Meredith Broussard, a professor of data journalism at Temple University, was helping her son with his homework, and she made a discovery: he could not find “the right answer” to homework questions unless they were in the textbook. But on further investigation, she learned that the public schools of Philadelphia don’t have a textbook budget. So not only do students not have access to the answers that will be on the test, they don’t have a chance to succeed.
In an article that she wrote for “The Atlantic,” she concluded that after $1 billion in state budget cuts, the Philadelphia public schools had a budget of $0 for textbooks. These students don’t have a chance.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
All children should have access to textbooks and resources, no question. What nags at me is the assumption that all kids deserve to be taught to the tests from the test maker’s text books. These books are often low interest and can be confusing, themselves. When I taught middle school history, I was permitted to use Joy Hakim’s, The History of US. The interest level, diversity representation, and use of stories are much higher and more engaging than most others, but they are not books written with the purpose to teach to the tests. They seem to be written to get kids to like, understand, and develop a passion for history – two totally different goals. I have spoken with some students and teachers in Philadelphia charter schools who have test prep materials, and develop a love of learning they do not.
While the author is obviously correct about how lack of funding impacts student test scores, it seems that all kids should have a shot at learning and developing a passion for content areas beyond a text book, workbook, and worksheets pulled from the internet.
The last paragraph speaks the truth:
” Stop giving standardized tests that are inextricably tied to specific sets of books. At the very least, stop using test scores to evaluate teacher performance without providing the items each teacher needs to do his or her job. Most of all, avoid basing an entire education system on materials so costly that big, urban districts can’t afford to buy them. Until these things change, it will be impossible to raise standardized test scores—despite the best efforts of the teachers and students who will return to school this fall and find no new books waiting for them.”
As a parent and teacher and in a “successful” suburban Philadelphia school district,
I know all kids need so much more than just test prep materials. We need to stop caring about standardized test scores. I am opting my 6th grader out of our state tests (PSSA’s) starting this year. I have played their game, let them experiment on my kids, and and have finally decided to stop feeding the monster. If we want to stop these tests, we must have our children stop taking them. Urban, suburban and rural parents, teachers, and schools must stand together. We are all in the same boat and our city children, teachers, and schools are the canary in the coal mine.
If only the media were covering the true story. I still believe that most people would be outraged if they knew the truth and not the PR spin put out by our elected officials.
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Excellent comment. I also teach and live in highly rated suburban districts (outside Rochester NY). Rochester is the poorest, lowest performing district in the state. Much smaller than Philly of course, but all the same issues. I love “we are all in the same boat and our city children, teachers, and schools are the canary in the coal mine.”
I could not agree more.
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“I still believe that most people would be outraged if they knew the truth and not the PR spin put out by our elected officials.”
Amen!
Were you permitted to include the essay of two time medal of honor
winner Marine General Smedley Butler?
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service, and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. … I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. … Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
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All should read and understand what the most decorated soldier of his time has to say about war. It’s still the same thing, a few different names and places but it’s all the same.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
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In reply to War is a Racket link, this is an interesting perspective and good analogy. Money is the propeller and big business is always involved in our political decisions.
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I taught in Philadelphia for 3 years, 1995 through 1998 at 2 different schools. We had no reading material or social studies textbooks. A fellow teacher spent $6000. her first year teaching on school items including reading material. We were both in special ed. I had to purchase supplies also well over $2000. One of the schools did finally get social studies textbooks in Jan. of my first year teaching. But then I was transferred to another school without books. At that school, a speech therapist and I worked together for a grant for supplies. We were successful, ordered our supplies and waited. No one told us when they arrived. By April of my second school year, after begging supervisors to look for our materials, found half of them. The one thing that struck me the most was the dedication of the teachers to work in a dysfunctional system. I left in my third year after a third principal took helm and my the one Americore volunteer who helped me one day a week for 2 hours in a class of 8 students with severe cognitive impairment, autism and emotional issues, K through 2, was removed from my class. This left me in a third floor classroom with no screens on the windows in an old building with no air conditioning, no materials, and no support. I spent my day managing and trying to do activities while holding a Kindergarten student in my lap, by hand, etc. so he wouldn’t go near the open windows. The general public has no idea of the state of affairs at these schools. And the schools I taught at were “good schools.” New supertintendents, new principals, new ideas cannot fix this system. There is no magic bullet. This parent has just hit only the tip of the iceberg.
