My website is dianeravitch.com. I write about two interconnected topics: education and democracy. I am a historian of education.
Diane Ravitch’s Blog by Diane Ravitch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at dianeravitch.net.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
@HispanEduca congratulates you for such a spot-on move, Diane. We are committed to inform Hispanic parents, students, and the general Hispanic community about the atrocities that high-stake testing companies are doing to alter education with a teach-to-the-test “education reform” by influencing states and the government to make their tests state-mandated.
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Lourdes- I would love to correspond with you. I am a new ESOL teacher (a career switcher and former writer/editor) and I am shocked by what testing requirements are enforced even for newcomer ESOL students. It is so unfair!
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Hi Sarah,
Thanks for your note and for your interest in corresponding with me. My email is hispaneduca@gmail.com. I’ll be a pleasure.
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Hi, Sarah.
Although I responded to your comment a few months ago, I wanted to share with you, and anybody who wants to continue the dialogue about Hispanic education issues, my new email, Lourdes.Perez@hispaneduca.org. In October 2012, we will launch the HispanEduca news website in Spanish and English. Here we will provide a platform to discuss and analyze education policy issues that impact Hispanic students (PK-20), including a blog, in Spanish only, so they can understand and act upon said policy issues to become empowered parents. I’ll keep you posted as soon as we are about to go live. Thanks for your comments and keep writing.
Gracias!
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Hi Sarah (and others), I am entering my 5th year of teaching ESL in the Bronx, and am just as fed up with testing and all the other nonsense. Not knowing how else to vent, I have just finished a book I called Teaching to the Child. I wanted to share the stories of my amazing students who came to my class not speaking a word of English, and how incredible it was when they began to learn their new language. I also wrote about how this success was ignored again and again because all that seems to matter are test scores. I would love for the people at the top to hear about my students. Only the teachers who have been in the trenches at the toughest schools can really know how to make our education system better. Diane, one good outcome of your CNN interview is I found out about you, and am thrilled that someone out there understands. If you, or anyone else reading this, is interested, my book is available on Amazon.com.
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Thank you, Lourdes.
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Lourdes: thank you for your organizing. I’ve observed during my nine years teaching for the DOE that privatization and charters hurts Latino and African American students the most. Our communities must fight.
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Hi Inverness:
There are more grey areas than you might think on this issue, so we should continue “fighting” through information and community organizations. My email is hispaneduca@gmail.com, so feel free to shoot me an email so we can continue the conversation.
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>> ’ve observed during my nine years teaching for the DOE that privatization and charters hurts Latino and African American students the most
Is the converse also true? Do European-Americans ==benefit== the most?
> Our communities must fight
Is the European-American community also allowed to fight for that which benefits itself?
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Our communities must fight for the principles that benefit all, not principles that benefit the few. For the public interest, not private interests.
Private interests do quite well taking care of themselves.
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Dear Diane,
I was very shocked to see my maiden name in the blog. My name is Marianna Kiva ( nee Ravitch ).
mkiva@shaw.ca
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I would like to hear more about how privatization and charters are hurting minority communities. We decided to just leave the system and I’m finding more Latino and AA families doing the same. There is a wonderful charter serving a low-income community in our city, but budget cuts have decimated the school and now they are closing. It is ridiculous. The only people not complaining about public schools are the school district bureaucrats and the billion-dollar companies that support them. ENOUGH!
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Georgecastro: thanks for your note. LIke I told Inverness, the charter school issue has a lot of grey areas, so we should continue the conversation. Some charters serving Latino and AA families are doing fine. Such is the case of those operated by ASPIRA (www.aspira.org) in Chicago, for example. I would be honored to continue the conversation, so my email is hispaneduca@gmail.com. Take care.
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Diane
On weekends I catch up on reading your blog and a few others. This weekend was particularly disturbing for me because I had a difficult week in my school.
I don’t want to make trivial the Holocaust or suggest that the deformers are actually Nazi’s in suits, but I see so many similarities in the slow, carefully constructed dominant narrative that is being presented in every form of media to eventually destroy public education.
Daily front page headlines showcase teachers’ inappropriate behavior with students. (are all the other professions pure and without sin?why only showcase teachers?) Politicians lauding Katrina as the best thing to happen to New Orleans. (really? has anyone asked the students of NO?) Reports warning the public that our schools are failing and it is the fault of teachers. (Does no one else understand that teaching is not just data points?) All of this is designed to turn public opinion.
Often I think all of this is a distraction to keep the public from focusing on real issues like poverty, unemployment, and crime, just to name a few.
I fully expect to see a call for all teachers to start wearing a big yellow T on their clothing.
I saw you in person at the Bronx Educational Summit last year. You were amazing. You help me from becoming so discouraged that I want to go into a less stressful career like bomb diffusion.
Thank you for your voice.
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Dear Diane,
I received this email from the Obama administration, requesting personal stories about how Obama’s education policies have affected lives… I thought perhaps some of your readers might want to let the President know exactly how RttT, NCLB waivers, value-added, etc. have affected their lives… or even just what they think of Arne Duncan.
https://my.barackobama.com/page/signup/nc-north-carolina-education-stories
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Dear Diane,
I’m 25 years old and a substitute primariy education teacher.
I’ ve found out about you after reading your article about the need of evidence-based education and how it parallels with doctors which was part of a M.Ed module. I always thought that you were an advocate of test-based learning etc. but now that I’ve seen your pieces on this blog I feel that I judged you too fast and too wrong. Keep up the good work, all teachers regardless of country need academics who can stand up and speak on behalf of them. Greetings from Greece where education is smitten day after day.
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Did you happen to see the news on NBC last night featuring yet another savior of poor African American children in the form of a quasi-militarized charter school? http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/06/12089284-born-to-rise-one-womans-mission-to-reform-education.
Something that struck me is how children are treated. It’s as if they were preparing for prison life. They must wear uniforms, must walk in single file in halls and must not speak! How does this prepare students to be productive, creative, responsible members of society? The extreme discipline only teaches children that if they step out of line they will be punished. Why do these charter schools need such extreme measures, something that Brian Williams characterized as “tough love”? I’m sure he would not want the same experience for his children. And why is it always children of color who need “tough love”?
The piece also lauded the founder of the school for giving teachers complete “freedom”. Of course, teachers were also held accountable, the school’s founder assured the audience. Nothing innovative or creative in terms of teaching methodology was shown but I guess Brian Williams knows best and we must take him at his word that it’s much better than traditional public schools. Also, nothing was mentioned about standardized tests or the NY State curriculum and how these might fit in with this newfound freedom for teachers. It is extremely disheartening to have the mainstream media report on these schools without actually doing any real reporting. I wonder how many people believe everything Brian Williams tells them.
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>> The extreme discipline only teaches children that if they step out of line they will be punished
what would you prefer to teach….. that Insider trading or bank robbery won’t get punished?
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Bill Moyers & Company had an excellent discussion on the issue of racial stereotyping and how its use runs through U.S. history to promote racist social policies.
Confronting the Contradictions of America’s Past is at:
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-confronting-the-contradictions-of-america’s-past/
P.S. When is Bill Moyers going to have Diane Ravitch on his show to talk about the crisis in public education?
