Mercedes Schneider came across a fourth grade question in a McGraw Hill textbook. She shows how confusing the question is. She knows that the text is trying to form a Common Core question. She thinks it was designed to confuse everyone–students and parents alike. There is an easy way to solve it, and a hard way. The McGraw Hill text picks the hard way.
Archives for the month of: September, 2015
This Illinois blogger wondered why the failure rate was so high on the Common Core PARCC test. He probably didn’t know that the passing marks were set so high that mass failure was certain.
He asked a math teacher and this was her answer.
Eli Broad intends to raise $490 million to build 260 new charter schools for half the students in Los Angeles. Being a billionaire and moving in a world of billionaires, this will not be difficult for him. It’s true that he knows nothing about education; he has said so himself. But that should be no impediment since many charters are founded and run by people with no education experience.
The Los Angeles Times has an article about the test scores of charters, public magnet schools, and regular public schools in that city. The assumption, I suppose, is that whoever has the highest scorese is best.
But the test scores are beside the point. The really important question is why a billionaire should be allowed to buy half of a public institution. If Eli Broad didn’t like policing in Los Angeles, could he buy half the police force? If he thought the public parks were not well run, could he buy half of them?
Why should he be allowed to buy half the children in LAUSD?
It is widely believed that Eli Broad picked John Deasy as L.A.’s last superintendent. Deasy was a disaster, having cost the district at least $200 million for his failed plan to buy iPads at an inflated price for everyone in the district. The FBI is investigating the iPad mess. Deasy now works for Broad.
Many of the superintendents trained in Broad’s unaccredited superintendents academy have been fired because of their autocratic, top-down style. I happen to be in Dallas, which pushed out its Broadie, Mike Miles, after three tumultuous years, marked by a large exodus if teachers and principals and flat scores. I met with several superintendents, who said Miles had created constant disruption, my-way-or-out, and a “culture of fear.”
Eli Broad should not be allowed to take over half the children in Los Angekes.
Letting this deal go through would be the beginning of the end for public education, not only in Los Angeles but in many other cities as well.
Eli Broad’s power grab is an offense to our democracy. It is wrong. It is illegitimate. The elected board must not let it happen. They were elected to safeguard and improve the city’s public schools, not to privatize them.
Florida superintendents issued a statement saying that they have lost confidence in the state’s accountability system.
Brian Crosby, a teacher in California, notes the dramatic decline in the number of people enrolling in teacher preparation programs. We know why. Loss of autonomy. Scripted curricula. Low pay. Teacher-bashing by politicians and the media.
Yet some people persevere. Why?
“California needed more than 21,000 teachers to fill positions this school year because the number of teacher candidates has declined by more than 55%, from 45,000 in 2008 to 20,000 in 2013, as reported by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
“With fewer people going into the teaching field, shouldn’t the powers that be examine how to increase interest in it?
“Working conditions and salary clearly are not selling points.
“Much of the negative aspects of teaching stem from the lack of control teachers have over their own profession.
“Schools are still structured top-down as they have been for a century, with teachers viewed more as factory workers, not master-degreed professionals who can problem-solve without the intervention of those outside the classroom.
Teachers know how to improve their profession, but do not have a voice in the matter, impotent in their subservient roles. How many college students would gravitate toward such a future career?
“It wasn’t that long ago that the concept of site-based management was seriously championed as a way to involve teachers in the decision-making process at a school. But that grand idea vanished.
“So, education bureaucrats continue to mandate so-called reforms such as Common Core standards and standardized testing that teachers are expected to deliver with little input….
“Let’s face it. We all hope that selfless people join the military to protect our country. We all hope that decent people become firefighters and police officers to protect our society. And we all hope that quality people join the teaching ranks to mold our future commodity — children.
“But hoping will only get so far. If schools expect a line outside human resources of people applying for jobs, then a major overhaul of the teaching profession has to happen. And it will take teachers themselves to blast the clarion call since those in the upper echelon of education show no interest in changing the status quo.
Is there any chance of that happening in our lifetime?
“One can only hope.”
From his earliest days on the job, Arne Duncan has said the same thing over and over: somebody dummies down standards, and we have lying to our kids. They are not as bright as they think they are, or as their moms think they are. They are dumb! They are really really dumb!
Jersey Jazzman goes through an analysis of cut scores and bell curves here. Put on your thinking caps and read it.
Then ask yourself why Arne has such a low opinion of teachers and children. Why is he happy that the new tests have been rigged to produce high failure rates?
