Archives for the month of: June, 2016
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Ohio Outrage: GOP Leader Celebrates Wor$t School in State

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2016 //
30

The New York Times wrote a front-page expose of ECOT only weeks ago. The online charter school has an on-time graduation rate of 20%. Students get credit for “participation” if they log in for only one minute. It is very profitable for its owner, William Lager. Despite its dismal results, the Republican speaker of the House was its graduation spoke at its graduation ceremonies. William Lager is the state’s biggest donor to Republican politicians. They have been good to him in return. He has been awarded nearly $900 million in public funds for his low-performing e-school since 2002. Pending in the legislature is a bill to regulate ECOT and similar institutions just a little bit. The chances of its passage are slim to none. Lager is a very generous man.

From 2000-2013, Lager has donated $1.4 million to Republican politicians in Ohio. Of course, he has given more since then.

This is what ECOT–the state’s lowest performing school–has received from the legislature (data supplied by Bill Phillis, former deputy state commissioner of education and now retired and relentless watchdog of education spending):

2004
$28,768,914.97

2005
$38,139,918.73

2006
$39,762,863.11

2007
$44,540,366.08

2008
$50,475,630.27

2009
$57,233,338.72

2010
$59,990,773.55

2011
$67,510,732.17

2012
$78,850,259.14

2013
$88,358,002.78

2014
$99,180,328.91

2015
$104,380,709.86

2016
$107,517,808.16

total
$864,709,646.45

How cool is that? He gives $1.4 million to politicians, and he gets $864 million to run a school with a graduation rate of 20%, with no accountability or transparency. Now that is what you call a terrific “return on investment”!

Here is the latest from Bill Phillis of the Ohio Equity and Adequacy Coalition:


A post on the Facebook page of the chairman of the House Education Committee, Andrew Brenner

“I attended the ECOT graduation today. Cliff Rosenberger was the keynote speaker. It was impressive.”

Bill Lager, the ECOT man, certainly knows how to gain the favor of state officials. The June 5 ECOT graduation speaker was Cliff Rosenberger, the Speaker of the House. Senator Coley introduced the speaker. Senator Coley is on the Senate Finance Committee where SB 298 was blocked from passage this spring. This bill requires online charters to verify they are serving the students for which they receive funding.

The ECOT graduation ceremony VIP lineup probably sealed the doom of SB 298 [the bill to require charter school transparency].

Former governors, even Jeb Bush, state superintendents and other state officials have graced the stage of previous ECOT graduation ceremonies.

The Plunderbund article of June 6 provides some startling insights into the ECOT industry. This article should create a sense of urgency in the public education community.

Is there no no in the Ohio legislature who can stop this waste of taxpayer dollars?

Does anyone care?

William Phillis

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Hoax, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

Bill Gates to Poor People of the World: Raise Chickens

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
56

Bill Gates knows everything. He even knows how poor people can raise themselves out of poverty. With all his billions, he has become an expert on everything there is to know.

He advises poor people everywhere to keep chickens if they want a better life.

That’s better than VAMming their teachers.

Poor Bill Gates. He doesn’t have anyone near him or on his payroll to tell him when to be quiet.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Poverty

Michigan: Theresa Abed for State Representative

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
2

If you live in the 71th district in Michigan, I urge you to help elect Theresa Abed to the legislature  as a member of the House.

 

The 17th is Eaton County, west of Lansing.

 

Theresa is a career school social worker (for 30 years) when she decided to run for office to support the schools. She was twice elected to the post of County Commissioner. She served as state representative from 2012-2014, the first Democrat to win that seat in 50 years.

 

When end she ran for re-election in 2014, she lost by only 148 votes to a candidate funded by the Koch brothers.

 

She is running for state representative for her district in 2016, and she needs our help. She is fighting for public education. She understands children and schools and will be a great advocate for Real Reform in the legislature. She is a member of the Network for Public Education; she attended our annual conference in 2015 in Chicago.

 

If you live in her district, please volunteer to help. If you don’t, please consider a gift to her campaign. She will be a great advocate for children and schools in the Michigan legislature.

