Will Betsy DeVos do to the nation what she has done to Michigan?
A new study by Professor Brian Jacob of the University of Michigan demonstrates that Michigan’s gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress were the lowest in the nation. Now we know why DeVos was unable to explain the difference between “growth” and “proficiency” at her Senate hearings. She really has no idea that her own state has been stagnant as her philosophy of choice took hold. Brookings has not yet posted the study online. But the Detroit News reported its results and interviewed Jacob about his findings.
A new analysis of results of a national educational test shows Michigan students have continually made the least improvement nationally of scores since 2003.
The study, by University of Michigan professor Brian A. Jacob, of scores of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), also found that Michigan students were at the bottom of the list when it comes to proficiency growth in the four measures of the exam.
That analysis comes less than six months after the release of the Michigan’s Talent Crisis report by Education Trust-Midwest that found Michigan’s students are falling far behind their peers across the nation. The ETM report found that Michigan is in the bottom 10 states for key subjects and grades, including early literacy.
Fourth-grade scores have been stagnant. In eighth-grade, Michigan has not kept pace with gains made by other states.
Jacob, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said there is no single explanation of the Michigan rankings.
“I believe that there are a number of factors responsible for Michigan’s weak performance: a lack of adequate state and local funding for schools, the highly decentralized nature of governance that makes it difficult for the state Department of Education to develop coordinated reforms, the lack of regulation and accountability in the charter sector, and the economic and political instability that have plagued Detroit and other urban areas in the state,” he said.
“Another reason is the relatively decentralized nature of education in Michigan,” he added. “The long tradition of local control in the state has made it harder for the state Department of Education or others to establish coordinated policies.”
Jacob said those factors particularly affect Detroit. “The political and financial instability of Detroit over the past decade or two undoubtedly had a major impact on student performance in the city and surrounding areas,” he said.
As expected, Republican officeholders said that throwing money at the problem won’t help. Obviously, charters don’t help either, since they are flourishing and unaccountable and not producing better results than public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As the post states, “Republican officeholders said that throwing money at the problem won’t help.”
Which is why, as night follows day, they and rheephormsters of all political shades, colorations and hues look forward to Betsy DeVos throwing more and more money at charters and such.
This in spite of the fact that charters, again from the posting, “are flourishing and unaccountable and not producing better results than public schools.”
Makes perfect ₵ent¢ if $tudent $ucce$$ is the bottom line.
But not if you are for a “better education for all”…
😎
Those who support DeVos’s agenda are well aware that much of that blithely “thrown” money is just so easy to sneak in and suck up.
Like!
“Throwing money” won’t help. BUT concerted, coordinated, research-based policy, and strategically-considered money might. It appears political, ideological, and faddish disruption hobby-horses do not work.
It would seem public schools were MORE successful to begin with.
Given the resources those so-called “failing” schools were doing fine.
Our West Coast Palos Verdes High dropped 18 points in test scores in 2016. And CA now has a Dashboard to determine success of school districts.
Will a rainbow help CA children learn–See the colors of performance levels.
How low can you go spending money on ridiculous endeavors?
http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr17/yr17rel05.asp
“California State Board of Education President Mike Kirst. “I look forward to the launch of the California School Dashboard later this year, but this is just the beginning. We plan to make significant improvements in future years.”
“Schools will be rated based on a combination of these factors and assigned one of five performance levels. From highest to lowest: Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red.”
Orange, yellow, blue,
bluebirds, robins, jays sing,
and eagles soar or is it sore.
Basic, attempting, proficient, NOT!
Gold star, blue star, no star,
A, B, C, D, why not E and the BIG F,
F this,
retarded, normal, intelligent, gifted,
50%, 60%, 80%, 105% (with extra credit of course),
When, oh when will we dispense with the sorting and separating, the ratings, the rewarding and punishing based on those ratings, ratings which lack so. . . ???
If we had a government that wasn’t utterly captured by ed reform there would be a special study on the effect of ed reform in Great Lakes states. Include Pennsylvania.
For some unknown reason we bear the brunt of the worst ed reform ideas. It’s a disaster.
I myself think they focus on Boston and NYC for a reason. Everyone points to Ohio like we’re this outlier but this is a regional problem. We seem to attract every gimmick and flim flam operator in the country. I sometimes look at ed reform scams in other states and recognize Ohio names. We’re exporting this stuff.
Ohio, yes, but ALSO Michigan and Pennsylvania. That’s a big piece of ground! How did we escape notice? What happened here and why is everyone ignoring it?
Shouldn’t public education have GOTTEN BETTER? Was the objective to make it worse? 20 years of this. Ohio has the whole gambit of ed reform- vouchers- the whole works. We’re studiously and carefully ignored.
Wanna look at ed reform? Come to Ohio! Come to Michigan! We’re the designated experiment site. Let’s look at “results”. By all means.
The only authentic studies these days come from social justice groups and some institutions of higher education. There is absolutely no reason why anyone would want to emulate Michigan. As Trump would say,”It’s a total disaster,” and he wouldn’t be lying.
In search for “better education for all,” Pro-Publica published an article that also appeared in “USA Today.” This post is about the impact of choice systems and high stakes testing on poor, troubled and vulnerable students. Some public systems are sending their “cast-offs” to for profit charters that plunk them down in front of computer screens and call it “education.” This is a system designed to make the public schools appear more “successful” on standardized tests, and, of course, this re-sorting of students also impacts poor, minority students unfairly. In this case the public schools do the choosing, not the students, and needy students are placed in a separate, unequal setting. https://www.propublica.org/article/alternative-education-using-charter-schools-hide-dropouts-and-game-system
It’s sort of the ultimate insult that they hired DeVos to lead ed reform.
Is there anyone in the country who considers Michigan an ed reform success? Anyone?
It’s as if they said “let’s take the worst of ed reform and scale it up!” I mean, Jesus. Are they TRYING to harm rust belt states? What did we ever do to these people to deserve this?
Reblogged this on DelawareFirstState.
Here’s more advice from ed reform for Betsy DeVos.
http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/20/5-pieces-advice-education-secretary-betsy-devos/
Missing: any positive benefit for public schools. Nothing. Nada.
The BEST we can hope for out of this “movement” is grudging permission for public schools to continue to exist. That’s the BEST case.
How is this about “improving public schools” when public schools are entirely excluded?
Public schools get “we admit public schools exist” from ed reform and this is considered to be HUGELY generous. Forget “support”. That’s unimaginable. They think allowing the continued existence of the school 90% of kids attend is somehow a “benefit”.
To a certain extent public school supporters have bought into this. We demand nothing from them. We’re begging them to allow public schools to stay open. “Do no harm” has now become the best we can hope for.
This is a very low expectation! We should demand better than that! When DeVos shows up at your school turn it around. Ask her what SHE brings to YOUR effort. If the answer is “nothing” you have no duty to go along. In fact, your duty runs the other way- to the children in public schools, not to the imaginary children in the fantasy school she hasn’t “invented” yet.
Please change my address to: jmatthews1939@gmail.com
Best, John
“Olympia’s success in recent years, however, has been linked to another, quite different school 5 miles away. Last school year, 137 students assigned to Olympia instead attended Sunshine High, a charter alternative school run by a for-profit company. Sunshine stands a few doors down from a tobacco shop and a liquor store in a strip mall. It offers no sports teams and few extra-curricular activities.
Sunshine’s 455 students – more than 85 percent of whom are black or Hispanic – sit for four hours a day in front of computers with little or no live teaching. One former student said he was left to himself to goof off or cheat on tests by looking up answers on the internet. A current student said he was robbed near the strip mall’s parking lot, twice.”
They must have know this when they were talking about increased graduation rates. That was credited to ed reform, but they knew these places were operating- there was a big expose in Chicago. So they created a for-profit charter sector to juice graduation rates and then credited increased rates to ed reform.
I am glad “USA” printed the story as they have a wide distribution, and more people need to be aware of how choice systems promote inequality.
This guy has no clue once again. I’ve taught math in Michigan for 18 years. We were fine until the govt started to centralize education. Those ass clowns in office have been deliberately sinking the ship. I’ve had no less than 6 benchmarks or whatever the latest fad name is, in 18 years. You can’t get good at something if you change the game every 3 years. Oh snap, thats all part of the plan. Fellow educators we are in big trouble if the US uses Michigan as the model.
I think that folks have to stop believing that corporate ed reformers actually want to improve schools or help students of color, new immigrants, or students with disabilities and trying to explain that their plans fail to improve outcomes. This is what they want to happen and what they’re engineering. Look at what they do instead of what they say. They profit from the narrative of failing schools and community fear and selling products to fix the problem such as standardized test prep or new curriculum or pushing out experienced educators or opening for profit schools with temp teachers. The admins of programs like TFA, KIPP or success academy are literally making millions off of poor children and they sucker in families and donors with colorful brochures of smiling children in uniforms and false promises, not that different from any other huckster or con artist.