Archives for the month of: March, 2016
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Gary Rubinstein Reports on TFA’s 25th Anniversary Bash

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2016 //
10

Gary Rubinstein was among the earliest members of Teach for America. He taught in Houston in the early 1990s and remained active as a trainer and mentor for many years. But five years ago, at the 20th anniversary, something snapped and he lost the faith. He started a blog and turned into a critic, some would say a nemesis, because he knew the organization and its star players.

 

Despite te his reputation as a critic, Gary decided to attend the 25th anniversary party. He wanted to see what was happening.

 

He found a large change in the rhetoric. Five years ago, the tone was arrogant, teacher-bashing, and union-bashing. This year, the talk was collaboration, even a smidgeon of humility.

 

He couldn’t tell if the new line was real or fake.

 

Follow his journey as he interacts with the faded stars of yesterday: Kevin Huffman, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and others. The Madame Tussaud’s of school reform. The boulevard of broken dreams.

Categories Education Reform, Teach for America

Imagine a New Boston with Great Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2016 //
2

 

The city of Boston has a public relations campaign called #ImagineBoston. This is supposed to be a “visioning exercise.” Education activists have taken the challenge to #ImagineBoston. It was trending on Twitter recently, powered by parents.

 

A blogger named Public School Mama invites you to dream with her and imagine a new Boston:

 

 

I can imagine a new Boston. I can imagine a new day for public schools. We just have to believe in it, collectively.

 

 

Boston has the wealth. We can fund our schools.

 

 

We must vote in leadership that supports public education. We must make education the single most important issue when we vote. We must press every single elected official for details on how they will support the schools.

 

 

And more importantly, we have to vote people out of office when they break their promises to us.

 

 

I’ve been invited to the table but I don’t want to eat with wolves. I refuse to entertain relationships with people who clamor to close our schools on the one hand, and then turn around advocate for more charter seats on the other – as if the two weren’t related.

 

 

I don’t want to hear about structural deficits when 56% of our Chapter 70 aid goes to charter schools that only serve 8,000 students in the city.

 

 

I want to imagine a different Boston.

 

 

One where there are charter schools, yes, but not at the expense of the public schools.

 

 

I can imagine a Boston where our schools are joyful centers of learning. Where there is art, music and plenty of recess.

 

 

I can imagine a Boston where restorative justice is used and not suspensions to help children learn to modulate their behavior. I can imagine a Boston where children are allowed to be children and are given space to develop self-discipline.

 

 

I can imagine a Boston where teenagers are not spending their precious time going to school committee meetings to beg for crumbs but are engaged in active learning opportunities, sports, internships and stem activities.

 

 

I can imagine a Boston where our elected and school officials are true partners with us, where we have developed trust and treated each other with respect so that if we do fall upon hard times, there is a well of good will to draw upon.

 

 

I can imagine a Boston where parents aren’t laying awake at night wondering if they made some horrible mistake staying in the city and not leaving for the suburbs.

 

 

I can imagine a Boston where your zip code does not determine the quality of your education. I can imagine a Boston where any high school in the district is a solid choice for your child.

 

 

I can imagine a Boston where schools are opening in beautiful buildings not being closed or constantly threatened.

 

What about your town or city? Can you imagine an end to the destructive corporate reform policies of the past 15 years and a revival of civic commitment to good public schools for all?

 

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Real Education, Supporting public schools

Liberians Oppose Privatization of Their Schools

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2016 //
13

As previously reported here, the Liberian government is considering a plan to privatize and outsource control of its schools. The good news is that Liberians are fighting back against this proposal.

 

“Local and international experts have planned to fight tooth and nails to ensure that a plan by the Government of Liberia to outsource all primary education here to a private company do not push through.

 
“Liberia’s plan is to privatise all primary and pre-primary schools over the next five years. Public funding will support services subcontracted to a private company – the Bridge International Academies, a company incorporated in the United States under the name New Globe School Inc.

 
“Already the Liberian Government through Education Minister George Werner has signed a Memorandum of Understanding or MOU with the Bridge International Academies to kick start the process-a pilot project is said to be ongoing with 70 schools.

 
“The cash scrap government of Liberia is expected to spend around US430 million over the five years period. There is also a question as to whether the PPCC rules were followed in awarding such contract to Bridge International Academies.

