Archives for the month of: April, 2015
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Dean Tim Slekar: The Néw NCLB Ignores Poverty

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2015 //
20

Tim Slekar is dean of Edgewood College in Wisconsin. He is a tireless activist against mindless reform. He blogs at Busted Pencils. He explained in a comment why he was disappointed with the Senate version of the reauthorization of ESEA/NCLB:

Slekar writes:

“I’m not really that thrilled because while it addresses the excessive authority of the DOE, I can not find anything that recognizes the role poverty plays in the achievement gap and once again we have a bill that thinks improving schools is primarily the job of standards, curriculum, teachers and tests. Tests, Tests, Tests. Is it an improvement to get the federal government out of the school improvement business? Yes.

“However, why do we have any faith that state governments will actually attack the achievement gap without the status quo “test and punish” approach. Remember test and punish is an ideology that is still rooted in a hatred and disdain for public schools.

“This hatred and disdain is clearly present here in WI with “accountability” legislation being introduced at the state level that gives the finger to the feds but then simply puts in place a state level “test and punish” accountability system that will never help children, teachers and schools.

“It continues the system—test and punish—approach that blames public schools for the achievement gap. And there is nothing that allows the people to hold the state legislature accountable for purposely ignoring poverty and in a lot of cases creating the political culture that creates poverty.”

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty

California Court Rules That Charter Schools Are Entitled to More Public Space in L.A.

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
7

A court decision handed down in California found that charters in Los Angeles are entitled to more space.

The California Supreme Court unanimously decided Thursday that the Los Angeles school district’s method for allocating space to charter schools may shortchange them classrooms.

In a decisionhttp://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S208611.PDF written by Justice Goodwin Liu, the state’s highest court said the L.A. Unified School District’s formula may “undercount” the number of classrooms that charter schools are entitled to and should be replaced with a different method.

But whether the new method would lead to expansions for L.A. charter schools was unclear. The guidelines laid down by the court contained plenty of room for interpretation. Charter advocates predicted that at least some schools would get additional space. An attorney for LAUSD said no new charter school classrooms would be required.

The case was based on Proposition 39, which voters passed in 2000. It requires school districts to give charters facilities that are reasonably equivalent to those provided to students in traditional public schools. Charter schools are publicly funded and independently run. Most are nonunion.

The court said L.A. Unified violated a state regulation by allocating space to charters based on the number of classrooms staffed by teachers across the district. The law requires other space — including rooms used for study halls or libraries — to be part of the equation, the court said.

“Counting only those classrooms staffed by an assigned teacher would effectively impute to charter schools the same staffing decisions made by the District,” Liu wrote. “But there is no reason to think a charter school would necessarily use classrooms in the same way that the District does.”

David M. Huff, who represented LAUSD, said the district already shares libraries and other non-teaching rooms with on-site charters. Although the district must use a different formula in allotting space, “the math works out the same,” he said.

Categories Charter Schools, Los Angeles, Privatization

Bianca Tianis: Whose Side Is the New York State School Boards Association On?

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
12

Parent and educator Bianca Tanis was stunned to discover that the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA) was misinforming parents about their right to opt out of state testing. Tanis is an active member of NYSAPE (New York Allies for Public Education, which represents 50 parent and teacher organizations.) She wrote a response to set the record straight.

As the opt out movement grows, questions about a parent’s right to refuse and potential loss of school funding persist despite the fact that test refusal has been in full swing for two years now with NO negative consequences for any school districts or students. According to the New York State School Board Association (NYSSBA) 2015 advisory , Managing State Assessment Opt Outs, schools risk a loss of funding and unspecified penalties should less than 95% of students participate in the NYS State ELA and Math tests in grades 3-8. This is a patent falsehood, and a significant one, as this organization advises our local school boards and administrators.

According to the New York State Education Department (NYSED), under the ESEA waiver there is NO direct negative financial impact on a school district that does not meet the 95% participation rate if it is in good standing. In the worst-case scenario, a school in good standing that fails to meet the 95% rate for three consecutive years may be labeled a Local Assistance Plan (LAP) School. While the school will then be required to craft a plan detailing how it will seek to increase test participation, there is absolutely no impact on state aid or Title I monies, and the school district would continue to remain in good standing. These facts have been confirmed by Joseph Shibu of the NYSED Office of Accountability, and were recently reconfirmed in a March 24th, 2015 interview with Senior Deputy Education Commissioner Ken Wagner. You can read that interview here.