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I recently liked a Facebook Page (Teach Plus). I initially thought it might actually be supporting Teachers in urban schools until they posted this…
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0601-teachers-evals-20120601,0,5899361.story
Someone commented on this saying Teach Plus is a non-profit organization funded by Gates Foundation. I don’t know if it’s true or not but I am inclined to believe it after reading the article. How do we possibly wade through all the manipulations and disguises to know who and what to trust anymore? I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how to fix this mess. I am barely hanging on to continue teaching. I am torn between guilt in enabling the problem to continue by staying and guilt of deserting my students. My students win out and I stay…and I try to sneak in what works as best as I can…but the stress is having its toll…
I just want to teach and foster a life-long love of learning!
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Have you read the English curriculum for 12th grade students on ERWC? I incorporated current events into classical literature , but the elimination of classical literature in favor of articles is a tragedy. I retired mid year because of pressure to leave . Three different teachers came and went the seond semester so it is best to stay for the student’ ssake.
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I would like to know how your readers would respond to the question, “What makes an “effective” teacher?”
Actually, I think that the better question is, “What is or are the most effective, educational systems?” Would not better systems make for more effective teachers? I believe so.
Where do those with the money send their own children? I advocate for public Montessori school choice, but sense the question continues to revolve around the effectiveness of the teacher, let’s hear the answers. I beg your pardon if you all have covered this earlier.
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An effective teacher is someone paying attention to the individual, validating their worth, supporting their efforts, encouraging the risk of mistakes and sharing their pride and joy of learning.
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This is the lowest of the low:
Reading (PA) teacher layoffs cut to the quick
Many of furloughed are young, wonder what will happen to them, students they leave behind
“Rumors about impending teacher layoffs – a response to a $40 million budget deficit – had been circulating for months. And when the school board passed a tentative budget last month that called for 170 teaching positions to be cut, those in line for layoffs could see the writing on the wall.
But, Manbeck said, when teachers began to be pulled out of a school assembly Tuesday, the reality of it all really set in.
“The worst part was the kids – we were laid off and the kids knew right away,” said Manbeck, 25. “We were in the middle of an assembly and we were taken out one by one, and the kids saw us react.”
Manbeck said the teachers who were laid off were allowed to leave school immediately after being notified. Most returned Wednesday to finish out the school year, even though facing their students one last time was difficult.
“I didn’t want to break down in front of them,” Manbeck said. “These kids are losing people who believed in them when they may not have that at home.”
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=391789
Also the NYT:
Pink Slips
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This is the lowest of the low:
Reading (PA) teacher layoffs cut to the quick
Many of furloughed are young, wonder what will happen to them, students they leave behind
“But, Manbeck said, when teachers began to be pulled out of a school assembly Tuesday, the reality of it all really set in.
“The worst part was the kids – we were laid off and the kids knew right away,” said Manbeck, 25. “We were in the middle of an assembly and we were taken out one by one, and the kids saw us react.”
Manbeck said the teachers who were laid off were allowed to leave school immediately after being notified. Most returned Wednesday to finish out the school year, even though facing their students one last time was difficult.
“I didn’t want to break down in front of them,” Manbeck said. “These kids are losing people who believed in them when they may not have that at home.”
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=391789
Also a NYT Editorial
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Diane,
I am starting an organization to encourage retired and former teachers to speak out about the state of public education today. I’m calling it “The X Teachers”. I hope that because we are not IN the classroom anymore, we can’t be called self-serving when we talk about working conditions in school. We’re not a union, so we can’t be accused of having an agenda. I’m hoping for your support and help promoting this group. My website is https://sites.google.com/site/thexteachers/ and the Facebook page is “The X Teachers”. I’d also like to say that your book and your advocacy have been vital in bringing these issues to a wider audience. As a 25 year veteran of LAUSD, I’m grateful to you.
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Great idea. I once proposed to a teacher meeting that retired teachers should organize just as you are now for the reasons you state. You can’t be accused of having a “self-interest” and you can’t be accused of speaking for the unions. And you understand what is happening and what is needed. So, count on me.
Diane
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Thanks so much for your support. If you could post my link and/or my Facebook page on Twitter, Facebook and on your blog you might be able to reach a wider audience. I’m planning to go and speak to retired teacher organizations in my area to build support. If you can think of any other groups that I might be able to approach, I’d love to have any ideas. We’ve got to make sure that we speak with a loud voice.
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Bless you!
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Advocating for my students is a risky deal but I try as much as I dare. I wish you success and I will share with my teacher friends!
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My feeling is that teachers currently in the classroom have enough on their plates and the climate they’re working under creates so much fear and intimidation that we have to step up and defend you. Just worry about keeping your job and let the X teachers proclaim the truth!
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Diane,
My school had two inservices this week – one on our new evaluation system and another on the Common Core State Standards. After attending the latter, I asked myself if this were a good thing, or would it further narrow the curriculum. Do you have any information on this?
By the way, I love your book. I carry it around with me on my iPhone, and refer to it often.
Tim McFarland
Oregon
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Tim, no one knows how the Common Core standards will work. They have never had a field trial. We’ll have to wait five to ten years to find out what difference they make, if any. I wish they had been tried out somewhere so the kinks could be worked out. But no one wanted to wait. They thought it was important to just do it and find out later. I don’t agree.
Diane
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The more I read your blog, the more I think of “Animal School.”
I’m sure you’ve seen this, but there may be some who haven’t.
http://www.raisingsmallsouls.com/animalschool/animalschool.swf
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Thanks for sharing and reminding us. It’s a good thing I can read fast – I hope my slow reader teacher friends can keep up…LOL
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You know there is blood in the water when sharks show up the way Michelle Rhee has in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania:
Michelle Rhee: Vouchers can level playing field
http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2012/06/vouchers_can_level_playing_fie.html
Harrisburg shouldn’t consider cutting kindergarten, education reform advocate Michelle Rhee says
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/06/harrisburg_shouldnt_consider_c.html
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Dear Diane,
The comments you’re quoting in the “Race to the Bottom” posts disturb me, as they reveal not a thoughtfully critical approach to ed reform, but a blanket rejection of all reform. And that’s a shame, because there IS some very destructive reform going on in education right now, stuff that merits outcry and resistance and calls to action. Yet the evidence many of these comments offer to support their contention that their state is the worst is usually a list of all possible reforms, with some ad-hominem attacks (“Michelle Rhee’s ex”? Is this Perez Hilton?) thrown in.
The resulting impression is that you and your readers are fighting to preserve the status quo in public education, that your criticism is knee-jerk against anything new or risky. That’s not a particularly compelling ethos, and I think it will ultimately lead to your being roundly discredited.
What we need in this debate is thoughtful scrutiny of reforms as well as of current practices in education. What your blog is turning into is something quite different from that.
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I disagree. Harmful “reforms,” some coming from people who want to humiliate teachers and dismantle public education, are raining down on the nation’s schools. When you are in a theater and you smell smoke, you walk slowly to the door and alert your neighbors. When you see fire, you move a little more quickly but try to avoid a stampede. It serves no one to have public school teachers stampeding to the doors to leave the profession, but what you are reading in the comments is a degree of outrage and despair that should not be dismissed blithely as a “defense of the status quo.” That is the corporate reformers’ favorite line. They employ it whenever anyone tells them that their pet schemes don’t work and will be destructive.
Let’s be clear about what the “status quo” in education is. It is No Child Left Behind and its failed test-based accountability. It is Race to the Top, paying states to privatize schools. It is blaming teachers if students don’t get higher test scores every year. It is budget cuts, larger classes, lost services and programs that children need. That’s what is happening.
