G.F.Brandenburg Invites You to Spot the “Miracles” in Florida, Michigan, D.C., and Mississippi

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1. Chiara says:

   November 8, 2019 at 10:56 am

   I’m having trouble believing any ed reform stat out of Florida, ever since they discovered there were a huge group of kids they categorized as “homeschooled” but had actually dropped out.

   That seems like a very big error and indicates a certain, oh, BIAS toward the magic of ed reform. I no longer believe they’re reliable reporters and as the privatization grows and the system gets less and less regulated and more and more fragmented the numbers they produce so cavalierly will only get fuzzier.

   They really didn’t anticipate that “credit recovery” would falsely skew graduation rates up? And they’re “data people”? Come on. I’m just an interested observer and it occurred to me immediately.

   It’s an echo chamber. There’s not enough questions asked and there’s a disincentive to asking them.

   Reply
2. Chiara says:

   November 8, 2019 at 11:00 am

   I think we were tipped off to “funny numbers” ahead when they all insisting on characterizing certain charter schools as having “100%” graduation rates when they were actually shedding students at each grade level on the way to graduation.

   Public schools could do this too. I guarantee you our graduation rate and college entrance numbers will rise if the bottom half of the class drops out between freshman and senior year and no one new enters.

   Arne Duncan promoted this innumeracy. It was coming from the top of the ranks. No one outside Gary Rubenstein questioned it, and he’s a volunteer blogger with a day job.

   Reply
   • Bob Shepherd says:

     November 8, 2019 at 1:38 pm

     Data-driven education reform has always been part shell game, part numerology.

     Reply
3. Bob Shepherd says:

   November 8, 2019 at 1:32 pm

   I can just read the press release from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute:

   No one said Reform was going to be easy. But to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, we chose to launch our moonshot in education and do the other things—the high-stakes testing, the Common Core, the VAM and merit pay and school grading, the charters and vouchers—not because they are easy, but because they are hard. And now, a generation after No Child Left Behind, after many, many billions of dollars of investment in these Reforms and the near complete test prepping of US curricula and pedagogy, we are seeing real progress, for last week, kindergartner Kimmy Tipple of Bob’s Real Good Florida Charter School received a Gold Star for “Most Improved” on her Count the Sheep in the Nativity Scene project. This datum–substantive, undeniable–shows that the naysayers are wrong, that progress, real progress is being made. Data-based accountability works. Now is not the time to falter in our resolve. Now is the time to stay the course. To the moon? Nay, to infinity and beyond!

   Reply
4. LeftCoastTeacher says:

   November 8, 2019 at 8:09 pm

   I found the miracle! Florida, Michigan, Mississippi and D.C. still exist.

   Reply

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