An April 2nd, 2015 interview credits NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer with saying, “If even a small percentage of children, 5%, boycott the English and math exams, then schools could risk federal sanctions or funding penalties.” The NYSBBA opt out advisory also warns that schools must be careful in how they handle opt outs: “Some district responses could have negative legal and financial consequences for both the district and school district officials.” Yet nowhere in the regulations or laws concerning education in NYS is there anything to indicate that schools stand to lose funding or Title I monies due to test refusal.

It should be noted that a 2014 survey conducted by the New York State Council Of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS) revealed that 35% of superintendents self-reported that their schools did not meet the 95% participation rate, and that none of these districts have been found to have lost any funding. Despite the lack of evidence for loss of funding, NYSSBA stands by its baseless claims. By putting forth false information and utilizing scare tactics, NYSSBA has essentially robbed many local BOEs of the opportunity to advocate for parents who wish to refuse. This is especially true in districts that are significantly under-resourced where loss of funding would be especially devastating.

The fact is, at every turn, this organization discourages school districts from recognizing parents’ rights to protect their children from a controversial test that no one, save the child, may view. According to NYSSBA the “State Education Department has stated that there is no provision in statute or regulation allowing parents to opt their children out of State tests.” The March 24th interview with Senior Deputy Education Commissioner Ken Wagner reports that “Wagner did not deny that there is nothing in place forbidding parents to refuse.” And it is worth noting that the Empire State School Administrators Association (ESSAA) reported to school administrators on 3/25/15 that the NYS Commissioner of Education’s Office has advised that “while the ordinary procedure is to present the test to a student and have him/her refuse, if a parent asks you to not present the test at all, NYSED has recommended that you comply with the parent’s wishes.”

These actions do not align well with NYSSBA’s self-proclaimed core beliefs in “open communication” and “Public education as grassroots democracy.” Their goal to “Serve as the primary information source on public education” is clearly undermined by what appears to be either a willful dissemination of false information or a failure to do their due diligence.

In response to NYSUT president Karen Magee’s very recent call for parents to refuse the NYS Common Core Test in grades 3-8, NYSSBA president Tim Kremer credits the union with a “brilliant strategy.” With this statement, Kremer once again undermines the role that parents have played in directing their children’s education and falsely characterizes test refusal as a union initiative. It is doubtful that Kremer is unaware that prior to President’s Magee’s 3 day old call for opt out, the parent driven test refusal movement has been in full swing for almost two years with more than 60,000 refusals last year.

In response to the passing of Governor Cuomo’s budget, the NYS PTA issued a statement in which they said, “Today is a sad day for the students and teachers of New York. The Governor, claiming to be the best advocate for children, has tied inadequate school funding to questionable education reform based on volatile state tests…” The School Administrators Association of New York (SAANYS) issued the following statement, “SAANYS and its members are extremely disappointed with many of the education components negotiated in this budget, specifically in regard to principal and teacher evaluations (APPR)” and according to the latest Quinnipiac polls, 71% of the public opposes the use of test scores to evaluate teachers. Parents, administrators and educators unilaterally denounced the bill as harmful for public education. Yet NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer had this to say in about the state budget, “All in all, school boards have been given additional resources and tools they need to invest in educational programs and improve teaching quality” and in an interview on the Capital Pressroom Kremer maintained that “overall, school boards are pleased with many of the education changes.” Once again, NYSSBA is out of synch with parents, educators, administrators, and the public.

It seems clear that NYSSBA has made a choice through their advice to school boards to put as many road blocks as possible in the way of parents seeking to refuse tests that erode local control, siphon school resources and adversely affect teaching and learning, thereby downplaying the concerns of communities across NYS. As the information available has evolved, NYSSBA’s direction to those they advise has not. Without speculating about why this organization seeks to diminish the role of parents in the direction of their children’s education, the effect of their disdain and disregard for opt out has in many ways diminished local control by attempting to silence the concerned voices of parents, and in many cases, school board members. If a school administrator or a Board of Education presents false information to a parent or community, can they be faulted if they are acting on false information from the body tasked with advising them?

While parties may agree to disagree on the merits of the Common Core and the Common Core based ELA and Math tests and their impact on children and schools, shouldn’t those in positions of school leadership be tasked with providing their communities with the most factual information available? NYSSBA claims that “School board members are the educational leaders of their communities.” Is it not then incumbent upon these leaders to educate parents and allow them to make informed, reasoned decisions for their children? It is ever OK for those in positions of power to mislead the public, no matter how well intentioned their reason? Until NYSSBA is willing to advise Boards of Education on how to effectively advocate for the rights of parents within the parameters of the law and until NYSSBA provides fully factual information to our local boards of education, parents and community members will urge their elected board members to spend tax-payer dollars elsewhere.

