I received an invitation to attend a conference at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Since I can’t be there, I am hoping someone who reads this blog will attend and report back to us on what you learned.
The keynote speaker is Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee, whose state was one of the first to receive Race to the Top funding. Tennessee created the Achievement School District, which clustered low-performing schools into a virtual district and gave each of them to a charter operator. Vanderbilt researchers reviewed the data and found no significant gains in the ASD. Nada. Tennessee has been a hotbed of corporate reform over the past five years. On the 2015 NAEP, Tennessee had flat scores compared to 2013; no gains in reading or math (though if you google the results, you will see that the Tennessee government and StudentsFirst put out deceptive claims about Tennessee’s unimpressive performance in 2015). Tennessee scores at the national average in both reading and math. What secrets will Governor Haslam impart to the Harvard audience? Or will he pretend that the state made big gains in 2015, as it did in 2013? Academic expert Campbell Brown will moderate the two panels.
You were recently invited to the By All Means convening on Tuesday, May 17th. We would love to have you join us.
By All Means is a bold undertaking to address the iron-clad correlation between a child’s socio-economic status and his or her prospects for educational achievement and life success. BAM utilizes two key strategies: deep fieldwork in a select number of cities and a series of national convenings at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Through our partnerships with six cities (Oakland, CA, Louisville, KY, Providence, RI, Somerville, MA, Salem, MA and Newton, MA), we will implement improved, integrated systems of child development and education that focus on personalization, braiding health and human services with schools, and access to high-quality out-of-school learning opportunities.
The upcoming convening, titled Poverty Matters: Making the Case for a System Overhaul will take place on the campus of the Harvard Graduate School of Education on May 17. The day will include introductory remarks from Harvard President Drew Faust, a morning keynote address by former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, a panel conversation with city mayors and a lunch keynote address by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam. Additionally, other sessions will feature nationally recognized leaders in the field. Please see the agenda below for more details.
Additional logistical details can also be found below along with a link to the registration site.
Thanks for taking the time from your busy schedule to consider this event. We sincerely hope you can join us on May 17th!
Best,
Paul
Poverty Matters: Making the Case for a System Overhaul
Tuesday, May 17th
9:15a.m.-5:00p.m.
Agenda
Registration and Coffee (8:30a.m.-9:15a.m.)
Welcome Remarks (Askwith Hall)
Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean James Ryan
Opening Address (Askwith Hall)
Introductory Remarks – Harvard University President Drew Faust
Opening Keynote Remarks – Hon. Deval Patrick, former Massachusetts Governor
Demography and Destiny (Askwith Hall)
Paul Reville, Professor – Harvard Graduate School of Education & Founder – Education Redesign Lab
Break
Panel of By All Means Consortium City Mayors (Askwith Hall)
Mayor Joseph Curtatone, Mayor Kimberly Driscoll, Mayor Jorge Elorza,
Mayor Greg Fischer, Mayor Libby Schaaf, & Mayor Setti Warren
Moderator: Campbell Brown, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, The 74
Break
Lunchtime Keynote Speaker (Radcliffe Institute)
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam
Break
Can schools alone overcome the challenges of poverty? (Askwith Hall)
Moderator: Campbell Brown, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, The 74
Panelists: Roland Fryer, Henry Lee Professor of Economics – Harvard University,
Richard Barth, CEO – KIPP Foundation, Dr. Pam Cantor, CEO – Turnaround for Children
Break
Best Investments to Ensure Student Success (Askwith Hall)
Panelists: Nicholas Donohue, President and CEO – Nellie Mae Foundation,
Mary Anne Schmitt-Carey, President – Say Yes to Education, along with other invited panelists
Closing (Askwith Hall)
Paul Reville, Professor – Harvard Graduate School of Education & Founder – Education Redesign Lab
Paul Reville
Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of
Educational Policy and Administration
Director, Education Redesign Lab
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wham BAM, Tanks A Lot, VAM …
Increasingly a part of the problem; not a part of the solution.
Harvard fails, too.
Humanizing, all too humanizing.
Elizabeth Warren (Professor of Law, Harvard; Liberal icon) still believes APPR testing is needed to address major civil rights concerns. Too bad reality demonstrates that poor kids, and especially poor kids of color, are falling further behind as a result of “accountability” testing. Harvard is becoming a backwater in relation to what’s really going on “out here.”
More “money talks; nobody walks.”
If we would fight poverty by spending the corporate ed reform and for profit prison billions on basic income for all, play based childcare & preschool, equity in public ed funding (class size, resources, course offerings) free public college, universal healthcare, AND training all professional teachers in cultural competency, we’d still have money left over!
