The Network for Public Education will hold its second annual conference in Chicago on the weekend of April 24-26.
Open this link to read the details.
Meet fellow public school activists from across the country. Meet your favorite bloggers.
Check the website. There is funding for scholarships for students.
I look forward to meeting you in Chicago!
Anthony Cody was first to feature a leaked document that advised reformers how to mollify parents who are angry about testing.
But it is well worth reading EduShyster’s hilarious explication of the same document.
She begins:
“Can we talk about testing? And by *talk* I mean the thing where parents offer up reasonable, legitimate and likely heartfelt concerns, which testing advocates then deflect by changing the subject and *pivoting to a higher emotion.* That’s right reader—it’s time for another edition of Say This, Not That.Today’s topic: testing. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll gasp in amazement as our *testing talk* is transformed to appeal to different audiences. But watch out for weeds and rabbit holes!”
The blogger Plunderbund (aka Greg Mild) here describes the chaotic, pointless, and ceaseless bureaucratic and political meddling in Ohio’s public schools.
Just as the schools began to implement the previous teacher evaluation plan, the legislature decided to “reform” the process yet again:
The full text of Ohio’s latest proposed budget bill (House Bill 64) was posted last week and, as in years past, it includes much more than just financial recommendations. There are numerous education-related “reforms”, some of which have promise, others that will place additional expenses on the backs of local school districts, and some that will continue to just continue the chaotic environment of change that teachers and administrators have been dealing with under the Kasich regime.
statehouseA key piece of reform that falls into the latter category involves the ever-changing Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES). In only its third year of implementation in most schools across the state, it appears as though we can look forward to major modifications to the system even as educators are still adjusting to the massive changes that occurred last summer.
The process of implementing the OTES has already been a burden on schools and districts as they have been forced to create entirely new systems of tracking and reporting, all while continually trying to keep both teachers and principals abreast of the latest options and requirements. Last years changes were particularly troublesome as the law did not become official until mid-September, after the school year had already started, requiring most local school boards to delay the official adoption of all of the modifications while trying to get the process started in a timely fashion and educating all personnel about the overhaul that had occurred while they were out on summer break.
The new system will be horrendous, as those who teach non-tested subjects will be evaluated by “attributed” scores. That means that teachers of the arts, physical education, K-2, high school, foreign languages, etc., will be evaluated by the scores of their entire school, the scores of students they didn’t teach, the scores of students they never met.
In practice, shared attribution is essentially taking the value-added ratings of an entire school or district and assigning those ratings to teachers in the non-value-added grades and subjects. The result in Ohio over the past two years is that we have had teachers receive individual evaluation ratings based on students that they have absolutely no direct connection with. For example:
High school teachers of all subjects receiving a student growth measure rating based on the math and reading test results of children in grades 4-8.
Physical education, music, and visual art teachers at all grades receiving ratings based on the test results in subjects they don’t instruct.
Newly-hired teachers in grades PK-3 with an evaluation rating based in the test scores of students in grades 4-5 that they have never even taught.
There are numerous other combinations like these few examples in which teachers have had their evaluations based on students that are not even in the same building (any teacher receiving a district’s value-added rating as shared attribution).
In the comments on the Plunderbund blog, someone asks: “What difference will it make?” Well, let me count the ways: teacher demoralization (a commenter on this blog wrote to ask why he was getting a degree in music education with a specialty in string, when he would be judged by the math and reading scores of 4th and 8th grade students); confusion in the schools about yet another implementation of a policy that has no basis in research or experience; a waste of millions of dollars for compliance that might have otherwise been spent on reducing class sizes, buying musical instruments or upgrading buildings.
As Plunderbund says: Now let the chaos begin….
There has been much discussion on the blog about the “Coffee Cup” ad sponsored by the political action arm of the California Charter Schools Association. (See here and here.)
Kayser is accused of being anti-public school, when in fact he has been a strong supporter of public schools and public school teachers. He is a strong critic of charters. That is why the CCSAA is spending big bucks to defeat him. He has voted to reduce class size, increase teacher pay, and restore programs lost to budget cuts.
The broken coffee cup, Kayser and his allies believe, is a subtle reference to his hands shaking because of Parkinson’s. Why else would he drop his coffee cup? If that was the intention of the ad, it is reprehensible. If it was not, CCSA has some explaining to do.
Roseanne Woods was a high school principal in Florida for 32 years. She is now a protester and a blogger. She is outraged by Florida’s punitive testing and accountability regime. In this post, she describes a state that cares more about testing than teaching.
For her steadfast dedication to real education, I place Roseanne Woods on the blog’s honor roll.
