At the heart of the Vergara decision lies a logical fallacy: eliminate due process and seniority from teachers, and schools with low-performing students will magically have a great teacher in every classroom. To say this makes no sense is an understatement.
In this post, Bruce Baker demonstrates that it makes no sense empirically either.
As he concludes: “In the land of VergarNYa… a world where logical fallacy rules the day and where empirical evidence simply doesn’t matter…”
I did not write the following post. It was written by a high-level official at the New York City Department of Education who–for obvious reasons–requires anonymity. The story he tells is instructive. It is about how “reformers” claim victory by manipulating statistics. This is not an accusation directed at the de Blasio administration, but at their predecessors who regularly boasted that the new small high schools got better graduation rates that the large schools they replaced. The Gates Foundation bought this lie and has lauded its “success” in New York City.
Reformers Caught Lying. Again. This Time About Graduation Stats.
High school graduations are upon us. This is the time of year when parents, students, families, educators and communities celebrate the accomplishments of our high school seniors. It is a time to honor the work the graduates have done and to collectively share their hopes and dreams for the future.
At the same time, certain players in the world of education attempt to co-opt this time of year to propagandize for their favored reform policies. The latest example of this is a story about Frank McCourt High School, a small high school in New York City that “will send 97 percent of its first graduating class to college.” The story goes on to note that this school, along with 3 others, replaced a larger high school “which suffered from dismal academic and attendance records.” The reader is asked to believe one little and one big lie.
Let’s first take a look at the little lie. Does this school, in fact, have a 97% graduation/college going rate? The truth is that, on any reasonable calculation, it does not. According to the New York State data the cohort started with 100 freshmen. By sophomore year only 88 students remained. By junior year only 80. And by senior year only 69. Of these 69 survivors 67 are graduating. Seems more like a twisted version of the Hunger Games than a school for all students. One wonders: Where did the other 33 students go? Why does the media publicize such meaningless numbers without giving the full story? By now this trick should be well-known. A school that removes large numbers of students from its cohort should not be celebrated for its test scores or graduation rate. It is an artifact of arithmetic. If a school kicks out students with low test scores, it will have high test scores among the surviving students. If a school culls the students not on track to graduate it will have a high graduation rate among the surviving students.
Let’s move on to the big lie. Does this school, in fact, show that the reform strategy of closing large schools and replacing them with other smaller schools works? The full range of data show that it does not, as a number of facts pop-out.
There are 4 high schools co-located in the building that used to house Brandeis High School. One school, Innovation Diploma Plus (a “second-chance” school), had a 50.8% graduation rate last year. Another school, the Global Learning Collaborative, had a 52.7% graduation rate last year. Yet another school, the Urban Assembly School for Green Careers had a 39.8% graduation rate last year. We have already examined the claimed 97% graduation rate of the Frank McCourt High School, which also happens to screen its students before admissions.
The schools with the lower graduation rates retain almost all of their students. Unlike the school that boasts of its 97% graduation rate, the other three schools stay committed to all their students. Why do reformers refuse to evaluate schools based on their sticking with all their students? We know the answer. It is because charter schools and “miracle” schools will then be publicly exposed as largely frauds. So the metrics used to evaluate schools are deliberately constructed in ways that do not capture cohort retention in order to keep the myth alive. And the media agrees to overlook the tremendously high attrition rates at charter schools and other so-called “miracle” schools.
It may come as little surprise that the school with the lowest graduation rate has over 22% more English Language Learners, over 14% more students entering high school already overage, and over 40% more Black/Hispanic students than the school with the highest graduation rate.[i] This sheds some light on another reformer strategy. They like to tout free-market principles as they destroy community schools and create choice systems where students end up sorted into schools based on demographic characteristics and prior academic performance. This is not a solution. It does not improve education for all students. All it does is stick students in different containers, isolated from one another, thereby perpetuating a system of haves and have-nots. It is shocking that the reformers, who proclaim education the civil rights issue of our time, would support such an inequitable approach.