Open the article to find all the links.

There are rumors that some local school boards may drop out of NYSSBA to protest its actions in defending Cuomo’s anti-teacher actions. NYSSBA needs to take another look at its policies and the information it distributes to school boards.

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Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents

David Greene: Was I an Effective Teacher, a Developing Teacher, or an Ineffective Teacher?

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
36

David Greene taught for many years and most recently has been mentoring new teachers. He read Pasi Sahlberg’s post this morning which said that Finnish teachers are not “the best and the brightest,” but those who are both capable and are committed to becoming career educators. Reflecting on Pasi’s article, he wrote this one of his own. 

David is upset by the suggestion of the Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents that “high-performing districts,” with high test scores and high graduation rates might be exempted from the teacher-principal test-score based evaluations. Her purpose, one suspects, is to tamp down the opt out movement, which is especially strong in suburban districts.

He asks:

So, according to [Chancellor Merryl] Tisch, those who teach our “best and brightest” (i.e. mostly wealthier and whiter) would be exempt as a result of New York’s two-tier education system that also is the most highly segregated in the nation.

Tisch makes me wonder. Was I a highly effective teacher in wealthy and white Scarsdale High School when I taught her nephew? Was I a developing or effective teacher in mostly middle class and integrated Woodlands High School? And did that make me an ineffective teacher at Adlai Stevenson High School in the Bronx, the nation’s poorest urban county, regardless of the huge number of success stories that emanated from there?

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Tennessee Legislature Seeks to Reduce Test Scores’ Role in Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
8

The House members of the Tennessee legislature voted unanimously to reduce the role of test scores in teacher evaluations, at least temporarily. Controversy continues about whether teachers and other school staff should be evaluated by the scores of students they don’t teach. (Note: readers, please tell Andrew Cuomo that other states are reducing the role of test scores, not increasing them.)

 

A bill that temporarily would alter the amount that student test score growth impacts teacher evaluations in Tennessee passed unanimously in the House Thursday. But first, lawmakers debated the merits of a system that grades teachers based on scores in subjects they don’t teach.
The proposal, brought to the legislature by Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
The bill proposes to phase in the weight of test scores as the state transitions to its new assessment, called TNReady, which will be rolled out during the 2015-2016 school year. Under the proposal, scores from the new test would account only for 10 percent of the teacher evaluation score in 2015-16 and 25 percent in 2016-17, before returning to the current 35 percent in the 2017-2018 school year.
The policy also addresses concerns that teachers of non-tested subjects — such as art and physical education, as well as school counselors — can be penalized for test scores they don’t directly impact. The bill proposes that student growth for those positions count for 10 percent in 2015-16, down from 25 percent, and move to 15 percent in subsequent school years.
Some legislators said that provision is inadequate, however. House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley) offered an amendment that would prohibit test scores from impacting evaluations of non-testing teachers at all. He said allowing educators to be graded based on the scores of other teachers is akin to grading students based on the scores of their peers.
“Parents would be outraged,” Fitzhugh said.
Rep. Mark White maintained the bill is fair without the amendment, however, because no teacher works in isolation. “Does the librarian not have an effect on student reading?” he asked. “Can a guidance counselor not play a role in affecting student performance?”

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Tennessee, Testing

How the Obamas Opted Their Children Out of High-Stakes Standardized Tests

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
52

Read Alan Singer’s column posted in Valerie Strauss’s blog The Answer Sheet to learn how the Obama family opted out.””

Singer says that the Obamas opted out of high-stakes testing by sending their daughters to Sidwell Friends, which does not give standardized tests to every child every year and does not evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students.

Now you can opt out your children from high-stakes tests too. It’s not hard. NYS Allies for Public Education has a sample “refusal” letter and video instructions on its website. All parents have to do is fill out the letter and deliver it to the school principal, either in person or via email. They also recommend a follow-up call before the test dates to remind school personnel. Last year approximately 60,000 New York State students refused to take the tests. In New York State, high-stakes Common Core aligned math and reading tests will be administered in grades 3-8 from April 14 – 16 and April 22 – April 24.

Karen Magee, president of the New York state teachers’ union (NYSUT) is calling for a statewide boycott of the Common Core-aligned tests to protest new testing regulations and test-based evaluations of teachers propagated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Despite evidence against the validity of evaluating teachers using student scores on these tests, Cuomo demanded that 50 percent of every teacher’s evaluation be based on test results in their schools. Meanwhile, he is unable to explain how the 70 percent of teachers who do not teach tested subjects can legitimately be judged based on the tests.

