Peter Greene poses a question in this post. If poor children get low test scores, does that mean that all those who teach poor children are bad teachers?
Peter is always funny in the way he presents the “a-ha!” moments in educational research, which are usually either obvious or dumb. Here he looks at a study in Education Next that considered a teacher evaluation program in Chicago. It worked best for the reading scores of advantaged children. It had zero effect on the reading scores of impoverished children. One conclusion might be that poverty matters. But the researchers instead reach a different conclusion.
Peter writes:
“Even though the data points to poverty as the big flashing neon sign of “Hey, here it is!” Steinberg and Sartain walk right past the blinking brightness to select again the teachers and principals as the cause. This is not so much mis-reading data as simply ignoring it. I’m not sure why they bothered with the big long article. They could have just typed, one more time, “Poor students do worse on standardized tests, therefor we conclude that the only possible explanation is that all the bad teachers in the world teach in high-poverty schools.” Also, I’ve noticed that whenever a building is on fire, there are firefighters there with big red trucks, so if you never want your building to burn down, keep firefighters and big red trucks away.
Lloyd Lofthouse notes the expansion of the charter sector in past decade-plus and wonders how this will affect public schools. We know from many state and city studies that charters don’t outperform public schools and that many are run by for-profit corporations. No high-performing nation is embarked on the destruction of its public education system by imposing charters and vouchers and allowing non-educators to open schools.
Lloyd Lofthouse writes:
Is there a site that lists all the private sector charters starting with the biggest chain. If the Walton’s have more than 1,600 (about 28% of total), wouldn’t their corporate Charters be the largest chain.
I found this:
From school year 1999–2000 to 2011–12, the percentage of all public schools that were public charter schools increased from 1.7 to 5.8 percent, and the total number of public charter schools increased from 1,500 to 5,700.
AN UPDATE: In November, U.S. News & World Report says, Number of U.S. Charter Schools Up 7 Percent, Report Shows.
The number of charter schools surpassed 6,000 at the start of the 2012-13 school year, as these schools – publicly financed, but privately run – steadily increased by 7 percent throughout the United States that year. This annual growth contributed to a 47 percent increase in the number of charter schools over the seven years since 2006-2007.
In addition: Charter schools now account for more than 60% of the public schools in New Orleans. Some are run by KIPP a chain with 162 schools.
There are 146 charters in the Gulen chain
Eve Moskowitz of $500k+ annual salary fame, runs more than 32 in New York—-is this small—the district where I taught for 30 years in CA had 19 schools and about 19,000 students.
And here’s an interesting piece in Forbes:
Charter School Gravy Train Runs Express to Fat City:
On Thursday, July 25, dozens of bankers, hedge fund types and private equity investors gathered in New York to hear about the latest and greatest opportunities to collect a cut of your property taxes. Of course, the promotional material for the Capital Roundtable’s conference on “private equity investing in for-profit education companies” didn’t put it in such crass terms, but that’s what’s going on.
Charter schools are booming. “There are now more than 6,000 in the United States, up from 2,500 a decade ago, educating a record 2.3 million children,” according to Reuters.
Venture capitalists and for-profit firms are salivating over the exploding $788.7 billion market in K-12 education. What does this mean for public school students?
Stephanie Simon of Politico has an interesting analysis of President Obama’s education legacy. While some credit him for his contribution to increasing early childhood education, the likelihood is that his legacy will be a great fizzle because of his unquestioning allegiance to standardized testing. Many Republicans are thinking of restoring greater control to the states and gutting annual testing, but Arne Duncan considers annual testing to be non-negotiable.
Here is Peter Greene’s take on Duncan’s “vision” for NCLB: more of the same. The status quo. Not a whiff of innovative thinking. Greene asks why Duncan is recommending a rewrite of NCLB:
“Why is he doing it now, when he’s had his way for the past several years? The answer is obvious– if the GOP really rewrites ESEA, all of Duncan and Obama’s reformy work will be trashed. Duncan’s announcement is not a clarion call to change a single comma of the administration’s policy– it’s an announcement that he intends to preserve it against the GOP onslaught that’s about to begin. For all intents and purposes, Duncan has had the ESEA rewrite he’s wanted for five years, and the GOP is threatening to take it away from him. Duncan is jumping on the bus before he is thrown under it, but there will now be a hell of a battle over who’s going to drive and where the bus is going to go.”
Curiously, the Obama administration is more devoted to the principles of NCLB than Republicans.
He cites the advice of two veteran Connecticut teachers who expressed the hope that Governor Dannel Malloy would replace outgoing Commissioner Stefan Pryor with an educator. Imagine! An educator as state commissioner of education!
He writes:
It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist for Gov. Malloy and President Obama to know that the Democrats across the nation lost in the mid-term elections because they governed like Republicans.