If you don’t listen to people in the classroom, you can’t understand the havoc these “reforms” are wreaking. Why do you think that 90% of the teachers in the Chicago Public Schools voted to authorize a strike? Are they all “defenders of the status quo.” Maybe someone should listen to what they are saying once in a while.
Diane
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There are several thousand status quo scenarios, of course. There are miserable schools out there. But there are also some really wonderful schools in the public school system. Prescribing one single “fix” for all these schools is like parading every child into the doctor’s office and giving them all an antibiotic. It helps some, does nothing for most, and harms another group.
There is a lot of frustration out there, and perhaps the largest issue creating that is that the biggest problem for your school may not be a concern for mine… and vice versa. And in the attempt to grab at a solution, any solution to a specific local problem, people are unaware of the full implications for other schools in other places, or even the backlash for themselves. There are people with a specific teacher in mind who want to change layoffs to something like VAM, for example. But won’t the joke be on them when the teacher they hated ends up getting more entrenched because of a good score and the Teacher of the Year they were trying to protect gets one of the low scores and has to be fired, because after all, who puts “won Teacher of the Year” in the VAM models?
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Diane, To use a slogan from the past “Right on!” It is clear that the education deformers attacking public education have little interest in education. Their bottom line is how much profit can they extract from tax payers. In Philadelphia, we have the Boston Consulting Group, a notorious corporate raider for the last 25 years, about to transform our public schools by closing 65 schools and having 40% of students in charters by 2017. If you read their prospectus (http://thenotebook.org/blog/124923/bcg-documents-show-far-reaching-proposal-overhaul-district) , there is almost nothing about education, pedagogy, or child development. Onpage 6 you will findthat replacing teachers with technology to “save money” is the ultimate goal. In the document, it reflects that they see the students as commodities and the parents as customers.
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Dear Diane,
Thanks for your reply–and I take your point about that being a favorite line; I should have phrased it more thoughtfully.
I’m talking about educators getting heard, here. You say they are not listened to and I agree. My argument is that part of the reason for that is within our control. The most vocal criticism from teachers–on your blog and elsewhere–too often comes across as blanket rejection of all reform, along with demonization of many reformers. Within that criticism are some great points, but they are dismissed because, in part, of the tenor of the criticism.
I have been teaching in Louisiana public schools for 12 years, and as you can imagine, I have felt a great deal of “outrage and despair.” I feel it every day. That doesn’t make me immune, however, from the norms of civil discourse. If I don’t adhere to them, my contributions will be dismissed–fairly or unfairly–as knee-jerk, or defensive, or whatever. Because that’s how they come across. When the conversation descends in to decrying everything that Michelle Rhee (or replace her name with any of the other demonized names, organizations, or ideas in the discourse–TFA, charters, etc), has ever touched, simply because she touched it, that’s not constructive or useful. It is divisive, and it is scapegoating.
When teachers protested Governor Jindal’s reform package recently, I asked many of my colleages and friends about the specifics of the bills they were protesting. I even asked some professors of education who were up in arms. I couldn’t find one single other teacher who had actually READ any of the bills, or even enough of the press coverage to be able to speak in more than catchphrases and protest signs. That’s no way to get heard.
Have teachers been scapegoated, attacked and demonized? Absolutely. But by responding in kind, we only discredit ourselves not only in the eyes of the “corporate reformers,” but the onlooking public that is trying to understand who to believe. Should we have to be the ones who rise above the divisive and misleading rhetoric, rather than firing back in kind? Absolutely it should. We are teachers.
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I’m glad to hear that there is one public school teacher in Louisiana who is okay with the new law. How do you feel about children going to little religious schools where they will never learn about evolution? Are you okay with that? And do you feel good about losing tenure and all other protections for your job? What happens if you try to teach one of the books on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 most controversial? If someone from your community wants your scalp, are you okay with that too? Let me know what you think is an appropriate way to respond to a law that takes the basic funding away from poorly funded public schools and gives it to charter schools and voucher schools.
Diane
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I am not okay with the new laws, not at all. I worked very hard against the voucher provision. I never said that I was in favor of the law, and your mischaracterization of my remarks, your reply that doesn’t respond to the substance of them at all, and your hyperbolic rhetoric about the laws is exactly the kind of divisive and unproductive discourse I’m talking about, the kind that will rile up those who already agree with you, entrench those who don’t, and alienate bystanders. None of which gets us anywhere.
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To Laura,
Start your own blog and your own followers and set the pace for the tone you want. Why aren’t the reformers asking the teachers what works? Why were they not respectful enough of us as professionals to ask what is working in public schools. They come flying in with their capes and they have all the answers so they say. What they are good at is raising money, coming up with a deceptive message and manipulating the poor families in our country.
So they put us on the defensive and now we feel attacked. Most teachers are busy teaching, raising families and dealing with all of the issues in our society. Most don’t have the time like Diane to give ourselves a voice. We are grateful to Diane for getting the message to parents, teachers and citizens.
So get your message out. I hear it is really easy to set up a blog.
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Laura, I think there is much thoughtfulness in your comment, and I appreciated it. I agree that it’s a problem when people go out campaigning on something but don’t have a grasp of the issue.
Reading a full bill is difficult and sometimes not even truly possible, because you have to have deep knowledge of the context of the law that it will be applied to. And sometimes because of this, people forget to try. What ideas do you have to help develop some of this depth of policy knowledge among teachers?
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*Absolutely we should.
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“A site to discuss better education for all.” Thank you.
My feelings are in line with Laura’s. While there are indeed destructive “reforms” going on, there are constructive reforms going on as well.
I’ve just read “Majors Gone Mad.” A portion is below.
[The annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously passed a resolution endorsing the so-called parent trigger idea.
The parent trigger means that any 51% of parents at a school can sign a petition, and as the Reuters article about it, said “seize control” of the school.
Once the parents have seized control, with the endorsement of the mayors, they can fire the staff or hand the school over to a charter corporation. In other words, they can seize public property and privatize it.
This is nuts.]
I was, at first, in agreement with your post, “Majors Gone Mad.” –– “The poor teachers, I thought, who has their backs? Why go into teaching at all if your efforts are not supported?” –– I, however, would be backing the 51% of parents if they were demanding authentic Montessori in their public schools.
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Do you also think it is a good idea for citizens to seize control of other public services? If they want better policing, should they seize the local police station and hand it over to a private corporation to operate? How about privatizing the fire department? More about this when I blog next Tuesday for Education Week.
Diane
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I do wish that there were more educated, passionate parents attending local school board meetings insisting on the best for their children. As it is, I feel, there are too many parents that are too busy, too tired, and just want to hope that their children’s school experience isn’t too far different than their own. I want public services; local police, fire departments, etc. with the option, of course, for civilian review boards should there be any wrong doing. I want public schools fashioned from those schools which the upper middle class can afford to send their children. I advocate for public Montessori, and if it’s by choice, so be it. Those parents choosing more tractional schooling for their own children would soon become aware of the advantages gained by more holistic educations. Respectfully
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Here’s the fundamental problem with Parent Trigger: it takes control of the school away from the community.
But wait – you say – that can’t be right! The purpose is to take control locally!
