Archives for the month of: January, 2016
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Teacher: Baltimore’s Risky, Expensive Bet on Technology

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2016 //
43

The Baltimore County Public Schools are embarking on a risky gamble that will put all students online. At present, there is no research base to prove the value of this expensive venture. What we can predict is two nefarious consequences: 1) the computers will be used for”embedded assessment,” so that students are tested daily or continually without knowing it. Second, the students will be data mined continually, and their personally identifiable information will be available to third parties or subject to hacking. 

A teacher sent the following expression of concern about this reckless plunge into technology:

“Our local school system, Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS), is undertaking a $270 million dollar technology initiative (once entitled the Instructional Digital Conversion, but rebranded as the catchier STAT, “Students and Teachers Accessing Tomorrow”), with the goal of setting up a one-to-one computer tablet and online learning program for its 110,000 students. The program reaches from first grade to twelfth, though the complete rollout has occurred only in the elementary grades thus far; the middle school and high school program has been slowed due to implementation issues. Its stated goal is to offer “personalized learning” for every student and to “equip every student with the critical 21st century skills to be globally competitive.” 

“As attractive as this sounds, however, there is limited evidence about the effectiveness of a system-wide one-to-one tablet program; no input has been garnered from parents, and the expectation is that teachers will fully embrace the program without question (not only were technology teachers left out of the conversation, their positions were eliminated from the BCPS system altogether). This is taking place in a school district that is in desperate need of improvements to infrastructure, transportation, class size reduction, and social programs, issues that have been financially pushed to the side in favor of STAT.

 

“A series of Baltimore County Public Schools blog posts, press releases, and promotional videos preceded the rollout of the STAT program, which officially began in August 2014 in a small number of test schools; anecdotal evidence of the benefits to students of a one-to-one computer program was emphasized throughout, and numerous “partnerships” were quickly established with educational technology companies. The school superintendent and other key administrative personnel participated in several speaking opportunities and conference appearances, often sponsored by those same technology companies; almost immediately the STAT program received praise, starting with awards from online media organizations, also backed by corporate interests. The program had been in place for less than a full school year and was still in a limited testing phase, yet was getting national and even international attention, with the superintendent traveling to a technology symposium in South Korea to discuss the implementation.

 

“While a certain level of promotion of an initiative can be expected, the close relationship between school system administrators and the technology vendors that serve the system raises questions of conflict of interest. Two vendors have produced infomercial-style videos at two of the test schools, praising the hardware and software that the school has adopted. The superintendent also sits on the advisory committee for the Education Research and Development Institute, with a mission to “provide a forum for dialogue between outstanding educational leaders and committed corporate partners,” many of which are vendors for the system. 

“Shortly before the beginning of the technology push, the superintendent also repurposed the Baltimore County Public Schools Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization that had typically handled donations to local schools from area businesses. The new mission was to focus on “system-based projects,” including the STAT program and associated curriculum. In organizing the annual “State of the Schools” event for BCPS, the Educational Foundation has received sponsorships from numerous vendors of both hardware and software for the system, including a $50,000 sponsorship from Advance Path Academics.

 

“A preliminary analysis of publically available data from the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) indicates that the test schools for the STAT program are performing below their non-STAT counterparts on the PARCC assessments; official outcome data will not be evaluated by the school system until the third year of the program, at which point many multi-year contracts for technology services will already be in place.

 

“The STAT initiative comes at a critical time of need for infrastructure and program improvements across the school system. Fifty-two county schools lack air conditioning, and district-wide closures due to excessive heat have become an issue with a school year that begins in August and ends in mid June. 

“Enrollment and class size have been steadily growing, with school construction lagging far behind. The bus transportation system suffers from too few drivers running too many routes. A rapidly rising number of impoverished students lack the simple basics of enough food (47 percent of school population is eligible for the Free and Reduced-Price Meals program). Technology, however, is being presented to constituents as the solution to close the equity gap in education and to sufficiently prepare students for college or a career. 

“Children do need to appropriately use technology as a learning tool as they move through high school and towards graduation; however, elementary and middle school students can make use of technology through shared devices. The ongoing investment of money and personnel in an unproven one-to-one computer tablet program shifts resources away from the basic necessities of comfort, safety, food, and meaningful human interaction.”

Categories Baltimore, Education Reform

Arkansas: $6 Million for TFA, from Republican Governor and Businessmen

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2016 //
8

Governor Asa Hutchinson announced that the state would put up $3 million to hire inexperienced Teach for America recruits and the Little Rock business community would pledge another $3 million for a total of 2015 TFA.

This investment is supposed to end educational inequity in Arkansas. TFA kids have been teaching in Arkansas since 1991. The achievement gap should be closed pretty soon with so many of these youngsters arriving for their two-year commitments.

At the press conference, there was some confusion about whether TFA would fill vacancies or would replace veteran teachers from local communities.

The governor declined to name the business people who out up the private $3 million.

Categories Arkansas, Teach for America

Sandra Stotsky: Massachusetts Excelled Without Annual Testing

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2016 //
39

Sandra Stotsky was deeply involved in the transformation of public education in Massachusetts from 1999-2003. As senior associate commissioner of education, she oversaw the development and implementation of curriculum frameworks and testing of entry-level teachers. Massachusetts rose to the top of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. As she explains here, the Bay State did not have annual testing.

She writes:

“K-12 schools have coped with an abundance of mandated testing since the early 1990s. Worse yet, under federal guidelines, the consequences of poor student performance have in the name of accountability come to fall more on teachers than students. The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) expanded the educational-level testing mandated in the 1994 authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), mandating annual testing for reading and mathematics in grades 3-8, once in high school, and at several grade levels in science.

“The 2015 re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), called ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act), continued NCLB’s annual testing mandate. It did so in large part because of strong support from education researchers (e.g., Whitehurst, West, Chingos, Dynarski, among others, in Education Next). Yet, none provided evidence that annual testing via ESEA had significantly increased the achievement of low-income students in K-12 in both subjects. They couldn’t because there is none. Nevertheless, even though the national needle had not moved in reading at any National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)-tested grade in 50 years, ESSA punished the states with a continuation of annual testing and test-based accountability.

“A big question is why education researchers don’t look at what Massachusetts did and did not do to increase low-income student achievement. Remember, its average scores in both reading and mathematics, for grade 4 and grade 8, on NAEP tests in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015 were the highest or among the highest of all 50 states. On the one international test of curriculum-based achievement (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study—TIMSS), the state, entered as a separate country, tied with Singapore for first place in grade 8 science and was among the top six countries in mathematics in grades 4 and 8 in both 2007 and 2013. Surely, there should have been a long look at what the Bay State did, beyond its testing schedule.

“This is the testing that was done: From 1998 to 2000, testing took place in four major subjects (math, science, reading, and history) annually in grades 4, 8, and 10, or at one grade per educational level as mandated by the state’s 1993 Education Reform Act. After 2000, testing in math and reading took place annually but only at every other grade level (grade span testing) and at one grade per educational level annually in science and history until 2006, when NCLB’s annual requirements kicked in for math and reading because the tests were now ready for previously untested grades. The state’s high math and reading scores beginning in 2005 cannot be accounted for by annual testing. Nor can the state’s stunning performance in grade 8 science in 2007 or 2013.

“As the person in charge of the total revision or development of all the state’s K-12 standards, teacher and administrator licensing regulations, most teacher licensure tests, as well as criteria for professional development from 1999-2003, I have some basis for suggesting what I think likely contributed to students’ enduring academic gains in the past decade even if education researchers do not seem to want to learn what the Bay State did.

“Under my direction, the state department of education revised major documents to increase the content knowledge requirements in standards for all students, and to strengthen academically the licensure requirements for the state’s teacher and administrator corps. The results of high quality research were clear; teachers’ knowledge of the subject they teach is the only trait associated with enhanced gains in student achievement. The documents we developed during the years I was a public bureaucrat, including definitions of terms used, embedded policies approved by the field (via frequent public comment), the Commissioner of Education David Driscoll, and the Board of Education under James Peyser, chair.

“Annual testing at every grade level in math, reading, and science was not one of them. Nor was it apparently necessary for higher and enduring academic achievement in these subjects, even though ESSA froze it in for reading and math. Nor can the case be made today that annual testing improves low-income student achievement. It’s possible it may even retard achievement. We don’t know because the idea has not been explored by education researchers. Why civil rights organizations or the Gates Foundation support a policy that exists in no other country needs explanation.”

Categories Every Student Succeeds Act, Massachusetts, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing

Parents Across America Urges States to Abolish VAM

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2016 //
12

Parents Across America has called on states to take advantage of the Every Student Succeeds Act and abolish VAM.

 

PAA has been critical of high-stakes testing.

 

PAA also produced a one-page fact sheet to demonstrate the failure of value-added-measurement.

Categories Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act, Parents, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

Peter Greene on Jeb! Bush’s Education Plan

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2016 //
22

Jeb Bush hasn’t made much headway in the polls but he is hanging in there, the favorite of the GOP establishment and the best-funded.

 

He recently announced his plan for reforming American education, and it is a paean to school choice. He just doesn’t like public education, period.

 

Peter Greene has performed a public service for us by reviewing Jeb’s proposals. He does so in part 1 and part 2.

 

i will give you some pithy excerpts and encourage you to read the whole thing by yourself.

 

This is from part 1:

 

“For all the conservative love for choice and freedom, it never seems to include the choice and freedom to do things that conservatives believe are Very Wrong, or to say, “We will pick our own choices to choose from, thanks.” That’s in part because the very idea of school choice is fundamentally flawed.

 

“First, nobody wants choice. Rich kids don’t have an advantage because they have choice– they have an advantage because they have access to an excellent education. People want a good school. That’s it. If someone gets a restaurant meal that is undercooked and cold, they don’t say, “Bring me a dozen mediocre meals to chose from.” They want what they want, done right.

 

“Second, choice is not “budget neutral.” When facing a tight budget, no school district says, “No need to shut down any buildings. It wouldn’t save us any money.” You can’t operate several sets of schools (with several sets of administrators) for the cost of one. Anybody who tries to set up a choice system without a plan to fully fund it is smoking something.

 

“Third, choice as currently conceived, disenfranchises a huge part of the electorate and cuts social responsibility out of the picture. If you don’t have a child, you don’t have a say in how tax dollars are spent. Choicer “it’s the family’s choice” rhetoric only goes so far– nobody is seriously suggesting that vouchers be literal vouchers that students can use to go to school, buy a car, or take a vacation in Europe. Choice never seems to include “I choose no school at all.” Choicers haven’t suggested doing away with compulsory education, but they can’t admit that it’s because the students have a level of responsibility to the country that’s paying for their education, because that would mean admitting that families are not the only stakeholders in education, which would conflict with the “the money belongs to the family” theory.

 

“But even if we get past those, we arrive again at the conservative conundrum– if you allow freedom and choice, you have to accept that people may choose things you don’t like, including NOT having a bunch of choices. Conservatives– and Bush is no exception here– keep calling for a system of imposed choice, which is a big screaming oxymoron.”

 

This is from part 2:

 

Bush wants more money for more charter schools, although he reminds us that money is not the answer.

 

Greene goes through the various proposals and here is the bottom line:

 

“Bush is being direct and clear– he would like to get rid of traditional public education. He thinks schools still work like they did two generations ago (there is no excuse for this belief). And he likes blended learning and competency based education, which means he is destined to meet the same people who hammered him over Common Core, only they’ll be carrying different signs.

 

“Also, remember– it’s important to give parents and students a choice, as long as they choose the choices that Bush chooses for them. Under Bush, you can have lots of choices– except for a traditional public school.”

