Archives for the month of: June, 2015
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Ohio: Land of Charter School Scandals

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2015 //
15

There is no end of charter school scandals in Ohio. Blogger Plunderbund follows these stories and reports the details. Here is the latest:

“Columbus Dispatch readers were shocked, shocked to learn last week that members of Imagine Columbus Primary School’s charter board, protesting that they had no say in negotiating the terms of an operational contract, resigned “en masse” over a lease imposed by the management company that had the school paying $58,000 per month in rent for space to house 150 students, as well as other issues related to the viability of the school.

“The board’s action, which did get some attention from the usually somnolent “Ohio’s Greatest Home Newspaper,” was so dramatic that the Casablanca Prefect of Police might have exclaimed it was time to “round up the usual suspects.”

“But Captain Renault and the rest of us don’t have to look too far. In this case, the usual suspect is Imagine Schools, a national for-profit charter school chain founded by Dennis Bakke, a well-known Christian evangelical, and his wife, Eileen.

“The Bakkes have found great success with Imagine and its subsidiary, SchoolHouse Finance. But as is the case with many charter school enterprises, success is one thing, and ethics is quite another.”

But is Imagine a charter chain or a real estate empire? A breathless world awaits the answer.

“Conflict of interest? When the friend of a governor is appointed to a commission to study the feasibility of charter schools and, using his insider knowledge, forms a charter school management company to coincide with the enactment of the legislation, when one of the sponsors of the original charter school legislation works to have it designed so that a political friend and a family member profit from its enactment, and when a private foundation affiliated with a school management company offers free international travel to members of the legislature as a vehicle for influencing favorable charter school legislation, could these be examples of possible conflicts of interest?”

Plunderbund adds:

“Unfortunately, the terms charter school and conflict of interest are becoming synonymous. And redundant. ”

Who owns the charter schools in Ohio? Like many states, Tthe charters are called “public.” But the owners of the for-profit Imagine chain believe they “own” the charters. The boards are a necessary encumbrance. The public has no role, other than to supply money to the corporation.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio

A Reason Not to Take the SAT

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2015 //
44

The College Board, which sponsors the SAT, is data mining students and selling their data.

This is unbelievable. Students think they are taking a college admissions test, nothing more. Are they asked to grant permission to sell their data?

Categories Data and Data Mining, Standardized Testing

Pennsylvania: A State of Great Teachers!

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2015 //
24

Like every other state, Pennsylvania spent many tens of millions (or more) to develop a new teacher evaluation system. Guess what?

Teachers got their highest ratings ever!

“In the first year of many school districts using a new statewide teacher evaluation system, a greater portion of teachers was rated satisfactory than under the old system.

“In figures released by the state Department of Education, 98.2 percent of all teachers were rated as satisfactory in 2013-14 — the highest percentage in five years — despite a new system that some thought would increase the number of unsatisfactory ratings.”

“In the four prior years, 97.7 percent of teachers were rated satisfactory in all but 2009-10, when 96.8 percent were. These figures count teachers in school districts, career and technical centers, intermediate units and charter schools.”

Pennsylvania is fortunate to have so many good teachers!

Whom shall we blame now?

Categories Accountability, Pennsylvania, Teacher Evaluations

Mississippi Blogger: A Modest Proposal for Education Reform

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2015 //
11

Mississippi teacher-blogger James Comans has indulged in Swiftian satire in this post about “reform.” He informed me that he was inspired by the post “Is It Really ‘All About the Kids.'”

Comans assumes the voice of a reformster. Why not require teachers to live in monasteries? Why pay them? If they are “called” to teach, they should volunteer. If they get minimum wage, they should be shamed into donating their meager salaries to worthy causes,like charter schools.

Will this make teachers better? Who knows? It will surely cut costs. What else matters? That’s how you put Children First and show that Students Matter.

Categories Corporate Reform, Funding, Mississippi, Teachers and Teaching

Laura Chapman: How to Get Very High SAT Scores

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2015 //
31

Our frequent commenter Laura Chapman reveals the secrets about how to get very high test scores:

 

She writes:

 

“For decades, arts educators have pointed with misplaced pride at the relatively high SAT scores of students who have taken at least three or four years of art in high school. This relationship of SAT scores to course taking has served as a tool for advocacy of more arts education.

 

“Of course the proportion of high schools where consecutive years of study in all of the arts is not huge, and advocates rarely identify the particular art forms and studies associated with high SAT scores. And I have never seen comparisons of the SAT performance of students who have taken arts courses compared with other patterns of course-taking.

 

“I just downloaded the College Board Total Group Profile Report for 2014, the most recent available. If you are hankering for high SAT scores here are some things you can do to get yourself there.

 

“First, get yourself some parents who are “White,” or Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander. Make sure they have a graduate degree and an income of more than $200,000.

