Arizona Governor Doug Ducey appointed Clint Bolick of the Goldwater Institute to the Arizona Supreme Court. Ducey bypassed many experienced jurists by choosing Bolick.
Bolick has litigated many cases to fight government regulation of all kinds. He strongly supports vouchers and charters. He defended vouchers in Wisconsin and Ohio.
This is FairTest’s weekly report:
Happy 2016 ! Across the U.S., the grassroots testing reform movement is gearing up to win more victories in the coming year. Look for larger, broader opt-out campaigns focusing more pressure on state and local policy-makers to roll back standardized exam overkill and enable better forms of assessment.
National Six Reasons Students Could Face Less Standardized Testing This Year
http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/12/29/6-reasons-your-kid-could-have-less-standardized-testing-2016
National New K-12 Law Adds to Policy Change Buzz as State Legislatures Convene
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/06/new-k-12-law-adds-to-buzz-as.html
National New Year’s Toast to Resignation of “Testocracy Tsar” Arne Duncan
http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/01/188484/arne-duncan-testocracy-tsar-educational-alchemist-corporate-lackey
National Meet the New Federal Ed. Boss, Much the Same as the Old Boss
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/01/02/why-the-new-education-secretary-is-a-lightning-rod/
Alabama Teachers Deserve Better Evaluation Than Just Test Scores
http://www.oanow.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-teachers-deserve-better-evaluation-than-simply-test-scores/article_a18da45c-b1a5-11e5-b7fa-0b6becff101c.html
California New Year Brings Focus on Technical Problems With Standardized Tests
http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/12/29/56557/new-year-brings-a-focus-on-tech-problems-with-stan/
Colorado Test Opt Outs Were a Top Story of 2015
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/no-8-story-of-2015-students-opt-out-of-standardize
Connecticut Superintendents Criticize State Funding Threat for Districts With Low Test Participation
http://www.myrecordjournal.com/southington/southingtonnews/8228358-129/local-superintendents-critical-of-testing-penalties.html
Delaware Test Critics Gear Up to Override Governor’s Opt-Out Veto
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2016/01/04/opt-out-veto/78270050/
Florida Ending NCLB Is Not Enough, State Must End Its Own Test Misuse and Overuse
http://www.tcpalm.com/opinion/editorials/another-view-dont-celebrate-end-of-no-child-left-behind-25ffd3f8-90dd-1c2f-e053-0100007f8fc3-363747301.html
Georgia Teacher “Merit Pay” Could Go Down in Flames
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local-education/merit-pay-could-go-down-in-flames/npt9C/
Indiana State Super Endorses “Hold Harmless” Plan for School Grades
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/ritz-endorses-gop-senator-s-hold-harmless-plan-for-school/article_910d04fa-2854-5ea4-a2db-83b643212074.html
Missouri Superintendent Makes School Turnaround Progress by Focusing on Poverty Above All Else
http://www.ktoo.org/2016/01/03/superintendent-turned-around-school-district/
New Jersey Testing Will Again Be a Major Legislative Issue
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/01/03/looking-ahead-unresolved-matters-and-new-issues-will-mark-year-in-education/
New Mexico What”s the Grade for Standardized Testing
http://www.taosnews.com/news/article_fba8adce-af48-11e5-b696-ef88dc8995e9.html
New Mexico The Making of an Opt-Out Leader
http://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/education/lcps/2016/01/03/movers-shakers-valdez-speaks-out-against-testing/78150496/
New York Opting Out and Voting Them Out
https://www.facebook.com/alan.c.schwartz.3/videos/10153795400742889/?fref=nf
After Test Score Moratorium, School Districts Retool Teacher Evaluation
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/12/8586519/after-test-score-moratorium-school-districts-retool-teacher-evaluatio
New York Opt-Out Leader Named Local “Person of the Year”
http://liherald.com/stories/Jeanette-Deutermann-Mother-activist-education-reformer,75193?page=1&content_source=
Oklahoma Area Schools Applaud Reduced Federal Role in Testing
http://www.ardmoreite.com/article/20160103/NEWS/151229750
Tennessee Value-Added Testing Adds No Value to Public Schools
http://www.knoxnews.com/opinion/columnists/tillie-elvrum-value-added-test-offers-no-value-to-schools-2615c071-d660-0db8-e053-0100007f21c0-363945251.html
Texas New Opt-Out Form for Houston Public School Parents
http://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2016/01/04/132253/want-to-opt-out-from-standardized-testing-theres-a-form-for-that/
West Virginia Pressure Forces Testing Task Force Meetings Open to the Public
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/20160104/in-reversal-wv-superintendent-opens-testing-meetings-to-public
“The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed With Standardized Testing — But You Don’t Have to Be” now out in paperback
http://smile.amazon.com/Test-Schools-Obsessed-Standardized-Testing-But/dp/1610396014/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0
How Tests Should and Should Not Be Used
https://www.facebook.com/647356845410265/photos/a.652051711607445.1073741828.647356845410265/783992738413341/
Stop All the Testing in Math and Set Free a New Generation of American Mathematicians
http://hechingerreport.org/save-american-mathematics-and-set-students-free/
Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing
office- (239) 395-6773 fax- (239) 395-6779
mobile- (239) 699-0468
web- http://www.fairtest.org
NPE 2016 Early Bird
REGISTRATION FOR NPE 2016 CONFERENCE IS NOW OPEN
Register now and take advantage of our ‘early bird’ reduced rates for NPE’s 3rd Annual National Conference, And Justice for All: Strengthening Public Education for Each Child, which will take place April 16 – 17, 2016.
REGISTER HERE
On Friday night, April 15, 2016, education advocates from around the country will begin gathering in Raleigh, North Carolina for NPE’s 3rd Annual National Conference which will run from Saturday morning, April 16th until Sunday afternoon, April 17.
Aligned with the theme, And Justice for All: Strengthening Public Education for Each Child, keynote speakers and workshop presenters will tackle the challenges facing our students and schools as we all work towards achieving a more just system of public education in America.
As previously announced, Saturday morning, April 16th will begin with an inspirational welcome from our President, Diane Ravitch and a keynote address by Rev. William Barber, the President of the North Carolina NAACP and co-founder of the Moral Mondays Movement.
We promise to talk about what you care about—equitable funding, resisting corporate reform, Opt Out, high-stakes testing, teacher evaluations, school closures and much more. Make sure you reserve your spot now at reduced rates for both your registration and hotel.
We’ve also listened to your feedback from last year and made a few changes. This year’s registration fee will include your meals – breakfast and lunch on Saturday, and brunch on Sunday. No tickets, no waiting, it’s all included in one ticket!
We’re continually looking for ways to help activists network with each other. We’ve built in networking times and are using the Bizzabo platform to host an online community. Once you buy your ticket and register, you’ll be added to the community. Of course, you can opt out, but this time we hope you don’t! This will be a great way to see who’s attending the conference, put a face to that name you’ve been reading about for years, and stay in touch with other activists before, during, and after the conference.
See you in Raleigh!
REGISTER HERE
This is a bizarre and troubling turn of events. Several states have decided to use the SAT or ACT to meet federal accountability requirements for students. But neither examination has been validated for this purpose.
Catherine Gewertz writes in Education Week:
High school testing is on the brink of a profound shift, as states increasingly choose college-entrance exams to measure achievement. The new federal education law invites that change, but it comes with some big caution signs and unanswered questions.
The questions are hanging over a provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act that lets states measure high school achievement with college-entrance exams instead of standards-based assessments.
If many states make that change, it would represent an important national shift in the meaning of high school testing, assessment experts say.
That’s because most states’ current tests are based on their academic standards and are built to measure mastery of those standards. Moving to a college-entrance exam such as the SAT or ACT, which are designed to predict the likelihood of students’ success in college, would mean that states had chosen instead to measure college readiness.
“It’s a really big shift,” said Wayne Camara, who helped design the SAT and oversaw research at the College Board for two decades before taking a similar post at ACT in 2014. “States need to think about what they want their accountability system to measure and choose the test best suited for that. Ultimately, it’s a judgment. It depends on what you value most.”
She reports that seven states have gained permission from the U.S. Department of Education to use one of the two exams for federal accountability, and a large number of others are considering the same move.
How well a national exam can reflect state standards is a central—and unanswered—question in the use of college-entrance exams for accountability purposes.
FairTest, a group that opposes standardized testing, warned that that provision in the new law “must be treated with caution; those tests are no better educationally than existing state tests, and they have not been validated to assess high school academic performance.” The college-entrance exams have long been criticized, too, as biased in favor of wealthier students from college-educated families.
Sound assessment practice requires that a test be validated for its specific intended use. But there are no independent research studies analyzing how well the newest versions of the SAT or ACT reflect the depth and breadth of the Common Core State Standards, which are used by more than 40 states. States that use other standards would have to obtain their own “alignment” studies.
Without that kind of evidence, testing experts said, states are on shaky ground if they use a college-entrance exam to measure mastery of their content standards.
“How can a state tell teachers to teach the standards, and then use a test that hasn’t been proven to align [to them]?” said Scott F. Marion, the executive director of the Center for Assessment, which helps states design testing systems. “It’s a major problem. It’s like a bait-and-switch.”
This is a big win for the Common Core, since both the SAT and ACT determined to align with the new and unproven standards. It is also a big win for the corporations that own the SAT and the ACT, which will clean up as they build their market share.
It is a huge loss for students who are not the best and brightest, who have always faltered on these tests of college-readiness. When they fail, as they will, what will our society do with them? Will they still be eligible for a high school diploma? Will they drop out and join the ranks of the unemployed and hopeless?
What we know about the SAT, and every other standardized test, is that they effectively replicate family income. The wealthiest students get the highest scores, and the poorest get the lowest. In addition, the families with means hire SAT or ACT tutors, adding to their initial advantage.
Once again, tests are in the saddle, determining what will be taught. In a sane world, the tests are based on the curriculum; in this not-so-brave new world, the tests will drive the curriculum. And predictably, the kids with the least advantage will be punished by stupid policy.
“When did we stop believing in democracy? Not so long ago most Americans would have professed a belief that democracy shielded citizens from the callous excesses of distant power.
“Today in Michigan we’ve become mush-mouthed about democracy. On the one hand, we will still send our children to die thousands of miles away in its name. Yet back at home we scuttle it with barely a murmur — as if it were an ornate relic, no longer adequate for facing down the challenges of perennial budget shortfalls in our schools and municipalities since the financial collapse of 2008.
Flint’s water should have woken us up. Did it? If the reality of lead in tainted city water damaging the brains of Flint’s children isn’t enough to bring us back to our belief in citizen oversight of government, then we really have unilaterally surrendered. The citizens of Flint spoke out for months, but stripped of their democratic voice under emergency management, the problem developed unchecked.
Detroit lawmakers say keeping school board top priority
“If you’re finally paying attention now, then take note: The same power that poisoned Flint’s children — the power of state displacement of locally elected governance — announced last week that it intends to double down on the damage already visited upon the minds of Detroit’s children through Gov. Snyder’s newly unveiled plan for the city’s schools.
“Just as in Flint, the facts are now clear. Detroiters remember that before the succession of state interventions started in 1999 DPS had a $93 million dollar operating surplus, enrollment over 173,000, and academic gains. Six years of emergency management from Lansing since 2009 has widened the performance gap between Detroit’s students and their Michigan counterparts; enrollment has plummeted; and the district’s operating deficit and long term debt have smashed all previous records. Throughout those years, educational and financial professionals and impacted parents warned us, but stripped of an empowered Board to appeal to, the problems grew.”
Nebraska is a remarkable state. It is one of the few states in the nation that has not authorized charter schools. All of its publicly funded schools are public schools. Yet now there is a renewed push by far-right extremists to introduce charter legislation. This is a terrible idea.
Charters are based on false promises. They do not “perform” better than public schools.
Charters divide communities and erode public support for public education.
Nevada doesn’t need charters. It is one of the top-performing states in the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. On the latest NAEP, Nebraska came in 9th in the nation in fourth grade math, 12th in the nation in eighth grade math, and 11th in the nation in reading in both 4th and 8th grades. Nebraska had higher scores on NAEP than all but one of the 18 states that won Race to the Top funding (Massachusetts).
The low-performing schools in Nebraska are the schools with the poorest children. Please, Nebraskans, direct your reforms at root causes and do not destroy your state’s effective public schools.
Don’t be lemmings. Stay independent from the crowd that is rushing to privatize and destroy your treasured public schools.
John Richard Schrock is a professor of science at Emporia State University in Kansas, where he prepares science teachers. His blogs are archived at http://www.educationfrontlines.net. As he explains below, Kansas has a reactionary legislature that considers it “innovative” to place unqualified teachers in the state’s classrooms.
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2015—The Year in K-12 Education
Dr. Randy Watson became Kansas Commissioner of Education, overseeing the Kansas State Department of Education that spends 51 percent of state tax revenues in our schools across the state. Commissioner Watson had been Superintendent of USD #418, the McPherson Public School district, one of the first districts to negotiate alternative assessments under U.S.D.E. Secretary Duncan’s “Race to the Top” program that was enforcing No Child Left Behind testing.
After a statewide tour, Commissioner Watson advocated for the importance of soft skills in addition to tested subjects. Exactly how these will be measured or promoted is yet to be seen. However, the outcomes for the “Kansans Can” vision and the hyperbole of “Kansas leads the world in the success of each student” reminds many teachers of the unrealistic platitudes of NCLB (100 percent proficient by 2014) and the just-passed bipartisan “Every Student Succeeds Act.”
Meanwhile, teachers had to look hard to find any positive state or federal legislative actions that halted the decline in K-12 education support in Kansas or across the nation. The Kansas Legislature moved to block-grant funding, bragging that this increased school funding. In truth, the alleged increase incorporated restoring KPERS funding. Some Kansas schools had to end their school year early. And Kansas courts found the new plan unconstitutional.
The 2014 Kansas Legislative action removing teacher due-process (tenure) continued to have an impact on Kansas student teacher production, especially in the sciences. For the first time, some rural Kansas school districts faced shortages in applicants for elementary and vo-ag teachers. The science and special education teacher shortage is now so severe that many superintendents have given up finding qualified candidates. In a few cases where local USD contracts permit it, Kansas science teachers are being hired at higher than pay scale—in effect, the first cases of differentiated teacher pay in the state.
While Kansas was the second state to eliminate tenure, pushed by ultra-conservatives, California eliminated teacher tenure a few months later due to efforts from liberals who are pushing the same effort in New York. Yet again, teachers have no political party on their side.
Six schools joined the Coalition of Innovative School Districts, an arrangement allowed by recent Kansas legislation that would allow up to 20 percent of Kansas USDs (up to 56 USDs) to hire individuals who lack the professional qualifications for teaching to be fully-paid teachers. The reward for the CISD is a pot of money set aside for being innovative. The Kansas City Kansas Superintendent explained how she wanted the money to buy college dual credits for her remaining poor high school students while Blue Valley wanted to continue a variety of innovations they already do. The other four districts reflect the plight of rural Kansas schools who want legitimacy for hiring local untrained folks without using the alternate routes to teaching credentials already available. Their real motivation lies in the fact that these would be locally-“licensed” teachers who could not teach elsewhere, essentially in servitude to the local district. Despite total opposition in public forums, the State Board of Education approved the CISD system. It would take but one small amendment in the Legislature to un-cap the CISD and make Kansas the first state to totally de-professionalize teaching.
The growing atmosphere of disrespect toward the teaching profession contributed to an increased migration of Kansas teachers to nearby states. Missouri took advantage of teacher dissatisfaction by erecting billboard advertising for teachers along the state boarder. The Kansas governor pointed out that both Oklahoma and Missouri have lower pay scales, an action again highlighting how many politicians fail to understand the teaching profession.
The number of schools abandoning print textbooks and adopting one-to-one computing in the form of personal digital devices accelerated across Kansas. There was often minimal-to-no teacher involvement in these top-down decisions. While parents no longer had a textbook rental fee, there was a far higher cost to the schools for these devices that rarely last more than three years. Teachers have extra work to develop digital materials to replace the textbooks and load them onto computers for those students who do not have broadband access at home. Student learning time is cut. And in many cases, the online materials provide students with unreviewed and erroneous content.
The ink is barely dry on the Every Student Succeeds Act just passed in Washington, DC. The NCLB testing regimes remain embedded in the laws of 43 states although many federal penalties were removed. But new ESSA actions promote alternate route programs. And those new rookie teachers are to be hired at masters-level pay—a whole new federal overreach into state education.
Finally, high school graduation rates for both Kansas and the nation are significantly higher than a decade ago. Unfortunately, the more genuine measures of academic attainment provided by NAEP scores and college graduation rates are down. While islands of quality teaching remain, overall it is becoming harder for a bad student to fail. And fewer of our graduating students are prepared to succeed in college-level work.
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2015—The Year in Higher Education
Similar to Kansas K-12 education, leadership also changed at the Kansas Board of Regents. Longtime and well-respected KBOR president and CEO Andy Tompkins retired. Dr. Brian Flanders became the new KBOR President and brings his long academic experience to this important job.
Born in Edson, Kansas, Dr. Flanders graduated from Colby Community College and Kansas State University, with degrees in animal science and in curriculum and instruction. Flanders taught at Butler Community College and Manhattan Area Technical College before working at the KBOR, rising to Vice President for Workforce Development and leading the Kansas Postsecondary Technical Education Authority. Flanders’ in-the-trenches experience will be critical in facing the challenges posed by a Kansas Legislature that has shown little appreciation for the intellectual value of public education and a nationwide shift toward viewing education as a private good. And never have the pressures from fraudulent national diploma mills and the techno-educational complex been greater.
Appointed by the Governor, the Kansas Board of Regents has likewise seen a rapid turnover, with most KBOR members having just a few years experience.
The KBOR transfer and articulation committee continues its efforts to coerce Kansas university faculty to standardize regents university, community college, and tech school coursework. Each year, Kansas moves closer to a lowest-common-denominator Kansas curriculum in the discount store model.
Concerns over racial diversity and equal treatment in St. Louis streets and at the University of Missouri–Columbia sent ripples nationwide. Kansas colleges and universities initiated campus discussions on diversity. And students challenged their own student government leaders at the University of Kansas.
While viewers of televised news are becoming accustomed to the warning that “some of the following scenes may be disturbing,” similar “trigger warnings” are being suggested or required in classes at some universities across the nation. This trend has not yet extended into Kansas.
This fall’s enrollment should have seen a decrease of nearly half the freshmen entering regents universities and a massive overloading of community colleges, due to a change in Qualified Admissions made four years ago. Many Kansas secondary students failed to take a fourth math class in high school, especially those aiming at careers in non-science areas. It was apparently unthinkable that the KBOR would reconsider their QA requirement. So the Provosts at Kansas universities negotiated a system where students could still enter university short this one math class and arrange to take it in college—greatly compromising the meaning of Qualified “Admissions.”
This essentially made that fourth math a “remedial” course. Back in 2012, the Kansas Legislature had prohibited regents universities from offering remedial courses, so the universities farmed their remedial courses out to community colleges. However, it only took a few years to bring them back on campus and skirt the intent of the law by partitioning state and student tuition money, and funding the on-campus remedial courses from just tuition money.
Tuition and fees continue to rise as schools receive less state support per pupil. Therefore, more money is spent in marketing and branding to recruit students. Retaining students is becoming more important than academic rigor, and some professors are under pressure to explain how they are going to lower their high rates of D/W/F students.
As vacancies occur, more schools are hiring “contingent faculty,” temporary adjuncts who provide the school “financial flexibility” but are not on site to provide students with help, advising, etc.
At the national level, a growing number of online for-profit operations collapsed as students found their online credentials going to the bottom-of-the-pile during job hunts. The U.S.D.E. closed down some fake schools and jailed some diploma mill executives who ran fraudulent operations.
In what at first appeared to be the one bright positive educational action of 2015, the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) that accredits Kansas public higher education institutions announced a requirement that all courses taught for college credit had to be taught by instructors who had a masters degree and at least 18 graduate credit hours of coursework in the subject being taught. This caught many high schools off guard because many were offering dual college credits for what were really regular high school courses taught by secondary teachers with only a bachelor’s degree. Some community colleges began advertising for instructors with the higher credentials. But it was then announced that the enforcement date was not until Fall of 2017. So dual credit college courses can continue to be taught by unqualified teachers for another year-and-a-half while some Kansas superintendents openly admit that they now have time to work with their local higher education partner to “circumvent” the HLC requirement after 2017.
2015 may go down in national and state education history as the year when “gaming the system” reached new heights.
Leonie Haimson tells the story here about her discovery that the New York City Department of Education was about to award a multi-million dollar contract to a tech company that had been previously been involved in scandal. When you read this account, you will understand the importance of citizen vigilance. Who else but Leonie Haimson would lounge around on a lazy Sunday afternoon reading the list of DOE contracts due to be voted on that week? That is why you should contribute to her organization, Class Size Matters, which operates on a tiny shoestring (I am a member of the board) and allows Leonie to play an outsize, unpaid role in the city, state, and nation. That shoestring is so small, it wouldn’t be enough to close an infant’s shoe. Help Leonie continue to fight for students.
She writes:
Last February, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was perusing the list of DOE contracts due to be voted on that week by the Panel for Educational Policy. Among the long list of contracts, I noticed a proposed contract for equipment and internet wiring worth $1.1 billion over five years, extendable to nine years at two billion dollars. I had never seen a DOE contract that large before.
She googled the name of the company:
I was astonished to discover that this very same company had been involved in a kickback scheme, robbing DOE of millions of dollars just a few years before, according to a report from the Special Investigator’s office. This widely reported scandal subsequently sent Ross Lanham, a DOE consultant, to jail.
I immediately blogged about my discovery, and promptly alerted Public Advocate Tish James and Council Member Helen Rosenthal, as well as members of the media.
On Monday, the very next day, DoE officials started getting lots of calls from reporters. Later that day, the PEP Contract committee was due to meet at 5 pm at Tweed, the DOE headquarters. I was sitting with a bunch of reporters in a room in Tweed, waiting for the meeting to begin when the reporters began getting emails from the DoE officials, announcing that that in the last 24 hours, the contract had somehow been “re-negotiated” and reduced by nearly half a billion dollars – with no change in the terms.
It was still going to be a ridiculously high $635 million over five years, extendable for four more years at over $1 billion. The fact that nearly $500 million could be cut out of the contract over night was even more evidence of how inflated the contract had been. When the Contracts committee met, surprisingly few members asked any questions about it, except for Robert Powell, the Bronx appointee and head of the committee….
Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News provided even more details about the original scheme that had defrauded DOE of millions. He pointed out that the company being awarded the contract had been the high bidder among three companies, and that the man who was still CEO of the company, Gregory Galdi, had set up a real estate company with Ross Lanham that was dissolved only after Lanham’s arrest.
At the subsequent PEP meeting on Wednesday evening, Helen Rosenthal and I pleaded with Chancellor Farina and the PEP members not to allow this unconscionable contract to be approved. The Chancellor was obdurate that “due diligence” had been done and that awarding the contract would allow NYC kids to be “put in the future” while now they’re “struggling in the past.”
The DOE official in charge, David Ross, argued that the contract had to be rushed through in order for the city to have a chance of winning $100 million in federal E-rate funds – without mentioning that the DOE had been cut off from this program for the last five years because of the very same scandal that had sent Ross Lanham to jail.
I made this point when I had my two minutes to speak , and argued that by awarding a contract to this very same company, the DOE was almost sure to be barred from any reimbursement from the feds. I also said that with a fraction of the amount, the DOE could double the number of schools to be built and significantly relieve school overcrowding.
Laura Zingmond, the Manhattan PEP member, responded that there was “plenty of money” to go around for both building more schools and awarding this contract. Though some members expressed reservations, the PEP approved the contract 10-1, with only Robert Powell, voting no. More on this disappointing vote in my blog and in Schoolbook….
Then in March, a few weeks after the vote, the city cancelled the Custom Computer Specialists contract, the first time this has ever happened in the history of the DOE. Possibly officials were concerned about how the NYC Comptroller and other oversight agencies would have questions about this egregious contract….
Juan Gonzalez reports that after DOE rebid the contract and broke it into several smaller parts, the same work and equipment will cost city taxpayers far less: $472 million over five years, $163 million less than the renegotiated amount and $627 million less than what Custom Computer Specialists was originally supposed to receive before Tish James, Helen Rosenthal and I protested. Assuming that the city is also now far likelier to receive $100 million in federal E-rate funds, we may have helped save the city $727 million.
As many educators and parents have noted, Exxon’s CEO Rex Tillerson is a fervent advocate of the Common Core standards. He thinks our schools are turning out “defective products,” something that Exxon would never do.
Mercedes Schneider weighed in here. She says that the Fortune article demonstrated that Common Core is a corporate tool meant to produce compliant workers.
Mercedes writes:
CCSS is hugely controversial, if for no other reason than its rushed-and-hushed creation. And surely one must wonder about the motives behind Gates’ continued push of what is little more than a Gates latest-and-greatest pet project.
Had CCSS been developed and implemented with sense– one grade level at a time, openly, and prior to any formal state adoption– the “hugely controversial” component would have been quelled.
Mercedes wonders why the big corporate chieftains didn’t ask for evidence before they swallowed CCSS whole.
California parent Joan Davidson thinks that Exxon should clean up its own mess before telling the nation’s teachers how to do their job.
She writes:
hi- read with interest your blog re: Exxon Mobil and Leave our children alone.
Exxon Mobil needs to take care of the Torrance, CA plant that THREATENS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF LOCAL RESIDENTS AND ESPECIALLY SCHOOLS AND that has had so many explosions it is now being investigated by the EPA–finally.
The plant exploded last February and if the blast had hit the illegal Hydrofluric Acid tank we would not be here today.
We just had a big community meeting about the real threat it poses. Of course, Exxon has raised its gas prices here as a prize for Ca
residents.
SO EXXON TAKE CARE OF YOUR BUSINESS BEFORE YOU TRY AND TAKE CARE OF EDUCATION!
THANKS
JOAN
The New York Times reports today that the charter school principal in New York City who created a list of students who had to be removed from the school (the “got to go” list) has taken a leave of absence.
The school is part of the high-performing Success Academy charter chain, which has often been accused of excluding or removing students who might get low test scores.
The acting principal will be the school’s fourth principal since it opened in 2013.
Diane Ravitch's blog 