The following comment was posted on the blog in response to this post about the coming school board elections in Douglas County, Colorado. There, in the most affluent county in the state, corporate reformers swamped the previous school board elections with money and propaganda and elected a majority committed to privatization. Many of the district’s best teachers left. The future of the district lies in the hands of its parents. If they want public schools, they will have to fight for them, go door-to-door to explain the issues, and mobilize other parents and civic-minded members of the public to vote in the school board election. Only they can save their schools.
The reader from Douglas County wrote:
“Thank you for shining light on our CO school district. I’m a mom, and local resident, with kids in our public schools. We had amazing schools and outstanding teachers in this district, as our student and school performances (in the past) showed. Over the last 7 years, outside interests and forces (which most residents and/or parents haven’t really understood), have been decimating our schools, and causing the loss of our best teachers. I never realized that high functioning, successful public school districts in wealthy suburban areas were such attractive targets for private “for-profit” national education corporations. I’m realizing that our local tax dollars, collected for “public” purposes, are the focus of BIG corporate cash-grabs. Vouchers and charters are strangling our once thriving schools. Please help us shed light on this destructive trend, and help us stand up to it, as a community. Our own elected school board members (the “reformers”) have been selling out our district, and hiring their own friends and colleagues, spending obscene amounts of money, with little accountability, or transparency. I wish we could personally sue each one of them for negligence, collusion, and damages to the community, and our kids.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“We had amazing schools and outstanding teachers in this district, as our student and school performances (in the past) showed.”
What exactly do you mean by “student and school performances”? Test scores? Sorry, but those don’t show how amazing or outstanding your schools or teachers were. They showed how affluent your district is.
I know I keep beating this horse, but I will until the dang thing dies: please, please, please let’s stop pretending that test scores mean anything, even when it’s in our favor.
LikeLiked by 1 person
so well said — and so often never said
LikeLike
I agree that test scores show affluence. What happens when test scores go down in an affluent district? I think it tells an important story. In Douglas County we now have schools on “priority improvement plans” which is very atypical of an affluent district–unheard of really.
LikeLike
Test scores going down may indicate that children are learning, discovering and having fun instead of preparing for tests. Atypical indeed!!
LikeLike
More power to you and to other parents who may well have a shot at taking back your schools.
Sometime ago I looked at the insane way that the school board was determining the salaries of teachers. They had preconceptions about the monetary value of a teacher based on the grade level and the subject they taught. Elementary teacher were paid less than high school teachers. Some grade levels “deserved” better paid teachers than others.
At the high school level, they tried to rationalize differential pay based on a cocamamie idea of how many teachers might be available in the labor market, with a premium offered to teachers who might not be available to teach their preferred subjects.
I do not have those notes, but it was clear that the school board and the Superintendent in Douglas County had no concept of school management apart from some common business practices that do not apply to public education.
LikeLike
Ah, I go to comment and dienne77 beat me to the horse beating!
Yes, I too will beat the nag until the dang thing dies. I add to dienne’s point.
It is not only that test scores are meaningless, in or out of “our” favor. It is worse than that. If we stipulate by our silence or “horse beating cessation” that those amazing students and their performances are amazing by virtue of test scores – or that “amazing” matters either – then we also stipulate to the idea that the amazing schools and outstanding teachers in the district created that outcome.
Thereby we also silently stipulate to the reformers’ idea that less-than-amazing students and test scores are a problem, that less-than-outstanding teachers are the problem and that – voila!!! – we need to “reform” them and their “failing” schools. (Gosh, I’m using too many quote marks)
As dienne notes, the swell outcomes showed how affluent the district is and how privileged (read: white) most of the families are.
LikeLike
stevenelson0248, Dienne and anyone else who agrees with them.
Thanks for boarding the Quixotic Quest Anti-Standards and Testing Bandwagon. There’s still plenty of seats available. Actually unlimited seating!
LikeLike
Thanks, Duane. I’ve been on this bus for many, many years. Even before reform made the ride a public obligation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I too have been fighting this nonsense since the late 90s when I first heard the term “data driven decision making”, meaning test scores, during a being professionally developed day. I challenged it at that point, and have continued to challenge it ever since.
Feel free to email me at duaneswacker@gmail.com if you would like an electronic draft copy of my book (should have the books themselves this week) “Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractice in American Public Education”. In it I discuss the purpose of American public education and of government in general, issues of truth in discourse, justice and ethics in teaching practices, the abuse and misuse of the terms standards and measurement which serve to provide an unwarranted pseudo-scientific validity/sheen to the standards and testing regime and how the inherent discrimination in that regime should be adjudicated to be unconstitutional state discrimination no different than discrimination via race, gender, disability, etc. . . .
It’s gotten some good reviews:
“I must say that I was impressed by what you say and the down-to-earth way you say it. It’s a studied and thoughtful presentation. . . . I especially like the way you have arranged the presentation. Your work is impressive and I would be obliged if you kept in touch.” Phil Cullen
LikeLike
Those who are fortunate to live in “amazing” school districts don’t realize the damage that these corporate privatizers have done to other people’s children. Now the chickens have come home to roost. And now, they are coming for your kids. Get ready for the fight. Too bad you didn’t join it sooner, but better late than never…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. Sadly suburban Douglas County IS being invaded and abused by those who want to profit from “reform” and spread ideological control, but inner-city Denver district schools just up the road were facing horrific NCLB/R2T penalties and teacher blame invasions long years before the Reformers saw suburban districts as a lucrative target. If what was being done to the inner-city poor had been deemed not only illegal but immoral, the problem could not have spread.
LikeLike
Thank you, Diane, for posting this from a Douglas County parent.
Douglas County has been targeted by BIG $$$$$ forever. Glad parents are finally seeing that Douglas County Schools have been “HAD” by big $$$$$.
LikeLike
It’s so great how the Secretary of Education doesn’t even feign an interest in public education:
“THIS WEEK: DEVOS TO MEET WITH PHILANTHROPY ROUNDTABLE: DeVos is expected to take part in an event Friday morning with the nonprofit Philanthropy Roundtable. The event, which was briefly posted to DeVos’ public schedule on Tuesday and later removed, is closed to the press, said spokeswoman Liz Hill. Hill didn’t provide any more information about the topic or what DeVos would be doing there. There are no other events listed on her public schedule.”
They should rename that place. It’s really deceptive marketing to pretend it has something to do with “the public”.
It’s a group of lobbyists and various private entities who attend meetings where the public is carefully and deliberately excluded.
LikeLike
Philanthropy Roundtable consists of conservative anti-union, pro-privatization foundations
LikeLike
When are local communities going to realize the importance of the public schools that so many take for granted? An investment in public education is an investment in the local community. Public schools are democracy in action. They represent local determination over local budgets. Privatization is a disinvestment in one’s own community. Corporation carpetbaggers take local funds out of the local community, and the local community suffers as a result.
Billionaires and corporations are the big supporters of charter schools. They invade a community with high power sales pitch. After, the community may have buyers’ remorse, but the charter lobby buys state representatives to ensure continued access to local funds. When locals finally understand what has happened, their public schools have declined due to charter and/or voucher drain. Supporting charter schools is giving away a community’s best investment in its future. Colorado is finding this out the hard way.
LikeLiked by 1 person