Archives for the month of: May, 2015
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Peter Greene Calls Out the Civil Rights Lie in Newark

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2015 //
7

Peter Greene writes that student protests in Newark have exposed the lie about corporate reform defending civil rights. Thousands of students in Newark, mostly African American, went into the streets to oppose the corporate reform policies of the superintendent Cami Anderson. She was given an assignment by Governor Chris Christie to privatize the public schools of Newark.

The students demand to be heard but no one will listen.

Greene writes:

“As always, the students’ actions were thoughtful, measured and positive. Their message was vocal and clear. Accountability for superintendent Cami Anderson (skewered in one sign as “$cami”). A return to local control. And end to charter takeover of schools that have no need of takeover.

“Imagine you are someone thinking, “I believe that equitable education is the civil rights issue of our era. I believe that students who are not wealthy and not white are not represented and their needs are not respected. I am concerned that without test results, these students will become invisible.”

“Could you possibly have stood in Newark and said, “Boy, I just wish there were some way to find out what black families and students want, or what they think about the direction of education in Newark….

“Reformsters repeatedly claim that they are most concerned about American students like the students of Newark. The students of Newark have given them a chance to put their money where their mouths are, and reformsters have stayed silent. Cami Anderson remains unwilling to so much as talk to the students of Newark, and no leading “reform” voice has stepped up to call her out.

“Newark is a clear and vivid demonstration that reformster talk about civil rights and the importance of hearing and responding to the voices of students and families– it’s all a lie. In walking out, the students of Newark have stood up, not just for their own community and schools, but for students and communities all across the country.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Newark, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Students

Jersey Jazzman Explains Why Standardized Tests Never Produce Equity

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2015 //
3

Jersey Jazzman (aka Mark Weber) explains how standardized tests are designed and how they function in real life.

Standardized tests are designed to produce a normal curve. Most students are in the middle. The curve accurately reflects socioeconomic status. If states use proficiency levels instead, those levels are completely arbitrary. They can be moved up or down, as the leaders choose, to demonstrate progress or failure.

That’s why it is puzzling that civil rights groups are supporting annual standardized testing in Federal law. It wastes money, labels the neediest kids as failures year after year, provides no helpful information, has no diagnostic value, and benefits no one but the testing corporations and the reformsters who are eager to privatize public schools by waving around low scores and gaps.

JJ writes:

“The correlation between socio-economic status and test scores is absolutely iron-clad. Does anyone think eliminating the ceiling effect is going to change this? Granted, there is likely a ceiling on how income effects test scores: a kid in a family making $300K a year probably isn’t at much, if any, disadvantage compared to a kid in a family making $500K.

“But the wealthy have always enjoyed an advantage in our false meritocracy. The biases in the tests themselves, coupled with the inequitable distribution of resources available for schools, all but guarantee the majority of the variation in test scores will be explained by class.

“The neo-liberal view appears to be that this is inevitable and just, so long as we decouple these inequities from race. If we can get some more students of color into elite schools, and create a few more black and brown millionaires and billionaires, everything will be “fair.” The owners of the country can then sleep soundly at night, content that they may be classists, but they aren’t racists.

“I’m all for social mobility, but increasing it isn’t the same as decreasing inequity. There are millions of people in this county doing difficult, necessary jobs. It’s wrong to consign people of color to these jobs through a system of social reproduction in our schools. But it’s also wrong to pretend that we have a system where everybody can be above average, and in doing so can make a better life for themselves.

“So long as we keep making bell curves, somebody has to be on the left side. Somebody has to do the work that needs to get done. But there’s no reason those decent, hardworking people shouldn’t have good wages and good medical care and good housing and disposable income and workplace rights and time to spend raising their children.”

He wonders what would happen if we stopped using the bell curve.

Don’t you?

Categories Accountability, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Standardized Testing

The Heroic Teachers of Albuquerque Who Burned Their Evaluations in a Trash Can!

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2015 //
9

A group of courageous teachers burned their evaluations in a trash can in front of the Albuquerque Public Schools headquarters a few days ago. They are heroes of public education for standing up and saying that these evaluations are junk.

More than three dozen Albuquerque school teachers, including many who have just been rated “highly effective” by the New Mexico Public Education Department, burned their teacher evaluations in front of the Albuquerque Public Schools headquarters Wednesday to protest what many called the inherent “unfairness” of the process.

Courtney Hinman ignited the blaze by taking a lighter to his “effective” evaluation. He was quickly followed by a “minimally effective” special education teacher from Albuquerque High School, then by a “highly effective” teacher from Monte Vista Elementary School.