She writes:
“Children are stressed out and parents are m ad enough to want their children to “Opt-Out” of all high-stakes testing. Frustrated teachers are leaving the profession and superintendents are demanding real change. Lawmakers: how about some real relief?
“Florida schools are about to hit the big testing/school grades accountability iceberg this spring. Why? This year, instead of FCAT, all 3rd-11th grade students will be taking brand new tests on the extremely challenging Florida Standards Assessment (FSA), aka, Common Core Standards. Third graders who don’t score well on reading will be retained and high school students who don’t pass will not graduate. Schools will receive A-F school grades based on these scores.
“Not to worry—districts have been assured by DOE that the scores will be “normed” (manipulated) to match last year’s scores. Somehow, that gives little comfort
“Here’s a sample 3rd grade math problem— ‘A bakery uses 48 pounds of flour each day. It orders flour every 28 days. Create an equation that shows how many pounds of flour the bakery
needs to order every 28 days.’
“Any wonder many parents are having trouble helping their children with homework?
“There are now 154 of the 180 days on the Florida State Testing Calendar devoted to a variety of required state assessments in grades K-12 that effect schools’ grades. Any wonder that schools are spending more and more time prepping and practicing for these tests?…
“To make matters worse, schools also have to implement Florida Statute 1012.34– requiring 50% of a teacher’s evaluation be based on “rigorous” tests for every subject/course taught. So, at great expense, school districts have been scrambling to create over 1200 tests on courses not covered by the required Florida Standards Assessments, FSA. These district assessments must cover quite the spectrum including art, physical ed., drama and guidance counselors. By law, elementary students must take 6-7 end-of-course tests to prove their teachers did a good enough job to be eligible for a performance bonus.”
Florida is a very sick state. Please, someone, invite the Governor and the State Board of Education to visit Finland! All that time and money for testing is wasted.
Researchers organized by Kevin Kumashiro, Dean of the University of San Francisco School of Education, have created a petition to oppose high-stakes testing. It is addressed to Congress.
Read about it here in Valerie Strauss’s “Answer Sheet” and, if you agree, add your name.
On behalf of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, Kevin Welner and William Mathis have written an excellent overview of the failure of standardized testing as the driver of educational reform.
Here is the summary:
“In this Policy Memo, Kevin Welner and William Mathis discuss the broad research consensus that standardized tests are ineffective and even counterproductive when used to drive educational reform. Yet the debates in Washington over the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act largely ignore the harm and misdirection of these test-focused reforms. As a result, the proposals now on the table simply gild a demonstrably ineffective strategy, while crowding out policies with proven effectiveness. Deep-rooted trends of ever-increasing social and educational needs, as well as fewer or stagnant resources, will inevitably lead to larger opportunity gaps and achievement gaps. Testing will document this, but it will do nothing to change it. Instead, the gaps will only close with sustained investment and improvement based on proven strategies that directly increase children’s opportunities to learn.”
Congress is about to pour more billions into mandating the testing of every child in grades 3-8, every year. Given the research consensus documented here, the question is: Why?
The report begins:
“Today’s 21-year-olds were in third grade in 2002, when the No Child Left Behind Act became law. For them and their younger siblings and neighbors, test-driven accountability policies are all they’ve known. The federal government entrusted their educations to an unproven but ambitious belief that if we test children and hold educators responsible for improving test scores, we would have almost everyone scoring as “proficient” by 2014. Thus, we would achieve “equality.” This approach has not worked.
“Yet over the past 13 years, Presidents Bush and Obama remained steadfastly committed to test-based policies. These two administrations have offered federal grants through Race to the Top,2 so-called Flexibility Waivers under NCLB,3 School Improvement Grants,4 and various other programs to push states, districts, and schools to line up behind policies that use these same test scores in high-stakes evaluations of teachers and principals, in addition to the NCLB focus on schools. The proposed new Teacher Preparation Regulations under Title II of the Higher Education Act now attempt to expand the testing regime to teacher education programs.5 These expansions of test-driven accountability policies require testing even beyond that mandated by NCLB.
“Not surprisingly, current debates over the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), of which NCLB is the most recent iteration, now center around specific assessment issues such as how many tests should be given and which grades should be tested, as well as the respective roles of state and federal governments.6 Largely lost in these debates is whether test-based accountability policies will produce equitable educational opportunities through substantially improved schooling. This NEPC Policy Memo explains why they will not.7 Instead, we argue that as a nation we must engage in a serious, responsible conversation about evidence-based approaches that have the potential to meaningfully improve student opportunities and school outcomes.”
Advocates for Children, a nonpartisan civic group in Néw York City, conducted a study of discipline policies in Néw York City’s charter schools. Every school had its own rules, and many of those rules violate state and/or federal law. If charter schools are public schools, they should abide by the law; if they are private schools, they can continue to diverge from state and federal law. As matters stand, when children enroll in charters, they check their rights at the door.
