Archives for the month of: July, 2014
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Peter Greene: Duncan’s New Plan to Put Great Teachers in Low-Performing Schools

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2014 //
181

Arne Duncan recently announced his plan to put the “best” teachers in low-performing schools. These would of course be the teachers whose students get the highest scores, and most of them teach in affluent suburbs or schools for the gifted. Unfortunately, Arne has not figured out that the “best scores” and the biggest gains reflect the student population and family income.

Peter Greene has a series of scenarios for Arne.

He writes, to begin:

“This aspect of school reform has been lurking around the edges for some time– the notion that once we find the super-duper teachers, we could somehow shuffle everybody around and put the supery-duperest in front of the neediest students. But though reformsters have occasionally floated the idea, the feds have been reluctant to really push it.

“Now that the current administration has decided to bring that federal hammer down on this issue, you’re probably wondering what they have in mind for insuring that the best teachers will be put in front of the students who have the greatest need. I’m here to tell you what some of the techniques will be.

“Before Anything Else, Mild Brain Damage Required

“Any program like this requires the involved parties to believe that teachers are basically interchangeable cogs in a huge machine. We will have to assume that a teacher who is a great teacher of wealthy middle school students will be equally successful with students in a poor urban setting. Or vice-versa, as you will recall that Duncan’s pretty sure it’s the comfy suburban kids who are actually failing. We have to assume that somebody who has a real gift for connecting with rural working class Hispanic families will be equally gifted when it comes to teaching in a high-poverty inner city setting.

“And, of course, as always, we’ll have to assume that teachers who are evaluated as “ineffective” didn’t get that rating for any reason other than their own skills– the students, families, resources and support of the school, administration, validity of the high stakes tests, the crippling effects of poverty– none of those things contributed to the teacher’s “success” or lack thereof.

“Once everybody is on board with this version of reality, we can start shuffling teachers around.”

Some day we might have a Secretary of Education who cares about research, understands teaching and learning, and has common sense as well. It looks like we will have to wait at least two more years, while hoping that our best teachers haven’t chosen to leave.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Humor, Teachers and Teaching

New Jersey: Charter Chains Pull a Fast Deal in Camden Takeover

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2014 //
27

The fix is in to privatize the schools of Camden, New Jersey, reports Julia Sass Rubin. Rubin is an associate professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University and a visiting associate professor of public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She also is one of the founding members of the grassroots, pro-public education group Save Our Schools NJ.

Read Rubin’s account of plans for a charter takeover of Camden, New Jersey, aided by Chris Christie, the local Democratic machine, and Camden’s young inexperienced superintendent.

The legislature rushed through and passed amendments to the state’s Urban Hope act, so as to bypass violations of the law by two charter chains and to enable them to expand in Camden. The chains–Mastery and Uncommon Schools–together with the pre-existing KIPP schools will together enroll a large majority of Camden’s students. The ultimate goal, shared by the Chris Christie administration and the Norcross political machine, is to make Camden a New Orleans-style district, where public education is a relic of the past, and most schools are privately managed. The few remaining public schools will exist for the students the charters don’t want: students with disabilities and students with low test scores.

“The negative fiscal impact of the renaissance charter program is already being felt on the Camden District’s public schools. Hundreds of teachers and staff members were fired this spring because of projected budget shortfalls caused by payments the district has to make to renaissance and regular charter schools. Over the next few years, Camden parents are likely to see many more public school teachers laid off and extensive school reorganizations and closings as the privately-managed renaissance charters open more and more schools, aggressively competing for the public school dollars.

“Camden parents already lament the constant harassment by those charter chains, whose representatives approach them at every venue, come to their homes, and even try to recruit their children on school playgrounds. One Camden father recounted to me that he had repeatedly told the paid renaissance charter recruiters who came to his house that he did not want to send his child to their charter school, only to have them return the next morning and resume their recruitment efforts.

