Mike Klonsky does his usual round up of Chicago news.
70% of students in Illlinois “failed” the PARCC test. Arne Duncan was not troubled at all.
“Arne Duncan agrees…
“It actually doesn’t concern me at all. What Illinois and many other states are doing is finally telling the truth.” (EdWeek)”
Did he forget that President Obama named him as Secretaryof Education because of the alleged leap in test scores in Chicago? We’re they not telling the truth in 2008?
The news: the Dyett hunger strike is in day 32. See the interview with Jitu Brown.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Arne Duncan should be evaluated by the test scores of all the exploited children whose education has been stolen from them by mandated Toxic Tests in America, and their resulting highest failure rates.
Where is his VAM algorithm?
Arne’s and Obama’s HARMFUL LEGACY for generations to come!
Arne is a version of Donald Trump.
Thanks for this post, Diane. Arne never fails to let me down. He’s great at DOUBLE TALK.
He’s an embarrassment. Honest, my face flushes when he opens his mouth. We educators should all be embarrassed by the fact that he’s Secretary of Education for our country.
What is Duncan’s truth—that 100% of American children are not college and career ready—a mandate that no other country has ever achieved?
The fact is that the U.S. is graduating more Americans from college than there are jobs that require a college degree, and the U.S. is ranked 5th for the number of college graduates in the world compared to every country (all 196 of them).
In addition, of the top five countries, only Israel is finding jobs for all of its college graduates while the other four top five countries have large numbers of college graduates that can’t find a job in their field or can’t find a job at all, because there are not enough jobs that require college degrees for all of those graduates.
United States
> Pct. population with tertiary education: 42.5%
> Average annual growth rate (2000-2011): 1.4% (the least)
> Education expenditure as pct. of GDP: 7.3% (6th highest)
Read more: The Most Educated Countries in the World – 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/special-report/2013/10/15/the-most-educated-countries-in-the-world-2/#ixzz3m32RsgTb
Follow us: @247wallst on Twitter | 247wallst on Facebook
Illinois State Report Card’s most recent data is 2011-2012 school year, where 73% of H.S. graduates enrolled in a 2- or 4-year college. But this year, only 30% are career or college ready. Either things have really gone bad in 3 years or the PARCC folks don’t know what college or career ready means. “Telling the truth”, Arnie? Whose truth?
College and career ready is a sales pitch for standardized education. It is a nonsense, especially when you consider that entry requirements for Harvard, MIT, and local community colleges, and online certificates of competency in a trade are different.
The same for careers. Readiness for a career as a concert violinist is as unthinkable to the writers of the Common Core and the promoters of this meme as having a career as a golf pro if you are a young Tiger Woods. We are trying to teach some students skills sufficient for careers that are available in sheltered workshops. Career is a euphemism for a job. A typical US worker has eleven jobs before the age of 44.
This sales pitch was formulated about fifteen years ago by Achieve, Inc. at the behest of corporate leaders who have since shown themselves eager to support privatized for-profit education, and even more eager to outsource jobs anywhere in the world.
The weapons of choice in pursuing these goals are scores on standardized tests, and the “let’s pretend” claim that this standardization is all about equity and standardized education as a civil right.
The translation of Duncan’s spin? ” We’re finally getting the lie we so badly wanted out of the tests.”
As Lloyd pointed out above, we’ve been graduating college kids for years now who have gone on to successful careers and lives, but we must know that they are in fact failures since they didn’t pass these new tests, so their bosses must not be satisfied with their work and everything pre testing failure is just horrid??? None of those degrees from any of the prestigious universities Those kids went to are worth anything since it was all a lie and now failure is the truth? Kids are less ready and will do better? Black is white?
Looks like colleges and universities could be in “trouble” unless their response is to reject PARCC, SAT, ACT and Arne- and gasp- rely on high school grades and teacher recommendations for admissions. That seems like their only option to remain independent from corporate forces-(Stanford and Malala not included.)
Colleges and Universities That Do Not Use SAT/ACT Scores for Admitting Substantial Numbers of Students Into Bachelor Degree Programs
http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional
According to the rheephormsters, the only “true news” is “bad news” and that means low scores on high-stakes standardized tests by those big gubmint monopoly schools aka “factories of failure”:
A striking example of the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Anything to do with public education has to be bad. Automatically.
But when it comes to judging the results of Centres of Rheephorm Excellence? This blog, 9-10-2015, re Jonathan Alter’s explanation of rheephorm deep “thinking” when it comes to charters. Or as someone in an Altered State of Mind put it:
“One finding in particular has stuck in the public consciousness—that charter public schools (and yes, charters are public schools, despite propaganda from unions and their supporters suggesting otherwise) perform no better overall than traditional public schools. This is accurate, but not especially relevant, because many small, inexperienced groups that lack the know-how to run schools have opened charters in recent years.”
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2015/09/04/schneider-and-greene-give-a-lesson-to-jon-alter/
So the “deep” thinking goes in the opposite direction when it comes to defending the even-expanding number of charters: it is accurate but not especially relevant that they are “factories of failure” because he says so. End of discussion.
