Archives for the month of: June, 2018
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Asian-American Coalition Supports Harvard re Affirmative Action

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2018 //
53

Harvard was sued for discriminating against Asian Americans, by looking at factors other than test scores and grades. Harvard, like many universities, attempts to use multiple measures and seeks to have a diverse student body. Its class of 2021 has a mix of Whites, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. As I wrote earlier,

The U.S. population is about 6% Asian, African Americans are 13%, whites are 61%, Hispanics are 18%.

The Harvard class of 2021 is 22% Asian, 14.6% African American, 11.6% Latino, and 2.5% Native American or Pacific Islander.

The group that is suing is attempting to eliminate affirmative action altogether. It is called Students for Fair Admissions. Its president is Edward Blum of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Eliminating affirmative action would dramatically reduce the proportion of Latinos and African Americans admitted to selective colleges. Blum hopes to eliminate all racial and ethnic preferences.

Politico reports that a far broader group of Asian American organizations weighed in support affirmative action:

“COALITION VOICES SUPPORT FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: A coalition of 34 national Asian Pacific American organizations says it rejects the notion that a majority of Asian American Pacific Islanders oppose affirmative action. The group issued a statement Friday in reaction to New York Times coverage of a lawsuit alleging discrimination against Asian Americans in Harvard University’s admissions policies. The National Council of Asian Pacific Americans calls the argument a “false narrative” that exists to drive a wedge between its community and other minority and underserved communities.

— After examining Harvard’s data, the council said it does not believe there was “intentional or implicit bias against Asian American applicants.” “If we did conclude that Harvard’s admissions policies were impacted by implicit bias against our community, we would most certainly voice our concern. We strongly support admission policies that aim to make colleges and universities more diverse and we stand in solidarity with other communities of color,” the statement said. The case is the most recent test for affirmative action at colleges, and is being watched closely across the higher education community.”

Categories Education Reform, Higher Education

Peter Greene: Believe It or Not: Scott Walker Running as “Education Governor”

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2018 //
17

Stop laughing. Stop choking. Scott Walker plans to run for his third term on his record on education.

Is this what the Koch brothers told him to do?

“Walker’s signature achievement in the realm of education is Act 10. Walker likes to call the 2011 proposal of this bill “dropping the bomb,” and that’s a fair characterization. The bill shifted pension and health insurance costs to teachers. It took a shot at undermining Wisconsin’s flagship university. And most notably, it stripped public employees of the right to collectively bargain, while also doing away with any sort of job protections– teachers would only be contracted one year at a time. Then in 2012 he took a machete to school funding, only so that five years later he could offer some money back to school districts– but only if they could prove that they had used Act 10 to cut teacher pay. It was a clever way to force the hand of districts that were still trying to do the right thing, what we might call “a dick move.” Meanwhile, his legislature has been working hard to stop throwing money at public schools and start throwing it at vouchers and charters.

“Act 10 was supposed to make the Wisconsin economy boom. It didn’t– Wisconsin’s growth was low for the region. It was supposed to beat down the union. It did do that a bit. It was supposed to turn teaching into a buyer’s market, where no job was secure and the cost of labor was kept low. It did that, too. And it was meant to transform the teacher “workforce” into a group of young temps who would not stick around long enough to rock the boat or threaten the piggy bank. That seems to be working. And while this may not have been an intended result, Wisconsin is also facing “historic teacher shortages.” The pipeline is drying up. It’s almost as if something has made teaching a far less appealing profession than it used to be.”

And yet Walker plans to run on his abominable education record.

This guy should be voted out. ASAP. Without delay.

Wake up, Wisconsin. Reclaim your proud tradition of progressivism and retire the blockheads who control your state.

Categories Education Reform, Privatization, Stupid, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Michigan: Politician Proposes Controversial Revisions for State Social Studies Curriculum

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2018 //
51

Educators and parents are upset in Michigan because a Republican politician wants to impose revisions to the state Social Studies curriculum that reflect his own partisan views.

“The new curriculum draft cuts out references to gay rights, Roe v. Wade and climate change. It also slashes the word “democratic” and replaces it with “republic.”

