James Eterno, a teacher in New York City, has started a petition calling on the New York State Legislature to repeal the failed and ineffective teacher evaluation law.
I agree! I signed! Let educators decide how to evaluate teachers, not politicians.
https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/repeal-nys-teacher-evaluatio?source=s.em.cp&r_hash=arkN4TBC
Louisiana has gone crazy for testing.
Mercedes Schneider reports that the state plans to spend at least $75 million for five years of in PARCC-like tests. Testing will begin in kindergarten.
Louisiana to Spend at Least $75M on Five Years of PARCC-ish LEAP 2025 Testing
The state’s scores were abysmal on the latest NAEP, and apparently State Superintendent John White and the state board believe that if they weigh the pig more often it will get fatter.
This is insane.
Martin Levine has become one of my favorite writers on education. He writes for NonProfit Quarterly (free online) and other publications. He really understands that privatization is about “me first, to hell with the rest of you.”
Here is his commentary on the recent Gordon Lafer study of the fiscal impact of charters on the public schools they leave behind.
Oakland is a textbook example of a district that is being systematically hollowed out by the proliferation of charter schools. Oakland has lurched from deficit to deficit, while controlled for years by Broadie superintendents, who encouraged the destruction of the district by charters.
He writes:
A recent look at public education in Oakland raises important questions about whether maximizing choice comes at the cost of equity.
Choice advocates have said all students would benefit from maximizing a parent’s ability to choose their child’s school. The introduction of independent charter schools, they believe, harnesses market forces to reward better schools and ultimately force poor schools to close. Following this logic, we will be left with better schools. But while charter schools can focus only on the students who choose their programs, traditional school districts remain responsible for all of the children in their districts. When funding follows each student to their school of choice, those choosing to remain in public schools are finding themselves resource-starved. Overall, educational equity and school choice may not be able to coexist.
Charter schools are about what is best for “me.” Public schools are about what is best for all.
In the age of Trump, individualism trumps the common good.
Eight to 10 people killed at Santa Fe, Texas, high school. Galveston County, about 35 Miles from Houston.
Another tragedy.
Not an AR-15, a shotgun and a .38. His father’s guns.
What will do about it?
More guns?
More thoughts and prayers?0
John Thompson, historian and teacher in Oklahoma City, has written a three-part series about superintendents “trained” by the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, financed by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.
He writes:
This second post will provide a brief overview on the backgrounds of people who joined the Broad Academy, and the records they brought to their education jobs, as well as the reports of misbehavior that did not interfere with them climbing the professional ladder. I am making no judgments regarding legal controversies, but reviewing the ways Broad graduates were described when doing their jobs. I am continually struck by the similarities I have seen when trying to work with Broad leaders and what has been reported in regard to Broadies across the nation.
In 2007, the OKCPS hired a graduate of the Broad Superintendents’ Academy, John Q. Porter. The Broad Academy was run like a corporate executive training program, and it emphasized data, choice, and other market-driven policies. Porter left Oklahoma City after a tumultuous seven months. Porter – who was clueless about improving high-poverty schools – later became president of Mosaica Turnaround Partners.
An investigation by a former federal prosecutor found Porter had, “improperly sought reimbursement from the school system for personal, first-class airplane tickets to Washington; that he had been reimbursed for apparent alcohol purchases at expensive restaurants;” and that he asked district employees to perform a personal task at his home. The district attorney did not indict but Porter agreed to resign.
http://newsok.com/article/3190204
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/23/20porter.h27.html
My reading of the evidence was that Porter had not meant to violate the law. Perhaps naively, I concluded that it mostly was his high-handedness that brought him down. Because of his micromanaging style, the people who knew the information he should have sought were not invested in his success. I now believe I was too charitable when sizing up nature of the problems.
