Archives for the month of: September, 2014
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Rhode Island: Gist and Education Leaders Will Review Over-Testing

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
12

This is a surprising story. State Commissioner Deborah Gist and other state leaders will review whether there is too much testing in the schools of Rhode Island. This is a battle that the Providence Student Union has been waging for the past two years. They held rallies and staged political events to call attention to the state’s testing program. They criticized high stakes testing, standardized testing, and too much testing. They fought Gist’s and the state board’s plan to use a standardized test as a high school graduation requirement. The kids knew that many of their classmates would not pass because of the nature of the test itself. It is too soon to say they have won, but not too soon to say that they changed the public debate in Rhode Island.

“In a letter to school superintendents, Katherine E. Sipala, president of the Rhode Island School Superintendents’ Association, and Gist wrote:

”Over the past year or more, many of us have heard from some students, teachers, and parents who expressed their concerns about over-testing in our schools. We share their concerns, and we want to take action on this matter. None of us wants to test students too much, and each of us can consider ways to streamline the assessment process, to eliminate assessments that do not advance teaching and learning, and to ensure that we use assessments to help us make good decisions about instruction. If assessments do not give us information that informs instruction, we should not administer those assessments.”

By the way, if you live in District 4 in Rhode Island, one of the leaders of the Providence Student Union is running for state representative. Aaron Regunberg deserves your support. He is a thoughtful, hard-working, dedicated young man. Just what we need to improve the politics of our nation.

If you live in

Categories Rhode Island, Testing

Duncan Threatens to Withdraw Florida’s NCLB Waiver over ELLs

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
56

The Tampa Bay Times published an editorial saying that the U.S. Department was “out of line” for threatening to yank Florida’s NCLB waiver.

Duncan took away Washington State’s waiver because the legislature refused to tie teacher evaluations to student test score. So now, schools across the state must send home letters saying that their child attends a “failing” school because it had not achieved 100% proficiency on tests of reading and math.

Duncan took away Oklahoma’s waiver because the Legislature repealed the state’s participation in the Common Core, and the governor signed the law.

What did Florida do to offend the U.S. Department of Education?

“Duncan’s staff has put Florida on notice that the state is at risk of violating NCLB standards that require all children to be counted equally in accountability formulas. Earlier this year, with the support of educators and advocates, the Legislature agreed to give non-English-speaking students two years in a U.S. school before including their standardized test scores in school grading formulas. The change was an acknowledgement of the huge learning curve such children face and that schools should not be penalized if those students can’t read, comprehend and write English at grade level within a year.

“Yet to the federal bureaucrats enforcing the unpopular NCLB law, such common sense doesn’t matter. They have given Florida a year to make changes or risk losing its NCLB waiver, which has allowed the state to substitute its own accountability efforts for some of the most unworkable federal mandates. Those include the idealistic but unreasonable federal standard for 2014 that each child at a school must be working at grade level for the school not to be deemed “failing.”

Thus, if Florida wants to keep its waiver, the Florida legislature must change the law so that English learners are allowed only one year to master English ad be tested in English.

The editorial concludes:

“Ultimately, the continued flaws in NCLB are Congress’ fault, because it has failed repeatedly to adopt reforms. But the last thing federal enforcers should be doing is punishing a state for embracing a commonsense reform. Education Secretary Duncan needs to find a better solution.”

Categories Duncan, Arne, English Language Learners, Federal Waiver, Florida

Some DAM Poet: Comparing “Reform” to “The Wizard of Oz”

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
17

In response to a post by Krazy TA, who portrayed Arne Duncan as the Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz,” this post comes from “Some DAM Poet, Devalue Added Model”:

 

So, Duncan is the Scare Crow?

 

I’ll buy that (though he’s certainly no Ray Bolger)

 

That leaves quite a few roles to cast:

 

Here are my suggestions:

 

The Wizard of Ads (and Fads): Bill Gates

 

Cowardly Lion: Obama

 

Tin Man: David Coleman

 

Dorothy: America’s teachers, trying to get back to Kansas (ie, reality)

 

Munchkins: America’s school children

 

Good Witch of the North (Diane Ravitch, Moshe Adler, Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, Mercedes Schneider, members of American Statistical Association, or other statistical and educational experts who have tried to bring some sanity to the Emerald City and get Dorothy back to Kansas

 

WWoW: Michelle Rhee (“I’ll get your school, my pretty..and your little bus too”

 

Flying monkeys: the folks who put together the teacher VAMS, Common Core, standardized testing and other junk (if you recall, there were a lot of flying monkeys and they all looked the same)

 

Witch’s Castle Guard — singing “tenure-heave-ho” (Campbell Brown, who,being the adversatile actress that she is, also played a lot of parts (76 of them) in The Music Man)

 

Feel free to weigh in.if you think I have messed up the casting in any way — eg, left anyone out of the flock (is that the right word?) of flying monkeys. Also, I’m not really sure who should play Toto.

