Archives for the month of: July, 2015
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Ohio: The One Reform That Is Forbidden

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2015 //
5

This past year, there were numerous reports of scandals, arrests, and convictions of charter operators in Ohio. There seemed to be real hope to enact legislation that would hold charter schools accountable and make their finances transparent. But that died in the closing hours of the legislative session.

Why?

Charter operators wrote the charter law. They give millions of dollars in campaign contributions to key legislators. The Speaker of the House took a free trip to Turkey, thanks to the Turkish Gulen charter chain.

Charters don’t want to be regulated. They don’t want to be accountable or transparent. The leading charter operators receive hundreds of millions from taxpayers each year, even though most of their schools are rated as low-performing by the state.

In this post, Denis Smith explains the inner workings of the charter industry, which he calls “the dark side.” Smith worked in the State Department of Education, in the office intended to oversee charter schools.

He writes:

“At a national charter school conference in Indianapolis several years ago, two attendees saw my registration badge at a reception and approached me. “Ohio, huh? So you’re from the Wild, Wild West!”

“They, of course, were talking about a state that allows two charter school operators to direct several million dollars in GOP campaign donations during the last decade in return for favorable treatment (read: weak oversight) and the receipt of hundreds of millions of dollars from state funds. Finance types and Wharton School profs would marvel about such a robust return on investment.

“They were also talking about a state that does not require charter school board members to be American citizens and doesn’t have a problem with non-citizens serving on charter boards, and where one of the members of the House Education Committee advocates burdensome Voter ID requirements for citizens trying to vote.”

Ohio has an excellent website called “KnowYourCharter.” It was not created by the State Education Department, but by independent groups using official data. The charter sector has some of the state’s lowest performing schools and is far behind the state’s public schools. But don’t expect Givernor Kasich and the current legislature to hold them accountable.

Accountability is only for public schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Ohio, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

Let the People of Newark Pick Their Superintendent

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2015 //
30

Citizens of Néw Jersey believe that the elected board of Newark should select their own superintendent. Newark has not been allowed to direct its own schools for 20 years. The state has failed, it is time to return to democracy in Newark.

Newark Residents Should Select Their Next Superintendent

We believe that the people of Newark should be able to democratically govern their public schools.

Fortunately, Mark Biedron, President of NJ’s State Board of Education, seems to agree. Mr. Biedron recently told the Star Ledger that “the people of Newark having local control over the school district…is a good thing.”

On Wednesday, Mr. Biedron will have an opportunity to act on this belief when the State Board votes on whether Chris Cerf should become Newark’s next Superintendent.

If the State Board approves Mr. Cerf, it will be continuing a 20 year history of disenfranchisement for Newark’s nearly 300,000 residents, who have had no say in this decision.

If the Board rejects Mr. Cerf and instead approves a candidate selected by Newark’s popularly-elected Board of Education, it will be putting Mr. Biedron’s admirable philosophy into practice.

There is plenty of precedent for allowing Newark to select its own superintendent.

Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson are all state-controlled school districts. Yet Jersey City’s popularly-elected Board of Education selected its Superintendent, Marcia Lyles. Paterson’s Superintendent, Dr. Donnie Evans, was selected by a committee that included members of Paterson’s popularly-elected Board of Education, along with other community leaders. In contrast, Newark’s popularly-elected Board of Education has had no voice in selecting Mr. Cerf, who was nominated for this position by Governor Christie.

Approving Mr. Cerf is also difficult to justify because Mr. Cerf lacks the qualifications necessary to run New Jersey’s largest school district. Unlike Jersey City’s and Paterson’s leaders, Mr. Cerf has no prior experience as a superintendent.

Nor is there a record of success in related public-education positions on which to base Mr. Cerf’s nomination. In fact, Mr. Cerf’s tenure as New Jersey’s Commissioner of Education was marked by numerous poor decisions regarding Newark, including:

Appointing and continuing to support Newark’s prior Superintendent, Cami Anderson, whose policies and behaviors generated broad-based rejection and rebellion from Newark residents;

Improperly giving in to a demand from Ms. Anderson “to allow her to retain full control over 28 low-performing schools, which resulted in New Jersey failing to comply with federal requirements; and

Forcibly maintaining State control of Newark’s schools by dramatically lowering the district’s scores on the State’s monitoring system (QSAC) from the scores that Mr. Cerf had given the district less than a year earlier.