Wally Walstrom, also of Monte Vista Elementary, told the crowd of 60 or 70 people that his “highly effective” rating was “meaningless,” before tossing it into the fire.

One after another, teachers used the words “meaningless” and “unfair” to describe the evaluations and the process used to arrive at those judgments.

One teacher said she was judged “highly effective,” but a colleague who uses many of the same teaching techniques was found to be “minimally effective.”

Another teacher said the majority of his autistic, special-needs students failed the SBA – a mandatory assessment test – yet he was judged “highly effective.”

To see one of these hero teachers in action, read David Wilson’s account of his exchange with the local newspaper, which is in the unfortunate habit of printing press releases from the state education department, headed by Jeb Bush acolyte Hanna Skandera. She is now chairperson of Bush’s shrinking “Chiefs for Change.” Her appointment as state commissioner was held up for years by the State Senate because she had never taught (a requirement in the state law).

Here is how his forthright letter to the editor begins:

I am writing to ask you to issue a retraction or correction to the article Ms. Westphal wrote recently about the middle school teacher who received an evaluation of minimally effective after receiving highly effective last year. I have written to Ms. Westphal regarding this matter. Unfortunately, I received an automated response explaining that she was out of town.

In your retraction or correction, please state that, contrary to what Ms. Westphal stated in her article, Ms. Hur, chief of staff of Ed Sect’y Skandera, is not a teacher. If you state that she was once a teacher, be sure to include the fact that she taught for only three years, from 2001-2004. In the state of NM, a teacher with only 3 years experience is considered a beginning, relatively inexperienced teacher, still in her probationary period.

Please also include the fact that her three years of teaching experience were in a private school, not a public school, and that she was therefore never subject to the high teaching standards historically applied to public school teachers. Include the fact that she has never been evaluated by NMTeach and has never taught under the requirements of NCLB and RTTT.

It would also be forthright of you to point out that Ms. Hur has never been certified to teach in the state of New Mexico and may also no longer be certified to teach in Colorado.

Finally, you might consider mentioning that Ms. Hur worked for Michelle Rhee’s The New Teacher Project (TNTP) and for David Coleman’s McKinsey & Co., two private organizations that continue to work feverishly to undermine America’s public schools by discrediting and demonizing public school teachers, privatizing our public institutions, and turning our students into perpetual test takers.

Categories Albuquerque, Honor Roll, New Mexico, Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

Tom Loveless: Why the Common Core Won’t Make a Difference

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2015 //
28

The odd theory of the Common Core standards is that if everyone has exactly the same curriculum and the same standards, everyone will learn the same “stuff” and progress at the same rate; and as a result, everyone will have the same results, and the achievement gap will close. If this were true, every child who had the same teachers and the same classes in the same school would have identical outcomes, but they don’t.

 

In 2012, Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution wrote an analysis of the Common Core standards and concluded that they would have little effect on achievement. Not because the standards are good or bad, but because standards alone don’t raise achievement, nor, I might add, do tests, which measure achievement, as thermometers measure body temperature without changing it.

 

Loveless summarizes his 2012 findings here.

He writes:

“The 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education includes a study of the Common Core State Standards project. It attempts to predict the effect of the common core on student achievement. The study focuses on three arguments: that the quality of the common core is superior to that of existing standards, that the tests tied to the common core will be rigorous, and that having common standards will reduce differences across the United States by “putting all states on the same page.” It summarizes the current debate on the common core, but takes no stand on the merits of the arguments.

 

“For example, the study does not attempt to determine whether the common-core standards are of high or low quality, only whether the quality of state standards has mattered to student achievement in the past. The finding is clear: The quality of standards has not mattered. From 2003 to 2009, states with terrific standards raised their National Assessment of Educational Progress scores by roughly the same margin as states with awful ones.”

 

What about states that have common standards? “Test-score differences within states are about four to five times greater than differences in state means. We all know of the huge difference between Massachusetts and Mississippi on NAEP. What often goes unnoticed is that every state in the nation has a mini-Massachusetts-Mississippi contrast within its own borders. Common state standards might reduce variation between states, but it is difficult to imagine how they will reduce variation within states. After all, districts and schools within the same state have been operating under common standards for several years and, in some states, for decades.”

 

He concludes:

 

“Effectiveness, not alignment, should be the primary criterion for selecting curricula, disseminating promising instructional strategies, and pursuing all of the other implementation strategies on which common-core advocates are betting so much. They steadfastly believe that “effectiveness” and “alignment with standards” are synonymous. The empirical evidence indicates that they are not.

 

“On the basis of past experience with standards, the most reasonable prediction is that the common core will have little to no effect on student achievement.”