Here is a summary of the study that appeared in the NY Times.
Here is the executive summary:
Ms. Lopez rejoiced when her daughter, Mia, was accepted to a local charter school for kindergarten. Ms. Lopez believed that this school would provide her daughter with the best chance of getting a high-quality education. However, within the first month of school, the charter school suspended five-year-old Mia for disruptive behavior, claiming that she had hit another student. Ms. Lopez was very concerned about Mia’s alleged behavior and therefore requested that Mia be evaluated to determine if she had a disability and needed special education services. While evaluations were pending, the charter school suspended Mia another two times for impulsive behavior. Ms. Lopez tried to find out from Mia what had happened, but given Mia’s age and a delay in her communication skills, Ms. Lopez was unable to get an explanation that she could understand.
Ms. Lopez was devastated when the charter school principal then told her that, based on the charter school’s policy, because Mia had received three suspensions, the charter school was expelling her after just two months of kindergarten. The principal stated that the school would give Ms. Lopez a two-week “grace period” to return Mia to her preschool (for which she was no longer eligible) or enroll her at her zoned elementary school. During those two weeks, Mia could attend school if her mother stayed with her the whole time.
Ms. Lopez had chosen the charter school because it had touted the extra support it provided to students to help them succeed. But at the time when Mia needed support, the charter school told Ms. Lopez to take Mia someplace else. Ms. Lopez could not believe that the charter school was giving up on Mia so quickly.
Mia’s charter school expelled her without providing written notice of the charges against Mia and the school’s proposal to expel her, without scheduling a hearing to consider Mia’s actions and determine an appropriate penalty, and without following any procedures required to protect the rights of students with disabilities even though Mia was being evaluated for special education services. Without the opportunity for a hearing, Mia’s mother did not have the chance to ask questions about what had happened or to suggest a less severe response that would address Mia’s behavior and allow her to stay at the school. Because the school did not follow the required procedures for students with disabilities, Mia did not receive a behavioral assessment to determine the cause of her behavior and develop effective intervention strategies.
When Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) reviewed the charter school’s discipline policy, we found that, although it had been approved by the charter school’s authorizer and the New York State Board of Regents, it did not comport with the requirements of the law. The policy did not require notice prior to imposing suspensions or expulsions, did not require a hearing prior to suspensions or expulsions, did not place any limits on the kinds of infractions that could trigger an expulsion, and did not include any of the legal protections required for students with disabilities. Indeed, a school administrator acknowledged that, before AFC’s involvement in Mia’s case, she had not been aware of the need to follow additional procedures for students with disabilities, as they were not included in the charter school’s policy.
After AFC intervened, Mia was able to stay at the charter school and begin receiving special education supports and services, including an individualized behavioral plan, that helped to improve her behavior in class.
Over the past few years, Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) has assisted an increasing number of parents who have contacted us with concerns about charter school suspensions and expulsions. In the past year-and-a-half alone, AFC has provided guidance or legal representation to more than 100 parents in charter school suspension and expulsion cases. Most of these parents had celebrated winning the charter school lottery and wanted their children to continue attending the charter school.
In helping parents with these cases, AFC found that charter school discipline policies were not always readily available.2 Parents often did not have a copy of the policies, and the policies were not always available online.
In June 2013, we sent Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests to the three New York City charter school authorizers,3 all charter schools operating in NYC during the 2012-2013 school year, and, to the extent possible, charter schools opening in NYC during the 2013-2014 school year seeking, among other things, copies of their discipline policies. Charter schools are required to comply with FOIL requests,4 and most charter schools responded. From the FOIL responses and charter school websites, we were able to review 164 discipline policies from 155 of the 183 charter schools operating in NYC during the 2013-2014 school year.5 These discipline policies came from large charter school networks as well as from small, independent charter schools.
(2) 82 of the 164 NYC charter school discipline policies we reviewed permit suspension or expulsion as a penalty for lateness, absence, or cutting class, in violation of state law.
(3) 133 of the 164 NYC charter school discipline policies we reviewed fail to include the right to written notice of a suspension prior to the suspension taking place, in violation of state law.
(4) 36 of the 164 NYC charter school discipline policies we reviewed fail to include an opportunity to be heard prior to a short-term suspension, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, New York State Constitution, and state law.
(5) 25 of the 164 NYC charter school discipline policies we reviewed fail to include the right to a hearing prior to a long-term suspension, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, New York State Constitution, and state law.
(6) 59 of the 164 NYC charter school discipline policies we reviewed fail to include the right to appeal charter school suspensions or expulsions, even though state law establishes a distinct process for charter school appeals.