The people of Newark deserve the right to select their next Superintendent. They also deserve an experienced public education leader with a proven record of success. Mr. Cerf’s candidacy fails on all these counts.

We encourage Mr. Biedron and the other State Board of Education members to vote no on Mr. Cerf’s nomination and to allow Newark’s popularly-elected Board of Education to nominate the district’s next Superintendent.

Newark’s residents have been deprived of their right to democratically control their public schools for 20 years. It is long past time to correct this wrong!

Rosie Grant, Piscataway, NJ
Parent and nonprofit leader

Michelle Fine, Montclair, NJ
Parent and professor

Judy DeHaven, Red Bank, NJ
Parent and writer

Valerie Trujillo, Jersey City, NJ
Parent and public education advocate

Jacklyn Brown, Manalapan, NJ
Parent and educator

Julia Sass Rubin, Princeton, NJ
Parent and professor

Linda Reid, Paterson, NJ
Parent and nonprofit leader

Melissa Katz, South Brunswick, NJ
Future educator

Bobbie Theivakumaran, Metuchen, NJ
Parent and investment banker

Lisa Winter, Basking Ridge, NJ
Parent, technology manager and former Board of Education member

Marcella Simadiris, Montclair, NJ
Parent and educator

Michelle McFadden-DiNicola, Highland Park, NJ
Parent and public education advocate