Categories Humor

Michigan Awakes from Long Slumber: Majority in Poll Want Charter Moratorium

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
7

Possibly in response to the Detroit Free Press’s expose of charter schools’ lack of transparency and accountability, a majority in most recent poll (73%) want a moratorium on new charter schools until the Legislature and the State Department of Education has reviewed charter legislation.

 

Having learned from the 8-day series of articles that charters get $1 billion without oversight, the public might want some regulation of how their dollars are spent.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Michigan

Breaking News: Lee County School Board Reverses Vote, Backs Down

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
16

Last week, the Lee County, Florida, school board voted 3-2 to opt out of state testing. Over the past few days, one member of the three-vote majority declared that she wanted to change her vote. A meeting was called for 8:30 a.m. This morning, a time that was sure to be inconvenient for parents and teachers.

A message to me from Bob Schaeffer of Fairtest, who lives in Lee County:

“As expected, given the notion that one member had reversed her position, the Lee County School Board just voted 3-2 to override its previous decision. However, four of the five board members spoke out against “test misuse and overuse” as well as “the punitive use of standardized exams.” The two Board members who opposed the original motion (allegedly due to the lack of an implementation plan) pledged to take their concerns to a meeting of the Florida School Boards Association, which is holding a statewide conference beginning tonight, and one threatened a lawsuit against unfunded state testing mandates. After the vote, several Board members said that there would be a public workshop next week to discuss how to move forward to reduce testing overkill, and two members pledged that they would make implementation motions at the Tuesday night, September 9 regular Board meeting.

“The hundreds of parents, teaches, students and taxpayers who packed the room viewed the decision as a temporary tactical setback, not a long-term defeat, for the assessment reform movement.”

Categories Florida, Standardized Testing

Pennsylvania: When Tests Are Pointless

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
5

The purpose of testing is for students and teachers to learn about students’ strengths and weaknesses. Teachers can look at student performance and learn what they taught well and what they didn’t teach well.

When states, in collaboration with testing companies, keep tests confidential, reeves long nothing to students and teachers but test scores, they vitiate the value of the test. It’s akin to going to your doctor for a checkup and learning nothing but a score, with no context or interpretation of what you should do now.

A reader from Pennsylvania writes:

“What’s worse are the Pennsylvania Keystone Exams. They have not published a single question from any exam given nor any questions from the Classroom Diagnostic tests, practice tests for the Keystone. Instead they have only published a few sample questions some of which are poorly written. When asked about this, an official said that the sample questions were reject questions that would never be used on the exams. Basically students and teachers are being kept in the dark about these high stakes exams which will be used to determine if a student can graduate or not, how a school district is rated and how a teacher is evaluated.”

Categories Pennsylvania, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Massachusetts: An Interview with Barbara Madeloni about the Failure of Testing

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
5

Zak Jason wrote a fascinating interview in “Boston” magazine with Barbara Madeloni, the recently elected president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the largest union in the state with 110,000 members.

I first learned of Madeloni when she was preparing teachers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and she refused to give the Pearson test to evaluate new teachers. Michael Winerip wrote a story about her defiance in the New York Times, and within a matter of days, her contract was not renewed. Now all teacher candidates across the university are required to take the Pearson exam.

I learned many things from this article. I learned that Barbara was a psychotherapist before she became a high school English teacher. I learned that when she ran for union president, she was considered a very long shot. Some people thought she had no chance at all.

I learned that the State Commissioner of Education, Mitchell Chester, is also chair of the governing board of PARCC, one of the two federally-funded Common Core tests. Some in the state say he has a conflict of interest.

Madeloni has called for a three-year moratorium on all testing and teacher evaluations:

“We’ve been trying to do scale, instead of human beings. We need to do human beings,” she says. She lambasts the Common Core, a national set of curriculum standards that the state adopted in 2010, as “corporate deform,” and described its architects to CommonWealth magazine as “rich white men who are deciding the course of public education for black and brown children.”