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We are adopting a new CCSS reading series this year. Our special education teacher asked if they were ordering books for her in the three grade levels she teaches and she was told no, there is no money in the budget. She is supposed to “find” free materials on the Internet to teach with. It’s been this way for as long as I’ve been in this district (12 years).
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This is exactly how it is where I teach. I teach special ed, and cover 5 grades. Each general ed teacher gets a full set of extremely pricey reading texts, workbooks, leveled readers, etc. we are told to “see if we can borrow something” from the general ed teachers.
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Under our contract, we can actually file a grievance for not having proper supplies. It doesn’t help with everything, but it sure works with textbooks.
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Not here. Complaining is considered insubordinate and grounds for a letter in your file now. Free speech disappeared with NCLB.
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I am mute with anger and sadness after reading this.
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Danielle summed things up very nicely, and Denise’s descriptions are all too hauntingly familiar and enraging. I wonder: if there is no money for textbooks, where oh where shall the money come from for the technology to access all the wonderful Common Core materials and tests? You have some experts and metrics for that, Bill Gates?
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That money will miraculously appear as it did to fund the middle eastern wars. we had no money for schools or medicine or the social safety net but we’ve scraped together over a trillion dollars for needless, endless war. We also managed bilions to bail out banksters and Wall Street but couldn’t spare any for homeowners. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
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It’s how the testing game is played. Wealthy middle class schools have higher test scores NOT because they have better teachers but because they have better resources and the tests are classist and racist and designed to make kids fail.
The plan was to go after the poor schools with children of color first because who was going to object? The unemployment is high, drugs and gangs are prolific, neighborhoods are dangerous, and the populace has traditionally been easy to ignore politically.
Working like a charm isn’t it? But don’t be complacent because the CCSS tests will bring the same wrecking ball to the suburbs. The end game for Title I schools is beginning and after we are all made charters you will be next.
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Across the river in New Jersey, the situation looks much the same. Last year I taught in two different schools. In school number one, my eighth grade students did not have Math books. I contacted a number of administrators and did not get the books. On the other hand, I was sent six thousand dollars worth of Math materials from K to 8. When I was moved to another school a third of the way into the year, I was instructed to move those materials. At the second school, they were using a different Math series.
Furthermore, the Bilingual teachers were not given the necessary books in Spanish so the kids could follow along with the curriculum by reading the books the other children were reading.
In both schools, I requested to order workbooks to accompany the district mandated ESL series. In school number one, I was told that the materials were not Core aligned and in school number two I was also told no.
Not having books and workbooks is a common occurrence in my district. Do not get me started on the situation with supplies.
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Here in Texas, at least in my district, we have plenty of textbooks. But we are discouraged from using them. Why? Not enough “rigor”. That’s baloney. So what we cobble together are 1. disjointed and disconnected material, 2. material found at the last minute based on a teacher’s whim and 3. material usually above or below a student’s reading level. No wonder we can’t get stronger test scores.
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“No wonder we can’t get stronger test scores.No wonder we can’t get stronger test scores.”
Why in the hell would one give a damn about “stronger test scores”??
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I found that we had some decent essays in out textbook and poems: Kingsolver and Neruda come to mind. But the district tests that they create for our kids go two to three grade levels above our curriculum. Last year I had Chekov on a 6th grade test and this year, in 9th, I had a series of letters that, in their historical context, were not something my kids would have until 11th grade. Giving a kid a pair of letters with no context from the 19th century and asking them to compare and contrast themes in them with a poem that is also a poem that I read in college, is not “rigor” it is just “gotcha”. None of these authors, nor time frames, were on our reading list. The “skill” tested was something like “reading a variety of non fiction and fiction texts, analyze themes or/and identify main idea and supporting detail, and compare and contrast”.