Bill Michaelson, Lawrence Township, NJ
Parent and computer scientist

Marie Hughes Corfield, Flemington, NJ
Parent and educator

Rita McClellan, Cherry Hill, NJ
Parent and administrator

Sarah Blaine, Montclair, NJ
Parent, attorney, and blogger

Susan Cauldwell, Spring Lake, NJ
Parent and nonprofit leader

Heidi Maria Brown, Pitman, NJ
Parent and educator

Julie Borst, Allendale, NJ
Parent and special education advocate

Susan Berkey, Howell, NJ
Parent and educator

Darcie Cimarusti, Highland Park, NJ
Parent and Board of Education member

Amnet Ramos, North Plainfield, NJ
Parent and educator

Elana Halberstadt, Montclair, NJ
Parent and writer/artist

Ani McHugh, Delran, NJ
Parent and educator

Jill DeMaio, Monroe, NJ
Parent

Tamar Wyschogrod, Morristown, NJ
Parent and journalist

Lauren Freedman, Maplewood, NJ
Parent and public education advocate

Lisa Rodgers, South Brunswick, NJ
Parent and business owner

Laurie Orosz, Montclair, NJ
Parent and public education advocate

Michael Kaminski, Mount Laurel, NJ
Parent and educator

Ronen Kauffman, Union City, NJ
Parent and educator

Frankie Adao, Newark, NJ
Parent and social media specialist

Kathleen Nolan, Princeton, NJ
Parent, researcher and lecturer

Sue Altman, Camden, NJ
Educator

Jennifer Cohan, Princeton, NJ
Parent and publicist

Daniel Anderson, Bloomfield, NJ
Parent and Board of Education member

Debbie Baer, Robbinsville, NJ
Parent and educator

Dan Masi, Roxbury Township, NJ
Parent and engineer

Susan Schutt, Ridgewood, NJ
Assistant principal and public education advocate

Karin Szotak, Madison NJ
Parent and business owner

Tiombe Gibson, Deptford, NJ
Parent and educator

Lisa Marcus Levine, Princeton, NJ
Parent and architect

Kristen Carr Jandoli, Haddon, NJ
Parent and public education advocate

Jean Schutt McTavish, Ridgewood, NJ
Parent and high school principal

Virginia Manzari, West Windsor, NJ.
Parent and businesswoman

Stephanie LeGrand, Haddonfield, NJ
Parent and public education advocate

Melanie McDermott, Highland Park, NJ
Parent and sustainability researcher

Nora Hyland, Asbury Park, NJ
Parent and professor

Beth O’Donnell-Fischer, Verona, NJ
Parent

Susie Welkovits, Highland Park, NJ
Parent and Borough Council President

Gregory M. Stankiewicz, Princeton, NJ
Parent and nonprofit leader

Margot Embree Fisher, Teaneck, NJ
Parent and former Board of Education member

Stephanie Petriello, Dumont, NJ
Parent, educator and business owner

Laura Begg, Bernards Township, NJ
Parent and public education advocate

Gary C. Frazier, Camden, NJ
Parent and community activist

Debbie Reyes, Florence Township, NJ
Parent

Christine McGoey, Montclair, NJ
Parent

Regan Kaiden, Collingswood, NJ
Parent and educator

Moneke Singleton-Ragsdale, Camden, NJ
Parent and administrator

Toby Sanders, Trenton, NJ
Parent, pastor and educator

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Democracy, Newark

Pearson’s Plans to Dominate the Global Education Market

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2015 //
19

This report is a fascinating and scary analysis of Pearson’s ambitious efforts to create a demand for their products around the world and to satisfy that demand while making profits.

It is called “Pearson and PALF. The Mutating Giant,” and it was written by Carolina Jünemann and Stephen Ball. It shines a much needed light on the international ambitions of the privatization movement and the commercializing of education as a consumer good. It is worth your time to read this important report. Arm yourself with knowledge and information.

It begins:

Education is big business. There are global, national and local businesses all seeking to profit from education and educational services. Increasingly, business, education policy and what it means to be educated are intimately intertwined.

Pearson is the world’s largest edu-business. Over the last 10 years Pearson has been involved in a process of re-invention, leading to its re-branding in 2014 as a ‘learning’ company with a vision, summed up in the strapline ‘always learning’, and with the aim of contributing to “the very highest standards in education around the world.”

This transition has at least two aspects to it. The first relates to Pearson’s repositioning of the brand as a social purpose company, one which portrays itself as having a positive, and measurable, impact on society, that of “help(ing) more people make measurable progress in their lives through learning”. The other relates to Pearson seeking to position itself as an increasingly powerful global policy actor in education – “to playing an active role in helping shape and inform the global debate around education and learning policy” (2012 annual report p. 39). But as Pearson is contributing to the global education policy debate, it is also reconfiguring the education policy problems that will then generate new markets for its products and services in the form of educational ‘solutions’.

In 2012, Michael Barber Pearson’s Chief Education Adviser, previously Head of the UK’s Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (2001-2005) launched PALF (the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund) as a for-profit venture fund to support and encourage the development and expansion of affordable learning school chains in developing countries.

The creation of PALF is an integral part of the repositioning of Pearson as a global company rather than one focused strongly on European and the US markets. It fits into Pearson’s business strategy of venturing into new markets (geographical) and uncovering new market opportunities, in this case, a new market segment (socio-economic), moving the company away from its traditional position as mid-market and high-end operator in education. PALF has been created to develop an unconventional market niche – the need and ambition of the poor in developing countries to give their children a good education.

The main focus of investment in PALF’s first phase of activity was for-profit Low Fee Private School (LFPS) chains. PALF’s first investment was in Omega Schools, a chain of Low Fee Private Schools operating in Ghana. Another is Affordable Private Education Centres (APEC), a chain of low-cost secondary schools in the Philippines. A third investment within the LFPS chain sector in 2014 is eAdvance, a company that manages the first South African blended learning low fee school chain called Spark schools.

However, PALF’s initial focus on Low Fee Private School chains has been inhibited by the absence of appropriate investment opportunities – sustainable, innovative businesses that could provide the expected financial returns. This has resulted in a recent shift in PALF’s scope to include a more general mix of investments and a broader focus on commercial education ‘solutions’ that, as Pearson explains, “might involve new business models, investing in new technology, or testing innovative partnerships or distribution channels” (Pearson plc, 2014, p. 56).

As part of this change of focus, in March 2014 PALF made an equity investment in Zaya Learning Labs and another in Avanti Learning Centres, a provider of college entrance exam preparation for students of low-income families through a pedagogic approach based on peer-to-peer learning and self-study, both in India. This kind of investment, as those in Ed-tech more generally, also facilitate, and illustrate, the increased used of non-teacher based or blended learning pedagogies.