It doesn’t. It takes it away from an elected school board and – via petition, in the case of California, without even a single public hearing or even a newspaper article – gives it to some charter operation as selected by the people who circulated the petition… people who don’t have to live in the community in question. And it leaves control there, even after the parents who signed the petition have their kids graduate or move away.
It does not even require that the local school board have been asked to take a particular action and failed to act.
In the cases in California, there was not an attempt to involve the school boards at all. Indeed, the intent was to use stealth to bypass them altogether.
A real parent trigger might make sense if it created a new elected board for that school and if it was created after a series of confrontations and/or discussions with the existing school board. But no one is talking about that to my knowledge.
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“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” _ Mahatma Gandhi
Do recent posters who criticize those fighting privatization mean we are entering the attack phase? The way they start off expressing disagreement and then immediately launch into personal attack is suspicious. And to say as one of them does that she would support parents setting up a school with “authentic Montessori”? Please, the “parent trigger” means the schools will be turned over to a private corporation, not the parents.
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Love the quote!
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Please quote any “personal attack” you see in the recent posts you’re referring to.
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Diane,
Did you read this?
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/20-1
We need to be clear about something. This move against the public schools and teachers’ unions is being orchestrated not by educational reformers interested in improving our schools, but by greedy entrepreneurs looking to privatize the whole shebang. The prospect of having millions of kids leave the public schools and enroll in privates or for-profit charters represents a potential gold mine.
So the next time a person tries to tell you that it’s the unions who are responsible for the problems our public schools are facing, take a moment to set them straight. Make it clear to them that this whole “union teacher vs. non-union teacher” dichotomy is a hoax. It’s a con game. Put it to them in the simplest possible terms. We’re being played for suckers.
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Diane,
I thought you might find this interesting. I don’t know who decided who could stay and who could not. It doesn’t say. But this is being managed by union teachers not a adhered..New Haven, CT.
Teachers Will Run New “Turnaround”
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/union-run_turnaround/
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Typo…not a charter. iPad predicts words if you make a typo.
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Diane,
I thought that this article published in the Philadelphia Inquirer of interest.
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20120621_Pa__auditor_again_blasts_funding_formula_for_cyber_and_charter_schools.html
Please keep up the good fight. Wwe need more people like you calling out how wrong states and federal governments are about this mess.
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Thanks Rita for this important article. But at the same time we have this in Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvania Bill Boosts Charter Schools in Ailing Areas
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-19/pennsylvania-bill-boosts-charter-schools-in-ailing-areas.html
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The Youth will show us the way!
In Chicago, local student activists support federal civil rights complaints
from Philadelphia School Notebook
Students and organizers from local groups Youth United for Change and the Philadelphia Student Union joined grassroots activist groups from across the country Thursday in decrying “top-down” school closings and school turnarounds as a violation of students’ civil rights.
http://tinyurl.com/7jvb32l
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Diane and all, please read:
When Rhee and Edelman and others are complimenting and reaching out to the unions to compliment them, we should all be afraid, very afraid.
I smell a rat and I would never trust her. We will be leaving in droves, more so than now, if the NEA and AFT meet with her.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/michelle-rhees-group-asks_n_1616382.html
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Please forward this to every teacher you know. We can’t let her team up with out unions.
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Randi Weingarten of the AFT is deeply invovled with the Broad Foundation. See their 2009 Mission Statement:
Click to access 101-2009.10%20annual%20report.pdf
Page 11
Teacher unions have always been a formidable voice in public
education. We decided at the onset of our work to invest in
smart, progressive labor leaders like Randi Weingarten, head of
the United Federation of Teachers in New York City for more
than a decade and now president of the American Federation
of Teachers (AFT). We partnered with Weingarten to fund two
union-run charter schools in Brooklyn and to fund New York
City’s first incentive-based compensation program for schools,
as well as the AFT’s Innovation Fund. We had previously
helped advance pay for performance programs in Denver and
Houston, but we were particularly encouraged to see New York
City embrace the plan.
Page 16
The Broad Foundation invests $2 million in the
Teachers Union Reform Network (TURN), a network of
National Education Association and American Federation
of Teachers locals.
Page 20
In 2005 the Broad Foundation makes a $1 million grant to
the United Federation of Teachers in New York City to open
two union-run charter schools in Brooklyn, the first such
schools in the country.
Page 21
Caption to a picture of “Randi Weingarten getting a hug from Joel Klein, then Chancellor of New York City Schools
Left to right in picture: Eli Broad, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein and United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten celebrate at the announcement of the winner of the 2007 Broad Prize.”
Page 23
With the support of the United Federation of
Teachers, the New York City Department of Education implements
a school-wide bonus program in 200 of its most
challenged schools. The Broad Foundation invests $5 million
to help fund the bonuses.
Michelle Rhee was on the Board of the Broad Foundation in 2009.
Click to access 419-tbc_board_announcement.pdf
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Diane,
Regarding your question about the history of for-profit charter schools:
The initial charter schools were started in opposition to Brown Vs. Board of Education.
See:
The Charter Schools Question – History of Charter Schools in America
http://nwgeorgiavoice.com/history-of-charter-schools-in-america/
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Diane,
This column on Romney and Obama’s views on charter schools appeared in my local paper. Here’s the link to the Huffpost column. Do you know about True North Troy Preparatory or Richard Whitmire?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-whitmire/obama-and-romney-right-to_b_1612796.html
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The School Reform Commission which runs the School District of Philadelphia announced Friday evening the two candidates it has selected to be Superintendent. Both are graduates of the Broad Superintendents Academy. Need anymore be said?
SRC announces two superintendent finalists
http://thenotebook.org/blog/124961/src-announces-two-superintendent-finalists-only-identifies-one#comment-35410
Read the comments after the article.
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By picking Broadies, it appears that the School Reform Commission has selected leaders who are philosophically committed to carry out the recommendations of the Boston Consulting Group. Same mindset. Broad seems to train “leaders” not to care what the public thinks. That’s been the pattern with all the “graduates” of his non-acccredited academy.
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In Huntsville, AL, the Broadie superintendent, Col. Casey Wardynski, has contracted out services for behavior problem and homebound students to a private corporation, The Pinnacle Schools. The contract includes five places in the “teepees” at Pinnacle’s Elk River Wilderness Treatment Program, one of those remote, secured boarding school/mental hospital/detention centers for students hand-selected by Wardynski. Stays there are of indefinite length: “Those who do not comport themselves according to the regulations and rules of Pinnacle Schools will find themselves living in a teepee. And they won’t be coming back until they can behave. And if they can’t behave, they won’t be coming back to our schools.”
I can’t begin to imagine how this is legal, but there you are: http://abouthcs.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/theres-no-mention-of-teepees-in-the-2011-2012-hcs-handbook/
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Hi Diane,
My name is Laura Yeager and I am one of the founders of a grassroots organization in Texas called TAMSA (Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment). We are concerned over the high stakes associated with the new standardized testing regime (STAAR) that just underwent its first implementation here in Texas. As you know, Texas entered at $500 million contract with Pearson for the testing, at the same time it cut $5.4 billion from the education budget.
We have just released a press release countering the allegations of one of the more vocal (albeit not representative) business organizations in Texas. Your post about giving a harder test leading to improved learning hits on something I’ve heard over and over here. Testing advocates claim that by giving a harder test, we will make our students smarter. In contrast, simply giving a harder test, without allocating the resources to enable districts, schools, and teachers to learn and share the material, will lead to higher dropout rates of struggling students and turn all students into bubble sheet experts. As the mother of three students who enjoy learning in a creative and interactive environment, I see first hand how public education is being killed by these tests.
