Archives for the month of: March, 2019

TonyThurmond, elected as California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction last fall, spoke out strongly on behalf of public schools at a recent public event. He also insisted that the state must fund its pension promises and invest more in education. Competition doesn’t work in education, he said.

The goal of education must be to help every student must develop his talents, not to spur competition that creates winners and losers.

”In a conversation with CALmatters’ education reporter Ricardo Cano at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, Thurmond talked about how his mother, an immigrant from Panama, died when he was 6, leaving him to be raised by a cousin he never met. He says his family benefited from many government programs to get by, but that “a great public education” was the most vital.

“If it were not for the education, my cousin who took me in, countless mentors, I would easily have ended up in California state prison instead of serving as California’s superintendent of public instruction,” he said. “We owe this to all the students in our state.”

“That philosophy, he said, informs his fairly dim view of charter schools, which he characterized as benefiting certain students as the possible expense of others.

“I think there’s a role for all schools,” Thurmond said, including charters—publicly funded but privately managed schools that supporters say offer valuable educational alternatives to children, but which critics say undermine traditional public education. “But I do not believe that the state should ever open new schools without providing resources for those schools. I do not believe that education is an environment for competition.

“Here’s my concern: you cannot open charter schools and new schools to serve every single student in our state,” he continued. “If you take the competition approach, that means some students, a lot of students, will be left behind. And again, I don’t believe that that’s what our mission is. I believe that the promise that we make to each other in society is to provide opportunity to get an education, to live a better life, to be able to acquire what you want through your hard work for yourself and your family. So for me that means that competition is OK in some environments, but when it comes to education we’ve got a responsibility to make sure that every single student gets an education.”

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Competition, Education Industry, Privatization

Stuart Egan: Sanders’ EVASS Has Lost in Court, But NC Won’t Let It Go

By dianeravitch

March 24, 2019 //

William Sanders was an agricultural statistician who developed a secret, patented formula for measuring teacher effectiveness. It’s call EVASS. It was tossed out by a Houston judge who said it was wrong to judge teachers by a secret algorithm that they could neither examine nor question.

As Stuart Egan reports, North Carolina clings to EVASS, no matter how many times it has been discredited (by scholars such as Audrey Amerein-Beardsley) or by courts that findit arbitrary and inscrutable.

Want to understand how teachers in North Carolina are evaluated?

Egan writes:

“Actually, the chain is from a .gov to a .org to a .com.”

Categories Accountability, North Carolina, Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

SomeDAM Poet on the Rallying Cry of the California Charter Schools Association

By dianeravitch

March 23, 2019 //

The California Charter School Association recently held a rally in front of the State Capitol and declared that its motto was “Stand for All Children.” Only 10% of children in California are enrolled in charter schools.

Our blog poet, SomeDAM Poet, wrote a poem to go with the CCSA slogan:

“Stand for All (10% of) Students” (SAP)

Stand for ten percent
Stand for self-dealt rent
Stand for charter scam
Stand for Gulen man

Stand for puffing cheeks
Stand for quiet halls
Stand for hedge fund checks
Stand for Wall Street calls

Stand for standard test
Stand for testing prep
Stand for testing best
Stand for booting rest

Stand for cherry pick
Stand for hyped up claims
Stand for grad rate trick
Stand for PR games

Stand for wild west
Stand for lack of laws
Stand for what is Best
Stand for charter cause

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

Arizona Republic Wins Prestigious George Polk Award for Education Reporting for Expose of Charter School Corruption

By dianeravitch

March 23, 2019 //

A crack investigative team at the Arizona Republic won the prestigious George Polk Award for their fearless expose of charter school corruption in the state.

Now we might wonder where are the think tanks like the Center for American Progress and the Brookings Institution, which never utter a critical word about charter school corruption and malfeasance. CAP and Brookings are supposedly “liberal” think tanks, but for some reason they are unwilling and unable to say anything about the scams in charter world. My guess is that they are still protecting Obama’s education legacy, unwilling to admit that they are also protecting George W. Bush’s education legacy, which was identical.