Now we know the outcome of the reformers’ campaign to put a “great teacher” in every classroom (or at least a great computer). They unleashed their teacher-bashing campaign in 2010 with the release of “Waiting for Superman.” They told us our schools were overrun with bad teachers, and we could cure that by firing the bottonm 5-10% every year, based on test scores. Add “Superman” to Arne Duncan’s mandate to tie teacher evaluation to test scores and his constant refrain that teachers are lying to students by not telling them they are failures; and the Los Angeles Times publication of teacher ratings based on student test scores, applauded by Arne (“What’s there to hide?”); and the mass firing of teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island (applauded by both Duncan and I ama); and the teacher-bashing by Michelle Rhee, which won her cover stories on TIME and Newsweek; and NBC’s “Education Nation”; Bill Gates advocating that great teachers should have larger classes and defining great with VAM; and state legislatures removing tenure, collective bargaining, funding the agency for inexperienced teachers, TFA; removing salary bumps for experience and education: and guess what happens? not a great teacher in every classroom, but a national teacher shortage!
Why would anyone want to be a teacher to join the ranks of the unrespected, the underpaid, and to become the targets of so many powerful people, a strange coalition of billionaires and yahoos?
Here is the latest from Politico:
“TRYING TO FIND TEACHERS: The number of teacher licenses issued each year in Indiana dropped by a third over the last five years. About 3,800 licenses were issued during the 2014-15 school year – down 21 percent from the previous year, according to state data [http://bit.ly/1WlEx0F ] released on Thursday. The numbers reflect a nationwide trend: Many states are struggling with teacher shortages. Teacher pay is dismal. Fewer students are enrolling in teacher preparation programs, drawn to better-paying jobs as the U.S. continues to climb out of the recession. During the 2008-09 school year, more than 719,000 students nationwide were enrolled in teacher prep programs. By 2012-13, that number fell to about 500,000. And some say [http://bit.ly/1R42HtL] that fights over academic standards, tenure and testing are driving teachers away.
“- States and districts are coping in a number of ways. Oklahoma is resorting to emergency measures, for example. The Oklahoma Board of Education has approved 842 emergency teaching certificates since July – compared to 825 emergency teaching certificates total over the last four years, the Tulsa World reports [http://bit.ly/1NPIN5u]. The emergency certificates allow people to work as teachers who don’t have the qualifications usually required. Oklahoma state education chief Joy Hofmeister told [http://politi.co/1QBLzKY ] Morning Education earlier this month that she’s working to build pathways for emergency-certified teachers to get full certification. She also wants the state legislature to tackle teacher compensation this legislative session. The state announced [http://bit.ly/1NXi3BJ] Thursday that it’s forming a task force to tackle the shortage.
“- Oregon’s schools and districts are recruiting professionals without education backgrounds through alternative route licenses, the Associated Press reports [http://bit.ly/1iOV8Mk ]. More than 2,200 Oregon students completed teacher preparation programs in 2008-09, compared to nearly 1,700 in 2012-13.”
The upshot: states will have to lower standards to have enough teachers. A strange strategy for improving education!
At Governor Andrew Cuomo’s insistence, New York has compiled a list of the state’s low-performing schools that have been given an ultimatum: improve significantly in one or two years or go into “receivership.”
in this post, Buffalo board member Dr. Barbara Nevergold describes State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s intense interest in Buffalo schools. She has visited Buffalo twice and held numerous meetings her second time. She was especially interested in two schools: Burgard and South Park High Schools.
Dr. Nevergold writes:
“The Commissioner was blunt regarding her assessment of the situation at Burgard and South Park High Schools. She came armed with data regarding teacher effectiveness ratings and student performance as measured by standardized tests. Wasting no time, she told Burgard and South Park staffs that she discerned a “disconnect” between these two measures. She said that while the majority of teachers, in both schools, were evaluated as effective or highly effective, student achievement was not correspondingly ranked. In other words, students with effective teachers are expected to receive test scores that mirror their teachers’ ratings. How did they explain this discrepancy, she queried? The staff members were hard pressed to respond. Her assertion about this disconnect and her question left no doubt that the Commissioner believes that there is a “connect” between these two measures. Although, not a subject for in-depth discussion, the pointed attention given this issue communicated the Commissioner’s support for the hotly contested teacher evaluation system pushed by the Governor and the Legislature.”
Clearly, the Commissioner believes that there is a direct connection between student test scores and teacher ratings. In this, she mirrors Governor Cuomo’s (uninformed) views.
Not everyone agrees with Elia. Buffalo teacher Sean Crowley hits her upside the head for trusting test scores as measures of teacher quality. He criticizes her for blaming teachers who persevere in two of the state’s toughest schools, where teachers have been attacked by students.