The plan seems to be you test two to three grade levels higher, but we are supposed to be teaching the on level curriculum. When I asked, last year, about the Chekov, I was told by my principal that, since the class was a pre-AP class, I could pull texts from the high school curriculum.
6th grade is not 9th grade.
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Yes! Both state and district tests in Texas consistently use vocabulary two to three years above student levels. Social studies tests have turned into vocabulary tests. I have students (7th graders) who don’t know what a canal is. And they have to decipher test questions based on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution (high school and college level vocabulary). And teaching vocabulary takes time, time I don’t have if I want to cover the material mandated by state law. Madness!
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I frequently test student (3rd-5th) who need testing accommodations. The tests are basically the same as regular student tests, just sometimes with less questions or longer time allowed.
The reading tests just stymy me. They appear to be at least two years above grade level and the content is often totally unfamiliar to my children – about 98% free and reduced lunch. A question might ask a child to use context clues to tell what a word means in a sentence. The problem is that the content of the story is foreign to the students so they can’t grasp the meaning of the sentence, much less the context of the word. If the test designers would put “selections” in the test that are relevant and everyday situations then the students might have a chance at grasping the meaning of a word.
Don’t get me started on archaic idiomatic expressions!
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Ms. Cartwheel, You are so correct. For years I’ve had to give my students with special needs tests at least 2 grade levels above their functioning. IEP’s only hold true for instruction. I am expected to have my students on grade level at the time of the test because the tests are on grade level. My evaluation and ultimately my salary will be based on how my students perform on grade level. Every year, I look forward to a week of testing that frustrates my students. Few of the accommodations they are given in the classroom are permitted. When a student is tested 2-3 grade levels above their ability, no amount of added time will help. What is the definition of insanity? Testing like this fits this definition. For students with no prior background as in the theme of the reading, context clues are little help. Some of our students never leave their neighborhood, are raised in dysfunctional households where their needs are subjugated due, have parents who are not familiar with the American culture and/or whose basic needs are not met. Education is one of the only fields where policies are made by non-teachers and whose years of experience in the trenches don’t matter. Just what are testing?
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Not providing and spending $$ on text books is quite common. I dare any parent in that type of system to maneuver the maze of getting access to the materials covered in classes. Parents are told that teachers do their own research, gather information, teach the lessons and provide parents with the CCSS. If you try to help a child at home, you will find out that you cannot locate math examples, step by step process to a new concept, texts related to the examples in math, nothing. If the systems spend $$$, they provide consumable math books with thousands of problems, i.e. Carnegie. Parents are also told to access the online texts, which most teachers do not use or find of such poor quality, and are not related to the lessons. HUGE MESS! Parents are asked to come in and participate in parent workshops to learn what is being taught. What?
Why are our children doing so much worse in math? It is chaotic, teachers and students are not given the materials, and parents are completely out of the loop due to the inability to view any materials…only homework worksheets. Having talked to the central office curriculum/textbook folks gets you nowhere. Many protect their jobs and hope you stop asking. New teachers often do not know what we are asking for because they came up in systems where texts have not been provided.
Saving $$ while spending it on computers for testing. Thanks Gates!
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What can we expect when education administrators openly dismiss textbooks and ask teachers to create material out of thin air? I know that textbooks aren’t perfect, but show me the material on the Internet that is? What’s the difference between a good textbook and a disjointed, ad hoc curriculum created by a teacher, usually at the last minute?
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Absolutely! And who’s footing the bill for the paper for all of those work sheets? The teacher. Who has to spend the time locating all of the resources? Right again.
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I believe that we might find a clue to a solution in democracy itself. I think we need to blow up the notion that we fund education with local tax dollars because it creates “haves and have nots.” I taught ESL for over thirty years in a suburban NYC school district that had about a 30% poverty level. My students were the poorest of the poor; yet many of them succeeded and went to college. My belief is that children learn as much from each other as they do from teachers. Because 70% of the students in the district were from middle class homes, the school was well funded and maintained with an active PTA. The “haves’ learned compassion and cultural respect from the “have nots.” The “have nots” learned how to worked cooperatively with pro-social behavior in a safe environment.. Our top students got into great schools, and many of my students got athletic scholarships and grants to go to college It was a win-win!! Of course, we lost some along the way. Has anyone studied the impact of mixing various socio-economic levels of children? We didn’t truly erase “the Gap,” but we made a huge dent!