The total enrollment of all the high schools in the Brandeis High School building is 1,350 students. The shuttered school, Brandeis High School, had over 2,000 students. Where did the missing 600 students go? We know the answer. The missing 600 students were the more challenging students and students who did not get accepted to one of the small choice-in high schools. These students were deliberately sent to a specific group of, usually large, high schools that were then labeled “failures” too and shuttered. The Gates Foundation, an organization that has yet to meet a free-market education reform strategy it doesn’t like, has admitted that the national small school initiative was largely a failure. Despite this, MDRC, a research group in New York City, continues to publish Gates Foundation funded reports claiming that the small schools in New York City work.[ii]
It is now clear what New York City was doing during the Bloomberg era. Given the humungous size of the district they were able to play a shell game with students by passing the buck. Instead of figuring out how to reach the most challenging students and helping them succeed, the students were passed from school to school. This inevitably led to a domino effect of school closures. A shell game like this can be played in a district with almost 500 high schools, over two and half times as many as the next largest school district. Since there is a very long chain of dominos the “bad apple” students can be isolated into a specific group of schools making the remaining schools, which don’t accept those students, look good. But, as smaller districts have found out, it is not a workable long-term strategy when there is not an endless supply of schools to be used as sacrificial lambs.
Sooner or later the lies about numbers that reformers tell will catch up to them. Educators need to continue to advocate for approaches that are equitable and genuinely seek to improve the educational experience of all students. This includes developing curricula personalized for different students and improving wraparound services that extend beyond school walls. Ultimately, when the accounting fraud that is behind so many education reform initiatives collapses upon itself
[i] Frank McCourt has 55% Black/Hispanic students, 1% ELL students, 20.4% IEP students and .7% overage students. Global Learning has 90.3% Black/Hispanic students, 14.7% ELL students, 23% IEP students and 8.5% overage students. Green Careers has 95.6% Black/Hispanic students, 23.6% ELL students, 23.8 IEP students, and 15.15% overage students.
[ii] It is worth noting that the combined graduation rate of the 4 schools in the Brandies Building is 58.5% which is lower than the city-wide average of 72%.
In recent days, there has been an extended discussion online about an article by California whistle blower Kathleen Carroll, in which she blasts Randi Weingarten and the Teachers Union Reform Network for taking money from Gates, Broad, and other corporate reform groups, in some cases, more than a dozen years ago. Carroll also suggests that I am complicit in this “corruption” because I spoke to the 2013 national meeting of TURN and was probably paid with corporate reform money; she notes that Karen Lewis, Deborah Meier, and Linda Darling-Hammond also spoke to the TURN annual meeting in 2012 or 2013. I told Carroll that I was not paid to speak to TURN, also that I have spoken to rightwing think tanks, and that no matter where I speak and whether I am paid, my message is the same as what I write in my books and blogs. In the discussion, I mentioned that I spoke to the National Association of School Psychologists at its annual convention in 2012, one of whose sponsors was Pearson, and I thought it was funny that Pearson might have paid me to blast testing, my point being that I say what I want regardless of who puts up the money. At that point, Jim Horn used the discussion to lacerate me for various sins.
Mercedes Schneider decided to disentangle this mess of charges and countercharges. In the following post, Schneider uses her considerable research skills to dissect the issues, claims and counterclaims. All the links are included in this piece by Schneider. Schneider asked me for my speech to the National Association of School Psychologists as well as my remarks to the TURN meeting, which are included.
I will make two points here. First, Randi has been my friend for 20 years, and I don’t criticize my friends; we disagree on many points, for example, the Common Core, which I oppose and she supports. I don’t hide our disagreements but I won’t call her names or question her motives. Friends can disagree and remain friends.
