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2 Albany Charter Schools May Be Closed

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2014 //
9

New York State regulators may close two of Albany’s charter schools, sponsored by the Brighter Choice Foundation.

“Copies of the letters sent to the Brighter Choice school officials were not immediately available Monday, but the recommendation was based on academic performance, according to a person familiar with the situation.If the institute formally adopts the recommendation it would mean more than one-third of the dozen charter schools that once made Albany ground zero for the contentious debate about their role in public education in New York will have closed in recent years.”

Two other Brighter Choice charters have closed in the past two years.

This is a big deal, because Albany had a larger percentage of its students in charters than any other city in the state.

Brighter Choice opened nearly a dozen charters in the state’s Capitol. It is very high-profile. An article in the conservative journal “Education Next” in 2009 called Brighter Choice charters “the Holy Grail” of school reform because it had achieved both high academic performance and scale.

A state audit last year criticized one of the schools in the charter chain for spending too much on leasing facilities from—who else?—the Brighter Choice Foundation. Auditors said the school could have saved from $200,000 to $2.3 million if it had purchased the elementary school by issuing debt instead of continuing to lease the building from the foundation.

The founder of Brighter Choice is Tom Carroll, who helped to write the charter law when he worked for the Pataki administration in 1998 and is on the boards of several charters. He has often written opinion pieces in Néw York City tabloids extolling the virtues of charters.

Categories Charter Schools, New York

Why the Obamas Should Teach in an Urban School after 2016

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2014 //
53

Howard Gardner and Jim Reese have a “modest proposal” for the Obamas when his term in office ends. They think the First Couple should teach in an urban public school (not a charter school), a school that accepts all children and operates under typical state and federal mandates and regulations.

This idea came to them when they read that the President told an interviewer:

” I understand, certainly sitting in this office, that probably the single most important thing I could do for poor black kids is to make sure that they’re getting a good K-through-12 education… I love teaching. I miss the classroom and engaging with students.”

What better place for him than an urban classroom? Assuming Mrs. Obama shares his passion, she too could serve as a teacher, helping the neediest children.

But, say the authors, there is much they need to learn.

“First, there’s the preparation for entering the classroom. The traditional teacher licensure pathway entails a number of courses as well as time in school learning the ropes from veteran educators. In the past two decades, however, “alternative” pathways have made it easier for professionals to make a transition to teaching on a faster track. Before entering the classroom the Obamas should learn about theories of child development, classroom management, and effective teaching and learning practices.

“Second, there’s the induction into the profession. While it would be quite intimidating for any classroom teacher or administrator to supervise the Obamas, it’s vital that the Obamas benefit from being mentored by outstanding veteran teachers. We should not expect anything less for any new teacher entering the profession!

And then there are the daily challenges, such as:

“*being held accountable for their students’ standardized test scores, no matter that those students might have pronounced learning challenges, still be in the process of learning English, or face serious problems outside school that affect their performance in school;

“*balancing what could very well be a rigid, uninteresting curriculum, mandated by the school board or other powers that be, against a desire to engage students and let their own passions drive the learning;

“*staying on top of major school-, county- or state-wide initiatives—often contradictory, and often changing on an annual basis—about which teachers have very little say;

“*or dealing with de-moralized colleagues who feel the changes in public education over the past 20 years have robbed them of the capacity to be creative, passionate or innovative in their practice.”

The alternative pathways into teaching like TFA and the few successful charter chains like KIPP–both endowed with many millions of federal dollars–affect the lives of a tiny percentage of children, they say. They do not affect the overall system that most children experience. The Presidential couple could make a significant contribution by calling attention to the real problems in typical schools.

Categories Education Reform, Obama, Teachers and Teaching

Gene Glass: Prof. Raymond, Meet Prof. Boulding

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2014 //
7

Margaret (Macke) Raymond directs CREDO, which reviews charter school performance. After her latest Ohio study, she told the Cleveland City Club that the market doesn’t work in education. Or at least not now and not in Ohio, where charter performance is dismal.

