Archives for the month of: June, 2015
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Joanne Yatvin: The Best Way to Evaluate Teachers

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2015 //
105

Joanne Yatvin has been a teacher, principal, superintendent, and literacy expert. In this post, she gives her views on teacher evaluation.

 

She writes:

 

“New York Times columnist Joe Nocera recently wrote about a new teacher evaluation system proposed by the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness. The system had two central pieces: trained classroom observers who would visit often and give helpful feedback to teachers and student achievement measured by a student’s yearly growth rather than grade level expectations. Unfortunately, the Michigan legislature rejected the proposal, but Nocera hopes that something like it may be picked up by other states or school districts.

 

“I agree that the proposed system would be an improvement over the systems now used in most states. But it also looks complicated, time consuming and expensive. I believe there is a simpler, more meaningful way to determine teacher effectiveness that could be used everywhere: Ask the students. After all they’ve been with their teachers every day for a whole year and directly felt the effects of their teaching.

 

“Here’s how this system would work. At the end of the school year, outside their classrooms, students would be given a printed form for rating their teachers. Young children would have questions with three or four answers to choose from. Older students would be expected to write in their own answers. The completed forms would go to principal, who would supplement them with her own classroom observations in order to produce a teacher rating. Later, teachers could read what their students said about them, but with no names attached.

 

“Below I suggest some questions that I think should be asked, though with different wording for different age levels.

 

What were the best things you learned at school this year?

 

How easy was it to understand your teacher’s explanations and questions?

 

How often did your teacher give you personal attention?

 

How often did you feel bored or frustrated in class?

 

Was the amount and type of homework reasonable?

 

Was the discipline reasonable?

 

Do you feel prepared for the next grade?

 

“I think there should probably be a few more questions for older students, but not so many that they stop caring about their responses.”

Categories Students, Teacher Evaluations

Maine: Farewell to SBAC! We Hardly Knew Ye

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2015 //
12

Emily Talmage of Save Maine Schools says goodby (and don’t come back) to the federally-funded Common Core assessments called SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium).

It is not a fond farewell.

She writes:

“SBAC, you will not be missed – but rest assured that we will not forget you.

“We will not forget how many hours you took from children so that they could take part in your failed testing experiment.

“We will not forget the way you set our children up to fail – confusing them with strange, multi-part directions that even adults could not decipher; giving them reading passages written for students well beyond their grade level; requiring them to manipulate complicated computer interfaces to answer your questions…

“We will not forget how hard some parents had to fight to protect their children from your nonsense.

“We will not forget the way you hid your profit-seeking makers behind non-profit organizations.

“We will not forget how very expensive you were.”

Categories Common Core, Maine, Standardized Testing

Gov. Christie Diverts Money from Public Schools to Charters

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2015 //
39

In his unrelenting determination to advance the privatization of public schools in Néw Jersey, Governor Chris Christie has shifted $37.5 million from public schools to charter schools in the state budget. Last year,he shifted $70 million from public schools to charters.

The district that is hardest hit by this ploy is Newark. Public schools there will lose $2,000 per student as a result of this budget trick. The state has controlled Newark for 25 years, and the best that Christie can do is to privatize the schools.

The goal is to fatten the charters and starve the publics. Why does the Legislature go along with it?

What a disgrace!

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, New Jersey, Newark

Senator Lindsey Graham: A Mediocre Student Who Succeeded

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2015 //
57

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is lucky he got out of school before Common Core and high-stakes testing. He would never have finished high school.

 

As politico.com reports, Graham was a C student. He scored 800 out of 1600 points on the SAT. That’s about 400 on reading and 400 on math, abysmal scores.

 

Yet he was accepted by the University of South Carolina, the first in his family to go to college, and made a success of his life, despite his awful test scores and average grades. He was NOT college-and-career-ready.

 

There is a lesson here.

Categories Standardized Testing

Chicago; Why $50 Milliion for 3 Noble Charters While Ignoring Basic Needs of Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2015 //
14

Mike Klonsky asks why the Chicago Board of Education intends to approve $50 million tonight to build three new Noble charter schools when the district supposedly has a huge budget deficit.

He posts a letter from a teacher at Kennedy High School, a public high school whose basic needs are not met even as the district finds money to build three shiny new charter schools.

The teacher contrasts the struggles and successes at Kennedy with the favoritism shown to Noble charters:

“We have had the highest growth on the ACT in 2012 in both Composite Gains and Meets/Exceeds Increases. We have been recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education for increases in Student Achievement by being placed on their Honor Roll. We have been authorized as an IB Diploma World School. What more can we do to prove that Kennedy is a great general public high school which services all students from low-incidence to IB, and everything in between.

