Archives for the month of: October, 2016
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Laura Chapman: Why You Should Opt Out of PARCC

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2016 //
13

Laura Chapman, retired arts educator and researcher, offers reasons why you should opt out of PARCC:

“Here is one more reason to be a very serious and unrelenting critic of PARCC.

It has “teamed up” with greatschools.org, a website that rates schools and leases data for commercial exploitation (about which I have commented before).

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2015 ( from http://www.parcconline.org/news-and-video/382-greatschools-parcc-launch-new-parent-tool)

“PARCC states have partnered with GreatSchools to launch the GreatKids Test Guide for Parents, a new resource to assist parents in helping their children prepare academically for college and careers, and for the next grade level. “…”The Guide gives … information about what a child needs to know at each grade level and how parents can help their children succeed academically, based on how their child performed on the PARCC assessment.”

“About GreatSchools. Founded in 1998, GreatSchools is a national nonpartisan nonprofit helping millions of parents find quality schools, support great learning and guide their kids to great futures. GreatSchools offers thousands of articles, videos and worksheets to help parents support their children’s learning. Last year, more than 59 million unique visitors accessed the GreatSchools website including more than half of all US families with school-age children. Headquartered in Oakland, California, GreatSchools partners with cities and states across the country.“
Do not be deceived by sweet talk about “partnerships.” This non-profit is a sophisticated and well-funded system for gathering test scores and other information reported by schools, converting this information into ratings, and selling the data and ratings. The website literally sells ads and licenses for access to test scores and other data on schools—public, private, and charter—with expansions planned for pre-school and daycare-centers.

This national data hog is funded by billionaire foundations unfriendly to public schools. The logos of the Gates, Walton, Robertson, and Arnold Foundations are prominently displayed. A list of 19 other supporters includes the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, Bradley Foundation, Goldman Sachs Gives, New Schools Venture Fund among others. All of these supporters want to make public schools an artifact from the past.

“Here is what GreatSchools does with the test scores, now including PARCC scores.

“The overall GreatSchools Rating is an average of how well students at a given school do on each grade and subject test. For each test, ratings are assigned based on how well students perform relative to all other students in the state, and these ratings are averaged into an overall rating of 1 to 10.”

“The distribution of the GreatSchools Rating in a given state looks like a bell curve, with higher numbers of schools getting ratings in the “average” category, and fewer schools getting ratings in the “above average” or “below average” categories.”

The ratings are based on the manipulation of data classified in one of three ways: As a proficiency measure, a growth measure (including discredited VAM), and a rating for “how well schools are preparing students for success in college and beyond” (high school graduation rate, SAT, ACT scores). The system is rigged so most schools are rated average or below.

Click to access New_Ratings_Methodology_Report.pdf

The fraudulent rating system gives the notoriously test-driven Success Academy in NY the highest possible rating here

http://www.greatschools.org/about/ratings.page

This non-profit is the front for a mega for-profit operation serving big box stores, and multiple industries— financial, real estate, charter expansions, testing and text publishers. It is designed to capture the interest of media outlets and merchandizers as “partners,” co-opt entire school districts and federal agencies into “partnerships.” The gigantic “partner” basket includes Walmart, Target, Yale Center for Social Emotional Intelligence, Survey Monkey, Forbes, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dunn & Bradstreet, US Department of Education, Goldman Sachs, and more

JUST A SAMPLING:

CONTENT 321 Fast Draw; Algonquin Books; Ashoka Foundation; Bay Citizen; California Watch; College Board; Common Sense Media; DK Publishing; Film Sight Productions; IDEO; Learning Ally; Learning and Leadership Center; Mind/Shift; National Center for Learning Disabilities; Parenting.com; Reading Rockets; Scholastic; Treasure Bay, Inc.; UCLA Department of Psychology; US Department of Education; Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

COMMUNITY AND FAMILY ENGAGEMENT Families Empowered; Hillsborough County Public Schools, Iridescent Learning; KIPP; Magnet Schools of America; Miami Dade County Public Schools; Rocketship Education; Stand Up for Students; Step Up for Students; US Department of Housing and Urban Development

RESEARCH Gallup Education; SurveyMonkey (see also Licensees); SRI; Rockman Et Al.

MARKETING & OUTBOUND MEDIA Care2.com; Common Sense Media; Forbes; NBC News Education; The Bully Project; Univision.

LICENSEES Apartments.com, Brain Pop; Digital Map Products; Dunn & Bradstreet; Fannie Mae; Maponics; Michael & Susan Dell Foundation; Military Child Education Coalition; Move Sales, Inc.; National Association of Charter School Authorizers; National Housing Trust; Onboard Informatics; Policy Map; Realtors Property Resource; SurveyMonkey; Target, US Department of Housing and Urban Development; Walmart; WolfNet; Zillow.

What do these “partners get” for signing on? At minimum, it is the opportunity to become an advertiser or license holder who can gain access to your student’s test scores—for a fee. You can find some of the ad rates here. https://selfserve.rubiconproject.com/advertise3/products/29619

At the bottom of the rate page you can see that these “packages” are offered via the Rubicon Project. Click on Rubicon Project to see what this “project “is. The Rubicon Project is the name for a company that scoops all of greatschool’s data and ratings and comments from users and puts them in Rubicon’s “Advertising Automation Cloud.”

This data warehousing operation “brings buyers and sellers closer together on a robust advertising technology platform. One of the largest cloud and Big Data computing systems in the world, the Automation Cloud leverages over 50,000 algorithms and analyzes billions of data points in real-time to deliver the best results for sellers and buyers,” with 300 real-time data-driven decisions per transaction.”

Follow the money. The billionaire foundations gather the test scores and other information about schools. They are notoriously in favor of market-based education. The scores are translated into a their dubious but “custom” rating scheme with direct links to the great red-lining guru, Zillow (who has paid for a high end license). The data and ratings migrate out from the greatschools website to Rubicon. For a fee, Rubicon facilitates rapid and custom access to the data and ratings from their “cloud,” (a data warehouse), promising their clients they can “Efficiently find your target audience;” “build brand awareness,” “acquire new customers, and re-engage existing customers.”

https://selfserve.rubiconproject.com/advertise3/products/29619

I hope that this information gives parents another reason to opt out of the tests and especially PARCC. Greatschools has test data from every state, has a map of district boundaries searchable by zipcodes, and it is seeking data well beyond that required by state or federal regulation such as such as schools safety, cleanliness, and parent involvement. Next up: Scores for school climate and social-emotional learning, and “customer satisfaction surveys.”

Remember, taxpayers made PARCC possible. Time to say bye, bye and good riddance.

Categories Corporate Reform, Data and Data Mining, Education Industry, Testing

KrazyTA on the Importance of Play

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2016 //
13

Our reader who calls himself KrazyTA posted this comment:

 

 

He writes:

 

TEN QUOTES ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY

 

 

“Play is the work of the child.” – Maria Montessori

 

“Play is the highest form of research.” – Albert Einstein

 

“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” – Mr. Rogers

 

“The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” – Erik H. Erikson

 

“Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.” – O. Fred Donaldson

 

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” – Carl Jung

 

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw

 

“Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” – Plato

 

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers

 

 

 

Link: http://oneperfectdayblog.net/2013/02/21/quotes-about-the-importance-of-play/

😎

Categories Childhood, Play

Monty Neill Responds to Comments about the FairTest Assessment Model

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2016 //
8

On Sunday, I posted the FairTest model for state assessments. FairTest has spent decades fighting the misuse and abuse of standardized testing. One of its long-time board members, for example, is Deborah Meier, a well-recognized and distinguished critic of standardized testing.

Several readers read the report as a covert effort to legitimate Competency-Based Education, that is, embedded computerized testing controlled by corporations.

Monty Neill of FairTest responds here:

The comments in response to the posting about FairTest’s report, Assessment Matters, raise interesting points. I will respond here to just a few.

First, there is no doubt that corporations backed by some foundations and politicians are promoting a version of schooling that is built around computerized packaged programs that combine curriculum, curricular materials, instruction and testing. The tests are in most cases multiple-choice and short-answer with occasional write-to-a-prompt items, to be machine graded. They seriously narrow and diminish education and should be exposed and stopped.

But not one of the examples in FairTest’s report rely on these kinds of computerized packages. Each one is teacher controlled and very much teacher controlled. We clearly support and praise those that allow significant student voice and control over the learning and assessment processes. New Hampshire fought for a deal that has opened doors that have been nailed shut since the start of NCLB and thus deserve serious credit. As we point out, we can learn from and improve on what they have thus far done, and that ESSA makes it easier for that to happen. (As a sidebar, we have regularly opposed much of what is in ESSA concerning testing while noting the victories and gains the testing reform movement made and providing ideas on how to take advantage of the opportunities it does provide.)

People can choose to believe the fight is over because corporations are trying to seize control of terms such as personalized and competency-based. We believe that is a mistake. It is not over, and one part of the battle is the fight to own the terms. The more important fight is the one to determine the shape of education, whether it is built on human relations among teachers and students, with parents and other community people also engaged; or it is based on computer algorithms and subordinating human relations to the computer packages.

FairTest fights for the former. We think that is clear in what we call for and the programs we highlight. If people have questions about that, they should read what we actually write and then follow it up, looking at the programs themselves.

Monty Neill

Categories Standardized Testing, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Trump Still Insists the “Central Park 5” Were Guilty

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2016 //
10

In 1989, a female jogger was brutally attacked and raped in Central Park in New York City. The crime gripped the city for weeks. Five teenagers were arrested, confessed and implicated one another after intense police questioning, convicted, and sent to prison. They were exonerated years later based on DNA evidence and the confession of another criminal. Trump to this day insists that the original teens who spent 13 years in prison were guilty.

“New York” magazine describes Trump’s intense interest in punishing the perpetrators, taking out full-page ads in every NYC newspaper.

“On Thursday, Trump reaffirmed his view that law and order must take a backseat to punishing people (particularly, nonwhite people) whom he has declared guilty. Asked by CNN for a comment on the exoneration of the Central Park Five, the Republican nominee provided this statement:

“They admitted they were guilty. The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same…..”

The story says:

“In 1989, five teenagers — four black and one Hispanic — were arrested for the rape of a 28-year-old white woman in Central Park. The woman was left bound, beaten, and brain-damaged. She was identified as a banker, an ambitious career woman, the kind of person the city needed more of. The “Central Park Five” were identified as hoodlums, superpredators, the kind of people the city needed to expel.

“The crime sold papers.

“And Trump took out full-page ads in all of New York City’s major ones, two weeks after the attack, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty. The mogul never explicitly mentioned the five, but did reference criminals who “beat and rape a helpless woman.”

“After two days of questioning, police secured confessions from all five of the accused — although each teenager denied raping the woman himself, and placed guilt on someone else within the group. They later retracted those confessions, claiming they’d been coerced. They were convicted nonetheless.”

“But in 2002, a convicted rapist named Matias Reyes confessed to the crime, saying he had acted alone. While police were unable to connect DNA from any of the Central Park Five to the scene of the crime, Reyes’s DNA matched that in semen found on the victim’s body. The five were exonerated and paid a $41 million settlement in 2014.”

But Trump still believes the Central Park 5 were guilty. It was one of his obsessions, like his campaign to prove that President Obama was not born in the US.

Categories Accountability, Trump

Stephen Colbert Reviews the Second Presidential “Debate”

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2016 //
6

This is a very funny recap of the awful Presidential “debate,” filmed today by Stephen Colbert.

Watch Stephen protect his kitty from Donald Trump.

Categories Humor

Trump Taj Mahal Closes After Years of Losses: Another Trump Failure

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2016 //
29

This story was published in USA Today:

October 10, 2016 3:11 pm
The Trump Taj Mahal, an iconic casino hotel on the Atlantic City boardwalk, ceased operations Monday after hemorrhaging money for years and negotiations with an employees’ union broke down, according to its owner, billionaire investor Carl Icahn.
The shutdown, which leaves 3,000 employees out of work, was widely expected after management announced the planned closure in August. Beset by labor strife and the decline of Atlantic City as a resort and gaming destination, the hotel lost “almost $350 million over just a few short years,” Icahn said in a statement Monday.
About 1,000 employees, including cooks, bartenders, housekeepers and cocktail servers, went on strike July 1, seeking health care and pension benefits. Icahn said his last offer, which included medical benefits, was rejected and keeping the Taj open would have required additional investments and result in losses in “excess of $100 million over the next year.”
The union, Unite Here Local 54, says many workers at the hotel “have seen only 80 cents per hour in total raises over the last 12 years” while the cost of living in Atlantic City has risen more than 25% during the period.
“Workers are trying to reenter the middle-class after Icahn used the bankruptcy court to strip them of pay and benefits worth more than one-third of their total compensation,” the union said in a statement released last month. “Housekeepers, servers and other casino workers at the Taj Mahal earn on average less than $12 and hour.”
Icahn’s clash with the union employees cost the Taj Mahal an estimated $150 million, the union said.
Meanwhile, Tony Rodio, CEO of Tropicana Entertainment Inc., which manages the hotel for Icahn Enterprises, said in August Icahn has lost about $100 million in trying to run the Taj Mahal after he acquired it from bankruptcy proceedings in February. Tropicana Entertainment is controlled by Icahn Enterprises.
The Trump Taj Mahal opened in 1990 after heavy debt financing and years of legal and financial maneuvers by its then-owner Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. When it opened, it was one of the largest casinos in the world, with more than 100,000 square feet of gaming space, and it billed itself as “the eighth wonder of the world.”
But the fancy billing belied numerous financial woes it faced over the years, including multiple bankruptcy filings by its owners. In 2009, Trump Entertainment Resorts underwent a round of bankruptcy restructuring, in which Donald Trump lost control and the hotel operator company was sold to investment firm Avenue Capital.
In 2014, Trump Entertainment Resorts, whose assets by now mostly consisted of the Taj Mahal, again filed for bankruptcy protection. When it emerged from the legal proceedings in February, Icahn had grabbed control and the hotel become a subsidiary of Icahn Enterprises. ​
According to its website, Trump Taj Mahal customers had until 8 a.m. Monday to redeem gaming chips and vouchers at the hotel. After 8 a.m., they can be redeemed at Tropicana Atlantic City’s Casino Cage.
Room bookings on and after Oct. 9 have been cancelled. Room deposits will be refunded, it said.

Categories Failure, Trump

The New York Times’ Editorial on the Second Debate

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2016 //
67

I can’t contain my loathing for Donald Trump. I wish I could ignore him. But I can’t. We can’t. Why was he sniffing through both debates? He looked and sounded like a coke head. Why did he lurk and loom over Clinton as she spoke? He excused his disgusting behavior by repeated reference to Bill Clinton’s abhorrent behavior. That’s the “everybody does it” excuse. He described his revolting remarks about sexual assault as “locker room banter,” which means “boys will be boys” and it’s okay as long as it’s not on tape. He claimed that Michelle Obama made videos about Hillary that were worse than anything he said; Obama’s 2008 campaign manager David Axelrod tweeted that Michelle Obama NEVER made a video about Hillary. He is repugnant and loathsome. 
The New York Times’s editorial board summarizes its reaction: 

“Donald Trump boiled his decadent campaign down to one theme during the presidential debate on Sunday night: hatred of Hillary and Bill Clinton.
“With knock-kneed Republican officeholders showing signs of summoning the nerve to desert him, Mr. Trump labored to demonize Hillary Clinton — blaming her even for his own failure to pay taxes — and to remind his core supporters that he is all that stands between her and the presidency.
“If he were in charge, Mr. Trump told Secretary Clinton at one point, “You’d be in jail.”
“When Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Trump out for his failure to apologize to the minorities, immigrants and women he’s offended, he responded by promising vengeance. Should he win, he said, he would unleash a special prosecutor to investigate her.
“Sniffing and glowering, Mr. Trump prowled behind Mrs. Clinton as she presented herself again as the only adult on stage, the only one seeking to persuade the great majority of Americans that she shares their values and aspirations. Mr. Trump, by contrast, fell back on the tricks he has learned from his years in pro wrestling and reality television, making clear how deep his cynicism goes.
“Just before the debate, desperate to shift attention from his pattern of harassment, Mr. Trump sat hunched over a blank notepad in a hotel meeting room, encouraging four women to face the cameras and tell their stories of sexual victimization. “You went through a lot,” Mr. Trump coaxed one of the women flanking him, as he bent their allegations against Bill and Hillary Clinton to serve himself. The women’s claims deserved to be investigated and aired, and they have been, repeatedly.
“During the debate, Mr. Trump struggled once again to coherently explain his policies, instead wandering down twisting, shadowy alleyways in muttering pursuit of his various claims about Mrs. Clinton, including that she, not he, was responsible for his birther lie about President Obama. He complained that the moderators were ganging up on him and failing to question Mrs. Clinton about her private email server — immediately after they had done just that.
“Mr. Trump probably performed well enough to silence the 11-hour whispering campaign among Republicans about somehow ejecting him from the ticket. That means the G.O.P. will continue asking Americans to vote for a candidate who is debasing and trivializing our politics. During the debate, it seemed somewhere between poignant and futile to hear the moderators invite undecided voters to ask about his plans for the nation.
“When Mr. Trump so grandly accepted the Republican nomination in July, he said, “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves.” By then, though, he had already campaigned for months by beating up on vulnerable Americans, including minorities and the disabled. Only in recent days has the Republican establishment started to acknowledge the magnitude of his hypocrisy.
“The videotape disclosed Friday provided gruesome evidence that the Republican standard-bearer has for years used his powerful status to prey on women. Other revelations followed, including that in 2005 he told Howard Stern on his radio show that, when he owned the Miss Universe pageant, he made a practice of “inspecting” naked contestants backstage. “You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. … And you see these incredible-looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that.”
“Now, as he struggles to close the biggest deal of his lifetime, a woman is getting the better of him. That’s not surprising, but it is apt.”

Categories Clinton, Politics, Trump

Larry Lee: Public Education is Under Attack in Alabama: Help Us!

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2016 //
2

Larry Lee is one of the staunchest supporters of public schools in Alabama. A few years ago, he criss-crossed the state and identified 10 rural schools that were doing everyday miracles for their children and their communities because of the hard work and dedication of teachers, principals, and families, all doing their best for their children.

He sent me the following urgent message:

These are dark days for public education in Alabama. Since the legislature changed hands in 2010, things have gone steadily downhill.

Take a look:

* A bill to have A-F school grades, a practice intended solely to be punitive and a practice that research does not support.

* The Alabama Accountability Act that has now diverted $72 million from the Education Trust Fund for vouchers for private schools. A law that failed utterly in its stated mission to “help; poor students stuck in failing schools by their zip code.

* A bill to establish charter schools which cuts into already under-funded public schools funding.

* A bill known as the RAISE Act that would have forced teachers to be evaluated with the highly controversial Value Added Model.

* A bill intended to set up Education Savings Accounts that would have diverted more funding from the Education Trust Fund.

Instead of seeking input from professional educators, legislators are listening to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Jeb Bush foundations and Alabama special interests. In fact, the Senate majority leader boasted after passing the Accountability Act in 2013 that this bill was purposely hidden from educators because “they would have opposed it.”

Now, to add insult to injury the state board of education, the body that should be the first line of defense for public education, has turned its back on our children by hiring an attorney from Massachusetts to be state school superintendent. They ignored Alabama code and even their advertised required qualifications and put their own ideology and political ambitions ahead of the 740,000 children in Alabama public schools

Because of this, a group of 40 plaintiffs, including former local superintendents, principals, teachers, school board members, parents, local elected officials, a former college president and a former U.S. Congressman have joined together to seek legal action against the state school board.

They have said ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and formed the Alabama Public School Defense Fund to wage this battle.

Please join in standing up for our children by going to this site and contributing today.

https://www.gofundme.com/2t2r6mpy

—
Larry Lee
334-787-0410

http://www.larryeducation.com (blog)

Education Is Everyone’s Business

Categories Accountability, Alabama, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

John Oliver Summarizes the Last Three Days of the 2016 Campaign: Hilarious!

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2016 //
9

This is another priceless John Oliver review, this one about the last few days of the increasingly disgusting election campaign. As he says at the outset, he taped it just before the “debate,” but his comments are priceless and hilarious. And I forgive his use of four-letter words, which are necessary in context.

Categories Humor, Politics

Washington State High Court Refuses to Cancel $100,000 a Day Fine for Legislative Inaction on School Funding

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2016 //
9

The Washington Supreme Court ordered the legislature to come up with a plan to fund the state’s public schools fairly. The legislature has taken a few steps but has failed to comply with the court’s order. The state asked the coutrt to cancel the fines. The court said no.

“No hammer will come down this year as a result of the Legislature’s ongoing failure to come up with plan to fully fund public schools, the state Supreme Court said Thursday.

“Instead, the high court said it will continue fining Washington state $100,000 per day, but will wait to see what progress lawmakers make in the 2017 legislative session before imposing additional sanctions.

“The court’s ruling is the the latest development in the school-funding case known as McCleary, in which the court ruled in 2012 that Washington state was failing to meet its constitutional duty to amply fund basic education.

“In its order, the court directed the state to correct school-funding problems by 2018.

“While lawmakers have added about $2.3 billion to address parts of the McCleary ruling — including funding for all-day kindergarten, school supplies and class size reductions in lower grades — they have yet to come up with a way to fix the unconstitutional way teachers and other school employees are paid, which many lawmakers view as the most complicated part of the decision.

“The court has said school employee salaries are basic education costs that should be borne by the state, and not paid through local school district property tax levies.

“In its majority ruling Thursday, the court criticized lawmakers for not specifying how they plan to take on those costs next year.

“In its latest report, the State continues to provide a promise — ‘we’ll get there next year’ — rather than a concrete plan for how it will meet its paramount duty,” wrote Chief Justice Barbara Madsen, whose opinion was signed by seven of the court’s nine justices.”

Washington State contains some of the richest people in the nation and the world. Why aren’t they leading the fight for higher taxes to fund the schools instead of fighting for charters?

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/politics-government/article106406507.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Funding, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Washington State
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