An important aspect of PALF’s outcomes driven ‘demonstration’ work is related to the role of technology as an enabler of scale through delivery cost savings, that is, by reducing the reliance on qualified teachers as the primary medium of instruction. There are complex and over-lapping profit opportunities in the technology – teaching equation. This has profound implications for the role of teachers. The commitments and functions of the teacher are increasingly narrowed to include only those deemed necessary for enhancing performance and outcomes, at the same time as teachers are residualised and ‘de-professionalised’.

Categories For-Profit, International, Pearson

Gary Rubinstein on “The Three Stooges” of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2015 //
14

Gary Rubinstein watched a panel discussion on the reform movement’s three allegedly successful turnaround districts. He reports on the discussion here. The discussion was sponsored by the Fordham Institute, which is in the forefront of the privatization movement. This is an impressive debunking of “reformer” boasts. It is especially important because so many in the media take those false claims at face value, and several states say they intend to copy one of these failed models.

 

Rubinstein points out that none of these highly touted examples of “reform” success are successful. New Orleans is a swamp of conflicting data, but the bottom line is that it continues to be one of the lowest performing districts in one of the lowest performing states in the nation. The Tennessee “Achievement School District” is based on a bold and wholly unrealistic pledge by Chris Barbic that he could take the lowest performing schools in the state and lift them into the state’s highest 25% in only five years. That has not happened, and it may never happen. The third speaker is from Michigan’s woeful Education Achievement Authority, which has produced numerous scandals but not much academic progress for the students.

 

Rubinstein uses his keen mathematical intelligence to dissect each of the reformers’ claims. In the case of the Achievement School District, he points to the slippery use of data (a common trait among all the “reform” projects):

 

In a very revealing moment, Barbic explains that he’s the one who came up with the bottom 5% to top 25% in five years. He could have just said bottom 5% to bottom 10% and he wouldn’t be taking such heat now, but having such an ambitious goal had a positive side effect since “It created a momentum and an urgency that we needed to create to get this off the ground” and allowed them to recruit ‘partners’ and leaders and teachers. In other words, it was a lie, but it was a worthwhile one since it tricked people into giving us their money.

 

Barbic makes some bizarre claims about the success so far of the ASD like that the bottom 5% ‘priority schools’ are growing ‘four times faster than the rest of the state.’ To put this in context, the rest of the state of Tennessee has had flat math scores and declining reading scores. So if the state went up, on average, of .25%, then ‘four times’ that is just 1%.

 

Rubinstein notes:

 

Watching these three turnaround gurus quote misleading statistics, give vague abstract answers, and really offer nothing in terms of concrete ideas from what they’ve learned in trying (unsuccessfully) to turnaround their respective districts, made me think that rather than call these ASDs, it would be more accurate to call them BSDs.

 

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Michigan, New Orleans, Tennessee, Turnaround Schools

Corporate Reformers Descend on Detroit to Pick Over the Ruins

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2015 //
20

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse for Detroit, here come the stars of the corporate reform movement with advice to do more of what Detroit has been doing without success.

 

More than half the students are in charter schools, but Detroit doesn’t have enough, it seems. The lowest-performing schools were dumped into the woebegone “Education Achievement Authority,” under an emergency manager with dictatorial powers, but that didn’t go anywhere.

 

If Detroit can’t get its school problems solved, it won’t be for lack of quality advice from national education experts.

 

As city and state leaders seek to figure out how best to salvage Detroit Public Schools and improve performance across a complex network of school choices, top school reformers from around the country want a piece of the action, too.

 

Last week, Michael Petrilli, CEO of the D.C.-based Fordham Institute, and Eric Chan, a partner at the Charter School Growth Fund, were a few of the latest to drop in on Detroit. Excellent Schools Detroit, which is helping lead the conversation locally about improving all city schools, invited them to town to discuss how best to create the right environment for quality charter school growth.

 

The more insights, the merrier. Other cities have undergone major school turnarounds, and there are consistent guidelines for success. When asked what Detroit needs to do to start showing results for kids, Petrilli and Chan echoed similar ideas.

 

“Deal with low-performing schools, and encourage high-performers,” says Petrilli, whose organization works to raise the quality of U.S. schools. “There are concrete things we can do.”

