Archives for the month of: October, 2016
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Veteran First-Grade Teacher Calls for Moratorium on Pre-K-2 Commom Core Standards

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2016 //
12

Peter Rawitsch teaches first grade. He has been a teacher for 40 years. He was invited to participate in the New York State review of Common Core standards for the early grades.

He deliberated with the group and came away convinced that the standards, however written, will do more harm than good. In this article, he calls for a moratorium on standards for the youngest children.

http://ecepolicyworks.com/first-grade-teacher-demands-moratorium-on-nys-p-2-ela-standards/

He thinks that children need a childhood more than they need standards.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core, New York, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

If You Own a Dog, Here is a Helpful Bit of Advice

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2016 //
38

This is off-topic. It is for dog owners only.

 

Those who have read this blog for a long while know that I have a dog and a cat, and I take very good care of them.

 

 

Ever since I got my big mutt named Mitzi, she has had a tendency towards diarrhea. As a puppy, she had giardia, which is a fancy way to say that her intestines are prone to diarrhea.

 

For a year or so, I took her to the vet and almost always got a prescription for a pill called metronidazole. That always works for her.

 

Then the woman who boards her when I travel told me a secret. Metronidazole is sold over the counter and online as Fish Zole. It is used to cure bacteria in fish (i.e., the kind in aquariums). I have since ordered it online, saving huge amounts of money in vet bills and prescriptions. And it works. Although Mitzi hates taking pills, I wrap them in roast beef or cheese or bologna. No problem.

 

I don’t have many helpful hints, but this one is a winner.

 

 

 

 

Categories Personal

Our Lost Poet on the “Charge of the Gates Brigade”

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2016 //
22

This is one of the very best poems from Some DamPoet. He/she wrote it after the Gates Foundation admitted that its plans were not working out as well as they hoped, but that they intended to double down on their foundering efforts. The Los Angeles Times reprimanded the Gates Foundation for its hubris. So does Our Poet.

“The Charge of the Gates Brigade” (based on “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Half a wit, half a wit,
Half a wit onward,
All in the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
“Forward, the Gates Brigade!
Charge for the schools!” he said.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered

II

“Forward, the Gates Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the Coleman knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and lie.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered

III

Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
Boldly they tuned out that,
Into the Ravitch jaws,
Into the mouth of cat
Bill and Mel foundered

IV

Flashed all their BS bare,
Dashed was their savoir faire
VAMming the teachers there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in with mir’s-n-smoke
Valiantly went for broke;
Cluelessly rushin’
Reeled from reality’s stroke
Shattered and sundered.
VAMming attack, for naught,
Bill and Mel foundered

V

Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
While Bill and Mel chewed fat
They that had fought the BAT
Came through the Ravitch jaws,
Back from the mouth of cat,
All that was left in end:
Bill and Mel foundered

VI

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Gates Brigade,
Bill and Mel foundered

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Common Core, Education Reform, Failure, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Arthur Goldstein: The New Grading Standards in NYC Are Absurd and Inhumane

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2016 //
27

Arthur Goldstein has taught ESL students in New York City for decades, and he has one of the best blogs in the city, state, and nation, written from the view of a teacher.

In this post, he lacerates the administration of the New York City Department of Education for a grading policy that further diminishes the discretion of teachers to make judgments about what their students need and how they are progressing. I can’t help but think about the paradigm of all national systems, where teachers are carefully selected, well prepared, treated as masters of their profession, and trusted to do what’s best for their students.

The new NYC rule, Arthur says, is “you will differentiate instruction the same way for everyone.”

He writes:

“That seems to be the main thrust of the new grading policy. A big thing, for me at least, is the policy on what is and is not acceptable for participation. I had been doing precisely the thing that the DOE seems to loath—granting a participation grade at the end of each marking period. I essentially gave a positive grade for students who raised their hands and were active all the time, a negative grade for those who spent most of the time sleeping, and various degrees in between for others.

“Now here’s the thing—DOE gives an example that you give credit each day when a student brings a pencil and notebook. That is, of course, measurable. It’s also idiotic, as it’s a preposterously low standard. I think the reason they gave that example was because it was very easy for them to think of. And thus, we part ways. I actually think about grades a lot. To me, bringing a pencil is only a marginal step above breathing.

“But they don’t need to think about it. They just need to sit in air-conditioned offices and tell us what to do. Why bother considering the real lives of lowly teachers, let alone the students they ostensibly serve? Treat everyone the same.

“So if someone places a student in my class, tells me she has a 70 IQ, and the girl looks appears so fragile that if you touched her she would break, well, rules are rules. If she doesn’t participate each and every day, screw her, she gets zero. If one of my students is from a country where they have classes of 50, if she’s been taught all her life to sit down and shut up, if she’s so painfully shy that she actually trembles when you ask her a question, give her a zero. Everything is black and white in the ivory towers of the DOE.

“Your opinion cannot be quantified. Let’s say you teach strings. Let’s say one of your students comes in and plays a beautiful piece, with perfect vibrato. She makes you feel as though you have reached nirvana. I come in and scratch out something that sounds like I’m strangling a cat.

“But we’ve both brought in our violins and cases, and how the hell are you gonna prove she plays better than me? Is it on the rubric? And who’s to say I didn’t find my own piece to be breathtakingly beautiful? Who the hell are you to judge me without a rubric? And if you do have one, and you tell me how badly I played, maybe I’ll just report your ass under Chancellor’s Regulation A-421, verbal abuse. You made me feel bad. So screw you too.

“After all, the supervisors are using rubrics. They come in with that Danielson thing and check boxes. These boxes contain the evidence. Plus they have notes. So who cares if the notes came from the voices in their heads and nothing they say actually happened? I’ve seen supervisors outright make stuff up.”

Categories Accountability, New York City, Teachers and Teaching

A Warning to the People of Georgia about the New Orleans Myth

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2016 //
6

Parents, students, educators and other citizens are invited nvited to learn about the hoax of Amendment 1on the ballot. It is an effort by the far-right to change the Georgia state constitution to allow the state to take over schools with low test scores and give them to charter corporations. Tea Party Governor Nathan Deal says it is for the poor minority kids, whom he wants to “save.”

Please join civil rights activists to learn more about Amendment 1 and the myth of the New Orleans miracle.

perfect-storm-9-28

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Fraud, Georgia, Hoax, New Orleans

Nicholas Kristof: Is There a Double Standard in American Politics?

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2016 //
43

Nicholas Kristof asks if any female candidate would survive if she had the same history as Donald Trump.

He poses a series of hypotheticals:

“Imagine if it were Hillary Clinton who had had five children by three husbands, who had said it was fine to refer to her daughter as a “piece of ass,” who participated in a radio conversation about oral sex in a hot tub, who rated men based on their body parts, who showed up in Playboy soft porn videos.

“Imagine if 15 men had accused Clinton of assaulting or violating them, with more stepping forward each day.

“Imagine if Clinton had held a Mr. Teen USA pageant and then marched unannounced into the changing area to ogle the young bodies as some were naked and, after doing the same thing at a Mr. USA pageant, marveled on a radio show at what she was allowed to get away with.

“Imagine if in a primary election debate Clinton had boasted that there’s “no problem” with the size of her vagina.

“Imagine if Clinton had less experience in government or the military than any person who has ever become president?

“Imagine if she had said about a man running against her in the primaries, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?”

“Imagine if it were Clinton who had boasted, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

“Imagine if it were Clinton who had been caught on a hot mike referring in a degrading way to men’s genitals and boasting that her prominence gave her license to grab men’s crotches.

“Imagine if she had bragged about her attempts to commit adultery — and later reportedly sought to have fired from his job the married man who resisted her seduction efforts.

“Imagine that it were Hillary Clinton who had been accused of assault by her first spouse (later recanted) and later of assault in a lawsuit by a business partner.

“Imagine if Clinton had defended herself from an accusation of molesting a young man by explaining, “He would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.”

“Imagine if Clinton had body shamed Donald Trump, saying that she had observed his rear end and concluded, “I’m not impressed, believe me.”

“Imagine if Hillary Clinton had first drawn national attention not with an idealistic speech at the Wellesley commencement, but by being sued for racial discrimination by President Richard Nixon’s administration.

“Imagine if she had later been quoted by a member of her staff as saying “laziness is a trait in blacks” and had retweeted white supremacists, including one honoring the American Nazi Party.
Imagine if it were Clinton who had gone through six bankruptcies and compiled a long record of stiffing contractors, from plumbers to painters to lawyers. …

“Imagine that, instead of releasing 39 years of tax returns, showing most recently that she had paid 31 percent of her income in federal income taxes, she had refused to release any returns — and leaked pages from 1995 returns indicated that she had paid no federal income taxes at all for years….”

What do you think? Would she still be a candidate for president?

Categories Accountability, Politics

GREAT NEWS! NAACP Board Opposes Charter Expansion!

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
30

The national board of the NAACP endorsed the resolution passed by its 2016 annual convention calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion!

So-called reformers, who falsely claim to be in alliance with the civil rights movement, should read the resolution with care. They should stop closing schools, they should abandon privatization, they should turn their efforts and money to helping improve public schools. They should help to foster desegregated schools and communities. They should insist on health care facilities and fully funded services at every school. They should support social justice for all children and families, not privatization of public services, which generates segregation and inequity.

Here is the statement of the national board of the NAACP:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 15, 2016

CINCINNATI – Members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Board of Directors ratified a resolution Saturday adopted by delegates at its 2016 107th National Convention calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion and for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice.

“The NAACP has been in the forefront of the struggle for and a staunch advocate of free, high-quality, fully and equitably-funded public education for all children,” said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the National NAACP Board of Directors. “We are dedicated to eliminating the severe racial inequities that continue to plague the education system.”

The National Board’s decision to ratify this resolution reaffirms prior resolutions regarding charter schools and the importance of public education, and is one of 47 resolutions adopted today by the Board of Directors. The National Board’s decision to ratify supports its 2014 Resolution, ‘School Privatization Threat to Public Education’, in which the NAACP opposes privatization of public schools and public subsidizing or funding of for-profit or charter schools. Additionally, in 1998 the Association adopted a resolution which unequivocally opposed the establishment and granting of charter schools which are not subject to the same accountability and standardization of qualifications/certification of teachers as public schools and divert already-limited funds from public schools.

We are calling for a moratorium on the expansion of the charter schools at least until such time as:
(1) Charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools

(2) Public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system

(3) Charter schools cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate and

(4) Cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.

Historically the NAACP has been in strong support of public education and has denounced movements toward privatization that divert public funds to support non-public school choices.

“We are moving forward to require that charter schools receive the same level of oversight, civil rights protections and provide the same level of transparency, and we require the same of traditional public schools,” Chairman Brock said. “Our decision today is driven by a long held principle and policy of the NAACP that high quality, free, public education should be afforded to all children.”

While we have reservations about charter schools, we recognize that many children attend traditional public schools that are inadequately and inequitably equipped to prepare them for the innovative and competitive environment they will face as adults. Underfunded and under-supported, these traditional public schools have much work to do to transform curriculum, prepare teachers, and give students the resources they need to have thriving careers in a technologically advanced society that is changing every year. There is no time to wait. Our children immediately deserve the best education we can provide.

“Our ultimate goal is that all children receive a quality public education that prepares them to be a contributing and productive citizen,” said Adora Obi Nweze, Chair of the National NAACP Education Committee, President of the Florida State Conference of the NAACP and a former educator whose committee guides educational policy for the Association.

“The NAACP’s resolution is not inspired by ideological opposition to charter schools but by our historical support of public schools – as well as today’s data and the present experience of NAACP branches in nearly every school district in the nation,” said Cornell William Brooks, President and CEO of the NAACP. “Our NAACP members, who as citizen advocates, not professional lobbyists, are those who attend school board meetings, engage with state legislatures and support both parents and teachers.”

“The vote taken by the NAACP is a declaratory statement by this Association that the proliferation of charter schools should be halted as we address the concerns raised in our resolution,” said Chairman Brock.

###

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Inequality, Privatization, Race, Segregation

Lloyd Lofthouse: This is How Schools Succeed

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
92

Lloyd Lofthouse, veteran of the military and veteran teacher, wrote this explanation of the ingredients of school success. He writes that school choice undermines success because it destroys community support for the community’s children.

He wrote in a comment:

The neos (liberal and conservative) are always looking for language loopholes to subvert the constitutions of the states and nations.

How can schools compete unless the students compete because using student test scores to rank schools forcing schools to compete can’t work unless every single student competes by actually paying attention to teachers, what teachers teach, cooperating, no behavior problems, no disruption, and every child reads every day for fun and learning in addition to doing all the work?

Find me a teacher in almost all the public schools who’s taught for at least 10 years and claims that every one of their students has is is always on track and working/learning, and I will show you a liar. If you can’t cherry pick the students and cherry pick the facts, then you can’t be successful with 100 percent of the students.

Choice means the end of a free public education for every child even if the child is a challenge to engage in the process for learning.

The formula for a child’s education takes a village. Schools can’t do it alone. Teacher’s can’t do it alone. Children can’t do it alone. Parents can’t do it alone. They all have to come together and work together for learning to happen.

Choice will never replace the village. That why the community based, locally controlled, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public schools are the only way to allow the opportunity for every child to be offered an education to work.

Children also have a choice when they walk into a school. They have a choice to learn or not to learn and some of them choose not learning when they do not do the work and do not read for whatever reason and there are a lot o reasons why those children do not join the village to learn what teachers teach.

Even Donald Trump was a challenging child to teach. I’ve read that Trump was kicked out of his expensive private school because he was a challenge to teach so his father sent him to a military boarding school, a boot camp school similar to Eva’s Success Academy.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Reform, Equity, Privatization, School Choice, Supporting public schools

A Graphic Explanation of Why Schools Can’t Operate Like Businesses

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
24

Thanks to Michael Paul Goldenberg for sending this nifty graphic explanation of why schools cant operate like businesses, opening and closing, fighting for competitive advantage, and celebrating the few that survive competition.

No one mourns when the local shoe store fails and relocates or goes into a different line of work. But think of the disruption and anguish when the doors to the local school are closed, and it is replaced by a corporate charter school.

Categories Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Privatization

Raleigh, N.C. Charter School May Be Closed Due to Poor Academic Performance

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2016 //
7

State officials may close the Hope Charter Leadership Academy in Raleigh due to persistently poor academic performance.

“A high-poverty Raleigh charter school is in danger of being ordered to shut down by the state at the end of the school year due to its low test scores and lack of academic growth among its students.

“The N.C. Charter Schools Advisory Board voted Thursday to require the leadership of Hope Charter Leadership Academy to show up at the group’s November meeting with a comprehensive plan to improve academic performance. The vote came after advisory board members decided to hold off on recommending that the State Board of Education take away Hope’s charter at the end of the school year.

“Last school year, Hope’s passing rate on state exams was 26.5 percent, the school didn’t meet growth and it received a “F” school performance grade. Fifth-grade state exam passing rates of 10.5 percent in reading and 5.3 percent in math were called unacceptable.

“These scores are horrible,” said advisory board member Steven Walker as he repeatedly banged his hand on the table. “You’re talking about one kid in 5th-grade passing math, one kid.”

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/wake-ed-blog/article108108117.html#storylink=cpy

Reading this sad story reminds me of a hopeful book I read years ago: “Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh,” by Syracuse University scholar Gerald Grant.

Grant wrote not so many years ago that Raleigh had a successful school system because it adopted a carefully crafted plan to desegregate its schools. Not long after his book was published, a Tea Party faction gained control of the school board and hired one of Michelle Rhee’s deputies to restore segregated neighborhood schools. He was Broad-trained superintendent Anthony Tata. When the Tea Party group lost in the next election, Tata was out but Raleigh did not recover. The state Tea a Party swept the state legislature in 2010, and North Carolina began its race to the bottom, adopting charter schools, virtual schools, and vouchers, while cutting away teacher professionalism and job protections. The state that once boasted the largest number of NBCT teachers in the nation began to fund TFA instead of investing in its career teachers.

A sad story.

Hoping Governor Pat McGrory and his merry band of legislative allies take a whupping at the polls next month so North Carolinians can start to rebuild their public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization
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