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Utah does this. Most of the funding comes from the state and there is equalization, so the districts get very similar funding statewide. The problem is actually within districts themselves. For example, in my district, we have a wealthy south end and a middle class to poor north end. We all get the same amount of money–which is figured by the number of students a school has. I don’t know what happens in elementary schools, but secondary schools rely a lot on student fees. In my school, with 40% free and reduced lunch, we immediately have far less money to run the school than the wealthier schools with 10% or less. The teachers at the wealthy schools are horrified that I have to sometimes buy my own copy paper, tissues, and other supplies and have to do field trips on public transit because it’s free, while they get school buses. “How can that happen?” they ask. “We all get the same amount of money.” What they don’t realize is that we have lost a ton of money because of fee waivers. Equalization should be about what a school NEEDS, not the same amount for every school.
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“By Book and Crook”
Teach to the test
Means teach to the book
Means teach to invest
In the scam of the crook
Textbook prices these days are astronomical and tying a mandated standardized test to a specific text ensures that both textbook publisher and testmaker maintain a virtual monopoly. (“Blessed are the Pearsonmakers, for they shall be called sons of @#%&!es”)
The textbook racket is also thriving in the realm of higher education. College students often have no choice but to pay textbook publishers’ exorbitant prices (one way or another) because mandated online course content tied to a specific text (eg, problem sets and other assignments) can only be accessed with a code that the student pays the text publisher for –either by buying a new book or separately. But the “used book + access code” option often costs more than the new book: “Checkmate!”
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I love your poem! May I share it?
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Thank you kindly
Share it? By all means!
Just don’t use my name. “They” might be able to track me down 🙂 (though I’d bet “they” already monitor IP addresses on this site)
Just attribute it to “Some DAM Poet” (for Devalue Added Model. What else?)
PS: I was thinking that maybe the last line would be “better” if it read
“In the hook of the crook”
We goofy poets are always making changes (kinda like education “reformers” in that regard)
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On August 4 the Pa. state house is due back in session to consider for the umpteenth time a bill which would give Philadelphia, the greatest city for art, music, culture, schools of higher learning, medicine and research, in the Commonwealth permission to tax cigarettes at $2 per pack so that the public schools may open on time in September with the same unsafe and inappropriate resources which existed last year after 3000 teachers, counselors, aides, nurses were laid off. It is by no means certain this bill will pass because the tobacco lobby is working very hard to defeat it. And even if it passes, last week more special ed aides and bus aides were given their pink slips. If the bill fails, the Superintendent has announced there will be more teacher layoffs on August 15 although he promises that class sizes will not exceed 43. Such is the state of democracy in the land that brought you Benjamin Franklin, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Liberty Bell.
Now, as to testing, the sham of VAM is readily apparent here. I teach in a middle school in the Philadelphia suburbs and my building’s test score performance is a 15% factor in my evaluation. The number is through the roof and, therefore, everyone who teaches in my building is at least “Satisfactory”. The zip code explains the number. Meanwhile my wife, and her colleagues, teach in an inner city K-8 school populated by the poorest children who have been deprived of all the necessary social supports at home and are now supposed to learn without books, paper, counselors, administrators, and aides. Without a library, without music. My wife and her colleagues will bust their butts to show growth under the worst conditions but VAM will apparently rule the day when it comes to their evaluations. Their school performance score is abysmal and also simply a reflection of the zip code. And the children will continue to suffer.
Obama has two years to go. He is not running again and has nothing to protect or be cautious about. His retirement and presidential library are secure, and his kids’ futures are guaranteed. When will he finally speak out and do something about the crimes being committed against public education in all our cities. If he never does then he truly does not care, he is not as sensitive and intelligent as we were led to believe, and he is a coward.
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Why would Obama speak out against the crimes his administration is committing?
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I seem to recall he was a community organizer.
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I was Princess Diana in a former life.