I’d love to send you a copy of our press release and we would encourage others in Texas (and elsewhere) join our group of concerned parents and community members. Please let me know how I can send you our press release! Thanks for all you are doing to stand up for our students and public education. (Our website is: http://www.TAMSATX.org)
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This Louisiana court case shows the profound injustice that is being done to thousands of teachers with this so-called “reform movement”. I’m not sure we can say the system worked though since it took SEVEN YEARS and will now probably be appealed.
Louisiana Illegally Fired 7,500 Teachers, Judge Says
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Diane,
What do you think about a governor becoming a university’s President especially when he was hired by those he appointed to the board as governor? He is swearing off his political lobbying and fundraising for one year (at least publicly) to down play the conflict of interest. My concern is this…my professors warned me of these current changes taking place in education – will they now be silenced, fired and replaced by robot shaping professors? I didn’t fully comprehend their message until now…
http://www.indystar.com/article/20120623/NEWS08/206230352/?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|IndyStar.com|p
http://www.indystar.com/article/20120621/NEWS/120621017/Mitch-Daniels
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You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Cozy.
If teachers got hired that way, imagine what the press would say.
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Diane,
Have you seen this on the FCAT?
Very powerful.
Tim
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/student-video-how-high-stakes-tests-affect-kids/2012/05/09/gIQAsKt6DU_blog.html
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Hello — I have concerns about the reliability and validity of the NYS tests that are administered. These are high stakes tests, yet it seems difficult if not impossible to obtain answers regarding their reliability and validity. For example, when the pineapple question was included on the ELA test, I assume that that question was included in terms of reliability and validity checks. After unpopular press, that question was seemingly thrown out. How were adjustments made regarding reliability and validity after that question was excluded? Shouldn’t the entire test be deemed unreliable and invalid?? What would a true psychometrician say regarding this?? I submit the answer is yes– it should be thrown out and deemed unreliable and invalid. Why is it so difficult to obtain information regarding reliability and validity of these tests?? Yet, teachers’ jobs will be held in the balance if students do not show growth.
Also, I have not been able to determine what the cost to the state of New York is for testing in grades K-8 is in regards to the actual test contract for production, postage, and the field tests creation and postage. Tests were returned to the education department to be shredded– what was the contract cost of the shredding??? I would really like answers to these questions. Interested educators and psychometricians need to FOIL this information. What will the vast unemployment costs be to the state as teachers lose their jobs?
Marge
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I think it is important to keep teachers’ listening to one another, sharing and reflecting outside of whatever kind of destructive school climate we may be experiencing in the workplace today. We need to develop our own voices about teaching and learning -respect ourselves, believe in each other and get the support we need through this process to overcome the negative effects of bureaucrats dictating harmful policies and destroying public education for the next generation -for the sake of our democracy. Teachers will become the robot/workers that these top down institutions require and our students’ loss will be profound unless we act to strengthen the voices and empower the intelligent, perceptive, creative people who work with kids everyday. Would something like “consciousness raising” groups work for teachers outside of their schools – perhaps through unions – to help develop leaders and wise practitioners in our profession?
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Having appointed a new Superintendent of Philadelphia schools, William Hite (Class of 2009 at the Broad Superintendent’s Academy) the School Reform Commission which runs Philadelphia schools is moving into high gear for the closing of 65 schools in the next few years and putting 40% of our students in private charter schools.
The William Penn Foundation, which is sixth the Erin Project’s list of charter funders (see Diane’s column from yesterday: “Who is funding charters?”) has just announced it is increasing its involvement in the privatization of Philadelphia schools. It already is the major funder for the Boston Consulting Group which is drawing up the plan for this privitization agenda.
See Friday’s Philadelphia Inquirer: Penn Foundation giving $15M to public, private, and charter schools at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20120706_Penn_Foundation_giving__15M_to_public__private__and_charter_schools.html?page=2&c=y
For an analysis of the role of William Penn Foundation in Philadelphia schools, see the Philadelphia City Paper at:
Money Talks
And when Jeremy Nowak is paying, Philly schools have to listen.
http://www.citypaper.net/cover_story/2012-07-05-money-talks.ht
For a retired teacher’s, who spent decades teaching in the Philadelphia School District, see Chalk and Talk at:
Was Philadelphia’s Superintendent Search a Dog and Pony Show?
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Having appointed a new Superintendent of Philadelphia schools, William Hite (Class of 2009 at the Broad Superintendent’s Academy), the School Reform Commission which runs Philadelphia schools is moving into high gear for the closing of 65 schools in the next few years and putting 40% of our students in private charter schools.
The William Penn Foundation, which is sixth on the Erin Project’s list of charter funders (see Diane’s column from yesterday: “Who is funding charters?”) has just announced it is increasing its involvement in the privatization of Philadelphia schools. It already is the major funder for the Boston Consulting Group which is drawing up the plan for this privitization agenda.
See Friday’s Philadelphia Inquirer: Penn Foundation giving $15M to public, private, and charter schools at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20120706_Penn_Foundation_giving__15M_to_public__private__and_charter_schools.html?page=2&c=y
For an analysis of the role of William Penn Foundation in Philadelphia schools, see the Philadelphia City Paper at:
Money Talks
And when Jeremy Nowak is paying, Philly schools have to listen.
http://www.citypaper.net/cover_story/2012-07-05-money-talks.ht
For a retired teacher’s view, who spent decades teaching in the Philadelphia School District, see Chalk and Talk at:
Was Philadelphia’s Superintendent Search a Dog and Pony Show?
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Correction link for
Money Talks
And when Jeremy Nowak is paying, Philly schools have to listen. at Philadelphia City Paper:
http://www.citypaper.net/cover_story/2012-07-05-money-talks.html
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It’s not just the United States that has given up on public education and taken up teacher bashing. Did you see this video from Ireland? It’s hard to imagine a young(ish) American who had just won an award do this. She’s my new hero.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/07/irelands-teacher-of-year-tells-it-like.html
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Mackinac Center on Emergency Managers in Michigan:
Emergency Managers fill the role of modern-day Cincinnatus
http://www.mackinac.org/17204
Seems a bit over the top.
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Thank you for this.
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Diane,
I recently read “Death and Life…” and your writings encompassed everything I have wondered and believed in when it comes to the public education system. I’m a teacher of almost eight years who attended public and parochial schools in NYC and taught in public, charter, parochial and now private schools in NYC as well. My journey has an educator is vast and has mirrored much of what you find in your research, and I am compelled to share it with you, on a detailed level. I think you would find my story very interesting.
I am highly concerned with the state of our nation’s system but see the glimmer of hope when GOOD, HIGH QUALITY educators are allowed to voice opinions freely and instruct in a way that meets the varied needs of the student population, whatever that may be.
How do I find out about your speaking engagements happening in the NY area? You are my champion…
Thank you for continuing to fight the good fight.
From a Brooklyn native who has endured her share of pain and pleasure in this field,
Caroline
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Thanks, Caroline. I usually post speaking engagements on my website a month in advance.
I am speaking this Saturday at the Bookhampton store in Mattituck, Long Island, at 5 pm.
I will be in Detroit at AFT convention on July 28. I will be traveling in Midwest in October and November. No NYC plans this fall.
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Diane, I have taught 40 years and work with Oregon SOS. Good education for any student in any school needs to be orderly. I don’t mean kids don’t move around and explore, but they need to be engaged in school and the work they have. If they are not then school is a waste for them. Schools have a tendancy to use expulsion and suspension was too much and teachers need to better understand how to correct kids while keeping in tact the child’s dignity. This is a very hard thing. In education we are spending so much time testing and trying to make our teachers follow our top down initiatives that making our schools more orderly and therefore much more successful
is almost a second thought. One major thing we might do is create choices for kids. You can be in classroom A with your friends and peers with all the benefits of the ordinary school day or you can choose to be in a far more restrictive environment without these benefits. It is your choice and you can float to a great degree back and forth if you like. Or you can stay in the regular classroom and do your work, come to school, and do a good job taking care to behave. Your choice. Wouldn’t this be an excellent lesson for life. Don’t we have the same choices in society. Aren’t we held responsible for our choices. Where better to learn this than at school.
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We are experiencing a major attack on our public schools in Georgia now as well! Senate Majority Leader, Chip Rogers (who is up for re-election currently) have referenced how we wants to follow Jindal and Romney in his privatization of Georgia’s schools. They have undermined our local School Board by redistricting two key members that voted down a local charter, that the state approved anyway. Mr. Rogers has provided funding for candidates now running against them in an effort to take over our School Board. Our funding is being cut, while they are able to find funding for a charter school in one of the best performing districts in our state and nation? If you can offer any help or advice for our candidate running against him, please email me!
Best Regards,
Concerned Georgian
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You must alert the public. Reach out to parents, civic leaders, and local businesses. They don’t want to see big corporations go into competition with your local public schools. They don’t want a charter school to come into the community, skim off your best students, and bankrupt the school district. Depend on democracy. It won’t fail you. But you must act soon.
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Diane, in response to your recent blog regarding Pearson Publishing, here in the UK you may be interested to know that it has recently purchased another of the UK’s awarding organisation’s/exam boards and is in the process of setting up its own University in the UK. Warwick Mansell writes in the Guardian today and has not mentioned either of these but does refer to you. I have been concerned for some time that this company is over stretching its bounds and write to the Times some time ago, not realising that Pearson own the Financial Times. I wonder if this information might strengthen your argument stateside? Debbie Bolton FIfL
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Good information, Debbie. Thanks!
I found the article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jul/16/pearson-multinational-influence-education-poliy?
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You guys scooped me! I have prepared a post about this article and will now run it sooner
Diane Ravitch
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Reminders of who and what we are fighting for!
Chester Children’s Chorus lets kids’ voices – and hopes- soar
from the Philadelphia Inquirer
In the summer of 1997, as a young reporter scouring the suburbs for stories, I landed on the Sunday front page with a 1,000-word ode to a Swarthmore College professor’s belief that kids growing up in the ugliest of places could make the most beautiful music.
http://www.philly.com/philly/video/BC1732442831001.html
Fast Times at West Philly High
A preview from Frontline.
Students and teachers from West Philadelphia High School, a public high school serving one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in Philadelphia, defy expectations as they design and build two super-hybrid cars for international competition and compete for the chance to be part of a technological revolution. In summer 2010, the high school’s EVX Team raced against mega-sized auto manufacturers, multimillion-dollar start-ups, and university teams from around the world in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE competition. The challenge: Build an affordable, 100 miles-per-gallon car. The prize: $10 million dollars. In Fast Times at West Philly High, FRONTLINE explores the viability of these cars, the potential that exists within our young people, and the prospects of effective innovation in public education.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/fast-times-at-west-philly-high/
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Hi Diane,
I just received the evaluation for a senior economics textbook I wrote and published this past year in Ontario, Canada. After I received the evaluation (which, despite the book being considered by the reviewers, and I quote, of “excellent quality, overall” concluded that for reasons of bias and sensitivity that the text would not be put on the approved textbook list for the province) I looked into such matters for the first time, and came across some excerpts of your book online.
Anyway, I will continue to try to get my book into schools despite the fact that it did not meet the standards of the bias and sensitivity panel.
Anyway, thank you for having written about this issue – it has been a bit of a relief to know that one is not alone in having to deal with stupidity.
Bryce
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Bryce- First of all, I would like to congratulate you on writing a social studies textbook. Kudos to you!!! I am working on a book as well. I suggest that you look in to investigating which publishing company has published all the textbooks you make reference to– is it the mega- monopoly that spends thousands of dollars lobbying for its products— Pearson Publishing??? Pearson seems to be controlling what children in the US learn, and the UK. It’s a scary thought!!! Mind control.
Cowgirl
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Dear Dr. Ravitch,
Keep fighting the good fight! But I feel deep down that we are going to lose this fight. The wealthy elites want to get to that public money, and the democrats are now helping them do it. The elites also don’t want an intelligent, critical-thinking populace. That is not in their self interest. They want to keep people mindlessly consuming, etc.
We teachers really have no one to turn to. The elites have turned the middle class against us, blamed us for the failing economy…I have never seen anything like this. Crazy stuff, especially by Bill Gates. What are his credentials? Most of my teacher friends are just hanging on until retirement. The middle career teachers, like myself, are leaving teaching. (I will try to survive these “purges”) Teaching is a hard enough job in the best of times. It is harder when you are treated terribly in the press, on the street, etc. It also doesn’t help when no one bothers to ask teachers what would make the system better. This is no way to retain teachers, quite the contrary.
No veteran teachers (myself included) want to help mentor the younger teachers anymore…It is survival of the fittest, just like in the rest of American society now. No one wants to help someone who can bump them out of their job based on test scores. Everyone is trying to survive the Soviet-style purges that are happening. Unfortunately, many teachers are going to be destroyed by VAM, especially those who teach in high poverty areas. The teacher simply can’t control enough factors or pick who they have in their classes. Teachers can help, but we aren’t miracle workers and never were! People forget that the students actually have to do things too like studying, etc. Blaming the teacher for all the ills of society is not going to work. Where is the student’s responsibility? Where is the parent’s responsibility? I am a good teacher, but I can’t force or inspire my students to do homework, or turn off that video game. The reformers will not be happy until teaching is minimum wage job that cycles through new teachers every couple of years. It won’t be a career path, and the young, no-nothing teachers will be the staple. The veteran master teachers won’t exist in the future. No one will be able to improve their scores forever, and no one will ever get a pension. That is the main goal, in my opinion. There are also not enough educated people in this country to stop the elites. This couldn’t happen in Germany or any other “serious” country. No one would believe this and no one would listen to a billionaire drop out’s opinion on schools. In Germany they defer to the experts…So sad…depressing…I guess America will ultimately get what it deserves.
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Have you seen this TFA rap? It’s from a HBO show about New Orleans. Have never seen it but it is supposed to be good.
Looks like the tide is indeed turning.
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The way its supposed to be!
Middle School Moment
PBS Frontline
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education/dropout-nation/middle-school-moment/
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Diane,
Thought you might be interested in this post about Michelle Rhee on Meet the Press talking about gun control. She states there is no “magic bullet” (bad word choice) to solve the gun violence problem. However, she has a magic bullet solution for education-privatize it! http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/rhee-no-simple-solution-co-shooting-i
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The insanity in Pennsylvania just keeps on comin’.
