Archives for the month of: August, 2016
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Peter Greene Reports on the Trial of Florida’s Third-Grade Retention Policy

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2016 //
23

Peter Greene followed the live tweets from AP reporter Gary Fineout, who covered the trial of Florida’s third-grade retention policy.

The high point–or should I say the low point–came when a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Education said the report cards were meaningless.

He writes:

Especially in the districts like Orange County that are actually pursuing this stupid policy, I hope that teachers stand up, look their superintendent in the eye and ask, “Do you agree with the state that the report cards I fill out for my students are meaningless? Do you agree with the state’s contention that the work I do in assessing students is junk and has no value or should carry no weight? Do you agree with the state that my professional judgment as a teacher is worthless?” And if the superintendent hides in the office (which would be wise because really, how could any self-respecting superintendent face their teaching staff after this bullshit) feel free to send them a copy of this.

But kudos to the state for turning what was merely an attack on children and the rights of their parents into a wholesale attack on the integrity and competence of all teachers in the state. Because if report cards are meaningless, it can only be because all teachers are incompetent boobs. Well played, Florida education department.

The hearing included other lowlights as well. Children and their parents came to testify and all of the district lawyers filed objections– because if you have to actually look at the children that you’re doing this to, the small humans that you are, as the judge put it, “taking hostage,” it’s a lot harder to justify your brain-dead, abusively stupid policy. You end up looking almost as bad as you should look. Ultimately the children and families did testify.

It was brilliant to ask students to testify. How could a judge not be moved to see a bright and articulate child explain how humiliating it is to be forced to repeat third grade just because they didn’t take the Big Standardized Test?

It is one thing to talk about a policy in the abstract, it is quite another to see the children whom it affects.

Read Peter’s account of the testimony from the children, parents and even grandparents.

Peter writes:

The judge seems sympathetic and may rule within a week. Meanwhile, state and district school leaders in Florida don’t know what the hell they’re doing. One district said the FSA is mandatory; another said it isn’t. The state department doesn’t know what its regulations say. And all of these people are going to grind up some nine-year-olds just to prove that they are too the bosses of everyone in Florida and everyone must comply or else.

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Florida, Testing

Report from the Rio Olympics: “Personalized Learning” Will Make Every Student a Winner!

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2016 //
60

Former Governor Bob Wise and the Alliance for Excellent Education released a video touting “personalized learning” as the key to academic success. He speaks in the foreground of what he says is the Rio Olympics (actually the footage is from 2012, according to the credits). A short video shows students engaged in “personalized learning,” some of which appears to be centered on a computer.

Let’s say this much for the ad: at least it is not insulting like the one created by Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst in 2012, which showed a flabby American man falling on his face while competing in a women’s event and said he represented American students. It was shown on national television during the Olympics and was highly demeaning to our nation and our students.

Bob Wise partnered with Jeb Bush in creating a document called “Digital Learning Now,” which claimed that learning online was the secret to high achievement for everyone. None of its assertions had any evidence behind them, and the report was financed by the tech industry.

“Personalized learning” is a very problematic concept these days. Most people think it means that the teacher and the student work closely together, and the teacher understands the student’s needs.

But in the education industry, “personalized learning” means computer-based instruction. In theory, the computer knows the student well. The student and the computer interact and collaborate, so they are close friends.

The paid journalistic touting of computer-based learning is intensifying. I can’t keep up with all the articles that promote machine learning and mislabel it “personalized” learning.

There is nothing “personal” about learning from a machine. The machine doesn’t know you. It stores your data, but it has no feelings, no emotions, no empathy. It doesn’t like you. It doesn’t love you, it doesn’t dislike you. It is indifferent. If your mother dies, it won’t feel any sympathy for you. It is a machine. Whatever you call it, please don’t say it is “personalized” to you. It’s not.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Technology, Computers

Jeff Bryant: The New Populism is Driving the Uprising Against Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2016 //
12

Jeff Bryant writes for the Educational Opportunity Network, where he describes here the new uprising against privately managed charter schools. He says that local grassroots groups and voters are rebelling against the influence of billionaires and hedge fund managers who fund the charter schools.

He offers examples of this uprising:

*the recent decision by the NAACP annual conference to call for a moratorium on new charter schools;

*the endorsement of the NAACP decision by the Movement for Black Lives, a group affiliated with Black Lives Matter;

*the support of the moratorium by Journey for Justice, an organization of civil rights activists;

*the resounding defeat of the charter school candidates in Nashville.