 

“Then go to an independent school where you can study Latin and/or Chinese, British Literature, European History, Physics, Calculus, Computer Programing, Theater and Music theory/appreciation (not performance). You can study other things, but these are the “best in class” for getting a high SAT score.

 

“Study all of these subjects for multiple years and take advanced placement courses galore.

 

“As a final touch, aspire to a doctoral degree and choose a major based on how you score on the SAT. That means math and statistics if you get the highest SAT score in math. It you score at the highest levels in critical reading and writing, get yourself a major in “Multi-Interdisciplinary Studies.”

 

“Among the intended college majors for this cohort of tests takers, 19% wanted to major in Health Professions and related Clinical Services; 12% wanted to major in Business Management, Marketing, and related Support Services; 10% selected an Engineering major; 7% intended to major in Biological an Biomedical Sciences, 7% intended to major in the Visual or Performing Arts; 5% intended to major in Psychology. Only 4% expected to major in Education.

 

“About 2% of the SAT test takers are planning to enroll in a Certificate or Associate degree program a trade or personal services occupation.

 

“The College Board CEO is the same person who takes credit as the architect of the Common Core State Standards, with two subjects proposed as if sufficient for college and career readiness. To that we can say, the SAT scores tell a different and well-established story about priviledge and opportunity to learn.”

Categories Standardized Testing

Susan Ochshorn: A Renaissance in Play? Maybe.

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2015 //
157

Susan Ochshorn, an expert in early childhood education, read a recent article by Motoko Rich in the New York Times about a “renaissance” of play in kindergarten. She cautions here that the renaissance is still in too few places and can’t come soon enough.

Ochsborn writes:

“I sure hope she’s right. But I’m not yet ready to raise a glass.

“Some educators in low-income districts–including the one quoted in Rich’s piece–cling to the idea that poorer children will be ill-served by a curriculum dominated by play, falling behind their more affluent peers. Their worries, fueled by anxieties about the achievement gap, reflect a centuries-old divide—dueling theories about how young children learn best. Never mind that the evidence base for the acquisition of reading, math, science, and social skills through play couldn’t be more robust, as the researchers like to say. Or that the most well-endowed private schools, producing the nation’s elite, have long subscribed to this pedagogical model.

“We continue to spar, leaving children in the dust. Is it better for them to lead the way, or be led? Developmental scientist Alison Gopnik, who calls children the “R & D department of the human species—the blue-sky guys, the brainstormers”— argues that teacher-led learning may produce specific answers from students, but it also puts the kibosh on unexpected solutions, or the kind of creative thinking that we purport to hold in such high esteem.”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core

Teacher: The Toxic Reach of Common Core into Kindergarten

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2015 //
16

A post yesterday described the intrusion of Common Core into a Headstart program for babies.

This teacher tried but could not escape the dead hand of test-driven Common Core:

“I am just completing my 10th consecutive year teaching Kindergarten. I began the first year of the NCLB standardized testing. I previously taught grades 3-5, 10 years prior and strongly objected to the tests at that time. My principal who always praised the way I taught reading told me that I would have to restructure my program to include more workbooks and test prep.

“Luckily a position in K opened up and i was able to get away from the testing and enjoy teaching in a creative way again with thematic units and high interest books. But slowly, ever slowly that began to change. For the past 4 years I have been forced to use a “CC aligned” curriculum that I hate and must use the assessments from the program that is extremely developmentally inappropriate. And there are A LOT of benchmark tests, at least one every 2 weeks that have as many as 65 multiple choice questions like on the final ELA benchmark I gave just this week….. So now of course they would come for the babies next, not surprised, this is the trickle down effect of the poison of back mapping.”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core, Standardized Testing

Carol Burris: Support the 7 Dissident Regents or Watch Teaching Die

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2015 //
8

Carol Burris writes of the terrible consequences that will follow implementation of Governor Cuomo’s teacher evaluation plan.

She urges support for the plan created by seven (of 17) dissident members of the Néw York Board of Regents. Almost all are experienced educators who have carefully reviewed research. Cuomo is not an educator and obviously paid no attention to research.

Two more Regents and the dissidents are a majority.

Lester Young of Brooklyn? Roger Tilles of Long Island?

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, VAM (value-added modeling)

Ohio Belongs to Pearson

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2015 //
13

This article was distributed by the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy.

“Dr. Barbara Brothers, Dean Emeritus, Youngstown State University, and current chair of the Education Committee of the Greater Youngstown League of Women Voters, is looking into the Pearson operation in Ohio and wrote what she has found thus far.

Ohio, a Pearson State

The Pearson Corporation is a multi-billion dollar United Kingdom enterprise which has grown from a construction company to include newspapers, entertainment enterprises such as amusement parks, and book publishers among its holdings. In 2000 Pearson spent $2.5 billion to acquire an American testing company in an effort to increase its profits through securing contracts to produce standardized tests and test preparation materials
(http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/pearson-education-115026.html). It has been given enormous control over K-12 public schools in Ohio by the Ohio legislature and governor.