 

In his 2014 analysis of states that did and did not implement Common Core standards, Loveless found no reason to change his initial conclusion.

Categories Common Core, Testing

Memorial Day: Learning the Greatest Speech in American History

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2015 //
11

This is a wonderful video about teaching the Gettysburg Address. Forget close reading. Follow the students at the Greenwood School in Putney, Vermont, as they learn to deliver this great speech. Two minutes.

Categories Education Reform

David Bloomfield: The Myth of “Failing Schools”

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2015 //
24

David Bloomfield, professor of educational leadership, law, and policy at CUNY Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, examines what he calls “the myth of failing schools.” Schools with low test scores usually reflect a concentration of students who enter the school far behind, who have disabilities that interfere with learning, who are English language learners, or who have other obstacles to overcome. The “failing schools” tend to have more of these students than other schools. Bloomfield writes that it was the policy of Mayor Bloomberg to close schools with low scores, as if this were a solution to the problems of the students. The students from the closed schools were sent to other schools that then became “failing schools.”

Bloomfield says that Mayor de Blasio has fallen for the same myth, but instead of closing schools, he has promised to turn them around with extra services within three years. He faults the Mayor for not recognizing that schools “fail” not because of their teachers or their practices but because of systemic policies. He sums up the myth as the belief that:

failure is the fault of individual schools, not the school system. His proposed solutions — community services, extra instructional time, and increased professional development, timed to a three year deadline prior to closure — treat these schools as isolated problems rather than the natural result of insidious central policies.

He proposes:

Now, the city needs to take ownership of solutions, instead of blaming the students, teachers, and principals triaged to benefit others. If de Blasio only tries to staunch the bleeding by creating a series of temporary fixes for select schools, instead of repairing the system’s inequities, his plan will fail.
One place to start would be to diminish the number of latecomer students, who are known as “over-the-counter” students and who often have more severe academic and social needs, enrolling at struggling schools. The city has already put those limits in place at Boys and Girls and Automotive high schools, but the other struggling schools need that benefit as well so that those students are spread more equally throughout the system.
Another goal should be to develop a system of choice that avoids concentrations of haves and have-nots in city schools. As stated by Baruch College Professor Judith Kafka, “Our school system already concentrates poverty. Does choice interrupt this process? It can when the school system makes integration a priority and enacts what is often called ‘controlled choice’ as described in the work of the Century Fund’s Richard Kahlenberg.” Those policies focus on admissions rules that emphasize choice and also aim to create stable, economically diverse student populations.
Real solutions will require politically difficult changes to budgeting and enrollment policies, as well as a concerted effort to help schools improve their reputations. Such solutions would involve trade-offs, and some schools would likely benefit more than others. But the varied recommendations for solving our struggling schools crisis put forth so far by Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, the New York City Charter Schools Center, and even Mayor de Blasio, fail to adequately address the systemic causes of school failure.

Categories New York City

A Poem for Memorial Day

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2015 //
19

The Blue And The Gray
Francis Miles Finch (1827-1907)

 

 

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue,
Under the other, the Gray
These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgement-day
Under the laurel, the Blue,
Under the willow, the Gray.

 

 

From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgement-day;
Under the roses, the Blue,
Under the lilies, the Gray.

 

 

So with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue,
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

 

 

So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment -day,
Wet with the rain, the Blue
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

 

 

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done,
In the storm of the years that are fading
No braver battle was won:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue,
Under the garlands, the Gray

 

 

No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day,
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.

Categories Education Reform

Teacher: The Great Denver Testing Hoax

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2015 //
16

A teacher in Denver heard the Denver superintendent Tom Boasberg claim that there was too much testing, and she delivered this statement to a recent meeting of the district school board:

 

 

Statement at 4/23/15 Public Comment section of the DPS Board meeting:

 

 

I am an 8th grade science teacher.

 
In February our Superintendent, Mr. Boasberg, sent an email with the subject, “Why we need fewer shorter tests.” I was absolutely dumbfounded. Later I saw video of Mr. Boasberg repeating these statements to I believe none other than the United States Senate. At that point my disbelief turned to resolve.

 

 

I have worked for DPS for more than 5 years. Students have never taken more tests and never taken longer tests than they are taking right now. These additional tests are not mandated by the state of Colorado or by the Federal Government, they are added entirely at the discretion of DPS leadership.

 
Federal Law does not require 2nd graders to take 80 minute reading and writing tests 4 times a year. District leaders choose this for them.

 

An elementary colleague asked me this morning, “please also mention the students bursting into tears.” This is over the struggle of testing for well over an hour on content they haven’t even been taught yet. Under mandated testing this (testing students over content they’ve not been taught) happens at every grade level and in every content area.

