Archives for the month of: August, 2015
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North Carolina Business Leader: Critics of Reform Are Wrong

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2015 //
10

In a recent post, North Carolinian James D. Hogan charged that the Governor and Legislature of North Carolina are waging war on public education. The state has rapidly expanded charters and vouchers, killed the North Carolina Teaching Frllows program and transferred millions to Teach for America, adopted Jeb Bush’s A-F school grading system (which identifies schools with high levels of poverty), and deferred salary increases for teachers so that North Carolina teacher salaries are among the lowest in the nation.

The North Carolina business organization BEST says Hogan is wrong. I received the following response to Hogan’s article:

Editorial: The Real War on Education in North Carolina

by Brenda Berg, President & CEO of BEST NC (Business for Educational Success and Transformation in North Carolina)

Former teacher James Hogan caught the attention of national media outlets last week with his inflammatory proclamation that North Carolina is waging a step-by-step war on public education. As education advocates who believe our state has the potential to have the best education system in the nation, we were dismayed.

There is no disagreement that education in our state faces many challenges and we undoubtedly have a long way to go to provide every student with an outstanding education that helps them reach their full potential. But opinion articles that oversimplify this complex issue are the real war on North Carolina’s education system, demoralizing dedicated educators and communities that have endured tough economic times and are working hard to deliver a high quality education for all students.

North Carolina’s flatlining academic performance did not begin in 2012 and cannot be placed on the shoulders of one party, one administration or one set of state policies. Today’s education system has been decades in the making and is a product of the changing dynamics of economies and populations. It is imperative that we understand these complexities if we are to work together to find effective solutions that will make our education system the best in the nation. We cannot do this with over-simplification built on half-truths and which incites a polarized dialogue.

As Hogan points out, North Carolina is facing declining interest in the teaching profession, and has been for several years, but so is nearly every other state in the nation. The implication that North Carolina’s decline is the direct result of eliminating the Teaching Fellows program deliberately ignores the fact that the program only prepared about three percent of the 10,000 teachers North Carolina hires every year.

More blatantly false, Hogan claims that the Fellows program “produced droves of quality teachers who filled hard-up school classrooms.” In fact, the program’s own sponsoring organization transparently reported, “Teaching Fellows taught in schools and classrooms with greater concentrations of higher-performing, lower-poverty students… Fellows today tend to be clustered in the larger metropolitan areas where teacher recruitment overall has historically been less problematic.” Building on this knowledge, the current NC House budget includes funding for an updated teacher scholarship program that would graduate up to 1,000 teachers each year—specifically for the state’s hardest-to-staff schools and subject areas.

Perpetuating more myths, Mr. Hogan mentions the oft-cited anecdotes of public school teachers fleeing North Carolina for higher paying jobs in other states, implying—without evidence—a direct link to policy changes made in the past few years. In fact, the state’s own data show that only three percent of teachers who left their classrooms in 2014 moved to another state. That is half a percent lower than the number of teachers who found work in other states in 2008.

On teacher salaries, we agree that more work is needed. North Carolina educators went as much as five years—many of those under previous administrations—without any pay raises. This has left teacher pay in a decades-long hole that will take several years to reverse. But the current leadership took a big step forward with last year’s pay increase that averaged seven percent (not the $270, claimed in the blog) and this year, both current House and Senate budgets recommend an additional pay increase averaging four percent. This is real progress. We encourage our elected officials to continue this progress toward getting teacher pay to where it needs to be.

Not mentioned in the blog, but at least as important as teacher salaries, is the quality of North Carolina’s school leadership. Survey after survey shows that teachers care about pay, but they care even more about the quality and preparation of the leader they work for, just like other professionals. After years of scant attention to principal leadership, the General Assembly this year has proposed a $10M investment in principal preparation that would significantly raise the bar on what we expect of and provide for school leaders. If approved, the program would prepare potentially hundreds of principals for North Carolina public schools every year.

Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Hogan marginalizes the importance of student achievement by mocking school letter grades and not once mentioning academic achievement. In truth, there are schools in North Carolina that have as few as 5% of students meeting proficiency—a fact that is far more profound and worthy of media attention than a purported war on education based on half-truths. These academic disparities have existed for far longer than one political cycle. North Carolinians need to know this fact and use it as a call to action in support of public education.

Rather than pointing fingers, we encourage our fellow North Carolinians to do what we do best—work proactively and collaboratively to find solutions that will elevate educators to the status they deserve. In addition to a commitment to raise teacher pay, a powerful proposal is on the table right now with House and Senate budget negotiators. The plan offers a comprehensive approach to elevate teachers and principals by recruiting, preparing, developing and supporting great educators so they can focus on what matters most to them and to us—our students. This is the antithesis of a “war” on public education and the most-likely antidote to persistently low-performing schools.

It is time to stop pointing fingers and start looking for solutions to real problems. We owe our children a public discourse that models the collaboration, respect, and optimism that we hope they will exhibit as adults. We also owe educators a vision for a productive path forward, one that values their contributions and engages them as the highly skilled professionals they are. Let’s solve these problems together and leverage the incredible potential of our state to provide our children the best education system in the nation.

