Gary Rubinstein revisits the past decade of failed reforms and notes how frequently the “reformers” made promises and then failed to keep them. Michelle Rhee came on the national scene, appearing on the cover of TIME, then disappeared after helping to sink the mayor of D.C. who hired her. Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein claimed that under their leadership, there was a “miracle” in New York City, but the miracle disappeared when they and their public relations team left office. Jeb Bush touted a Florida “miracle,” but Florida remains mired in the depths of mediocrity when assessed by NAEP. Laurene Powell Jobs promised to “reinvent” the high school and handed out $100 millions to the schools she chose; many failed soon after. We await the “miracle.” Even Betsy DeVos claimed to be “rethinking” school, wondering why we needed public schools at all; now she is busy spreading millions to charter and voucher advocates in the red states.
Gary concluded his review of all the rethinking, reinventing, and rebranding by taking a close look at a school hyped by TFA. He looked at the numbers, and lo and behold, no miracle there.
In this “model” school, the kids are faring poorly:
OK, “So what,” you say, “only 1.1% of their 10th graders passed the science test and 2.7% of their 10th graders passed the math test. What matters is ‘growth.” Well in that department they didn’t fare so well either.
He concludes:
Usually it’s a lot harder than this. They often pick a school that has artificially inflated test scores due to attrition. Keep in mind, this is the school Villanueva Beard chose to highlight. One of the lowest performing schools in test scores and growth in the state of Indiana.
Whether they are ‘rethinkers,’ ‘reinventers,’ or ‘reimaginers’, a reformer by any other name still doesn’t know anything about schools.
The burning question is: When will the billionaires who fund “reform” and “reinvention” decide to stop funding failure?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The real question I have is when are these “reforms” truly meant to help students, specifically BIPOC students, and when are they simply floated as a diversion and political ploy. I believe Bill Gates wants to improve schools for BIPOC students, and I also believe that Betsy DeVos wants to see kids in a faith-based (her faith) school. I don’t believe she cares about anyone that doesn’t share her religious views. The answers to improved education are known but expensive…end systemic racism, provide support from birth to 3, end poverty (specifically child poverty), etc… Biden has done more than I expected in a short amount of time with child tax credits, but the reality is the US is strong at educating the top 1/2 of our students, and struggles greatly with the bottom 1/2. The real question is why. Do we want to fix the issues, or do we want to talk about cheap reforms that are politically viable but will only hurt those students that are already marginalized? Is this a purposeful ploy by some to ensure income gaps allow for great wealth among a few (i.e. the need for cheap labor), is it reformers who mean well trying to operate within a system they know they can’t control, or both?
Gary Rubenstein:
Have you ever tried to explain to a true believer in free markets that markets don’t always work? Have you ever tried to explain to a true believer in Abrahamic religions that the story of Moses is not a factual account, that Noah’s ark is not a factual account, and that the resurrection of Jesus has nothing to do with ordinary reality? So too with Ed Deformers. They will believe their nonsense NO MATTER WHAT because it suits their political purposes, not because it helps kids. Trickle-down Republicans cannot be deterred by reality. Education Deformers cannot be deterred by reality. Pseudo-science is a dangerous mentality because it tries to pass off myth, speculation, and wishful thinking as the same kind of thinking that brought us DNA, Relativity, Evolution and a whole lot more “real” science. (Economics, by the way, is the Queen of Pseudo-science.)
But I suspect you know all this. Thanks for doing the hard political work of ripping away the veil of nonsense that passes for knowledge about kids, education, and learning. It is hard work to continue to take these bastards seriously, knowing that, because they are paid millions, they are not going anywhere, anytime soon.
Follow the money because..money talks, nobody walks. The fact that it talks nonsense is besides the point.
Thank God–the One and True God–for people like you.
hard, eternal reality: NO MATTER WHAT
“Michelle Rhee”
It;s just weird how she disappeared. She was the leader of the “movement” and she just dropped off the face of the earth.
They don’t call it “reform” anymore, by the way. They relabeled it as “reinventing” and they have a new marketing campaign. Maybe “reform” no longer polls well.
They’ll propose something like a tutoring program and insist they “invented” it.
“Why group kids by age?”
This one always baffles me, because do they know any parents? Parents want kids grouped by age for very good reasons- they don’t want 7 year olds in with 17 year olds because they believe the 7 year olds aren’t sophisticated enough to handle the social structures of people who are basically adults.
The biggest pushback from parents we ever got in my public school district was for mixed age classes. Our parents actually want the elementary school physically apart from the high school. They want little kids among other little kids, for very good and practical reasons.
While I understand why you would talk about 7 year olds and 17 year olds I a class together, surely you don’t think that would be typical. As a parent I was more comfortable with my 16 year old child in a class with other student in their early 20s then other 16 year old students.
If we hope to have a better education for all, shouldn’t we be against tracking students?
When will the billionaires who fund “reform” and “reinvention” decide to stop funding failure?
Good question. Never without the daylight of Gary Rubinstein and others. Here is another question.
When will they pay taxes and stop being welfare queens and kings, enjoying profits from the hard labor of workers who enable them to have a “free” ride and offer ridiculous proposals for the education of other people’s children.
