Archives for the month of: February, 2015
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Adam Bessie: Is Free Community College a Trojan Horse?

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2015 //
11

Adam Bessie is a professor at a California community college. He looks back wistfully to the era when free community college was guaranteed and a path to making one’s way in the world.

 

But he fears now that President Obama’s plan will turn into a Race to the Top for community colleges, with federal requirements for test scores, VAM, and graduation, along with punishments for not reaching mandated targets.

 

“I worry that “free” college may be a Trojan horse for implementing a Race to the Top (RTTT) for higher education, which has been a disastrous policy for K-12 education. RTTT, which is essentially No Child Left Behind rebranded, uses the force of the federal government to institute a regime of standardized testing and so-called “competition,” which has narrowed the curriculum (especially in poor schools, which many of my students come from), emphasizing only reading and math, and tossing aside the arts, sciences and other areas which can’t be tested. Beyond this, RTTT has wrested control of classrooms out of the hands of educators and communities, and placed them into the hands of distant technocrats in the federal government and corporate America.

 

“Free” college might mean that community colleges would cede local, community control to the federal government; thus, the policies of Washington and corporate America would drive the curriculum, rather than the needs of the community. And based on what we’ve seen with RTTT, it’s likely that community colleges again would become junior colleges – designed primarily as trade schools, or for transfer, with a focus on getting students in and out the door as fast as possible, using standardized, impersonal methods more focused on efficiency than education.”

Categories Higher Education, Obama, Race to the Top, Testing

James Harvey: Ten Things You Should Know About International Tests

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2015 //
22

James Harvey, director of the National Superintendents Roundtable, wrote a terrific article about international assessments in Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet.

He explains:

“These assessments were never intended to line up and rank nations against each other like baseball standings.

“That’s right. The statisticians and psychometricians who dreamed up these assessments 50 years ago stated explicitly that the question of whether “the children of country X [are] better educated that those of country Y” was “a false question” due to the innumerable social, cultural, and economic differences among nations. But, hey, that’s just a detail.”

Another point:

“2. The “international average” isn’t what you think it is. It’s not a weighted average of all the students in the world, but an average of the national averages.

“This means that when calculating the “international average,” the 5,600 students in Lichtenstein, the 700,000 in Ireland, the 860,000 in Finland, the 5 million in Canada, and the 14 million in Japan carry exactly the same weight as the 56 million students in the United States.”

And here is more:

“3. These assessments compare apples and oranges.

“Do you think there’s anything to be learned from comparing the average performance of 5,600 wealthy white students in Lichtenstein with 56 million diverse students in the United States? Really? How about comparing our students with students in corrupt dictatorships like Kazakhstan, religious monarchies like Qatar, or the wealthiest city in China (Shanghai) after it has driven the children of low-income migrants back to their home provinces? As a report released in January by the Horace Mann League and the National Superintendents Roundtable, “School Performance in Context: The Iceberg Effect,” makes clear, these are just a few of the peculiar comparisons that lie behind these international assessment results.”

“5. The horse-race tables ignore differences in poverty, inequity, and social stress among nations.

“Fifty years of research in the United States and abroad documents a powerful correlation between low student achievement and poverty and disadvantagement. Yet reports on these international assessments blandly turn a blind eye on the implications of this research. The data are clear: Poverty rates among American students are five times higher than they are in Finland. China aside, we have the highest rates of income inequality in the nine nations examined in The Iceberg Effect. The rate of violent deaths in American communities is eight times the average rate in the other eight nations and 13 times greater than it is in Japan. All of that is ignored in the orgy of publicity organized by the sponsoring agencies of these assessments to highlight their findings.”

All in all, a brilliant analysis of the limitations of these tests that have promoted the deeply flawed agenda of test and punish.

Categories International, Testing

Illinois Governor Rauner Goes After Unions, Wants More Charters

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2015 //
23

Mike Klonsky reviews Governor Bruce Rauner’s dream: a state with no unions and more charters.

“Gov. Rauner used yesterday’s State of the State speech to officially declare war on the state’s working people and on public schools. His first order of business was calling for Illinois to join states like Mississippi and Alabama as union-free zones and for the banning of political contributions from teachers and other public employee unions. He then promised to cut workers’ comp, unemployment benefits and to push for more privately run charter schools.”

Mike points out that Gov. Rauner can’t pass any legislation without Democratic support since both houses of the Legislature are controlled by Democrats. Mike’s not sure which way they will go.