Fact Check: James Hogan’s blog post, as quoted in the Washington Post
North Carolina business leaders understand that great solutions to complex problems are built on difficult, respectful conversations and diverse perspectives. We don’t shy away from constructive disagreements – but we also don’t shy away from the facts. A fact-check of a Mr. Hogan’s most concerning points is included below.

“Among their first targets: … cuts to public schools, including laying off thousands of teachers…The state lost thousands more teacher and teacher assistant positions.”

• We don’t know where Mr. Hogan finds evidence for the layoff of thousands of teachers. The North Carolina Statistical Profile from the Department of Public Instruction shows that in 2008, North Carolina had 97,676 teachers. Since 2008, the largest decline in the number of teachers employed in North Carolina was between 2011 and 2012, when the state employed 641 fewer teachers. There is no evidence that teachers were laid off, rather it is more likely that vacant positions remained unfilled. In 2012, the state hired an additional 1,357 teachers and since then, the number of teachers has grown to 98,988 in 2014.

• Error of omission: while Teacher Assistants were mentioned four times in the blog, the proposed reduction in student-to-teacher ratios in Kindergarten through grade three to as low as 15 students per teacher was not mentioned once.

“Two years later, in the last budget cycle, 2014-15, the legislature provided roughly $500 million less for education than schools needed.”

• Mr. Hogan’s own source, PolitiFact, rated this claim “Half-True.”

“In fact, by 2014-15, North Carolina was still spending $100 million less on public education than it had before the economic recession.”

• North Carolina is spending more today on public education than it did before the economic recession, even when adjusted for inflation. The public education appropriation for the 2014-15 school year is $11,013,800,000–a significantly higher number than the $9,406,300,000 allocated in 2007, just before the Great Recession. When adjusted for inflation, North Carolina is also spending more per pupil now than in any of the ten previous years, with the exception of 2009, a peak budget year.

“And when Republicans finally acted to increase teacher pay, they claimed to make the biggest pay hike in state history–but in reality only bumped up paychecks by an average of $270 per year.”

• We find no evidence that supports Mr. Hogan’s claim that the teachers received on average a $270 increase in salary. The average salary for a North Carolina teacher in 2013, the year before the raise was added, was $44,990. If you multiply this number by the average percent raise, 6.9% (according to calculations from Fiscal Research), teachers received on average an additional $3,104 dollars on their annual paycheck, plus benefits.

• In 2014, the General Assembly passed an average 6.9 percent raise for teachers. This year, both the House and the Senate have proposed additional teacher raises averaging 4 percent. Combined, this nearly 11 percent average raise makes significant progress toward addressing the 17.4 percent decline (adjusted for inflation) in salaries teachers experienced between 2003 and 2013.

“Meanwhile, Texas and Virginia started actively recruiting North Carolina teachers to go work in their states. It didn’t take much to convince Tarheel teachers to flee…”

• Relatively few North Carolina teachers are leaving to teach in other states, and fewer are leaving now than before the economic recession. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s 2014 Teacher Turnover Report reports that only 455 left for this reason in 2014—just three percent of the 13,616 teachers who left their jobs last year. The percentage of teachers “fleeing” to other states was actually higher before the recession, as 3.5 percent of teachers in 2008 left to teach in other states.

“The Teaching Fellows program produced droves of quality teachers who filled hard-up school classrooms.”

• Most Teaching Fellows did not teach in hard-to-staff areas of North Carolina. In the Public School Forum’s Teaching Fellows Report from earlier this year, the Forum reported that “Teaching Fellows taught in schools and classrooms with greater concentrations of higher-performing, lower-poverty students” and “tend to be clustered in the larger metropolitan areas where teacher recruitment overall has historically been less problematic than in the state’s poorer and rural districts.”

“The Teaching Fellows program…budget was a modest one, and yet Republicans uprooted it from the state budget and killed the entire program. The result? Enrollment in teacher prep programs in the UNC system has dropped 27 percent in the last five years.”

• The number of students in UNC system education programs reached a peak in 2010, but it has declined since. This decline started while Democrats were in office and cannot be solely attributed to the actions of a Republican-led legislature or the elimination of the Teaching Fellows program.

• Mr. Hogan implies that the decreased enrollment in teacher programs is the direct result of the elimination of the Teaching Fellows program. However, the program only prepared about three percent (3%) of the 10,000 teachers North Carolina hires every year.

“More than 700 of the state’s public schools (nearly thirty percent) received a score of D or F. Many parents struggled to understand how so many schools could so quickly fail. But instead of demonstrating the quality of a school, the state’s new grading measure much more accurately described the socio-economic status of its enrolled students–nearly every one of the state’s “failing” schools were considered high-poverty schools.”

• Using ‘growth’ as an alternative measure, which is not based on socio-economic status, there are 591 schools across the state that are failing to meet growth. These schools did not ‘so quickly fail’—these schools were failing for a very long time, but remained virtually ignored. While the current letter grades are an imperfect measure (there are 86 D and F schools that exceeded growth, for example), we hope these grades will compel North Carolina to take a positive, comprehensive approach to improving public schools.

“We’re five weeks overdue on the budget, and some legislators are saying the budget might not be settled until Labor Day.”

• In the past 15 years, North Carolina has passed a budget on-time just four times, and two of those were on the final day of the fiscal year. We still haven’t approached the 88 extra days it took in 2001 or the 92 days it took in 2002. We agree with Mr. Hogan that passing a budget after the beginning of the school year does not benefit schools or students. But what matters more is whether the final approved budget results in a better budget for education.

Categories Corporate Reform, North Carolina, Teachers

Peter Greene: When North Carolina Finally Reaches Its Goal

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2015 //
10

Peter Greene puts together all the recent policies enacted in North Carolina and predicts the future. The triumph of reform in North Carolina!

Greene writes:

“Political leaders gathered to celebrate today as Department of Education bulldozers upgraded the last NC public school, replacing it with a picturesque park.

“It has been a long road,” said State Education Biggifier Harlen McDimbulb, overseeing the work as the dozer knocked down the last chart-encrusted data wall. “But our big breakthrough came with the court ruling that certified our voucher system back there a few years. That finally allowed us to get money and support to outstanding schools like God Loves White Guys High and Aryan Academy. Great private schools were being denied public tax dollars just because they wouldn’t teach state-approved so-called ‘fact’ and ‘science.'”

“Vouchers opened the door,” said Assistant Secretary of Money Laundering Chauncey Gotbux. “But with the court’s blessing, we were finally able to use public education tax dollars as they were meant to be used– as a source of profit for people who deserve it.”

“Asked about the looseness of oversight and accountability for the tax dollars, Gotbux replied, “When you give the money to the right people, you can trust that they do the right thing with it.”

“There were some serious problems,” admitted Golly Mugbungle of the Greater North Carolina School Choice Initiative Authority. “We quickly streamlined the process so that non-public schools could get their money just by asking for it and completing a simple yet rigorous form. But since the form only asked ‘Are you a school’ and we had no follow-up investigation to look at those claims, we discovered that we were mistakenly sending tax dollars to public schools.” He chuckled nostalgically. “Yeah, we had to shut that down pretty quickly.”

Categories North Carolina, Privatization

Little Rock: White Supremacy Takes Over Again

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2015 //
29

This is the story of what is happening in Little Rock, Arkansas, told by a white parent with children in the public schools. Barclay Key is a professor of history at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock.

Little Rock has a special place in our nation’s history. In 1957, three years after the Brown decision declaring “separate but equal” schools unconstitutional, nine black students attempted to enroll in Central High School. Governor Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the students from entering. The NAACP won a federal district court injunction against Governor Faubus. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. urged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to intervene. President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to protect the students and uphold the law.

Fast forward to to 2015. The schools of Little Rock are again under siege, different cast of characters. This it is about both race and power.

Parents have been trying to protect their public schools against a Walton takeover. What is the metaphor? Not David and Goliath. More like the lone young Chinese man who stood up against a long line of tanks during the suppression of the rebellion in Tienanmen Square.

Barclay Key writes::

“From the chaos of initial desegregation efforts to the white flight of the past few decades, Little Rock’s hopes for strong public schools have consistently been sacrificed on the altar of white supremacy. As a historian, I knew the general contours of this story before my family and I moved here in 2012. The story differs only in its details as one travels the country….

“One cannot possibly overlook the state’s role in suppressing black political power and local white elites supporting that suppression. Even though students in the LRSD have been majority black for forty years, a white majority controlled the school board until 2006. We had a democratically elected board with three new black members and a strong white ally. The state board of education replaced our democratically elected board with Tony Wood, the white state education commissioner. He literally had no specific plans for the LRSD or the “academically distressed” schools, outside of what was already occurring. There was no magic wand, no special scenario that he or the Arkansas Department of Education was prepared to implement.

“It’s worth noting, however, that the state immediately took one action. It appointed Baker Kurrus to chair a “budget efficiency advisory committee” for the LRSD. The district was not in financial distress. Cuts were looming because of the loss of those desegregation funds, but plans were already being developed by the elected board to minimize the effects of that loss. The state’s sudden concern over LRSD finances suggested fears over a progressive-minded school board with a facilities plan and firm commitment to equality that would almost certainly give a fair share of business to minority-owned companies for construction and renovation projects. Kurrus, a white businessman and attorney, previously served on the LRSD board for twelve years. The state, which had just complained of long-term dysfunction on the LRSD board, chose to appoint as superintendent a former white board member who served during some of the board’s most tumultuous—some might say dysfunctional—years….

“This point deserves emphasis: a majority black school board in a majority black school district was displaced by whites who accept the status quo about the education of many of our children. Democrats were responsible for the initial damage, but now Republicans have taken firm control of state government to continue the barrage. Mr. Wood resigned his position as state education commissioner and our new governor, Asa Hutchinson, appointed a white political crony named Johnny Key to take his place. His only qualification appears to be service on the state senate’s education committee and operation of a private Christian daycare. Indeed the governor announced his appointment before the law could be changed to make Key eligible to serve in this capacity. And by serve I mean make $130,000 per year….

“Now on the eve of another school year, the state just announced that it will renege on its contract with our teachers, citing financial worries. The negotiated agreement has been in place for fifty years, and these financial worries didn’t prevent Mr. Kurrus from giving teachers a one-time bonus of $350 in the spring. Most of our teachers deserved that and more, I’m sure, but it was irresponsible to give those bonuses and clearly intended to placate union leadership before this contract controversy. I’ve been around public education for all of my life, but I’m having a difficult time understanding how undermining our teachers’ financial stability, cutting their benefits, and targeting their union for destruction will help our “academically distressed” schools. We will neither attract nor retain the best teachers for our students. Even a casual observer must admit that the state of Arkansas seems hell-bent on destroying our school system, maintaining white supremacy, and keeping our most vulnerable children in a cycle of poverty. The vultures of privatization are circling.”

And so the story goes. The billionaires are buying the schools, the children, our democracy.

Where is the national media? 60 Minutes? Rachel Maddow? Anderson Cooper? The New York Times? The Washington Post?

Categories Arkansas, Corporate Reform, Privatization, Race, Walton Foundation

Metric Madness, or the Costs of Accountability, in Education and Other Sectors

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2015 //
12

This article on “The Costs of Accountability” appeared in The American Interest. It was written by Jerry Z. Muller, a professor of history at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. It is a long and thoughtful article, and I can offer just a few snippets. I urge you to read it. It is a five-star article that explains how much money and energy is wasted in pursuit of the Golden Fleece of “accountability.” It has become an industry unto itself.

He begins:


The Google Ngram Viewer, which instantly searches through thousands of scanned books and other publications, provides a rough but telling portrait of changes in our culture. Set the parameters by years, type in a term or phrase, and up pops a graph showing the incidence of the words selected from 1800 to the present. Look up “gender”, for example, and you will see a line that curves upward around 1972; the slope becomes steeper around 1980, reaches its peak in 2000, and afterwards declines gently. Type in “accountability” and behold a line that begins to curve upward around 1965, with an increasingly steep upward slope after 1985. So too with “metrics”, whose steep increase starts around 1985. “Benchmarks” follows the same pattern, as does “performance indicators.” But unlike “gender”, the lines for “accountability”, “metrics”, “benchmarks”, and “performance indicators” are all still on the upswing.

Today, “accountability” and its kissing cousins “metrics” and “performance indicators” seem to be, if not on every lip, then on every piece of legislation, and certainly on every policy memo in the Western world. In business, government, non-profit organizations, and education, “accountability” has become a ubiquitous meme—a pattern that repeats itself endlessly, albeit with thousands of localized variations.

The characteristic feature of the culture of accountability is the aspiration to replace judgment with standardized measurement. Judgment is understood as personal, subjective, and self-interested; metrics are supposed to provide information that is hard and objective. The strategy behind the numbers is to improve institutional efficiency by offering rewards to those whose metrics are highest or whose benchmarks have been reached, and by punishing those who fall behind relative to them. Policies based on these assumptions have been on the march for decades, hugely enabled in recent years by dramatic technological advances, and as the ever-rising slope of the Ngram graphs indicate, their assumed truth goes marching on.

The attractions of accountability metrics are apparent. Yet like every culture, the culture of accountability has carved out its own unquestioned sacred space and, as with all arguments from presumed authority, possesses its characteristic blind spots. In this case, the virtues of accountability metrics have been oversold and their costs are underappreciated. It is high time to call accountability and metrics to account.

That might seem a quixotic, if not also a perverse, aspiration. What, after all, could be objectionable about accountability? Should not individuals, departments, divisions, be held to account? And how to do that without counting what they are doing in some standardized, numerical form? How can they be held to firm standards and expectations without providing specific achievement goals, that is, “benchmarks”? And how are people and institutions to be motivated unless rewards are tied to measureable performance? To those in thrall to the culture of accountability, to call its virtues into question is tantamount to championing secrecy, irresponsibility, and, worst of all, imprecision. It is to mark oneself as an enemy of democratic transparency.

To be sure, decision-making based on standardized measurement is often superior to judgment based on personal experience and expertise. Decisions based on big data are useful when the experience of any single practitioner is likely to be too limited to develop an intuitive feel for or reliable measure of efficacy. When a physician confronts the symptoms of a rare disorder, for example, she is better advised to rely on standardized criteria based on the aggregation of many cases. Data-based checklists—standardized procedures for how to proceed under routine or sometimes emergency conditions—have proven valuable in fields as varied as airline operation, rescue squad work, urban policing, and nuclear power plant safety, among a great many.

Clearly, the attempt to measure performance, however difficult it can be, is intrinsically desirable if what is actually measured is a reasonable proxy for what is intended to be measured. But that is not always the case, and between the two is where the blind spots form.

Measurement schemes are deceptively attractive because they often “prove” themselves through low-hanging fruit. They may indeed identify and help to remedy specific problems: It’s good to know which hospitals have the highest rates of infections, which airlines have the best on-time arrival records, and so on, because it can energize and improve performance. But, in many cases, the extension of standardized measurement may suffer diminished utility and even become counterproductive if sensible pragmatism gives way to metric madness. Measurement can readily become counterproductive when it tries to measure the unmeasurable and quantify the unquantifiable, whether to determine rewards or for other purposes. This tends to be the case as the scale of what is being measured grows while the activity itself becomes functionally differentiated, and when those tasked with doing the measuring are detached organizationally from the activity being measured.

He writes specifically about education:


No Child, Doctor, or Cop Left Behind

In the public sector, the show horse of accountability became “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB), an educational act signed into law with bipartisan support by George W. Bush in 2001 whose formal title was, “An act to close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.”

The NCLB legislation grew out of more than a decade of heavy lobbying by business groups concerned about the quality of the workforce, civil rights groups worried about differential group achievement, and educational reformers who demanded national standards, tests, and assessment. The benefit of such measures was oversold, in terms little short of utopian.

Thus William Kolberg of the National Alliance of Business asserted that, “the establishment of a system of national standards, coupled with assessment, would ensure that every student leaves compulsory school with a demonstrated ability to read, write, compute and perform at world-class levels in general school subjects.” The first fruit of this effort, on the Federal level, was the “Improving America’s Schools Act” adopted under President Clinton in 1994. Meanwhile, in Texas, Governor George W. Bush became a champion of mandated testing and educational accountability, a stance that presaged his support for NCLB.

Under NCLB states were to test every student in grades 3–8 each year in math, reading, and science. The act was meant to bring all students to “academic proficiency” by 2014, and to ensure that each group of students (including blacks and Hispanics) within each school made “adequate yearly progress” toward proficiency each year. It imposed an escalating series of penalties and sanctions for schools in which the designated groups of students did not make adequate progress. Despite opposition from conservative Republicans antipathetic to the spread of Federal power over education, and of some liberal Democrats, the act was co-sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy and passed both houses of Congress with majority Republican and Democratic support. Advocates of the reforms maintained that the act would create incentives for improved outcomes by aligning the behavior of teachers, students, and schools with “the performance goals of the system.”

Yet more than a decade after its implementation, the benefits of the accountability provisions of NCLB remain elusive. Its advocates grasp at any evidence of improvement on any test at any grade in any demographic group for proof of NCLB’s efficacy. But test scores for primary school students have gone up only slightly, and no more quickly than before the legislation was enacted. Its impact on the test scores of high school students has been more limited still.

The unintended consequences of NCLB’s testing-and-accountability regime are more tangible, however, and exemplify many of the characteristic pitfalls of the culture of accountability. Under NCLB, scores on standardized tests are the numerical metric by which success and failure are judged. And the stakes are high for teachers and principals, whose salaries and very jobs depend on this performance indicator. It is no wonder, then, that teachers (encouraged by their principals) divert class time toward the subjects tested—mathematics and English—and away from history, social studies, art, and music. Instruction in math and English is narrowly focused on the skills required by the test rather than broader cognitive processes: Students learn test-taking strategies rather than substantive knowledge. Much class time is devoted to practicing for tests, hardly a source of stimulation for pupils.

Even worse than the perverse incentives involved in “teaching to the test” is the technique of improving average achievement levels by reclassifying weaker students as disabled, thus removing them from the assessment pool. Then there is out-and-out cheating, as teachers alter student answers or toss out tests by students likely to be low scorers, phenomena well documented in Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Dallas, and other cities. Mayors and governors have diminished the difficulty of tests, or lowered the grades required to pass the test, in order to raise the pass rate and thus demonstrate the success of their educational reforms—and get more Federal money by so doing.

Another effect of NCLB is the demoralization of teachers. Many teachers perceive the regimen created by the culture of accountability as robbing them of their autonomy, and of the ability to use their discretion and creativity in designing and implementing the curriculum. The result has been a wave of early retirements by experienced teachers, and the movement of the more creative ones away from public and toward private schools, which are not bound by NCLB.

Despite the pitfalls of NCLB, the Obama Administration doubled down on accountability and metrics in K-12 education. In 2009, it introduced “Race to the Top”, which used funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to induce states “to adopt college- and career-ready standards and assessments; build data systems that measure student growth and success; and link student achievement to teachers and administrators.” This shows what happens these days when accountability metrics do not yield the result desired: Measure more, but differently, until you get the result you want.

Metric madness is not limited to education. Some of the problems evident in NCLB pop up in fields from medicine to policing.

Categories Accountability, Data and Data Mining, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

New York Opt Outs: Did They Invalidate the Tests?

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2015 //
26

For months, state officials downplayed the significance and number of opt outs from state tests last April. The Néw York Times waited a week before acknowledging that it happened.

But now we know that the opt out was historic. 220,000 students–20%–of eligible students refused the tests. The previous year only 60,000 opted out. The number almost quadrupled in only one year. And the momentum will continue to build as state officials refuse to make any changes and threaten sanctions.

Now some say the high proportion of opt outs make state scores and trends invalid.

“That’s a large number, said George Theoharis, a Syracuse University professor and chair of the Teaching and Leadership program at the college. He said caution should be used in using the scores as a measure of students’ performance and schools’ accountability.

“We have to be careful about what we take from these tests and about school accountability, which is built around everyone taking the tests,” he said.

“Last spring, numerous parent groups organized to encourage people to boycott the tests, saying they were poorly written, too difficult, and created anxiety among students. The teachers’ union also joined to encourage opting out.

“The success of these efforts to convince students not to take the exams varied wildly.

“Dolgeville, about 28 miles northeast of Utica, recorded the highest opt out rate in the state, 90 percent, according to a syracuse.com/The Post-Standard analysis of state opt out data released Wednesday. At the other end, about 15 districts spread around the state reported no students opted out.

“Scores of districts, however, had 50 percent or more of their students not take the exams, the analysis showed. Ninety-four districts out of 668 (14 percent) had half or more students opt out of the ELA; it rose to 121 districts (18 percent) skipping the math exam.”

Syracuse.com has test data for every school in the state.

“The region with the highest opt out numbers was Long Island (40 percent) followed by the Mohawk Valley (38 percent) and Western New York (33 percent).

“New York City recorded the lowest opt out number ( 1 percent), the state data showed.

“Central New York had 33 percent of its students opt out.

“In Central New York, the district with the higher percentage of opt-outs was New York Mills with 77 percent opting out of math and 74 percent opting out of the English exam.

“In Onondaga County, LaFayette had the highest percentage of students opting out: 55 percent opted out of the math exam.”

Does a time come when state officials are forced to listen to parents?

It is safe to predict that the staye’s refusal to listen to parents will produce more opt outs next spring.

Categories New York, Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing, Students

Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp Plans to Sell Off Unsuccessful Amplify

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2015 //
26

The New York Times reports that Rupert Murdoch’s venture into education technology is “nearing an inglorious end.”

News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said on Wednesday that it would take a $371 million write-down on the education division and would move to wind down the production of tablets for schoolchildren, a key part of the unit’s offering.

Moreover, News Corporation’s chief executive, Robert Thomson, said in an earnings call with analysts that the company was in an “advanced stage of negotiations” with a potential buyer for the remaining education business.

Together, the moves highlight the difficulty that has confronted News Corporation and others looking to move teaching into the digital age, relying on the Internet and tablets to update traditional curriculums.
Few initiatives possessed the prominence of Amplify, which grew out of a nearly five-year-old acquisition of a testing software maker that became a small but visible part of News Corporation. And it gained a prominent leader in Mr. Klein, who oversaw New York City’s public schools under Michael R. Bloomberg and was known for pushing technology — sometimes controversially — into the city’s education system….

Yet the rollouts to various schools have been marred by problems, from malfunctioning tablets to slower-than-expected sales. In a note to Amplify employees sent on Wednesday, Mr. Klein said that many school districts lacked the necessary Internet connections.

To that end, he wrote, Amplify will stop marketing the tablet and will no longer accept new customers, though it will continue to support existing subscribers.

“This move will allow us to focus our efforts on the growth and success of our digital curriculum and assessment products,” he wrote.

The division is now in talks with “an outside investor” who would most likely be backed by the unit’s existing management.

“As positive as this relationship has been, Amplify and News Corp. both believe it is time to explore new and exciting strategic opportunities, working with partners who share a deep understanding of what it takes to be successful in education,” Mr. Klein added.

Apparently, the Murdoch corporation lacked the “deep understanding of what it takes to be successful in education.” According to multiple reports, Murdoch invested $1 billion in Amplify. With losses mounting every year, the initiative was impossible to sustain.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

NY Commissioner Elia Promises to Punish Opt Outs Next year

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2015 //
82

In an effort to slow or stop the opt out movement, Néw York State Commissioner of Education MaryEllen Elia announced that she would punish schools with high opt out numbers next spring.

About 20% of all eligible students in grades 3-8 opted out in 2015. Leaders of the opt out movement have promised to increase the numbers in the next round.

Commissioner Elia says she listens to parents, but right now she seems to be listening to Governor Cuomo, who is contemptuous of public schools and teachers.

Categories New York, Opt Out, Parents, Resistance, Standardized Testing, Students

“Education, Inc.” Video Will Debut in Indianapolis

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2015 //
6

Documentary about Corporate Takeover of Public Education Debuts Aug. 14

A documentary about corporate and political interest groups attempting to take over America’s public education debuts across the country Friday evening, Aug. 14. The one-hour documentary, “Education, Inc.,” screening begins at 6 p.m. in the Herron School of Art Basille Auditorium, Eskenazi Hall, 735 W. New York St. at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.

Sponsored by Indy Apples and IUPUI, the event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the lot west of the Herron School of Art building or the parking garage next to the Natatorium.

The documentary is expected to raise awareness of corporate education reforms in public education throughout the country. As public schools nationwide struggle for funding—complicated by the impact of poverty and politics—the documentary illustrates how “education reformers” see opportunity and access to big money.

Following the screening at IUPUI, a panel of local educator analysts will discuss reaction with viewer participants. Moderator Dr. Khaula Murtadha, IUPUI associate vice chancellor for community engagement, will be joined by panelists Carole Craig, co-chair of the NAACP-Indianapolis education committee; Brandon Cosby, national education leadership consultant; and Laura Schlegel Ruegger, a local public schools parent and attorney who works in education issues across the state.

Education, Inc. was produced by filmmakers and public school parents Brian and Cindy Malone. They said they made the film for house parties and community screenings so that students, parents, citizens and public school advocacy groups start an important conversation about the role and value of public education in America.

If you want to screen the movie in your town, contact the film makers here.

Categories Corporate Reform, Indiana

Karen Wolfe: Why Corporate Reformers in Los Angeles Are Nervous

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2015 //
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Karen Wolfe is an activist for public education in Los Angeles. Here she responds to the news that Eli Broad and the Walton family plan to pour millions into increasing charter school enrollments in Los Angeles; their hope is to capture 50% of the children for the privately managed schools. Despite the fact that studies show that charters on average do not outperform as compared to public schools, despite the fact that twenty-five years of charters have produced no innovations (other than to go back to the 19th century way of doing things in the strictest manner possible), despite the numerous frauds and financial scandals associated with charters, Broad, Walton, and a few more billionaires want to destroy the public school system of Los Angeles to have their way. Public education belongs to the entire community; it is undemocratic to allow a handful of billionaires to take possession of half the children enrolled in the public schools and turn them over to franchise operators.

Karen Wolfe writes that the outcome depends on Steve Zimmer, the recently elected school board president, who has walked a fine line between supporting public schools and placating the privatizers (who spent $4 million trying to defeat him when he last ran for re-election):

The timing of this plan is no surprise at all. The powerful California charter lobby seems to be at their wits end after recent losses. Let’s assess.

The first big loss was Steve Zimmer’s election two years ago, despite their spending more than any previous school board race in US history, according to published reports at the time. Subsequently, the corporate privatizers have lost almost every time a vote has been put to the people.

Last year’s election of Tom Torlakson for California’s State Superintendent was seen as a referendum on corporate privatization–and we public school advocates won. California is one of the few states that resisted Race to the Top reforms.

The LA teacher’s union election also brought in leaders with a broader understanding of the fight for public schools. They still need to prove their mettle at building support among parents and student groups who seek an ally in improving our schools without selling them off. But the potential looks better than before. CTA, the state teachers union, remains a strong force in the state capitol, despite the charter lobby’s increasing presence.

The L.A. Mayor’s office is no longer carrying the water of the corporate privatizers either. New Mayor Eric Garcetti has resisted the repeated taunts of Broad and the other plutocrats to push their agenda. Garcetti is a distinct departure to his predecessor, the self-proclaimed “Education Mayor” Villaraigosa, who was trying to share the national charter stage with Bloomberg and Emanuel.

A notable exception is the election of disgraced PUC charter founder Ref Rodriguez to the school board, joining his charter cheerleader Monica Garcia. But now Steve Zimmer is board president and, if that position carries any weight, it might be making the charter lobby nervous. Often the swing vote in a split-down-the-middle board, Zimmer is now presiding over a new board that should give him more courage than he has previously displayed. His unwavering support of John Deasy and his support of almost every single charter school petition that came before the board have alienated many of Zimmer’s backers. We are anxious to see him prove himself to be the champion of our neighborhood schools that he recently proclaimed he was (in an AFT video posted on this blog).

This revelation that the charter groups have lost their patience and are announcing a public attack should be met with redoubled resistance. We have done the work to elect officials who will champion our public schools, even against wealthy special interests like the groups in this article. But the board needs to listen to community members and truly consider the supports that are necessary to enable our neighborhood schools to stand up to the threat of charters. We advocates need to know our school board is behind us as we fight for the very survival of our schools. I wrote this article for our local newspaper about what we need in Zimmer’s district, where I live, and have never heard from the school board about it.
http://argonautnews.com/power-to-speak-school-choice-whose-choice/.

There are advocates in other neighborhoods that have come up with similar plans and the board should solicit them. The point is that the board needs its public constituency or eventually no one will care who wins this policy debate.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization

New York: State Scores Released, Lowest Scores for Students with Disabilities, ELLs

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2015 //
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It is all so predictable. With New York’s “rigorous,” confusing standardized state tests, most students “failed” to meet a standard set unrealistically out of reach. And the ones who were least likely to “pass” are the students with disabilities and English language learners.

Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents Merryl Tisch said a few weeks ago that if she had a child with special needs, she would “think twice” about letting the child take these tests. She was right. But in the latest press release, she insists that everyone should take the tests because the children will be ignored if they don’t have demonstrable evidence that they failed. Say what?

The state acknowledges that some 20% of students opted out of the test. That is the 200,000 that opt out leaders claimed.

The press release says about the opt out students: Department data show that students who did not take the 2015 Grades 3-8 ELA and Math Tests and did not have a recognized, valid reason for not doing so were more likely to be White, more likely to be from a low or average need district, and slightly more likely to have scored at Levels 1 or 2 in 2014. Students who did not take the test in 2015 and did not have a recognized, valid reason for doing so were lesslikely to be economically disadvantaged and less likely to be an ELL.

A majority of students across the state scored a 1 or 2, so this is not surprising.

Once again, a majority of the students across the state “failed.”

The department released test scores and opt-out data late Wednesday morning. They showed that 31.3 percent of students scored proficient on the ELA tests, and 38.1 percent of students scored proficient on the math tests.

Only 3.9% of current English Language Learners scored at level 3 or above (proficient) in English Language Arts and only 5.7% of students with disabilities.

Please bear in mind that “proficient” is used as a pass-fail mark. Please bear in mind that this is absurd. As defined by the two federally-funded testing consortia, “proficient” on the Common Core tests is aligned with the “proficient” achievement level on the federal NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress). I served on the governing board of NAEP for seven years. “Proficient” doesn’t mean “passing” or “grade level.” It represents a very high level of academic performance. On the NAEP, only one state–Massachusetts–has had as much as 50% of its students reach the proficient level. The national average hovers around 35-40%.

But also bear in mind that the “cut scores” or “passing marks” are not based on science. They are judgments that may be affected by politics. If too many children pass, the cut score may be raised; if too many children fail, the cut score may be lowered. Ultimately, there is no objective way to measure how many students are “college-and-career-ready.” Certainly it cannot be done for students in grades 3-8. There is no evidence behind the claims now made for the Common Core tests, for the cut scores, or for the predictions about which children are ready for college and career in third or fourth grade or any of the other tested grades.

What we can say with certainty is that these standardized tests–like all standardized tests–are unusually difficult for students with disabilities, students who are English Language Learners, and students of color, all of whom scored well below the state’s already abysmal averages.

The State Education Department press release (included in link above) said:

The State Education Department today released the results of the 2015 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and Math Tests. Overall, students statewide have made incremental progress in ELA and math since 2013, the first year assessments aligned to the more rigorous learning standards were administered in grades 3-8. In ELA, the percentage of all test takers in grades 3-8 who scored at the proficient level (Levels 3 and 4) remained consistent in 2015 at 31.3 compared to 30.6 in 2014 and 31.1 in 2013. In math, the percentage of all test takers in grades 3-8 who scored at the proficient level (Levels 3 and 4) increased by seven points in two years to 38.1 in 2015 from 36.2 in 2014 and 31.1 in 2013.

Progress for Black and Hispanic students held steady in 2015 ELA and math. While the percentage of students scoring at the proficient level edged up slightly in both subjects, Black and Hispanic students still face a significant achievement gap. English Language Learners (ELLs) also made small gains in 2015 in ELA and math but still lag behind their non-ELL peers. However, in New York City, Ever ELLs— students who received ELL services in years prior to the 2014-15 school year but not during the 2014-15 school year—had higher levels of ELA and math proficiency than NYC students who never received ELL services (Never ELLs).

In 2015, ELA performance for Black and Hispanic students remained consistent with prior year levels, while math performance improved slightly. In math, 21.3 percent of Black students scored at the proficient level this year, up from 19.8 percent in 2014 and 15.3 percent in 2013—a six point gain in three years. The percentage of Hispanic students achieving proficiency in math also jumped six points in three years to 24.5 percent in 2015, compared to 23.4 percent in 2014 and 18.5 percent in 2013. However, the achievement gap continues to persist statewide for Black and Hispanic students, as well as for ELLs. Current ELLs made small gains in ELA and math, yet they continue to lag behind their non-ELL peers.

In the state’s view, minimal progress means “held steady” or “consistent.”

The department’s leadership made clear that they had no intention of turning back from their course of high-stakes tests that “fail” most of the students in the state:

“This year, there was a significant increase in the number of students refusing the annual assessments,” Chancellor Tisch said. “We must do more to ensure that our parents and teachers understand the value and importance of these tests for our children’s education. Our tests have been nationally recognized for providing the most honest look at how prepared our students are for future success, and we believe annual assessments are essential to ensure all students make educational progress and graduate college and career ready. Without an annual testing program, the progress of our neediest students may be ignored or forgotten, leaving these students to fall further behind. This cannot happen.”

“We must also do a better job of explaining to parents the benefits of higher standards and annual testing,” Commissioner Elia said. “Since I became Commissioner, I’ve made it a priority to establish a dialog with parents so they better understand why we test. Annual assessments provide important information about individual students for parents and classroom teachers and allow us to keep track of how all student groups are doing. This year’s results show our scores are not yet where they need to be, but we will work to ensure continued improvement.”

So, once parents understand, they will feel good about their children’s failure. Maybe in thirty or forty years, we will see most children reach “proficient” or the cut scores will be dropped.

Categories Common Core, New York, Testing
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