Regardless of what euphemism is used to describe the process of defunding of public schools, the result is the privatization of the common good, and the transfer of a public asset into private pockets. The net result is the demolition of public education for the many while the interests of a few take priority. ” A thorn by any other name will stab and bleed just as deeply.” The end game is always privatization and increased segregation. When money moves into private hands, there is little scrutiny, regulation or analysis of the results.
“Growth” is also the newly marketed strategy for ed reform because of the test score as proxy-for-quality myth is retreating. I’ve seen “growth” at schools just because they shifted their populations around. Then, their test scores miraculously “grew” and they got an award for it.
The endless REFORM SCHOOL failures will stop when they no longer return a profit when those that are still involved with this con-fraud start going to prison serving serious time.
I’ve been thinking again about Campbell’s Law:
“The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”
More recently I’ve been thinking of it with respect to how the Vietnam War was run by Robert McNamara. The thinking that if we kill enough of the enemy compared to our side, then we should win the war. The goal was to win the war; the measure used was killing enough of the enemy. Obviously it didn’t work.
Obviously that’s what has happened with standardized test scores. I was just struck by how the Vietnam War offered an example of the horrible extreme of faulty quantitative decision-making.
Diane: Why do you think this statement is correct? “Florida remains mired in the depths of mediocrity when assessed by NAEP.”
Also, I didn’t see any mention of Florida in Rubinstein’s blog linked above. Did he make this claim elsewhere?
I have written about Florida on this blog and in my last book, Slaying Goliath. Florida artificially boosts its 4th grade NAEP scores by holding back children in third grade with low scores. Its eighth grade scores are mediocre. Yet Florida has been trying to push the “Florida Model” into other states (eg, New Mexico, where it failed). That is, tough accountability for schools and teachers based on test scores, no accountability for voucher schools, and a proliferation of charter schools. I did not refer to Florida because of Gary’s post but because it belongs in the large Museum of Failed Reforms and Non-existent Miracles. Next to the “Texas Miracle,” also non-existent, which birthed NCLB and RTTT.
You must be talking about results from earlier years.
I ran the NAEP Data Explorer’s Statistical Significance Test tools for the 2019 results.
In Grade 8 NAEP Reading Florida’s whites students are listed in 12th place and only 3 states scored statistically significantly higher. For Black students, the score was listed in 6th place and no state scored statistically significantly higher. For Hispanic students, Florida’s score was listed in 2nd place and no state scored statistically significantly higher.
For Grade 8 NAEP Math, Florida’s whites are listed in 27th place with 10 states scoring statistically significantly higher. Florida’s Black students were listed in 16th place and only 1 state scored statistically significantly higher. For Hispanic students, Florida placed 5th and no state scored statistically significantly higher.
This is the report of Florida based on 2019 scores. Florida is not a leading state. It is in the middle. I would give you more detail but I’m writing on a cell phone. The Florida “Model” consists of demoralizing teachers, handing out billions to for-profit charter schools and completely unaccountable religious schools. Given the hostility of the Governor and Legislature to public schools, it’s amazing that Florida kids score as well as they do. This is certainly not a model for the future for any state that values education.
2019 NAEP Reading:
Overall Results
▪ In 2019, the average score of eighth-grade students in Florida was 263. This was not significantly different from the average score of 262 for students in the nation.
NAEP Achievement-Level Percentages and
Average Score Results
2019 Reading State Snapshot Report Florida Grade 8 Public Schools
Florida
average score in 2017 (267) and was higher than their average score in 1998
(255).
2019
▪ The percentage of students in Florida who performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level was 34 percent in 2019. This percentage was not significantly different from that in 2017 (35 percent) and was higher than that in 1998 (23 percent).
▪ The percentage of students in Florida who performed at or above the NAEP Basic level was 72 percent in 2019. This percentage was lower than that in 2017 (77 percent) and was higher than that in 1998 (67 percent).
NOTE: NAEP achievement levels are to be used on a trial basis and should be interpreted and used with caution. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding.
lower than those in 11 states/jurisdictions
higher than those in 16 states/jurisdictions
not significantly different from those in 24 states/jurisdictions
DoDEA = Department of Defense Education Activity (overseas and domestic schools)
Results for Student Groups in 2019
Now you say Florida’s Grade 8 results are in the middle. That doesn’t seem mediocre to me, but maybe this is just semantics.
Anyway, you are looking at overall average scores.
I broke things out in my earlier comment by race for NAEP Scale Scores only because these scores are not considered to be in trial status. Except for Grade 8 math for white students, Florida is clearly performing above the median, in a number of cases well above the median, for all racial groups.
By the way, only looking at overall averages winds up comparing lots of minority students in Florida to white students in many other states. Due to the achievement gaps, which Florida is working on but no state has solved, that doesn’t treat Florida equitably. The NAEP 2009 Science Report Card talks about the value of breaking scores out by race and provides some examples, including one for Florida, on Page 32. You might want to look at that.
Jeb Bush and Betsy DeVos have repeatedly bragged that the “Florida Model” is the best in the nation. I don’t see anything “best” about Florida. It’s a horrible model.
My question is, when will the electorate realize that simply blowing up the government with unqualified corrupt representatives leaves a huge mess? Whether conservative or liberal, we have to start voting for people who understand what it takes to legislate, not reality show or cable news wannabes…