“Behind the draft is Republican State Senator and Gubernatorial candidate Patrick Colbeck. He said his suggestions were motivated by concern that some standards are not politically neutral or factually accurate, and to ensure students are exposed to multiple points of view, reported Bridge Magazine, which first broke the news.

“According to Bridge, crowds of people have gathered to voice their objections to the changes already and the period to comment lasts until June 30.“

Categories Curriculum, Education Reform, Michigan

Laura Chapman Reviews the “Next Generation Science Standards”

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2018 //
18

I recently posted an article about a Walton-funded school board in Arkansas that refused to pay for up-to-date science textbooks that aligned with the state’s new science standards.

Laura Chapman says don’t bother.

Here is her review:


The state of Arkansas adopted Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Their texts are out of date and so are the science texts in many states.

The NGSS standards are so complex that even major publishers are having a hard time generating new texts. As usual, tried and true lessons from the past are being recycled. As usual, field trials of new content and materials are limited by the high costs for the publisher and the cost of revisions that may be needed.. According to EdWeek, districts are having a hard time finding textbooks and other instructional materials aligned with the 2013 NGSS.

EdReports, which claims to be a Consumer Reports for education, is a Gates-funded project. Reviewers for EdREports follow criteria that call for strict alignments with the CCSS and related standards grade-by-grade, and with no content from a prior grade reviewed and reintroduced in the next grade. I have not seen any modifications in the method and criteria for reviewing high school science texts, but EdReports ratings of secondary science tests are expected this fall. https://www.edreports.org/about/our-approach/index.html

Reviews of textbooks are time-intensive and if you are looking for NGSS compliance, the reviews are really complicated. Achieve has also gotten into the reviewing act, but only for a few units, not textbooks.

Teachers working independently have also found that getting NCSS-aligned resources together is hard. According to EdWeek, secondary teachers of science want to see texts and resources that introduce a “phenomenon,” then forward exploration and understanding, then build coherently to deeper understanding through more lessons. I wonder if these teacher-reviewers are assuming that students have encountered science instruction compliant with NGSS prior to high school.

Before high school—K-8— science texts are supposed to align with 381 CCSS standards. Of these, 182 are in math, 96 in ELA reading, 82 in ELA writing, and 21 in science/technical subjects Literacy. All of those standards are supposed to be linked with the 146 core content standards in SCIENCE for K-8. So the standards writers have conjured 527 that are supposed to be met for science-specific learning before high school. If all those standards harbor redundancies, good luck in ferreting them out.

The architecture for high school standards rests on earlier understandings and achievements in; (a) the practices of science, (b) the core concepts within the earth, life, and physical sciences plus engineering…and (c) “themes” that cut across disciplines. That structure has been called three-dimensional. Of course, neither the CCSS nor NGSS offer a roadmap from standards to curricula to tests…but there is plenty of hoopla about new and rigorous standards.

In my experience, writers of standards are almost always serving up more content and connections of “this to that” than can be shoved into texts and other coherently planned instructional materials. I think most experienced teachers want to move well beyond the all too prevalent view of education as text-bound, sage on the stage delivery of content relevant to tests. That view is likely to make science free of the wonderments of eyes-on and hands-on experiments, whether in labs or field work.

According to EdWeek, five publishers have entered the market for NGSS science texts and resources since 2016. Although I have not looked at the texts, there is one constant in marketing these texts: The top line is “100% compliance with the NGSS.” For bells and whistles the ads for these texts make claims on behalf of “real world problem solving,” “STEM careers,” “multi-modality,” “research tested,” “instructional shifts” and the NGSS “philosophy of three dimensional learning.”

I have been through several rounds of textbook writing along with the development with ancillary materials. I have reviewed publications for state adoptions. All that was before the era of the CCSS and not in science, but the challenges of meeting expectations for any marketable and profitable product are usually underestimated…especially by writers of standards who really do want one-size-fits-all education, and now with every dimension of instruction described in computer code and “aligned ” with texts and tests.

Anyone who has worked on the publishing side knows that profits drive what publishers can and will deliver. In the best of worlds, teacher-made lessons and experiments would be central. Texts, resources from the library/media room or accessed online would be backup. All in-class studies would be enriched by demos and meet-ups with living breathing scientists and projects students initiate based on their curiosity and interest.

The end-game of standards-based education was and is standardized learning…with computer-based delivery of instruction envisioned from the get-go. Current hoopla about personalized education is mostly hot air. Unless you are speaking of artificial intelligence, learning is always personal. It does not need to be “ized.”
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/06/06/educators-scramble-for-texts-to-match-science.html

Categories Arkansas, Science

D.C.: The Lies That Charter Advocates Tell

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2018 //
18

This spring, the D.C. public schools—under tight corporate reform control since 2007–were rocked by a scandal about graduation rates. It started when Ballou High School boasted about its 100% graduation rate, a story that was then celebrated by the local NPR station. After teachers blew the whistle, NPR returned to investigate and discovered that many of the graduates did not qualify for a high school diploma due to their long absences and lack of credits. This prompted a systemwide audit, which determined that a large proportion of the district’s graduates were unqualified. The system was cheating to boost its apparent (but false) success.

Emily Langhorne of the Progressive Policy Institute wrote an article for the Washington Post to declare, proudly, that charter schools were not implicated in the graduation rate scandal. In fact, she asserted, the charter numbers are audited, and every graduate is really, truly a real high school graduate.

“What’s happened in DCPS is tragic — not only that the number of students graduating declined but also that DCPS has been graduating students who aren’t prepared for life beyond school.

“Yet there is a story of real academic progress in the nation’s capital. It’s the story of the other public schools, the ones educating nearly 50 percent of public school students. It’s the story of D.C.’s charter schools…

“In 2017, D.C.’s 21 charter high schools graduated 73.4 percent of their students in four years. Since the PCSB audits every graduating student’s transcript, that number is an accurate reflection of student achievement.”

Unfortunately, this happy account leaves out some very important but inconvenient facts.

I turned to two experts on the District of Columbia Public Schools.

One of them, Mark Simon of the Economic Policy I statute, told me there had never been an independent audit of the graduation rate# at DCPS charter schools. Langhorne refers to an audit by the PCSB, the Public Charter School Board of the District of Columbia. This is not an independent agency. The data were supplied by the individual charter schools. The Progressive Policy Institute advocates for charter schools. No genuinely independent audit was ever conducted of charter school graduates.

I then turned to Mary Levy, a civil rights attorney and fiscal watchdog of D.C. schools for many years.

She wrote me that the Langhorne article was “highly misleading.” First, she agreed with Simon that there had been no independent audit of the numbers, unlike the audit of the public schools’ data.

She added: “About a third of charter school students leave their schools–and the cohort–before the date of graduation. The majority of 9th grade charter students do not graduate from charter schools. [The emphasis is hers.]

Screen Shot 2018-06-22 at 3.00.32 PM

Levy added:

We don’t know where those who leave charter schools in the 9th grade go–some surely transfer to DCPS (District of Columbia Public Schools), enlarging that cohort, some move out of DC, some drop out. We also know that DCPS 9th grade enrollment includes a number of students in their second year of 9th grade, due to insufficient Carnegie units, thus inflating the percentage based on Grade 9 enrollment. The extent to which this happens in charter schools is unknown.”

To see all the data download the excel file here.

Categories Accountability, District of Columbia, Education Reform, Fraud, Graduation rates, Rhee, Michelle

Understanding the Janus Decision

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2018 //
46

The Supreme Court is expected to rule, perhaps tomorrow or next week, on the Janus case.

In this five-minute video, Celine McNicholas of the Economic Policy Institute explains why this decision matters, whom it will affect, and who is funding it.

Categories Billionaires, Education Reform

LAUSD Chief Picks TFA-Broadie from Nation’s Lowest Performing State as Chief of Staff

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2018 //
21

Los Angeles Superintendent Austin Beutner, new to the education world, has defined himself by his first big hire. He selected Rebecca Kockler, the Louisiana Department of Education’s assistant superintendent for academic content to be his chief of staff. Like her boss, John White, Kockler is both TFA and Broadie. (For the initiated, that means they both got a little bit of teaching experience as recruits for Teach for America and are “graduates” of Eli Broad’s unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, whose “graduates” are taught top-down management, the value of closing schools and replacing them with private management, and other reformer tricks of the trade. John Thompson recently wrote a series of posts here about the dismal record of Broadies.)

Mercedes Schneider, researcher and high school teacher in Louisiana, reviews Kockler’s TFA career in TFA here, which was mysteriously absent from the LAUSD press release. Also unmentioned in the press release was her Broadie history. Mercedes knows more about the Louisiana Department of Education and its new chief of staff than LAUSD. To be fair to the person who wrote the press release, Mercedes notes that Kockler deleted her Linked In bio that describes her TFA history. But Mercedes has it.

Both the LAUSD press release and the Broad Center agree that Louisiana is one of the “fastest improving” states in the nation.

But is that true? Nope. Its NAEP scores declined significantly from 2015 to 2017.

What is especially irksome about the LAUSD press release linked above is that it refers to Louisiana’s academic standards as “a national model.” Who would look to a state that scrapes the very bottom of NAEP rankings as “a national model”? Maybe it is a model of how to fail while boasting of success. Maybe it is a model of Trumpian rhetoric that turns lemons into lemonade.

Consider this report in the New Orleans Advocate on 2017 NAEP.:

“In the latest snapshot of education achievement, scores for Louisiana public school fourth-graders plunged to or near the bottom of the nation in reading and math.

“In addition, eighth-graders finished 50th among the states and the District of Columbia in math and 48th in reading…

In 2015, fourth-graders finished 43rd in the U. S. in reading and 45th in math….

“But both scores dropped five points – to 212 and 229 out of 500 respectively – during tests administered to 2,700 students last year.

“That means fourth-grade math scores finished 51st while fourth-grade reading scores are 49th.

“The group that oversees the exams, the National Center for Education Statistics, said both drops are statistically significant.”

Why not tell the truth? Beutner hired the academic director of one of the lowest performing states in the nation, where NAEP scores fell in the latest assessment. He was impressed by her credentials in TFA, and she came highly recommended by his friend Eli Broad.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Curriculum, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fake, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Teach for America

Bill Becker: The Only Effective Protest Against Gun Violence

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2018 //
3

There is only one effective way to protest gun violence.

Vote.

Open the link to see where gun violence occurred this year.

Vote for candidates who support gun control.

Vote against candidates who take money from the NRA.

Categories Education Reform, Guns, Guns in Schools

Jeremy Mohler: Charter Schools Are NOT Progressive, They Are a Way to Disinvest in Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2018 //
8

Jeremy Mohler, on behalf of “In the Public Interest,” explains why charter schools are a perfect fit for the Trump administration. They are a way of disinvesting in public schools.

From rural Pennsylvania to Nashville to Oakland, charter schools are taking already limited education funding, forcing local school boards to make difficult choices about what to cut at traditional, neighborhood schools to make up the difference. They cost the San Diego Unified School District $65.9 million last year, alongside $124 million in budget cuts the district was forced to make, including laying off teachers and slashing preschool.

Here’s how it works: when a student transfers to a charter school, all the funding for that student leaves with them, while all the costs do not. The student’s old school can’t lower it’s heating bill, make its principal part-time, or pay a teacher less because she has one less student.

“What’s happened with the proliferation of so many charter schools is that sometimes it just becomes a parallel school district and actually bleeds away money from neighborhood schools,” said John Lee Evans, a board trustee for San Diego Unified School District.

By supporting charter schools—and requesting more charter school funding in the federal budget—Trump has thrown his weight behind making the status quo even worse. And that’s on top of the tax cuts he helped usher through Congress earlier this year, which overwhelmingly benefit corporations and the wealthy, and could very likely force Washington to cut education spending even more.

Of course, the president isn’t alone. Democratic mayors in cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C., have embraced charter schools to sidestep criticism and teacher demands for better pay and more student resources.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Linda Lyon: Can Arizona Reclaim Its Schools?

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2018 //
6

Linda Lyon, president of the Arizona Schools Boards Association, knows that the privatizers have had unfettered control of the state for years. On the NPE-Schott state scorecard, Arizona was one of the worst states in terms of its leaders’ policies. Now the parents and educators are fighting back against the Koch brothers’ machine in a referendum this fall. The time to fight for public control of public schools is now.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization
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