Education firm linked to Fattah’s son lays off all its teachers, administrators
from the Philadelphia Inquirer
“Without warning, Delaware Valley High School – a for-profit education firm whose records were recently subpoenaed by a federal grand jury – has laid off all 50 teaching and administrative employees at the four alternative schools it operates in the region. Staffers said lawyer David T. Shulick, whose company operates the schools, owes them each thousands of dollars for work during the 2011-12 academic year. They had been expecting back pay last week but got furlough notices instead.”
http://tinyurl.com/c6c4oep
Charter schools seek revisions to state funding forms
from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“With charter schools already costing Pittsburgh Public Schools more than $47 million a year, school officials are concerned about a charter school challenge that, if successful, could cost the district more than $2 million a year. District solicitor Ira Weiss said five charter schools have filed similar letters with the state Department of Education seeking to change what is counted under the existing funding formula for school districts across the state — a change that could affect districts throughout the state.”
http://tinyurl.com/c6ummjz
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Sorry, corrected links:
Education firm linked to Fattah’s son lays off all its teachers, administrators
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120723_Education_firm_linked_to_Fattah_s_son_lays_off_all_its_teachers__administrators.html
Charter schools seek revisions to state funding forms
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/charter-schools-seek-revisions-to-state-funding-forms-645578/#ixzz21FVSWrgV
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Sorry, link corrections
Education firm linked to Fattah’s son lays off all its teachers, administrators
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120723_Education_firm_linked_to_Fattah_s_son_lays_off_all_its_teachers__administrators.html
Charter schools seek revisions to state funding forms
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/charter-schools-seek-revisions-to-state-funding-forms-645578/#ixzz21FVSWrgV
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The political forces behind the privatization of Philadelphia’s public schools are gradually being exposed:
Schools PR effort includes GOP lobbyist funded by William Penn. Schools chair calls City Paper expose a “fantasy.”
http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity/Extensive-schools-PR-effort-includes-GOP-lobbying-group.html
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Diane, the blog posts you share are so good and important. Would you comment on the Washington State Ballot Initiative for so-called “public” charter schools? http://blogs.seattletimes.com/uwelectioneye/2012/07/26/charter-schools-initiative-1240-bankrolled-by-tech-millionaires/ I’m heartsick over it and I hope it fails again but with all the gazillionaires behind it I fear it passing.
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Charter schools should meet certain criteria: 1) enroll only the lowest-performing students (dropouts) or those with highest needs (e.g., special education); 2) they should never be for-profit; 3) they should pay no salaries larger than those of nearby district; 4) they should be completely transparent and accountable; 5) their teachers should meet the same standards and requirements as those in public schools; 6) they should collaborate regularly with nearby public schools to share what they learn. Do not support any charter initiative that does not meet these requirements, as they will skim the best students and exclude those with high needs. They will call themselves “public charters” and “community charters” but that is spin.
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Hi Diane, I was teaching overseas for a year in South Korea. While there, I watched ‘Waiting for Superman’ and found it so disturbing – in that I knew it was wrong and was going to have a powerful influence – that I bought your book. I am an Australian, based in Sydney, but we have the same ‘pro-choice, charter school’ movement going on here.
I hope that people can change their ways and look at the problems facing our school systems in a more sophisticated and nuanced light. Obviously people are often beguiled by easy answers to hard questions, popularised with flashy rhetoric.. What might private citizens be able to do to raise awareness of the falsity of the aforementioned movement?
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Martin, there is a propaganda campaign to promote privatization. It is heavily funded and appears to be well coordinated as well. What can we do to stop it? We must alert the public to the effort to privatize everything. It is happening all around us, and the bold effort to privatize education is happening in broad daylight. The public does not want to go where the privatization movement is taking us. We must agitate, organize, mobilize, find allies where we can.
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Mrs. Ravitch,
I apologize for taking this opportunity to ask you a question, but I couldn’t find on your blog a way to communicate with you directly. Would you mind sharing your email address with me? I would like to talk to you about an education project. My email is: Lourdes.Perez@hispaneduca.org.
Thanks so very much and again, I apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused you.
Lourdes
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Sad to see my home town paper publishing a hit piece on education by Michelle Rhee. She uses the Olympics as a hook to tell everyone that our students are failing in world competition.
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20120803/OPINION/308030015/Olympic-effort-needed-American-education
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Diane,
This morning, CNN devoted two segments on how American education is failing compared to the rest of the world. Of course, Michelle Rhee was interviewed and the segment was completed one sided with no counter arguments presented. I wish they would have had you on to debunk Rhee’s false claims. I wrote the following complaint to CNN:
This morning 8/4/12 you had a completed one-sided story about US education which included Michelle Rhee. The entire premise of the segment is that the US is failing in education compared to the rest of the world. You even used a biased chart of nation rankings in education from the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC. Rhee, other corporate “reformers” like Bill Gates, and ALEC has one mission-to privatize public education. Rhee’s organization, Students First demonizes teachers and wants to set up more charter schools which perform in many cases no better than public schools. Rhee and other “reformers” never talk about how the US has one of the highest poverty rates of all the industrialized nations. Research indicates poverty has the greatest impact on student performance. So instead of dealing with poverty issues in America, Rhee looks to blame teachers and unions. Moreover, when controlling for poverty, the US ranks in the top 10 of nations in education. In fact American schools have been improving not failing. The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows steady gains in reading and larger gains in math over the years. Why doesn’t CNN act like a responsible news organization and do some actual research about education before having someone like Rhee on the air? Why not have someone to counter her false claims about education like Diane Ravitch? Shame on you CNN for not doing your homework!
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Test scores do not equal success. Look at my last post about Japan. Some of the highest test scores in the world, and its economy has been in stagnation for 20 years. Test scores reflect affluence and poverty. Our nation is #1 in child poverty among advanced nations. Did CNN mention that?
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Diane,
Here is the segment on education “reform” with Michelle Rhee this morning (8/4/12) on CNN:
http://cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2012/08/04/seg-education.cnn.html
Correction to my original email above: the ALEC chart used by CNN was on state education rankings not country rankings. Regardless, CNN should not use data provided by ALEC! Please feel free to comment on the segment when you get a chance. I would love to hear your take on it. Thank you for what you do for public education!
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Diane, you’ve written a lot about how Michelle Rhee’s group StudentsFirst recruits most of their members from Change.org. Two months ago, on June 19th (acc. to HuffPo article about it) Change.org very publicly said they were dropping StudentsFirst as their client, and would stop recruiting new supporters for StudentsFirst. Now it turns out that they were lying hypocrites of the most cynical kind. In fact, for anyone like me who has been paying attention, it seems that Change.org (which is a for-profit company, by the way) has actually DRAMATICALLY INCREASED how many people they are signing up to be members of StudentsFirst. Back on June 19th, the number of Change.org “supporters” for StudentsFirst was listed here…
http://www.change.org/groups/studentsfirst
…as about 1,100,000 people. I remember thinking that was a lot of people already.
But if you check that same page today, you will see that it has increased over the past two months to 1.6 million people. That’s an extra 500,000 people that Change.org has recruited for Michelle Rhee’s group in only two months. (And some of us have noticed how many times when we sign a Change.org petition we are “invited” to sign up for Michelle Rhee’s email list).