 

I also recently came upon a Denver Post article from last October in which Mr. Boasberg claims the average 4th grader spends what amounts to one day a year taking standardized tests.

 

No.

 

In our classrooms we lose weeks adding to months of time to testing. New tests this year require 2 hour blocks of time. 2 hour test blocks mean modified schedules that interfere with full weeks of instruction. In a given week some classes may see their teacher on only one day, others may have a 4 hour block in the library with their teacher to accommodate test demands.

 

In preparation for PARCC testing one of my classes lost 2 days of science instruction pretending to take a test. This “infrastructure trial” was to see if our internet would work for the real event. The irony is that we were not testing Pearson’s actual server which failed twice last week.

 

We used to lose two weeks in March to testing. Now March, April, and May are entirely defined by tests. I know special education teachers who have not worked with their students in an instructional capacity in more than 4 weeks and will not again for the foreseeable future. Those teachers spend nearly all of their time providing accommodations for testing students.

 

I myself just conducted 6 days in a row of Science CMAS testing, finishing a make-up session due to server failure this afternoon. In 3 days students will complete the second round of PARCC. The week after that is devoted to district end of year tests.

 

So if I may address parents in the audience. Parents have the power. My hope is that there will be another wave of opt outs. Put an end to this right now.

Categories Denver, Standardized Testing

George Schmidt on the Meaning of Memorial Day

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2015 //
15

George N. Schmidt reminds us of the meaning of Memorial Day:

Every Memorial Day and Veterans Day I would give my students the same assignment throughout the final decades of the 20th Century (the bloodiest in history): Make a spreadsheet of all the wars of the 20th Century and all the countries that were involved in those wars and then list all the casualties… As far as they could go.

Or they could visit someone in a VA hospital, preferably a World War II vet who had been there “forever.”

Then they had to discuss what they had learned…

It helped my students understand the need for the poppies and respectful silence on some days. That work ended when Paul Vallas fired and blacklisted me for test resistance in 2000… But I continue remembering all those lessons and what the “kids” would talk about.

Both my mother and my father served in the United States Army during World War II. For Memorial Day, we would wear the poppies (which I think my Dad would distributed from his VFW Post in Clark New Jersey; we lived in Linden) and visit a few graves. I don’t think anyone in our family said “Happy Memorial Day,” because there was nothing to be happy about.

My Dad, Neil Schmidt, served as an infantryman with the 44th Division from the coast of France to the Austrian Alps from 1944 to 1945. After he and his millions of brothers (and some sisters) had “won” against the Nazis in May 1945, my Mom was just beginning the worst of the hell she would experience — Okinawa. Mary Lanigan Schmidt was an Army nurse in a field hospital on the island of Okinawa during those weeks after, for many in the USA, the war was “over.” Both my parents taught me a lot about silence and not discussing what it was all about. Both were proud of their “service,” but silent about the details of what it involved.

My Dad would only say about the Bronze Star he brought home (“for courage in the face on the enemy during the Rhineland Campaign, February 1945”), “I got lost one night and I got lucky.” When he accidentally told me, very late in life, that he had been first into one of the “smaller” concentration camps (Struhof) I was stunned. I asked him why he had never talked about it with the family: “There is some evil for which there are no words.” I asked him what he remembered of driving his colonel into that liberated camp: “The silence and the smell. The smell never goes away…”

Both came home and by 1946 were fulfilling the dream that had kept them going throughout the war (they were already married by the time of Pearl Harbor, and Dad was in the Army). They were going to work hard and have a family, at least two children (they wound up with four), a home, and all that stuff.

But it wasn’t that easy. Because of their commitment to having a family, my Dad didn’t go to college, but returned to the “service” in the Elizabeth Post Office. He never missed a day of work until he retired, having learned during the Depression that a job was precious and not to be trifled with. He taught all of us the same thing.

My Mom slowly sunk into greater and greater depression and nightmares as time went on, and only after her early death (in 1985) did I begin to understand how the very word “Okinawa” made people who know the history shudder — to this day.

Yes, this is a day to mark with silence, perhaps a poppy (if you still live in a community where old men distribute them), and some attempt to clarify what the word “WAR” means.

Categories Education Reform

Alabama: A Philosopher Who Drives a School Bus

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2015 //
9

My friend Larry Lee in Alabama told me to check out Mr. Brandon’s blog. Mr. Brandon drives a school bus, and he reports on his conversations with the children. It is one of those “kids say the darndest things,” but sometimes it goes a little deeper. Mr. Brandon is not your ordinary bus driver, I’ll put it that way.

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