“Reform” is such a costly mistake. What you suggest makes perfect sense. That is the problem because they are not looking for sense, they are looking for profitable gimmicks and quick fixes that will make magically erase the impact of generational poverty. Nobody wants to make the kind of commitment and investment it will take because it involves a lot more than schools and teaching. We have to improve our economy so people can make a living wage to support their families. None of the big “reformers” are clamoring for a higher minimum wage.
Harvard’s lack of leadership in education has been a real disappointment–they have totally bought in to the corporate reform agenda. The fact that Campbell Brown is “moderating” a discussion on education policy at Harvard should cause us all to question Harvard’s credibility on anything to do with children, schools or learning.
Agree. All of those propagandists and mayors and spinners in turnarounds are positioned as if experts. Clearly the unstated agenda is bypassing elected school boards, and the many community and public school initiatives that already “braid” social services with schooling. Someone needs to step in and redesign Harvard’s initiatives in education and in social services. After all, Harvard hosts the incubator for social impact bonds designed to yield big profits, with preschools a lucrative target. It pains me to see this invitation come from a person whose faculty post is named for Frances Keppel.
“Brown grew up in Ferriday, Louisiana, and attended the Trinity Episcopal Day School. Her family was involved in hunting, politics, and cooking, “It was all about Cajun and tight-knit families and big parties,” according to Brown.”
“She was expelled from the Madeira School for sneaking off campus to go to a party. Brown attended Louisiana State University for two years before graduating from Regis University. After graduation, she spent a year teaching English in Czechoslovakia. In her 2006 wedding announcement in the New York Times, she was described as having “spent her postcollege years as a Colorado ski bum.”
One year teaching English in Czechoslovakia qualifies her for a Harvard invite to moderate a discussion on education policy. Did they not read Brown’s resume? And her parents thought her “Colorado ski bum” years were wasted.
Rage,
The definition of an education expert at Harvard Graduate School of Education has changed. It is defined by money not academic degrees.
They have not just “bought into it.”
Members of the Harvard departments of Education and Economics have been among the primary “used-idea salesmen” for the junkers that “reform” has been selling (VAM and the rest).
The Reform car doesn’t run, but that hasn’t stopped these folks from pawning it off on an unsuspecting public.
“That car won’t run”
They pawn off edu-junkers
On unsuspecting schools
The Harvard thinker-thunkers
Have sold us broken mules
mrobsmssu, well, she was a Colorado ski bum, that should count for something. And all those mayors! How many schools have they “turned around”?
From the info provided above by RageAgainstTheTestocracy:
1), family life as “all about Cajun and tight-knit families and big parties.”
2), “She was expelled from the Madeira School for sneaking off campus to go to a party.”
3), She “spent her postcollege years as a Colorado ski bum.”
This from the woman that is leading a movement that is ferociously intent on taking out all the joy and humanity and creativity of public education and turning it into one long, impersonal and boring hazing ritual?
Hypocrisy, thy name is Campbell Brown.
😎
mrobsmsu…So true! Campbell Brown … really? How revealing of the reality! In all this I am wondering where is Howard Gardner? Why is he not speaking out against this? Any Harvard education professor against this nonsense should be speaking out LOUDLY!!! Whatever happened to academic freedom and vocal opposition? Guess that is paid off by the likes of Gates and other megamillionaires too?
“Can schools alone overcome the challenges of poverty?”
An invite we extend
Our conference to attend
The blatant to discuss
By All Means, do join us
A few months ago, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, had a post promoting its student intern placements. It featured a guy working at the Heritage Foundation. The 2014 intern list included DFER placements but, no placements with groups trying to preserve public schools. Harvard doesn’t believe public schools are essential to US productivity and national cohesion? They think the hedge funds of DFER are contributing to society? LOL, at Harvard.
And the mirth associated with my opinion of Harvard’s Roland Fryer, based on Freakonomics and Deutsch 29 posts, I’m just doubling up.
Poverty matters, but we don’t plan on doing anything about it. That should fix their title.
“Here is ALEC’s 2016 Spring Task Force Summit Agenda (on education)-
Privatizing Schools and Higher Ed Culture Wars- a change to subsidize wealthier parents already sending their kids to private schools…presentations from pro-privatization groups like the Center for Education Reform and the Koch-funded Goldwater Institute.” (Truthout)
Any Harvard folks attending?
I don’t believe subsidizing wealthier families so their children can attend private schools is a good use of tax dollars. This money should go to the common good, not elite good. If parents want a private education for children, the parents, not the community, should pay for it. The wealthy already pay less tax than they should because they have a lot more loopholes built into the tax code than the middle class. Taxpayers are already footing the bill for corporate welfare. Public money should not be used to support elite choices.
“Wealthy Handouts to the Wealthy”
The wealthy make the rules
On vouchers for the schools
You might expect
That they’ll collect
To not, they would be fools
Poverty in Newton Massachusetts, the town with the mega million dollar high school and sky high property taxes? Really? I may have skimmed too lightly but I didn’t see anything that had to do with educating any children. I’m very sorry to see Deval Patrick is on the path his friend Obama pushed him to follow.
Exactly like a Havid study to have poor controls and inputs – it’s Raj Chetty’s alma mater. Newton in no way belongs with the other communities; it’s one of the wealthiest towns in MA.
The reform PARADE of FAILURE seems endless. Harvard Graduate School of Education gets a float. Campbell Brown as Parade Queen.
Do some university researchers skew their results to please the people who fund their projects?
Is money green?
This is exactly the main point where universities can get screwed and could lead to their downfall.
. The university tenure system was implemented to protect academic freedom. Academic freedom means profs will do their research and teaching independently from any outside interest, so that they research and teach the truth. But cuts force profs to use grants from private corporations with strings attached. Even those profs who don’t need money for their research (like math profs), are nevertheless asked to get grants “to make money for the university”. In fact, departments get primarily evaluated based on how much money they bring in.
So then the question is: can you trust university research?
Here’s a book on the subject—it’s 10 years old, and I think the situation is incomparably more dramatic now.
In December, a Columbia Teachers College professor co-wrote a paper with the Fordham Institute. The paper was funded by the Waltons and John Arnold. I’m, personally, unable to distinguish the work product, from the papers of an industry trade group or, an oligarch-funded think tank. The President of Columbia Teachers College was the subject of an article titled, “Students Urge President to Cut Ties with Pearson” (“In These Times” by George Joseph). The Columbia Teachers College President founded CPRE, a consortium of colleges for “Policy Research in Education”. It is funded by Pearson and the venture philanthropies driving profit-making in education.
IMO, representation of the interests of the children of the 99% and, community taxpayers, has been omitted, in favor of the interests of people like the Waltons
One of the conference faculty, Roland Fryer, is profiled at the Deutsch 29 blog. I would be embarrassed to be speaking about public education if I was him, in light of his comments about a two-tier system and his kids.
Fascinating. I see that Diane reported on this. Here’s the George Joseph article
http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/15138/teachers_college_students_urge_president_to_cut_ties_with_pearson
http://otd.harvard.edu/faculty-inventors/commercialize-your-invention/
Universities across the US are engaging in commercialization as a result of the Bayh-Dole Act, 1980. Technologies and inventions include PK-12 education products, software, medical devices, therapeutics, etc. With the mind-set of putting profits first, there’s an erosion of the higher ed culture with the university becoming a cash cow generating a continuous flow of revenue.
University employees in all departments are encouraged to commercialize intellectual property and partner with corporations. As a result, royalties are generated for the university and the inventors. No disclosure is required to public educators or school boards about the insiders/university employees who are banking royalties every quarter and being rewarded in the media for developing bogus education products.
Readers of this blog are familiar with Wireless Generation. WG was given millions in tax funds funneled through the University of Texas System to develop PK-3 reading assessments on hand held devices or computers with certain university employees receiving credit and royalties for their “invention.” It’s interesting that the profits ride on the “research” generated by the university.
There are many connections to be made between the reformer Stacy Childress, now Deputy Director of Education, Gates Foundation, a former employee of Harvard, and a former board member of Wireless Generation and Larry Berger, CEO, Wireless Generation.
The business mind-set has a toxic effect on education and the influence of corporations in education has serious implications for all students and educators.
UnKochMyCampus.org
The difference between Lewis Powell Democrats and Republicans is that men like Bill Gates get good PR cover, from the DINO (Democrat in name only) Party.
The privatizing Secretary of Education , a Fellow of the Aspen Institute’s “New Schools Entrepreneurial Leaders in Public Education”
(the Aspen Institute Board includes David Koch and Clinton friend, Madelyn Albright) had only one Democratic vote against his confirmation.
Shocking. The epicenter of the meritocracy has come out, wholeheartedly, in favor of a meritocratic based education agenda. NEVER!!
(Just so we are clear, I use the term “meritocracy” as the unsupported belief held by those already well up the rungs of society that one’s “merit” explains one’s rise. The entire idea is obviously all about stoking the identities already born with real advantages…..those born on third base but insist that they hit a triple.)
In CT, there is a road called the “Merritt parkway”, which is an apt metaphor for a place like Harvard.
If you are on the parkway, you are meritorious. Otherwise not. And once you are on, that assures that your offspring will be meritorious as well
It’s all one big happy merit party.
..and NYTEACHER
“Harvard Homer”
Born on home
Is what they were
Bases roam
Did not occur
Running round
Is not required
Harvard bound
Is Homer wired
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” Pogo had it right and we have literally been bought and sold. We will have to plan a way to ransom ourselves, and that may mean a great deal of pain by seeking to bankrupt these frauds through litigation and protest. The chains binding us are economic and will have to be fought on the geo-political arena. First, Citizens United will have to be over ridden and people will have to go to jail. We need some former teachers to become lawyers and researchers and fight back. My retirement plan will back to school and on to the fight.
“Academic expert Campbell Brown will moderate the two panels.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! or in Spanish: ¡Je je je je je je je je je je je!
Getting subtly more caustic everyday day, Diane. And I’m lovin it!
😎
“Through our partnerships with six cities (Oakland, CA, Louisville, KY, Providence, RI, Somerville, MA, Salem, MA and Newton, MA), we will implement improved, integrated systems of child development and education that focus on personalization, braiding health and human services with schools, and access to high-quality out-of-school learning opportunities.”
The language alone belies the viewpoint of the participants. Have y’all seen this video on personalization?
I have an uncomfortable question: are there any statistics on the K-12 educational background of profs at college education departments? What percentage of them have actual K-12 teaching experience? In general, are there any requirements that specify that they had to spend a certain amount of time in K-12 classrooms?
Mate, you might start by looking at the resumes of the folks presenting at Harvard.
Done with Haslam’s resume.
Seriously, this doesn’t sound very encouraging: could there be a general lack of practical expertise of the teacher training programs? So then Lloyd’s negative experience may not be unique. ..
I found this, though
“As a former urban school counselor,…”
at
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/mandy-savitz-romer
So this indicates some field experience.
But HOW LONG was this person an “inner city counselor,” assuming they were one in the first place? Six months? A year? With no number attached, I can guarantee you that it wasn’t long enough to REALLY know what is going on. Just enough to become a Harvard “expert.”
I don’t want to say, you need to have K-12 teaching experience in order to do research on K-12 education. Similarly, I don’t think a prof has to have K-12 teaching on counseling experience to teach child psychology to education majors.
But if a prof participates in teacher training, she better have a decade or so teaching experience. How else can she be authoritative?
Is it also possible that students in educational leadership, may not have to have teaching background? So may one get a, say, masters in educational leadership, become a superintendent without ever teaching for a minute?
On the other hand, at
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty-directory/faculty-experts
clicking on the “High School” link, I could see two people with actual (but unspecified) K-12 teaching background .
I wonder what the organizers at Harvard were thinking when they asked BIll Haslam to speak at this ‘illustrious’ summit. His accomplishments in scholarship & policy initiatives are, at best, underwhelming.
Gov.Haslam is the son of TN’s billionaire Jim (“Big Jim”) Haslam family who own Pilot Oil & Flying J Truckstops. His family control of the Republican Party bought him 3 elections – one as Mayor of Knoxville & 2 terms as Gov of TN. The family’s venture philanthropy buys the silence of critics in the local press & in higher education.
The Haslam family business is under FBI investigation for multiple counts of fraud
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/local/fbi-pilot-engaged-in-fraud-haslam-knew-of-scheme-ep-358423015-355934701.html
His legacy as governor is outsourcing public education, privatizing state workers & maintenance operations, privatizing our beautiful state parks, privatizing Dept of Children’s Services, cutting capital gains taxes, cutting the inheritance tax, passing a constitutional amendment prohibiting a state income tax, assuring TN remains the state with the highest number of workers earning minimum wage or below, and no healthcare for the poor.
He gave Tennesseans Kevin Huffman, Candice McQueen, and in a Dept of Ed staffed with TFA. Arne Duncan visited TN regularly to brag on our “progress” in edu-reform.
Thanks to Haslam, Tennesseans can carry guns on campus & in schools, our state book is the bible, we have a state gun, and a new state logo, fracking on the Plateau, cabinet advisors from Americans for Prosperity, the Milton Friedman Foundation, and The Charter School Associations.
To be fair, Haslam vetoed the Bible bill. The most immediately scary bills are the guns-on-campus and the religious-freedom bills. Our univ police is not happy about he guns-on-campus bill. I don’t know if universities can opt-out, do you?
Just in: TN’s Gov Haslam has given Harvard MORE to be proud of for granting him a voice and visionary for our future.
Yesterday, Haslam signed into law a TNGOP bill allowing mental health professionals to refuse treatment for people they don’t like because they are gay or whatever.
He approved the GOP bill to defund UTK’s Office of Equity & Diversity following a smear campaign of it’s African American Dean by the TN GOP, TN Congressman and sketchy, secretly funded online student “news websites” called Campus Reform and The College Fix:
http://www.campusreform.org/about/
The bar for excellence sinks lower & lower…
Is Harvard doubling down on destroying its reputation with ever so thinly credentialed panel leaders?
I see that “not my kids” Fryer will be in attendance. (Interview transcript at Deutsch 29 blog)
Linda,
Harvard is not destroying its reputation because of its embrace of Ed reform.
First, the jury is still very much out on whether Ed Reform has “won.” In fact taken at large, it’s winning. Our side has a strong penchant for magnifying tactical victories and fast seeing them as strategic ones. We also have a penchant for conjuring victories where none exist. We routinely underestimate the long game the reform side is willing to play and how adaptable they can be.
Second, Harvard has a long history of associating itself with reform movements going back to Abolition and beyond. Because the Ed reform movement has been so successful in adopting the language and narrative of the civil rights movement and other broad social reform movements, Harvard is quite deeply continuing its long tradition. Moreover, Harvard ain’t CCNY….it does not have as strong a history of aligning itself with labor and workers movements. Inevitably, the reform movement and combating it is a LABOR issue not an education issue.
Finally, we are often plagued with myopia. It turns out that education in general is not re singularly important issue to the country that it is to us. Education departments are seen as the least rigorous and serious departments on every campus as well, even Harvard. Taking a position in favor of Ed reform has no chance of dinging Harvard’s reputation even a little.
Your perspective is wrong, NYSTeacher-
(1) Ed rephorm is not a labor issue. Labor may oppose components of what Silicon Valley and hedge funds are plying politicians to do. However, the overarching issue is what Gates is doing, which is a betrayal of humanity, embodied in the language of Gates-funded organizations, schools as “human capital pipelines”. Both the American people and citizens, in places where Bridge International Academies are sold, are awakening to the fact that their most important common good, schools, which are essential to future prosperity in communities and in the world, have been taken over by people intent on taking a cut from money for our kids and neighborhoods. Schools for the 99% are a $500 billion dollar business sector (Rupert Murdoch, funder of DFER -linked ERN), to bleed dry. The result is further concentration on wealth, which strangles economies.
If teachers have joined a battle against those forces, it is admirable.
(2) Harvard’s reputation is spiraling downward, because it abandoned its legacy of service to the people, an impression created by JFK. The false narratives of ed rephorm, to benefit civil rights, are being exposed as the same sinister type of plotting behind ALEC’s harsh sentencing laws, which trapped poor Black men, in high numbers.
(3) The pitchforks are coming for the richest 0.1% (and, their minions). The people wielding them, won’t be labor because they, by definition, have jobs, which gives them something to lose. Wall Street’s cutting of costs, all they know how to do, will be the cause of the upcoming uprising, Their ed rephorms and Pete Peterson’s $500 million attack on Social Security will hasten upheaval. The “elite” institutions, economists, politicians and the financial sector better pray their drones work.
Linda,
1) Its a labor issue. The entire point of ed reform is to take education away from the state and state workers and place it in the Taylorized models of the corporate world. Language about ed reform being a “betrayal of humanity,” while I agree at the gut level, is non-specific and emotional. What is actually going on is a privatization of the commons. This is a deeply embedded aspect of American capitalism. The most successful fights against this, in the service of “humanity” have always been labor movements. Privatizing of education is ALL about Taylorizing classrooms and removing protected, organized teachers from the picture. That is ALWAYS a labor issue.
2) Harvard’s reputation is spiraling downwards? Really? Last I looked it remained the premier academic/intellectual institution in the United States and even the globe. Its endowment is insane. While I am a huge critic of the meritocracy and all that, I mean, come on….do we really thing its embrace of ed reform matters even a little? While our asses are in the trenches and it certainly matters to us, we can’t assume that this is a premier issue. And as I said, ed departments, even at Harvard, are still ed departments. We aren’t talking about the Harvard Kennedy School of Foreign Policy here. As I stated previously, Harvard has a long tradition of attaching itself to elite-supported reform movements throughout history….look at the Abolition movement for example. Worst case scenario for Harvard: they attached themselves to a failed “reform” movement with ed reform. (though there isn’t alot of evidence that ed reform is failing unfortunately). I’m sure that will not impact enrollment, the prestige of a Harvard degree, the power of their graduate programs, or the minds they attract. Sorry.
3) The only truly meaningful pitchforks in American history, the ones that made the biggest impact, have been wielded by labor movements. Weekends, 8 hour days, workplace safety, good pay, etc etc etc. Where it counts, labor unions are the ones and always have been. Even other movements, historically, have looked to labor for the real stuff. The state of labor unions in the US today is abysmal. So, I fear that any pitchforks will be put down quite easily, if they are coming at all.
“Its a labor issue.”
As far as Harvard as a university goes, ed reform is not a political but a research issue: is the reform supported by research or not?
For Harvard or any other university, it’s not just embarrassing but unethical to bring politics into research. People need to be able to rely on profs for clear, truthful voices and opinions.
HGSE hasn’t attached itself to the ed “reform” movement. It has been leading it. The Boston Public Schools has been HGSE’s guinea pig for a very long time, more than 25 years. And it gives safe harbor to all those really thinky people, like Roland Two-Tier Fryer, now a member of the MA state board of education, who is on record as saying a two-tier system is a good thing. His own children in Lexington, a wealthy Boston suburb, need to study Shakespeare, but those urban kids need test prep. HGSE houses the EdRedesignLab which Laura Chapman mentions above and Fryer runs it.
“My ass ain’t in the trenches.”
The Russian and French revolutions, labor movements? The 6 heirs of the Walton fortune have as much wealth as 40% of Americans combined.
In Mao’s revolution, intellectual elites were among the first attacked, because they were viewed as propping up oppressors. Harvard’s Rogoff and Rhinehart, Chetty, Fryer, fit the bill? Stanford’s Institute for the Evisceration of People’s Retirement (SIEPR), fit the bill? MIT’s NBER-(check out Sourcewatch)? Univ. of Calif.’s economics dept., 2 signers of a letter against Sanders, one, not mentioning 4 corporate board positions? Neoliberals at the University of Chicago?
Free market economists at the Univ. of Va.? Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government touting student interns at
Koch’s Heritage Foundation and, at DFER? A group’s perceived need for UnKochMyCampus.org?
Nationwide, suicide rates, among certain demographic groups, are rising. In Ohio, deaths by drug overdose, exceed traffic fatalities. And, there are an increasing number of deaths by gun. The statistics are harbingers of widening desperation.
The United States today is not the US when FDR served. FDR was a different leader and, both parties weren’t owned by oligarchs. Not one banker has been brought up on charges by the Justice Dept. The Roberts’ Court has a pattern of rulings against the 99%. The Sec’ty of Ed., only had one Democratic vote against his confirmation. Yet, Ed. was complicit in the student loan abuses that are robbing the young of hope. The SEC, is a revolving door of insiders. The recently appointed head of the SEC has had to recuse herself from 50 decisions b/c of conflicts with her former employment or her husband’s.
Get out of the trenches and read Credo’s petitions, to all the abusing entities, Congress, the President, corporations, governmental departments… Read the reports of the Campaign for America’s Future, Truthout, etc. Read the research from Martin Gilens about the opinions of 90%, having no impact on Congress.
Then, forecast the worsening situation when Americans have to pay 30% of their incomes for K-12 education b/c the World Bank’s is working with privatizers of education (Bridge international Academies).
The combined rhetoric of and, votes for, Sanders and Trump, are a foreshadowing. With the internet, mobs can occur in a nanosecond.
Just an opinion.
“System over haul”
Uh-oh.
I see more non-reasearch based, lightning quick change a comin’….
Speaking of Tennessee… Just today the state
canceled all TNReady testing (our standardized test) for grades 3-8.
And what a ride it’s been!
After much shuffling of test dates, canceling of middle school choir field trips and elementary school read-in days, the vendor (measurement inc.) STILL could not deliver. The online platform failed in Febuary, Rescheduling ensued.
Then- this week was a flurry of emails. Sometimes 2 or 3 in one day.
Paper tests are coming!
No- they’re delayed.
Ok- NOW they’re coming.
No- another delay.
We can start ELA! We have the tests- just waiting on the answer sheets!
They’re here!
Math test tomorrow!
No- math questions delayed.
Finally- today- the state is tetminatimg the 3 year, $300 million dollar contract.
But not before shelling out
1.8 million dollars.
Meanwhile my district has no textbooks.
I can’t wait for more “system over -haul”….
For some unknown reason, they haven’t canceled the high school test.