 

The examples of success offered by Petrilli and Chan: New Orleans, the District of Columbia, and Memphis. Privatization is the answer. Neither Petrilli nor Chan has an idea about how to improve public education. Just privatize it. Get rid of it. Bring in high-quality “seats.”

 

Readers of this blog have read again and again that most charter schools in New Orleans are rated D or F schools by the state of Louisiana; D.C. continues to be one of the lowest performing districts in the nation, as judged by the NAEP; and Memphis is home to the all-charter Achievement School District, whose founder Chris Barbic promised would produce a dramatic turnaround in only five years. That turnaround has not happened. Not in  New Orleans, D.C., or Memphis.

 

Surely there must be better examples of success for corporate reform. Or are there?

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, New Orleans, Privatization, Tennessee

A Reader on the Insane Cynicism of Our Times

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2015 //
15

A comment from a reader who signs as M:

 

Contracts are sacred…unless they’re made to a teacher.

 

What is perhaps the most disheartening is that the deformers have identified every crutch that we leaned on for determining education policy and worked in earnest to commandeer them or dismantle them.

 

Education research – let’s hire a bunch of researchers to generate what we want to say

 

Standards – Let’s govern what’s taught in classrooms whether it’s reasonable or not, educationally sound or not (this leads into all the VAMish nonsense)

 

School boards – let’s buy the races or have control seized from them, or both (buy the board then have it turn over power).

 

Money – Let’s find every end run through taxes and otherwise that will take money out of the schools from the students we’re trying to save, and blame that on teachers for being so greedy that they need to accept less – let’s take their money spend it elsewhere then blame them for their bloated pensions too.

 

Purpose of Education – Rather than being student centered it is now job market centered with schools being responsible for generating appropriate human capital (the student matters so much as they need to be come the chattel for said market)

 

I went into teaching to help students and make a living to help support my family. Pretty simple. If you look at the lens of effectiveness through all of these elements and how they’ve shifted over the last 20 years, it’s pretty disheartening.

 

They are succeeding (right now anyway) in turning school from a place of wonder, fun, community, and learning, into a hellish individualistic market centered hell hole focused on prepping each individual student for the test they must pass to be deemed “good product” – that takes away from so much of developing students into the types of neighbors we’d want in society. The message is insanely cynical.

Categories Pensions, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching

Milwaukee Democratic Legislators Oppose State Takeover of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2015 //
8

Milwaukee Democratic legislators wrote a letter to their colleagues urging them to oppose the state takeover of low-performing Milwaukee public schools. Any students of a school taken over would be transferred to the control of a charter operator or a voucher school. This is not “reform,” it is privatization.

 

Ironically, the public schools of Milwaukee perform as well as, or in many cases, better than the local charter schools and voucher schools.

 

What would be fair, if the Legislature passes the takeover bill, would be a mandatory transfer of students in low-performing charter schools and voucher schools back to the public schools.

 

It would create chaos, but “reformers” love disruption. Fair?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Milwaukee, Vouchers, Wisconsin

Laura H. Chapman: Is This Generation Trapped in Stale Ideas?

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2015 //
15

Laura H. Chapman, a frequent contributor to the blog, raises some important points about Common Core test and its reach into kindergarten and into the future:

 

 

You should be aware that PARCC tests are in the works for Kindergarten. They are called “formative tasks.” They are more accurately labeled “Tests for Tykes. You can find a draft of the exam for reading informational text as called for in the Common Core category at http://parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/PARCC%20DRAFT%20K-1%20Prototype%20ELA%20K_Reading_Spring_Informational%20Texts.pdf

 

The test is completely embedded in fully scripted lessons for the teacher. Judging from the reproducible worksheets designed for students, the test makers seem to assume that by the Spring of the school year, Kindergarten students will have learned, or been taught, to write complete sentences (with the proper heights of letters). They will also know how to color in a drawing of a fish. All of the questions are based on one “informational text” about fish. Additional plans are in the works for at least three more kindergarten tests, all of them called “formative tasks.”

