A reader left this comment. I invite you to add your own thoughts to the list.
One of the many utter FAILURES:
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: FAIL
ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS: FAIL
RACE TO THE TOP: FAIL
COMMON CORE: FAIL
PARCC: FAIL
SBAC: FAIL
VALUE ADDED MEASUREMENT: FAIL
EdTPA: FAIL
TEACH FOR AMERICA: FAIL
COMPETENCY BASED EDUCATION: FAIL
USDOE: FAIL
JOHN KING: FAIL
ARNE DUNCAN: FAIL
DAVID COLEMAN: FAIL
ANDREW CUOMO: FAIL
MICHELLE RHEE: FAIL
BILL GATES: FAIL
A track record of complete and utter FAILURE.
Why do they have even a shred of credibility anywhere with anyone?
PS: let’s add a few more items and names to the list.
Joel Klein: FAIL
Michael Bloomberg: FAIL
Mark Zuckerberg: FAIL
Tony Bennett: FAIL
Jeb Bush: FAIL
Students First: FAIL
Merit Pay: FAIL
State Takeovers: FAIL
Achievement School District: FAIL
New Orleans: FAIL
Parent Trigger: FAIL
Vouchers: FAIL
What did we miss?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Campbell Brown
Eli Broad
Broad Superintendents Academy
And Broad’s good friend Hillary Clinton?
“Eli Broad and the Clintons” http://goo.gl/PMnzFw
Thanks for the link. It baffles me how anyone who cares about public education can say that the important thing is to support whichever Democrat gets the nomination, as if the Bernie and Hillary are interchangeable.
SLOs
Robert Marzano
Charlotte Danielson
Not sure that they are in the billion boys club but how about Rahm, Kasich, the governor of Michigan and Obama
Coming INSTANTLY TO MIND…
Pearson testing industry: FAIL
InBloom
Florida (Scott) charters: Fail
Ohio (Kasich) charters: Fail
Detroit defunding (Snyder): Fail
New Jersey (C.Cristie) defunding: Fail
Randi Weingarten (Union Pres.): Fail
Absolutely union leadership! At the national, state, and local levels. All complicit with reformsters in allowing the privatization of our public schools.
Good call.
Defense of teacher’s civil rights in the workplace… not to be bullied or harassed.FAIL!
Hopelessly devoted to data…
TFA putting alums on Cap. Hill as Leg. Aides: Fail
Charter Schools: Fail
Turn-Around Schools: Fail
Creative Disruption: Fail
No Excuses Mantra: Fail
High Stakes Testing Pep Rally’s: Fail
On Line Testing: Fail
The entire Walton family
Walmart Breakfast Programs in Title One schools (giving kids junk food style breakfasts with labels like “Smart Cookies” consisting of “reduced sugar” with a picture of a president on the label, or egg tacos with a gray unidentifiable processed crumbled meat inside in individual plastic sealed wrapping put into a microwave… need I go on….
Rankings
Top Down Mandates
Change…. because …. Change
High-Stakes Testing: Fail
Profit in Failure: Fail
Hopefully Rebecca Friedrichs will be added to this list
Cathy Black
Conditional Cash Transfers
Dennis Wolcott
Eva Moskowitz
Cami Anderson: FAIL
New York Times education reporting: FAIL
Time Magazine education reporting: FAIL
Oversight of taxpayer funds spent on charter schools: FAIL
Oversight of foreign-controlled charter schools and charter school abuse of special immigration visas: FAIL
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR NOT doing the job!: FAILURE
Failure of UTLA’s leadership UTLA leadership’s selling out of substitutes and displaced teachers whose placement on jobs with LAUSD was used to stop substitutes from getting work and the 100 days of service necessary to qualify for health benefits.
http://www.perdaily.com/2016/03/court-says-blatantly-illegal-lausd-and-utla-say-weve-always-done-it-that-way.html
The decision in this case which describes in excrutiating detail how UTLA leadership under virtually all past regimes has used “side letters” negotiated directly between UTLA and LAUSD leadership to completely change the vested and in force collective bargaining contractual rights of its teachers without any ratification by appropriate entities, e.g. Board of Directors, Committees, House of Representatives, or rank-and-files.