Crowley writes:
“Her contempt for the dedicated teachers at South Park and Burgard couldn’t be any more obvious. I spent my first 5 years teaching at Burgard and the day I broke up a knife fight in a hallway during lunchtime I went home and wrote out my request for a transfer. The knife wielder has since been incarcerated for a fatal knife attack during a home invasion. He stands a chance of being paroled next month too by the way. I accepted a position for the following year at South Park the school where a security guard had been shot by a student in a hallway a few months earlier. I guess I was using the lightning can’t strike twice in the same spot logic. MaryEllen Elia’s fuzzy homecoming stories about Sweet Home don’t cut it when you talk about the environment of these two schools. And what’s really amazing about them both is the number of hard core dedicated teachers you’ll find at Burgard and South Park shaking off the adversity coming to work, handling everything that gets thrown at them. And yes things like staplers, chairs and books are among the items thrown at them.
“MaryEllen Elia has Buffalo in her sights. She has no time for the realities of the communities that produce so many kids who don’t do well on standardized tests. She has no insight or compassion or respect for the teachers who spend their days with kids from unbearably adversarial homes and neighborhoods. She doesn’t want to hear it. She has no place in her head or her heart for this data. In Elia’s head these teachers don’t deserve to be rated anything above ineffective if their students don’t score well on tests that are purposely created to be too difficult in order to create the illusion of bad teaching and failure. She is sticking to her script. We all know the endgame of her script is to fire as many teachers as possible and weaken teacher’s unions enough that the forces of privatization can be sent in to “save the day.” They won’t of course but that’s not really the objective here anyway.”
situation and the dissension on the board. Although she doesn’t mention it, Carl Paladino is a member of the school board; not only did he run against Cuomo in his first race for governor, but he is a charter school owner and real estate developer. Conflict of interest?
Dr. Nevergold writes:
“The designation of 25 Buffalo schools as “persistently struggling” or “struggling” by the New York State Education Department is the most recent decision that has a major consequence for the District. The District has one year with the 5 schools identified as “persistently struggling” and 2 years with the remaining 20 to demonstrate progress. During this period, the Superintendent has been named the Receiver for these schools. In this role, he has broad powers to institute changes, including staff, curricula and schedule. However, if NYSED determines that the changes are not significant than the Commissioner will appoint an outside receiver to run these schools. The Receivership Law gives the Superintendent the discretion to make decisions about these schools without the approval of the Board. And while some individuals believe that the Superintendent will use this power to totally circumvent the Board, I don’t believe that it would be prudent or in the best interests of these schools for him to act as a solo entity. However, this is a discussion that must take place so all parties are clear on the future direction regarding these 25 schools. The Board has the responsibility to ensure there is clarity.”
New Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has promised to crackdown on the Buffalo schools. This will be a test case of her skills and leadership.
Does anyone believe that “persistently struggling” schools can be turned around in one year? Common sense suggests that genuine change would require additional staff and resources, intensive tutoring, wraparound services, and other investments. Or a school could kick out the lowest scoring kids and claim a pretend victory.
The Albert Shanker Institute studied teacher diversity in nine important cities: Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
What they learned was that the proportion of black teachers had declined, in some cities dramatically over the past decade.
All of these cities–to a greater or lesser degree–have been targets of corporate reform.
The black share of teachers’ positions declined by 1% in Boston’s charter sector, 24% in New Orleans, nearly 28% in Washington, D.C.
Is there a principle here? The more corporate reform, the fewer black teachers?
State Superintendent MaryEllen Elia said Néw York would stick with Common Core, no matter that public opinion does not support it.
A Siena College poll found that 64% of Néw York voters either oppose Common Core or thinks it has made no difference.
She also said, ““The United States used to lead the world educationally, but we’ve fallen to the middle of the pack. Our students are lagging behind, and the global economy is growing more competitive every day.”
Actually, that’s not true. The U.S. never led the world on test scores. When the first international tests were given in the 1960s, the U.S. students came in last. Yet over the next 50 years, our nation surpassed the other 11 nations that took the same test by every measure: economic productivity, technological innovation, military might, creativity, and democratic institutions. The test scores of 15-year-olds do not predict our future. The policies of our government, the decisions of corporations to outsource jobs, our treatment of our children and communities matter more.
When I met Commissioner Ekia, I have her a copy of “Reign of Error,” which explains this in greater detail. Obviously she hasn’t had time to read it.
Given the debacle of the Gates teacher evaluation in Hillsborough County, where Elia was superintendent until January, she should rethink her views.
Diane Ravitch's blog 