Just for the heck of it, I clicked on the entire faculty tab for HGSE. I didn’t count, but there are a lot of people who work within the department. If it is anything like the departments at my (much smaller) school, all of these people are not one big happy family. When I went to school, the psychology department was decidedly enamored by behaviorism. However, there were many faculty members who were not behaviorists. I suspect that the entire faculty at HGSE might follow a similar pattern. I have found interesting stuff at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, and I am sure there are other activities of interest as well not driven by Campbell Brown and her ilk.
As to Gov. Haslam, Peter Greene has this interesting news:
“So Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee today signed a law that allows mental health counselors to refuse patients based on the therapist’s religion or personal beliefs.
That means that a Christian counselor could refuse to see a Muslim, or an atheist, or a pastafarian. That means a Southern Baptist could refuse to see a Catholic. That means an anti-abortion person could refuse to treat a woman who’s had an abortion. A staunch conservative could refuse to treat someone struggling with infidelity in their marriage. A racist can refuse to see anyone who’s not white. That means a counselor could turn away a woman who’s wearing too short a skirt, or holds down a job outside the home, or who uses birth control. That means a republican therapist could refuse to treat a democrat, or vice versa– and both could refuse to treat a socialist. And of course, anybody can refuse to see an LGBT patient.”
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/04/tn-discrimination-just-getting-more.html
As well as more on the BS testing that went belly up:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/04/tn-test-failure-complete.html
We just don’t want to be left behind NC and Mississippi when it comes to upholding wholesome confederate values.
As to the HGSE, let me say that it has been a catalyst in undermining the work real teachers do everyday, against large odds and with few resources, in the Boston Public Schools, for at least the past 25 years. Whenever a study is needed to prove BPS is useless and hopeless, the HGSE can produce one. None of them, as far as I can see, are actual practitioners of K-12 education, but they do know all about it.
Why, we had a TFA science teacher at my school for two years, but then he disappeared. He wasn’t missed much either by faculty or students as he spent a lot of time telling us how sucky our school was. But guess what? He went to the HGSE and now, he’s Assistant Superintendent in charge of Professional Learning! Yep! Two years in the classroom, HGSE, and BAM! he’s qualified to direct the entire staff of all 120 schools, some of them PhD’s with 30 years of experience on how to be better at their profession! (We do have a Broadie for Supernintendo.)
Paul Reville, former Sec of Education under neoliberal Deval Patrick (rumored to be short-listed for Clinton’s VP) left that gig to work for rheeformy Bellwether Partners, in addition to founding the MA Business Alliance for Education, and the Rennie Center, which are a thinky tanks intent on repurposing schools for the use of businesses.
I have nothing but contempt for HGSE. It seems too, to have cross-pollinated with the Business School.
Don’t forget the econ department: Chetty cross-pollinating with Friedman.
That sure produced some goooood cherries. Mm..mmm.
I’m a public school teacher. I left the classroom to go to HGSE, graduated and am now back in my classroom. Many of the professors there are genuinely marvelous and I do feel like I learned valuable things that I’m now using. But…..yeah. It’s not a program that is aimed at teachers or teaching and it can be an extremely frustrating place to be. I understood that their program is more about research than practice when I applied, and I was fine with that – I love research. But, I went there thinking that I was going to have a stronger voice against the problems the systemic problems that I see – mainly the way testing has drowned out the rest of the curriculum and the way that teachers have lost autonomy. I came away with the heavy realization that policymakers and future policymakers don’t perceive those things to be problems at all – sometimes they’re viewed as solutions. Our convocation speaker had never taught. Or, if he has ever been a teacher, it isn’t in his resume or in his introduction. That was so upsetting to me – does the law school get non-lawyers to speak?
teach, why not inform your Harvard friends about the lack of background of the keynote speaker and his most recent accomplishment in the scientific field of religious-freegotry
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/04/tn-discrimination-just-getting-more.html
I have an idea: publish Christine’s link http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/04/tn-discrimination-just-getting-more.html in the Harvard college newspaper. I bet a nice student protest would await Haslam.
That would serve both Harvard and TN well: Harvard would realize what kind of embarrassment they are hosting on campus, and Tennesseans would get a glimpse at how their new law is viewed in the real world.
Just in: “Counseling group considers relocating Nashville conference over therapist bill”
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/28/counseling-group-considers-relocating-nashville-conference-over-therapist-bill/83645392/
From the Harvard EdRedesign website: “Though still in its early stages, the EdRedesign Lab will ‘create a new LEARNING ENGINE that considers a broader conception of schooling, shaped by a NATIONAL design process, that addresses and integrates three core elements:
1. expanded, differentiated, and personalized schooling;
2. comprehensive health and well-being supports; and
3. high-quality and readily available out-of-school learning opportunities.”