“The past and present heads of the state’s top education offices I talked to dismiss Madeloni’s rhetoric as naive, absurd, and, in the case of the moratorium, illegal. Mitchell Chester, the commissioner of the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), says he’s concerned that her “hyperbolic” vision may force the DESE to tune out the entire union.”

Chester may dismiss her, but teachers view her as a savior. “She’s the first MTA leader willing to listen to their agony, and to tell the truth about how teaching in the age of accountability can be, as Holyoke teacher Cheri Cluff puts it, “like waiting tables at a busy restaurant; you’re running and running and running, and you’ve lost your head.” Whereas past presidents and her opponent, MTA vice president Tim Sullivan, were willing to compromise with state administrators, Madeloni is combative, unapologetic, and, as Agustin Morales, another Holyoke teacher, says, “unafraid to make her life uncomfortable.”

Morales, the article notes, was elected president of his local in Holyoke with a 70% majority; he complained about the data walls, where students’ names and test scores are publicly posted. He was fired.

Madeloni is a fighter. She is outspoken and unafraid. Will she be marginalized by the state? Can the state alienate its largest union? Watch for the battles ahead. Madeloni was elected to stand up for teachers. Richard Stutman of the Boston Teachers Union has agreed to collaborate with her.

Zak Jason concluded:

“When I first talked to Madeloni soon after her election, she agreed to have me follow her throughout her first week. But just before her presidency began, she told me, “As a psychotherapist, I know the presence of someone else in the room can affect how the room behaves,” and said she would only be available for an interview, and her communications director James Sacks would join.

“As I’m about to leave her office, Madeloni turns to Sacks and asks, half-joking, “Is there anything I didn’t say that I was supposed to say?”

“What’s your vision?” he says.

“That we reclaim the vision of public education as a space for democracy, for joy, for hope, for a better future for all of our children. All of our children.”

Categories Massachusetts, Pearson, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Why Does the U.S. Test More Often and Earlier than Any High-Performing Nation?

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
30

Education policymakers in the U.S. seem to think that more tests will produce higher achievement, but there is no evidence for this assumption. As this article from the Center on International Education Benchmarking shows, the U.S. tests more frequently than any of the world’s high-performing nations.

Jackie Kraemer writes:

“Unlike the top-performing countries on the 2012 PISA, the United States stands out for the amount of external testing it requires for all students. As the chart below shows, the United States is the only country among this set to require annual testing in primary and middle schools in reading and mathematics. A more typical pattern among the top-performers is a required gateway exam, or an exam that allows a student to move on to the next phase of education, at the end of primary school, the end of lower secondary school and the end of upper secondary school. This is true of Canada (Ontario), China (Shanghai), Estonia, Poland and Singapore. In some of these cases, the secondary school exams are used to determine placement in the next level of schooling such as in Singapore and Shanghai where the lower school-leaving exam determines placement in upper secondary school. And in Poland, Shanghai and Singapore the upper secondary academic exam functions as an admission exam for university. This differs from the United States where annual tests are used primarily for school and teacher accountability purposes.”

“How tests are used is also different among the high performers. South Korea and Japan test only for diagnostic purposes in the primary schools, and South Korea continues to test for diagnostic purposes through 10th grade. It is at the secondary level that they introduce the high stakes exams for students, with Japanese students required to take an entrance exam for upper secondary school and students in both countries required to take tests at the end of upper secondary school that will determine what kind of higher education institution they can enter. These tests are recognized as very high pressure for students and both countries are trying to address that issue. In both Korea and Japan, some students enter a vocational training system at the upper secondary level and take tests to qualify for vocational credentials rather than the tests for entry into university.

“Hong Kong and Finland have no required testing until the end of upper secondary school. Taiwan is a bit of a hybrid, with no required testing in primary school, but a Basic Competency Test at the end of lower secondary (along with three required tests a year in each of three subjects during lower secondary) that determines admission to upper secondary school.”

We can’t test our way to success. The more time devoted to testing, the less time available for instruction. tests are best usedfor diagnostic purposes. tests with stakes attached are delayed in these nations until secondary schools. We should learn from the leaders of the pack.

Categories International, Testing

New Jersey Bloggers: An Open Letter to Tom Moran, Chief Editorial Writer @Star-Ledger

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
16

Three New Jersey bloggers–Jersey Jazzman, Marie Corfield, and Ani McHugh–here jointly respond to Tom Moran, chief editorial writer for the Star-Ledger and chief cheerleader for Newark’s state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson. Their open letter was jointly posted on their blogs at 7 a.m. This morning. Although Moran has ignored them and any other critics of the Christie-Anderson plan to eliminate public schools in Newark, they are hoping that their collaboration might get his attention.