Perhaps the most famous Broad leader was John Deasy (class of 2006), When he was superintendent of Prince George’s County in 2008, a controversy erupted over his doctorate of philosophy. He only completed nine credit hours in one semester. Deasy was later driven out of Los Angeles after pushing a $1.3-billion plan to provide an iPad to every student and educator. He did so despite questions about the wisdom of using of long-term bonds to buy devices that would last only a few years. But the overriding issue was the acrimony Deasy fostered. As one educator said, “If you feel the earth begin to violently shake sometime tomorrow, don’t worry — it won’t be an earthquake … “It’ll be 40,000 LAUSD employees dancing.”
When resigning, Deasy wrote that he “was unable to adjust my leadership style and my expectations for the system in a way that would have gotten me longer tenure in the job. I own 100 percent of that.”
http://www.governing.com/topics/education/mct-deasy-resigns.html
Another consequential Broadie, Jean-Claude Brizard (class of 2008), helped provoke the Chicago teachers strike. Brizard came from Rochester where he was “mired in controversy,” and named in at least two federal lawsuits, as well as being condemned for his aggressive reform style and his methods for his handling of teachers and staff. As the Chicago CEO, Brizzard was criticized for his management style, his manner of communication, and high turnover for department heads and cabinet positions.
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/a-guide-to-the-broad-foundations-training-programs-and-policies/
http://www.gazette.net/stories/09112008/prinnew175734_32486.shtml
Conversely, Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana (class of 2006) brought sniffles to teachers in Eugene, Ore., who gave her a standing ovation after she told the inspirational tale of a teacher and a 5th grader. It turned out the story came from a forty-year-old work of fiction.
https://pilotonline.com/news/local/education/article_0ec71a80-7b5c-51bf-bf46-c940186c34d7.html
Joseph Wise (class of 2003), formerly Superintendent of the Duval County Florida Public Schools, left a $26 million deficit while a superintendent in Delaware, before being hired and fired from his Duval post. He moved on to Edison Schools.
http://www.wboc.com/story/7944956/former-christina-head-fired-in-fla-hired-by-edison
Speaking of Edison Schools, in 2007, when its former leader, Chris Cerf (class of 2004), was the acting New Jersey Education Commissioner, The Newark Star Ledger reported that Cerf “can be thin-skinned, quick-tempered and, at times, less than forthcoming, even when the answers to questions could hardly be seen as damaging.” He was criticized for not identifying his involvement in a consulting firm which developed a secret plan to turn many Newark public schools over to charter operators.
The Broad Foundation acknowledged that it put up $500,000 to pay for the study.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/nj_acting_education_commission.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/acting_nj_education_chief_cerf.html
Involvement in previous scandals doesn’t necessarily seem to be grounds for exclusion from the Broad team. The Baltimore Sun reported that Kimberly Statham, the former chief academic officer for Howard County Schools resigned after allegations of a “grade changing scandal” involving her daughter. Deborah Gist, then the state superintendent of education for the District of Columbia, later hired Statham as deputy superintendent of teaching and learning. Gist said, “We discussed it really briefly.”
But she said. “It seems clear that it was an unfortunate situation, and that Kimberly had done the right thing, and that she did not do anything that would concern me at all.”
Of course, D.C. Superintendent Gist was far from aggressive in investigating cheating during Michelle Rhee’s time at D.C.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/bs-mtblog-2007-10-where_are_they_now_kimberly_a-story.html
And that brings me back to Oklahoma, and whether we were sufficiently inquisitive about our first Broad graduate. After Porter resigned, the Washington Post took a second look at his record. It reported:
In a June 2006 interview with District Administration, a magazine for school administrators, Porter confessed a weakness for fine dining — “I try to find the top 10 in new cities I travel to” — and fine things: “I like expensive clothes, expensive cars. I collect pens. I collect Rolex watches.”
The Post reviewed expense records for the last full year Porter worked in Montgomery County and it noted three items:
One was Porter’s first-class flight to San Francisco for a conference in April 2006, which cost $1,379.50. “Our people don’t fly first class,” said Brian Edwards, Weast’s chief of staff. The others were a pair of December 2006 purchases at Best Buy stores totaling $373.46. There’s no evidence Porter recorded them in a transaction log, as required by the school system.
More importantly, the Post looked into “other aspects of Porter’s work in Montgomery [that] also are being questioned as a result of the Oklahoma City investigation.” The Post reported on his relationship “with a New York high-tech firm. Oklahoma City school board members alleged Porter last year arranged a contract with Wireless Generation that ‘was not, but should have been, open to competitive bidding.’ The contract provided diagnostic reading software to Oklahoma City schools.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/10/AR2008031002774.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16/AR2008011601876_2.html
Again, I’m not qualified to investigate legal matters. My focus is the attitudes and demeanor of Broad graduates. If you believe that education leaders should be technocrats, not people persons, that’s one thing. But if you believe that politics and human interactions are keys to education improvement, the patterns that I have seen and read about are important. In a third post, I will further stress what I saw firsthand in Oklahoma City, and how it is representative of the ways that the Broad culture has infected public schools across the nation.
Jimmie Don Aycock was one of the best friends of public education in the state legislature. He fought for public schools when they were under siege by penny-pinching legislators who cut $5 Billion from the schools in 2011. The state’s economy rebounded, some funding was restored, but funding is still below where it was a decade ago.
Jimmie Don warned his fellow Texans that it costs real money to meet the needs of students today but the legislature has not dealt with the realities.
Here are the realities:
“First, poverty makes educating students more difficult and more expensive. Second, lack of English language skills makes educating students more difficult and more expensive. Unfortunately, about 60 percent of Texas students fall into the poverty category. Almost one in five Texas students speaks limited English.
“We have also learned some things that work even in the most challenging circumstances. We know that if we attract, train and retain quality teachers there is a positive effect. We know that giving our best teachers incentives to teach on the most difficult campuses has a positive effect. We know that early childhood education — full day, high quality, Pre-K through 3rd grade — helps narrow the gaps for struggling students. Finally, it will require “wrap around services” including health care, nutrition and social services to make an impact on our harshest educational environments.
“Now the reality check: All of these things cost money. They also face the political perils of pulling sparse assets from mainstream students to more challenged students. If we truly believe that students in special education, limited English programs and in poverty really deserve to catch up, then funding must be part of the conversation.
“None of this happens in a vacuum. Other urgent needs from child protective services, foster child care, retired teacher health care, drug crisis interventions and on and on, all pull from state resources. To make matters even more complex, this is occurring during a fundamental shift in state policy. For some years, the state has been systematically cutting taxes and shifting the cost of services toward local taxpayers and local fees. Education is a prime example of this, the state share of education funding falling from 50 percent to 38 percent since 2008. If we really dislike property taxes, then we must have a discussion about what revenue stream we would prefer.
“As part of this new reality, our state faces several options. One is to simply live with a mediocre education system. After all, our students perform near the national average while our funding is far below the national average. Another option is to simply accept that we will have very high local school property taxes as the state pays less and less of the overall cost of public education. Or, hopefully, we can realistically face the need to enhance state revenue. That discussion is never politically easy.”
Clearly, he believes the time has come for the state to live up to the challenge. Under current leadership, that’s a Texas-sized challenge. Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick think that charters and vouchers can take the place of adequate funding. That’s ridiculous.
Leonie Haimson weighs in on the mess created by Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top demand for a state teacher evaluation system based to a significant degree on test scores.
Leonie says that if the Legislature is unwilling to repeal the law (as I urge), it should hold public hearings.
No way to put lipstick on this pig.
Evaluating teachers by test scores is unsound. There is no evidence for it. It has failed and failed and failed.
It should be repealed. The legislature doesn’t know how to evaluate teachers. Let each district devise its own plans.
New York and other states continue to be saddled with the toxic gift bestowed (i.e., imposed) as part of Arne Duncan and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top. When New York applied for Race to the Top funding, it agreed to pass a law making test scores a “significant” part of teacher evaluations. It did. The law has been a source of ongoing controversy. It is completely ineffectual–every year, 95-97% of teachers are rated either Highly Effective or Ineffective. Parents rebelled because their children were put into the awkward position of determining their teachers’ ratings, and many objected to the pressure. The result was the Opt Out Movement. Andrew Cuomo was gung-ho for evaluating teachers by test scores, assuming that it would identify the “bad teachers” who should be terminated, and he insisted that test scores should be 50%, no less, in rating teachers. When the Opt Out movement claimed 20% of all eligible students in 3-8, Cuomo appointed a commission to study the issues and asked for a four-year moratorium on use of the scores to evaluate teachers. The moratorium ends next year.
This is an excellent analysis of the mess in New York by Gary Stern, a first-rate reporter for Lohud (Lower Hudson Valley) News.
He writes:
New York state’s teacher evaluation system is a lot like Frankenstein’s monster.
It was a high-minded experiment that turned out ghastly in 2011, scaring the heck out of teachers and their bosses. The monster was repeatedly cut up and sewed back together in search of something better, but just got nastier. Many parents, fearing for the well-being of teachers, rebelled with the educational equivalent of pitchforks and torches: Opting their kids out from state tests.
As a result, a moratorium was put in place in 2015, through the 2019-20 school year, on the most controversial part of the system — the attempted use of standardized test scores to measure the impact of individual teachers on student progress.
The monster was tranquilized, and things quieted down.
Now a bill in Albany, which looks likely to pass, is being hailed by NYSUT and legislators as the answer to putting Frankenstein out of his misery. The bill (A.10475/S.08301) would eliminate the mandatory use of state test scores in teacher (and principal) evaluations, referring to math and ELA tests for grades 3-8 and high school Regents exams. School districts that choose alternative student assessments for use in evaluating teachers would have to do so through collective bargaining with unions.
But the evaluation monster would still live, perhaps in a semi-vegetative state, seemingly hooked up to wires in the basement of the state Education Department.
NYSUT, which represents 600,000 teachers and others, likes this deal. But groups representing school boards and superintendents are antsy. They don’t want teachers unions involved in choosing student assessments. And they say that the bill could lead to more testing, since students will still have to take the 3-8 tests and Regents exams.
Untangling this mess is not for the faint of heart. Even Dr. Frankenstein might look away…
The evaluation system was devised at the height of the “reform” era, when federal and state officials wanted to show that public schools were failing. Gov. Andrew Cuomo prized the evaluation system as a way to drive out crummy teachers. But the whole thing fell flat. As one principal told me, “If I don’t like a teacher, should I root for their students to do poorly on the state tests?”…
As the system is currently stitched together, about half a teacher’s evaluation is based on how students do on various assessments. Most teachers don’t have students who take state tests, so their evaluations are based on a hodgepodge of student measurements. A recent study of 656 district plans across New York, by Joseph Dragone of Capital Region BOCES, found more than 500 different combinations of student assessments in use.
To game the system, more and more districts are applying common measurements of student progress to teachers across grades or schools or even districtwide. Get this: Dragone found that 28 percent of districts use high school Regents exams, in part, to evaluate K-2 teachers.
What’s the value of all this? Primarily, to comply with state requirements for a failed system.
He concludes that no one knows how to fix this mess. It is not enough to stitch up Frankenstein one more time.
But there is an answer.
Repeal the entire system created in response to Race to the Top demands. It failed. Race to the Top failed. Why prop up or revise a failed system?
Let districts decide how to evaluate their teachers. Why does the state need to prescribe teacher evaluation? What does the Legislature know about teacher evaluation? Nothing. Districts don’t want “bad” teachers. Let Arne’s Frankenstein go to its deserved grave.
Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy is a steadfast critic of charter schools, which, he says, have absorbed $10 billion in funds that should have gone to Ohio public schools. Now that ECOT is in bankruptcy, the state is trying to claw a few million of the $1 billion that ECOT collected since 2000, when it was founded.
Phillis writes:
Auctions of charter school stuff-another manifestation of tax dollars squandered
The ECOT auction is just another going-out-of-business sale in the charter industry. About 250 charters have closed in Ohio and many have had auctions. These kinds of sales recover only pennies on the dollar.
The ECOT exposure has helped shed light on the waste, fraud and corruption in the industry. Previous charter closures and auctions usually had gone unnoticed by the general public.
Ohioans should assume that the ECOT auction ends the charter fiasco.
Of course, the charter fiasco will go on in Ohio even after ECOT is dead and buried and its stuff auctioned off.
The auction is today. You are not to late to pick something up if you bid online. Maybe a pencil engraved ECOT as a memento of a Teapot Dome type scandal in Ohio, a tribute to privatization and corporate reform. DeVos wants more of the same. Hold on to your wallet.
Goodbye ECOT: School auction begins today; key computers not included
Updated May 11, 2018
By Jeremy P. Kelley, Staff Writer Dayton Daily News
The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) is auctioning its corporate headquarters building and most furnishings and business equipment beginning at 4 p.m. today, according to a news release from the auction firm Gryphon USA.
The auction includes everything from flat-screen TVs, tools and furniture to first-aid kits and pencils, according to Richard Kruse, president of Gryphon Auction Group and court-appointed deputy interim master for ECOT.
Kruse said the computer servers used by the school are not included in the auction. Auditors and prosecutors have suggested there could be evidence of criminal activity by ECOT on those servers.
“The media and government attention has been focused on the servers used by the school, but those are not included in the auction,” Kruse said in the news release. “Due to this, the auction is proceeding on schedule.”
ECOT was Ohio’s largest online school, at one point claiming more than 15,000 students, but the Ohio Department of Education said an enrollment review showed the school was not counting student participation correctly. The state began clawing back millions in funding that ODE said the school should not have received, eventually leading ECOT to close in January.
More than 2,000 students from southwest Ohio were listed as enrolled at ECOT in 2016-17, including 627 who lived in the Dayton school district, 168 in Hamilton, 94 in Springfield and dozens from suburbs ranging from Kettering to Troy.
ECOT’s headquarters building, a 138,000-square-foot facility originally built as Southland Mall, sits on 26.5 acres in south Columbus, near the intersection of U.S. 23 and Interstate 270.
The auction is viewable to the public online at http://www.ecotcre.com for the real estate, and http://www.ecotauction.com for the rest of the items. The online auction is open for bidding until June 12.
A close ally of Betsy DeVos just made a $2 million contribution to the campaign of Antonio Villarigosa for Governor of California.
The former Los Angeles Mayor is running solely on the charter issue, which is the source of his biggest campaign contributions.
Who knew that the California governor’s race would be determined by a single issue: Do you support public schools or charter schools?
The gubernatorial campaign of former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa got another big boost this week when William Oberndorf, a San Francisco philanthropist and ally of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, contributed $2 million to a committee set up by charter school advocates to promote the former Los Angeles mayor’s bid to be the next governor of California.
Oberndorf, a Republican and major GOP donor, replaced DeVos as chairperson of American Federation for Children in 2016 when she was named by Donald Trump to join his cabinet.
The goal of the organization which DeVos co-founded is to promote greater “school choice” for parents, especially low-income ones, by providing taxpayer supported subsidies to offset the cost of private school tuition. That could include vouchers, tax credits, education savings accounts and other strategies.
Oberndorf’s contribution went to Families and Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa, an independent expenditure committee established by the Charter School Association of California Advocates. Under state law, the committee can promote a candidate but can not coordinate their activities with the candidate’s campaign.
Also this week former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg contributed another $1 million to the pro-Villaraigosa committee, to supplement the $1.5 million he had already contributed earlier this month.
Their contributions bring the total amount raised by the committee to just over $16 million over the past month, mostly contributed by a handful of high-wealth individuals. With these funds, the committee has been running television ads and sending out colorful materials to boost Villaraigosa’s odds in the June 5 primary.
Diane Ravitch's blog 