It is important to remember a few key facts about the Opt Out Movement.
Number one: It was created and is led by parents, not by teachers or unions. In New York, where 20% of the students refused the mandated tests, the leader of the state’s teachers’ union did not endorse opt out until a few days before the testing started. The organizations promoting the opt out were grassroots, unfunded, and parent-led.
Number two: The opt out movement did not arise in opposition to the publication or implementation of the Common Core standards. It was only when parents received the results of the first round of Common Core testing that they got angry and got organized to fight the tests. Recall that 70% of the students in the state “failed” the first round of testing. Parents in districts where almost all the children graduate from high school, and where most are admitted to four-year colleges were told to their astonishment that their children were “failing.” The parent rebellion started, and State Commissioner John King could not quell it. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan referred to the protestors as “white suburban moms” who all of a sudden discovered that their child was not as “brilliant” as they thought. What an insult!
Number three: In three administrations of the Common Core tests, a majority of students has continued to “fail.”
*In English language arts 2015, only 31.3% of students reached the “proficiency” level across the state.
*Among black and Hispanic students, the “pass” rate was less than 20%.
*Students in New York City almost matched the statewide average, but in the state’s five big cities, only 11% “passed.”
*Among English language learners, only 3.9% “passed” the ELA test. Appalling!
*Among students with disabilities, only 5.7% “passed.” Appalling!
*Achievement gaps between racial groups were unchanged over three years of testing and quite large.
The math scores were better than the ELA scores, but still only 38.1 “passed,” and nearly 62% “failed.” The corresponding scores for black and Hispanic students, English language learners and students with disabilities were far lower. Read the report.
Why are most students failing the Common Core tests in New York? In the past, a majority passed. Did the students get dumber? No. The developers of the Common Core tests decided to use a “cut score” or “passing mark” that was set beyond the capability of the students in each grade. They chose to align the passing mark with the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s achievement levels. (See here and here.)
That decision was made two years ago. At that time, Catherine Gewertz of Education Week wrote:
The two common-assessment consortia are taking early steps to align the “college readiness” achievement levels on their tests with the rigorous proficiency standard of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a move that is expected to set many states up for a steep drop in scores.
“After all, fewer than four in 10 children reached the “proficient” level on the 2013 NAEP in reading and math.”
The NAEP “proficiency” level is not a pass-fail mark. It is not a “grade-level” mark. It is a level that represents solid academic achievement. I was on the National Assessment Governing Board for seven years, and I assure you that “proficient” represented work that I would consider to be an A or A- (the highest level, “advanced” is akin to an A+).
Please note that in no state other than Massachusetts has as much as 50% of students reached “proficient.” In no state have 60% reached the “proficient” level, and state scores have been calculated since 1992.
Thus, the developers of the Common Core tests chose a passing mark that they knew in advance would fail most students and would produce even higher failure rates among black and Hispanic students, as well as dismal passing rates for students with disabilities and English language learners. Based on NAEP, there is no evidence that harder tests and higher bars lead to smaller achievement gaps.
They set the bar so high that the tests are designed to fail most students. Do students feel motivated to work harder if they fail every year?
Parents figured this out, and they didn’t see why the state had adopted tests that most children were certain to fail.
And that is why there is an Opt Out movement. Parents do not want to participate in a system that is rigged against their children. They don’t want to be part of a system where their children’s test scores determine their teachers’ reputation, livelihood, and future. They want to bring that system crashing down and restore common sense to education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One question, Diane- did you mean to say Opt Out groups are “underfunded” or unfunded? As a member of our Long Island groups, I am unaware of any that are funded at all other than by volunteers kicking in contributions for materials. No one is salaried. Parent groups organize our informational forums and our speakers volunteer our time as well.
Terry Kalb,
You are right. I fixed it. Not “underfunded” but “unfunded.”
Thanks, Diane- was afraid people would think we get too little of Gates’ money 😉
Diane,
That would imply that opt out would go away if they adjust cut scores upwards. I don’t think that’s true because I think there’s more to it than you state, including, in big part, the use of test scores for teacher evaluation and the general quality of the tests.
As Randal Hendee points out below, the Opt Out movement has been going for a while. But I think the changes in cut scores was probably the catalyst that got so many parents mobilized and joining the movement. Movements often get sparked by one specific thing, but addressing that specific thing rarely makes the movement go away because it’s really about a whole lot of other things too.
As usual good analysis, Dienne!
Nope.
After years of of manipulating cut scores to show positive results–you can read about this in “Death and Life” and see the ground-level effect it had in this piece by Michael Winerip (http://nytimes.com/2011/10/24/education/24winerip.html)–NYSED decided to re-align cut scores for the 2010 exams.
The results were massive drops in proficiency–about 25 points in reading and 20 points in math. While there were some howls of outrage, opt-out would remain a tiny fringe movement for the next three years. It picked up a little steam, concentrated mainly in lower-performing, non-integrated districts, the year after a further large drop in profiency the first year of Common Core.
It wasn’t until test results were tied to evaluations–and teachers, principals, and superintendents took a greater role in encouraging the movement–that opt-out exploded. Everything else, from bad tests to long tests to interminable prep to low scores, had been going on for years.
Sorry, but Tim is posting incorrect information here. He posted a link to a story about REGENTS exams for high school students. In fact, there was not a big “opt out” movement of the Regents exams this year as far as I know — maybe Tim has information that a huge % of high schoolers refused the Regents’ exams. I will say that parents are starting to question the rigor of the Regents, too. Although in that case, it is just about having a 9th grader take an Algebra I Regents exam that now includes material that most of us would have (perhaps) learned our junior or senior year in Algebra II and Trigonometry. Now 9th graders — yes, including the bottom 25% of 9th graders — are supposed to be taught these concepts at 14 to earn a high school diploma.
Diane is right that it is the Common Core exams themselves — terribly written and not just because they are “rigorous” but because they are “ambiguous” so that it doesn’t matter whether you are a 3rd grader or a college educated adult — you are just as likely to pick a wrong answer. That isn’t “rigor”. One wonders why NY State is so determined to “prove” to middle class parents that their public school is mediocre — no matter how great the SAT scores of their graduating class are. But those parents know that the more kids are taught to “ace” the ambiguous common core exams, the less likely they are to do well on tests that aren’t designed especially for public school students that no private school worth its salt would ever give their students.
Rapid or exponential growth, of grassroots movements, occurs as a result of multiple precipitant events, as issues resonate with a growing audiences. For example, growth in the summer of 2014, against testing, was based, in significant part, on the announced deal that Microsoft and Pearson were developing curriculum for Common Core. Mid-decade, we are seeing a growing backlash toward multinational corporate world dominance. Also, greater awareness that the schools of the reformers’ kids, reject high stakes testing and, the minority disadvantage, built into 266% more testing for them (Mother Jones-Sept./Oct. 2015), is having enormous impact.
Tim may be thinking of astroturf groups or, education products that appear to flourish, immediately after oligarchs promote them with big advertising budgets, disguised as philanthropy.
FYI- We should all be forewarned about free market economists, who weave correlative data conclusions, from flawed ideological arguments.
The Winerip piece features children who were in middle school as the cut score manipulation took off, and at the absolute peak of Regents scrubbing, which is a similar kind of dishonesty.
And no, Linda, teachers, superintendents, and principals were largely silent on the issue until the introduction of the evaluation piece. Teachers, principals, and superintendents get by far the biggest chunk of the $80 billion that New York State is spending on PreK-12 public education.
“It wasn’t until test results were tied to evaluations–and teachers, principals, and superintendents took a greater role in encouraging the movement–that opt-out exploded.”
Ergo, it follows that Opt Out is a teacher (or teachers union) led movement – is that what you’re saying?
I mean, it couldn’t possibly be that with teachers’ jobs and school futures hanging in the balance, that teachers and schools were forced to spend nearly every minute of school time on test prep, and maybe that’s what parents are reacting to? It couldn’t be the tests are getting worse and worse (not, mind you, that there is a “good test”) and the curriculum is becoming more and more tied to said bad tests? It couldn’t be that more and more parents have actually had to look carefully at their kids’ homework because their kids are in tears every night? And, relatedly, they have had to look more closely at the tests because those too result in tears, vomiting and other nightmares? And that said parents, having looked closer at all this garbage, have realized that they themselves – well-educated functional adults – can’t do the work/pass the tests?
Nah, has to be those evil teachers and their unions.
Tim, I’m sorry just because you desperately want something to be true does not mean it is.
Again, there were not high schoolers massively “opting out” of Regents exams.
There were parents opting out of elementary school exams when instead of being more “rigorous”, they became more AMBIGUOUS. Let’s face it, Tim, it makes no sense in any world that a question designed for 8 year olds should not have an answer that is obvious to an intelligent well-educated adult. If your answer is that the schools should now change their focus to teach children that there IS an answer to those questions if only they are “taught” how to figure it out?