What will it take for Malloy and Obama to understand that teachers are among the Democrats largest constituency and cannot be taken for granted. In simple terms, teachers and parents are disgusted with the privatization movement with its focus on high-stakes testing and teacher evaluations tied to the tests.
It is a well known fact that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has earned the dubious distinction from many teachers and parents as a misguided, non-educator secretary with his agenda of testing, punitive accountability and, most of all, Common Core.
In essence, these principles are Republican principles and Democrats cannot win elections by acting like Republicans. If, for example, Jeb Bush were to be president, Common Core would undoubtedly be his highest priority.
Commissioner Pryor, another non-educator, also shares this vilification in Connecticut as both Pryor and Duncan should be replaced with educators that meet the criteria suggested by the award winning teachers from Ridgefield.
The Connecticut Department of Education under Pryor is now an agency without credibility, driven by special interests, charter school advocates and ideologies that are not based in reality. Pryor and other corporate reformers have discounted the real factors that hold children back: poverty, fear and instability.
Sadly, it is their belief that “bad teachers” are responsible for troubled schools and that the student SBAC tests aligned with Common Core will somehow expose “bad teachers” by partly basing teacher evaluations on student test scores. In essence, these beliefs are systematically destroying confidence in public education and, as a result, Commissioner Pryor has lost the confidence of teachers and parents.
It is time for new leadership and a new direction for public education in Connecticut.
While there has been much talk about the needs of teacher education, the “fixes” now center on Arne Duncan’s misguided belief that teacher colleges should be evaluated by the scores of the students taught by their graduates. This is a long stretch of causality and is sure to encourage these institutions to advise their graduates to apply to teach where the challenges are lowest. Here is another point of view, written by James D. Kirylo. He is an education professor and a former state teacher of the year. His most recent book is titled A Critical Pedagogy of Resistance. He can be reached at jkirylo@yahoo.com
Teacher Education: The Path Toward Educational Transformation in Louisiana
It is said that education is the great equalizer. Yet, we know when it comes to resources, opportunity, and the quality of a teacher, not all educational experiences are equal. Then we react with a bevy of voices coming from a variety of corners on how to better equalize the great equalizer. To be sure, when making sense of gray matter, complexity, and multi-layered challenges inherent in education, the solutions are not easy.
Yet, when it comes to navigating through this entangled web, a leading thread to direct that charge ought to have the name “teacher” at its pinpoint. There are few absolutes when it comes to education. And of those few, one is this: There is positive correlation between a high quality teacher and student success.
It is, therefore, logical that if we want to move toward educational transformation, we need to ensure that teacher education is right up there on the priority list. It is no coincidence that high achieving countries, like Singapore, South Korea, and Finland are quite selective as to who teaches their youth, how they prepare those who are to teach their youth, and how they maintain ongoing development while teaching their youth.
That a common thread in high-achieving countries is an elevated priority on teacher education ought to raise our collective sensibilities, stirring movement toward embracing that model right here in Louisiana. To that end, the following summarizes what we need to qualitatively do in our backyard if we expect to move toward long-lasting transformative educational change:
One, entrance requirements and processes into teacher education programs need to be more rigorous and more selective. Two, those who are accepted into teacher education programs should be provided tuition waivers, grants, and other incentivizing initiatives. Three, teacher education programs across the state must be creatively innovative, systematic, and unified in which not only content knowledge is emphasized, but also concepts, practices, and theories related to human development, pedagogy, curriculum, and learning are thoroughly explored in light of the diverse country in which we live. Four, field experiences and rich mentorships are emphasized that works to connect the thoughtful relationship between theory and practice. Five, upon graduation, teacher candidates leave their programs with great expertise, expectation, and adulation as they move into the teaching profession. Six, once in the classroom, teachers regularly engage in ongoing and meaningful professional development, with them at the center of facilitating that endeavor. Seven, the school curriculum in which teachers teach is wide-ranging, with an inclusive priority on the various arts, physical education, and foreign language. Eight, when it comes to curricula, assessment, and evaluation decisions at the school setting, teachers are integral members at the table. Nine, at the school setting, a test-centric focus has to be abandoned and replaced with a learning-centric focus that is energizing, inspiring, and imaginative. Ten, students, teachers, and schools are not in competition with one another, but work to cooperate, collaborate, and lift each other up. Eleven, all schools, regardless of location and economic demographic have equal access to quality resources, material, and high quality teachers. Twelve, the teaching profession is viewed with great respect, indicative of the competitive salaries, the working conditions in which teachers are placed, and how teachers are professionally viewed, treated, and honored. Thirteen, a top-down hierarchal structure needs to be replaced with a teacher leadership empowerment structure.