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I’m guessing I was Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
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Anyone want to place a bet that once the public schools in Philadelphia have been swept aside and replaced by private-sector, for-profit Charters, the money will materialize for textbooks published by Pearson?
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They probably already put in the text book order.
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I don’t think POTUS has any understanding of the value of public education, one of the single most democratizing forces in America. He only attended private schools for scholarship so he relies on pals like Bill Gates and Arne Duncan.
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Karen,
The part that is hardest for me to swallow about Obama is he does not care about the poor and the disenfranchised.
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My usual reminder: the burdens of the conjoined twins—CCSS and high-stakes standardized testing—are meant only for the vast majority aka OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
For THEIR OWN CHILDREN, the education establishment and edupreneurs and educrat enablers mandate and ensure something quite different. Are they conscious of advantaging the worthy few [of theirs] and disadvantaging the unworthy many [of everyone else]?
Make up your own minds.
From a blog posting here of 3/23/2014 entitled “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!” The entire blog:
“This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.”
From a link in the blog, Dr. McQueen in her own words:
[start quote]
As with any change in leadership, questions and concerns often arise as a natural part of the transition process. Because of my role as the dean of the university’s College of Education some of you have expressed concerns about my appointment and the direction Lipscomb Academy will take as it relates to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). I want to take a moment to address some of these concerns and possible misinformation.
First, the Common Core State Standards have not been adopted by Lipscomb Academy. While the standards have been adopted by the state of Tennessee along with 44 other states, private schools have the freedom to determine if they will use all, some or none of the CCSS. To date, Lipscomb Academy administrators have not adopted the standards, but have encouraged the faculty to learn about the math and English/language arts Common Core State Standards that are changing the expectations of students not only in Tennessee but also across the nation.
Second, I have also not been in any discussions about formal adoption of the CCSS at Lipscomb Academy. Currently, Lipscomb Academy draws from a variety of quality national and state standards selected by the school leadership and faculty to set a vision for what content, instruction and curriculum will be used at each grade level. This has proven to be effective; thus, I don’t anticipate any changes to this process now or in the future. As is current practice, all standards available will be reviewed at set intervals by leadership and faculty to determine the direction of Lipscomb Academy.
Third, some of you have voiced concerns that the academy will adopt the PARCC test that will soon replace the current Tennessee standardized test or TCAP. Lipscomb Academy uses the ERB test, not the TCAP, and there are no plans to replace the ERB test with PARCC.
Finally, in my role as dean of the College of Education, I prepare teachers to teach in all varieties of schools. Nearly 75 percent of our teacher graduates teach in a public school during their first three years post graduation. As a result, our College of Education faculty members (along with the other 44 teacher preparation programs across the state) promote and teach our teacher candidates about the standards adopted by the state of Tennessee. If we did otherwise, we would be irresponsible in preparing effective educators.
Our college and its associated Ayers Institute have developed teacher lessons and videos that demonstrate problem-solving, critical thinking and performance skills required by the CCSS in math, reading and language arts. As a result of a grant from the state of Tennessee, these resources were produced and are being used in teacher preparation programs statewide as we prepare teachers to understand the new standards. I have also spoken in favor of the CCSS before the Tennessee state Senate education committee in CCSS hearings this past September. In my role in education, I will continue to be part of the ongoing CCSS conversation. However, this should not be extrapolated to indicate or predict the adoption of CCSS at Lipscomb Academy. One of the blessings of being in the private schools sector is the opportunity to explore all possibilities within the community and culture in which you find yourself and to thoughtfully choose what fits your vision.
[end quote]
Link: http://nashvillepublicradio.org/blog/2014/02/10/lipscomb-academy-chief-advocates-for-common-core-but-not-at-her-school/
Keep in mind that the above citation was preceded in the linked article by these comments by the writer:
“One of Tennessee’s biggest cheerleaders for Common Core has not pushed to adopt the education standards in the private school she now leads.
On an almost weekly basis, Candice McQueen is called on by the state Department of Education to beat back criticism. Last week, it was an Associated Press panel. The week before that, she advocated for Common Core as SCORE released its annual report card. McQueen testified before the Senate Education Committee during a two day hearing on the standards.
