Archives for the month of: January, 2015
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Teacher Ed: Help, ACLU! Get to the Bottom of Racketeering in Education

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2015 //
26

This is a comment by one of our frequent participants, identified as Teacher Ed:

 

Virtually every component of corporate “reform” imposed across this country is based on disasters that “reformers” have fabricated and tyrannical racketeering. Clearly, this is being done in order to privatize public education and raid tax dollars, while diverting attention away from the real disasters of poverty, a severe decline in the number of jobs with livable wages, a diminishing middle class and the inequitable distribution of wealth.

 

Are we supposed to wait until the perpetrators turn the screws and receive their dues for each part of this scheme before lawsuits can be filed? Is that how it works with the mob, too –payoffs have to be made first by victims before anything can be done about all the threats and dire consequences to result from not kowtowing to demands?

 

Is it possible to file a lawsuit that addresses virtually ALL of the components of the corporate “reform” business plan that is rapidly unravelling the fabric of American education? Maybe the ACLU could manage it, if only someone who cares would help fund it.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Pelto: How to Bury a Scandal

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2015 //
5

Jonathan Pelto reviews the FUSE-Jumoke scandal and shows how the report of the damning investigation was released. When politicians want to minimize coverage of an embarrassing event, the press release is issued late on a Friday afternoon, preferably in the middle of a holiday.

Pelto writes:

“Now, months after the investigation was called for, an incredibly damning report has been made public.

“But in a typical move designed to limit political fall-out and protect the guilty, Governor Malloy’s State Department of Education failed to release the stunning report until late in the afternoon on Friday, January 2, 2014.

“The Hartford Courant, which has led the investigative work on FUSE/Jumoke didn’t get a full news report up until 8pm and the CT Post, another media outlet that has followed the story, produced their updated report after 10:30pm.

“Oh, and try as you might, you won’t even find the press release or the report listed on the Department of Education’s “Media Page.”

Categories Charter Schools, Connecticut

Larry Miller Reviews Kristen Buras’ Book on New Orleans Reforms

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2015 //
6

Larry Miller, an elected member of the Milwaukee school board and a member of the editorial board of Rethinking Schools, has written an excellent review and summary of Kristen Buras’ book–Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space— about the privatization of public education in New Orleans. New Orleans has gotten an undeserved national reputation as “the answer” to struggling school districts. The establishment in many other urban districts are looking at New Orleans as a model, but it is a model of what NOT to do. As Buras tells it, the reforms in New Orleans dispossessed the black citizens of New Orleans and created great possibilities for white entrepreneurs. A teaching force that was 75% black was dismissed and replaced largely by white Teach for America recruits.

 

Milwaukee is one of the urban districts where the civic and business leadership is looking longingly at New Orleans. Perhaps Larry Miller can share Buras’ book with them.

 

Miller writes: “A major theme to her research is that the New Orleans RSD is a Southern strategy to use market-based reforms to give control of public schools, attended by Black children in Black communities and often taught by Black teachers, over to well funded white entrepreneurs.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Privatization

Connecticut: State Investigation Finds Rampant Nepotism and Lack of Oversight at Charter Chain

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2015 //
24

In Connecticut, a formal investigation of Families for Excellent Schools and Jumoke Academy concluded that the growing charter chain–a favorite of top state officials–engaged in unchecked nepotism, with little or no supervision by the state. Be it noted that Governor Dan Malloy appointed Andrea Comer, chief operating officer of FUSE to the state Board of Education. Comer resigned from her position at FUSE after the scandals surrounding Michael Sharpe broke, and she also resigned from the State Board of EducAtion.

 

The Hartford Courant reports:

 

The Jumoke Academy charter school operation was saddled with “rampant nepotism,” imposed little or no oversight on former CEO Michael Sharpe and made repeated financial missteps that could sink the organization within three years, according to a 99-page investigative report ordered by the state Department of Education.