Second, I recall learning how the left made itself impotent in American politics by fighting among themselves instead of uniting against the common adversary. I recall my first job at the New Leader magazine in 1960, where I learned about the enmity among the Cannonites, the Lovestonites, the Trotskyites, the Mensheviks, the Schactmanites, and other passionate groups in the 1930s. That’s when I became convinced that any successful movement must minimize infighting and strive for unity and common goals.
Even earlier, Benjamin Franklin was supposed to have said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
You are invited to a major event honoring Leonie Haimson, a brilliant, fearless leader. Please make plans to attend and meet her and other allies in the fight for better education! Haimson led the fight to block inBloom from gaining access to the confidential records of millions of children. Thanks to her leadership, inBloom went out of business even though it was backed by the Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and Rupert Murdoch’s Corporation. One principled woman defended the privacy rights of children and families, and she won! She showed all of us the power of one person.
Join Parents Across America at its first annual Parent Voice Award Dinner honoring PAA co-founder Leonie Haimson, leader of New York City-based Class Size Matters in DC on July 28.
This year, Leonie nearly single-handedly organized parents around the U.S. to oppose the impending commercialization of student information by the inBloom company, which ultimately went out of business after every state on its original clientele list pulled out of the program. Leonie is also the founder of NYC-based Class Size Matters, a group dedicated to promoting smaller class size – a proven, effective school reform strategy. Leonie started the New York Public School Parents’ Blog and has been a leader in challenging school privatization, misuse and over use of standardized tests, and, most recently, the threat to student data privacy.
The 2014 PAA Parent Voice Award Dinner is being hosted by the National Education Association at their headquarters in Washington, DC.
Tickets will include cocktails and a buffet dinner — and are only $20!
Proceeds from the dinner will support PAA’s programs and the work of our chapters around the U.S.
The registration form also includes an option for those unable to attend who would like to make a fully tax-deductible contribution to PAA in honor of Leonie, or anyone who can attend and would like to make a tax-deductible donation to PAA over and above the cost of the ticket.
Thank you!
The Florida Education Association filed suit to block the expansion of vouchers. In their legal challenge, the teachers’ union said the law was passed at the last minute and “violates the constitutional requirement that legislative proposals be limited to a single subject.”
“The lawsuit from the Florida Education Association raises concerns about the way SB 850 became law. Some of the bill’s more contentious provisions, including the voucher expansion and the scholarship accounts, started out as stand-alone proposals that had difficulty finding support. They were added to a bill establishing collegiate high schools on the second-to-last day of the legislative session.”
In 2012, Florida voters turned down a proposal to change the state constitution to permit vouchers by a margin of 58-42.
If data and research matter, the worst reform in U.S. education is the virtual charter school.
The League of Women Voters–one of the few national organizations with integrity about education issues (I.e. has not been bought by the Gates Foundation) issued a report about these floundering “schools,” that typically have low test scores, high dropout rates, and low graduation rates. Only a devotee of the Jeb Bush reform school would want to invite these ineffectual schools into their state. Poor New Mexico. Its acting state commissioner Hannah Skandera used to work for the Jebster himself, so whatever Florida has done to bring in for-profit hucksters must be brought to New Mexico, of course.
So New Mexico has a K12 virtual charter (listed on the New York Stock Exchange, founded by the Milken brothers), and a Connections Academy, owned by the much unloved Pearson.
Here is the study conducted by the New Mexico League of Women Voters.
Here is an article by Bonnie Burn in the Las Cruces Sun-News explaining why the League of Women Voters opposes for-profit schools. Actually, she is wrong on one point. There is a growing body of research that shows the ineffectiveness of virtual charters. However, they are highly profitable.
Will the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speak out against for-profit virtual charters? Will elephants fly?