 

You can send a contribution to Theresa at:

 

Friends for Theresa Abed
605 Schoolcraft St.
Grand Ledge, MI 48837

Categories Education Reform, Michigan, Politics, Supporting public schools

High School Graduation Rate Rises Again

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
33

The US Department of Education reported that the high school graduation rate rose to another historic high.

The rate represents those who graduated in four years. It does not include those who graduated in August or took five years to graduate. The overall graduation rate of the population 18-24 is higher than the four-year rate. Sometimes I think it was set at precisely four years to make the schools look bad. Personally, I think both rates should be reported at the same time: the four-year rate and the rate for the group 18-24, which shows a truer picture.

It should also be noted that the pressure to raise graduation rates as a marker of success may have inflated the graduation rate through such dubious means as “credit recovery,” in which students who failed a course may get full credit by taking a short-cut program, often online, often fraudulent in terms of learning.

It should also be noted that the District of Columbia has the lowest graduation rate of any state (DC is reported in federal data as both a state and a city). DC is widely hailed as one of the stars of the corporate reform movement. It has been under mayoral control since 2007, when Michelle Rhee took charge as chancellor. Bill Gates once said it would take a decade to know if “this stuff” works. The clock is ticking. Maybe he meant to say two decades or three.

Categories District of Columbia, Graduation rates, U.S. education

Insider Leak: Test Secrecy in Florida and the Public Interest

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
10

A high-level official in the Florida Department of Education sent the following message; she was concerned about the secrecy surrounding the tests and their lack of alignment to what teachers are teaching. Needless to say, she requested anonymity.

Here are a few of the facts about the test that parents may not know:

The Florida Department of Education is days away from releasing students test results in grades 3-10 and weeks away from grading schools based upon a battery of tests that lack transparency and alignment to the resources available to teachers in Florida schools.

1. The Florida Department of Education refuses to provide the reading level for the reading test. The Florida Legislature requires the 300 lowest performing schools on the ELA reading test to provide an additional hour of reading instruction each day. Secrecy means schools and students will continue to fail. Florida has a reading retention policy for 3rd graders and graduation requirement for 10th graders but it refuses to provide the actual level of the test to anyone.

2. 50 % of the content on the state science test in grades 5 and 8 changes each year. Teachers never know what will be 100% assessed on the test. Teachers are told “teach everything!” To look at a sample of benchmarks that are annually assessed and those that may be assessed go to http://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5682/urlt/0077913-fl09g5sci.pdf page B-1

3. The Florida Department of Education adopted textbooks before they adopted and developed the state test. The Florida Department of Education acknowledges that the state textbooks are not aligned to the Florida Test Specification.Florida has test item specification limits that are above the stated level of the written standards.

4, Do the parents in Florida know that ” Approximately 6-10 items within the Reading, Language, and Listening components listed above are experimental (field test) items and are included in the ranges above but are not included in students’ scores. The Grade 10 FSA ELA Retake follows the test design in this blueprint and is administered each spring and fall.” For this information go to http://www.fsassessments.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ELA-Test-Design-Summary-Updated-11-20-15.pdf. Read the note on the bottom of page 15. How can schools be held accountable when “experimental items” may have caused students to have a lower score because they were part of the test which may have reduced motivation or completion rates.

The email below reveals that the Florida Department of Education will not publish the reading level of a test used to retain 3rd grade students, a must pass test for 10th grade students and an accountable measures for all schools in Florida. Florida requires that the lowest scoring 300 schools in reading at the elementary level add one hour of reading instruction to the of the day yet, the level of the test remains a secret. Based upon this email we must also question if Florida’s textbook adoption process provides teachers, students and parents with resources that are aligned to the complexity of the state test. As you can see textbooks in Florida were adopted before the test was developed. The Florida Department of Education should be held accountable for a lack of transparency developing tests with no alignment to state adopted textbooks, for not sharing basic test development information and student results to inform instruction before they are allowed to grade schools.

From: ULLERY.MELISSA
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 1:31:57 PM
To: mikediazparent@outlook.com
Subject: Email to Senator Gaetz

Dear Mr. Diaz,

Thanks very much for writing Senator Gaetz. He received your email and asked me to respond.

After receiving your email, I reached out to the Florida Department of Education for assistance.
According to DOE staff, Florida’s instructional materials adoption process ensures that textbooks are aligned to the standards and course descriptions taught in Florida’s classrooms. Textbooks are not reviewed against test item specifications. The instructional materials adoption year for grades K-5 was 2012-13 and grades 6-12 was 2013-14, so the materials chosen by the district from the state-reviewed list would be aligned to the standards on which test items are based.

In response to your inquiries regarding the readability, please click here http://www.fsassessments.org/about-the-fsas/ to find the following information that DOE includes in the Florida Standards Assessments (FSA) English Language Arts (ELA) Test Item Specifications on this topic. The information provided below refers to the reading passages as “stimuli.” Stimuli refers to the texts and any accompanying graphics that make up the content to which students respond.

Stimulus Attributes

The complexity of the texts used as stimuli should be accessible for the applicable grade. Text complexity analysis incorporates a variety of factors. Quantitative measures are one element of text complexity evaluation, but they are not the sole determinant of grade-level appropriateness. Other factors, such as purpose, structure, and language complexity, are also considered. In choosing the text(s), qualitative and quantitative dimensions of text complexity must be balanced by the task considerations required of the reader. Graphics such as infographics, photographs, tables, and diagrams may be included with the stimuli. The graphics used, however, must be purposeful and should supplement the student’s understanding of the topic.

During the text review process, Florida educators use professional judgment and experience to determine whether the reading level of each selection is suitable for the grade level. Texts used as stimuli should be interesting and appealing to students at the grades for which the selections are intended. They should be conceptually appropriate and relevant and should reflect literary or real-world settings and events that are interesting to students and not limited to classroom or school-related situations.

Additionally, it should be noted that qualitative and quantitative analyses are always used in conjunction with the professional judgment of panels of Florida educators during passage review meetings. Passage selections for a given grade represent a range of reading levels, and educators along with the department’s content specialists evaluate each passage to determine its acceptability for use on the Florida Standards Assessments in English Language Arts. Passages that are deemed unsuitable are rejected for future use. Those that are accepted will be field tested with approximately 6-10 test items that are not included in students’ test scores. Once the statistical data are analyzed, the passages and associated items may then be used and scored on future FSA ELA tests.
I hope this information is helpful.

Again, thanks for writing the Senator.

Wishing you a great weekend,

Melissa Ullery
Legislative Assistant
Senator Don Gaetz
District 1

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Florida

Peter Greene on the SAT Whistle Blower

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
3

Peter Greene contacted the SAT whistle blower, Manuel Alfaro, and learned that he was a college classmate of Jason Zimba, who wrote the Common Core math standards.

Peter writes:

The short form of Alfaro’s story– the College Board has knowingly lied about using best practices in developing the “revamped” SAT, and in the process of selling the SAT as a state-wide and/or graduation exam, will be lying some more. And it would appear that even this stripped down, cut corners approach isn’t letting the College Board get tests written fast enough, for as Schneider found poking around Reddit, the same form of the SAT was given in March and in June.

Alfaro is still out there and still writing. He says that the story has “more plot twists than the Da Vinci Code.” It seems certain that those plot twists are not good news for the College Board. Go read some more about the full extent of Coleman’s fraud. Stay tuned, and pass the word.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Testing

Mercedes Schneider: SAT Whistle-Blower Calls Out Test Fraud

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
13

This is an astonishing post by Mercedes Schneider. She details the charges of a whistle blower at the College Board, who was hired by David Coleman but couldn’t tolerate the manipulation of test items and use of U reviewed items that were fixed after the actual testing. Manuel Alfaro has left the employ of the College Board, but he couldn’t remain silent about the abuses he witnessed.

Alfaro writes:

David Coleman and the College Board have made transparency a key selling point of the redesigned SAT. Their commitment to transparency is proclaimed proudly in public documents and in public speeches and presentations. However, public documents, such as the Test Specifications for the Redesigned SAT (https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/test-specifications-redesigned-sat-1.pdf), contain crucial statements and claims that are fabrications. Similar false claims are also included in proposals the College Board wrote in bids for state assessments—I got the proposals from states that make them public.

To corroborate my statements and allegations, I needed the College Board to administer the tests. If I had gone public before the tests were administered, the College Board could have spun this whole matter as “research” or some other nonsense. Now that the PSAT and SAT have been administered; now that the College Board has committed an insurmountable violation of trust; we the people can decide the future of the SAT.

He goes into great detail about the manipulation of data, the lack of transparency, and violations of trust at the College Board.

This is the open letter that he circulated to the staff at the College Board:

Dear Colleagues:

Over the last year, I’ve explored many different options that would allow me to provide students and their families the critical information they need to make informed decisions about the SAT. At the same time, I was always seeking the option that would have minimal impact on your lives.

I gave David Coleman several opportunities to be a decent human being. Using HR and others, he built a protective barrier around himself that I was unable to penetrate. Being unable to reach him, I was left with my current option as the best choice.

For me, knowing what I know, performing most tasks at the College Board required that I take a few steps onto a slippery slope. Where my superiors stood on that slope was influenced by the culture at the College Board, but ultimately it was their personal choice. They chose to conceal, fabricate, and deceive instead of offering students, parents, and clients honest descriptions of the development processes for item specifications, items, and tests.

I feel bad for all of us and wish that there was a better solution. Like you, I owed allegiance to the College Board, but my first allegiance was, is, and always will be to the students and families that we serve. Please understand that. Millions of students around the world depend on us to protect their best interests. When we forget that, and put the financial interests of the organization first, it is easy to justify taking a shortcut here and a shortcut there in an attempt to meet unrealistic organizational goals.

You are good people. You just need better bosses.

Best wishes,

M

Categories Accountability, Coleman, David, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Standardized Testing

Steven Singer: Selling Segregation to Blacks and Latinos

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
33

Steven Singer writes about the slickest con job of our time. He calls it the “Charter School Swindle.” It is a triumph of marketing and propaganda. Would you believe that charlatans sold the idea of segregation to Black and Latino parents and got away with it? Would you believe they sold these families on the claim that entry into a charter school was a ticket to success, with no evidence?

 

Singer writes:

 

 

Segregation now!

 

Higher suspension rates for black students!

 

Lower quality schools for Latinos!

 

These may sound like the campaign cries of George Wallace or Ross Barnett. But this isn’t the 1960s and it isn’t Alabama or Mississippi.

 

These are the cries of modern day charter school advocates – or they could be.

 

School choice boosters rarely if ever couch their support in these terms, but when touting charter schools over traditional public schools, this is exactly what they’re advocating.

 

According to the Civil Right Project at UCLA, “The charter school movement has been a major political success, but it has been a civil rights failure.”

 

It’s choice over equity.

 

Advocates have become so blinded by the idea of choice that they can’t see the poor quality of what’s being offered.

 

Because charter schools DO increase segregation. They DO suspend children of color at higher rates than traditional public schools. And they DO achieve academic outcomes for their students that are generally either comparable to traditional public schools or – in many cases – much worse.

 

In Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is Unconstitutional to have “separate but equal” schools because when they’re separate, they’re rarely equal. Having two parallel systems of education makes it too easy to provide more resources to some kids and less to others.

 

Who would have ever thought that some minority parents would actually choose this outcome, themselves, for their own children!?

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Hoax

Mark Dynarski Explains Why Two Voucher Studies Reached Opposite Conclusions

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
8

I recently posted a link to a Brookings Brief by Mark Dynarski, which warned that vouchers had not been successful in two states, Louisiana and Indiana. About the same time, the University of Arkansas released a research review that lauded vouchers. Although I did not know Dynarski, I contacted him and asked if he would explain the discrepancy for the readers of the blog. He graciously agreed.

He wrote:

In a recent article for Brookings, I highlighted recent research on vouchers to attend private schools that had found negative effects on student achievement. The same day, May 26, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial pointing to positive effects of school vouchers on student achievement, citing a review of studies published by researchers at the University of Arkansas. You asked if I could help readers understand the discrepancy.

In its reading of the University of Arkansas review, the Wall Street Journal included the review’s findings for voucher programs that operated in the US and programs that operated in Colombia and India. The largest positive effects of vouchers were from the program in Colombia. Education systems are quite different in other countries, however, and findings from Colombia and India have little relevance to debates about vouchers in the US today. If we ask about voucher programs that have operated in the US, the review reports that average effects of those programs is about zero.

The Louisiana and Indiana programs I focused on operated statewide. The negative effects reported for these programs could be a result of private schools being compared to higher-quality public schools in suburban and rural areas. Earlier voucher programs that reported positive results often operated in single cities—Milwaukee, New York City, Dayton, DC—which means studies of them essentially are comparing private schools only to urban public schools.

The Louisiana and Indiana programs also are recent, and my piece notes another possible explanation for their negative effects. Public schools have been under pressure for the last fifteen years to improve student achievement, which may have caused them to up their game. Recent research I cited concluded that public schools have substantially caught up with private schools. The National Assessment of Education Progress reports that private schools still have higher test scores than public schools, but those score differences could arise because of differences between private school students and public school students. The research approaches used in the Louisiana and Indiana studies allow for ‘apples to apples’ comparisons. Essentially the same students are compared in public and private schools and the test-score results favor public schools.

Vouchers will continue to be an important topic for discussion and debate, and we need to be open to new evidence and let our understanding of the world and of education be affected by it. I emphasized in my piece that our historical understanding that private schools perform better than public schools may be flawed. The University of Arkansas review is valuable for synthesizing a large amount of research on vouchers since the nineties into quantitative findings. The recent studies in Louisiana and Indiana are valuable for asking what the effects of vouchers might be today if a state were to begin a program or continue one. That the findings are negative means policymakers should proceed with caution—the relative positions of public and private schools may have changed.

I hope the discussion is useful for your readers, who rightly might feel a sense of whiplash from having different findings about vouchers released on the same day.

Kind regards,

Mark

http://www.brookings.edu/experts/dynarskim?view=bio

Categories Education Reform, Indiana, Louisiana, Research, Vouchers

The Blog Hits 27 Million Hits

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
31

At some point this evening, while I was out celebrating at the annual dinner of Leonie Haimson’s Class Size Matters, the blog passed the 27 million mark, meaning 27 million+ page views.

 

I am proud of the remarkable reach of the blog. When I write about an elected official, I usually get an email from him or her either thanking me or complaining about what I wrote within the next 24 hours. I was told that a particularly pernicious piece of legislation was withdrawn in the U.K. after I criticized it on the blog.

What I am most proud of is the post that I wrote about the beautiful, brilliant Vivian Connell, who has a blog (FinALS) where she confronts her death from ALS with great courage and dignity. After my post appeared, she got national attention and soon raised the funds she sought to take her class to the Holocaust Museum, where she and they were treated like royalty. I hope that some of my political endorsements have helped to raise money and win some votes for state and local candidates on the side of public education who are facing the big Corporate Reform Big Money Machine.

What I have tried to do with the blog is to nationalize the struggle to save public education from corporations, entrepreneurs, fly-by-night operators, and charter chains. I deeply believe in the principle of public education as a community asset, the heart of the community. The heart of the community should not be outsourced to foreign nationals (the Gulen Movement), to for-profit charters, or to national charter chains. It is sort of like hiring Walmart to run your neighborhood school. They won’t make it better but they will make money. I want everyone to understand that we are all connected, that what happens in Nevada or Connecticut will be happening soon in Maine or Florida. The pain you feel in your community is not unique. You are among many victims of an avaricious raid on public education.

I have tried to create a space for conversation about education and its future that is not dominated by me, but where I can post the work of teachers, parents, administrators, scholars, anyone who has something interesting to say. I decide what is interesting. I want people in Connecticut and Maine to feel connected to people in Arizona and Oregon. I want all of us to understand that there is a conspiracy that operates in the open and dares not speak its name. It is cloaked in deceptive rhetoric. It says it is “for the children,” but you won’t hear the privatizers complain about budget cuts; you won’t hear them complain about racial segregation; you won’t hear them complain about inexperienced TFA placed in classrooms of the children with the highest needs; you won’t hear a peep about the financial collapse of public school districts due to charters that suck away children and resources.

Wherever possible, I try to utilize my knowledge of the history of education to shed a long perspective on current events. I try to teach as I write.

Operating this blog has been nearly a full-time job for me. I post a lot. I share what I know. I share what I think you should know. I may cut back in the summer; I may even suspend the blog while I do some other writing.

I appreciate your loyalty and your comments. I appreciate the blog posts and newspaper articles that you share. I will keep speaking up and speaking out. I hope you will too.

Thank you!

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform
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