Lenny Isenberg at perennially.com says: of this failure ” one cannot help but wonder if these same practices were not also used to facilitate LAUSD’s concerted attack and removal over the last 7 years on thousands of teachers whose only “crime” that led to their firing was that they were at the top of the salary scale with expensive benefits that were putting LAUSD in the red.One cannot help but wonder if the same incestuous relationship of LAUSD and UTLA leadership is not also used to target literally thousands of teachers at the top of the salary scale for removal?
Lenny continues: “In reading this 113 page PERB decision, what I found most astonishing was how UTLA administration seemed to have much more loyalty to LAUSD administration- and their own careers- than they ever had to the teachers they were supposed to be representing. Given that the administrators of both LAUSD and UTLA are cut from the same cloth of being escapees from what has become the untenable LAUSD classrooms filled with the predictable disruption caused by socially promoted students, it is not surprising they are both so hostile to those still attempting to be teachers.”
If one wants to talk about failure, one has to talk about the utter lack of ACCOUNTABILITY for the removal OF THOUSANDS OF VETERAN TEACHERS, as LAUSD sank into a swamp under the direction of Cortines and Deasy. These serial chancellors of failed systems, like Joel Klein in NYC never face penalties for the destruction they leave in their wake
Pathetic Online Schools: Fail
Eva Muscovitz: Fail
Hyper-Focus on STEM: Fail
Loss of recess: Fail
The DOE PEP
Meryl Tisch
Govenor Andrew Cuomo
Eva Moscowitz and her Success (Not) Academies
MOSLs
High Stakes Testing to evaluate teachers and students
Upholding the law: Failed
In 2012, Bill Windsor produced a film called “Lawless America”. In an attempt to help expose: workplace and school abuse/ bullying, sexual harassment, hostile environment, retaliation, wrongful termination, and some of the problems in education, I agreed to be filmed. The original film was 45 minutes unscripted and unedited. What you are seeing here is a 15 minute edit. My arduous legal battle began in 2002 and ended in 2006.
Lawless America “Cold Interview” – YouTube
Punished the perpetrators: Failed (notice the promotions–rewards for no doing THIER JOB!
In an attempt to clarify positions held by school officials at the time I have listed the positions then and now. I will add more details later.
Superintendent:
• Then, Chair for the Board of Education (at the time of the lawsuits), among other positions at the State Level including Finance Committee
• Now, Executive Director for School Administrators
Assistant Superintendent:
• Now, Deputy Superintendent for Office of Public Instruction
Trustee
• Then, Chair for the Montana State School Board
• Now, Retired
Principal
• Now, Deceased
Vice Principal (not certified)
• Retired
Counselor
• Retired
Hedgefunders investing in charters because “philanthropy,” but not: Fail
Buying into the theory that the terms “philantrhocapitalist” or “venture philanthropy” hold a benevolent center: FAIL.
I know the Jebster and others are on the list but as an institution:
Chiefs for Change: FAIL
Data-based FAIL
John Deasy iPads FAIL
Wendy Kopp FAIL
Gulen FAIL
Witch hunt FAIL
Mass media FAIL
…This is fun. I could do this all day…
Marc Tucker FAIL
Educational Industrial Complex FAIL
I could go on all day too!! *That’s probably not a good thing 🙂
“Fail of it”
The school “reform”
Is fail of it
Cuz FAIL’s the norm
Not “fail a bit”
Receivership Scam
Students First NY
http://www.studentsfirstny.org/studentsfirstny_letter_to_education_commissioner_elia
You are on a roll today, SomeDAM Poet . This invitation was made to order for you.