 

 

 

Categories Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Education Reform, School Choice, Vouchers

BREAKING: North Carolina May Turn Over Low-Performing Schools to For-Profit Charters

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2016 //
15

NC Policy Watch reports that legislation is advancing that would permit for-profit charter operators to take over the state’s lowest-performing schools, the great majority of them in low-income minority communities. The models for the takeover is the Tennessee Achievement School District, the Michigan Educational Achievement Authority, and the elimination of public schools in New Orleans. However, sponsors of the legislation say that the North Carolina would be the same only different. It would be done the North Carolina way.

 

N.C. Rep. Rob Bryan, the Republican from Mecklenburg County who chairs the committee and the leading proponent for achievement school districts in the legislature, said that the districts—pioneered, to mixed results in states like Louisiana, Michigan and Tennessee—could be phased into North Carolina as soon as the 2017-2018 academic year.

 

“We are neither Tennessee, nor are we New Orleans,” said Bryan. “But what I’m looking to do here is do what’s right for North Carolina.”

 

Bryan authored a much-discussed draft of legislation last year that would have funneled five of the state’s lowest-performing elementary schools into the state-controlled achievement districts as a pilot program, although the notion did not gain any significant traction during the General Assembly’s long budget debates last summer.

 

The draft Bryan unveiled Wednesday had few differences from last year’s prospective bill, potentially ceding the power to hire and fire teachers and administrators to private, for-profit charter leaders. Pilot schools would be placed into a special state-run district, with a superintendent chosen by the State Board of Education who would have the power to negotiate operation contracts with private companies, effectively seizing control from local school boards.

 

The charter operators would be expected to help turn around academic performance in the schools.

 

As N.C. Policy Watch reported last year, lobbying for the movement was financed by Oregon millionaire and conservative private school backer John Bryan (no relation to Rep. Rob Bryan).

 

One of the researchers at Vanderbilt who studied the Tennessee ASD model and found it ineffective was in town to speak to a public education group about his study, but the legislative committee did not invite him to address them about what his group learned.

 

The state superintendent said that the public schools should lead any turnaround effort; the Tennessee study from Vanderbilt showed that the iZone schools, created and led by the public schools, outperformed the ASD charter schools:

 

“I believe that the taxpayers of North Carolina would get a better return on their investments by going with a model that has proven positive results,” North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson told N.C. Policy Watch Tuesday.

 

To Atkinson, that means pursuing public school-led initiatives, offering low-performing schools greater support, access to preschool programs and more flexible calendar years.

 

As Atkinson points out, students in low-performing schools can lose two to three months of reading development during traditional schools’ summer break.

 

“We have to address these root causes or we’ll continue to have these conversations 10 years from now,” said Atkinson.

 

And then there was a startling statement, startling because it was plain common sense, which has been in rare supply since 2010 in North Carolina:

 

Meanwhile, Rep. Ed Hanes Jr., a Democrat from Forsyth County, blasted state officials during Wednesday’s committee meeting for failing to do enough to address the societal and economic causes of low-performing schools.

 

As Barbour pointed out Wednesday, low-performing schools in the state are disproportionately serving low-income and minority children.

 

“It sounds like a lot of talk,” said Hanes. “It sounds like we don’t really dig into what the real issues are. … And it sounds to me like we really don’t care a whole lot about poor people.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization, Tennessee

John Merrow Channels Eva Moskowitz in Court

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2016 //
28

John Merrow officially retired from his long and distinguished career in journalism, but he is not inactive. For one thing, he has printed up some bumper stickers in appreciation of teachers (the other 1%) and is selling them at cost.

 

And on his blog, he has imagined Eva’s testimony when she goes to court to defend herself against parents of students entitled to special education services and New York City’s Public Advocate Letitia James. Of course, she doesn’t back down an inch and says that her charter schools treat all “scholars” exactly the same.

 

Here is a small part of her “testimony”:

 

 

“I certainly do not apologize for using out of school suspensions more than any other schools, whether charter or traditional public. They are an important tool in the Success Academy toolbox, as I have written about in the Wall Street Journal. I know that other schools treat behavior issues at the school, but we think sending the child home sends a message to him or her and to the parents.

 

“A child who cannot keep his eyes on the teacher at all times doesn’t belong at Success Academy. A child who continues to call out the answer to questions, even if she’s right, clearly isn’t Success Academy material. A kindergartener who gets curious about the pictures on the bulletin board and leaves his seat to take a close look, that’s behavior we have to stamp out. Obedience trumps curiosity every time, because if we allowed children to follow their desires, curiosity and passions, chaos would ensue.

 

“Yes, it’s true that the parents of children we suspend multiple times often decide to withdraw their children from our schools, but that’s their choice.

 

A lot of kids leave Success Academy, to be replaced by children on our long waiting list. But, your honor, those kids who disappear from our rolls are PITA kids, not special needs.”

 

Read on to find out what PITA kids are.

 

 

Categories Discipline and Suspensions, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy, Special Education

Jersey Jazzman Compares the Differences in Newark between Charter Schools and Public Schools

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2016 //
4

Jersey Jazzman gets irked by those who boast about the superior results of charter schools in Newark. He wrote a critical review of Dale Russakoff’s book The Prize, because she ignored basic data about charter schools and she wrote that the charter schools operated with a leaner administration and more services. Not true, says JJ, who in his real life is a teacher and a graduate student at Rutgers University named Mark Weber.

 

In this post, JJ lays out in easily comprehensible graphs, using state data, what the real comparisons are.

 

First, he compares the results of a highly-touted charter school in Newark to a suburban public school and shows that the charter school lags. But wait, you think, that’s not a fair comparison, and that is his point.

 

I don’t point this out to suggest either that Montclair’s schools are superior, or that TEAM/KIPP’s schools are inferior. Without adequately controlling for at least the observed variations in each district’s populations (and acknowledging that there are likely many unobserved variations), any comparison between the two systems is utterly pointless. My point here is that facile, a-contextual, cherry-picked factoids like these are completely meaningless, and that people who bring them up time and again show themselves to be fatuous. 

 

Using state data, he demonstrates that Newark public schools spend more on instruction than the city’s charter schools; that NPS spends far more on student support services — guidance counselors, nurses, librarians, psychologists — than the charters; that NPS spends more on support personnel than charters; that NPS has lower administrative costs than ANY charter in Newark; that the costs of administrative salaries is lower in Newark public schools than most Newark charters.

 

Jersey Jazzman has a refreshing impatience with false claims. How long can “reformers” get by on propaganda?

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, New Jersey, Privatization

Marion Brady: A Primer on Privatization

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2016 //
45

Veteran educator Marion Brady has written a concise guide to the privatization movement.

 

He begins with an overview of the talking points and tactics of the privatizers:

 

“The pitch

 

“Talking Points: (a) Standardized testing proves America’s schools are poor. (b) Other countries are eating our lunch. (c) Teachers deserve most of the blame. (d) The lazy ones need to be forced out by performance evaluations. (e) The dumb ones need scripts to read or “canned standards” telling them exactly what to teach. (f) The experienced ones are too set in their ways to change and should be replaced by fresh Five-Week-Wonders from Teach for America. (Bonus: Replacing experienced teachers saves a ton of money.) (g) Public (“government”) schools are a step down the slippery slope to socialism.

 

“Tactics

 

“Education establishment resistance to privatization is inevitable, so (a) avoid it as long as possible by blurring the lines between “public” and “private.” (b) Push school choice, vouchers, tax write-offs, tax credits, school-business partnerships, profit-driven charter chains. (c) When resistance comes, crank up fear with the, “They’re eating our lunch!” message. (d) Contribute generously to all potential resisters—academic publications, professional organizations, unions, and school support groups such as PTA. (e) Create fake “think tanks,” give them impressive names, and have them do “research” supporting privatization. (f) Encourage investment in teacher-replacer technology—internet access, iPads, virtual schooling, MOOCS, etc. (e) Pressure state legislators to make life easier for profit-seeking charter chains by taking approval decisions away from local boards and giving them to easier-to-lobby state-level bureaucrats. (g) Elect the “right” people at all levels of government. (When they’re campaigning, have them keep their privatizing agenda quiet.)”

 

The key weapon in the privatization campaign is standardized tests. Privatizers use tests to “prove” that public schools are failing.

 

Here is a great line:

 

“If challenged, test fans often quote the late Dr. W. Edward Deming, the world-famous quality guru who showed Japanese companies how to build better stuff than anybody else. In his book, “The New Economics,” Deming wrote, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

 

“Here’s the whole sentence as he wrote it: “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it — a costly myth.”

 

And here’s the clincher:

 

“Notwithstanding their serious problems, America’s public schools were once the envy of the world. Now, educators around that world shake their heads in disbelief (or maybe cheer?) as we spend billions of dollars to standardize what once made America great—un-standardized thought.”

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Privatization, Standardized Testing, Vouchers

Texas: GOP Candidate Injects Anti-Semitism into Race Against Moderate Republican

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2016 //
29

Joe Straus is speaker of the House in the Texas legislature. He is a moderate Republican from San Antonio. He is a friend of public schools. He happens to be Jewish.

 

Now his Tea Party opponent is challenging him because he doesn’t represent “Christian values” or even “Judaeo-Christian values.”

 

This is plain, old-fashioned bigotry.

 

Jeff Judson, a local tea party activist challenging Straus’ re-election, is sounding the same dog whistle himself, warning voters of “the disconnect between conservative, Christian voters and Joe Straus” in a rambling treatise titled “The Biblical Basis for Jeff Judson’s Candidacy for Texas House District 121 in the Republican Primary on Tuesday, March 1, 2016.”

 

Judson is known locally as an anti-streetcar crusader, not an actual crusader for Christ — until now.

 

“As Christians, we are citizens of two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Heaven and the political kingdom here on earth where we reside,” he began in the political ad. “We have obligations to both … As a Bible-believing Christian who attends Grace Northridge, an Evangelical church, I know that God created the institution of government to reward good and punish evil (Romans 13:1-4).”

 

Judson, the pious punisher, is casting Straus, a moderate Republican, in the role of evil.

 

“The Texas Senate passes God-honoring, conservative legislation which is often killed by Joe Straus, my opponent who is House Speaker,” he continued in the letter, before listing issues that Straus has tried to “stab … in the heart,” including “religious liberty” and “protecting life.”

 

“These are only a few examples of the disconnect between conservative, Christian voters and Joe Straus,” he continued. “If Christians do not speak out publicly about the moral and ethical issues facing a nation, who will?”

 

And then another Republican leader jumped into the fray, spewing his own bigotry:

 

On Sunday, the leader of Conservative Republicans of Texas sent an email blast announcing rallies in Houston to “take back our party.”

 

“Speaker Joe Straus and his RINO lieutenants, members of the Homosexual Political Movement (LGBT and Log Cabin Republicans), their corporate business donors and pro-Muslim sympathizers are organizing and spending millions of dollars to drive Christian conservatives and their values out of the Texas Republican Party,” he wrote. “I am not going to tell you that if this liberal, secular cabal has its way, then the will be the order of the day.”criminalization of Christianity will be the order of the day.”

 

I grew up in Texas. I am Jewish. I have strong Judaeo-Christian values. These expressions of hatred are not “Christian values.” They are the values of people who despise anyone who does not agree with them. It is a free country, and the bigots can say and believe what they want. But it would be tragic if the people of Joe Straus’s district allow these zealots to come to power and impose their views on everyone else.

 

I thank the Pastors for Texas Children for forwarding this disturbing article to me. They and their tireless leader, Pastor Charles Foster Johnson, remind me that there are many good people in Texas who don’t share the extremist views expressed by Joe Strauss’s political opponents.

 

 

Categories Politics, Texas
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