Jeff says that the response of the charter industry has been either outrage or silence:

The way pro-charter advocates have responded to these…events is telling.

Regarding the civil rights groups’ calls for a charter moratorium, the pro-charter response has been a hissy-fit driven by fiery rhetoric and few facts.

Shaffar Jeffries, president of Democrats for Education Reform, a Washington D.C. based charter advocacy financed by hedge funds, issued a statement declaring the NAACP resolution a “disservice to communities of color.”

In a nationally televised newscast, Steve Perry, founder and operator of a charter school chain, lashed out at Hilary Shelton, the bureau director of the Washington, DC, chapter of the NAACP, for being a sell out to the teachers’ unions and for abandoning children of color.

The contention that the NAACP has sold out to teachers’ unions holds little water since that organization has been a recipient of generous donations from pro-charter advocates as well. And any argument that curbing charters is a de facto blow to black and brown school kids is more a rhetorical trope than a factual counter to the evidence NAACP cites, showing where charters undermine communities of color.

Regarding the defeat of big money-backed pro-charter candidates in Nashville, the usual outlets for charter industry advocacy – Democrats for Education Reform and the media outlets Education Post and The 74 – have been totally silent.

These responses are telling because the charter industry has heretofore been such masterful communicators.

Advocates for these schools have long understood most people don’t understand what the schools are. Even when presidential candidates in the recent Democratic Party primary ventured to express an opinion about charters, they horribly botched it.

So for years, the powerful charter school industry has been filling the void of understanding about charters with clever language meant to define what these schools are and what their purpose is.

The schools, we’ve been told, are “public,” even though they really aren’t. They’re supposed to outperform traditional public schools, but that turns out not to be true either. Even when the charter industry has tried to cut the data even finer to prove some charters outperform public schools, the claims turn out to be grossly over-stated.

We’ve also been told charter schools are a “civil rights cause.” Now it turns out that’s not quite the case either.

As the public comes to realize who is behind charter schools and that they will diminish the funding of neighborhood public schools, the charter narrative loses its luster.

The next big trial of the phony “charter narrative” will be in Massachusetts this November, where billionaires and conservative Republicans are behind an effort to expand the number of charters allowed—twelve a year for every year into the future. And they are selling their proposal by claiming it is intended to “improve public education” and pretending that privately managed charters are “public schools.” Will the people of Massachusetts fall for it?

Categories Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Nashville, Privatization

Teachers College Survey: Who Opts Out and Why?

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2016 //
15

Two researchers at Teachers College, Columbia University, surveyed parents who opted their children out of state tests and confirmed what leaders of the test refusal movement have long asserted. Parents don’t opt out because they are controlled by unions. They don’t opt out because, as Arne Duncan once said, they are fearful that their child is not as smart as they thought.

“Teachers College unveiled the findings of Who Opts Out and Why?—the first national, independent survey of the “opt-out” movement—which reveals that supporters oppose the use of test scores to evaluate teachers and believe that high-stakes tests force teachers to “teach to the test” rather than employ strategies that promote deeper learning. The new survey also reports concern among supporters about the growing role of corporations and privatization of schools.

“For activists, the concerns are about more than the tests,” said Oren Pizmony-Levy, TC Assistant Professor of International and Comparative Education, who co-authored the study with Nancy Green Saraisky, Research Associate and TC alumna. “We were surprised that the survey reveals a broader concern about corporate education reform relying on standardized test-based accountability, and the increased role of ‘edu-businesses’ and corporations in schools.”


Who Opts Out and Why? also reveals that opt-out proponents oppose high-stakes, standardized testing because they believe it takes away too much instructional time.”

This is an instance where research confirms common sense.

Chalkbeat interviewed one of the authors of the study, who said:

It’s the breadth of the movement that’s noteworthy, explains Oren Pizmony-Levy, one of the report’s authors.

“It’s not just about the tests. They’re saying something bigger about the direction of education reforms in the U.S.,” Pizmony-Levy said. “It does bring together all sides of the political spectrum.”

The most common reason opt-out supporters cited for boycotting the tests was opposition to using test data to evaluate teacher performance, with 36.9 percent of respondents listing that as one of their top two reasons to support opting out (45 percent of the respondents work in education). That was followed by concerns over teaching to the test (33.8 percent), opposition to the growing role of corporations in schools (30.4 percent), fears that the tests cut into instructional time (26.5 percent), and opposition to Common Core standards (25.8 percent).

