in Bridgeport. On that premise, they would build a case for alternative solutions — charter schools and corporation-based educational models. In hind sight one can deduce the various attempts to carry out this diabolical plot: the illegal takeover of an elected BBOE, the failed attempt at a charter change referendum and the hiring of Paul Vallas, public school destroyer extraordinaire.

“For his efforts in balancing the BBOE’s budget, Mr. Vallas might have left here as a hero to some; however, his results came with heavy damage to the district’s teaching/learning resources.

“This is the stark reality of Mr. Vallas’ legacy — the district has 72 less certified staff, including 27 in special education, than we had four years ago. Music, arts and other electives are non-existing at our high schools.”

There ought to be a law to punish those who harm public institutions and the children and communities that depend on them.

Categories Arts Education, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »