When I worked in the U. S. Department of Education in the early 1990s, my agency would occasionally get letters demanding to know whether the federal government was keeping a file on the letter writer’s child. Some parents said they knew this was happening when students took the NAEP tests, which asks for background information about the family. They named a government warehouse in Maryland where these records were presumably kept. The letters were routed to me because the NAEP program was part of the agency I headed, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

I responded politely to every such letter that no personally identifiable information was retained. I didn’t take their fears seriously because they weren’t true.

That was then. This is now. All their worst fears have come true, and then some.

Leonie Haimson and Cheryl Kirsecker, advocates for student privacy, describe the Brave New World of government surveillance of millions of children and youth, carried out without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

The government is collecting copious amounts of data about every child. In the past, this data collection would have been illegal, but the Department of Education weakened the federal privacy law in 2012 to allow the collection of personally identifiable data. Every state has received funding for a longitudinal data base. The Gates Foundation has given out millions to encourage data collection.

Big Data is here. The question is why. For what purposes? Shouldn’t parents be asked for their approval? How could this happen without Congressional hearings and oversight?

It it is not too late. Congress should call hearings to inquire about systematic invasions of privacy, about covert loosening of FERPA regulations, and to find out why the law was weakened without seeking Congressional approval.

• The “Foundation for Education Excellence,” created by Jeb Bush to promote choice and digital learning (many of its big donors are tech corporations), recently released a poll of Georgians. The objective was apparently to show that the people of Georgia were eager for school choice.

But it if you look at the graphs, Georgians told the pollsters something they didn’t want to hear and did not remark on.

When asked what did they think was the best way to improve the leading answer was reduce class size; number two was increase teachers’ salaries. The two combined were 67%. Then came school safety, then technology. In fifth place, school choice was chosen by only 17%. Solid majorities were in favor of spending more on the schools.

The pollsters concluded that Georgia was ripe for reform. “Our recent survey of Georgia voters on behalf of the Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd) indicates that the landscape in Georgia is fertile for education reform. Voters are concerned about their local schools and most believe they do not have enough flexibility to spend their funding.” But not so much for school choice.

Peter Greene truly performs a public service for all of us. He reads the deluge of reports and studies about what’s wrong with teachers, public schools, unions, teacher preparation, etc. so others don’t have to.

 
In this post, he writes a hilarious summary of the latest report of the National Council on Teacher Quality. He starts by noting that no one on the “council” or the staff is an experienced teacher.

That’s a clue.
NCTQ rates the education schools of the nation, not visiting any campuses, just reading course catalogues. In this report, NCTQ rates states by how faithfully they are adopting NCTQ’s recommendations for teacher evaluation , even though it offers no evidence for the soundness of those recommendations. It’s main policy goal is to ensure that teachers are evaluated by the test scores of their students, ignoring the succinct dismissal of that policy by the American Statistical Association in 2014.

 
You might find it useful to read Mercedes Schneider’s review of the NCTQ board (linked in Peter’s post) and my account (see link below*) of the origins of NCTQ, birthed by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Foundation to undermine Ed schools, and rescued by Secretary of Education Rod Paige with a grant of $5 million when it was floundering.

Peter writes:

 
“What NCTQ would like to see more than anything else in the whole wide world is a teacher evaluation system driven by test scores that in turn drives everything else. Hiring, firing, promotions, tenure, revoking tenure, pay level– they would like to see all of those tied to the teacher evaluation.
“NCTQ credits Delaware, Florida and Louisiana with “connecting the dots” best of all. The language used for this baloney is itself baloney– it’s like the baloney you make out of the leftover scraps of baloney. But it’s worth seeing, because it’s language that keeps reappearing, including in places like, say, TeachStrong….

 
“The report includes not a word about how we might know that any of the recommended policies actually works. We are clear that the be-all and end-all is to raise student test scores. Any proof that higher test scores are indicative of anything other than scoring higher? And as we move to teacher evaluation systems, is there any proof that, say, linking tenure to test scores improves test scores or anything that are actually related to a good education?

 
No. So the report is left with a basic stance of, “Here are some things everybody should be doing because we think they are good ideas, though none of us have ever been public school teachers, and none of us have any real experience in public education. But you should do these things, and if you do, education in your state will be better in ways that we can’t really support or specify.” And it took over 100 pages to say that. But this is NCTQ, so some bunch of media dopes are going to report on this as if it is real research from reputable experts who know what the hell they’re talking about. What a world.”

*my origins post:

What is NCTQ?

sorry, WordPress won’t let me embed the link. This is what I get for upgrading to iPhone 6

I have previously posted the editorials of the LA Times supporting billionaire Eli Broad’s plans to open 260 new charter schools, enrolling half the students of LAUSD. Here are a few letters to the editor on the editorials. 
The part I don’t get is the idea that one very rich man has the chutzpah to take over half the city’s children now in public schools. That is a betrayal of democracy. It should be illegal. It gives a new definition to the word “arrogant” and reverts to an old definition of the term “reform school.”

Gary Rubinstein writes that Teach for America searched for a leader of its operation in Nashville. The final selection was warmly welcomed to the city. Four months later, he was gone.

What happened? A You-Tube video surfaced, in which Nashville’s new TFA leader was interviewed at a Tea Party meeting, where he complained about his students’ sense of entitlement.

How was he vetted? Inquiring minds want to know.

Mamie Krupszak Allegretti reflected on the dilemma of teachers torn between harmful mandates and their professional ethics.

She writes:

“It’s an age-old question, isn’t it? How does one live one’s life according to his or her individual ethics and spiritual life while simultaneously living in relationship to a system, government or institution? The liberal arts, literature, philosophy, history & learning about others who have chosen their own path can help you answer this question for yourself. There are no correct multiple choice answers on computerized tests to help you. It’s a matter of deep inward searching. Joseph Campbell said, “There’s something inside you that knows whether you’re on the beam or off the beam, and if you get off the beam to earn money, you’ve lost your life.” But if you get off the beam to follow the dictates of another whether it be a person or institution, you’ve also lost your life. Just a thought.”