They write:

“Until now, your pieces in the Star-Ledger about Newark’s school system and the reorganization of the district have been ill-informed and reckless. You’ve ignored the warnings of teachers, parents, community leaders, researchers, and students, preferring instead to cling to recycled talking points crafted by those with scant little experience in education policy, but much to gain in profits.

“You’ve paid a price: like your ridiculous attempt to walk back from your disastrous endorsement of Chris Christie, your continuing effort to support State Superintendent Cami Anderson while distancing yourself from the consequences of her catastrophic leadership has shredded any integrity you had left as a journalist. Any standing your newspaper had left as a champion of the people of Newark has also eroded: as with Anderson, no one in the city trusts you or the Star-Ledger’s editorial page anymore.
“Shame on you for refusing to educate yourself about the policies you endorse.”

“But as awful as your previous meanderings about Newark’s schools have been, at least you never had the bad taste to try to pawn off Anderson’s failures and your own poor judgement to others. At least you never tried to make the case that the impending disaster of One Newark was the fault of anyone but the Christie administration, its appointed superintendent, and her enablers in government and the press.

“This week, however, you crossed that line. We have tried individually in the past to get your attention and set the record straight to no avail (see all the links later in this piece). Therefore, we—professional educators with a combined total of seven degrees, a PhD in the works, and 38 years of teaching experience—who, along with countless others across this state, have stood against the illogical, faith-based, and racist education policies you espouse for Newark regularly from your position of influence, have come together to deliver you a message.”

They document that Newark’s charters do not serve the same population as Newark Public Schools. They do not have the same proportion of students who are poor, have special needs, or don’t speak English.

They write:

“The sad truth is that parents in your town of Montclair (or any other mostly white, mostly wealthy suburban community) would never willingly subject their own children to what’s happening in Newark right now:

“Public schools being closed without community input

“Children in the same family being sent to different schools in different parts of town on a transportation system that’s never been tested

“Tax dollars going to a school system that is separate and unequal: that segregates the neediest students from those who are the easiest and least expensive to educate

“The harsh, unforgiving “no excuses” disciplinary policies that are characteristic of so many charter schools

“Mass layoffs of education professionals

“A superintendent who has been a colossal failure at fiscal management

“Schools in such disrepair that they are unsafe to occupy

“A superintendent who refuses to listen, who refuses to attend board of ed meetings, and who is not supported by the community

“In fact, the parents of Montclair are fighting back right now, but you have not written one word about it. Why is it okay for them to fight back, but when the parents of Newark do so, you accuse them of “shrieking” and being “shrill and unreasonable”? Are the parents of Newark not smart enough to know what’s good for their own children? Don’t you think they can smell a rat as well as someone from the ‘burbs?

“Public education belongs to the public. The board of ed is answerable to all the people. But in Newark? Meh, what do those people know? They have no money, so they have no voice. They aren’t the right skin color, so they have no voice. They can’t write big campaign checks, so they have no voice. They aren’t concerned parents. They are, in your words:”

They write much more.

You can read their cri de coeur, their plea for fairness for the children and parents of Newark here, here, here, and here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, New Jersey

Jeff Bryant: Time to Regulate Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2014 //
20

Jeff Bryant of the Education Opportunity Network notes that the charter industry has launched an advertising campaign to sell the charter idea to the public. But, writes Bryant, there have been so many revelations of corruption, self-dealing, and rogiterring by charter schools in recent months that the public should be wary of their self-promotion. What’s needed now, he says, is state regulation of charters to protect children and taxpayers.

Bryant says that the more that the public learned about Common Core, the less they supported it. He sees the same phenomenon happening with charters.

“A similar evolution may be occurring with charter schools. Because only about 6 percent of school children are enrolled in charters, the vast majority of Americans have had virtually no actual experiences with these schools. But in communities where charters are more prevalent, public opinion is more starkly divided. In school systems such as Philadelphia, Bridgeport, Pittsburgh, and Chicago, where charter schools are major providers, parents and local officials have increasingly opposed charter takeovers of their neighborhood schools.

“Probably even more concerning to charter school advocates is the news that credit rating agency Standards & Poor’s recently down-rated the nation’s charter sector to a “negative” outlook.”

When the public sees charter operators taking money away from their local public school, and when they see them enriching themselves at taxpayers’ expense, not even a slick ad campaign can wipe away the negative reaction.

Categories Charter Schools
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