“The charter chains also send marketing emails and letters to parents’ homes. Sometimes, this has been done with the assistance and endorsement of the state-appointed Camden District Superintendent, who has mailed the charter chains’ recruitment materials to parents along with District correspondence. But parents also report receiving personally-addressed mail sent directly by the charter chains. A Camden mother told me that she called the Mastery charter chain’s offices in Philadelphia after receiving such a personally-addressed recruitment letter from them and spoke with a woman who asked for her name and the names of her children and then found their address on a list in front of her. Based on such experiences, Camden parents are convinced that the Camden School District’s state-appointed superintendent is giving their children’s personal information to the charter chains in order to facilitate the chains’ enrollment growth.”

If Governor Christie has his way, public education will be destroyed in Camden.

Categories Charter Schools, New Jersey

Is the District of Columbia Making Gains or Playing Games with Data?

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2014 //
5

Media Advisory: BBA to Hold Press Call on Real vs. Claimed Achievement Trends among DCPS Students

Washington, DC | Jul 8, 2014

On Thursday, July 10 at 11:00 am ET, the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA) will hold a press call to discuss a new BBA memorandum that assesses achievement trends of District of Columbia Public (DCPS) students. Elaine Weiss, national coordinator of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, will provide an in-depth analysis of DCPS/OSSE claims that the percentage of students who are “proficient” and “advanced” by the standards of the DC Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS), the district’s standardized achievement test, has steadily grown. Using both publicly available and non-available DC-CAS data, as well as data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Weiss will show that the true pattern over recent years has been one of little actual progress and substantially widening achievement gaps. Weiss will also highlight important data to look for when DCPS releases the new student scores, and provide key questions to ask. This memo builds on last year’s Market-Oriented Reforms’ Rhetoric Trumps Reality, and will be followed by a full report after 2014 DC-CAS scores are released later this month.

For the past several years, the Office of the State Superintendent for the District of Columbia (OSSE), has released new numbers on the percentage of students who are “proficient” and “advanced” by the standards of the DC Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS), the district’s standardized achievement test. Only selected numbers are released, and DCPS uses them to claim gains in proficiency and progress in closing large achievement gaps. However, the DC-CAS scores are manipulated in ways that make it impossible to understand how raw scores—the number of correct answers on the tests—are translated into scale and “cut” scores—levels of Basic, Proficient, and Advanced – and thus what and how much students are actually learning. Moreover, many key data points and other information are concealed to avoid any bad news.

This memo will illustrate, via an example in a high-profile district, the types of conflicts and problems that inevitably arise when undue pressure is put on student standardized tests. Our hope is that shedding light on the consequences of poorly conceived federal policies, misguided philanthropic contributions, and other pressure will spur a balanced and thoughtful discussion of more effective strategies that would boost all students and their communities, rather than sustaining and exacerbating existing disparities.

To RSVP, email Donte Donald at ddonald@epi.org.

What: Press call on real vs. claimed achievement trends among DCPS students
Who: Elaine Weiss, national coordinator of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education
When: Thursday, July 10th at 11:00 a.m. ET
Call-in number: 1-800-311-9403
Passcode: 960316

###

ABOUT EPI

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States.

Economic Policy Institute
Media Relations Department
1333 H Street, NW
Suite 300, East Tower
Washington, D.C. 20005
CONTACT

Categories Accountability, District of Columbia, Testing

“Data Is Fool’s Gold of the Common Core”

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2014 //
37

Common Core standards are usually described in the mainstream media in idealistic terms, using the positive and affirmative messages to sell the idea to the public. Doesn’t everyone want “high standards?” Doesn’t everyone want every single student to be “college and career ready?” Doesn’t everyone want students to be “globally competitive”? Of course. These claims, though untested and unproven, sound poll-tested.

Can standards be both “common” and “high”? If they are truly high and rigorous, won’t a sizable proportion of students fail? Can a single set of standards make everyone college and career ready? How do we know? What does it mean to be “globally competitive” with nations where educated people are paid a fraction of our own minimum wage?

Another way to view the Common Core standards is to see them as part of an integrated system of standards, tests, and teacher ratings that generate data. This data can be used to award bonuses, fire teachers, close schools, and identify students for remediation or college admission. The underlying assumption behind CCSS is that all children, if exposed to common standards, will learn at the same pace.

This post challenges the data-driven approach to school reform. “Data,” it says, “is the fool’s gold of the Common Core.”