 

There is a real mazy-hazy problem with retrieving trustworthy information about testing materials on line. For example “parcc.pearson.com” seems to be as authoritative as “parcconline.org/parcc-assessment‎. Then there is parcconline.org where you will find 194 pages of information prepared in 2012 by Achieve, Inc. and the U.S. Education Delivery Institute, the latter an organization lead by Sir Michael Barber, of Great Britain, and also the chief education advisor to Pearson. The lines bewteen the federally financed tests developed by PARCC and Pearson’s pursuit of profits is not at all clear.

 

Readers should know that parcc.com has test-prep materials for kindergarten math. They are called “games” and they are the product of a cartoon company in Great Britain, complete with audios in a British accent http://parccgames.com/?page_id=25 . The bottom of the page on the games website says: “This site is intended to match students and teachers with the most effective games for reinforcing Common Core curriculum.” Of course, there is no single curriculum for the Common Core.

 

At http://www.corecommonstandards.com/common-core/kindergarten-common-core-workbooks, you can find three “Common Core Assessment Workbooks” —test prep materials for Kindergarten, I kid you not. Another version of test prep for Kindergartener is discussed by a master educator who has a personal stake in the test-em-til-they drop ethos created by federal and state policies. Go to http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/11/26/my-daughters-kindergarten-common-core-math-workbook/

 

Not to be outdone by the PARCC tests, and CCSS, The Maryland State Department of Education, has PreKindergarten Common Core standards!!! These “specify the mathematics that all students should study as they begin preparing to be college and career ready by graduation.“ The language in these extrapolated standards is so exotic that the writers of the publication had to color-code the language in the standards. See http://mdk12.org/share/frameworks/CCSC_Math_grpk.pdf

 

So there are more Common Core tests in the works, Kindergarten and perhaps preschool, multiple tests, every year. They are coupled with a cockamamie idea that the Common Core Standards and associated tests are perfect predictors and guarantors of college and career readiness of children in grades K-12, who may survive the testing regime and graduate in 2025-2028…Meanwhile a new Cngress is uncertain whether to say “college OR career,” or “colege AND career.”

 

The promoters of this belief system and agenda for public schools seem to think that this generation should be locked in a time capsule of ideas and tests. This frozen–in-time agenda for American education has been embedded in federal and state legislation as if to say: There are no paths to useful and rewarding work and the good life, except as set forth in the first decade of this century when these standards were written. The writers said, in effect, there is no need for educators, or parents, or students to think about what life offers and may require beyond passing these tests, getting a job, and going to college. Pathetic.

 

This is the awful mind-trap that has been set for this generation. Parents and teachers who will not comply with these tests know that the test scores are not 100% faithful and true predictors of life outcomes. For having this warranted knowledge and wisdom, they are being threatened by the purveyors of the non-sense.

 

Parents who are lawyers or who have access to legal help may want to look at whether districts are in full compliance with FERPA, the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act, and especially with COPPA—the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, regulated by the Federal Trade Commission, not the US Department of Education.
The primary goal of COPPA is to allow parents to have control over what information is collected online “from their children” under age 13.

 

The FTC “consumer protection office” appears to be getting a batch of questions about the PARCC/Pearson relationship and specifically the on-line testing environment where Pearson—a commercial contractor—is empowered to get personal information from tests and social media websites.

 

You will find a lively discussion there, along with a clear indication that this matter is just now beginning to show up on the radar screen of a lot of people, especially those who say that parents have no legal right to opt-out. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2015/01/testing-testing-review-session-coppa-schools

Categories Childhood, Common Core, Education Industry, Pearson, Testing

Advice for Campbell Brown

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2015 //
43

Dear Campbell,

 

I read in the Wall Street Journal that you have formed a new organization called “The Seventy Four,” meaning the 74 million children who attend school in America. I noted that you want to advocate on behalf of the children so they get a better education. You and I have that in common. We both advocate on behalf of our nation’s children.

 

As you begin your new advocacy, there are a few things you need to know. Some of them you can find in my book “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.”

 

For example:

 

*Test scores are not declining or flat. In fact, they are the highest they have ever been since the federal government started measuring scores in the early 1970s. They are the highest ever for white, black, Hispanic, and Asian students.

*Graduation rates are at their highest point in history, for all of these groups.