Right to Work states silencing teachers: Fail
NC taking away teacher pensions: Fail
Sped and ESL student inappropriate High Stake Testing: Fail
Calculated Demonization of Teachers: Fail
Lack of Funding for Wrap-Around Services: Fail
Lack of Funding for Pre-K: Fail
Unsafe work environments: Fail
Eva Moskowitz: FAILURE
Andy Smarick: FAILURE and to quote his “latest journalism” …his recent article in the Fordham Institute on line publication:
“When the history of this era’s urban-education reform movement is written, four big policy innovations are sure to get attention: the nation’s first voucher program, first charter law, first mayor-controlled charter authorizer, and first “extraordinary authority” unit (the RSD)…”
Anyone heard of RSD????
Forgot to add this “priceless” Smarick “gem at the end of his article on women who speak out and who don’t get the credit deserved…
“Of course, this is not uniformly true. We have major female public figures like Wendy Kopp, Michelle Rhee, and Eva Moskowitz; our sometime-adversaries include the formidable Lily Eskelsen Garćia, Randi Weingarten, and Diane Ravitch. A number of women, such as Sara Mead, Robin Lake, and Kathleen Porter Magee, are shaping the discussion through excellent research and writing…”
Tony Bennett (failed in TWO states)
Got to realize that crony capitalists with hands in the public purse need to
place regulators in key positions.
The Fordham Institute
(Petrilli and Pondiscio)
The 74
A note to any and all pro-reformers: If you or your institution or your policy or your hidden agenda are on this now very long list (A PARADE of FAILURE) and you feel as if you have had success in any of the following please feel free to correct us.
FAILURE to . . .
improve math skills
FAILURE to . . .
improve reading skills
FAILURE to . . .
improve writing skills
FAILURE to . .
close the ‘learning gap’
FAILURE to . .
provide resources to struggling schools
FAILURE to . .
restore school funding
FAILURE to . .
increase graduation rates
FAILURE to . .
increase educational opportunities
FAILURE to . .
enrich K to 12 curricula
FAILURE to . .
improve pedagogy
FAILURE to . .
decrease class sizes
FAILURE to . .
attract highly qualified teachers
FAILURE to . .
develop college readiness
FAILURE to . .
develop career readiness
FAILURE to . .
develop critical thinking skills
FAILURE to . .
Increase content knowledge
FAILURE to . .
provide multiple pathways for student success
FAILURE to . . .
address the effects of generational poverty, family dysfunction, and childhood stress on learning
Just billions upon billions of dollars worth of FAILURE.
And no one on this side of argument has any obligation to provide any alternative other than just STOP.
And oldie but goody
“Reform Parade”
(parody of Willson Meredith – Seventy Six Trombones, from “The Music Man”))
Seventy-six Campbell Browns led Reform Parade
With a hundred and ten charter-schools close at hand.
They were followed by rows and rows
Of the wolves-in-sheepy clothes,
The cream of ev’ry famous scam.
Seventy-six Campbell Browns caught the morning shows
With a hundred and ten public schools closed behind
There were more than a thousand Rhees
Springing up like weeds
There were schemes of ev’ry shape and kind.
There were chetty-picking VAMstudies and Gates platoons
Blundering, Blundering all along the way.
Double-billed baloneyums and big buffoons,
Each buffoon having his big, fat say!
There were fifty foolish Canons of Reformery
Blundering, Blundering louder than before
Teacher nets of ev’ry size
And reformers who’d improvise
To game the passing student score
Seventy-six Campbell Browns hit the TV shows,
While a hundred and ten public-schools blazed away.
To the rhythm of Test! Test! Test!
All the kids began to wretch,
And they’re wretching still right today!
Exactly!
Poet, I’m certain you’ll be glad to know I’ve come up with a competency-based computer algorithm to evaluate the effectiveness of your poems. I call it VAM-DAM. It measures poetic growth over time by taking into account the various aspects of your poems that make your readers college and career teaching ready. Just log into my website with your credit card number and search history to find out your score. This is a limited time offer. Act now!
VAM FAIL
Love it! Our poet is so talented!
But wait, there’s more…
Poetic growth over time?
ha ha ha!
For my poems, that would have to be negative growth — probably an exponential decay. Not unlike “reform”, the value approaches zero asymptotically but never quite reaches it.
…which means there is always something to strive for.
“Some have at first for wits, then poets passed,
Turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last.
Some neither can for wits nor critics pass,
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.”
Some have money for wits, then ventures passed,
Turned to VAM next, and proved plain fools at last.
Some neither can for wits nor philanthrope pass,
Some slippery fish are neither trout nor bass.
(This is a singalong isn’t it?)
Wow, LeftCoastTeacher cannot write poetry. I was just trying to model grit so you can get your scores up and achieve.
Oklahoma’s End-of-Instruction tests
Think we are missing a big one, here folks:
DFER–Democrats for Education Reform. They sold public education out and now want our votes because, Trump. And the Supreme Court!
I am looking at YOU, Hillary!
For accuracy, DFER should change their name to Democrats for Milton Friedman. Or how about just Reaganomics Conservatives in Disguise. I could think of a few more apt titles as well, but modesty forbids.
Reaganomics FAIL
Milton Friedman FAIL
Walmart/Amazon FAIL
Economists FAIL
Corporations FAIL
Lobbyists FAIL
Politicians FAIL
House and Senate Education Committees (bipartisan/bought with corporate money): FAIL
John Kasich: FAIL
Barack Obama: HUGE FAIL
Diane Ravitch: PASS!
“Reformer’s Siccesses[sic]”
Their failures are many
Successes are few
I can’t think of any
Non-failures. Can you?
“A Short List of Corporate Reform Failures” is the paragon of oxymorons
“Paragon of Oxymoron”
Paragon of oxymoron:
“School Reform success”
Common Core of Oxford Moron
Tests and all the rest
The architects of Common Core actually met at Oxford in case anyone didn’t get the reference. So we have Oxford to thank — along with Harvard, Princeton and Yale., of course.
Yes, SomeDAM!
I can, and do!
“We cheat the other guy
then forget to pass the saving on to you”
Built-in Failure”
Built-in failure is really success
Shuttering schools is opening chests
Coffers filled with public jewels
For which the Wall Street vulture drools
“Grit”=Fail
“Rigor”=Fail
Latest curricula materials age-inappropriate due to C.Core: Fail
Age-inappropriate teaching and testing due to C.Core: Fail
Teaching abstract concepts, (ex. capacity,) in 2nd gr. instead of 4th: Fail
Unfunded mandates: Fail
Pearson: Fail
MEDIA COVERAGE of the plight of Americans who just happen to be TEACHERS: FAILED
The WAR ON PUBLIC EDUCATION: SUCCESS!
With 15,880 school districts across 50 states THEY (the plutocrats of the EIC)
Click to access eic-oct_11.pdf
did their dirty work, and the media– WHICH THEY FULLY OWN– SANG THE SONG OF bad teacher, even as Bush gave us the NCLB, Duncan did his little rant, and Gates added his CC ( which stands for CURRICULA CRAP!
IT IS THE FAILURE TO ENSURE THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF THE CLASSROOM TEACHER that is the CRUX of the FAILURE of the school. TEACHERS do sue (as in California, right now) but it is expensive and eats up their lives. Here again is part of Lorna Stremcha’s valiant effort:
http://blog.ebosswatch.com/2013/05/one-womans-legal-fight-against-workplace-bullying/
The professional workforce of the INSTITUTION that was PUBLIC EDUCATION was demolished… and VOILA— the schools failed so the legislatures could do their dirty work… AND NOT A SINGLE ADMINISTRATOR LOST THEIR JOB, OR WAS ADJUDICATED for not doing their job!
IF YOU WANT TO SEE FAILURE >>> GO TO the NAPTA site (National Association For the Prevention of Teacher Abuse and read the stories from across the nation. This site, created by KAREN HORWITZ has been there for over a decade, describing this injustice.
http://endteacherabuse.org/
THE ASSAULT ON TEACHERS which began in the late eighties and through the nineties EMPTIED THE SCHOOLS OF THE VETERAN PROFESSIONALS was so successful, that the EIC was able to institute the next step, VAM, and remove the newer teachers within a few years of their probation.
Karen Horwitz described the assault’s lawlessness in her book “White Chalk Crime
http://www.whitechalkcrime.com/wcc/
In case you are unfamiliar with my voice in this debacle or my reputation go to my author’s page and click the series blue button for the many links to posts HERE at Diane’s wonderful site that reports the endless ,systematic corruption.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
AND THIS (which I have posted her many times) was written in 2004, and posted on my own site; put it up on Perdaily:
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Blended Learning- Fail
Common Enrollment- Fail
“School Choice”- Fail
Philanthro-capitalism- Fail (actually, I’m kind of worried they are winning)
Pressuring schools to reduce office referrals and suspensions without providing resources to meet the social/emotional needs of students in poverty, or any kind of school wide positive behavior support whatsoever- FAIL
I need some positivity so I’m just going to put this out there- My students are learning. WIN!
Here’s the Biggest Fail of All —
WIPs (Well-Intentioned People)
The thing that WIPs fail to understand is that none of the above raids or raiders on public education were failures at all. They all achieved their purpose to a profitable degree, even if, especially if, all they did was destroy what we already had.
Corporate raiders have no interest in doing the work of education, much less the dedication, experience, and knowledge that it takes to do it. What they can do with their money and influence is create a watergate between the people who do the work and the people who need the service. Then they install themselves at the switches and valves and take their ever-increasing toll from every value that passes through.
They did this with energy (Enron), they are doing this with education, and they are beginning to do it with water itself …
I disagree on one point, that they had any interest in improving education in the first place. Some of the follow-on koolaid drinkers perhaps, but the rhetoric of good intentions, being built first and foremost on leveraging the Hegelian dialectic was never about anything other than profit and control. All of their methods are based on hostile takeover models, the massively substandard, slapdash ideas that were used as the brightly colored sugar coating on their poison pills had always been designed in service of that end, it was never anything more than expensive vaporware structured for maximum profit extraction via rent seeking against a public education system they could never out compete on a level playing field. The “good intentions”of those at the core of this are entirely directed back at themselves. For students and schools, it has never been about anything other than let them eat cake trickle down lies.
Other than raising useless test scores on often flawed tests, Success Academy continues to fail repeatedly.
For instance, “Students of much-touted Success Academy charter school score too low on entrance exam for top city high schools
“The founding class of Harlem Success Academy 1 graduated on Friday. The class started with 73 enrolled first-grade students in August 2006, but 32 students were at graduation. And none of the students, who are either black or Latino, got high enough scores test for top high schools.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/gonzalez-success-charter-students-fail-top-city-schools-article-1.1833960
Success Academy fails at retaining students.
Success Academy fails when it comes to high numbers of student suspensions for kindergartners.
All of these failures exist because back in the late ’60’s and early 70’s, Educational Leadership started monkeying around with teaching methods that were successful for decades and since then failed to correct those deficiencies. Since we obviously didn’t know what we were doing, the politicians fixed it for us.
If you doubt it, check with any students who can’t read if they know “Phonics”.
Don’t forget Eli Broad, who’s up to all kinsmod mischief here in Los Angeles. Plus Eva’s not so successful academies, “no excuses” charters…..
McKinsey and public policy.
A notable absence up to this point…
Michelle Rhee, a former supernova of corporate education reform [remember that cover of TIME entitled “How To Fix America’s Schools”?] whose undying claim to fame was the educational equivalent of walking on water and turning water into wine—
Taking “her” [forget that pesky co-teacher!] students from the 13th to the 90th percentile. A claim that even her most dedicated fanboy (putting her ahead of even that paragon of the “new civil rights movement of our time” Arne Duncan), unwittingly gutted here on this very blog. The “hero” was a fraud! But no matter. A hero is a hero is a hero…
And to put icing on top of the cake: just how did the queen of hard data points validate her claim? Her principal “told” her—though that principal and her co-workers and actual records have provided not a scintilla of support for her miraculous feat. Not even decades later!
I think she deserves her own prominent place on this list.
Really! And it would be rheeally revealing, in the most Johnsonally sort of ways, of how rheephormsters fail upwards…
Hint: TFA25LoveFest.
‘Nuff said.
😎
P.S. I couldn’t help but include her self-sacrificing speaking fees which only range from $30,001 to $50,000 per pop.
Link: https://www.allamericanspeakers.com/celebritytalentbios/Michelle-Rhee
Almost as self-less as Eva Moskowitz.
🙄
Camp Philos (2014)
Embark on three spring days of fun, fellowship and strategy with the nation’s thought leaders on education reform. The exquisite and secluded Whiteface Lodge, which ranks among North America’s top luxury destinations, is nestled in the majestic woods of our country’s largest wilderness park.
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2014/03/camp-philos-take-me-away.html
Obama/Duncan
How about the Koch brothers and their legislative influence through ALEC?
I am always amazed at how this rheform crowd worships data – yet ingnore the data both before and after the thier idiological ( 180 degrees from what data says ) agenda tanks.
I am also confused as to how massive failures are rhewarded with promotions. King should have been demoted to basketball coach after New York. Seriously, if you $@#% up something that big in real life ( not rheal ) your resignation is usually demanded. So in a nutshell, accountability must only be for the little people – like the teachers in Georgia.
King didn’t fail in the eyes of Obama.
Mayoral control=Fail
Appointed school boards=Fail
Business model in education=Fail
Non-educator Appointed Superintendents called CEOs=Fail
Students called “scholars” beginning in Preschool and Kindergarten=Fail
Charter schools for the neediest kids with additional resources=Fail
One size fits all=Fail
No excuses and zero tolerance=Fail
Tax Cap=Fail
Focus & Priority Schools=Fail
Implementation of APPR=FAIL
Level Playing Field=FAIL
ADEQUATE funding=FAIL
And to every cynic and rheeformster out there that thinks were a bunch of “failed” teachers afraid of being held accountable; afraid of change.
You JUST DON’T GET IT.
We are constantly on the lookout for WHAT REALLY WORKS with REAL CHILDREN.
And regardless of the source we would never reject policies or activities or laws that really work. The simple truth is that these are very REAL FAILURES. And you own every one of them.
In light of this barrage of REAL FAILURE that has now been brought to your attention by the multitudes of experienced educators here., and in light of the absence of any convincing evidence that you have been successful, would you please just GO AWAY.
Your education reform hypotheses have been thoroughly disproved in the classrooms of America. You snake oil claims and educational hokum has been debunked and rejected by those of us who have cared enough and sacrificed enough to make teaching our careers. Just GO AWAY.
And to every enabler in the schools, in central offices, in the state ed offices please can you answer this one simple question: How can you continue to endorse and promote, and respect this nearly endless PARADE of FAILURE?
Danielson and Marzano
Data mining
Data Quality Campaign (DQC)
Funders of the DQC (Alliance for Early Success, Annie E Casey Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, ExxonMobil, Ford Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation)
inBloom
Amplify
Rupert Murdoch
Wireless Generation
Larry Berger
Stacey Childress
Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)
Dynamic Measurement Group
Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI)
Authors of the TPRI
Texas Education Agency
Scripted curriculum corporate kits
Engage NY
Authors of Engage NY
I plan to put all these ideas into a post
Keep them coming!