 

The report, released Friday afternoon and coming in the midst of an FBI investigation of Jumoke and the closely related Family Urban Schools of Excellence, mirrors reporting by The Courant since June. The state report was especially critical of Sharpe, who hired multiple family members, gave work to the relatives of Jumoke executives, approved the hiring of felons for school jobs and oversaw “expensive and ornate modifications” to a Jumoke-owned apartment that he later rented. Sharpe resigned on June 21.
“There were virtually no checks and balances in place to control Mr. Sharpe’s actions at Jumoke,” the report’s author, Hartford attorney Frederick L. Dorsey, wrote. “Michael Sharpe basically had unfettered control of Jumoke from the time he was appointed CEO in 2003, and even after he had transitioned in July 2012 from CEO of Jumoke to CEO of FUSE.”

 

Here is the full report: http://blog.ctnews.com/education/files/2015/01/Jumoke-FUSE-Invest-2014-2.pdf

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Connecticut

Who Paid for Washington State’s Charter School Initiative?

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2015 //
13

Wayne Au and Joseph J. Ferrare have published an interesting article in the TC Record about the passage of charter school legislation in Washington State.

 

The intriguing aspect of the charter referendum in 2012 is that a similar proposition had been presented to voters three times in the recent past and voted down three times.

 

In 2012, however, billionaires and venture philanthropists and their allies created a huge fund to support the charter initiative, over $10.9 million. You will not be surprised to learn that Bill Gates supplied over $3 million of the total, followed closely by Alice Walton, heiress of the Walmart fortune, at $1.7 million. What is startling is that almost 98% of the $10.9 million was contributed by only 21 individuals.

 

We have seen a number of elections where extraordinary individuals managed to overcome a huge spending disadvantage to win a school board seat. This was not one of those elections where the power of the people beat the power of the purse.

Categories Charter Schools, Washington State

Laura H. Chapman: What You Need to Know about Data Mining of Students

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2015 //
41

A regular commenter on the blog, Laura H. Chapman, shares her research on data mining:

 

Policies on data mining? “The future, like everything else, is no longer quite what it used to be.” Paul Valéry, poet.

 

It is no surprise that the Gates funded Teacher-Student Data Link Project started in 2005 is going full steam ahead. By 2011 his project said the link between teacher and student data would serve eight purposes:

 

1. Determine which teachers help students become college-ready and successful,

2. Determine characteristics of effective educators,

3. Identify programs that prepare highly qualified and effective teachers,

4. Assess the value of non-traditional teacher preparation programs,

5. Evaluate professional development programs,

6. Determine variables that help or hinder student learning,

7. Plan effective assistance for teachers early in their career, and

8. Inform policy makers of best value practices, including compensation.

 

The system is intended to ensure all courses are based on standards, and all responsibilities for learning are assigned to one or more “teachers of record” in charge of a student or class so that a record is generated whenever a “teacher of record” has a specific proportion of responsibility for a student’s learning activities.

 

These activities must be defined by performance measures for a particular standard, by subject, and grade level.

 

The TSDL system requires period-by-period tracking of teachers and students every day; including “tests, quizzes, projects, homework, classroom participation, or other forms of day-to-day assessments and progress measures.” Ultimately, the system will keep current and longitudinal data on the performance of teachers and individual students, as well schools, districts, states, and educators ranging from principals to higher education faculty.

 

This data will then be used to determine the “best value” investments in education, taking into account as many demographic factors as possible, including….health records for preschoolers. but the cradle is next, and it is part of USDE’s technology plan.

 

Since 2006, the USDE has also invested over $700 million in the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) to help states “efficiently and accurately manage, analyze, and use education data, including individual student records”…and make “data-driven decisions to improve student learning, as well as facilitate research to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps.” The newest upgrade of the concpt is for these state-wide systems to become multi-state…and a national system. This goes WAY, WAy beyond (and may pre-empt) routine data-gathering by the National Bureau of Education Statistics.

 

It is not widely known that in 2009, USDE modified the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act so that student data—test scores, health records, learning issues, disciplinary reports—can be used for education studies without parental consent (The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 20 U.S.C. §1232g). Moreover, a 2012 issue brief from USDE outlined a program of data mining and learning analytics in partnership with commercial companies.