KIPP Dawson teaches middle school in Pittsburgh. She is a brave union activist; she began her career as a coal miner, and worked underground for ten years. She has worked even longer in the classroom, where she brings with her the same courage, integrity, and determination. Here are her initial reflections on the AFT convention on Los Angeles. I hope we will hear more:
KIPP writes:
Dear friends, your hard work on behalf of our kids and schools, ALL of it, made a BIG impact on the AFT convention just ending now in Los Angeles, from where i write this. I am mostly without Internet connection for the last and next few days, and will write more when I can. Most important point: our movement for social justice unionism, and for our kids and schools, shifted the whole “playing field” here. We move forward with more strength after the debates and contributions here, from the call to action from Moral Monday’s Rev. William Barber to the strong discussion contributions from our colleagues from around the country (with special thanks to our wonderful CTU and CORE sisters and brothers for their leadership). Much more to be said, but as George Schmidt notes in his comments on the photo he shared of Pia Payne-Shannon, votes tell only a small part of a story full of victories. La lutte continue (the struggle continues), and on ever-stronger ground. Your voices are being heard, your examples are inspiring, and we will win this.
KIPP
Jason Carter, grandson of President Jimmy Carter, is running for governor of Georgia against incumbent Nathan Deal. Carter, elected to the state senate in 2010, is a graduate of Duke University who served in the Peace Corps in South Africa, the graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law. His wife is a high school teacher. Carter has made education a centerpiece of his campaign and has been especially critical of the devastating budget cuts imposed on the state’s public schools by Governor Deal. This year, election year, Governor Deal proposed to increase education funding, following years of budget cuts. Carter has emphasized that funding education is economic development, an investment in the future.
This showdown is a chance to build a bipartisan coalition to support public schools in every community.
Leading with His Chin: Deal’s Laughable Attack Ads
Ads Betray Vulnerability on Education Issues
ATLANTA—Two new attack ads from Gov. Nathan Deal show his campaign is desperate five months out from Election Day.
“Gov. Deal has the worst record on education in the history of this state,” said Matt McGrath, campaign manager for Carter for Governor. “It’s laughable that he thinks he can trick parents, teachers and students into believing his newfound interest in education funding is anything but an election year sham.
“That said, if Gov. Deal wants to talk about education and whose vision is better for Georgia families, we’re happy to have that debate.
“Jason has been a champion for investing in our schools. He has laid out a specific plan to make sure that students, parents and educators are treated like the priority they should be. Jason is the only candidate in this race with credibility any on education.”
Carter spoke about his plans to invest in education during a conference of Georgia school board members last week. Gov. Deal had been scheduled to speak at the same conference, but canceled at the last minute [Savannah Morning News, 6/13/14] [Creative Loafing, 6/16/14].
At the same conference, Republican State Superintendent John Barge said the governor has “a negative past in dealing with public education,” adding, “The positive things he’s to do this year will be viewed by most folks as election-year politics. And not sincere” [Creative Loafing, 6/16/14].
See below for a summary of Gov. Deal’s record on education:
Governor Deal Is Starving K-12 Education In Georgia
GOVERNOR DEAL’S ELECTION YEAR INTEREST IN K-12 EDUCATION IS TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
In an election year, Governor Deal made his first effort to close Georgia’s education funding gap, but still missed the target by three-quarters of a billion dollars [Georgia Department of Education QBE Report for 2015, accessed 6/5/14].
Forty percent of the budget increase for education in this year’s budget covers routine formula increases. The budget only restores $314 million of the year’s austerity cut of $1.06 billion. [GBPI, Jan. 2014]
Gov. Deal’s budget is failing to do what he promised it would. GBPI: “[T]he governor’s [FY 2015 budget] proposal does include money for salary adjustments for state employees, Board of Regents staff and K-12. But the increase is probably not enough for every state employee and teacher to receive even a token pay raise” [GBPI, 02/06/14]. This week, the Muscogee County School District announced it is laying off 42 employees after losing $1 million in state funding this year [Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 6/16/14]. Other districts across the state are seeking waivers to raise their class sizes to as high as 36 students per class [WSAV, 6/10/14] [Chattanooga Times Free Press, 4/28/13].