He writes:

“Teachers should strive to meet the individual needs of their students, not the “needs” of standards or tests. There should be high academic expectations for all students, but to expect everyone, regardless of ability/disability, to meet those standards simultaneously and in the same way is foolish and inherently unfair.

“Standardized tests are toxic for the Common Core and they are the primary reason for the botched implementation efforts around the country. These tests do not generate comprehensive or reliable data regarding constructivist learning that is called for in the Learning Standards….

“The Common Core testing regime is more about satisfying data-driven enthusiasts’ ‘thirst” for more data, than it is about cultivating students’ thirst for knowledge.

“We are witnessing an unprecedented data collection “gold rush”, while the validity and reliability of this “fool’s gold” is of little concern to those who are mining it.

“The “college and career readiness” mandate or mission of the Common Core is misguided and not in the best interest of all our students. There are many “paths” to trade and vocational careers, and they don’t all go through college.

“Since the Common Core Standards were designed to serve and support the college and career readiness mandate, they are seriously flawed and deficient.

“A more inclusive and appropriate mandate such as readiness for “adulthood and employment” would better serve the academic, social, and emotional needs of all our students. Rather than simply “correcting” the inadequate Common Core standards, they should be reconstructed and redesigned from the ground up.”

Categories Common Core, Data and Data Mining, Students, Testing

Indiana: Governor Pence Strikes a Blow at Democracy Today

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2014 //
17

Governor Mike Pence didn’t like the results of the election in 2012 when voters chose Glenda Ritz as State Superintendent of Education. For the past two years, he has whittled away the authority and funding of her office and transferred it to other agencies. He even created a new agency to assume control of education policy, turning her office into an empty shell. He mat think he is clever but in fact he is acting like a tinhorn dictator, defying the will of the voters.

In this editorial, Karen Francisco of the Fort Wayne Journal Fazette explains Pence’s shabby and shameful machinations.

She writes:

“When voters elected Glenda Ritz nearly two years ago, they made it clear they didn’t like the direction of Indiana schools under Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett.

“Today, an appointed State Board of Education is set to undo the results of the 2012 election. Two resolutions that would strip most of Ritz’s authority are on the board’s meeting agenda. Working in concert with a new education bureaucracy created by Gov. Mike Pence, the 10 members – all appointed by Pence or Gov. Mitch Daniels – are preparing to reduce the superintendent to a figurehead and wrest control of key functions of her office.

“Aside from painting Ritz as weak and ineffective in advance of the next election, the proposals hand unprecedented control of Indiana schools to the governor’s office without any consideration by voters.

“Even the GOP-controlled General Assembly seems to have been duped into laying the groundwork for the takeover.

“A measure was quietly passed in 2013 to establish the new Center for Education and Career Innovation, with money transferred from the Department of Education. Not even the chairman of the Senate Education and Career Development Committee was aware of the financial sleight of hand. CECI’s staff now works full time to undermine Ritz.

“The State Board of Education includes professionals who seem to have the best interests of students at heart. They should recognize the resolutions crafted by the governor’s education staff are counter to the very democratic principles taught in our schools….

“Hoosiers should be angered by efforts to subvert the democratic process. Voters don’t elect supermajorities. They choose individual representatives and statewide officials entrusted to respect the will of the voters.

“Supermajority status does not confer the right to nullify an election, and we believe that members of the State Board of Education and the Republican legislators themselves do not support that course.

“The board members can demonstrate it by rejecting the resolutions and focusing instead on their responsibilities toward students. It’s the course Indiana voters chose.”

Governor Pence seems determined to strip Ritz of any authority. By doing so, he shames himself, defies the voters, and presents to the nation an example of anti-democratic behavior.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Indiana

D.C. Gets Its First Gulen Charter School, and Kaya Henderson Doesn’t Like Its Location

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2014 //
51

D.C. has approved its first Gulen-connected charter school. Fetullah Gulen is the reclusive Muslim cleric who lives in the Poconos, rus a vast political network in Turkey, and is associated with the largest charter chain in the U.S.

D.C. Chancellor Kaya Henderson is upset because the Gulen Harmony charter has leased a building directly across the street from a traditional public school serving the same age children with the same math-science focus.