“When Noble Charter students are asked to leave for minor discipline infractions and lack of academic achievement, they come to Kennedy and we educate them. We don’t have the ability to ask students to leave our school for discipline issues, while at the same time having the Student Code of Conduct rewritten to handcuff our abilities to truly discipline students and hold them accountable for their poor behavior.

“We have achieved the most impressive turnaround in student achievement for a general public high school in all of Chicago. We did not do it through a multi-million dollar school improvement grant. We even managed to work through this with a $1.9 million budget shortfall in 2013. We have done this through collaborative effort, blood, sweat and tears at times. When will be the moment when our voices are heard? We were never asked to submit an RFP for capital improvements at Kennedy. We don’t have the opportunity to request additional resources to improve our building.”

The Noble charter network is the favorite of the city’s power elite; it names each school for rich patrons.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago

Mike Miles Compares His Three-Year Tenure in Dallas to “Camelot,” Starring Him as King Arthur

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2015 //
28

This is a staggeringly funny ending to Mike Miles’ brief and stormy tour of duty as superintendent of schools in Dallas. Miles, a Broadie, did all the Broadie-type things: firing principals, driving out teachers, installing a rigid test-based evaluation system, setting unrealistic goals, demanding total obedience. Like Michelle Rhee, the word “collaboration” was not part of his vocabulary.

The Dallas Morning News described his tenure as marked by “disruptions, scandals, clashes.” 

Miles lost support — and not just from board members — because of his management style, some district observers say.

“Mike Miles shot himself in the foot so many times, and I believe that’s because he was not a lifelong educator,” said Michael MacNaughton, chairman of a district watchdog group called Dallas Friends of Public Education. “He was a military man who is used to giving orders and having them followed without question.”

As he was delivering his resignation speech, he stopped and said he was going off-topic. Then he proceeded to compare his departure to the conclusion of Camelot. (Will Richard Burton play Mike Miles?)

Here is the report from journalist Jeffrey Weiss of the Dallas Morning News:

For the next three-and-a-half minutes, he described the final scene in the movie “Camelot.” King Arthur and Lancelot regretfully determine there’s no way to avoid the war triggered by Lancelot’s affair with Arthur’s queen. A boy comes up to Arthur determined to fight. Arthur asks him why and the boy recites the ideals of Camelot. Arthur knights the boy and orders him not to fight, but to run away and retell the story of those ideals to everyone he meets.

“Run, boy!” Arthur yells.

Miles wraps up his anecdote with: “I would say to those who want to continue this vision, who are a little afraid we are not going to get there, to take heart. And to the city I would say ‘Run, boy.’”

Weiss notes that Miles did not say who was Lancelot or Guinevere in his re-run of Camelot.

Weiss added to the hilarity today by posting a reference to another “Camelot,” the one by Monty Python. Read it, it is funnier than the first one. Broadies do inspire thoughts of Monty Python.

Categories Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Dallas

Milwaukee Common Council Rejects State Takeover of the City’s Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2015 //
12

The Wisconsin legislature is considering a bill sponsored by two suburban Republican legislators that would allow a state takeover of the city’s lowest performing schools, which would be turned into charters or voucher schools. None of this is new to Milwaukee; it has had a charter sector and vouchers schools for 25 years. The public schools outperform the other sectors. Well, let’s see what happens? Does Governor Scott Walker and the Legislature listen to the citizens of Milwaukee or do they listen to ALEC and the Koch brothers?

The Milwaukee Common Council overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing the state takeover:

Milwaukee Common Council Adopts Resolution Firmly Opposing Kooyenga/ Darling MPS Takeover Proposal
Filed under: MPS Takeover 
Introduced by Alderperson Tony Zielinski and adopted by the Milwaukee Common Council on June 21 2015

Resolution opposing the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program proposal currently pending in the Wisconsin Legislature.

This resolution expresses the City’s opposition to the provisions of the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program proposal currently pending in the Wisconsin Legislature.

Whereas, The proposed Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program currently pending in the Wisconsin Legislature provides that the Milwaukee County Executive oversee the turnover of up to 5 struggling Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) district schools to public charter or private voucher school operators; and

Whereas, The proposed program would diminish the power of Milwaukee City residents to control their public school district by allowing non-City residents to indirectly control the operation of certain City public schools by playing a part in the election of the Milwaukee County Executive who would have the authority to intercede in MPS operations; and

Whereas, Turning over struggling MPS schools to public charter and private voucher school operators is no guarantee of success given the fact than many public charter and private voucher schools have been no more successful than MPS in improving the performance of low-performing schools; and

Whereas, A change in governance of struggling MPS schools offers no promise to remediate the root cause of poor performance in low-performing public schools and seems a thinly-veiled attempt by the state to privatize public schools; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, By the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee, that the City of Milwaukee opposes the provisions of the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program proposal currently pending in the Wisconsin Legislature; and, be it

Further Resolved, That the City Clerk shall forward copies of this resolution to members of the City of Milwaukee’s delegation to the State Legislature and Governor Scott Walker.