😧
I remind everyone that one of the basic requirements for being a “thought leader” is to have “thoughts.”
No thoughts. No leading. Rheephorm: word salad and cognitive dissonance write large.
😎
“This is accurate, but not especially relevant, because many small, inexperienced groups that lack the know-how to run schools have opened charters in recent years.”
The local dopes keep screwing up ed reform theory. It’s tragic, really.
You’d think that the wonders of RttT and seven years of Obama / Duncan policies would generate better test scores (or as they’re known to economist researchers, outcomes). You’d think that the person in charge of such dismal results would be embarrassed. I guess you’d be wrong.
I find it incredible that Duncan is so proud of these scores after seven years at the helm. Oh well. Maybe it will discourage kids from going to college so they won’t have mountains of debt to pay off in an economy that continually tilts toward the already fabulously wealthy while the average workers compensation stagnates.
It’s odd that these results are so desirable. And people like Duncan act like it’s so glorious. Hell, all they did was create a more difficult test, unleashed it on students who had little experience in the new standards (or whatever) and raise cutscores. Maybe that’s my teaching plan now. I’ll make my tests super hard and make 85% the line between passing at failing. I’ll bet all my stakeholders and administrators will praise me.
What a great job he has. Set really high standards, pat himself on the back for truth-telling, and then turn all the work over to public schools.
What happens if the kids don’t “meet expectations”? Do they get fired?
No, we already know what they are doing with the kids who do not measure up to their authoritarian, no excuses methods. Just look at New Orleans where they throw them out to learn on the streets so they end up in the streets to prison pipeline. Once those most at risk and difficult to teach children are gone, they are instantly forgotten.
The opaque, often fraudulent, get rich no matter what it takes corporate education reform movement cares nothing about children.
This is extraordinarily thoughtful of Congress, I must say, to make this generous contribution of 250 dollars per year to each public school classroom:
“Teachers who spend their own money on their classrooms would be eligible for a permanent tax deduction of up to $250 worth of folders, stickers, whiteboards, and anything else they need, under a bill passed Thursday ”
Are they embarrassed by bills like this? Do they consider funding public schools as some kind of charitable donation they’re grudgingly making? They know it’s not really their own money, right?
Arnie – He is just a hack and says whatever comes to his mind whether it makes sense or not. This is what happens when you have someone who never came up through the ranks as an educator- he has no sense about being in front of students, running a school or giving direction to a district. He has no empathy or sympathy for the teachers or children who have had to jump through his hoops. And to rate-rank schools of education is beyond decent. The huge amounts of money and time misplaced because of his misguided outlook is immoral.
Arne’s not a hack, he’s a dangerous and skilled double talker who says whatever is needed at the moment. It’s no accident that he became Sec of Ed, at the behest of rheeformers, he has he skills and smarts to implement the hostile takeover of public education while dispensing verbal Soma.
Arne fits the description of a psychopath—who was appointed by other psychopaths.
This is simply a ploy to convince the public that public schools and teacher unions need to be dismantled and replaced with charters. Arne Duncan and Barak Obama are sham artist neoliberals.
This all seems odd, even for Arne. I started my teaching career in Chicago, during Duncan’s tenure. My first position in CPS was teaching math at a school led by Dr. Mahalia Hines, currently an appointed member of the school board.
She explicitly told me that if I failed over 25% of students, that downtown would start demanding a justification for each case. As long as I stayed under 25%, no flags would be raised. In my experience teaching high school math in the schools that I did, well over 25% of many classes deserved to fail. Several because they rarely, if ever, showed up. I’d only fail the lowest of the Fs and give the rest Ds so as not to come under attack from Arne’s administration.
So, when Arne was in charge in Chicago, it was wrong for a teacher to fail more than 25% of a class in a poor performing district. Now, Arne claims that the truth is finally out–the vast majority of our children are failing across the whole country, not just the worst performing districts.
When I tried to tell a piece of that truth, Arne’s team didn’t like what it meant. Now it is politically expedient, and Arne is all about telling the ‘truth’. I’ve known that the man is a fraud for nearly 15 years. How could anyone, let alone the President of the United States, be fooled by him? The answer, of course, is that no one is fooled. He’s just the clown for the job that they need done.
Wilbert: an excellent example of Campbell’s Law at work.
Which is why such a “thought leader” of rheephorm as Dr. Raj Chetty called it “Campbell’s Conjecture” [Vergara Trial].
When they massage and torture the numbers to get the results they want, it’s pure gold. When the numbers & stats prove them wrong, then the figures are suspect or, better yet, just ignore them because reality is just so darn inconvenient.
Jonathan Alter has taken rheephorm “thinking” to heart. This blog—
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2015/09/10/andrea-gabor-assigns-some-homework-to-jonathan-alter/
Rheephorm. It means never having to say sorry.
Because saying sorry and admitting you’re wrong is only [riffing off that Queen of Mean of yesteryear] “for the little people.”
Thank you for your comments.