Categories Charter Schools, Illinois, Unions

Wisconsin: Governor Walker Proposes Expansion of Vouchers, Charters, Lower Standards for New Teachers

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2015 //
34

Governor Scott Walker released a budget proposal that contains no significant increase in funding for public schools, but a large expansion of vouchers and charters for the entire state. He wants to remove the cap on the number of students who may receive vouchers to attend private and religious schools but maintain the income limit of about $44,122 for a family of four. He wants a new charter board that he and his allies control. He wants to withdraw support for the Common Core exam known as Smarter Balanced and to cancel Milwaukee’s integration funding. He proposes to lower standards for those entering teaching and to introduce A-F letter grades (a Jeb Bush invention):

 

If enacted, the proposals would cause major waves in the state’s public school systems, which have faced an onslaught of reforms in recent years, both financially and academically.

 

The governor’s budget calls for throwing out the new state standardized achievement exam aligned with the Common Core academic standards, which is set to be administered to students in third through eighth grade for the first time this spring.

 

And he wants schools to receive A-F letter grades on their state report cards, instead of the current descriptions explaining how well they’re meeting expectations.

 

Walker’s budget plan would also make it easier for anyone with a bachelor’s degree and real-world experience to get a license to become a middle or high school teacher. And to free up aid for districts statewide, the governor wants to end the Chapter 220 program designed to help racially integrate Milwaukee’s city and suburban schools — something he says will redirect $60 million in aid to other districts.

 

Even the state superintendent complained that Walker’s budget shortchanged public schools:

 

State Superintendent Tony Evers noted the governor’s budget offered no increase in the revenue limit for public schools, which is the total amount districts can raise per pupil in state aid and property taxes.

 

“That’s huge,” he said. “Schools are at the breaking point.”

 

Will this improve education in Wisconsin? Not likely, since vouchers in Milwaukee have not improved the performance of students receiving them, and several of Milwaukee’s charters are in academic distress. Letter grades have nothing to do with school improvement; they are a strategy that typically places extra emphasis on standardized test scores and sets low-scoring schools up for closure. As for inviting non-educators to become middle-school and high-school teachers, that might provide a new labor force to replace experienced teachers, but it is hard to see how it leads to better instruction to turn students over to people who have never taught and have no preparation to do so.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers, Wisconsin

More Than Half of U.S. Students Will Not Take Federally-Funded Common Core Tests

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2015 //
21

Catherine Gewertz reports in Education Week that 51% of American students will not be taking either the PARCC or Smarter Balanced (SBAC) tests. These tests were underwritten by a U.S. Department of Education grant of $360 million and were designed to test the Common Core standards. Eighteen states will use the Smarter Balanced tests, while only 10 states and the District of Columbia will use PARCC. About a dozen states that initially agreed to administer the PARCC tests have backed out. The SBAC might lose one of its 18 states, since Governor Scott Walker proposed pulling Wisconsin out of SBAC.

 

Given these numbers, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tests samples of students in every state (and D.C.), will continue to be the authoritative national gauge of student test scores. With only 28% of the nation’s students taking the same test (SBAC), the public will not be able to compare student performance from state to state, unless they happen to live in the 18 states giving the SBAC. Why it is valuable to compare the performance of students in different states remains a puzzle; why it was necessary to spend $360 million to do so is even more puzzling, given that the same information is gathered and published by NAEP for all 50 states and D.C.

Categories Common Core, Testing

Duncan Urged Parents to Speak Out on NCLB: They Complain About Common Core and Testing

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2015 //
17

Arne Duncan went to Maryland to urge parents to organize against the House rewrite of NCLB. What parents wanted to talk about was Common Core and testing.

 

He told them there would be bumps in the road but everything would be fine in the end.

 

“I’m really afraid that the PARCC assessments are going to take away from my child’s time in the classroom,” one mother said to the education secretary at the Parent Teacher Association town hall at Wiley H. Bates Middle School in Annapolis. (She was referring to common-core-aligned tests being developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, one of two consortia devising such assessments.)

 

“And another parent asked, “Why are we doing too much too soon on aggressive PARCC testing in schools? … Can’t we take some time to examine this before we use our children as guinea pigs in the classroom?”

 

Duncan proceeded to make claims about the bill that, strictly speaking, were not accurate. And of course, he won’t back away from Common Core or high-stakes testing.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing

California: Districts and School Boards Sue State to Pay for Common Core Testing

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2015 //
8

Five districts and the California School Boards Association are suing the state for $1 billion to recover the cost of computers and other technology needed for Common Core testing. They say the state must pay for unfunded mandates. The state says the districts must pay to comply with federal law.