Categories Charter Schools, Milwaukee, Privatization, Resistance, Vouchers

Reader: What Literature Taught Me About Life

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2015 //
11

A reader reacted to the post about how Common Core demands equal or greater time for informational text instead of literature:

“So much for inspiring with literature. I had a legendary public high school teacher in Georgia who made us love Shakespeare, and Dostoyevsky and Orwell. Those days are done. He was a “light the fire” kind of teacher. I e-mailed him recently and asked him about all of this. He said that he got out of teaching just at the right time.

“At least reading “1984” prepared me for this America. It never comes like you think it will, but here we are with our own “American” version. Orwell was a genius! Innerparty top 2%, Outerparty was top 13% or so. It works well for today’s America or any modern Capitalistic country, doesn’t it? Our billionaires, super rich, top military and top politicians and propagandists (and moronic celebrities for show) make up the top 1-2%. Other rich, including doctors, lawyers, business owners (corporate class) make up the other 13% or so. Then you have the bottom 85% (proles) who live day to day, low wages, retail and yucky jobs. This uneducated horde spends its days trudging their oversized bodies through big-box, plastic junk stores and watching moronic, action-packed, quick-cut movies. It all eerily fits. The top 15% send their kids to expensive private schools or public schools in wealthy, leafy suburbs. The bottom 85% is seeing their schools turned into militarized charter schools (or destroyed, or online). Who cares what happens to the Proles? The bottom 85% has to know their place and know where they fit in to the grand scheme. Too much human “capital”. The bottom 85% will not have nice lives. The top 15% of society will have lunch, the bottom 85% will be lunch! This is the future evolving.”

Categories Common Core, Curriculum

Fox News: Meet the PARCC Test Maker!

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2015 //
22

Chris Wallace on Fox News interviewed Laura Slover, identified as the CEO of the federally funded PARCC.

The interview–and the description of Common Core and PARCC on the Fox website–repeats common myths about both.

This is how PARCC is described:

“PARCC is one of two nonprofits set up by states to test how students are measuring up to Common Core education standards.”

But PARCC and the other testing program were not created by the states. They were both created by the U.S. Department of Education with a grant of $360 million.

No mention of the fact that numerous states have backed out of PARCC. It started with 24 states. Now it’s down to 12 states and D.C.

And then comes a slew of bogus claims. See how many you can count:

Slover says:

“”I think it’s vital that we set a high standard for kids, because if we build it, they will come,” Slover said. “If we expect a lot of kids, they rise to the occasion.”

“Wallace noted that the main complaint about Common Core testing is that it is part of a federal takeover of local schools.

Slover asserted that it’s actually a state-driven program, and states make all the decisions.

“As a parent, I can understand why there are concerns about testing,” Slover said, adding that she wants her daughter taking the tests. “I want to be sure she’s learning. I want to be sure she’s on grade level. And I want to be sure she knows how to do math and is prepared for the next grade.”

“She asserted that for far too long a child’s success has been determined by their parents’ income level and where they grew up.

“We think it’s critical that kids all have opportunities, whether they live in Mississippi or Massachusetts or Colorado or Ohio,” Slover said. “They should all have access to an excellent education. And this is a step in the right direction.”

Biggest bogus claim: if all kids have the same standards and same tests, all children will learn the same things in the same way and will have high test scores. The path to an excellent education requires standardization.

Categories Common Core, Standardized Testing

Susan Ochshorn: Angie Sullivan is Weeping for the Children of the Common Core

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2015 //
16

Susan Ochshorn tells the back story on her early childhood education blog. Angie Sullivan, a teacher of grades K-2 in Nevada, is upset because Lucy Calkins is supporting the Common Core. Angie is weeping for the children. She wrote a letter to Lucy Calkins, whose Writers Workshop she admires.

 

She writes:

 

 

There is one Common Core writing standard for kindergarten students in Las Vegas: write a fact and opinion paper.

 

Yep.

 

And that is all.

 

Children who have never picked up a pencil have one global standard: write a paper.

 

I’m weeping as I read through these pages in your book (up to 13)—as you describe fine-tuning your research, somehow expressing a loving Common Core at the same time.

 

I’m having a very difficult time thinking that something as beautiful, powerful, and developmentally appropriate as Writer’s Workshop can work smoothly with the terribly inappropriate, developmentally gross Common Core. I appreciate that this program is your best attempt to fill in the holes with solid examples and sample lessons, but as a professional educator, I question why we would accept this solution. While Common Core meets the needs of a few, in my experience, it ensures the failure of many.

Categories Childhood, Common Core
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »