You too can learn to be a “no excuses” teacher in a charter school that gets high test scores. There are a few changes required in your attitude; you too can earn a new graduate degree from a new graduate school that will remold your personality and teach you not to accept any excuses. Paternalistic? Yes. Colonialist? Call it that if you wish. Results are what matters.
All you need to do is enroll in a “graduate school” designed specifically for no-excuses charters. You will learn the tricks and techniques of raising test scores. You will learn the chants and slogans necessary for grit, silence, and lining up single-file. You won’t have to waste your time on the history, sociology, economics, or philosophy of education. You won’t waste your time on research. You will earn a masters degree that no genuine university rrecognizes.
But so what? You will learn how to get those test scores.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks for the memory, Diane. When one of the earliest “No Excuses” “studies” was published about 11 or 12 years ago, Jerry Bracey and I had fun debunking it. Jerry discovered that the author had been a divinity student with no research background or teaching experience. I got precise about the three “No Excuses” Chicago schools in context, showing how the claims were nonsense. The old Phi Delta Kappan (before it was bought by Eli Broad) actually published our research, debunking the original “No Excuses” completely.
But that never stopped a good lie from continuing in the service of corporate “school reform.” Thanks for the reminder as we continue this struggle.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Re: PDK Wow times have really changed. When I joined this fraternity it was prestigious and the research was well respected. Guess I haven’t missed much over the years.
LikeLike
Isn’t this degree conferred on most if not all TFAs already? They get quicky-lube masters degrees. Kind of like Broad’s weekend Supes “academy” – oh, and the politicians just LOVE them. Ka-ching.
LikeLike
Yep. And if the university in your area has an ex-TFA-with-3-years-of-teaching phenom as the dean of the College of Education, they set up a quicky-lube special “masters” program for TFA in direct competition with a REAL masters degree teaching program for REAL teachers. Then when the ex-TFA-with-3-years-of-teaching phenom goes to work for the Gates Foundation instead, your university is stuck with a money-losing program that has also served to lower the standing and respect afforded the university and the College of Ed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Name names, K!
LikeLike
University of Washington
Tom Stritikus
http://crosscut.com/2011/06/10/seattle-schools/21000/Teach-for-America-in-Seattle-Tracing-big-push-from/
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/08/uw-college-of-education-dean-leaving-for-gates-foundation/
LikeLike
“. . . participants will be hired to work full time as Residents at Uncommon Schools where they will help increase student achievement. . . ”
Yep, gotta “increase student achievement”. What a beautiful thing, makes me have to dry my eyes just thinking how far that “increased student achievement” will take the students in their lives.
LikeLike
“Mis antenitas de vinil están detectando la presencia del enemigo/my little antennae of vinyl are detecting the presence of the enemy” [from that illustrious Mexican superhero of yesteryear, El Chapulín Colorado/The Red Grasshopper].
Said eduproduct delivery specialists [goods and services] that guarantee “achievement” and “performance” not to be confused with teachers that strive to create genuine learning and teaching environments.
Hmmmm… So the “for hire” signs won’t be out at—oh, let’s say, Lakeside School [Bill Gates] and Sidwell Friends [Barack Obama] and Delbarton School [Chris Christie] and Harpeth Hall [Michelle Rhee-Johnson] and U of Chicago Lab Schools [Rahm Emanuel] and such.
But not to fear. They’ll be lining up to interview with Eva Moskowitz so they can churn out those “little test-taking machines.”
Link: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/6707
Double-dealing? Hypocrisy? Not walking their own talk? Quality for mine, on the cheap for thine?
This from the cage busting achievement gap crushing leaders of the self-styled “education reform” movement of the 21st century?
Señor Swacker, say it isn’t so…
😳
LikeLike
More crime and fraud. Sad!
LikeLike
Appalling
LikeLike
Alternative credentialing is a big push, even for community volunteers in libraries, museums, after school programs. Anyone providing opportunities to learn is dubbed an “education service provider” or in the new rhetoric pushed by a local foundation is a “learning agent” in the new “performance economy.”
Same foundation generates future scenarios for individualized learning on various platforms with new roles for supporting learning, none of these requiring teachers or the institution of schools.
Not surprising, these scenarios are built from a mix of caricatures of schooling but they also leverage the dismal conditions created by federal and state policies, also forged to beat the drum for turnarounds, competition, transformative and disruptive redesigns, all leveraging market forces and working miracles. Yeh. Yeh. Yeh.
LikeLike
Here’s an article about the “inside” of a no excuses environment:
“One thing about these atmospheres is that they’re very uniform. Everybody is on board—you don’t have variability from teacher to teacher or class to class. The atmosphere is totalizing. And the children tend to model themselves after this authority. It has that effect on kids, that they identify with the rules of the regime and their identity becomes “a kid in this school who conforms to these rules.” Now some of the students, of course, don’t conform to the rules, and I think that if you get the kids later in life it’s much harder. But if you get them early, you develop their sense of self that accords with those of the authority. The adults know everything, they know nothing. Here’s what’s good, here’s what’s right. You’ll be successful and happy if you take on these characteristics. Without these rules you’ll be bad or impulsive and you’ll destroy your future. You may not be having fun but you’re doing what’s important. We know best. And the kids come to believe that. As the social psychologists have shown, in totalizing environments, that’s often the result. They call it “identification with the oppressor.” Here oppressor should be changed to authority. There is very, very strong authority in these schools. The teachers are novice teachers, so they get molded too. I don’t think you could take highly experienced teachers—20 years of running a classroom—and put them into these schools and have the same kind of experience. It’s a really interesting study to see how both the teachers and the kids get acculturated.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/19/why-no-excuses-charter-schools-mold-very-submissive-students-starting-in-kindergarten/
LikeLike
Sounds just a like a cult (or worse, the Hitler Youth)
Scary.
LikeLike
If you explore the Relay site, you will see that their business growth plan is to move from primarily training charter school staff to where the real money is – public education. This staff developer/instructional coach shudders at the thought of it.
LikeLike
Relay…so the race is on. Can I start my own school and college? I promise I’ll make the diplomas and degrees pretty and colorful and even include space for stickers. Please. Please?
LikeLike
Collins College has a nice ring to it. You can play Bowl games with Hollins U and Rollins College.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Do they give out arm bands?
LikeLike
I doubt they even give out band aids.
“There’s no excuse for that paper cut, Johnny. You should not have been using paper in the first place. Where’s your iPad?”
LikeLike
Our district is now using Naviance to help evaluate teachers by using student comments which must be required as part of this program? What is Naviance?
LikeLike
ANYONE with a moments thought can formulate tests which can be passed easily and scores will rise. Likewise with tests in which virtually everyone will fail. What does that prove? Besides that, education and academic achievement are NOT synonymous terms, something overlooked nowadays. Academics are important but so are integrity, virtue, critical thinking, humankind’s best thoughts etc etc. Which of history’s most important thinkers would evaluate education with paper and pencil test scores?
LikeLike
NY Charter Rally in NYT
LikeLike