Roughly half of those surveyed self-identified as liberal, while nearly 18 percent identified as conservative.

The authors noted that there is some potential bias in the data because it depends on accurate self-reporting, and was disseminated electronically, which largely excludes those who don’t have internet access.

But Pizmony-Levy said the survey still begins to sketch out a more detailed profile of who opts out and why. (On the most recent math and English exams, 21 percent opted out across New York state, as did 2.5 percent in New York City.)

“I think what this is telling us is activists disagree with the current direction of education reforms [which include] … ideas about accountability from the business world,” he said. “They’re saying maybe there are other directions we should go.”

Categories Opt Out, Parents, Research, Standardized Testing

A Message from Robert Reich to Bernie Supporters

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2016 //
46

This notice came from Robert Reich at MoveOn.com:

Dear fellow MoveOn member,

Last week, as Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president, he called on Bernie Sanders supporters to back his candidacy.1 It’s tempting to laugh, but it’s actually a smart strategy—and it could even win Trump the White House.

While Bernie supporters won’t move to Trump en masse, if enough Bernie voters just stay home, it’s enough to give Trump an edge—and the presidency.

Hillary Clinton, who made history on Thursday night, has embraced a number of Bernie’s policies that would make a big difference for millions of people—including a bold, new, affordable higher education proposal, which Bernie himself endorsed.2 But Clinton has about a third of Bernie supporters left to try to win over.3 And Bernie supporters have voted less frequently in the past than other 2016 voters.4 These voters could decide the election.

That’s why MoveOn has such an important role to play this election cycle.

As the biggest independent progressive group that supported Bernie Sanders, MoveOn is uniquely poised to help turn out those of his supporters who are most likely to stay home in November. Will you chip in $5 a month to help make sure progressive voters in swing states turn out to defeat Trump?

National polls conducted since Trump’s acceptance speech are downright terrifying: Trump has taken the lead in many of them.5 These polls and the election data show that—if the election were today—chances are that he would be our 45th president.6

Will you join me in supporting MoveOn’s all-out, highly strategic campaign to engage progressives in this election—and defeat Donald Trump? Your ongoing support will help make this campaign possible through Election Day.

Click here to chip in $5 a month.

Or, if you can’t make a monthly donation, click here.

Here’s what your donation will support:

Savvy social media to cut through lies and educate voters about the high stakes of this election—complete with rapid-response videos that will be seen and shared tens of millions of times and reach an audience roughly the size of a cable news program.

Door-to-door volunteer canvasses in 10 key states, using the proven model MoveOn tested recently in Ohio—because there is no better alternative than human connection as an antidote to hatred and fear.

MoveOn spokespeople and MoveOn members on TV—to help create a breakthrough, alternative narrative about what makes America truly great.

Will you help MoveOn ensure that every progressive voter in a swing state who’s considering staying home or voting third party this fall knows just how dangerous Donald Trump is by chipping in $5 a month right now?

Yes, I’ll chip in monthly to help stop Donald Trump.

No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.

Thanks for all you do.

–Robert Reich

Sources:

1. “Full text: Donald Trump 2016 RNC draft speech transcript,” Politico, July 21, 2016
http://act.moveon.org/go/4849?t=23&akid=167182.27327500.mM8rDh

2. “Hillary Clinton Embraces Ideas From Bernie Sanders’s College Tuition Plan,” The New York Times, July 6, 2016
http://act.moveon.org/go/4911?t=25&akid=167182.27327500.mM8rDh

3. “Why Clinton Might Have A Tough Time Flipping The Sanders Holdouts,” FiveThirtyEight, July 25, 2016
http://act.moveon.org/go/4850?t=27&akid=167182.27327500.mM8rDh

4. Ibid.

5. “2016 General Election: Trump vs. Clinton,” The Huffington Post, accessed July 30, 2016
http://act.moveon.org/go/4738?t=29&akid=167182.27327500.mM8rDh

6. “Who will win the presidency?” FiveThirtyEight, accessed July 30, 2016
http://act.moveon.org/go/4828?t=31&akid=167182.27327500.mM8rDh

Want to support MoveOn’s work? As the biggest independent progressive group that supported Bernie Sanders, MoveOn is uniquely poised to help turn out those of his supporters who are most likely to stay home in November. Can you chip in $5 a month to help us work from now through Election Day to make sure progressive voters turn out to defeat Donald Trump?

Yes, I’ll chip in monthly.

No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Categories Trump

A Graphic Explanation: Why Corporations Want Our Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2016 //
13

This is a brilliant yet simple infographic that explains the logic of what is deceitfully called “reform.”

Reform begins with a narrative about “failing schools.”

Students take tests whose passing mark is so high that the failure rate is high, thus proving the narrative.

The government closes the schools with the lowest scores, which are almost all in poor black and Hispanic communities.

The empty school is turned over to a private corporation, which has no relationship to the local community.

The privately managed school calls itself “a public school” because it gets public money.

When an employee or a family sues because their rights were violated, the charter corporation says it is a private contractor, not a state actor.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

How Success Academy Pulled the Wool Over Everyone’s Eyes to Get What They Wanted

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2016 //
32

If you recall, Eva Moskowitz was locked in a fierce battle with Mayor de Blasio and the City of New York over a pre-kindergarten program. The city said that the Success Academy charter chain could not have $700,000 in funding unless it signed the city contract, giving the city the right to oversee the program. Eva refused to sign the contract. She said that the city had no power over her charter schools, and that she should get the money without signing the contract. She sued the city, and the city won in court. Thirteen other charter schools signed the city’s contract without complaint.

But all was not lost. Eva still had a powerful friend in Albany: Governor Cuomo. It turns out that in the closing moments of the legislative session, Eva got what she wanted.

The New York Times reported today:

What the Success Academy charter school network could not get through the courts or from the New York State Education Department, it may get from the governor: the ability to run prekindergarten programs without oversight from New York City.

In the final hours of the legislative session this summer, as Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Assembly were pushing to get mayoral control of the city’s schools extended, the Republican-controlled Senate demanded some concessions for charter schools. It introduced a vague provision that appeared to grant the charter schools committee of the State University of New York’s board of trustees new powers to regulate the charter schools it oversees. Charter school supporters claimed that the provision would allow SUNY to waive requirements that limit the number of uncertified teachers that charter schools can employ.

But it turns out that the Senate Republicans, who have received substantial support from wealthy charter school supporters, had other goals in mind, as well.

In a letter to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo dated June 20, and not previously reported, the Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan, wrote that the intent of the provision “was to provide SUNY with statutory authority to exempt charter schools from rules and regulations that were hampering innovative teaching and learning.”

He urged Mr. Cuomo to direct the SUNY Charter Schools Institute — the administrative entity that supports the work of the charter schools committee — to act quickly to take advantage of the provision. (Mr. Cuomo effectively controls the institute and the committee because he appoints a majority of the SUNY trustees.) Specifically, Mr. Flanagan said that SUNY should give teachers at its charter schools some time to get certified. He also asked that SUNY do something to help charter schools get space in public school buildings.

And Mr. Flanagan said that SUNY should do something about the problem of New York City’s universal prekindergarten program. “There are high-performing charters that have opted out of this program, because the regulatory burden imposed by the N.Y.C.D.O.E. was too high,” Mr. Flanagan wrote, referring to the city’s Education Department.

In fact, there is only one charter school leader who has opted out of the program after a major battle with the de Blasio administration: Success Academy’s founder, Eva S. Moskowitz.

Lesson: Whatever Eva wants, Eva gets.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, New York City, Privatization

Florida: Sarasota County Will Allow Third Grader to Advance to Fourth Grade Without Taking Test

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2016 //
6

Florida has a harsh third grade retention policy. Students who don’t pass the third-grade state test must repeat the grade.

A few days ago, more than a dozen parents filed suit against the state for the arbitrary and capricious way this state was implemented in counties across the state. The parents opted their children out of the testing to protest the law.

“There is no rational governmental interest served by the defendants arbitrary and capricious decision to retain plaintiffs’ children because they opted out of standardized tests, but otherwise earned passing grades on their report cards and had no reading deficiencies,” the lawsuit reads.

The law is interpreted differently in different counties.

One Orange County plaintiff had a daughter who was on the honor roll, the suit said, but “is being retained in the third grade because of no FSA scores and because her teacher was not informed of the criteria for developing a student portfolio during the school year.”

In Sarasota County, one of the parents who is suing kept her child out of the state testing in third grade. The district said he had to repeat the grade, even though his work all year had been satisfactory.

However, the district changed course and decided to let the child go on to fourth grade with his peers, rather than subject him to punishment for opting out of the test.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, Parents, Testing

How Melinda Gates Became an Education Expert

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2016 //
20

Melinda Gates, like her husband Bill, believes that the Gates Foundation has the answers for the problems of American education.

She has never taught. She never attended a public school. Neither did Bill. Their children do not attend public schools.

What is the source of their certainty? They are very rich, probably the richest people in the world (Carlos Slim of Mexico might be richer). They are so rich that they think they know what is best for everyone’s children.

Here are some questions that the Gates Foundation should answer:

Does the Lakeside Academy in Seattle use the Gates-funded Common Core standards?

Does it test all students every year with standardized tests?

Does it use either PARCC or SBAC?

Does it evaluate its teachers by the test scores of their students?

Just wondering.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Testing

Peggy Robertson Resigns, Her Position Eliminated

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2016 //
17

Peggy Robertson is an elementary school teacher in Colorado. She is founder of United Opt Out. She is an outspoken defender of children’s right to learn without coercion. She must have been a thorn in the side of her school and district officials, because they eliminated her position.

She writes:

My position at Jewell was eliminated. In addition, Jewell no longer is a healthy working environment (for teachers or students) and I would not be able to work there unless we were able to return to our previous work as an inquiry-based democratic school. We are now a Relay Leadership School which focuses on teach to the test practices that are not good for children. Relay Graduate School is run by non-educators and lacks pedagogy – it is an embarrassment to the teaching profession. It is unfortunate for Aurora’s children that APS has gone in this direction. It is also unfortunate for the teachers at Jewell who were forced to implement 100% compliance models of discipline with continual teaching to the test and skill/drill. The teachers at Jewell this year (2015-2016) were the most unhappy teachers I have seen in my 19 years in public education. They wanted to file a grievance against the principal but were afraid for their jobs. I no longer can work in such a toxic learning/teaching environment. Aurora unfortunately seems to be going in the direction of “no excuse” charter models which do not develop or support the growth of problem solving citizens. Rather, these charter models, which Relay supports, promote racist practices specifically directed towards black and brown children in urban diverse schools. These charter practices promote the school to prison pipeline. I joined APS four years ago with great hope and excitement because the professional development and respect for the teaching profession in APS has always been excellent; that is no longer the case. I am sorry APS has chosen this path. I will miss my colleagues and the children.

I suppose you could conclude that the public schools of Aurora learned “best practices” from charter schools, which require “no excuses,” tough discipline, strict obedience, and teaching to the test.

Peggy was never one to bend to authority, especially when the authorities were wrong about what was best for children.

In another post, Peg expresses her astonishment to learn that children in her former school have been told to eat their breakfast while sitting on the floor in the hall.

She writes:

As you all know by now, I am no longer working at Jewell Elementary in the Aurora Public School District. However, I was recently alerted to a new policy regarding breakfast at the school. The school day starts at 9:25 a.m. This year, if children want to eat breakfast they must get there at 9:15 a.m. If they ride the bus I guess they’ll be rushing in the door to eat in five minutes or so as breakfast time now ends at 9:30.

And there’s more. There are two options: the children will be eating on the FLOOR in the carpeted HALLWAY outside the classroom OR the teachers can graciously give up some of their morning planning time and invite the children to come in and eat at their desks.

Let that sink in for a minute. I know your mind is racing, as mine did, as I tried to think through the implications here – and there are many.

The first thought I had was – what would ever cause anyone to even consider – fathom – such a policy, as children eating breakfast on the dirty carpeted floor like dogs? I am horrified that this policy was thought of and considered “rational.”

Then of course, I tried to imagine what that policy might look like in action. Hallways lined with children with backpacks, coats, lunchboxes and juggling milk, juice, cereal and more. I tried to imagine how I would feel as a child if I was asked to eat my breakfast on the floor, without a place to properly set my things in order to manage it all. I thought about how that policy might impact my own personal beliefs about my self worth, if I were a child at Jewell. I thought about the racism that is inherent within the behavior policies via Relay Graduate School. I thought about the way the children at my school are expected to demonstrate 100% compliance, and how this breakfast policy smacks of that compliance. Sit. Eat. Comply. On the floor. Where is the respect for the child? Where is it? How can one create a policy so unkind and so disrespectful of a child?

I thought – are the white children in the burbs sitting on dirty carpeted floor eating breakfast each morning? You know the answer to that.

Peg Robertson is now blogging at Tim Slekar’s website “BustED Pencils.” Now she has more time to write and more time to organize the resistance to insane and harsh policies that hurt children. I am sure she would rather be in the classroom, which she loves.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Childhood, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Discipline, Education Industry
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