Fourteen, “fast-track” teacher training programs, such as TFA and LRCE, are not acceptable routes to teach our youth.
Fifteen, the waiving of requirements for those going into administrative type roles are not acceptable routes to work in leadership positions in our schools, systems, and state.
Sixteen, only well-prepared, qualified, and certified teachers from high quality teacher education programs must teach our youth. While there are certainly some examples of good efforts occurring in teacher education programs in our state, we are not doing near enough. Without doubt, if we are to move toward educational transformation in Louisiana, the systematic prioritization of teacher education is a must, the fostering of the professionalization of teaching is vital, and ultimately education must be viewed as an investment in which the entire state can be richly furthered. Indeed, our international friends have provided us with an outstanding model.
Earlier today I posted approvingly about President Obama’s proposal to make two years of community college free for all who work for it, meaning, “Students must attend community college at least half-time, maintain a 2.5 GPA, and make steady progress toward completing their program.” In the announcement, the White House said that his proposal is similar to one enacted in Tennessee by Republican Governor Haslam.
Dissenting readers feared this plan would be a means of imposing NCLB, Race to the Top, and VAM on higher education.
Here is an email I received with other concerns from a professor of mathematics at the University of Memphis:
Dear Professor,
Perhaps you are aware that President Obama is visiting Knoxville, TN, today to talk about his free community college program
I think there are many people who (should) have a less than enthusiastic take on this proposal, since it is just a manifestation of the national movement to privatize public education.
In my opinion, the idea behind this free community college proposal is to weaken high quality education (public universities), and then easily implement privatization in the form of outsourcing university/college functions (teaching, research) to private companies. Part of this future will be the wide spread use low quality forms of education, such as online courses.
Concrete example for transferring funds from high quality education to lower quality
Here is a concrete example from my university, The University of Memphis (UofM), that should give a pause to the celebration of free higher education. Last year, shortly after the announcement of a $20 million cut to UofM’s budget, came the announcement of Tennessee Promise that offers free education to all TN residents at public community colleges. In my opinion, TN Promise is a perfect example for taking money away from high quality education (UofM, in this case), and use the extra funds to invest in low quality education (community colleges). Then this lower quality education is offered to the masses as a solution to their educational needs.
To make the high-to-low quality education transformation explicit, I remark that we at UofM are now pressured to start accepting lower level courses to our major requirements to “ease the transition of students from community colleges to our university”.
This transformation to low quality education is, of course, quite similar to what’s happening in K-12 education. In Tennessee, the Achievement School District takes over schools, fires the teachers, then the teachers get replaced by young underpaid, undertrained teachers. This scheme is presented as a solution to the educational needs of the poor.
In other words, both in higher and K-12 education, low quality alternatives are offered to the poor with obvious social (and often racial) implications.
Weaken the opposition: eliminate the tenure system
The first step in the privatization movement is the weakening of the opposition. Community colleges have a much greater number of adjunct faculty than 4 year colleges. Adjuncts are much easier to control than tenured faculty. This is one of the reasons Gates is supporting community colleges instead of 4 year colleges. It’s “educational” to listen to him as he answers a question about why he focuses his efforts to community colleges and especially why he prefers adjunct professors over tenured ones; just watch this for, say, 3 minutes
At UofM, the total salary increase of all employees between 2009-2014 was $10 million. Most of this increase went to increase administration and temporary faculty. The total salary of tenured faculty during these 5 years not only didn’t increase but got reduced.
So again, the strategy of the privatizers seems clear: strengthen community colleges at the expense of 4 year colleges. Weaken the power of opposing tenured professors so that then the privatization of public higher education can be accomplished much easier with the easily controlled adjunct faculty. To be sure, the privatization has been happening. In an earlier email, I reported to you the concerete example of a $5 million/ year teacher training program to be run by Relay and TNTP on the UofM campus, but there are other examples for outsourcing university functions to private companies.
Publicize the privatization scheme and the associated statistics
In my opinion, it would be important to publicize the general scheme of the privatizers so that people would recognize them. In some cases, like TN Promise, it’s not so easy to recognize the underlying motivation.
Also, it would be important to be able to support claims by numbers. It would be great to encourage people to find out, publicize and regularly update the following numbers for their school district (they are not easy to obtain, though they are supposed to be public records)
1) The names and number of schools that are taken over by charterizers (like the Achievement School District in TN).
2) The number of teachers fired during the take over.
3) The average salary of the fired teachers.
4) The average salary of the newly hired teachers.
In (4 year) public colleges, it would be important to publicize and maintain
5) The total salary increase for the last 5 and 10 years.
6) The total salary increase of the permanent (tenured) faculty for the last 5 and 10 years.