 

The envisioned data- mining program includes an automated, instant access, user-friendly “recommendation system” for teachers that links students’ test scores and their learning profiles to preferred instructional actions and resources. Enhancing teaching and learning through educational data mining and learning analytics: An issue brief. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/edblogs/technology/files/2012/03/edm-la-brief.pdf p. 29).

 

USDE is also pressing forward a “radical and rapid” transformation of public education. The new system is marketed and funded as “personalized, competency-based learning” 24/365 from multiple sources. It is intended to dismantle place-based schools, seat time, grade levels, subject-specific curricula, traditional concepts about “teachers” and diplomas. Multiple certifications with flower along with an abundace of badges earne for completing learning paths and play-lists of learning options, awarded by profit and non-profit “learning agents.” The role of “teacher” is envioned as a relic, along with the institution of public schools. See USDE, Office of Educational Technology, Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology, Washington, D.C., 2010. http://tech.ed.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/netp2010.pdf/////////

Categories Data and Data Mining, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privacy and Privacy Rights, U.S. Department of Education

Carol Burris: Néw York Plans to Double the Stakes on VAM

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2015 //
54

Governor Andrew Cuomo was very disappointed when only 1% of teachers were found “ineffective” in their state ratings. He demanded tougher evaluations, using the “value-added model” whose validity has been questioned by many research groups, including the American Statistical Association, the American Education Research Association, and the National Academy of Education.

In this post, high school principal Carol Burris reports that the chairperson of the state Board of Regents, Merryl Tisch, responded to Governor Cuomo’s piqué by offering to double the importance of test scores in teacher evaluations.

Burris cites the example of fourth grade teacher Sheri Lederman, who was rated highly effective one year, then ineffective the next year. Her students performed twice as well as the state average–both years. Lederman is suing the state.

Burris writes:

“Sheri Lederman, is a gifted and beloved fourth-grade teacher in Great Neck, New York. Her principal adores her and relies on her to help mentor her colleagues. Over twice as many of her students have met the state standard than the average percentage for the rest of the state. Sheri is also a scholar. She received the 2012 H. Alan Robinson Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation award for her research on how 10-year-olds learn science. Yet her growth score based on the results of student Common Core standardized tests found her to be an “ineffective” teacher.

“Under the present teacher evaluation system in New York, known as APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review), she is not in danger of losing her job. She was rated effective overall due to the points she received on the local measure of her students’ achievement, combined with those based on the observation of her teaching. But that will change if Chancellor Merryl Tisch has her way. Sheri would be rated ineffective overall, and one more such rating would get her fired.

“The short version of what she [Tisch] wants to do now is this—double down on test scores and strip away the power of local school boards to negotiate the majority of the evaluation plan. Tisch would get rid of the locally selected measures of achievement, which now comprise 20 percent of the evaluation, and double the state test score portion, to 40 percent. She also recommends that the score ranges for the observation process be taken out of the hands of local districts, and be determined by Albany instead. Dr. Lederman, start packing up. Merryl Tisch and Andrew Cuomo, whom you have never met, know your talents better than your local school board, your principal and the parents of the children you teach.”

We will watch Sheri Lederman’s lawsuit. How can the state justify rating her “ineffective” based on her students’ outstanding test scores? The formula makes no sense.

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Teacher Evaluations

A Must-Read: Inside a Chinese Test-Prep Factory

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2015 //
24

Ever wonder how Chinese students blow the roof off international tests? If you read Yong Zhao’s wonderful book Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Dragon? Why China Has the Best (and the Worst) Education System in the World, you know why. Test-prep, test-prep, test-prep. Officials at OECD, which sponsors the PISA international tests, insist that test-prep has nothing to do with it, but Yong Zhao proves they are wrong. One of the riveting stories in his book is about a small town–Maotanchang–whose main industry is a test-prep factory. Yong Zhao warns that the Chinese testing regime produces high test scores, but it is authoritarian and crushes creativity, individuality, originality, and risk-taking.