Diane
Have you considered a post-reform sequel to Reign of Error? A book that chronicles this parade of failures over the last 3 or 4 years. A book that would put a few more nails in the reform coffin. This is the narrative that will work simply because it is now indisputable.
Rick, Take a look at a book that is the story of ONE teacher, but is th story of the LAWLESS behavior of administrations across the nation that made sure the professional staff was removed BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE.
THUS, A DECADE LATER, reformers could come into the SILENCE created by the absence of the voice of the classroom practitioner, and sell snake-oil and magic elixirs NO EVIDENCE REQUIRED…not the kind of evidence of LEARNING, that any real teacher could show.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/background-information-bravery-bullies-blowhards-lorna-stremcha
GREAT Falls Tribune is a Pulitzer Prize paper. Big deal just to get a review. but her story is so crucial…did you see her LAWLESS testimony in one of my earlier comments here!
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/life/my-montana/2016/03/18/educator-recounts-harassment-school/81896206/
YOU NEED TO KNOW WHO LORNA STREMCHA IS… THE EXTREME THEY WENT TO TO REMVOE HER IS THE STORY!
IT IS MY STORY AND I WAS A CELEBRATED TEACHER
This is the process that removed the top, tenured teachers when THE LAWS WERE IGNORED and no one DID THEIR JOBS!
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
DECEPTION: Success… for now
Emergency Managers: Fail
Emergency Financial Managers: Fail
Here’s my addition:
The average American able to inform themselves, think critically, and act upon their knowledge: FAIL
The average American being a civic participant: FAIL
The average American talking up a storm about politics with other peers and family members: FAIL
The average American driving cars, consuming food with bromates and sugar, watching sitcoms and violent detective shows, and shopping at the mall: PASS
Name all the policies and all the bad laws you want, and you are right to say that they have failed.
But the American people have SO failed themselves and continue to do so in many ways now. Although there are signs of definite hope, there will have to be many more growing pains for Americans to get their act together, come to a truly informed consensus about how unfair life is because of the overclass, and then to act upon it.
So goes the wheel still turning . . . .
Just when the average American starts thinking critically, the media will quickly run breaking Kardashian news.
“Look, over here, something shiny!”
Exactly, Liz.
CHARTERS: FAIL
STATE TAKE-OVERS: FAIL
A-F GRADING OF SCHOOLS: FAIL
ACHIEVEMENT/OPPORTUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICTS: FAIL
PARENT TRIGGERS: FAIL
ONLINE INSTRUCTION: FAIL
“NO EXCUSES” DISCIPLINE: FAIL
ALTERNATIVE CERTIFICATION: FAIL
RECONSTITUTION OF SCHOOLS: FAIL
VOUCHERS: FAIL
TAXPAYERS SAVINGS GRANTS: FAIL
AUSTERITY BUDGETS: FAIL
MAYORAL CONTROL: FAIL
SCHOOL UNIFORMS: FAIL
This is a great compilation of failures!
Reading FIrst (Texas Reading Initiative)
Early Reading First
National Reading Panel
Rod Paige
Houston Miracle
Margaret Spellings
Reid Lyon
Chris Doherty
Susan Landry
David Francis
Barbara Foorman
Kristi Santi
Ralph Fletcher
Response to Intervention
Direct Instruction
(My Pet Goat)
Reading Mastery
Siegfried Engelmann
McGraw-Hill (Bush Family Connections)
George W. Bush
Curriculum on Wheels, known as the COW
Neil Bush
Barbara Bush
Ken Leonard
Ignite Learning
Charles Miller
Randy Best
Voyager
Sharon Vaughn
Roland Good
Deborah Simmons
Edward Kame’enui
Jack Fletcher (University of Houston) – not Ralph
John Kasich
Sandy Kress and his chief sidekick, Beth Ann Bryan, also a confidant of Margaret Spellings
They have worked together to funnel millions in public funds to Pearson and Wireless Generation, etc.