Gene Glass, a prominent senior researcher at Arizona State University, here suggests that Raymond should become familiar with the work of economist Kenneth Boulding.
———-

Gene Glass writes:

Wikipedia describes Kenneth Ewart Boulding as “… an economist, educator, peace activist, poet, religious mystic, devoted Quaker, systems scientist, and interdisciplinary philosopher. “ Indeed, Ken Boulding was all of those things and many more. At the University of Michigan in the 1950-60s, he founded the General Systems society with Ludwig von Bertalanffy. Born in Liverpool in 1910, he was educated at Oxford (Masters degree).

His textbook, Economic Analysis (1941) was virtually the introduction to Keynesianism to American academics. He never obtained a doctorate, though surely he never felt the want of one due to the many honorary doctorates he received. In his long career, he served as president of the Amer. Econ. Assoc. and the AAAS, among other organizations. He died in Boulder in 1993.

I was very lucky to be situated at the University of Colorado when Boulding left Michigan in 1967 to join the Economic Department at Boulder. I had joined the faculty there in 1966. Within a few years the word spread that this new fellow in Economics was someone to listen to. Twice, in the early 1970s, I sat through his undergraduate course in General Systems. The undergraduates had no idea how lucky they were; I was enthralled. Boulding was a Liverpudlian, and that coupled with a pronounced stammer made listening to him lecture extremely demanding. But somehow the effort produced greater concentration. I can recall so many of the things he said though more than 40 years have passed. “”The invention of the correlation coefficient was the greatest disaster of the 19th century, for it permitted the subtitution of arithmetic for thinking.”

From 1969 through 1971, I was editing the Review of Educational Research for the American Educational Research Association (AERA). In the office, I enjoyed a few small privileges in connection with the 1971 Annual Meeting. For one, I could invite a speaker to address the assembled conventioneers. I invited Boulding. An expanded version of his talk was published in the Review of Educational Research (Vol. 42, No. 1, 1972, pp. 129-143). I have never read anything else by an economist addressing schooling that equals it.

Here is the merest sampling of what he wrote:

Schools may be financed directly out of school taxes, in which case the school system itself is the taxing authority and there is no intermediary, or they may be financed by grants from other taxing authorities, such as states or cities. In any case, the persons who receive the product-whether this is knowledge, skill, custodial care, or certification-are not the people who pay for it. This divorce between the recipient of the product and the payer of the bills is perhaps the major element in the peculiar situation of the industry that may lead to pathological results. (pp. 134-135)

Boulding originated the notion of the “grants economy” in which A grants a payment to B who delivers a service or product to C. Of course, this turned on its head the paradigm used by most economists, who imagine C paying B for services or products. When Boulding referred to this grants economy underlying schooling as leading to “pathological results,” he was referring to the fact that the schooling industry is “not normal,” i.e. does not follow the course of classical economic models. In the years ensuing since Boulding’s early forays into this notion, the grants economy has become increasingly important to understanding a nation’s economy.
Boulding was considered a bit of a rebel. David Latzko wrote of Boulding that “The narrow bounds of the economics discipline could not contain his interests and talents.” Perhaps this accounts for why many traditional economists have not followed him where reality leads. Perhaps this is why Dr. Margaret Raymond could pronounce so recently that “And it’s the only industry/sector [schooling]where the market mechanism just doesn’t work.” In fact, the “market mechanism” fails to work in many sectors.

But back to Dr. Raymond. Margaret Raymond is the head of the Hoover Institution’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes. As key researcher in charge of the first big CREDO study of charter schools that dropped on the charter school lobby with a big thud: charter schools no better than old fashion public schools, some good, some really bad. And then more recently, CREDO under Raymond’s direction conducted a study of charter schools in Ohio, a locale that has known its problems attempting to keep charter schools out of the newspapers and their operators out of jail. What did this second CREDO charter school study find? Charter schools in Ohio are a mess.

All of this bad news for the charter school folks caused Dr. Raymond to go before the Cleveland Club and confess thusly:

“This is one of the big insights for me. I actually am kind of a pro-market kinda girl. But it doesn’t seem to work in a choice environment for education. I’ve studied competitive markets for much of my career. That’s my academic focus for my work. And it’s the only industry/sector [schooling] where the market mechanism just doesn’t work.”