GOVERNOR DEAL HAS UNDERFUNDED K-12 EDUCATION IN GEORGIA BY BILLIONS
On average, Governor Deal has underfunded K-12 education in Georgia by over $1 billion per year since taking office [Georgia Department of Education QBE Reports for 2012-2013, accessed 4/16/14].
After just four years in office, Gov. Deal is responsible for more than half of the total austerity cuts (about $4.1 billion). In the 13 years since “austerity cuts” to K-12 education began in FY 2003, Georgia has underfunded Quality Basic Education (QBE) funding by a total of over $7.5 billion. Between FY 2003 (when “austerity cuts” began) and FY 2011 (when Gov. Deal took office)—a period encompassing the worst years of the Great Recession—the average QBE shortfall was just $380 million per year. Nathan Deal’s average has been more than 250 percent higher than that, at just over $1 billion per year [Georgia Department of Education QBE Reports for 2003-2015, accessed 6/5/14].
LOCAL TAXES ARE GOING UP, BECAUSE THE GOVERNOR HAS FAILED TO ADEQUATELY FUND K-12 EDUCATION AT THE STATE LEVEL
At least 91 Georgia school districts have had to raise local tax rates between 2010 and 2013, with at least 38 having done so in the last year alone “to offset the combined financial pressure of increased expenses and deep state budget cuts” [GBPI, 11/13; Georgia Department of Revenue Tax Digest Millage Rates for 2010-2013, accessed 6/12/14.]
THE NUMBER OF SCHOOL DAYS IN MOST GEORGIA DISTRICTS HAS FALLEN BELOW 180 DAYS, WHILE CLASS SIZES HAVE GROWN AND PROGRAMS ARE CUT
Each year since Gov. Deal took office, more than two-thirds of Georgia school districts have not taught the 180-day school year, with several districts cutting 30 or more days [Data from the Georgia Department of Education; GBPI, 11/13].
More than 95 percent of Georgia school districts surveyed by GBPI have increased class size since 2009 [GBPI, 11/13].
Public school class sizes in Georgia have increased as districts struggle with funding cuts and falling tax revenue. AP reports: “about 80 percent of Georgia’s 180 school districts approved plans to surpass class size caps last year. Districts are allowed to surpass class size caps as long as they get the decision to do so approved during a public meeting.” [AP, 7/28/13]
Eighty percent of surveyed Georgia school districts will furlough teachers this year, and the majority are slashing funding for professional development [GBPI, 11/13].
About 42 percent of surveyed districts are reducing or eliminating art or music programs and 62 percent are eliminating elective courses. More than 38 percent of surveyed districts are cutting back on programs that help low-performing students [GBPI, 11/13].
Increasing class sizes is a problem with educators trying to teach a more rigorous curriculum. AP: “[S]tudent performance diminishes when class size increases, and overcrowded classrooms can lead to a loss of discipline and more disruptions.” [AP, 7/28/13]
HAVING DRASTICALLY UNDERFUNDED K-12 EDUCATION FOR YEARS, GOV. DEAL NOW WANTS LOCAL AUTHORITIES TO TAKE THE BLAME FOR TEACHER FURLOUGHS AND STAGNANT TEACHER PAY
On his website, Gov. Deal attempts to wash his hands of responsibility for the tough choices his chronic underfunding of education has foisted on local school boards and says questions as to how to make too little money go far enough to meet each district’s needs are “up to your local school board to decide . . .” The website suggests that, if a citizen, parent, teacher or other stakeholder in Georgia’s public education system wants to see teachers better compensated for the critical work they do, he or she should join Gov. Deal in “calling on the school boards to pay teachers more.” [nathandeal.org/payteachersmore, accessed 6/12/14]
“[T]he Nathan Deal campaign is attempting to turn back [criticism that Georgia school systems are “broke” by pointing] dissatisfied parents to local school boards.” From the AJC: “Now the Nathan Deal campaign is attempting to turn back [criticism that local school systems are “broke”] – with this online petition that points dissatisfied parents to local school boards.” [AJC, 2/7/14]
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—
Jennifer L. Owens
Deputy Political Director
Jason Carter for Governor
jennifer@carterforgovernor.com
Cell: (404) 625-4377
Regular reader and commenter Lloyd Lofthouse explains why we need unions:
Let me add something one of my uncles told me. He was 96 when he died about ten years ago.