Open the links and learn how you can opt out with sending your children to private school to escape the test prep and high-stakes tests imposed by NCLB and made worse by Race to the Top and the new Common Core tests.

Categories Accountability, Opt Out, Resistance, Standardized Testing

Mercedes Schneider’s Close Reading of the Senate Bill to Revise NCLB: Part 2

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
12

Mercedes Schneider is reading the 600+ pages of the Senate bill drafted by Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator Patti Murray. It is a tough job, and I am glad she has the patience to do it.

 

This is her second installment, and you will find in it a link to the first close reading of the bill, which went to page 136.

 

She picks up a few points she wants to add to her review of the first 136 pages, and she adds commentary on another 25 pages. Her pace has slowed down, either because she teaches high school English full-time, or because the tedium of reading legislative language is slowing her down. A few points she touches on that are important: 1) the bill allows public school choice, but does not require it; 2) the bill does not refer to “failing” schools (a favorite term of the reformers); 3) the bill reiterates the principle that federal funds must “supplement not supplant” local funding; 4) the bill again prohibits federal interference in local efforts to improve schools, another slap at Arne Duncan’s overreach.

 

You can be sure she will read the proposed law to the very end, and we will all be better informed. You can also be sure that most members of Congress will not read the legislation as closely as she does.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

Peter Greene: Charters Have Failed As “Laboratories of Innovation”

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
69

Peter Greene reminds us that charter schools were supposed to be laboratories of innovation–freed from central bureaucracy, freed from state regulations and mandates. But, he says, they have utterly failed. They were also originally supposed to be schools that gathered in the students who were most at risk of dropping out or who had already dropped out, but most compete to get high test scores to prove they are “better” than public schools, so they avoid the neediest students or counsel them out. Charters would be perceived differently if they stopped bragging and started admitting that they face the same challenges as public schools, but with fewer constraints.

 

Greene writes:

 

Here’s my challenge for charter fans– name one educational technique, one pedagogical breakthrough, that started at a charter school and has since spread throughout the country to all sorts of public schools.

 

After all these years of getting everything they wanted, modern charter schools have nothing to teach the public schools of the US…..

 

Both this profile from the New York Times and a teacher interview with Diane Ravitch show that the widely-lauded Success Academy model of New York is based on the emotional brutalization of children and tunnel-vision focus on The Test. This is justified by an ugly lie– that if poor kids can get the same kind of test scores as rich kids, the doors will open to the same kind of success.

 

Put all that together with a mission to weed out those students who just can’t cut it the SA way, and you have a model that cannot, and should not be exported to public schools. Success Academy demonstrates that charters don’t necessarily need to cream for the best and the brightest, but just for the students who can withstand their particular narrow techniques.

 

But then, most modern charters are fundamentally incompatible with the core mission of public schools, which is to teach every single child. Examination of charters show over and over and over again that they have developed techniques which work– as long as they get to choose which students to apply them to. New Jersey has been rather fully examined in this light, and the lesson of New Jersey charters is clear– if you get to pick and choose the students you teach, you can get better results.

 

This is the equivalent of a laboratory that announces, “We can show you a drug that produces fabulous hair growth, as long as you don’t make us demonstrate it on any bald guys.”

 

Modern charters have tried to shift the conversation, to back away from the “laboratory” narrative. Nowadays, they just like to talk about how they have been successful. These “successes” are frequently debatable and often minute, but they all lack one key ingredient for legitimate laboratory work– replication by independent researchers….

 

Maybe, as Mike Petrilli suggested, it’s time to stop talking about charters as laboratories and stop pretending that they’re discovering anything other than “If you get to pick which students you’re going to teach, you can get stuff done” (which as discoveries go is on the order of discovering that water is wet). There may well be an argument to make about charters as a means of providing special salvation for one or two special starfish. But if that’s the argument we’re going to have, let’s just drop the whole pretense that charters are discovering anything new or creating new educational methods that will benefit all schools, and start talking about the real issue– the establishment of a two-tier schools system to separate the worthy from the rabble.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Testing

Arnold Dodge: The Sham Called Race to the Top

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
11

Arnold Dodge, who lives on Long Island, has been a teacher, principal, and superintendent and is now a professor of education. In this post, he exited the metaphor of Race to the Top.”

What were they thinking?

“Race to the Top? C’mon.

“The phenomena of racing and reaching the top couldn’t possibly have been the goals set for children’s education. Anyone who knows anything about the fragile, unpredictable, erratic, self-conscious development of a youngster couldn’t possibly have come up with such a name.