Pearson effectively controls what is taught, who graduates, and even who gets a second chance at a high school diploma through the General Education Diploma (GED) examination. Recently Comcast was prevented from acquiring Time Warner because the federal government determined that Comcast’s control of 60% of the market was too great. But that market share pales compared to the 100% Pearson has been granted by the State of Ohio.

Since 2013, Pearson tests even license teachers in Ohio. Because the tests are designed and graded by Pearson, the company and its employees determine what teachers need to know in all particular teaching fields-English, science, history. Colleges must address what Pearson puts on the tests so that their students will be licensed to teach in Ohio initially and, later, when a teacher seeks professional advancement.

By 2018, Pearson end of course exams in designated subjects in grades 9 -12–PARCC Tests–will determine if a student receives an Ohio high school diploma. PARCC tests-Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and careers-are to be based on Common Core State Standards (CCSS), developed with primary input from Pearson.

In January of 2014 Pearson produced a revised GED exam—a new version of the GED that is to be taken entirely on-line. The pass rate fell 90 percent because the test now measures college readiness rather than what was actually learned in high school.

Pearson controls the curriculum by defining the knowledge and skills a student must master. Pearson assures us the CCSS will be rigorous; i.e. that at least thirty percent or more of students taking the tests will fail. An educator such as Dr. Louisa Moats, who was a contributing writer of CCSS, is just one of many of those critical of the jump to test and fail (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/child-development-central/201401/when-will-we-ever-learn). These standards for which Pearson oversaw the development, helped by tax free money such as an $88 million dollar grant from the Gates Foundation, in turn require the development and selling of both on-line materials and textbooks to prepare the teacher to teach to the test. Pearson produces the materials from which the teachers teach and the tests that tell us if they have performed satisfactorily. In Ohio they have no competitors. If your school “fails” then send your child to a Connections Academy, a Pearson for-profit Charter advertised on their GED webpage.

Teachers, parents, and concerned citizens have criticized the tests on a number of grounds-the number of tests, the time the tests take, the appropriateness of the questions, the secrecy about the test questions, the spying on students’ social media, the use of the tests for punishment, teaching to the test, the ignoring of the arts, the expense and failure of the technology for administering the tests, and the tremendous cost to taxpayers. The mania for testing and collecting volumes of data are destroying our education system and creating a world of big profits for the Pearson corporation and Big Brother-ism–all approved by our Ohio Legislature and Governor and supported by Federal legislation-No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215

Categories Curriculum, Ohio, Pearson, Standardized Testing

Happy Birthday, BATS!

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2015 //
72

When I first heard about the BadAss Teachers two years ago, I had trouble saying their name. It seemed ride and crude. But I overcame my reaction and celebrated the emergence of a group of teachers who were prepared to stand up and be bold and fearless on behalf of their students and their profession.

They asked me to share this news with you:

BATs are 2 years old on Sunday. two years of teachers speaking the truth about what is really happening to their schools, their children, and their communities

From July 23-26 BATs will be meeting in Washington, D.C. at the BATs Teacher Congress.

Suggested by Dr. Yohuru Williams at the BAT meeting last year with Arne Duncan, the Congress will convene over 300 educators, parents, students, and advocates from around the nation.

Over 20 BATs State groups will lobby their lawmakers on Capitol Hill July 22nd and 23rd.

BATs will conduct a protest parade on July 24th to the USDOE with Jesse Turner as he walks his last mile of a 400 mile journey from Connecticut to D.C.

SOS will host a mock trial of the USDOE on the 24th and “Heal our Schools”, an amazing documentary by Laurie Gabriel, will be shown after the trial.

300 BATs from around the nation will then convene on July 25th in a Congress where they will create resolutions on such topics as The School to Prison Pipeline, Union Strong, and Creating Positive Change. Dr. Yohuru Williams, Dr. Denisha Jones, Jesse Turner, Morna McDermott, and The Youth Dreamers will be the keynotes.

The event will be radio broadcast on The Rick Smith Show and livestreamed off several twitter feeds on Periscope.

After the Congress, United Opt Out will give a 1 hour book talk over their amazing book “An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution: United Opt Out’s Test of Courage.”

Finally, on the evening of the 25th, the BATs will meet for the BAT Social with performances by The BAT Band “A Class Act”, Hip Hop sensation and NY teacher Jeremy Dudley, and NY Theatre Teacher Karen Sklaire will perform her one woman show “Ripple of Hope: One Teachers Journey.” The event will be groundbreaking and family friendly!!!

To learn more about the BATs Teacher Congress you can visit the BAT website

http://www.badassteacher.org/ or their open event Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/BATsTeacherCongress2015

To contact BATs you can email Marla Kilfoyle or Melissa Tomlinson at contact.batmanager@gmail.com

Categories Resistance, Teachers
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