As a young man, he remembered going to the railroad yard hoping to get work to earn enough to buy food. There was no union then. He said hundreds got up early every morning to show up. The manager in charge of loading and unloading the trains would stand in the opening of one of the box cars and throw ten, fifteen or twenty chips over the heads of the crowd of hopeful workers. Those who caught the chips and kept them got to work sixteen hours that day for about 25 cents.
The next day was a repeat.
This was in the United States during the Great Depression.
Without labor unions working as a collective voice for the workforce, most of the rich and famous will make sure the world we live in returns to that time. Study history as Back2basic suggests and you will learn from it. Mankind doesn’t change and power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. History repeats itself if we allow it.
I read an article recently that compared business methods and this article said that about 4 out of every 5 business are run like dictatorships and the workers are not treated with respect or paid a fair wage with benefits.
Businesses like Costco that are not unionized, Wholefoods, and Trader Joe’s that treat their workers with respect and pays them a living wage with benefits are the exception. Costco has even been criticized by Wall Street because of how much they pay their employees (like $12 or $14 an hour instead of the minimum wage). The stock holders grumble that if Costco paid their employees less, the stock holders would make more from the stocks. If you doubt this, Google it. Costco’s CEO basically told Wall Street to “F” off without using the “F” word. Companies like Costco have a high retention rate compared to corporations like Wall-Mart.
Why is it that some of the 1% who have the most money have spent HUGE fortunes on propaganda and lobbyists in state capitals and Washington DC for decades to destroy the labor unions? What do they have to gain?
Negative opinions of labor unions come from that propaganda and if you believe them and you are not a billionaire or millionaire, what does that say about you?
The answer may be found in this Abraham Lincoln quote: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Who is greedy—the Koch brothers who are worth more than one hundred billion dollars (combined) and are willing to pollute the air, water and soil to increase their wealth or the union worker who is paid maybe $25 an hour with a retirement and health plan that cuts into the profits and wealth of people like Bill Gates, the Walton family or Eli Broad?
Without labor unions, the worker has no voice. The only voice heard will be from someone like Bill Gates.
Peter Greene takes a hard look at AP (Advanced Placement) courses and wonders how the U.S. Department of Education got involved in pushing a for-profit product as a mark of distinction.
He notes that:
“AP tests are a product of the College Board, the same people who bring you the SAT, and although the name seems to suggest a group of college scholars who gather together on some altruistic mission to guard the gateways of higher education for the Greater Good, the fact is that the College Board is just a business intent on making a buck and keeping its market share (it is also currently run by David Coleman, one of the co-authors of the Common Core).
“Every time a teacher goes to a seminar to learn about designing an AP course, the AP folks make money. Every time a school buys AP materials, the AP folks make money. And every time a student takes the AP test, the AP folks make money– a bunch of money.
“It was a great day for these folks when they hopped on the Education Reform Gravy Train and became the Official Education Course Product of Race to the Top. In Pennsylvania, for instance, a school’s rating factors in how many AP courses are offered. This is extraordinary, like Ford getting the government to rate school district excellence based on how many Ford school buses they used.”
Another coup for the College Board marketing efforts: the rankings of the nation’s best high schools by U.S. News and World Report. One factor in the rankings is what proportion of your students took AP exams.
Diane Ravitch's blog 