“But, let’s pause to reconsider the possibilities. Maybe critics of the feds should take a minute to do a close read of the name and give the planners a break. Maybe they had something else in mind. Let’s try a thought experiment.

“What if the federal education bureaucrats were dog whistling to the rich folks to get them on board with the initiative?

“Maybe it’s Chase to the Top for the bankers and billionaires who are in thrall with destroying public schools and privatizing education. The unrelenting attacks on teacher unions, the proliferation of charter schools, the imposition of frustrating and impossibly difficult tests (then selling products to help with testing) may seem entirely appropriate to those who reap the rewards from the market approach to schooling. Teachers bashed, children anxious, parents confused. Sounds like a plan.

“Maybe it’s White Race to the Top. Sounds plausible since the RTTT mandates and the NCLB policies have done little to change the intractable achievement gaps, and even less to address segregated school systems, perhaps the greatest obstacle to school success. At a recent New York State legislative meeting, a meeting to coronate Governor Cuomo as the king of the New York State educational system, a courageous legislator got it right: “High need/low wealth districts get shafted every time.” (1) This includes impoverished white communities as well.

“Poor people please understand. There’s just so much room at the top; privileged white communities occupy the space, and there’s no sign they will sub-divide. The notion that the federal and state education plans’ foremost objective is to help the inner city schools and the disenfranchised is a convenient lie. Politicians are fond of citing miraculous stories of schools in poor communities improving. But these are outliers, examples of schools with unique circumstances and/or infusions of grant money. These are outliers. The politicians are just plain liars.”

Read the rest. It is funny and it has links.

Categories Race to the Top

Pasi Sahlberg: Finnish Teachers Are Not “the Best and the Brightest”

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
60

Pasi Sahlberg, the great Finnish educator who is teaching this year at Harvard Graduate School of Education, wrote recently to explain how Finnish universities select future teachers.

Finnish universities are famously selective,accepting only 10% of the high school graduates who want to become teachers. But how do they select? Sahlberg’s very bright niece was turned down when she first applied.

So what is the selection process?

Sahlberg writes:

“Who exactly are those who were chosen to become primary teachers in Finland ahead of my niece? Let’s take closer look at the academic profile of the first-year cohort selected at the University of Helsinki. The entrance test has two phases. All students must first take a national written test. The best performers in this are invited on to the second phase, to take the university’s specific aptitude test. At the University of Helsinki, 60% of the accepted 120 students were selected on a combination of their score on the entrance test and their points on the subject exams they took to complete their upper-secondary education; 40% of students were awarded a study place based on their score on the entrance test alone.

“Last spring, 1,650 students took the national written test to compete for those 120 places at the University of Helsinki. Applicants received between one and 100 points for the subject exams taken to earn upper-secondary school leaving diplomas. A quarter of the accepted students came from the top 20% in academic ability and another quarter came from the bottom half. This means that half of the first-year students came from the 51- to 80-point range of measured academic ability. You could call them academically average. The idea that Finland recruits the academically “best and brightest” to become teachers is a myth. In fact, the student cohort represents a diverse range of academic success, and deliberately so.

“A good step forward would be to admit that academically best students are not necessarily the best teachers
If Finnish teacher educators thought that teacher quality correlates with academic ability, they would have admitted my niece and many of her peers with superior school performance. Indeed, the University of Helsinki could easily pick the best and the brightest of the huge pool of applicants each year, and have all of their new trainee teachers with admirable grades.

“But they don’t do this because they know that teaching potential is hidden more evenly across the range of different people. Young athletes, musicians and youth leaders, for example, often have the emerging characteristics of great teachers without having the best academic record. What Finland shows is that rather than get “best and the brightest” into teaching, it is better to design initial teacher education in a way that will get the best from young people who have natural passion to teach for life.

“The teaching profession has become a fashionable topic among education reformers around the world. In England, policy-makers from David Cameron down have argued that the way to improve education is to attract smarter people to be teachers. International organisations such as the OECD and McKinsey & Company, Sir Michael Barber for Pearson, and in the US, Joel Klein, former New York education chancellor now working for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, have all claimed that the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. These are myths and should be kept away from evidence-informed education policies and reforms.

“A good step forward would be to admit that the academically best students are not necessarily the best teachers. Successful education systems are more concerned about finding the right people to become career-long teachers. Oh, and what happened to my niece? She applied again and succeeded. She graduated recently and will be a teacher for life, like most of her university classmates.”

Categories International, Teacher Education, Teachers
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