Through their investigative work, reporters Craig Harris, Anne Ryman, Alden Woods and Justin Price revealed how Arizona’s school funding system and permissive legal structure allow charter-school operators to make huge profits off public education dollars. The team, led by investigative editor Michael Squires, published the five-part series “The Charter Gamble,” which examined how Arizona committed 25 years ago to the then-untested concept of charter schools and what the program has meant for the state.

The George Polk Awards in Journalism were established in 1949 by Long Island University to commemorate CBS correspondent George Polk, who was murdered while covering the Greek civil war, and are presented annually to honor special achievement in journalism, especially investigative and enterprising reporting that gains attention and achieves results. The Republic’s team was recognized at the 70th annual Polk Awards announcement ceremony for “initially disclosing insider deals, no-bid contracts and political chicanery that provided windfall profits for investors in a number of prominent Arizona charter schools, often at the expense of underfunded public schools.”

Greg Burton, executive editor of The Republic and azcentral.com, said the reporting team “unspooled miles of red tape to reveal what had been hidden during a decades-long push to funnel public money to privately run public charter schools — oftentimes with noble intent. But, where regulators and politicians fail as watchdogs, local reporters are vital. In this case, politicians and businessmen who could have pushed for reform made millions by ignoring warning signs. This is where Republic reporters worked to protect the public’s trust.”

In response to the reporting by the Arizona Republic, the legislature is considering charter reforms but none of those reforms will affect the worst abusers, some of whom are members of the legislature.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud

Steven Singer: Accountability Begins at the Top, not in the Classroom

By dianeravitch

March 23, 2019 //

Steven Singer has a straightforward and sensible proposition: accountability should begin with the people who make the rules and allocate resources.

Instead they have created a blame game for those who try to play by the rules they created, not matter how wrong those rules are.

Read the following and read his post to learn the Code of Conduct he has devised for those who make the rules.

He writes:

School Accountability Begins With the People Who Make the Rules: A Code of Conduct for Politicians and Test Makers

thumbnail_Screen Shot 2019-03-18 at 1.17.54 PM

Standardized testing is all about accountability.

We’ve got to keep schools accountable for teaching.

We’ve got to keep students accountable for learning.

It’s kind of a crazy idea when you stop to think about it – as if teachers wouldn’t teach and students wouldn’t learn unless someone was standing over them with a big stick. As if adults got into teaching because they didn’t want to educate kids or children went to school because they had no natural curiosity at all.

So we’ve got to threaten them into getting in line – students, teachers: march!

But that’s not even the strangest part. It’s this idea that that is where accountability stops.

No one has to keep the state or federal government accountable for providing the proper resources.

No one has to keep the testing companies accountable for creating fair and accurate assessments.

It’s just teachers and students.

So I thought I’d fix that with a “Code of Conduct for Politicians and Test Makers.”

After all, that’s what we do when we want to ensure someone is being responsible – we remind them of their responsibilities.

You see, the state and federal government are very concerned about cheating.

Not the kind of cheating where the super rich pay off lawmakers to rig an accountability system against the poor and minorities. No. Just the kind of cheating where teachers or students try to untie their hands from behind their backs.

They’re very concern about THAT.

When you threaten to take away a school’s funding and fire teachers based on test scores, you tend to create an environment that encourages rampant fraud and abuse.

So the government requires its public servants to take on-line courses in the ethics of giving standardized tests. We have to sit through canned demonstrations of what we’re allowed to do and what we aren’t allowed to do. And when it’s all over, we have to take a test certifying that we understand.

Then after we proctor an exam, we have to sign a statement swearing that we’re abiding by these rules to ensure “test security.”

This year, for the first time, I’m supposed to put my initials on the answer sheets of all of my students’ Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) tests to prove…. I don’t know. That I was there and if anything went wrong, it’s my fault. Burn the witch. That sort of thing.

Even our students have to demonstrate that they’re abiding by the rules. Children as young as five have to mark a bubble on their test signifying that they’ve read and understood the Code of Conduct for Test Takers.

I still don’t understand how that’s Constitutional.

Forcing children to sign a legal document without representation or even without their parents or guardians present – it sure looks like a violation of their civil rights.

But that’s what accountability looks like when you only require certain people to be accountable.

So back to my crazy idea.

Perhaps the corporate flunkies actually designing and profiting off these tests should be held accountable, too. So should lawmakers requiring all this junk.

Maybe they should have to sign a “Code of Conduct for Politicians and Test Makers” modeled after the one the rest of us peons have to use to sign our lives away.

Read Steven’s “Code of Conduct for Politicians and Test Makers.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Testing

Texas: Can the State Afford to Buy One Snickers Bar Per Student?

By dianeravitch

March 23, 2019 //

This is a clever and short video explaining the magnitude of Texas’s school finance problem.

Texas has more than 5 million students. Its schools are perennially underfunded. They took a big hit in 2011 when the legislature cut their budget by more than $5 BILLION dollars, which the schools have never recovered from.

For the past several years, the State Senate and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick have tried to promote vouchers as an alternative to adequate funding but in the wake of the 2018 elections, the voucher plans are dead (thanks in large part to the good work of Pastors for Texas Children and to the spillover effect of the Beto get-out-the-vote operation).

Right now, the charter industry is making a big move on Texas, seeing the state as the next frontier for charter expansion.

But choice is a distraction. The real dilemma facing the Lone Star State is whether the boys in Austin are willing to pay to have a decent education system for all those millions of children, or whether they will stick with their low-tax, corporate-tax-cutting philosophy.

At bottom, my own fear as a native Texan is that the white men who run the state don’t care about those children. Not their children. But those children are the future of the state.

Categories Funding, Texas

Defending the Early Years: Kisha Reid Explains How Little Children Learn Best

By dianeravitch

March 23, 2019 //

As the tentacles of Ed Reform reachdown into the earliest years, forcing standardized tests on young children, Defending the Early Years is there to block the monster from strangling the children’s loveof learning.

In this short video, early childhood educator Kisha Reid explains what young children need most to thrive.

Play. When children play together, they collaborate. They solve problems. No one fails. They work and play together, as equals. Good practice for the real world.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Play, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Watch the Videos of the Jackson Heights Parents for Public Education (and Meet AOC)

By dianeravitch

March 22, 2019 //

Michael Elliott, professional videographer and ally of every New York parent group that opposes high-stakes testing, filmed the events on March 16, when AOC joined a community discussion in Jackson Heights, Queens, about public education. With the help of Kemala Karmen, he has broken up the day into segments that you can watch at your leisure. Each of them is short–mostly 3-5 minutes.

PUBLIC EDUCATION TOWN HALL

A BOLD NEW VISION FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL EQUITY & JUSTICE

Organized by Jackson Heights People for Public Schools

Recorded by @TurnOntheSound

New York City (Jackson Heights, Queens) | March 16, 2019

Part 1

TRANSFORMING THE CONVERSATION ON PUBLIC EDUCATION

Amanda Vender, Jackson Heights People for Public Schools

https://vimeo.com/325191468/3242902bd6

Opening remarks from lead organizer Amanda Vender (Jackson Heights People for Public Schools) kick off an inspiring convening of public school parents and community members; education activists; and local, state, and federal elected representatives.

Part 2

PARENT EMPOWERMENT AS RESISTANCE

Robert Jackson, NY State Senator

Johanna Garcia, NYC Opt Out & New York State Allies for Public Education

https://vimeo.com/325193259/8751a891eb

New York State Senator Robert Jackson and his chief of staff Johanna Garcia, both of whom started out as public school parent activists, encourage parents in the room to seize their power. Garcia, who has organized with both NYC Opt Out and NY State Allies for Public Education, ends with a rousing call for parents to opt out of state tests.

Part 3

MAKING SCHOOL SAFE & WELCOMING FOR CHILDREN OF COLOR

Maria Bautista, Alliance for Quality Education

https://vimeo.com/325195289/ebc805dc06

Maria Bautista, campaigns director for the Alliance for Quality Education, makes the case for bills NY state can pass to make schools culturally responsive to their populations and break the school to prison pipeline.

Part 4

CLASS SIZE & EQUITY

Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters

https://vimeo.com/325194937/ebbfd1bf6c

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters on the myriad benefits of smaller class size, especially for children considered at risk; how class size has skyrocketed in NYC; and how a lawsuit, proposed legislation, and adequate funding could remedy this equity issue.

Part 5

THE IMPERATIVE OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION FOR OUR SCHOOLS

Kate Menken, New York State Association for Bilingual Education

https://vimeo.com/325194457/823d4ea9de

CUNY professor Kate Menken of New York State Association of Bilingual Education on the history and benefits of bilingual education, ways that federal and state law can be changed to bolster bilingual ed, and how high-stakes testing hurts language learners.

Part 6

WAR ON PUBLIC EDUCATION: CHARTERS & VOUCHERS

Carol Burris, Network for Public Education

https://vimeo.com/325191672/53caf8839e

Carol Burris talks about waste, fraud, and discrimination in voucher schools and the charter industry; discusses how pouring money into privately controlled vouchers and charters drains funding from public schools; and announces an upcoming report from the Network for Public Education.

Part 7

FIGHTING BACK: REFUSE STATE TESTS!

Diane Ravitch, Network for Public Education

https://vimeo.com/325192088/9f31ee23cd

Noted education historian and author Diane Ravitch on the undue influence of billionaires on education policy, why there is no such thing as a “public charter school,” and the separation of church and state. According to Ravitch, the whole shaky edifice of 20 years of failed federal educational policy rests on high-stakes tests and parents should wield test refusal as David would a slingshot.

Part 8a

NY STATE SENATOR JESSICA RAMOS RESPONDS

https://vimeo.com/325192892/188d2b41fd

In her response to the education advocates who preceded her at the town hall, NY State Senator Jessica Ramos, who ran on a platform that prioritized “real public schools,” touches on: testing and opt out, education that is responsive to our kids’ needs, charter schools’ lack of accountability, bilingual ed, more.

Part 8b

NY STATE SENATOR JOHN LIU RESPONDS

https://vimeo.com/325193891/f8f8c5a998

In his response to the education advocates who preceded him at the town hall, NY State Senator John Liu deems schools “the most important things in our lives,” and talks about school governance/accountability and his leadership of the new subcommittee on NYC Education.

Part 8c

CONGRESSWOMAN OCASIO-CORTEZ RESPONDS

https://vimeo.com/325190755/8e5d4deffb

In her response to the education advocates who preceded her at the town hall, US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks about her own experience as a bilingual student, decries the pernicious reach of Betsy DeVos, and calls for a national movement on the scale of the Green New Deal to solve the systemic and structural problems of our school system.

Part 9a

Q&A I: ESSA

https://vimeo.com/325195655/292bcdf611

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, State Senator Jessica Ramos, and education advocates* respond to questions from the audience. The questions in this segment were about the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

*Advocates (fr L to R): Kemala Karmen (NYC Opt Out/NY State Allies for Public Education), Kate Menken (NY State Association for Bilingual Education), Diane Ravitch (Network for Public Education), Carol Burris (Network for Public Education), Leonie Haimson (Class Size Matters), Maria Bautista (Alliance for Quality Education)

Part 9b

Q&A II: BILINGUAL EDUCATION

https://vimeo.com/325196134/b423807f1e

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, State Senator Jessica Ramos, and education advocates* respond to questions from the audience. The questions in this segment were about bilingual education.

Part 9c

Q&A III: “Diane Ravitch, what changed your mind?”

https://vimeo.com/325196402/3d6da0ca28

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, State Senator Jessica Ramos, and education advocates* respond to questions from the audience. The question in this segment was directed to Diane Ravitch re her metamorphosis from public education critic to champion.

Part 9d

Q&A IV: NYC’S SPECIALIZED HIGH SCHOOLS

https://vimeo.com/325196799/dd265c6fd2

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, State Senator Jessica Ramos, and education advocates* respond to questions from the audience. The questions in this part of the Q&A were about access to NYC’s test-in “specialized” high schools. Later in the program, local Assembly Member Catalina Cruz also addressed this issue. These 2 segments are combined here although they were not directly consecutive.

Part 9e

Q&A V: INFLUENTIAL EDUCATORS

https://vimeo.com/325197845/7c6bde519a

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, State Senator Jessica Ramos, and education advocates* respond to questions from the audience. The question in this segment was about how educators influenced the panelists/respondents.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, New York City, Parent Groups, Parents, Privatization, Resistance, Testing

Karen Francisco: Portait of a Lifelong Teacher

By dianeravitch

March 22, 2019 //

Karen Francisco, editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, wrote a moving tribute to our dear friend Phyllis Bush. She called Phyllis “a lifelong teacher.” She taught for 32 years. When she retired, however, she never stopped teaching.

Francisco quotes some of Phyllis’s former students, who describe how Phyllis Bush changed their lives.

The editorial includes a photograph that catches the only moment when Phyllis was ever speechless. That moment occurred at the last annual conference of the Network for Public Education, held in Indianapolis, when the winner of the first annual Phyllis Bush Award for Grassroots Activism was announced. As one, the audience jumped to its feet and gave Phyllis a standing ovation.

That was a precious moment, filled with love, respect, and admiration for a woman who never stopped teaching and never lost her sparkling sense of humor.

Categories Courage, Education Reform, Humor, Indianapolis, Love

Arizona: Acclaimed BASIS Charter Schools Are $44 Million in Red, Audit Shows

By dianeravitch

March 22, 2019 //

US News & World Report and Newsweek ranked BASIS charter schools in Arizona as the best high schools in the nation, without noting their dramatic attrition rates and demographics that heavily favor whites and Asians.

But a new audit shows that BASIS is in deep financial trouble.

“The globally renowned BASIS charter school system is nearly $44 million in the red, according to a recent report from a Phoenix-based watchdog group.

“The international charter chain, whose first campus opened in Tucson in 1998, lost nearly $12 million in net assets last fiscal year alone, according to an analysis from Arizonans for Charter School Accountability. BASIS rejects the report’s findings.

“Jim Hall, the accountability organization’s founder, generated the report based on audit documents available on the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools’ website. The Arizona Daily Star confirmed the deficit claims independently with the charter board audit.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization

Tony Thurmond: “Without Public Schools, I Might Not Be State Superintendent Today”

Stuart Egan: Sanders’ EVASS Has Lost in Court, But NC Won’t Let It Go

SomeDAM Poet on the Rallying Cry of the California Charter Schools Association

Arizona Republic Wins Prestigious George Polk Award for Education Reporting for Expose of Charter School Corruption

Steven Singer: Accountability Begins at the Top, not in the Classroom

School Accountability Begins With the People Who Make the Rules: A Code of Conduct for Politicians and Test Makers

Texas: Can the State Afford to Buy One Snickers Bar Per Student?

Defending the Early Years: Kisha Reid Explains How Little Children Learn Best

Watch the Videos of the Jackson Heights Parents for Public Education (and Meet AOC)

Karen Francisco: Portait of a Lifelong Teacher

Arizona: Acclaimed BASIS Charter Schools Are $44 Million in Red, Audit Shows

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