The irony is that Arne Duncan keeps saying that the Common Core was developed by the states and is not a federal program. It is surely not mandated by NCLB.

Categories California, Common Core, Technology, Computers, Testing

Philadelphia: Charter Allies Offer $35 Million to Increase Charters

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2015 //
9

The pro-charter Philadelphia School Partnership has offered the School Reform Commission $35 million to expand the number of charters in the cash-strapped district.

“The one-time gift, to be given over three years, would consist of up to $25 million for charters and a separate $10 million offer to expand strong district schools.

“It is not clear is whether the School Reform Commission will approve any new charters or accept the stunning sum, which was offered late Wednesday, and came as news to many and proved immediately polarizing.

“Applications for 39 new charter schools now await an SRC vote, which could come as early as next week. District officials have said that approving more charters would mean taking money away from traditional public schools, and no new stand-alone charters have been approved for seven years….

“Behind closed doors, Gov. Wolf has said he wants the SRC to approve zero new charters because the district can’t afford them, sources have said, adding that both sides have threatened the SRC’s existence if things do not go their way.”

Parent activists for public schools are furious at the offer.

“Lisa Haver, cofounder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, was aghast.

“PSP is a very influential in this school district, but it doesn’t look out for the best interests of all the students,” Haver said. “It’s shocking to see they have $35 million while schools are hanging by their fingernails to survive – schools that don’t have staff, full-time nurses and full-time librarians. And now, out of the blue, this nonprofit group says, ‘Guess what? We have $35 million.'”

“Haver, a retired district teacher, said the SRC “should reject their offer because one small group of people who are not elected officials and meet in private should not be making that decision based on how much money they have.”

It is curious that business and civic leaders remain starry-eyed about charters when there have been numerous charter scandals in Philadelphia. See here and here and here and here and here.

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, Philadelphia

Teacher to Economist: Why My School Can’t Eliminate Poverty

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2015 //
32

An economist recently predicted trillions of dollars of increased productivity if schools raised test scores and thus eliminated poverty.

This teacher has a different view, grounded in reality, not speculation.

“As a teacher in a high poverty urban school, I would like to weigh in here. My school is not set up to eliminate poverty. That argument is rubbish. Would any of these economists like to put a price on the psychological toll of poverty? My kids are worried about getting shot. It is a common occurrence in the neighborhood. They eat the school breakfast totally lacking in nutrition as if it were mana from heaven. Some wear the same clothes day after day. The vast majority are not focused on their studies due to shouldering the unrelenting burdens of poverty.”

Categories Economy, Jobs, Poverty

The Atlantic: Why the Néw SAT Will Reduce Opportunity

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2015 //
18

James S. Murphy, who tutors high school students for the SAT, says that the new, redesigned SAT is likely to pose high barriers to the neediest students. The new SAT will be aligned with the Common Core, both under the direction of the same man, David Coleman.

 

But as Murphy points out, students in at least eight states will have no experience with the Common Core. Many other states are just beginning to implement them. Many students are unprepared for the new SAT.

 

Murphy says that the math portion of the SAT is particularly daunting.

 

He writes:

 

“One problem with tying the SAT to these new standards is that it will force students and schools to play a long game of catch-up. Most states will be gradually implementing the standards over the next few years—assuming it will only take that long and assuming that any student taking the exam attends a school that is successfully using standards. At last check, 42 states are in the process of implementing the Common Core standards—three of the original participants dropped out—but they are doing so at different rates.

 

“The other consequence of (theoretically) basing the new SAT on what students are doing in their classrooms is that it threatens to makes success on the exam even more subject to socioeconomic background. Students at struggling schools—where teachers tend to have less experience and and support and where Common Core-related textbooks can be scarce—could be at a disadvantage. After all, they haven’t had exposure to the very materials and instruction integral to performing well on the test. This could all amount to an ironic twist: For all the faults of the SAT, one of its merits, at least in theory, is that it can identify students whose formal education might be lacking but who have the mental firepower to succeed given the opportunity.”

 

If more states pull out of the Common Core, the problems Murphy describes will grow worse. Coleman is betting the future of the SAT on his belief that the Common Core standards will prevail and become national standards. Some students will suffer because of that decision, or the SAT risks becoming irrelevant by its close alignment with a single set of standards whose value remains unknown and unproven.

Categories Common Core, Testing
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