BILLIONS
It got measured; it got done!
Common Core based GED – FAIL
Common Core based Regents Exams – Fail
The idea that every student in NYS must pass five Regents Exams to Graduate – Fail (And a kick in the butt to former Commissioner Mills for implementing a policy that prevents too many children from getting a high school diploma)
And along with the above, the idea that some kids should expect to send five years in high school (repeating the classes after they’ve failed the required Regents Exams) – Fail
Exactly….Mills started this mess when he ruined the Regents. Also if a student graduates in 5 years it still counts against the school. Only a 4 year counts as good in the eyes of the state. Getting rid of the RCT also is causing the state to come up with crazy safety nets that they had thought they wouldn’t need since everyone would pass a higher bar.
Christie
Booker
Plus Two
Scripted teaching of any sort-ever: Fail
School to pri$on pipeline: Fail
CC push of nonfiction w/out considering empathy and other benefits of reading fiction: Fail
Suspension rates of children of color: Fail
Inve$tment in public education: Massive Fail
Whistleblowers like Diane Ravitch and BATs: WINNERS!!
All the sweet children: WINNERS!
Book Whisperers: WINNERS!
Persistently Plucky People: WINNERS!
What would be the criteria to earn a “Pass”? What would be the large scale reform efforts that would earn that distinction?
Adam, any evidence of improving education.
Treating and testing Kindergarteners as if they were First Graders: FAIL
Treating and testing First Graders as if they were Second Graders : FAIL
Entire concept of “grade level”: Fail.
Standardization as a guiding star: Fail.
Cami Anderson
One Newark
Pearson monitoring students’ social media during PARCC testing
“The FAIL Pail”
The school reformer’s pail
Is full of edu-FAIL
It’s filled to top
With edu-FLOP
And trains that left the rail
Scott Walker – Fail
Sam Brownback – Fail
John Kasich – Fail
Bobby Jindal – Fail
Rick Perry – Fail
Chris Christi – Fail
The Walton Family – Fail
The Koch Brothers – Fail
Eli Broad – Fail
“VAM the VAMmers”
A “Value Added” score
For Gates and all his kin
Is what we need before
We fire them for their sin
The model should be based
On student passing rates
So failure can be traced
To Duncan and to Gates
UTLA:Failed.
Even after teachers won the decision, the United Teachers Los Angeles- even though they clearly lost the case and violated its duty of fair representation- is still stonewalling it to the point where the plaintiffs will be forced to go back into court to seek sanctions and orders to implement the court’s findings that UTLA still steadfastly refuses to on it’s own.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/PERB-SAYS-BLATANTLY-ILLEGA-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Crime_Jobs_Labor-Unions_Legal-Representation-160320-91.html#comment588821
Mitten state checking in:
Emergency Managers
Education “Achievement” Authority
California–iPads as a civil right: fail
So much for a “short list” of education reform failures!
Here’s the short list of their failures
“Everything they’ve done”
The breadth and depth and the entirety of their FAILURE is stunning when brought together in one place. And the America media continues to fawn over these LOSERS and their schemes.
The biggest “failures’ in our current system are the members of the mainstream media (Fox, NPR, MSNBC, CBS, NY Times, LA Times, etc), which is why all the other “failures’ and “fraudsters” get away with it.
These people are stenographers/propagandists for the wealthy and otherwise powerful.
They “fail journalism’ by design — because that is what they get paid to do.
“The Presstitutes’
The pressititutes
Dress up in suits
And go to work at Times
While journalist
Is simply dissed
Cuz truth reports are crimes
Agreed SDP!
“Presstitutes” – that is priceless word play.
Where are the modern day versions of Woodward and Bernstein?
Gutless lapdogs – all of them.
Accountability for others — Pass
Accountability for themselves = Fail
DIBELS – fail
Danielson Rubric
Please excuse all typos. Sent from my iPhone
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