Of course, it is positively absurd to think that schooling is the only “industry” in which free markets just don’t work. And Dr. Raymond didn’t give up entirely on the free market ideology for education — she would probably have to find a professional home outside the Hoover Institution if she did. She went on to tell the Cleveland Club that more transparency and information for parents will probably do the trick.

Frankly parents have not been really well educated in the mechanisms of choice.… I think the policy environment really needs to focus on creating much more information and transparency about performance than we’ve had for the 20 years of the charter school movement.

So parents just aren’t smart enough to be trusted to make choices in a free market of schooling, and they need more information, like test scores, I presume. I’ll leave Dr. Raymond at this point, and recommend that she and her associates at the Hoover Institution spend a little more time with Kenneth Boulding’s writings.

Gene V Glass
Arizona State University
National Education Policy Center
University of Colorado Boulder

The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the National Education Policy Center, Arizona State University, nor the University of Colorado Boulder.

—
Posted By Gene V Glass to Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds

Categories Charter Schools

How Charter Operators Get Rich

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2014 //
25

Charter Schools USA is a very successful for-profit business. It is very profitable. Its CEO Jonathan Hage is an entrepreneur, not an educator. The company’s headquarters are in Florida but it operates 70 charter schools in seven states. It hopes to take over the entire York, Pennsylvania, school district. The money to operate the charter schools come out of money that would otherwise go to district public schools.

How does Hage and the corporation make big money? It is not the management fee of 5%. It’s the rent.

As Channel 10 learned in its investigation, charters profit handsomely by paying outsize rent to themselves.

“When the company helps open a new school, its development arm, Red Apple Development, acquires land and constructs a school. Then, CUSA charges the school high rent.

“For example, Winthrop Charter in Riverview may struggle to balance its budget this year thanks to a $2 million rent payment to CUSA/Red Apple Development. The payment will equate to approximately 23% of its budget, even though CUSA CEO Jon Hage has been quoted as saying charter school rent should not exceed 20%.”

The corporation says that as long as test scores are high and parents are happy, the profits are no problem.

“But among CUSA’s critics is the League of Women Voters, which recently released a study suggesting a troubling lack of separation between a charter school’s advisory board and for-profit management companies. It also indicates charter school teachers aren’t often paid as well and profits all-too-often play a role in educational decisions.

“That means that children aren’t getting what they’re owed by the public funding,” said Pat Hall, a retired Jefferson High department head and Hillsborough County’s education chair for the League of Women Voters.

“The study also revealed school choice creates a higher risk of disruption to a child’s education, as “statewide closure rate of charters is 20%” and “Charters are 50% of all F-rated schools in 2011.” In the last week, last-minute problems displaced a hundreds of charter school students from St. Petersburg to Delray Beach.

“Hall acknowledges many charter schools are teaching children in unique and successful ways, but says Charter Schools USA isn’t offering students anything that’s not available in public schools. She adds that the schools are so focused on FCAT fundamentals, they forego many traditional aspects of the school experience.”

CUSA schools often don’t have a library or cafeteria, but school officials tout the superiority of eating in the classroom and having a classroom library.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit

Laura Chapman: The Biggest Enabler of a Dual School System: Our Federal Government

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2014 //
30

The federal government has been a strong funder of privately managed charter schools since the Presidency of Bill Clinton. The charter movement got a solid boost from his support of what were supposed to be laboratories of innovation, collaborating with public schools.

