Archives for the month of: March, 2020
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The Status of State Testing Right Now

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2020 //
33

The Network for Public Education urged Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to waive all state testing for 2020.

Chalkbeat reports that many states have requested waivers, and two—Colorado and Texas—have canceled testing without waiting for waivers. Recently the Council of Chief School Officers urged a cancellation of mandated state testing.

To see the status of state testing, see this update.

From the update, it appears that New York is the only state still planning to give the tests even though its schools are closed.

It seems likely—although no one knows for sure—that all states will cancel state testing.

No one knows when it will be safe to resume schooling.

Categories Testing

Stuart Egan: Teachers in North Carolina Raised All the Right Issues When They Protested Last Year

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2020 //
2

Stuart Egan, an NBCT high school teacher in North Carolina, reminds us of why teachers protested last year and how the elected officials responded (mostly with silence).

Fortunately, the people of North Carolina have a chance to change the state’s direction by electing a genuine and experience advocate for public education as state superintendent: Jen Mangrum won the Democratic nomination and she will campaign vigorously to restore the state’s once-esteemed public schools as great places for students and teachers and communities.

If you live in North Carolina and you are tired of politicians tearing down the public schools and shifting public money to entrepreneurs and religious schools, vote for Jen Mangrum in November.

Categories Education Reform, North Carolina, Supporting public schools

Erica Green Was Right When She Wrote That Schools Should Close for at Least 8 Weeks

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2020 //
21

This post is a public apology to Erica Green of the New York Times. She wrote on March 13 that the Centers for Disease Control recommended that schools should close for at least eight weeks. A trusted reader of this blog said that the CDC guidance offered several options, depending on local circumstances. I read the CDC guidance and posted a correction implying that Green had offered the worst case scenario.

Erica Green wrote me directly to complain about my “correction.”

Let me state here publicly and without equivocation that Erica Green was right.

I apologize.

Schools should close for at least eight weeks.

It appears likely, with the virus continuing to spread, that many, most, or all schools will not reopen until September.

No one knows when the disease will subside or be under control.

In the meanwhile, we must all take care of ourselves and our loved ones. Stay home to the extent possible. Wash your hands frequently. Practice social distancing. Be glad we have the telephone, the television, and the Internet to stay in touch with the world and with friends. Send love and gratitude to the healthcare workers and first responders who protect us. This is a time for kindness.

Categories Closing schools, Health

Sam Chaltain: A Parent’s Guide to Home Schooling

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2020 //
20

Now that many thousands of schools have closed, millions of parents have suddenly become responsible for home schooling their child or children.

Sam Chaltain offers some sound suggestions.

He calls it “A Parent Guide to Home-Schooling During the Apocalypse.”

Categories Home Schooling, Parents

NEPC: There Is No “Science of Reading”

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2020 //
68

The National Education Policy Center issued a statement today about teaching reading.

The bottom line: There is no “science of reading.”

It’s time for the media and political distortions to end, and for the literacy community and policymakers to fully support the literacy needs of all children.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Joint Statement Regarding
“Science of Reading” Advocacy

KEY TAKEAWAY:

It’s time for the media and political distortions to end, and for the literacy community and policymakers to fully support the literacy needs of all children.

CONTACT:
William J. Mathis:
(802) 383-0058
wmathis@sover.net

Kevin Kumashiro
kevin@kevinkumashiro.com

BOULDER, CO (March 19, 2020) – The National Education Policy Center and the Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE) today jointly released a Policy Statement on the “Science of Reading.”

For the past few years, a wave of media has reignited the unproductive Reading Wars, which frame early-literacy teaching as a battle between opposing camps. This coverage speaks of an established “science of reading” as the appropriate focus of teacher education programs and as the necessary approach for early-reading instruction. Unfortunately, this media coverage has distorted the research evidence on the teaching of reading, with the result that policymakers are now promoting and implementing policy based on misinformation.

The truth is that there is no settled science of reading. The research on reading and teaching reading is abundant, but it is diverse and always in a state of change. Accordingly, the joint statement highlights the importance of “professionally prepared teachers with expertise in supporting all students with the most beneficial reading instruction, balancing systematic skills instruction with authentic texts and activities.”

This key idea of a “balanced literacy” approach stresses the importance of phonics, authentic reading, and teachers who can teach reading using a full toolbox of instructional approaches and understandings. It is strongly supported in the scholarly community and is grounded in a large research base.