 
“International and local experts say such arrangement is not only a blatant violation of Liberia’s international obligations under the right to education, and have no justification under Liberia’s constitution, but will also deny indigents and poor access to quality education.
Mrs. Hester Williams Katakaw is the Proprietress of the Levi Williams School System and a former deputy education minister for instruction under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s first term. She says education stakeholders here will not allow such arrangement to push through.

 
“We will resist it and make sure that it does not go through at the National Legislature”, Mrs. Williams Katakaw told this paper Wednesday. She says government has a responsibility to ensure that all children here are educated and that pushing such responsibility on a foreign firm is not in the best interest of Liberian children.

 
“Mrs. Katakaw questions the performance of Bridge International in other countries saying, “they have failed miserably in other countries and we are not going to allow them to come do the same here”. She says Liberian children at those tender ages should be educated by Liberian teachers and not foreigners.

 
“Education Minister Werner appears very defensive on this arrangement. In his letter dated March 3, 2016 addressed to the Secretary General of the National Teachers’ Association of Liberia or NTAL, Mr. Samuel Y. Johnson, Sr. following the launched of a pilot project involving 70 schools, he said the pilot project is a private partnership and not privatization.

 
“…I must correct your characterization of the pilot as privatization, and somehow threatening the provision of free education. As we have communicated to your members including at the January meeting, the pilot will not involve any privatization of education…”

 
“However, following this communication an agreement was entered into with Bridge International. When this paper contacted officials at the Ministry of Information Wednesday, its Communications Director Maxim Bleteen handed copies of the minister’s letter to the NTAL saying the minister had requested him to give a copy to any reporter seeking information on the privatization deal.

 
“He claimed that the letter addressed the issue of the Public Procurement Concession Commission rules but nothing of such was mentioned. “It is completely unacceptable for Liberia to outsource its primary education system to a private company”, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh said Tuesday in Geneva.

 
“This is unprecedented at the scale currently being proposed and violates Liberia’s legal and moral obligations,” he said. “Such arrangements are a blatant violation of Liberia’s international obligations under the right to education, and have no justification under Liberia’s constitution,” the Special Rapporteur stated.

 
“This also contradicts political commitments made by Liberia and the international community to the fourth UN Sustainable Development Goal which is on education and related targets.” He cautions that public schools and their teachers, and the concept of education as a public good, are under attack with such arrangements.

 
“Provision of public education of good quality is a core function of the State. Abandoning this to the commercial benefit of a private company constitutes a gross violation of the right to education,” Mr. Singh emphasized.

 
The human rights expert noted that “it is ironic that Liberia does not have resources to meet its core obligations to provide a free primary education to every child, but it can find huge sums of money to subcontract a private company to do so on its behalf.”

 
“These sums could be much better spent on improving the existing system of public education and supporting the educational needs of the poor and marginalized,” the Special Rapporteur suggested. Mr. Singh called on the Government of Liberia to approach the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for technical assistance and capacity building, instead of entering into such partnerships with for-profit providers in education, “devoid of any legal or moral justification.”

 
“Before any partnership is entered into, the Government of Liberia must first put into place legislation and policies on public private partnerships in education, which among other things, protect every child’s right to education,” Mr. Singh said.

 
“There also needs to be an independent body or institution established to receive complaints of potential violations of the right to education that might result from this development,” he added. The Special Rapporteur emphasized that “education is an essential public service and instead of supporting business in education, governments should increase the money they spend on public educational services to make them better.”

 
“In a letter addressed to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf dated March 21, 2016, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa) called on president Sirleaf to halt the planned outsourcing of primary education here.

 
“…this policy will seriously undermine the right to educate and eclipse opportunities for indigent and poor individuals, families and communities to use education to claw out of poverty and hardship,” the letter signed by Kwasi Adu -Amankwah, ITUC-Africa General Secretary said .

 
“The ITUC-Africa (www.ituc-africa.org) is a Pan African trade union organisation representing over 17 million workers in 49 African countries, including Liberia. In its letter ITUC-Africa further stated “ITUC-Africa is supporting and strongly reiterating the calls by the National Teachers’ Association of Liberia (NTAL) and the Educational International (EI) urging your government to halt the proposed measure to outsource Liberia’s primary education system to private for-profit actors.”

 
“ITUC-Africa therefore urges Madam President to use her good offices and goodwill to stay action on the implementation of this policy,” the union added. The PPCC Director of Communications Nathan Bangu promised to return a call requesting information on as to whether Minister Werner got the PPCC barking before signing an MOU with Bridge International Academies.”

 

 

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, International, Privatization

Marla Kilfoyle: Why You Should Refuse the Tests in 2016

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2016 //
7

Marla Kilfoyle is a teacher in Long Island and executive director of the BATS. She has endless energy in the struggle to improve our schools for all children.

 

She created this short video, which explains why you should opt out in 2016. Marla calls it “Don’t Back Down.”

 

This video and many others are a tribute to the power of social media to spread messages of support and hope to parents and teachers who want what is best for children.

Categories Opt Out

Arizona Voucher Bill for Half the Children in the State Advances in Legislature

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2016 //
14

The appropriations committee in the Arizona House voted 8-5 to approve vouchers (called “Empowerment Scholarship Accounts”) for about half of the state’s 1.1 million students. One of the supporters of the bill wanted vouchers for every student in the state. The vouchers will drain students and funding from public schools. There is no evidence that vouchers improves education, but it is a red-button issue for libertarians, who want to eliminate public schools. They seem unaware that every nation with successful schools has a strong public school system, with neither vouchers nor charters. I cannot explain why Republicans are so unwilling to call vouchers by their rightful name. They have come up with all kinds of euphemism (“opportunity scholarships,” “education savings accounts,” etc.), but a voucher is a voucher is a voucher. Vouchers have not improved the schools or the educational outcomes of children in Milwaukee, the District of Columbia, or Cleveland. But when dealing with ideologues, facts are irrelevant. Republicans in Arizona are determined to wipe out public education, step by step, starting with vouchers for special education, then expanding until it is vouchers for all.

 

 

A House panel voted late Wednesday to let more than half the 1.1 million students in Arizona schools use public dollars to attend private and parochial schools.

 

 

The 8-5 vote by the Appropriations Committee follows the failure of supporters of vouchers to line up the votes in the House to open the door for all students. Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, said she hopes this scaled-back proposal gains more support.

 

 

Lesko also crafted this version of SB 1279 to try to overcome opposition from those who say that the vouchers are used largely by families who already can afford to send their kids to private schools.

 

 

It limits eligibility to students whose family income qualifies them for free- or reduced-price lunch programs. For a family of four, that figure is $44,863 a year.

 

 

Stacey Morley, lobbyist for the Arizona Education Association, said the most recent figures show about 565,000 students participating in those programs.

 

 

But that may not cover everyone who would be eligible.

 

 

Morley said high schools are not required to have such programs. Nor are charter schools.

 

 

That means the number of children whose family income would qualify them could be higher.

 

 

Lesko told lawmakers they should not worry there would be a sudden flood of children, armed with scholarships worth about $5,400 a year, fleeing public schools and taking with them the state aid that had gone to those schools. She said state law limits vouchers to no more than one-half percent of public schools students, or about 5,500 youngsters.

 

 

But Rep. Mark Cardenas, D-Phoenix, pointed out that cap disappears after 2019.

 

 

And Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, conceded his goal is to eventually make vouchers available to every public school student in Arizona.

Categories Arizona, Vouchers

Fred Smith: Don’t Be Fooled by “Changes” in NY Tests

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2016 //
11

In an attempt to placate and undercut the opt out movement this spring, New York Commissioner of Education MaryEllen Elia promised significant changes in the tests.

 

Testing expert Fred Smith says the promised changes are insignificant, in fact, “illusory.”

 

Although the state has dropped Pearson and hired a new test vendor named Questar, Pearson is still in charge of the 2016 tests.

 

 

Categories Education Reform, New York, Pearson, Standardized Testing

Katie Osgood: The Cruel and Unusual Treatment of Children with Disabilities in Chicago

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2016 //
27

Katie Osgood teaches students with disabilities in Chicago. She teaches third-graders. PARCC testing begins soon. The reading level if the tests for her students are sixth grade.

She writes here about the harm these tests will do to her students.

Her students’ IEPs will not be honored. No accommodations!

She asks why children of 8 and 9 are asked to perform literary analysis.

She writes:

“The PARCC test is mind-mindbogglingly inappropriate and long. It gives NO USEFUL information for teachers or schools. It ignores IEPs. It is damaging to kids. It triggers our most vulnerable learners destroying trust and joy in the classroom. It robs classrooms of SO MUCH STINKIN’ TIME.

“Oh, and by the way, PARCC originally was in 24 states, but has now dropped to only 6.

“There is NO REASON for Illinois to continue using this test. None.”