“This initiative will address system redesign and implementation, with a focus on these questions:
“What can be done through systems of education to help disadvantaged students overcome the ravages of poverty so that they can become genuinely ready for success?”
“Who should do it?”
“What systems of governance are best suited to THE new system?”
“How do we build systems (plural) of education that genuinely prepare ALL children to be successful?”
The program will “bring together policy makers, educators and community leaders to re-envision public education and its governance. Each conference will combine a provocative public forum with an invitational design workshop for participating cities.
Topics include:
• Poverty Matters: Making the Case for a System Overhaul;
• Redesigning Teaching and Learning;
• Redesigning for Children’s Well-Being; •
• Redesigning for Students’ Access to Enrichment; and
• Tackling Issues of Implementation and Governance.”
All of the press releases for this Harvard Redesign Education program (initial funding at one million dollars) indicate that it will just keep in place the conditions of poverty that influence student achievement and “success” —while tinkering with social services, “enrichment” programs, partnerships organized around a concept of education as “customer service.”
I think the issue of governance is on the table for one purpose: to position a corporate governance structure as ideal for education with “partners” enlisted as subcontractors and entrepreneurs to serve students.
I also think that the Harvard incubator for social impact bonds will play a role in this feel-good venture. By design, the plan seems to perpetuate the myth that “a system of education” can offset the many causes of poverty that diminish student achievement.
An example of design thinking promoted by Harvard is here, beginning from the premise that customer satisfaction is job one. The article is by Jon Kolko, VP of design at Blackboard, education software company and the author of “Well-Designed: How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love. https://hbr.org/2015/09/design-thinking-comes-of-age
I do not know where the phrase “learning engine” came from but it happens to be the brand name for a commercial product for education marketed here https://www.edsurge.com/product-reviews/the-learning-engine
Here is a probable source for the idea that “design thinking” will solve educational problems, straight from McKinsey & Co. with language about a “braided approach” to “a customer journey,” including a discussion of governance.
“Developing any customer journey requires input from many functions. We believe in a “braided” approach that combines design, business strategy, and technology as the core working group (Exhibit 1). These functions should work together to make decisions, ensure that the designed journey aligns with the business strategy and is delivering value, and keep customer experience a top-of-mind issue.” http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/building-a-design-driven-culture
My impression is that all of the assumptions governing this initiative are deeply flawed—namely, that some sort of redesign of education and community services, centered primarily on school achievement, will offset the “ravages of poverty.” There is no need to look at real estate and insurance red-lining, jobs and wages and transportation, lead-pipe and lead paint remediation, access to affordable and healty food, gang violence, addictions, adequacy of school facilities and maintenance of these, turnover of teaching and administrative staff (for starters). I am reminded of failed urban designs based on the premise that freeways would improve the quality of life in cities and suburbs.
“shaped by a NATIONAL design process”
Apparently, in the Harvard ed dept they conceive experiments involving the whole nation.
By the way, redesign (as in “course redesign” ) is a new but widespread buzz-expression on college campuses. Like
As part of the yearly evaluation process, please submit the data on how many course redesigns, involving technology and online tools, your department did in the past year, and also submit course redesign plans for the next three years.
“I am reminded of failed urban designs based on the premise that freeways would improve the quality of life in cities and suburbs.”
Laura, you must have heard NPR’s piece on this subject today: how the interstate system messed up communities by taking them out of circulation, and how New York’s forced freeway system took out “minority neighborhoods”. Here’s the interesting piece
http://www.npr.org/2016/04/28/475985489/secretary-foxx-pushes-to-make-transportation-projects-more-inclusive
Hear what Moses has to say about NYC starting at 55 seconds.
I attended a webinar with Paul Reville some months ago. It was very interesting to watch the comments scrolling as he talked. He picked up on any that agreed with him and totally ignored the majority of us who kept asking him about learner-centered education. If anyone thinks Harvard has a ‘better idea,’ disabuse yourself of that myth. It’s clear that the reigning philosophy is, “If what you’re doing doesn’t work, do more of it–including 12 months of one-size-fits-all standards and assessments so children don’t have all that time to ‘forget'” Yeah, that sound about right. Remove any possible time for children to be children…get them into the clone machine as early as possible and don’t let them out until they are thoroughly indoctrinated.
I had a similar experience with one of the gurus who is on the gravy train selling ideas mired in reformista doctrine. I questioned something he said hoping he would clarify it in a way in which I could maintain my past respect for him. Nope. It wasn’t long before I found myself “unsubcribed” from his blog. I don’t miss it.