Don’t you realize THAT is why so many parents are opting out? You want them to embrace an education of their children where they are supposed to be taught to choose an answer that isn’t best because some idiot test designer who doesn’t realize (or perhaps does) how poorly written the test is thinks is the best answer?
And then PUNISH the teachers who don’t teach this and REWARD the schools that do? Are you kidding me?
When I see private schools dropping their own straightforward exams (I assure you that you can answer ever 3rd grade ELA question) and rushing to embrace the state tests instead (which every private school is perfectly free to do at any time) then I will believe that these tests are designed for any purpose other than to convince parents that their public school teachers are terrible. It’s offensive.
I find it hard to believe you think these tests are good and want your child’s teacher to be spending valuable classroom time teaching her that there IS a right answer and how to find it, even when many college educated adults don’t think there is.
And nope, the tests have not ALWAYS been designed like this and the test prep material is not ALWAYS been like this. Maybe they weren’t perfect, but these kinds of questions were weeded out — probably because ALL the questions were made public and there was no hidden agenda to make good schools look mediocre.
I’m glad you love the common core 3rd grade exam and believe that your 8 year old should be taught how to answer all those questions and ignore her own logic. But you might need to get a tutor to have her unlearn that kind of test prep before she takes an exam that private school kids ALSO take, like the SAT or SHSAT.
Tim,
“Teachers…..get the biggest chunk of education spending”, God willing. I work against privatization and corporatizing of schools to make that true for two reasons. My community needs the multiplier effect of their spending to survive. Secondly,in Ohio, the money for charter schools goes to GDP-dragging Wall Street, which earns 18% on charter school debt or, it goes to lavish personal spending by operators, many of whom end up convicted of fraud or, it goes to the Republican leaders of House and Senate, to water down or avoid the regulation that would prevent the schools’ abysmal academic performance.
BTW, still no answer to what happens when the venture philanthropies stop propping up the few charter school, success stories?
“Again, there were not high schoolers massively “opting out” of Regents exams.”
Do you think that might have something to do with the fact that taking and passing the Regents is a requirement for receiving a high school diploma?? Whew, good thing you found this out before your kid started senior year, NYC Public School Parent!
Dienne, test prep is a conscious, active decision made by educators at every level, not some kind of irresistible natural force. The fact that the districts and schools that put the most pressure on families to opt out still test prep really tells you all you need to know.
Linda, there are plenty of popular NYC charters, both independent and even some networks, that receive minimal outside help. Every NYS charter has to create a detailed business plan showing that it can operate each school on just the state funding.
Tim, if Success Academy can operate “on just the state funding,” why does Eva raise millions of dollars every year?
Diane, probably for the same reason that PS 321 and PS 29 and the Dalton School raise millions and millions in tax-deductible donations, to expand and enhance educational opportunities for children.
Tim, the reason I don’t trust you is because you exaggerate just like the charter folks do. PS 321 and PS 29 don’t raise “millions and millions” each year. (I have no idea about Dalton, where presumably some of the hedge funders underwriting charter schools send their kids). But please don’t pretend that fees paid for a PTA-supported after school program — a good portion of which pays for the costs of the after school program — is getting “donations”. Of course public schools raise money from the affluent parents when possible — because their budgets in the school are not nearly as high as the charter schools, who aren’t charged for crossing guards, buses, testing, retired teachers from decades ago (a large portion).
It’s interesting because ALL the money raised by the PTAs stays in the school. They aren’t spending it to send the students on buses to rallies or “promoting” their schools by hiring an expensive public relations firm to send out press releases trumpeting their “high test scores” (being carefully not to mention how many students disappeared that year, of course).
Finally, your dishonesty about the opt out movement is offensive. There are kids in Washington State who opted out in 11th grade despite them being a requirement for graduation. The larger point is that charter schools have made these state tests — for ELEMENTARY school kids — the focus of their education. By all means choose a charter school that believes that your child’s worth is reflected in the score he receives on the state math and ELA exam, and will happily make him feel “misery” if he just isn’t testing high enough. But the fact that well-educated parents are opting out and find that kind of thinking to be repulsive seems to be driving the charter school industry mad!
Go ahead and keep defending the state tests and please, make sure to tell parents that if they choose certain charter schools, they can be sure of an education that is focused on these states tests that they truly, truly believe are a great measure of learning. It’s perfectly fine with me!
I also think that parents were becoming aware that funding was being held hostage and/or diverted to “reform” initiatives, and that equity and opportunity were subjects avoided or dismissed by state leaders in favor of spin and “there is no choice” language. When something just is not right, everybody knows it, and those responsible not only won’t own up-but instead double down on blame language and threat language…responsible citizens step up to set them straight.
Opt Out will go away when the insanity and inanity that are the educational malpractices of standardized testing and it’s corresponding educational standards are tossed into the dustbin of history as phrenology, eugenics, four humors, etc. . . has been so rightfully rejected.
Wait. Duane, are you saying Arne could stop the opt out movement by eliminating tests? Nah, that’s too reasonable.
Well, if there is one thing that is as certain as the sun coming up in the morning, it is that Arne the Apple-polisher knows not reason.
Swacker,
If you are implying that Duncan is Obama’s George Tenet, I agree.
I’m not sure if I’d consider him quite as devious as Tenet, but I understand what you are getting at.
Duane. When did it start? What model of schooling should replace it?
IM,
I’ll have to get back to you as I am using my friends tv as a computer and am using the hunt and peck method of typing.
The Opt Out groups will continue to grow as more parents catch on to the fact that their children are “failing.” Many parents are savvy enough to know their children are not truly failing. The rigged system is failing the students and families. Any time a test is given on the frustration level of the student, it will result in more “failures.” Trying to blame teachers and schools for the results is more of the dirty political game of the “reformers.”
Not to be overlooked is that in some states, especially red ones, the far right anti-CCSS folks drove some of the opt outs. That got interesting. The press and politicians, DEMS,tried to portray opt out as a Tea Party thing.
From my reading it appears “Choose to Refuse” is the main ‘far right’ (and I use that term cautiously as political labels serve to obfuscate people’s thoughts/positions and help serve to keep the “rabble” divided) group. They can be a political force to reckon with and those on the ‘left’ should seek to understand the ‘far right’ concerns. Perhaps both “far” sides of the political spectrum are far closer to each other than they realize and that together WE CAN FORCE AN END to the educational malpractices that are educational standards and standardized testing.
I agree.
Speaking of red states, PR Watch has a new article about Koch, Josh Duggar, and the source of money for “Chrisian” right-wing politics.
Thanks for the info on the opt out movement in New York. Readers should know that United Opt Out–founded by Peggy Robertson, Tim Slekar, Ceresta Smith, and others–has been around since at least 2011. Here’s an excerpt from a comment by Peggy Robertson that was reprinted here on April 21, 2015:
“Peggy Robertson writes:
Opt out is led by parents, teachers, students and citizens. When United Opt Out National began over four years ago we were simply a facebook page with a file for each state. Within hours our FB group page was flooded with opt out requests and now we have opt out leaders all over the country and grassroots opt out groups popping up everywhere. I think Florida has 25 at this point – probably more since I last checked – and mind you they did this all on their own. UOO has simply been a catalyst and a support. What is even more fascinating, and sad, is that UOO has reached out to the unions many times, and never received a response.”
The number of students opting did grow exponentially in New York after the Common Core test results came out, but the grass roots movement was already in place a couple of years earlier. Here’s a link to the United Opt Out “about page”: http://unitedoptout.com/about/
Good point. The opt-out movement was also in place in New York before the first round the first round of Common Core test results came out. The initial flareup happened in the spring of 2013, before the tests had been given. There were many NY “Opt Out” groups already in existence at that time, urging parents not to participate in the Common Core tests. There was a lot of media coverage, and even more social media coverage.
Yes, there were pre-existing opt-out groups, but the movement didn’t burgeon until parents saw what the tests were like and how their child was affected.
Opt out in NY goes back to the pre social-media era: there is a group of schools that coalesced around being exempt from the Regents in the 1990s and 2000s. And yes, there were organized opt out groups around 3-8 assessments soon thereafter.
The “talking pineapple” test was 2012–there was hardly any opt-out in 2013. 2013 was the first Common Core test–5% opt out rate in 2014. In 2014 the teacher evaluation piece is introduced, and in the intervening year a critical mass of teachers, principals, and superintendents promote and legitimize opting out. In 2015, 20% opt out and the message changes from “dump Pearson and make better tests” to “get rid of tests entirely.”
I do think that “social media” (putting that in quotation marks now because it’s suddenly making me feel like an old guy in 1958 saying “rock and roll”) has been a huge factor in the growth of opt-out. As was the teacher evaluation component, which, depending on your perspective ad experience, which created a huge swell of Internet commentary by educators who were angry and anxious. It wasn’t Joe Blow average parent who built the opt-out infrastructure. It was teacher-bloggers and education activists. And it has been teacher and activist commenters, including many of the regulars here. And to state the obvious, our host is too modest: I don’t see how anyone else can be considered to have played a bigger role in creating the conditions for this “Opt Out Spring.”
That’s how it seems to me, at least.
Excuse the incoherent bit in the middle there. I must have started and abandoned a thought. For the best, in all likelihood.
Tim you are so offensive and I wonder if you realize it. Your characterization of the parents who opt out as having no mind of their own is outrageous. Unlike the privatization movement, which spent millions of dollars running advertisements saying that charter schools were going to “save” public education because look how great their test scores are, the opt out movement spends almost nothing. I don’t recall seeing a single TV advertisement telling me to opt out my child. I was NOT inundated with fliers telling me how great charter schools were and robocalls telling me to call my state representative to tell them “don’t take money from schools” (They had to MISLEAD, of course, since the point was to take money from public schools and give it to private and charter schools, but the charter industry has never placed any value in honesty when they could grab more money by being dishonest.)
Maybe parents trust teachers because it reinforced what they saw with their very eyes — those “new” state tests that were so poorly designed but you and your friends in the charter industry praise through the roof as the ideal way to measure the value of a students’ learning.
Let’s face it, the New York State Charter industry ADORES the common core tests and have made it very clear that parents should use these tests to judge if their school is good or not. The “best” schools are the ones that get the highest test scores with lots of prep and we should definitely all be demanding more of the test prep factories so our kids have the “opportunity” to get high scores, too!
I love that pro-charter folks like you, Tim, are telling us “who do you trust? Your own lying eyes, or the hedge funders who keep sending you flyers and calling you to tell you that these new state tests are the best way to judge if your child knows anything at all.” Funny how so many educated parents trust their own eyes. And Tim, funny how you just can’t deal with that at all.
I think the new motto of public schools should be : Go to charter schools, where your child is exactly as good as the state ELA and math exam tells you he is!
Actually parents got mad before the tests were given or the scores cam back because in many schools, low quality and confusing work sheets came back as homework as well as some of the modules from EngageNY. They saw how their kid’s curriculum and learning was being debased by what was purported to be the Common Core.
Sent from my iPad
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Is no one paying attention?
If one truly believes in high standards, one sets cut off scores to make for a “normal” pass rate. But then one tells everybody that the standards will be going up incrementally over time, which gives people (teachers and students) … time … to make adjustments. Just dropping the hammer with high cut-off scores is incredibly clumsy and an indicator that people don’t know what they are doing, in a “the beatings will continue until morale improves” way.
These people are not serious about high standards. would they do this in their businesses? Tell their salesmen that their performance hasn’t been good enough, so they are increasing their quotas by 800%? The quality movement shows the path. Changes are incremental and everybody in the enterprise has a role in improving standards. This sounds like something administered by General Motors: heavy handed, top-down, and ineffective.
The politically driven “reform” is totally top down and punitive. When parents realize that the real goal is to destroy the public schools they know and value. there will be more parents that will elect to have their children refuse the tests. This may be the only way for parents to voice their opposition as nothing the states do to change education ever goes to the voters to voice their opinion.
Steve: Tell their salesmen that their performance hasn’t been good enough, so they are increasing their quotas by 800%?
You have offered a great summary of the idiotic theory of action and expectation for “breakthrough results” foisted on students, teachers, and public education in the United States. And, the source of the nonsense is also the belief that the whole of education can be understood as a business that can be tweaked with this or that managerial strategy until results improve–results meaning increases in test scores in a few subjects and graduation rates, not much else matters.
Pointing out that only “A’s” on the test would make more sense to the public than anything else as many people who vote, even CEO’s, were not “A” students. Also, point out that private schools are not tested–so what is the comparison? In addition, the public can understand unprofessional test construction and the circumvention of independent evaluation of the tests.
“This sounds like something administered by General Motors: heavy handed, top-down, and ineffective.”
Nah, just oligarchic plutocrats, or is that plutocratic oligarchs, who know what’s best for mankind trying their self serving best to self serve!!
Then the oligarch can RULE over the rest of us and make us their slaves … yes, slaves.
Parents who opt out do so in order to subvert the false failure of their children, influence the direction and quality of instruction, and protect local control of their schools. As concerned citizens, they are not saying that there should be no school improvement. They are saying that school improvement is not identical with privatization and that they will not tolerate the loss of community control. They are pushing back and good for them.
Parents and citizens in the opt out movement recognize that the goal of privatization is the hostile takeover of public education everywhere (US and abroad) and that “choice” is not choice for parents, but choice for investors and power brokers in the reform movement. High stakes testing (which is under judicial challenge) is not about accountability for teachers but about flexible access to infrastructure for privatization.
Parents who are paying attention can see from the way in which privatization has operated in places like Chicago, Newark and New Orleans that there is no concern for the people who have been impacted by their policies. It is not about school improvement or equity or accountability or student success. It is about market control of the public sector.
In education, this drive goes under the cover of words like reform and equity, but reformism is an ideology and an -ism. And as an -ism, its adherents have no moral dilemma about inventing failure in New York today, just like they had no problem passing Act 35 after Katrina in order to change the definition of success in Orleans Parish, facilitating the complete take over of its schools and termination of its personnel. Privatizers have very focused interests: profit, cheap labor, and small government. Education is a profitable branch of their interest. That’s it. The rest of it is just rhetoric for the masses.
Excellent breakdown of the situation, curiousidle. You explain the growth in the number of people opposing whatever change comes from the privatizers’ movement. Their corruption can not be contained
by allowing encroachment on any front, whether it is TFA, Common Core, charter schools, etc.. Appeasement doesn’t work against an enemy with blood lust.
Thank you – I completely agree.
The reason the opt outs drive the privatizers to such madness is that the movement is found more in affluent communities than in the poverty-ridden failing public schools that seemed to have smaller numbers of students dropping out.
We already know that public schools with high concentrations of poverty have low test scores. They had them before the opt out movement began and they had them after the opt out movement began. If the parents who most need better schools are having their kids take the test, why so much madness about suburban parents declining?
There is a desperation by Cuomo and the people who hate public education to convince middle class parents how bad their public schools are and provide an entry for charter schools to market to those fears. Can you imagine if the opt out movement didn’t exist and parents thought those scores meant something? How easy would it be for a well-funded charter school to move in to cherry pick the most motivated students and parents and get them out of those good public schools? But the parents aren’t buying it and the publicity the opt out movement is generating about how terrible these tests are makes it worse! Because the charter schools that have put all their eggs in the basket of “come here because our education is focused on making sure our students do better on state tests” now have to live with their own expensive marketing campaign. And the parents they most want to attract — affluent and college educated — are likely to be put off by that campaign. Now if the privatization movement was really focused on what it claimed to be focused on — providing a better education for all those tens of thousands of poor children living in poverty who are “trapped” in failing public schools — the opt out movement could so easily be ignored. But in fact, it isn’t really those children trapped in failing public schools that the privatizers want to educate. They make handy props but when push comes to shove, those kids are expensive to educate. I find it amusing to see charter schools having to live with the results of their own marketing campaign: “these tests are great – great I tell ya, and please come to our school where we believe your child is a reflection of their test score and we can make sure it’s a 4!” Now that many affluent parents are put off by such a focus — especially on such a poorly designed exam, how can those charters get them to come? Their schools have spent so much money to tell us that a child’s education is only as good as his score on the state ELA and math exam. And the parents they most covet aren’t buying it.
Does Cumo hate public education or did he just hate unions and then decided the game was fun so he kept playing. Does he hate public education? Why?
So well written!
In New York State, specifically, the College and Career readiness benchmark is tied to a 1630 on the SAT. This score is in the 66th percentile of SAT test takers. What separates a high 2 from a low 3 is whether or not a student is on target to get a 1630, if and when, they take the SAT many years down the road. The long and short here is that, New York expects all students in New York to do better than the top 34% of college bound students nationally.
Schools could test and weed out students for affluenza symptoms, since it’s proven that, they adversely affect the nation, both socially and economically. Schools could measure students, for potential to contribute to productivity, and keep only high scorers, ruling out those headed for the financial sector.
Based on the reported SAT scores, of high visibility decision makers, teasing out an answer to the best score for American benefit, is a fool’s errand.
Silicon Valley tests, by avoiding emotional intelligence, skew psychopathic. And, that’s definitely not in the
nation’s best interests.
Without high failure rates, the public would lose interest in testing and the organizations, like NAEP, would lose standing and the testing companies would go out of business. The high failure rates produce panic and that feeds a hunger for more and more testing to see where our kids stand. If the passing rates were set so that 90% of students did quite well on state tests, the test would largely disappear, and the few that remained would probably be of better quality.
William, imagine if the public thought that the way to bring down one’s high fever was frequent tests with a thermometer. That would be silly.
Diane,
“William, imagine if the public thought that the way to bring down one’s high fever was frequent tests with a thermometer. That would be silly.”
Imagine a doctor who doesn’t believe in thermometers.
Imagine a doctor who believed in using thermometers to measure white blood cell count.
Dienne, you have always made me smile at the right moment.
Now, what about nervous caregivers who do use the thermometer too often just to stave off nervous energy. There is some of that going on too.
Imagine if the public thought they should never use a thermometer at all. No doubt there would be no fevers. Ignorance is bliss, or at least an excuse not to do anything about a fever when other people’s children are the ones who are sick.
TE,
You missed the point.
Thermometers should be used to diagnose an illness, not to cure it.
Dr. Ravitch,
I don’t think anyone believes standardized tests are a cure. Standardized tests are a way to find a problem and to see if the cure that we tried actually worked.
“ Number three: In three administrations of the Common Core tests, a majority of students has continued to “fail.” “
Take a serious look at the numbers to the end of year 2013:
The Center for Educational Statistics at the Institute of Educational Sciences (https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=51) shows that nationally, approximately 40% of the high school completers enroll in a 4-year college. Another 25% enroll in a 2-year college. Therefore a total of ~66% of high school completers go on to further education. This is true for the last two decades.
I am assuming that high school completer mean those who graduate with a high school diploma.
My questions are:
Will the high school districts change their graduation criteria or follow the common core test results?
If they blindly follow common core and its testing, a majority of students fail the common core tests and therefore may not graduate. Will this reduced graduation rate from high school result in the reduction in the 4-year and 2-year college enrollments from the national average over the last decade?
What will the colleges do to solve this problem if any, will they just live with the reduced enrollment or change their admission criteria?
Should the public wait this out to settle before judging the common core and associated testing?
Wait? What happened to the “fierce urgency of Now”? Children can’t wait, remember? That’s what your rephormster buddies have been telling us for years.
Dienne,
I will not respond to “That’s what your rephormster buddies have been telling us for years.”
You just did. 🙂
This is awesome.
Good reading tonight. You are on a roll Dienne.
Raj,
If the Common Core tests are used as graduation requirements, most students will not complete high school. They will not be a problem for the colleges, but for society. What will we do with them?
Diane,
Please see my comment to Linda below
Raj,
I’ll take the bait and, state the obvious. Gates/Koch/Waltons don’t want to pay for American education.
A private education, both K-12 and college, relieves the 0.2% of a tax they perceive to be burdensome. As evidence-Bridge International Academies and tax avoidance schemes like offshore profits.
Colleges will close down. No more federal nor, state taxes going their direction. Public college endowments and facilities (bought and owned by the public), will be sold off, like other privatized assets, to hedge funds and businesses, at fire sale prices..
The light bulb, provoked by your question, was turned on for most thinking citizens, by 2006, at least.
Linda,
My questions are genuine, there is no bait. It comes from deep within me.
All I can say is that you have a vivid imagination. I think what you are stating is just a dooms day scenario. I was a nuclear scientist and have lived my entire life with the dooms day clock, we have been near 5 minutes to midnight for a long time. Now we are closer. Here is more info:
“The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, representing a countdown to possible global catastrophe (e.g. nuclear war or climate change). It has been maintained since 1947 by the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,[1] who are in turn advised by the Governing Board and the Board of Sponsors, including 18 Nobel Laureates. The closer they set the Clock to midnight, the closer the scientists believe the world is to global disaster:”
http://thebulletin.org/timeline
IT IS 3 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
DoomsdayClock_black_3mins_regmark.jpg
3 minutes to midnight
2015: “Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.” Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena, current efforts are entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth. Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads—thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. “The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty—ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization.”
Next comes education.
I am much more optimistic about education. I know the University I was educated and the Universities that educated my children and now my grand children starting soon. They were all the very best. Therefore my view points may be myopic.
Common core tests may indeed make it easier for the top level universities in their admission process, they no longer rely in the SAT. I am not concerned with the top level institutions, they can take care of themselves.
I am only concerned about the colleges that have near 100% admission rate, such as many 4-year institutions and the community colleges. At present they are part colleges and part remedial education institutions. They are supplementing the education or the lack of the same from the high schools. This is why this country provides one a second or even a third chance, which you will never get in other countries.
I believe, the the question of taxation in this country is a separate issue and is not a part of this discussion. I hope I am right.
Finally, I can assure you that democracy is not dead, colleges will not close down and the sky will not fall. My children and grand children and most others will have great future. I hope that every one will improve their place in society.
There is a great saying in Hindu philosophy. It is in Sanskrit and the translation goes this way:
“May all be prosperous and happy
May all be free from illness
May all see what is spiritually uplifting
May no one suffer
Om peace, peace, peace”
If this offends anyone here I apologize.
I really don’t understand what your concerns are, Raj. Colleges and universities have been figuring out how to admit students since, well, forever. I don’t think they really need the help of the Common Core or the tests that go with them. In fact, such tests are most likely to be a problem for colleges because most colleges require a high school diploma. If students can’t pass the tests, and the tests are required for graduation, there will be fewer students for them to admit. I fail to see why we should “wait” and see how this situation plays out. How can allowing 50% or more of kids fail the tests be good for anyone, colleges or otherwise?
It will be like when Biff found the sports scores book in Back to The Future. No good.
Raj,
I accept your sincerity.
In terms of social and economic change, is it believable that 6 heirs to a discount retail chain, would be able to amass a fortune equivalent to a combined 42% of Americans? Is it believable that the opinions of millions of workers, would be overcome by the views of 130 families, in the wealthiest 0.2%? Is it believable that one oligarch’s $2 billion dollar spending, would buy the American educational system? Is it believable that citizens would tolerate, minority children, mandated and subjected to 266% more tests than their suburban counterparts?
Is it believable that Bill Gates and Pete Peterson would reject a solution to the catastrophic consequences of concentrated wealth, documented by Thomas Picketty? Is it believable that a Yale professor, would prove that American Congress doesn’t listen to 90% of its nation’s citizens? Is it believable that corporations, would be allowed to use the profits from the products we buy, against American society? Is it believable that corporations would be given protection from personal liability but, given an individual’s right to speech? (30 years ago, American business described itself as a guest in society.)
Is it believable that local, state and national parks would be jeopardized by business and anti-tax plutocrats? Are man-made earthquakes, believable? is it believable that citizens would be denied the democratic right to prevent them? Is it believable that a husband and wife would have no voice, against a forced life-threatening pregnancy, just, as if, the U.S. was an extremist religious nation? Is it believable that the forefathers intended egregious gerrymandering, denying Americans the right to have their votes counted?….
The human capital pipeline, as education reform organizations describe your family and mine, doesn’t warrant professional medical care, emergency responders, environmental regulators, judges and law enforcement, making mass education unnecessary. Nor, do you and I warrant resources for retirement, once we have ceased to generate profits. As proof, one-half billion dollars was spent in the past few years to dismantle Social Security.
You and I were luckier than our younger counterparts. We had long careers, with security and pay that enabled us to thrive.
CC tests stand for Canary in Coal mine. It’s by design.
Doom to fail students. I don’t think students from other developed countries(those that outrank the US–such as Finland, South Korea, Japan) will ever get a high score.
There’s absolutely no reason for colleges and universities to use CC test as new admission guideline.
To answer your last ?, Raj: NO!
It’s already been settled/proven by N. Wilson that ed stands & stnd tsts are COMPLETELY INVALID educational malpractices.
Diane,
Please see UFT Solidarity’s online opt-out initiative. It’s in the testing phase and only has NYC schools. Can effectively allow a parent/guardian to opt-out in less than a minute. Thoughts? Suggestions? http://www.optthemout.com
Tim–once again, who are you? (As you’d asked Linda about something & stated she hadn’t answered, I am also asking you again.) I have previously asked you on Fred Klonsky’s Blog, but haven’t, as yet, seen an answer. Are you a parent w/kids in public schools? Are you a teacher? Inquiring minds want to know!
Hi, retired. I would testify under oath that I’ve never commented on Fred Klonsky’s blog. There is another regular poster here who also goes by simply “Tim”; perhaps it was him (his WordPress “gravatar” is primarily black) or one of the 1.028 million other men lucky enough to be so tastefully named.
I am a resident of New York City whose children attend a variety of traditional district NYC DOE schools, all majority-minority and >50% FRPL-eligible. My wife and I both work in fields completely unrelated to any aspect of education, education reform, etc. Thanks for asking.
What exactly is your POV? I readily admit to being a public school parent appalled at how many dishonest statements are used by the charter school industry in order to take money from public schools and undermine them as much as possible. Oh, there are certainly some admirable charter schools NYC, but they don’t get particularly good results and they aren’t lobbying and rallying and spending all kinds of money to promote more money going to them while claiming that public schools are simply terrible. The admirable ones are ignored and the unethical ones get to expand and be held up as models of what all education should be. That’s why I am here, to call them out on their dishonesty.
You claim to be a public school parent, too, with no ties whatsoever to any charter school. (Or were you being a bit misleading about that, too, when you identified yourself? That would make you typical of what I dislike so much about the pro-charter folks — carefully wording your ID to mislead us into thinking you have no connection whatsoever to any charter schools when you know darn well you have some ties to them and are not simply a disinterested public school parent.) So if I take you at your word, why are you so determined to post on here to promote the privatization movement and the state tests. I find it hard to believe you have an elementary school age child and think those new tests aren’t terrible. I find it hard to believe you think the value of a year’s teaching can be measured in whether your child was taught how to pick one of those “right” answers. So why are you here? What do you believe in?
“Inquiring minds want to know!”
This is why I’m self-publishing If You Were Truly A Public School Parent . . . , a complete collection of the comments of Tim and NYC Public School Parent regarding whether Tim is truly a public school parent. Volume 1 on track for release this fall.
FLERP! That’s funny! I’d definitely buy a copy as gifts for my friends and family.
It’s not that I don’t think Tim is a public school parent — at least, I take him at his word that he is. I just don’t understand why he isn’t more critical of the privatization folks. I get that parents get frustrated with the teachers’ union – there are times when I disagree with their decisions as I do with the DOE sometimes.
But if you believe in public education – as I do – I don’t understand why someone would not be concerned with the dishonesty of the people who seem to have all the power in the charter school movement. It used to be: “how can we provide an alternative type of education for kids for whom the public school system isn’t working” and it seemed as if charter schools were springing up run by people truly dedicated to doing exactly that. But it has morphed into something else: “how can we convince as many affluent parents as possible that their public schools aren’t that good and that we can provide a “free private school” education that their public school can never match”. So much effort designed to tout high test scores and marketing and PR and so little effort to figure out why every at-risk kid who walks in the door isn’t staying. I see far more money spent on marketing to affluent parents and staging rallies and promoting studies designed to “prove” how superior charter schools are (and those studies never include the students who leave charters, only the ones who stay – talk about a built in bias). When the most important thing becomes how can we keep test scores high and not how can we educate the most kids who really are not being served by public schools, then something is terribly wrong. I don’t see the charter industry itself doing one thing to change things — they seem completely cowed by the well-funded charter schools who want to expand at any cost. But at the least I would expect someone like Tim – even if he is critical of some parts of public education – not to parrot the lines of the richest charter schools on an anonymous board.
If Tim admitted he had his kids in a charter school, I can understand why the good education they are getting might make him feel compelled to defend them on here. But I cannot see any reason why a public school parent would not want charter schools to be completely transparent and honest about what they can and cannot do. Can you explain it to me, FLERP!, because I don’t think Tim has any interest in doing so? He is a public school parent with absolutely no connection whatsoever to charter schools but somehow feels that he needs to defend them even when they are not being at all straightforward about their concern for all the at-risk students trapped in failing public schools that they profess to be so very eager to educate. Why did the charter industry morph into a zero-sum game where no “win” is sufficient unless it comes at the expense of a public school?
NYC public school parent, we must consider the possibilitiy–based on Tim’s persistent defense of whatever charters do–that he is employed by a charter chain to write what he writes.
One reason for the relative popularity of charter schools in NYC might simply be the gigantic size of NYC public. The bureaucracy needed to run a school district with 1.1 million students is likely to make charter schools like Community Roots in Brooklyn very attractive.
“If Obama says he’s not a Muslim, I take him at his word.”
NYC parent,
I think you are quite focused on the behavior of one charter network and are using that brush to paint everyone else. To me, it just seems that Tim is a person who is not doing that.
My kids are in District schools that we’re very happy with. There are charters that I would not send them to.
That said, I support excellent charters, and it seems that you may as well when it comes down to a school by school basis.
You ask good questions and they are the questions any good charter school or network asks of itself constantly. I’ve objected to the personal nature of how you ask and the fact that you frequently ascribe someone else’s words, thoughts, or motives to me and others (despite what we’ve said), but the underlying questions are fair.
Perhaps if you stop visualizing Eva while responding to us? 😉
Your almost as ornery as this Show Me State boy, FLERP!
FLERP! That’s your answer? Are you saying that if President Obama was going out of his way to make misleading claims about Islam being the perfect religion and so much superior to Judaism and went on and on about how terrible all Jewish leaders were and how superior to Judaism the philosophy and leaders of Islam were, it would be odd to question his claim that he is a devout Jew? (Obviously, he is NOT doing this.) One isn’t allowed to wonder how being a devout Jew while constantly saying how inferior the Jewish religion is to the “better” religions isn’t a bit worthy of question?
A BETTER analogy would be whether you would question Michele Bachmann if she claimed to be a devout Muslim, given how rabid her attacks on the Muslim religion have been. There is a difference between taking someone at their word, and questioning when their ACTIONS are in direct opposition to what they claim to be.
It’s kind of like the well-funded charter schools with millions in donations to spend on education who profess a huge concern for the tens of thousand of at-risk children trapped in failing public schools. And then they choose to drop lottery priority for exactly those students and locate more of the schools in neighborhoods with the LOWEST number of those students.
FLERP!, do actions speak louder than words? Should we believe words over our own lying eyes? Funny, I guess what those millions in advertising and public relations are designed to do, right?
The point of the joke was simply that you do not, in fact, take him at his word, a point you confirmed in your reply.
(No need to write a really long reply to this with a list of questions, btw.)
John, you don’t live in NYC so perhaps that is an excuse for your ignorance.
Last October, SUNY Charter Institute approved 17 new charter schools. Fourteen of them, or more than 80%, were Success Academy. The rest were for another charter “network”.
John says: “You ask good questions and they are the questions any good charter school or network asks of itself constantly.”
I didn’t notice you, or anyone else from the charter movement, “asking any questions at all”. In fact, just the opposite — you object to ME asking questions because it obviously annoys you. If the charter movement that you so happily defend starting asking ANY questions whatsoever I would not have to post here. Why isn’t the charter movement DEMANDING transparency instead of FIGHTING it — both in state courts (preventing audits) and by large contributions to politicians who agree it is unnecessary?
John, I wish the charter movement could show me they have any desire to be honest in their ability to serve the at-risk kids that they claim to care about it. It’s a shame their money is going to marketing and promotion of themselves, at the EXPENSE of those at-risk kids that will bring down their test scores.
Shame on you for thinking that as long as you support a few charters doing ethical work, it absolves you from criticizing the dishonesty of the charter schools who are BY FAR given the most resources and expanding the most rapidly.
Shame on you for pretending that you do care while trying to shut down any criticism of those charter schools instead of fighting to force them to behave honestly. Where are the charter school leaders in asking why so many at-risk children disappear from those schools? Why are they twisting themselves in knots to pretend that hey, it’s just like every school? Isn’t that what YOU did, John? In truth, you don’t really give a nickel’s thought to what happened to all those kids who mysteriously disappear from the school. Neither does the SUNY Charter Institute, which is actually supposed to care.
So, John, you clever little smiley face is pretty offensive. How funny that so many at-risk kids disappear, right? It’s all just a big joke to you.
NYC parent,
What is “pretty offensive” is your assumptions about me and the way in which you interact with people you disagree with. Here’s the script between you and me: I say “nobody can look at the passing rate at any school and make any meaning of it whatsoever without looking at attrition”. Then you say that I am ignoring attrition.
I say your questions are valuable and you say “You object to my questions because they annoy you”. Whatever I say, you ignore and then pretend I didn’t say. That is why I say you are arguing with Eva, not me. Add some personal attacks, like saying that I am “pretending that [I] care”, and I become less interested in engaging with you.
SA is getting amazing results and that’s drawing a lot of attention. I can assure you that any other charter or network looking at those results questions the degree to which they are due to attrition. My take is that some of it may be, but that they are still accomplishing amazing things. Could I be wrong? Sure. If I lived in NYC, or if I were looking at replicating what they’re doing, I would. I can tell you that if you ask charter folks which schools you should be looking at when designing a program, SA is generally not on the list (at least not yet). I think most of us were extremely skeptical initially but are becoming slightly less so as they become more transparent. We’re always looking at who’s doing better than us so we can learn from them. SA is definitely getting some things very right.
I think most of us have confidence in their authorizer as well, so as they go through renewals, we know their data is getting looked at carefully. SUNY CSI is very data-driven, and they absolutely look at attrition when looking at achievement.
As for attrition, there is a philosophical challenge in public education in whether you have schools in which large numbers of kids are not participating and where that brings down everybody, or whether you have a means for kids/families who want to work hard to surround themselves with similar-minded children and families.
For anyone who is in a school like the latter to question someone else’s desire to have their children be in the former, as opposed to “taking one for the team” is disingenuous. That is equally true of someone in a suburban school, a selective city school, a private school, or simply a school in a “better” neighborhood.
To the degree to SA is opening is areas where charters are less needed, they are fighting a political fight that I don’t care about. What I care about is kids from low-SES families and education as a means for improving communities, Again, if I lived in NYC, maybe I’d be disappointed about them opening is less challenging areas (I don’t even know if you’re right about this). I’m not privy to Eva’s plans, but maybe she feels she needs more support from people who have a greater voice in NYC politics but are still unhappy with their neighborhood schools.
So please, if you want to talk charter issues, great. If you want to point out things you think SA shouldn’t be doing great. But, don’t ascribe responsibility to SA to me, and I won’t ascribe responsibility for all district schools to you. And, if you’re truly interested in someone’s opinion, try reading what they say instead of putting words in their mouths and arguing with a straw man.
FLERP! The point of my answer is actions speak louder than words. The fact that you don’t like it when I point it out speaks volumes.
John you just wrote a very long screed defending Success Academy and claiming that the SUNY Charter Institute was doing a fine job looking into what they were doing. You didn’t actually call for any greater accountability or transparency whatsoever. In fact, it’s funny that after your claim that SUNY really cared about attrition you wrote:
“As for attrition, there is a philosophical challenge in public education in whether you have schools in which large numbers of kids are not participating and where that brings down everybody, or whether you have a means for kids/families who want to work hard to surround themselves with similar-minded children and families.”
John, I agree with you about that “philosophical challenge”. Where you and I disagree is that you don’t understand that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a discussion about that. Because you just explained to me that Success Academy has a “magic sauce” to educate at-risk kids and it isn’t because they are getting rid of any who don’t “fit”.
Since you believe that, then you obviously cannot say with a straight face that there is any point to discuss whether “non-participating” kids “bring down everybody”. Success Academy’s results prove they don’t!
You keep insisting I am wrong to think that suspiciously high attrition rates mean anything, so you must think that every school should be able to exactly what Success Academy does and achieve high test results with every child who walks in the door. Do the charter schools YOU support get those kinds of results? If not, why the heck haven’t they changed to be just like Success Academy? There is obviously something wrong with those charter schools if they can’t match the results — is it the teachers? Really terrible administrators? I’m trying to figure out how you can excuse any charter school that doesn’t match those results?
It’s ironic that you want to have your cake and eat it too. 1. Success Academy has remarkable results with any at-risk kid lucky enough to win the lottery and it’s high attrition rates have nothing to do with their success. 2. It’s fine for resources to be spent on other charter schools that have quite mediocre results and can’t get 90% of their kids reading at grade level even though their results have shown that they are quite terrible and would do well to replace themselves with Success Academy charter schools who have proven that they can get those results with all children. Why would we spend a penny on a mediocre charter school when we could have Success Academy instead? Why haven’t YOUR charter schools matched their results?
NYC parent,
You’re still arguing with things I didn’t say. I don’t know how much clearer I can be. I said “nobody can look at the passing rate at any school and make any meaning of it whatsoever without looking at attrition” and you said “You keep insisting I am wrong to think that suspiciously high attrition rates mean anything”.
I did absolutely nothing of the kind. Please find one place where I have even remotely suggested that you are wrong to think suspiciously of a school with high attrition, let alone that I “keep insisting” that.
A “high performing” school that achieves that performance by losing low performing kids is not a high performing school by my definition, because they are not demonstrating an ability to raise the performance of students.
Honestly, I think there is still value in a school like that if it is giving low income families the ability to exercise the same choice that high income families do, But, I want to get results with the students I have, so I don’t spend time looking at schools with high attrition rates. Frankly, that is why I haven’t, to date, looked in detail at SA’s teaching methods. If I thought they had the “secret sauce” as you say, I’d be all over it.
You seem to be convinced they have little or nothing of value. I think they probably do, but the jury’s out for me until I see convincing evidence that they are raising the performance of a broad range of individual students.
John, you are the one arguing with things I didn’t say. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it was because I wasn’t clear.
My concern is with HONESTY. As a voter, as a citizen, as a caring human being, I believe that public policy is best made when we have an HONEST debate.
You dismiss this by saying “I just worry about whether my own school is honest”. Or what’s worse, you say “I still think there is a value in a school like that”. So do I, but ONLY if that school is completely HONEST about the way it gets results. Otherwise, exactly what “value” does it have? The value that the only way to provide schools for the at-risk kids with the most involved parents is to be dishonest about how they get results? That is the most CYNICAL and truly offensive thing you have written. You can’t have a charter school for high-performing at-risk kids without pretending you have a charter school that is a model for how to make failing schools better?
Again, the charter schools being rewarded with more schools and more money are NOT the ones being honest. I actually think you know that and for some reason are reluctant to admit it. Instead you say “well, I don’t know for sure if they are honest or not” and implying that since SUNY has oversight, they must be honest about how their results are achieved, right? And then saying “I don’t care because I only care about my own school”. And I should just trust SUNY which just rewarded it with 14 new schools and didn’t show a lick of interest in attrition rates?
If I only cared about the education of my own child I wouldn’t bother to post. I think that robbing public schools that educate at-risk kids of resources and support by making claims that they should match the results of this charter schools that “isn’t getting rid of any kids, it’s just turning them all into scholars” is very, very harmful. Not to your kids and not even to my kids. To the most VULNERABLE at-risk students in this country. If you don’t join me in that belief, John, then frankly, you are just part of the problem. If you keep insisting that SUNY is all the oversight we need, so I should just shut up, then yes, you are part of the problem. And what’s sad is that if people like YOU, John, actually called for transparency and truth in how many at-risk kids are not served by Success Academy, you could do some good. Sometimes, a determination to “see no evil” and refuse to speak out does far more harm. It’s easy to make the trains run on time if you don’t care what methods are used to get those results. It’s especially easy to make the trains run on time if no one cares about looking closely at the methods you used because they want to maintain their own patch of the woods and don’t want to question the powers that be.
NYC parent,
I’m giving up.
This is from your most recent post:
“Or what’s worse, you say “I still think there is a value in a school like that”. So do I, but ONLY if that school is completely HONEST about the way it gets results.”
So, my “what’s worse” moment is to have said something that you say you AGREE with. Then you go on to argue that I somehow think it’s OK for a school to be dishonest about their results.
You are so focused on SA, that you think I’m defending them, when what I’ve said is that I JUST DON’T KNOW the degree to which their results might be due to attrition.
You want me to care more about SA than I do. I trust their authorizers, you don’t. I think it’s appropriate for you to raise questions about them. I am just not the guy to answer them, nor is it my job to defend them.
John, I do NOT think you are “defending” Success Academy.
What you ARE defending is the charter school system of “oversight” and “accountability” which allows it to flourish, expand and gain large amounts of public dollars and private donations — some of which SHOULD be spent to educate the at-risk kids who really need it instead of promoting their “brand”.
“I trust the authorizers” you say. I am just calling your bluff. Since you trust the authorizers, and the authorizers just gave Success Academy 14 more schools, that means that you believe their results are solid. So why aren’t you matching them in YOUR charter school? Why are all the other charter schools’ results so pitiful compared to Success Academy?
I know you “give up” because you don’t have an answer. It’s a dilemma for you, I know, because if SUNY is saying that Success Academy’s claims are 100% genuine — which obviously it is since they are REWARDING their “honesty” and not trying to dig any further — it begs the question of why the charter schools YOU support are doing such a terrible job. Why are they, do you think?
I don’t get any pleasure of watching you twist yourselves into knots trying to address that question. But let’s face it – if you aren’t getting the same results in YOUR charter school that Success Academy is getting in their charter school, there is either something very wrong with your charter school, or something very wrong with the authorizers who are rewarding the “honesty” of Success Academy’s claims that they are educating the same kinds of students that your charter school is. Maybe you should be begging Success Academy to take over your charter school. Wouldn’t you do that if you really cared about the students in it, given your wholehearted trust that SUNY’s “oversight” means that it is a far better charter school than yours is?
I don’t really expect you to have an answer for this but I want to make clear to you that since you claim “you don’t know” and you “trust the authorizer”, it simply makes everyone question why your own charter school gets results that are far less impressive. As does almost every other charter school in this country. Since you can’t blame the teachers’ union for your results, it’s obviously a problem with management that I’m sure handing over your school to Eva Moskowitz can fix, correct? I mean, if you really cared about those kids’ education, why not?
Just calling your bluff. Tell me again how much you “trust the authorizer”, John.
The public doesn’t seem to realize that Common Core tests focus only on college preparedness. It’s no surprise that only 1/3 pass, since that’s the rate the world around. The other 60-70% of students generally never qualify for college due to other interests, native abilities, lack of parental involvement or socio-economic background.
Running an international exchange program for over 20 years, I had a chance to observe foreign education up close. The biggest surprise was that the only standardized test in continental Europe is the PISA – taken once at 15, and generally it’s a sampling.
But it came as no surprise that the highest scores belong to the top third who attend the college prep high school. In a separate building are the vocational technology students with average scores. Meanwhile, the remedial students, the disabled and language learners usually never take the test. Because US education policy demands all students participate, naturally our averages are lower relative to theirs.
Additionally, US policy makers naively compare foreign top-tier schools with our own that serve everyone under one roof, from disabled to immigrant. I’ve met administrators who’ve toured German and Japanese schools, yet failed to realize they were witnessing only the performance of the one third college prep students, while entirely missing the other two thirds vocational or remedial students.
Smarter Balanced, PARCC and other mega tests tell us nothing new, but only remind us everyone’s not cut out for college. And evidence, not rhetoric, shows these tests are actually widening score gaps between different socio-economic groups.
The billions, months and anxieties poured into these tests further drain resources from much needed improvements in infrastructure, class-size, materials, and elective offerings. Let’s not forget that courses besides math and English are equally crucial to acquiring life-long skills, and inspiring students to graduate.
Hopefully history will remember when a few educator/parents opted their kids out of high stakes testing in 2011 and then formed United Opt Out after the first SOS rally in DC. This was followed up in the Spring with the first Occupy the DOE which launched the majority of state opt out groups.
Diane wrote, “NYC public school parent, we must consider the possibilitiy–based on Tim’s persistent defense of whatever charters do–that he is employed by a charter chain to write what he writes.”
You should totally consider that. And if it is truly inconceivable to you that someone who is a traditional district public school parent also happens to support charter schools (and not in any kind of unqualified way, but of course you knew that), then you should also consider stepping outside of your echo chamber every now and again.
It’s time for my smart-phone-free vacation. To all who have started or will soon, best wishes for a successful, fulfilling, and test-prep-free school year!
Tim,
Nuance rarely is appreciated here (with a few notable exceptions), you’re either for or against. IMO, that’s one of the reasons that many on this forum think they’re not being listened to by the general public and come here to listen to each other.
Enjoy your vacation.
I haven’t seen anything but unqualified support from you, Tim.
Not unqualified support for charter schools. Instead, you have unqualified support for their authorizers. If the authorizers are fine with a charter school, how could anyone in their right mind criticize it? After all, that’s what John believes so strongly. We should all sit back and shut up because the “authorizers” are on the job, doing all the oversight any of us need. It worked so well in Ohio that I can’t imagine why anyone would question it.
What is “truly inconceivable” to me is that a public school parent like you wouldn’t care that there seems to be no oversight of charter schools. As long as there are rich and politically connected people on their board, and as long as their “authorizers” accept their claims and celebrate their “successes” by adding more and more of the schools, you and John are satisfied. The “authorizers” are on the job, and anyone who thinks those authorizers are not looking very closely at schools touting their miraculous results should just stop asking questions. The authorizers deserve our full trust.
But of course, that begs the question of why OTHER charter schools — like John’s — aren’t matching those results since they are educating the exact same kids. There must be a reason for those other charter school’s failures. If John’s charter school doesn’t have 90% of their at-risk kids testing as proficient, what is the problem? And why would any donor in their right mind want to support John’s mediocre charter school when they could give money to a charter school far surpassing them in getting results with the exact same kinds of students. It really is a mystery to me, Tim, but I imagine not to you.
I’m sorry you both don’t understand the “nuance” between supporting a charter school doing good work (and frankly, not having particularly brag-worthy test results) and expecting the charter “authorizers” to do their job and make sure that results aren’t because lots of at-risk kids who don’t “fit” disappear. But if you trust the authorizers, it is truly mystifying that every charter school can’t match those results. And truly mystifying why you wouldn’t support having the “proven” successful charters take them over so they CAN match those results. If you really wanted to help at-risk kids get a good education, isn’t that what you’d be fighting for?
So either you believe the oversight by SUNY is seriously lacking, or you believe the education offered by all other charter schools that educate at-risk kids is seriously lacking. But you can’t have it both way, I’m afraid. There is no “nuance” in pretending that two contradictory things can be true just because you desperately want it to be.
None are more blind than those who will not see.
teachingeconomist, I assume you are referring to John. He certainly does not want to “see” any misrepresentations by the pro-charter school folks, so therefore he tells us all to be satisfied that if SUNY Charter Institute says the attrition rates don’t matter, then we should all never question what is before our eyes.
Ironically, it makes the other charter schools that don’t push out those kids — like the one John runs — look truly bad. In fact, it makes most people wonder why his charter school can’t match those results. What people who are this “blind” don’t realize that at some point, their unwillingness to point out when certain charter operators are behaving unethically is going to come back to haunt them. Why should anyone think their charter school should exist, when “better” charter schools have been certified by their “authorizers” as far surpassing them while using even less “public” money. Truth and honesty help everyone. Deceitfulness will always – in the long run – make things worse for us all.
NYC public,
Your discussion with John and Time brought that quote to mind because I think each of you might well think it was referring to the other.
I have to say that I think it applies to you more accurately than John or Tim. John and Tim never makes broad characterizations, while you are willing to lump together the huge variety or charter schools into a single bucket. You spend a great deal of time speculating about peoples personal affiliations while ignoring the actual arguments the person is presenting. You personally insult those whose positions you do not agree with and write responses that do not address what was actually posted but a straw man that you construct out of suppositions about what the other poster thinks.
In short, your are a fine addition to the commentariat of this blog. I am sure you will find a great deal of positive support and do an admirable job of defending the narrative against all who would suggest that it is not an accurate depiction of the world.
Thank you, TE. It’s getting more than a little frustrating repeatedly saying that passing rates mean nothing without looking at attrition only to have NYC Parent say I am saying that “attrition rates don’t matter”. I’m happy to have a discussion, or even an argument, with anyone, but, as you point out, NYC Parent is not arguing with me at all, he/she’s arguing with him/herself.
teachingeconomist, I’m fascinated by how you projected on me the nasty things you do to other people. Astonishing. If I didn’t have a fairly positive view of human nature, I’d think you were that nasty on purpose. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you misunderstood. Here’s your chance to clarify:
Your mischaracterization of me as “lumping together all the charter schools in one brush” is wrong. I support some charter schools — even financially.
John and I disagree about whether SUNY is doing a good job in making sure that low-performing students are staying in the “successful” charter schools and not disappearing. He thinks I should shut up and let SUNY do all the oversight. Do you agree?
Once you tell me whether you agree or not, teachingeconomist, we can discuss why other charter schools are having such a terrible time getting even half as good results.
So, is SUNY doing fine oversight on attrition rates? Or will you avoid answering the question as I notice you do quite frequently?
Do you mind my asking which charter schools you support?
John says “It’s getting more than a little frustrating repeatedly saying that passing rates mean nothing without looking at attrition…”
But John ALSO says: “I trust their authorizers, you don’t.”
John ALSO says: “I think most of us have confidence in their authorizer as well, so as they go through renewals, we know their data is getting looked at carefully. SUNY CSI is very data-driven, and they absolutely look at attrition when looking at achievement.”
John, as I have said (but you have purposely ignored), I am taking you AT YOUR WORD! You believe SUNY says there is no attrition! You “have confidence” in them! And they said there is no attrition, so there is no attrition.
I just wondered why YOUR school and every other charter school isn’t matching those results, and why any authorizer worth its salt wouldn’t shut down your school and replace it with Success Academy? After all, if their success isn’t due to attrition, then it’s due to have a much, much better program than your charter school is capable of having.
Or did I “misunderstand” you? Do you “trust the authorizers” or don’t you? It’s a simple yes or not question, once you realize that placing your trust in the “authorizers” means that all the other charter schools are just falling down on the job. SUNY says no unusual attrition at Success Academy. Do you agree?
NYC parent,
I’m done engaging with you regarding SA.
“The Court will wait for an answer.”
John, if you don’t want to answer the question, you should just stop posting. I didn’t ask you a question about Success Academy. I asked you a question about your faith in SUNY Charter Institute’s certification that Success Academy’s attrition rates had nothing to do with why they make every other charter school look like a 3rd rate school. Yours included. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but frankly, that’s what you keep insisting is true. So let’s engage – what exactly is Kipp Charter School, Icahn, Harlem Children’s Zone, Achievement First, and every other charter school doing so very, very wrong? Why aren’t any of you coming even close to matching those results with the very same students? You can’t blame the teachers’ union anymore, so it really is all about the people who run those schools. It seems as if none of you care about at-risk kids nearly as much as Eva Moskowitz does.
Maybe you all can start “wink wink nudge nudge” making more of your struggling students feel a bit of misery in your school. If your proficiency rates make a huge leap, all the better, right? When they come to close your school, and it’s a choice between keeping struggling students and keeping the school open, which will YOU choose? You and teachingeconomist don’t even realize the situation you have placed the ethical charter schools when you keep insisting any but the most cursory oversight is entirely unnecessary.
Without REAL oversight, the unethical charter schools will always drive out the good. It will always be impossible for a charter school that doesn’t make the struggling students feel misery until they leave to match the results of charter schools that do. It’s a shame we can’t both agree that SUNY doesn’t really care about high attrition rates at charter schools if the end results are brag-worthy test scores. And it’s a shame you don’t realize how much that kind of dishonesty hurts not just public schools, but ethical charter schools, too. When the charter school that weeds out difficult kids comes looking to take over your school, there will be no one left to care about those students. As we have seen in New Orleans, they will just cease to exist.
NYC Parent,
1. You haven’t shown any credible data that attrition is a problem at SA. NYC attrition generally is 13%, and Harlem attrition is 21%. If you want to show that SA’s is worse than that, show some numbers.
2. If your issue is with SA not backfilling, argue that. Nobody pretends that not backfilling doesn’t increase scores. Some support it because it’s the only way to maintain standards despite rampant social promotion of kids who can’t do the work. Some don’t because district schools can’t do it.
3. SA’s attrition has come down each year as the scores have gone up. Please explain how that fits into your narrative.
4. Even critics like Gary Rubenstein acknowledge that SA’s results aren’t explained by attrition (http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/08/13/how-to-define-success/).
5. SA spends more than $6000 more per student that my school. If I could afford to have 2 teachers in every classroom plus their staff of academic coaches I would, and that would absolutely increase our performance. Perhaps you’d like to make a donation? Or to lobby NYS government to reimburse upstate charters for building expenses? That would help my students.
6. Please go post on an SA forum somewhere. Your badgering of people here is really annoying. Since you answered Flerp’s question about which charter schools you support by basically saying “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours”, perhaps you’ll take your own advice: “If you won’t answer the question, stop posting”. You are disrespectful, have demonstrated no interest in having an intelligent conversation, and continue to say ridiculous things like “CSI guarantees there is no attrition at SA”. You call my school “inept” despite the fact that you know nothing about it. You basically mock my 35 years of volunteer service for at-risk kids and public education and somehow expect a reasoned response back? Get a life. Better yet, do something valuable with your obviously copious spare time and go volunteer to read to kids at a school.
FLERP! I’m not quite sure why you are posting on this thread, but since you are, care to go on the record as to whether YOU believe SUNY Charter Institute’s oversight proves that there is no attrition problem at Success Academy. And of course, if you, like John, have complete faith in SUNY’s oversight, care to provide some insight as to why all the other charter schools — KIPP, Kipp Charter School, Icahn, Harlem Children’s Zone, Achievement First, are failing so very many students who enroll in their schools. Since it’s not the teachers’ union, why are the other charter schools so inept in their ability to educate at-risk kids? Success Academy has proved it can be done easily, as long as you don’t have union teachers getting in the way. So what is the problem with the other charters? And is there any reason that Success Academy should not simply take them over?
I don’t really expect you to answer, FLERP!, as I know you like to avoid doing anything but making snarky comments after my posts. But hey, hope springs eternal, right? ; )
FLERP! I just saw your question. Do you think I’m lying when I say I support other charter schools? Is that because you don’t think there are ethical charter schools out there to support? ; )
Perhaps if you tell me which charter schools you support, first, flerp?
You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.
I support exactly zero charter schools. Never have. Don’t anticipate doing so anytime soon.
John, why so touchy? You brought up some good points. I bet we can even have some agreement on them.
Thanks for linking to that Gary Rubinstein article. He said exactly the same thing I said:
“If Success really has demonstrated that it has the recipe that the other chains do not have, then in the name of ‘accountability,’ wouldn’t it be best to stop investing in these other charter networks and focus solely on the one that seems to be working?” (He said that because all the other charter schools’ results looked terrible next to Success Academy.)
Do YOU agree? I have to say it is ironic that you are now claiming it’s because they have more money than your school does! Wow, that’s the same excuse public schools use, too. How do YOU know it’s not because you are overpaying your teachers when you should be firing them and hiring lower paid ones who will work “harder” in your school?
By the way, Gary Rubinstein didn’t know what the attrition rate was. The only thing he knew is that the number of students who took the exam declined from the starting cohort. It’s possible even more students left and were replaced by students who were a better “fit”. Of course, you don’t think it’s important to look at attrition or whether charter schools are replacing unwanted students with ones who can come in “on grade level” (i.e., only allowing students close to grade level or preferably, above, to join their class while struggling students are told they must repeat). So again, that just begs the question of why all the other charter schools are not matching these remarkable results. As Gary Rubinstein asks as well.
The ONLY study I have seen that includes attrition rates of charter schools is the recent IBO Report where they actually had access to the attrition information for charter schools that seems to be top secret and unavailable to every other researcher in this country except a few pro-charter ones. This study just came out July 2015.
Click to access school-indicators-for-new-york-city-charter-schools-2013-2014-school-year-july-2015.pdf
See page 9 for details of the attrition rate of Kindergarten students in 53 charter schools — 13% of those students in this study were at one of 4 Success Academy schools. By the beginning of 3rd grade, 26.5% of those Kindergarteners were gone. By the beginning of 5th grade, ANOTHER 22.5% were gone. So that K class in 53 charter schools lost 49.5% of their Kindergarten students by the beginning of 5th grade! And what if that attrition rate for the 4 Success Academy schools is even higher? (The IBO has gone to great pains NOT to include individual charter school attrition rates — I wonder if some of those OTHER charter schools who keep most of their kids are embarrassed that it looks like half of their students are leaving because their charter school’s low attrition rates are used to hide the higher attrition rates of other schools. How embarrassing that some of those charter schools – is your one of them – now look like they can barely keep half their Kindergarteners.)
Are you really going to tell me that we don’t have to see exactly how many students LEAVE Success Academy, and whether it is actually higher than the 49.5% that apparently all those charter schools “average”? I bet you a nickel that your charter school doesn’t lose half of its starting K class, does it? If I am wrong, and you find that half the students are leaving YOUR charter school, feel free to correct me.
And John, you just posted THIS: “SA’s attrition has come down each year as the scores have gone up. Please explain how that fits into your narrative”. John, HOW can you possibly know that? There have been no studies to show that this is the case. You seem to have some insider knowledge about Success Academy – is that why you are so determined to shut me down?
It’s funny that your “excuse” for not looking into how 49.5% of the Kindergarten kids end up leaving those charter schools is to point to some “average” attrition rate that INCLUDES HIGH SCHOOLS with large drop out rates! Do you REALLY think that the average NYC public school Kindergarten finds that half the students who start there are missing by 5th grade? And the BEST elementary schools have the LOWEST attrition rates, not the highest! Are you really insisting that there is no need to question 50% of 5 year olds going missing by the time they are 9 because hey, lots of kids drop out of high school? And if so, why? If you have such confidence in the oversight, why wouldn’t you be shouting for transparency instead of trying to shut me down because I am asking questions you are desperate not to answer.
Did it ever occur to you that if it turns out that Success Academy is losing many of its 5, 6 and 7 year old AT-RISK students (I’m not talking about all their new affluent students) and your charter school is not, your charter school MIGHT get some of those millions in donations that you are claiming is the REASON your school isn’t doing as well!
In fact, if you actually cared about the at-risk kids in your school MORE than you cared about defending Success Academy pretending there is no attrition of the most expensive to educate kids, you would be joining me in asking for TRANSPARENCY. It would make all the charter schools look far more worthy of getting donations and public support. The way it looks now, there seems to be no reason to support any charter school EXCEPT Success Academy. As the article you asked me to look at so clearly points out.
John, I realize after posting that you do not understand why I post here. And why I care.
Success Academy schools are for students whose parents are willing to do all that is asked of them. That means, those parents are willing to get their child to school on time each day, read to them each evening, see that they are doing their homework. Before a single student enrolls at Success Academy, we can be 100% they have a parent or guardian who CARES about their education.
If Success Academy is not meeting the needs of ALL those students, then looking at why is the first step to understand how to improve failing public schools. Because failing public schools don’t have 100% of students with parents that care — they often have many students whose parents who are checked out. How do we reach those kids?
But if you keep jumping through hoops to show that in fact, attrition is irrelevant in this charter school’s success — if you keep insisting that they are doing it with the same kids you find in any failing public school – then there is no need to spend a penny more to figure out what isn’t working. Because you keep insist their program IS working.
In this comment thread, thinly obscured intimidation, is delivered by free market thugs. It is a tiresome but, unfortunately, effective strategy. Attempts to taint the motives of public employees (like teachers), and discourage them from speaking about and coalescing opposition to profiteering in the public sector, is reprehensible. Public employee time, paid by taxes, should be used to advocate for the public interest. Taping the mouths, of the 99 per cent’s representatives, shut, is a diabolical scheme of the enemy within- the American oligarchs, bred in the same womb as their Russian counterparts.