“Henderson called Harmony’s move an inefficient use of tax­payer dollars and a sign of a choice that the city is going to have to make: Does the District want to plan for the coexistence of charter schools alongside a system of traditional neighborhood schools? Or does the city want to continue with a laissez-faire approach that Henderson said could give rise to a “cannibalistic environment” in which “somebody gets eaten”?

“Either we want neighborhood schools or we want cannibalism, but you can’t have both,” Henderson said, adding her voice to a growing chorus of people who have called for joint planning between traditional and charter schools and perhaps a limit on the number of independent charter schools in the District.

“A citywide conversation about how many schools do we need, and how do we get to the right number of schools, as opposed to continuing to allow as many schools to proliferate as possible, is probably a necessary conversation to have at some point,” Henderson said.

“Charter schools do not have to specify or propose a location when they apply to the D.C. Public Charter School Board for approval. The board considers applications on their merits, without taking into account the impact on existing schools; once a school is approved, it goes about finding a home, and then must notify the board of its location before opening its doors to students.”

Categories Charter Schools, District of Columbia

NYC: Public School Principals Given 24 Hours to Clear Space for Eva’s Charters

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2014 //
34

Only one charter chain gets special treatment in New York City, and that is Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academies.

Principals have beenr told they had 24 hours to clear and clean the space where her schools will co-locate rent-free. The city hired hundreds of workers to get the space in order.

The 1 million children who attend public schools are second-class citizens.

Eva’s 7,000-10,000 students are extra-important and privileged. After all, Eva not only gets free public space, she may expand and kick out kids with disabilities if she wishes. Her billionaire friends on Wall Street control the legislature. She can hold a dinner and raise over $7 million on a single night.

Really, she should be chancellor and show what she can do to raise scores and work her miracles for all children. Why limit her magic to only those who win the lottery? Let her take responsibility for the kids with disabilities, the English-language learners, the homeless kids–all of them, not just the ones she chooses.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, New York City

Why Don’t Reformers Care About Child Poverty?

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2014 //
64

Corporate education reformers often say that poverty is just an excuse for bad teachers. Michelle Rhee said that often, but seven years after she took charge of the D.C. Public schools (and was replaced by her deputy Kaya Henderson), D.C. remains one of the nation’s lowest-scoring districts.

Arne Duncan has often called poverty an excuse. Wendy Kopp and Bill Gates have said that if “we” fix schools first, poverty will take care of itself.

The rest of us are waiting for proof of this claim. One consequence of believing that corporate education reform cures poverty is that none of the 1% feels it necessary to do anything to reduce poverty. Just test more often, adopt Common Core, fire teachers whose students don’t get high test scores, close schools with low scores, and open many more charters.

None of this reduces poverty. But it makes the 1% feel righteous without raising their taxes.

A comment by a reader on this subject, with one correction. The U.S. is #1 in child poverty among advanced nations, not #2. Romania is not an advanced nation; its economic development was repressed by decades of Communist dictatorship.

The reader writes:

“I think it is very difficult to sustain the argument that the US does as much to promote child well-being as many other advanced nations. Most measures as indicated by this report (http://www.oecd.org/els/family/43570328.pdf) don’t appear to be in the US’ favor:

“High overall levels of child well-being are achieved by the Netherlands and Sweden and low levels by the United States and the United Kingdom. Even at the top performing end, both the Netherlands and Sweden have a dimension along which performance is at best only adequate (material well-being for the Netherlands and Family relationships for Sweden). At the bottom, both the United States and the United Kingdom perform worse than the median country on all dimensions.”

“Furthermore, the US’ relative child poverty rate (defined as living in a household that earns less than half of the national median) is extremely high when compared to other developed countries: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/15/map-how-35-countries-compare-on-child-poverty-the-u-s-is-ranked-34th/

“Just looking at how we stack up with Australia and Canada should be illustrative given our similar income levels, immigration rates (actually higher in those nations), and shared cultural heritage.”