(7) 36 of the 164 NYC charter school discipline policies we reviewed fail to include any additional procedures for suspending or expelling students with disabilities, in violation of federal and state law.
(8) 52 of the 164 NYC charter school discipline policies we reviewed fail to include the right to alternative instruction during the full suspension period, in violation of state law.
While charter schools should be able to discipline their students, they must uphold the rights of their students and provide them with a fair discipline process. The Charter Schools Act requires charter school authorizers to ensure that charter applications include discipline policies and procedures that comport with the law.7 Yet, all three authorizers of New York City charter schools have approved charters for schools that have legally inadequate discipline policies.
Based on these findings and our work assisting families in charter school suspension and expulsion cases, we recommend:
(1) Charter school authorizers and the Board of Regents should ensure that charter school discipline policies meet the requirements of the law and are aligned with federal guidance. They should not approve or renew charter schools unless they have discipline policies that comply with the law.
(2) The State Legislature should amend state law to affirm that charter schools must abide by the requirements of Section 3214 of the New York Education Law and its regulations, ending any perceived ambiguity in the law.
(3) The State Legislature should amend state law to include explicit standards for expelling students to ensure that expulsions for all schools, including charter schools, are limited to the most severe and dangerous behaviors in accordance with decisions of the New York State Education Department (NYSED) Commissioner.
(4) The State Legislature should amend state law to require all public schools, including charter schools, to provide full-time alternative instruction when students are suspended or expelled. New York City district public school8 students are currently entitled to full- time alternative instruction when they are suspended for more than five days.
(5) The State Legislature should amend state law to require charter schools to report suspension and expulsion data. Charter school authorizers and the Board of Regents should consider suspension and expulsion data, as well as student attrition data, in charter school renewal applications.
(6) Because charter schools and the DOE both have responsibilities to students with disabilities who face suspension or expulsion, charter school authorizers should collaborate with the DOE to develop a memorandum of understanding delineating their respective responsibilities to ensure that these students are receiving protections required by federal and state law.
(7) Charter school authorizers and the Board of Regents, with input from parents, advocates, and students, should develop a model discipline policy to provide guidance to charter school leaders. In addition, authorizers should provide training for charter school leaders and staff in suspension procedures, discipline of students with disabilities, and positive approaches to discipline, such as restorative justice, peer mediation, social-emotional learning, or positive behavior interventions.
(8) Charter school authorizers and the Board of Regents should identify and promote best practices and innovative, positive approaches to discipline, as encouraged by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice.
(9) NYSED should post the Education Commissioner’s charter school suspension and expulsion appeal decisions on the NYSED website, alongside the district public school appeal decisions that are already posted.
(10) The State Legislature should amend the Charter Schools Act to require all charter schools to distribute their discipline policies to students and parents at the beginning of
the school year and post the policies on their websites along with contact information for the appeals/grievance process.
We make these recommendations in recognition that suspension and expulsion can have devastating consequences for the students involved. Suspended students are more likely to repeat a grade, drop out of school, have increased behavioral problems in school, and come into contact with the juvenile justice system. This data is particularly troubling because, nationally and locally, African American students and students with disabilities are suspended from school at rates disproportionate to their peers. One year ago, the federal government called upon all public schools to curb reliance on suspension, expulsion, and zero tolerance policies and to increase use of positive interventions, such as conflict resolution, counseling, and other inclusive approaches to discipline, to address suspension disparities and to minimize the negative impact of suspension on students. Improving school discipline in these ways is integral to creating high- quality public schools, including charter schools, that work for students, teachers, and school communities.”
To read the full study and footnotes, open the link.
From our review, we found:
(1) 107 of the 164 NYC charter school discipline policies we reviewed permit suspension or expulsion as a penalty for any of the infractions listed in the discipline policy, no matter how minor the infraction.
By contrast, the New York City Department of Education’s (DOE) Discipline Code aligns infractions with penalties, limiting suspension to certain violations and prohibiting expulsion for all students under age 17 and for all students with disabilities.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, the high school graduation rate reached a new high of 81%. This is based on the four-year graduation rate. If one looks at the six-year rate and includes students who receive a GED, the rate is well above 90%.
The jurisdiction with the lowest four-year graduation rate is the District of Columbia at 62%. D. C. has been devoted to corporate reform since the arrival of Michelle Rhee in 2007.
The political action arm of the California Charter Schools Association funded a political attack ad making fun of school board member Bennett Kayser’s disability.
Robert Skeels posts a blog by Scott Folsom of 4LAKids who asks the inevitable question:
“The appropriate quote here is from Joseph Welch to Joe McCarthy: “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 