She praises the rigor and the benefits to having Tennessee kids on the same page as students in 44 states. So when McQueen assumed a new role over Lipscomb’s private K-12 academy, parents were concerned Common Core would follow her to campus, according to an open letter sent to families.”
Pardon the long posting, but consider how perfectly her actions and words fit the phrase “two-tiered education system.”
Not an old dead Greek guy but he’ll do in a pinch when it comes to an exemplar of the self-styled “education reformers” who lead the “new civil rights movement of our time”:
“You have a nice personality, but not for a human being.” [Henny Youngman]
😎
P.S. For those that feel sympathy for “choice not voice” and feel I’m being a bit harsh on Dr. McQueen, perhaps Henny Youngman will remind us what going all in on CCSS would be like:
“If at first you don’t succeed… so much for skydiving.”
😉
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This is an excellent point about Tennessee. Look at New Jersey who has adopted the common core for most of it’s school. One of the chief proponents is Gov. Christie whose children go to private schools.
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ONE WORD: INSANITY!
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Diane, this is VERY important information in this story and I hope you’ll do additional posts on this and that others will continue to dig deeper. The fact the Pearson has reorganized their whole institution around “efficacy” is NO ACCIDENT.
Soon, we’ll have the equivalent of efficacy studies by big pharma in the ed world. “Amazingly the districts that use the textbooks WE publish had better results on the exams that WE publish. Clearly our products have higher efficacy for success in the tests WE write. Why would your district choose anything else? Game over.”
I’ve already heard a milder variation on this argument used in our schools to switch to their text series.
If I truly thought there was a best one-size-fits-all pedagogical approach, this wouldn’t bother me so much. One of the great things about the US has been the ability to experiment with different approaches at the local level and to generate creative new ideas as a result. What will have instead is pedagogical monoculture, I fear.
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“What will have instead is pedagogical monoculture, I fear.”
Not in my class and all teachers should pledge to themselves to never be a part of that monoculture and then put that pledge into action.
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Okay–one more time: parents, go to United Opt Out & OPT YOUR KIDS OUT NOW!!!
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I taught in Philadelphia in 1970-72. Nothing’s changed: http://waynegersen.com/2014/07/19/philadelphia-and-pa-nothing-changes/
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As a retired instructor and current educational researcher for approximately 40 years in which most of the teaching/research experience and program was completed with black /Latino educationally deficient students using pre/post tests to evaluate student learning of students with a variety of entrance skills. The consistent results involved four levels of textbook level math of general math through algebra 2; covered a 20 years period; 400 sections; and 10,000 students documents that the student’s ENTRANCE PRE-REQUISTE SKILLS determined the AMOUNT of learning and final achievement in homework, quizzes, midterm tests and final exams.
Based upon this and other research such as the NAEP data( our nation’s report card), strongly documents that the reason so called good school perform well and the educationally disadvantaged schools perform poorly on standardized, or teacher and district tests is based simply on the percent of students that are promoted and PLACED by an 80% proficiency value on ENTRANCE to the course being taught or not.
DOCUMENTED classroom pre/post learning research suggests that the student performance in all phases of school work- homework, quizzes, classroom participation, and testing correlated in a linear manner to the student’s appropriate entrance placement score. In the four level math program defined above, the final exam for each level was given at the start of the next level to lesson “social promotion”. The model correlated the instruction’s level directly to the student’s readiness to learn the material. At the end of the course two final exams were given: the traditional final and a retake of the entrance test to evaluate pre/post student learning. Each test was diagnostic-prescriptive with the 50 question divided into ten areas with five questions /area. In this way the student learning and achievement was evaluated by ten specific areas in each of the four math levels yielding a measure of student learning by competency and composite. The DOCUMENTED mean learning rate was 7-9 times the Stanford learning rate of 9.1%/years during this 20 year, 400 section, 10,000 student program.
However, the pre/post learning rate was approximately twice the value for the proficient student versus the non-proficient student supporting the original idea that the proper placement by ENTRANCE proficiency determines the student, class, school, and district success, high or low. Documentation and fax available from ekangas@juno.com.
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