Categories International, Poverty

Peter Greene Explains What Campbell Brown Doesn’t Know about Schools

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2014 //
39

Peter Greene here reviews and refutes Campbell Brown’s article in the New York Daily News about why she is bringing a Vergara lawsuit in New York. Campbell Brown was once a CNN anchor; her husband advised Romney and is on the board of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst New York. She is a fierce critic of teacher unions, tenure, and seniority. The lawsuit gives her an opportunity to act on her passionate hatred for veteran teachers while claiming to defend the “rights” of students, as the California sponsors of Vergara did.

Brown has thus far found six families to act as plaintiffs. She says that one of the students wrote an essay complaining about the quality of education she was receiving and was harassed by multiple teachers and had to change schools. Brown assumes that by getting rid of tenure, seniority, and due process, there would magically be a great teacher in every classroom.

Greene writes:

“It’s a good story because it underlines exactly what is problematic about this sort of narrative as a model of teacher evaluation. This could in fact be the story of a student who made a reasonable request, wrote an essay about it, and was unfairly hounded by multiple teachers. While I’d like to say that I can’t imagine that ever happening, it’s certainly not impossible (though the harassing phone calls from plural teachers is hard to imagine).

“But this could also be the story of a student who decide she knew better than a trained professional how the teacher should do his job, got called on it, and had the whole thing blow up when the school tried to deal with her insubordination and disrespect.

“Either version of the story could be the truth. If we put in student hands the nuclear option of ending a teacher’s career, we are certainly, as Brown says she wants to, changing the balance of power. But I’m not sure how we get to excellence in teaching by way of a student smiling and saying, “Mrs. DeGumbuddy, my lawyer and I think you really want to reconsider my grade on this essay.”

He writes:

“Tenure– NY makes teachers wait three years and eighteen observations for tenure. This is the most obvious difference between the New York case and Vergara (California was awarding tenure after less time). This is a hard argument to make– if an administrator can’t tell whether or not she’s got a keeper after three years and eighteen observations, that administrator needs to go get a job selling real estate or groceries, because, damn!

“On the plus side, I look forward to Brown’s accompanying argument that all New York schools should be barred from ever again hiring Teach for America two-year contract temps. If it takes more than three years to determine if a teacher is any good, then clearly TFA is a waste of everybody’s time. Do let me know when Brown brings that up.

“Dismissals– Too long, too hard. I’m not in New York, so I don’t know the real numbers here. This was the weakest part of the state’s case in Vergara– while you can’t rush through these proceedings, there’s no excuse for dragging them out for months and years. It’s not good for either party.”

And he concludes:

“In the meantime, teachers here in the East can now look forward to a PR blitz tearing down teachers in support of a lawsuit designed to dismantle teaching as a profession. We can only hope the ultimate result will be better than the California version of this traveling circus.”

Categories Students, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

The Best Way to Motivate People Is….

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2014 //
28

In an article in the New York Times, two scholars explain how best to motivate people in every line of endeavor. Amy Wrzesniewski is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. Barry Schwartz is a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College.

They make a distinction between internal motivation and instrumental motivation. Usually, psychologists contrast intrinsic motivation (the desire to do something well) and extrinsic motivation (the desire to win a reward for doing something well). Intrinsic motivation wins every time. Carrots and sticks may work for animals, but not so well for people. And yet our policymakers continue to pursue punitive policies that threaten students, teachers, and principals, as well as promises of bonuses and rewards. These policies fail and fail again, yet The Bush administration, the Obama administration, and Congress can’t give up their devotion to failed incentives and punishments.

Want to read the research?

Read Daniel Pink’s “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.” Or Edward Deci’s “Why We Do What We Do.” Or Dan Ariely’s “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions.” or Andrea Gabor’s book about W. Edwards Deming, “The Man Who Discovered Quality,” especially the chapter on why performance pay never works.

And be sure to check out the report of a prestigious commission of the National Academies of Science in 2011 that concluded that test-based accountability had produced meager improvement. Education Week summarized its findings: “Nearly a decade of America’s test-based accountability systems, from “adequate yearly progress” to high school exit exams, has shown little to no positive effect overall on learning and insufficient safeguards against gaming the system, a blue-ribbon committee of the National Academies of Science concludes in a new report.”

Categories Students, Teachers
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