Categories Chicago, Common Core, Special Education

Peter Greene on “The Testing Bill of Rights,” as Written by Leaders of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2016 //
7

Peter Greene keeps watch on the drivel that comes out of the corporate reform public relations’ maw. He has discovered that a group of them has proclaimed for all the world to see “a Testing Bill of Rights.”

 

You can be certain that one of the “Bill of Rights” is not the student’s right not to take the test.

 

This “Bill of Rights” is intended to protect and ensure the future of standardized testing as a central feature of American education.

 

The website is #testbetter.org. 

 

It is sponsored by the Center for American Progress (CAP), High Achievement New York (which promotes high-stakes testing and charter schools), Educators 4 Excellence (a Gates-funded astro-turf group of short-stay teachers), the National PTA (a Gates-funded group that opposes opting out), the New York Urban League, America Achieves (a Gates-, Bloomberg-, Arnold-funded group devoted to data), and the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

 

Greene describes the “Testing Bill of Rights”:

 

Tests that provide an objective measure of progress toward college-and career-readiness.

 

There are two problems with this right. First, while students may want to know if they’re progressing toward college or career, there are better ways to find out because, second, there is no test anywhere that provides an objective measure of progress toward college-and-career readiness (yeah, their last hyphen is mistaken). There is arguably no test that is actually objective, and there is inarguably no test that can measure college and career readiness for all students considering all colleges and all careers.

 

Testing schedules, policies, and practices that contribute to meaningful teaching and learning.

 

No disagreement here. Of course, the BS Tests does not contribute to any of these characteristics.

 

Have student learning assessed based on an array of measures.

 

True-ish, if we define “measures” in the broadest possible way.

 

An education free of excessive test prep.

 

Oops. You messed this one up, guys. “An education free of any test prep.” There, fixed that for you.

 

Have their personally identifiable information protected.

 

You know the best possible way to protect it? Don’t collect it in the first place. This would be a good time to remind you of what a lousy job the USED has done safeguarding data. The old adage still applies– if you want to keep something private or secret, don’t tell anybody.

 

There are many more “rights” that you should be aware of. Read Greene’s post to learn what they are and what they mean.

 

The best response to this sort of testing propaganda is to opt out of the tests. Exercise your rights as a parent not to be used by corporate reformers to supply their data. Your child is more than a score.

 

 

 

 

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Standardized Testing

Angela Duckworth: Please Don’t Assess “Grit”

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2016 //
56

Angela Duckworth is at the center of the movement to teach and grade “grit,” by which she means character, self-control, persistence, and similar behaviors. Today in the New York Times, she expresses her opposition to assessing “grit” on standardized tests and holding teachers and schools accountable for their students’ character development.

 

I am glad to see her speaking out against this effort to quantify character, but can’t help wishing she had closed the barn door before the horse got out. As reported earlier, both the National Assessment of Educational Progess and the international test PISA are incorporating measures of this amorphous quality into their crucial tests. Soon we will be comparing states and nations on their students’ character or “grit.” And perhaps firing teachers and closing schools for their “grit” scores.

 

No one questions the importance of character. But trying to quantify it and holding teachers and schools accountable for it is a goofy idea. In the current climate, Big Data has become a near-religion. Social scientists must exert whatever influence they have to stop the misuse of their ideas, sooner rather than later.

 

This kerfuffle makes me think of the report cards I brought home in the 1940s. On the left side were my grades for subjects like reading, writing, arithmetic, science, and social studies. On the right side were the teacher’s judgments about my behavior. There was a list of behaviors that referred to conduct and responsibility. The teacher checked off either unsatisfactory, satisfactory, or excellent. She was acknowledging my behavior, judging me. I was responsible for my conduct, not the teacher or the school. It was up to me to try harder next time.

 

Everything old is new again, but in our age, it gets quantified and misused. The urge to quantify the unmeasurable must be recognized for what it is: stupid; arrogant; harmful; foolish, yet another way to standardize our beings..

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Standardized Testing

Thousands Sign Petition to Allow Guns at GOP Convention

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2016 //
37

Huffington Post reports that thousands of people have signed petitions calling for right to carry guns at the GOP convention in Cleveland. Some say they would be “sitting ducks” without arms, because Cleveland is a violent city. And, of course, party members believe in the citizen’s right to bear arms.

Hmmm. If fights break out on the convention floor, it could get ugly there. What a spectacle. Thousands of Trump and Cruz delegates, packing heat.

Categories Politics
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