Until the past decade, the role of the United States Secretary of Education was to improve public education. Since the Presidency of George W. Bush, the federal government has put its massive political and financial weight on the side of privatization. The Bush revisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act–renamed “No Child Left Behind”–created a series of steps that were ruinous to the nation’s public schools. Given the unrealistic mandate that every students in every school must be proficient in reading and math by 2014—a goal met by no state and by no other nation–the public schools were set up for failure. The sanctions for failing to meet this impossible goal were all punitive, no help: firing the staff, closing the school, turning the school into a charter school, state takeover of the school. Not one of the sanctions had any evidence to support its efficacy. Yet both parties went along with a bill whose goal was to undermine, weaken, close, and stigmatize the nation’s public schools. Of course, matters got even worse when Barack Obama was elected and chose Arne Duncan as his Secretary of Education. Duncan hired his key staff from groups (e.g., the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation) that actively promoted privatization and high-stakes testing (that led to privatization). Duncan never lost a chance to bemoan the “mediocrity” and “low expectations” of public schools, or to praise the success of privately managed charters.

 

In this toxic climate, Congress and the U.S. Department of Education have created numerous financial rewards for those who with to open or expand charter school, thus encouraging the advance of privatization. Make no mistake. This is a historic turn of events in our nation’s education system, away from a public responsibility to a market-based approach to opening and closing schools, with test scores as the only gauge of quality, with indifference to desegregation, and with lessened accountability for charter schools whose owners are politically connected.

 

Our frequent commentator Laura Chapman has gathered a summary of federal programs that encourage privatization; these grants are enhanced by hundreds of millions of dollars from private foundations, including the Walton (Walmart) Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Dell Foundation, the Arnold Foundation, the Helmsley Foundation, the Fisher Family (the Gap) Foundation, and many more.

Chapman writes:

 

 

Corruption in charters is aided and abetted by U.S. Department of Education, directly and indirectly by your taxes and mine.

 
Investments available in 2014 from USDE, and note that much of this money was authorized in the No Child Left Behind Act.

 

The USDE 2014 Funding for Charter School Programs (ESEA, Title V, Part B, Subpart 1) Total = $248.1 Million.

 
1. State Education Agency (SEA) Grants and Non-SEA Grants: (ESEA,Title V, Part B, Subpart 1) $153.9 Million. These Grants are awarded on a competitive basis to SEAs, who in turn, make subgrants to charter schools. But, when SEAs do not apply for or they are denied funding, individual charter schools can apply directly to the USDE. Funding is used to help cover charter school start-up costs.
2. Replication & Expansion Grant. $60.1 Million. Grants are awarded on a competitive basis to non-profit charter management organizations (CMOs) that have demonstrated success, including improved academic achievement.
3. National Leadership Activities Grant (ESEA,Title V, Part B, Subpart 1) $11 Million. Competitive grants fund projects of national significance to improve charter school quality, as well as money to disseminate information about the projects.
4. State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grant (ESEA,Title V, Part B, Subpart 1) $11 Million. Competitive grants to states to help cover charter school facilities costs.
5. Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program (ESEA, Title V, Part B, Subpart 2) $11.9 Million. Competitive grants to public and non-profit entities that enhance the ability of public charter schools to raise private capital to acquire, construct, renovate, or lease academic facilities.
In October,2014 USDE announced grants to 27 charter organizations in 12 states worth $39.7 million.
For Replication and Expansion. Here is one sure to insult New Yorkers: the fabulous Success Academy Charter Schools, for $2,234,500. The biggest overall winner is KIPP for $13,789,074 worth of expansion, and the biggest winner by state is California $26,780,502 followed by Tennessee, $3,112,402
For Planning, Program Design, and Implementation Grants, the biggest winner at $308,270 is the Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation, operator of Gulen charters with issues with scandal documented at .http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/2010/07/chesapeake-science-point-charter-school.html
The big winner by state for start-ups is Washington, with four new charters funded at $1,122,606, about $250.000 per school. Next is Oregon, with three new schools, $692,427 total, Illinois with three, including expansion of the Nobel network already in 12 states and saturating greater Chicago. Total for Illinois-based operations $575,705.

 

information sources: http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-awards-397-million-grants-expand-high-quality-charter-sc///are the following and http://www.publiccharters.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/FundingFlowChartFY14.pdf/////////

Categories Charter Schools, Duncan, Arne, U.S. Department of Education

Forbes: Don’t Talk Nonsense About Firing Teachers

By dianeravitch
December 23, 2014 //
37

Of all places, Forbes–widely read by business folk–has a terrific article about why it’s a dumb idea to make a campaign of firing teachers, as “reformers” have. The writer, Nick Morrison, is a regular contributor to Forbes. He quite rightly says that the real problem is keeping and supporting teachers, not firing them.

“While it may excite conservative commentators, this proposal is doomed to fail, not least because firing teachers requires finding replacements, and there is no guarantee they will be any better, if they exist at all.

“But there is another side to this debate, and that is the difficulty of keeping teachers in the classroom. Not just good teachers, but any teachers….

“Teacher retention is a problem familiar to school leaders across education systems. In the U.S. an estimated 40-50% of teachers leave within the first five years and the attrition rates of first year teachers have increased by about a third in the last two decades.

“A report by the House of Commons education committee found similar retention levels in England, while in Australia research suggests almost half of new teachers leave within five years.

“Why are they leaving? The obvious answer might be low pay and student behaviour, but studies in all three countries suggest this is not the case. Instead, the main culprits are lack of support and workload issues.

“The latter is tied into growing levels of accountability in public education. While taxpayers quite rightly want to see that they are getting value for money from schools, this has translated into an increasingly heavy burden on teachers in terms of paperwork.”

It’s good to see common sense in a mainstream publication.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Columbus Dispatch Calls for Regulation of Ohio Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2014 //
25

The Columbus Dispatch published a tough editorial calling on Governor Kasich and the Legislation to pass meaningful regulations for charter schools. It begins:

 

Ohioans who support school choice long have been frustrated by the dismal performance, overall, of the state’s charter schools.

 

A study released recently by one of the nation’s foremost scholars of charter schools shows just how dismal: Ohio charters not only perform worse than traditional public schools, but the gap is growing larger.

 

Fortunately, another, equally credible study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute explains why many of Ohio’s charter schools are weak and how to fix them. These studies should be required reading for every member of the next General Assembly.

 

Gov. John Kasich is paying attention; in an address on Thursday, he pledged to work with lawmakers next year to develop “tough regulations” for charter schools.

 

In the first study, the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO), of Stanford University, paired individual charter-school students with “virtual twins” — demographically similar students at a conventional public school from which the charter school draws.

 

In 2009, on average, Ohio charter-school students and those in traditional schools made about the same amount of progress in reading, but charter-school students ended up 43 “learning days” behind their virtual twins in math. Four years later, the picture was worse for charter schools: They remained about 43 days behind in math, and were 14 days behind in reading.

 

The poor performance is no mystery; it’s the result of a law that is indifferent to quality and encourages abuse.

 

Some flaws in the law may be honest mistakes. For example, many thought in 1997 that allowing a broad array of sponsors would allow the greatest amount of competition and thus the best choices. But it turns out that many of Ohio’s 67 authorizers lack either the expertise or the good faith to competently oversee schools.

 

In other areas, though, Ohio charter law is designed to favor for-profit school-operating companies over the interests of students. No mystery there, either; for-profit education companies are major campaign contributors.

 

One of the worst provisions allows sponsor/authorizers, the supposed watchdogs over charter schools, to sell services to those schools, thereby creating a strong incentive for them to keep a bad school open. Another, which strips charter-school boards of the power to fire unsatisfactory school operators, was called by one national policy analyst “the most breathtaking abuse in the nation.”

 

In my view, the Legislature should start by banning for-profit management of charters. Get the greed out of operating a school. Educators should be fairly compensated for their work, but no one should go to the bank with millions of dollars that are then used for campaign contributions to protect their fiefdom.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Ohio

The Victory Against Fracking Contains Lessons for Education Activists

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2014 //
32

This article, which appeared at The Daily Kos, explains how “Fractivists” won the battle to ban hydraulic fracking in New York State.

 

The Fractivists planned a political battle and a smart strategy. Education activists in every state can learn lessons from their success.

 

Whenever people say, “What can we do? The other side has so much money, the other side has so much political power. We are helpless.”  Read what the Fractivists did. They had neither money nor political power, and they won.