The statement includes guiding principles for what any federal or state legislation should and should not do. At the very least, federal and state legislation should not continue to do the same things over and over while expecting different outcomes. The disheartening era of NCLB provides an important lesson and overarching guiding principle: Education legislation should address guiding concepts while avoiding prescriptions that will tie the hands of professional educators.

All students deserve equitable access to high-quality literacy and reading instruction and opportunities in their schools. This will only be accomplished when policymakers pay heed to an overall body of high-quality research evidence and then make available the resources as well as the teaching/learning conditions necessary for schools to provide our children with the needed supports and opportunities to learn.

The Policy Statement on the “Science of Reading” can be found on the NEPC website at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/fyi-reading-wars

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a university research center housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu

Copyright 2018 National Education Policy Center. All rights reserved.

The National Education Policy Center
School of Education, University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309

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Categories Literacy, Research

New Orleans: VAM Proves that Best Teachers Stay in Best Charters

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2020 //
18

The National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH), formerly known as the Education Research Alliance, released its first report after having been funded by Betsy DeVos with $10 million to study the effects of choice in schools. REACH used value-added methodology (judging teachers by the test score gains of their students to determine that those who got the highest VAM scores were likeliest to stay. It is safe to assume that these teachers were in the highest-scoring charter schools. On the other hand, the teachers with the lowest scores (no doubt, in the lowest-performing schools) were turning over at a high rate. The study’s conclusion is that (some) charters are keeping their best teachers (those with the highest VAM ratings) but (some) charters are not, which since they don’t get high VAM scores, is not a big deal.

We are excited to announce the release of the first study from the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH). Naturally, the subject of this study is one that’s considered the most important factor in school success: teachers.

New Orleans is the first all-charter school district in the country. This makes the city the first where schools are held strictly accountable for performance, where many employers in close proximity compete for teachers, and where schools have the ability to respond to these pressures with almost complete autonomy over school personnel. If school reform advocates are right, we would expect these policy changes to produce major change in the teacher labor market. Did this happen?

To answer this question, researchers Nathan Barrett, Deven Carlson, Douglas N. Harris, and Jane Arnold Lincove compared New Orleans to similar neighboring districts from 2010 to 2015, using student test score growth to measure teacher performance. They drew the following conclusions:

Teacher retention is more closely related to teacher performance in New Orleans than in traditional public school districts. Lower performing teachers in New Orleans are 2.5 times more likely to leave their school than high-performing teachers, compared with only 1.9 times in similar neighboring districts.
The stronger link between retention and performance might imply that teacher quality would improve faster in New Orleans than in similar districts. However, this is not the case. The difference in average teacher performance between New Orleans and comparison districts remained essentially unchanged between 2010 and 2015. This is apparently because of the larger share of new teachers in New Orleans, whose lower quality roughly offsets the city’s advantages in retaining higher performing teachers.
The stronger retention-performance link in New Orleans is somewhat related to financial rewards, though not in a way that is likely to increase the overall quality of teaching. We find that higher performing teachers only receive pay increases when they switch schools, which may increase teacher turnover. High-performing teachers do not receive raises for performance when they stay in the same school.
These findings highlight the complexities of policies intended to increase the quality of teaching. Future studies will build on this work by examining how performance-based school closures affect the teacher labor market.

Read the policy brief here or the full technical report here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, New Orleans, Teacher Evaluations, VAM

California: Teachers Thank Gov. Newsom for Canceling Testing During Crisis

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2020 //
28

NEWS RELEASE

California Teachers Association
1705 Murchison Drive
Burlingame, CA 94010
http://www.cta.org

Contact: Claudia Briggs at 916-296-4087

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 18, 2020

California Educators Appreciate Gov. Newsom for Ongoing Leadership in Executive Order to Suspend State Testing

SACRAMENTO — The California Teachers Association applauds Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ongoing leadership and commitment, and hearing educators’ call to suspend statewide standardized testing this year for California’s students. CTA President E. Toby Boyd issued this statement on behalf of 310,000 teachers and the students they teach:

“We appreciate Gov. Newsom’s leadership and quick action in suspending all statewide mandated testing for this school year. On any given day, and under the best circumstances, test scores alone fail to tell us how a child is doing and where they need improvement. That would be even more certain for students in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic aftermath. Test scores would mean nothing but a source of stress for our kids. Anxiety and emotions are rampant among us and we need to take this time to focus on the needs of our students, their health and safety, and ensuring they have nutritious meals.”

CTA is providing multiple resources for educators, students and families at http://www.cta.org/covid-19. CTA urges educators, students and their families to follow the guidance provided by the California Department of Public Health and believes state and local officials should coordinate with school districts and county offices of education to ensure uniform messages are provided to students, families, and staff.

###

The 310,000-member California Teachers Association is affiliated with the 3 million-member National Education Association.

Claudia Briggs, Communications Assistant Manager, California Teachers Association (EST).

The California Teachers Association exists to protect and promote the well-being of its members; to improve the conditions of teaching and learning; to advance the cause of free, universal, and quality public education; to ensure that the human dignity and civil rights of all children and youth are protected; and to secure a more just, equitable, and democratic society.

Categories California, Testing

New York: Testing Madness! ELA Tests Are Not Suspended. Mailing Them to Districts Is.

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2020 //
15

I reported yesterday that ELA tests are suspended. In this time of rumors, fake news, and disinformation,let me clarify.

The distribution of the ELA tests has been suspended. The tests have not been suspended.

The schools will be closed. The students and teachers will be home. But the tests will be given.

By whom, it’s not clear.

To whom, no one knows.

The sovereign state of New York is waiting for permission from Betsy DeVos to cancel the Sacred Tests.

Please, New York, gets spine.

You can’t give tests when the schools are closed!

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, New York, Testing

Teresa Hanafin: What Trump Said About the Pandemic

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2020 //
48

Teresa Hanafin of Fast Forward of the Boston Globe:

The White House task force is holding another briefing at 11:30 a.m. ET, and we’ll see if Trump shows up again. It’s interesting how much he enjoys gaslighting Americans, claiming he said or did something he really didn’t as though there isn’t a written record to contradict him.

A good example is his claim yesterday that he was way ahead of the rest of the world, believing the coronavirus was a pandemic “long before it was called a pandemic.”

Nonsense. On Jan. 22, after the virus had spread from China to four other countries, China was starting to take drastic measures, including being on the verge of closing off the city of Wuhan. The US had its first confirmed case. And specialists were persistently sounding the alarm about the spread of the virus.

That day, Trump was asked if he worried about it becoming a pandemic. “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control,” he said. “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

As the chorus of warnings grew louder throughout late January, and the World Health Organization proclaimed the coronavirus to be a “public-health emergency of international concern,” Trump continued to be more concerned about the virus’ effect on his reputation than its effect on Americans.
Jan. 24, in a tweet: “It will all work out well.”
Jan. 30, in a speech: “We have it very well under control.”

Finally, on Jan. 31, he took his first action, barring most, but not all, foreigners who had recently visited China from entering the US, but allowing Americans who had been traveling in China to return (and they weren’t tested). Hardly the “complete shutdown” he brags about now, again assuming most Americans can’t read to fact-check his claims.

He spent most of February downplaying the risk, trashing Democrats and the media, and telling everybody who would listen that the whole thing was going to just go away. But he forgot to tell the virus. By Feb. 23, it was in 30 countries with 78,811 confirmed cases, a more than fivefold increase in three weeks. By the end of February, there were 85,403 confirmed cases in 55 countries.

In early March, Trump continued to proclaim that the virus was very mild and would just go away. It was also around this time that everybody started to realize that the US was blowing it on testing. The US refused to use the WHO test, hundreds of thousands of which had already been sent to other countries, preferring to create our own. Which we did, and the test didn’t work. More delays.

You may have noticed that in the previous paragraphs there isn’t one mention of Trump referring to the spread of the virus as a pandemic. Maybe he just said it to himself in the mirror.

Categories Education Reform

Happy Birthday, Wilfred Owen

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2020 //
11

If you have never read the poetry of Wilfred Owen, do it now.

Today is his birthday.

This bio comes from Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac.”

“It’s the birthday of poet Wilfred Owen (books by this author), born in Shropshire, England (1893). When he was young, his family was well-off, living in a house owned by his grandfather, a prominent citizen. But then his grandpa died, and it turned out that the old man was broke, and the family had to leave and move into working-class lodgings in an industrial town.

“He started writing poems as a boy, and he was good at literature and science, but he didn’t do well enough on his exams to get a scholarship at a university. He enlisted to fight in World War I, and he became a lieutenant. In 1917, he was wounded, diagnosed with shell shock, and sent to a hospital to recuperate. There he met another soldier diagnosed with shell shock, Siegfried Sassoon, who was an established poet and mentored Owen. At the hospital, Owen wrote many of his most famous poems, including “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth.” He was one of the first poets to depict the horrifying realities of war, instead of writing glorified, nationalistic poems.

“But the next year, he went back to fight, and he was killed in battle at the age of 25. Two years later, Poems of Wilfred Owen (1920) was published.”

Categories Education Reform, Literature
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