 

 

The New York Times Magazine contains a gripping story by Brook Larmer about what happens at the test-prep factory in Maotanchang. There are more students in the school than there are residents in the town. The students start school every day at 6:20 a.m., and their last class ends at 10:50 p.m. Preparing for the big exam that determines whether they will gain admission to a college, whether it will be a first-tier college or something less is all-consuming, because their exam score determines their life path. The story focuses on a student named Yang, who is hoping to pass the college entrance exam (the “gaokao”).

 

 

China’s treadmill of standardized tests has produced, along with high levels of literacy and government control, some of the world’s most scarily proficient test-takers. Shanghai high-school students have dominated the last two cycles of the Program for International Student Assessment exam, leading more than one U.S. official to connect this to a broader “Sputnik moment” of coming Chinese superiority. Yet even as American educators try to divine the secret of China’s test-taking prowess, the gaokao is coming under fire in China as an anachronism that stifles innovative thought and puts excessive pressure on students. Teenage suicide rates tend to rise as the gaokao nears. Two years ago, a student posted a shocking photograph online: a public high-school classroom full of students hunched over books, all hooked up to intravenous drips to give them the strength to keep studying….

 

For a town that turns test preparation into a mechanical act of memorization and regurgitation, Maotanchang remains a place of desperate faith and superstition. Most students have a talisman of some sort, whether it’s red underwear (red clothing is believed to be lucky), shoes from a company called Anta (their check-mark logo is reminiscent of a correct answer) or a pouch of “brain rejuvenating” tea bought from vendors outside the school gates. The town’s best-selling nutritional supplements are called Clear Mind and Six Walnuts (the nuts are considered mind-boosters in large part because they resemble brains). Yang’s parents did not seem especially superstitious, but they paid high rent to live close to the mystical tree and its three-foot-high pile of incense ash. “If you don’t pray to the tree, you can’t pass,” Yang says, repeating a local saying.
Just up the alley from Yang’s room, I met a fortune teller sitting on a stool next to a canvas chart. For $3.40, the man in the ill-fitting pinstripe suit could predict the future: marriage, children, death — and gaokao scores. “Business is good these days,” he said with a broken smile. An older man in an argyle sweater and a Chairman Mao haircut watched our exchange. This was Yang Qiming, a retired chemistry teacher, who told me he had seen Maotanchang grow from an impoverished school of 800 students, when he joined the faculty in 1980, to the juggernaut it is today — a remarkable transformation during a period when most rural schools have withered. Even so, he grumbled about the deadening effects of rote learning. “With all this studying, the kids’ brains become rigid,” he said. “They know how to take a test, but they can’t think for themselves.”

 

 

Categories International, Testing

One Teacher Made a Difference

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2015 //
2

I posted earlier today about a Florida newspaper editor who changed his mind after reading my book, talking to a teacher about Common Core, and learning about the kindergarten teacher who refused to give her children the state test.

This is a letter from Kim Cook, the teacher who spoke to Nathan Crabbe, the editor of the Gainesville Sun, about Common Core:

“I’m from Gainesville, and I am the teacher that sat down with Mr. Crabbe to discuss Common Core and school “reform.” Two out of our three elected officials are in Jeb Bush’s back pocket and won’t engage in meaningful dialog regarding public education. A colleague and I visited our state senator last April. He was rude and condescending and more interested in the lobbyists in his office than he was in speaking to two constituents. Trying to get through to him and one of our representatives is like talking to a brick wall.

There is one representative for my district who is pro-public education, and he does an amazing job of advocating for it; however, he has many other issues on his plate. As Mr. Crabbe said (and I’m paraphrasing), teachers’ voices resonate, so I will continue to speak out.”

Categories Bush, Jeb, Common Core, Florida

Bill Moyers Describes an Unwanted Honor

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2015 //
15

This is not about education, although in a way it is. It is about an act of conscience. It appears on Bill Moyers’ daily blog.

“An honor he dreams not of –>

“French economist Thomas Piketty, whose best-selling tome, Capitalism in the 21st Century, made vivid the accelerating income gap between the very rich and everyone else, has turned down France’s highest official award, the Legion d’Honneur. He told AFP, “I refuse this nomination because I do not think it is the government’s role to decide who is honorable.”

Here is the original story that Moyers links to.

Categories Education Reform
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