Categories Education Reform

Edward F. Berger: Where Charters Went Wrong

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2014 //
7

Edward F. Berger describes his experience as part of a team of parents and educators who created one of the first charter school in Arizona. At that time, in the mid-1990s, charters were held to high standards of accountability.

 

But then the charter movement changed. Instead of working to strengthen public education, it began to see itself as a competitor and received funding from enemies of public education.

 

Charter schools, he writes, like district schools, are designed to fail. However, unlike district schools, they have become a vehicle for privatization and undermining teacher professionalism.

 

He writes:

 

The Koch-ALEC machine saw ‘school choice’ and ‘charter schools’ as a vehicle to carry out their mission. Within a short time they were able to control legislatures, by-pass or infiltrate the state school boards, and set up appointed (not elected) boards/organizations to “supervise” charter schools. These new boards stripped away accountability.They opened the gates to a chaos of partial schools with little accountability to children and taxpayers.

In most states, the politicians in charge followed the direction of corporations controlled by The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the parent of this organization, the Koch-funded continuation of the John Birch Society and its tenets. (Google ALEC, and verify this information). These powerful, well-funded politicians have several guiding tenets:
1) To destroy public education (not just district schools).
2) To destroy all forms of worker representation (associations, unions);
3) To “privatize” public tax dollars for their own use and profit
4) To end Representative Democracy in America.

 

This is a post you should read.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools

A Teacher’s Advice to Governor Cuomo

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2014 //
10

Dan McConnell, a teacher in New York state, offers his advice to Governor Cuomo:

 

 

This is my response to the letter written by Jim Malatras, Director of State Operations for Governor Cuomo. His letter to the NYSED chancellor and commissioner goes to great to focus blame on teachers for the failings of public education, highlight carefully picked popular teacher-bashing statistics, while also asking that in response to his loaded questions: politicizing is avoided.

 

Dear Mr. Jim Malatras, Governor Cuomo, Chancellor Tisch, and Commissioner King,

 

As you know, citizens of the state of New York have an obligation to hold their elected officials responsible for the policies they promote, the people they appoint, and the words they either write or speak-whether it’s campaign season or not. It is one of the most important things we can do: model for our children the civic duties to promote honest, productive leadership for the good of all, and eliminate the destructive policy-making that promotes narrow interests and inequities in opportunity. Although those in education policy and in other leadership positions have spoken strongly about the need for improvement in educational outcomes for public school students, they have chosen to pursue this goal with an attack on public education as the source of problems-while largely ignoring the greater burdens facing students, families, and schools. Despite the ongoing damage of market-based policies and data-driven, investment style formulas- this is the precise type of approach to education that is currently being called “reform”.

 

We all can agree that this is simply unacceptable.

 

The citizens of New York believe in leadership with a foundation in good character, informed and guided by the people of the state over the narrow interests that have already divided wealth with growing disparity and reduced opportunity for the majority of people. Character-based leadership would be evident when citizens do not have their value, or the value of their children, defined by a market-driven approach where people are turned into data and that data gets churned in a so-called “value-added” system. A market based approach such as this prioritizes the goals of the market and squanders the true value in public education. While citizens understand that it is difficult for politicians to free themselves from their intimate relationships with big-money donors, advisors driving policy while avoiding accountability, and the desire to remain politically positioned for future campaigns and opportunities, it is more important to promote the needs of the many over the greed of the few. So let’s reframe the narrative regarding education reform. Instead of blatant attack on those coming to schools burdened by the failures in our leadership, and those serving the public in order to address those failures, let’s focus on systemic reform. It is time for leaders to own up to their responsibilities and submit themselves to evaluation and accountability with the same fervor with which they demand those from the public.

 

As you know, the public has had little influence over the roll-out and roll-ahead of destructive forces behind misguided reforms in our state. The most that concerned citizens have been able to get is a short-lived “listening tour” from Commissioner King, a campaign-season admission from the governor that common core standards were rolled out ineffectively and a television ad regarding the importance of kitchen tables and parents. For the most part, though, officials at the state level have essentially gave up listening long ago and continue repeating talking points and party lines. But parents, students and educators have had, from the beginning, many questions about how leadership in our state and in education policy could have degraded to this extent. What can be done to answer these questions?

 

In essence, how can we address what is really wrong with how education is currently funded, organized, and evaluated in New York, where the root causes of student-struggles are ignored and the one group continually burdened with undoing the damage done by lack of character in leadership and failed economic and social policies gets blamed?

 

Please give your opinion on these questions without the typical parsing of words that is the hallmark of those wishing to sound willing and interested while at the same time avoiding responsibility. Truly enlightened policy comes when citizens know what policy makers think.

 

1. How is the current lack of equity in funding and opportunity for students in public schools a defensible condition if the future of public school systems and teaching careers hang in the balance based results impacted by funding inequities? Data shows that the best funded schools spend in the neighborhood of 80% more per-pupil and enjoy about double the proficiency rates on state tests. State test results being the governor’s go-to criticism of public education should ride tandem with his admission that funding inequities need to be addressed. How does the governor plan on addressing funding inequities?

 

2. Should students, families, schools and educators be reaped for private and personal data to serve commercial interests? In addition, should testing companies enjoy privacy and protection in the process of test design and scoring when the tests themselves are intended to be used on public school students with results to be shared publicly? The governor’s own reform commission cited the importance of collaboration in moving forward with reform and this approach to assessment is in opposition to that goal. How will the governor increase collaboration with the professionals who understand teaching, learning and the best use for assessments?

 

3. Along with number 2, should testing companies and third-party vendors enjoy profitable state contracts for creating high stakes tests when actual educators could design and use tests as intended-not as high stakes end-product but to inform instruction and intervention going into the future?

 

4. Should educators be elevated to enemy number one in the battle for student outcomes when it is the investment/banking/finance industry that has done the most damage to parents and kitchen tables (the most important tools a student can have)and has still enjoyed the greatest protection from policy makers?

 

5. Should charter schools enjoy promotion and praise without operating under the same level of scrutiny and mandates? Often, charter schools are run by those with few (if any) credentials, have enrollment that can be shaped and filtered, and students that prove difficult or may threaten high proficiency rates are counseled out. How will the practice of creating additional charters ensure that it is about all students, not just a few, and prevents public dollars from going into the pockets of undeserving private charter-school operators?

 

6. While promotion to the national level seems to be the reward for an education commissioner who appeared disconnected from the citizens and students of New York, the opportunity for new leadership and a new direction holds promise. What new approach is planned for the next commissioner?

 

7. Can the many hundreds of thousands of teachers in New York, being paid quite poorly compared to other professionals with graduate degrees, serving in some cases difficult and dangerous student populations in under-funded and over-mandated schools really be called a “special interest”? Can the small group of very wealthy individuals and the corporations looking to cash in on the standards-curriculum-testing-“school choice” agendas be less of a “special interest”? Teachers’ special interest is being allowed and empowered to do what is best for students and to not be made to suffer for doing it. How will education policy moving forward make this possible?

 

8. While the state regulations describe pathways and opportunities available to all students, the reality is that funding does not support availability of these opportunities to all students in all schools. Can teachers be blamed for this? How will the governor address this?

 

9. Can the governor, the commissioner, or most of the regents look into the eyes of a student who comes from a violent and broken home and know instinctively how to approach that student first thing in the morning to make the rest of the day go as well as possible? Who among you is willing to admit that the ability to teach, to an extent, is a gift that often can’t be reduced to data on a spreadsheet and the positive gains realized with this type of student are outside of what any standardized test can show. How does the governor plan to honor that gift and reverse the tide of turning education into sterilized training?

 

It is clear that powerful people are driving the agenda to turn public education into a game of numbers that absolves leaders from the moral obligation to target the true areas of need for reform. The bureaucracy of the wealthy minority (silent advisors, campaign donors and private interests) that enjoys influence over policy that restricts opportunity for the majority of citizens presents a challenge we must face cooperatively. As the commissioner prepares to take his reform agenda to the national level, it will be good to hear his thoughts on how to break free of the status quo of wealth-driven inequity for public school students.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dan McConnell

Categories Education Reform
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