7) The total budget allocated to private companies in each of the last 5 years.
The stats in 5) and 6) above are not difficult to do, and can be done using publicly available salary databases. I’d be happy to show anybody what and how I did at UofM.
Education activist Marie Corfield reports a stunning development in Néw Jersey. The president of the Néw Jersey State Board of Education, Mark Biedron, said at a public hearing:
“We know we can’t force any kid to put their hands on a keyboard.”
Marie thinks he is listening to the voices of parents and educators who object to PARCC testing.
Marie says: “For Biedron to say this in public is huge. Print it out and attach it to your opt-out letter. This is a game-changer.”
A teacher in Connecticut, signing in as Linda, wrote the following comment:
Brace yourself Rhode Island…it is worse than you think. Hide your children and warn the teachers. He is coming to charterize, privatize, monetize your schools. See Pelto research here:
Gina Raimondo’s husband Andy Moffitt was Cory Booker’s roommate. Moffitt is a member of Stand for Children Board of Directors
Moffit is a Senior Practice Expert and member of core leadership team for McKinsey & Company’s Global Education Practice.
“Since co-founding the Global Education Practice in 2005, Andy has worked with multiple large urban districts, state education departments and charter management organizations to markedly improve system performance and close achievement gaps.
He co-authored a recent book, Deliverology 101: A Field Guide for School System Leaders (Corwin Press, 2010), which describes key success factors and steps in driving results in global school system reforms.
Before joining McKinsey, Andy was an elementary school teacher in an inner-city school in Houston, Texas as a corps member of Teach For America.”
From my recent article in the Progressive:
The Corporate Education Reform Industry effort to buy control of Public Education
This year’s election season provided a series of textbook examples of how corporate education reformers used their personal fortunes to contaminate the democratic process.
Let’s begin with the little state of Rhode Island, where former hedge fund owner and charter school champion, Democrat Gina Raimondo was elected governor with 40 percent of the vote in a three-way race—one in which there was an unprecedented level of campaign spending.
Raimondo, who as Rhode Island’s state treasurer won national acclaim from conservatives for successfully dismantling the state employee pension fund, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors associated with funding the education reform movement and profiting from the charter school industry. Her running mate, Cumberland Mayor Daniel McKee, one of the state’s most vocal supporters of charter schools, was elected lieutenant governor with help from many of the same donors.
Over the course of her gubernatorial campaign, Raimondo collected checks from many of the major players in the charter school and “education reform” movement, including donations from billionaires Eli Broad and members of the Walton Family. (The Broad Foundation and Walton Foundation, along with Gates Foundation, are the primary funders behind the overall education reform movement.)
Another billionaire, former Enron executive John Arnold along with his wife, not only donated directly to Raimondo’s campaign and her political action committee, called Gina PAC, but the couple’s $100,000 check made them the largest donors to the American LeadHERship Council, a Super PAC affiliated with Raimondo. The second largest donor to the Super PAC was Eli Broad with $15,000.
A proponent of doing away with public employee pensions, Arnold also donated as much as $500,000 to an advocacy group called Engage Rhode Island, which spent approximately $740,000 lobbying for Raimondo’s successful assault on public employee pensions. Over the past three years, the John and Laura Arnold Foundation has donated more than $100 million in support of charter schools and entities involved in the corporate education reform industry, including being one of the largest contributors to Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence.
Raimondo’s success in raising funds from the charter school industry includes at least $50,000 from the members of the board of directors of Achievement First, Inc., the large charter chain that recently opened a school in Rhode Island, adding to their existing schools in Connecticut and New York.
Jonathan Sackler, an investment manager and heir to the Purdue Pharma fortune, is not only a founding member of Achievement First, Inc, but a founder of a national charter school advocacy group called 50CAN. One of 50CAN’s related entities, 50CAN Action Fund, dumped $90,000 to run TV commercials to help Raimondo’s running mate win his primary race.
Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, one of the nation’s leading researchers of VAM, says Néw York is going from bad to idiotic in doubling the importance of test scores in teacher and principal evaluations.
The chair of the Board of Regents, Merryl Tisch, and Governor Cuomo are “pushing for a system in which these scores would “trump all,” and in which a teacher rated as ineffective in the growth score portion would be rated ineffective overall. A teacher with two ineffective ratings would “not return to the classroom.”
This is not only “going from bad to worse,” says Amrein-Beardsley, but going from bad to idiotic.
All of this is happending despite the research studies that, by this point, should have literally buried such policy initiatives. Many of these research studies are highlighted on this blog here, here, here, and here, and are also summarized in two position statements on value-added models (VAMs) released by the American Statistical Association last April (to read about their top 10 concerns/warnings, click here) and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) last month (to read about their top 6 concerns/warnings, click here).
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