😎
As I’ve commented on both Mike’s Small Talk & bro Fred Klonsky’s Blog, I’ll bet you that when Arne returns to Chicago (where his children attend U. of C. Lab School, not having to take the CRAPP, just like in Virginia), he gets a nice, cushy 6-figure-at-least executive job with Pear$on Publi$hing, which has its large campus in the very convenient, easily reached from any of the tonier areas of Chicago, leafy-green north suburban Glenview, ILL-Annoy.
It must be nice to have no conscience.
Also, I’ve attempted to bet numerous people here–no one would agree to bet against me. Would you?
Or a nice post at Chicago-based Global Silicon Valley investors in for-profit education, or the Pritzker Foundation well known for any effort to portray public education as a failed enterprise.
In reference to Chicago’s hiring of Duncan based on 2008 “leaps” in testing scores.. Diane comments… “Were they not telling the truth?”
Ah, but it depends on how one defines “truth”! “Corporate ed reform truth” is an ever-shifting goal post moved to suit strategic anti public education objectives! 😦 A good example of this “goal post” moving involved defining public school. I’m thinking of OH’s recent Supreme Court decision on a failed charter and its furniture. Thanks to OH Supreme Court judges ( likely influenced by powerful corporate interests), a failed charter was allowed to keep the furniture even though it was a “public” school
With a 70 percent failure rate in Chicago… someone ought to “review” the “Coleman Lost Years” in education and let heads metaphorically roll for all those who orchestrated such a heinous attack on public education as a means of privatization!
Maybe public schools – the real ones – can get furniture dirt cheap at a giant national foreclosure auction held on the grounds of the many FAILED CHARTER SCHOOLS so the charter heads will still be able to fill the gas tanks of their yachts as they head to the Bahamas for the winter!
“Use the Duncan-Kruger, Luke”
“The Duncan-Kruger’s strong
In this one”, so they say
Though Duncan’s always wrong
He keeps the wrong at bay
It is just amazing what a closed circle this is:
“On the same web page EdLabs lists five “stakeholders.” Among them is Condoleeza Rice, former secretary of state who now leads former Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush’s corporate-reform-promoting nonprofit, Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE).
A second EdLabs stakeholder is former New York City chancellor, Joel Klein, who with Rice co-authored a weak “A Nation at Risk” substitute in March 2012. After his stint in trying to privatize NYC public education, Klein left to lead Rupert Murdoch’s ed division, Amplify– a losing venture that Murdoch dumped after it lost $371 million this year alone.
A third notable EdLabs stakeholder is billionaire Eli Broad, whose most recent privatizing effort involves pushing to convert half of Los Angeles’ schools to charters.
Then there are EdLabs “Partners in Innovation,” a Who’s Who in test-score-driven, market-serving, ed “reform,” including Teach for America (TFA), the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, Pritzker Foundation, and Robin Hood Foundation.”
You could really write a program that lists these same people over and over and over and plug it in for any ed reform initiative, lobbying group, think tank or government agency. Complete capture, at every level of government – federal, state and local.
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/massachusetts-roland-fryer-and-a-two-tiered-system-of-standardized-testing/
“The Circle of Reform”
Infinite Rhee-gress
Echo chamber
There’s no egress
That’s the danger
You are correct, and Mercedes keeps turning the earth to show the interlocking directorates and initiatives that are destroying public education.
Gates is, without question, the leader who has pushed for this coordinated effort by the rich to control educational policy and to police the work of teachers in public schools.
The systems of survellience outlined in his 2005 “Data Quality” campaign are now moving beyond the forever linking of student test scores to their teachers and schools and the teacher education programs of each teacher.
The latest initiative is mustering “an inspectorate” of educators and community members willing to check on teacher compliance with the Common Core Standards in daily assignments, ranging from citing the correct code and specific “tasks for students, to checking the length of time students spend on reading and writing.
These and other inspections for ” rigor” and compliance are to be examined in teacher assignments grades 6-12. The immediate focus is on Literacy assignments by teachers of math, science, social studies/history, and everything else in that absurd mishmash of so-called “Technical Subjects.”
The pusher of this agenda is the Education Trust, one of the Gates-funded lobbies for standardized education…More on this initiative later today.
Any institution can set the bar ridiculously high to secure a high failure rate. Easy peasy.
Who knew the ISBE has a PARRC scoring board? Or how they insulate the process from politics, if they even can?
Why does PARRC let individual states set cut scores? Does the ACT let states determine their cut scores? Don’t think so.
Now that the scoring board ensured that 0 percent of Illinois h.s. kids tested proficient in alg 1, should any parent or college have any faith in this test?
Because university admissio s offices see that Illinois has plenty of kids scoring 3 and above on alg, geometry, calc ab and calc bc AP exams.
And plenty of kids scoring well on the math section of the ACT and SAT.
Illinois is the fourth largest economy in the US, a solid middle class, and plenty of them are going to college.
And as for the less well off, when the board created high PARRC cut scores, they couldn’t have been thinking about helping those kids get to college.
Parents should not let their kids play a rigged game.