*Dropout rates are at their lowest point in history, for all those groups.

 

The schools and students that really need help are those who live in very poor communities. Kids who live in poverty often don’t have adequate health care, nutrition, decent housing, and economic security. Why don’t we work together to advocate for better living conditions for these children, their families, and their communities. Standardized test scores are a mirror of family income. Some poor kids beat the odds, but there is a tight correlation between test scores and family income.

 

Now, I realize that you are very concerned about the fact that 50% of our students are “below grade level.” I want to make sure you understand that “grade level” means “the median.” It is the midpoint, and it doesn’t have a set meaning. There will always be 50% above grade level, and 50% below grade level. That is the definition of “grade level.”

 

I don’t think you should be so fast to dismiss the intellectual calibre of American students. I strongly recommend that you obtain a copy of a sample eighth grade math test from the New York State Education Department. Make sure it is Common Core-aligned. Take the test. Please let me know how it goes and how many questions you got right.

 

Good luck with that! I am available to talk if you have any questions. Feel free to call or drop a line.

 

Diane Ravitch

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform

Why We Are Losing So Many Dedicated, Experienced Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2015 //
31

Teachers have been the “collateral damage ” of the so-called reform movement. The reformers’ false claims and teacher-bashing is taking a predictable roll of some of the most talented teachers while discouraging young people from entering the profession.

This article explains why so many teachers are discouraged and how reformers disguise their nefarious intentions with lies.

Dora Taylor, parent activist in Seattle, writes:

“The self-designation of “reformer” by people who have never been in the classroom and have no actual training or experience in education is a smokescreen. What they are really after is profitability for their investor-owned charter school corporations that will deliver as little education for the buck as they think they can get by with.

“The public schools are losing well-qualified and experienced teachers who have made a commitment to our communities and dedicated themselves to teaching our children and and yet we are losing them in large numbers. Why?

“There are many reasons but for the most part has to do with the phrase “Education Reform”.

“The term encompasses charter schools and who teaches in those schools, the Common Core Standards, high stakes standardized testing, as well as the failed idea of merit pay for teachers….

“The teachers union is getting bombarded from two sides right now. First, by billionaires who would rather not see any unions in our country such as the Koch brothers, the Walton’s and corporate backed ALEC and from the other side by charter school enterprises who would love to have certified teachers but don’t want to pay a decent wage to hire them.

“With Race to the Top we had schools closing based on test scores and then many converted into charter schools and folks like Broad-backed Michelle Rhee who fired several hundred teachers, most of them minority women, basically on a whim.

“Then you have Common Core Standards and a battery of standardized tests, which make it difficult for a teacher not to teach to a test and thereby narrow their curriculum. This takes a lot out of a teacher who loves teaching, gets excited about their prepared curriculum, which is designed not only in terms of standard expectations but also to the students they are teaching. It destroys any creativity on the part of the teachers and students and makes teaching and learning a rote and tedious daily routine.”

Brett Dickerson of Seattle writes:

“For the last ten years now, a steady drumbeat of trash talk about teachers has made its way into the public comments about education. Experienced teachers are portrayed as lazy and incompetent, incapable of teaching students in any kind of adequate way.

“Teachers unions are pointed out as a telling sign that teachers know that they are no good and need “job protection” with tenure laws.

“None of these statements accurately portray the quality of teaching or the actual situation of most students who graduate from public schools. Why would these be circulated so widely?

“Not “education reformers”, but school raiders

“To understand the teacher brain drain we have to get the reality of what passes as “education reform” in the press and media. True reformers want to engage those who have the most experience in the classroom and in leading teachers as administrators.

“To achieve reform, there must be a collaboration and engagement of those who know what needs to be reformed the best. But that’s not what is going on, is it?

“That’s because those who call themselves “education reformers” usually are not. Instead they are those who want only to raid public funds taken by force as taxes and then converted to the wealth of investors who do not care about your children, only their own.

“The self-designation of “reformer” by people who have never been in the classroom and have no actual training or experience in education is a smokescreen. What they are really after is profitability for their investor-owned charter school corporations that will deliver as little education for the buck as they think they can get by with.”

Categories Seattle, Teachers
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