So instead of dropping StudentsFirst, as they so publicly said they were doing, Change.org has actually “stepped on the gas” to accelerate their work for Michelle Rhee over the past two months and earn a ton more money from her. I looked into Change.org’s pricing and was told they charge their clients $1.50 for each person who signs up. So that means that those extra 500,000 “recruits” were worth $750,000 to Change.org, in payments from Michelle Rhee over the past two months.
Where is the outrage? Change.org should be held accountable for lying to progressives like this. They don’t deserve support from any progressive organizations if they are going to lie like this in a baldface way.
Notice that none of this is insider knowledge. It isn’t necessary. It’s all out in the open for anyone to see.
Again: Where is the outrage? The news coverage? The boycotts of Change.org? Let them go work for Romney if that’s the kind of people they are.
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[I hope this is not too long to post here. I thought our report back on a Rhee/Johnson presentation at the University of Hawaii would be of interest here.]
On August 7, 2012 Michelle Rhee and Kevin Johnson spoke at a University of Hawaii event co-sponsored by the William S. Richardson School of Law, and the Shidler College of Business on the topic of “Ethics in Education”.
We were as shocked as you are at the title of this event, which approaches a level of surreality that might have caused Andre Breton to do a double, or triple take. Although the event was not billed as a partisan promotion of a specific ideology there were no other presenters or perspectives. The only perspectives on educational ethics the audience of about 200 heard were those of Rhee and her husband, Sacramento Mayor and and former NBA athlete Kevin Johnson.
As we entered the venue, there were notecards and pens for people to write questions on. We suspected immediately, and correctly, that this was a way to weed out questions the moderator did not want Rhee and Johnson to have to deal with. Sure enough, every single question asked at the end of the evening was either framed in a pro-Rhee way, or an anti-union way. For example: “How can one teacher make a difference in a system protected by the union?” And then there was: ” How can we do in Hawaii what was done in Washington D.C.?” The latter sent a shudder down our spines, but their answers even more so. Rhee and Johnson noted that in Hawaii, there is only one school district for all public schools, which makes the political structure more conducive to “aggressive” reforms. They stated that since Hawaii is “at the back-end of reforms” one way to move to the front end would be for Hawaii’s Governor to invite Rhee’s “Students First” organization (as other states’ Republican Governors have done) to push through reforms. Johnson noted that Hawaii has a strong presence of Teach For America (TFA) teachers, (big round of applause) which should translate into TFA school board members, principles, and political candidates at “every key position” where they could shape policy. TFA’s concentrated efforts in districts with high drop out rates have only exacerbated the teacher attrition rate in those struggling districts’ schools. TFA programs and their accompanying accelerated teacher preparation programs have received tremendous financial backing from anti-union foundations in Hawai’i. The majority of TFA candidates are not from Hawai’i but have a genuine desire to help the poor. Imagine the political climate that manipulates their goal to add TFA experience to their resume, their genuine altruistic notion (and youthful naiveté) that a two year commitment in a poor community benefits a struggling school, and their willingness to undermine labor gains made by traditionally licensed teachers. This scenario positions TFA candidates as unknowing union-busters within a neoliberal framework. The Hawaii DOE has guaranteed 80 teaching jobs to TFA candidates, in addition to 32 more Special Education teaching jobs over the next two years. Local teacher candidates who are paying tuition and taking additional education courses in traditional teacher preparation programs at the University of Hawaii, Chaminade University, Brigham Young, Hawaii Pacific University have not been guaranteed jobs within the DOE system, and will be competing for the remaining positions.
Both Johnson and Rhee promoted the anti-union film “Waiting For Superman.” When Johnson asked how many in the audience had seen the film, only about 20 of 200 raised their hands. Rhee told the stories of children in the film trying to get into better schools, and how their parents struggled with this, to make the point that vouchers would have paid the needed tuition. This concern over parents’ powerlessness over their children’s educational options led to a promotion for another upcoming film, this one funded by the Walden Foundation (Walmart), called “Won’t Back Down.” This film deals with the “parent trigger” in which parents can step in to privatize a failing school (by NCLB standards) have the faculty fired and reapply for their positions en masse, or create some other type of charter. No mention was made of the fact that in Los Angeles, it could in reality end with the closure of the community school, nor that chain charter schools actively recruited parents to do this. Sadly missing was any reference to the research that has determined that, although great teachers can make a difference in students lives, the “teacher effect” is a relatively small part of student achievement, rendering efforts to blame and punish teachers as the singular or main cause of low student achievement dubious at best, and transparently political at worst. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ptsrdyxBE&fb_source=message)
Rhee gave several examples of a “parent trigger” scenario. One was in Los Angeles, in which the parents were threatened with deportation, although she did not indicate how the teachers or unions would have been behind the threat. In Sacramento, Johnson said there had been a 161 point gap in student achievement between Latino and Black versus White students. He said once the school was chartered the gap vanished, due largely to students, teachers, and parents signing a contract to turn a school around. We were not able to find the documentation of this incredible sounding turn around, but are open to seeing it.
Johnson pointed to several factors for the success of his charter. Teachers could be called at 8 or 9pm to help with homework, and that every party was committed to helping students in any way possible. No one in the audience chafed at the idea of a teacher being on call during any and all of their waking hours, and many were nodding in approval at this idea. Rhee also promoted the idea of teachers being assessed by how many extra-curricular unpaid “community contribution” hours they put in, for example, math tutoring after school, coaching a sports team, or other unpaid service after school hours. This would be combined with value added assessments utilizing standardized scores to determine how “effective” teachers are. Rhee explained that they had corrected for economic, social, and other aspects that could be factors in why some students did better than others, in order to leave these value added assessments as purely reflective of the effectiveness of teachers. It was never explained how this works, what research backs up their model, or what institutions or studies support their methods.
The moderator, Will Weinstein, who created the “ethics” series of which this presentation was a part, fawned over Rhee and Johnson all night long. His sarcasm was apparent whenever he asked a “tough” question of the couple. They obviously charmed him and the audience, made up seemingly of law and business students and faculty. This was apparent, when, after about an hour of their promoting union busting, attacks on collective bargaining, and their marveling and wonder at why Republican politicians seem so much more supportive and knowledgeable about their progressive school reforms, Weinstein jokingly asked them why they were “such right-wing conservatives” eliciting a ripple of knowing chuckles throughout the audience. They responded that they had been given a bum rap, with Michelle playing the victim of political Democrats who were in bed with unions.
This was a major theme of the evening, the obstruction that unions present to meaningful reform. Johnson gave a powerful telling of his work to convert Sacramento High from a public school a charter. He stated that the unions stepped in to oppose this, spending vast sums of money to fight against it. No context was given as to why, leaving the audience to assume it was because they opposed poor and minority children receiving a quality education. The flip side of the demonization of unions throughout the night was the way in which the actual results of Rhee’s programs were blatantly whitewashed, or barely addressed. No mention of a D.C. test cheating scandal, of the lackluster performances of charter schools, of the billionaires that back up Rhee’s attacks on teacher unions, of the lack of effective teacher training for TFA graduates (who are assumed to be better than the “bad” experienced public school teachers), and no mention of the corporate funding of the anti-union films they were promoting. Rhee also promoted the corporate model of merit pay for the “best” (according to flawed assessment models) teachers, and punishment for the bottom-performing percentile. This corporate model known as “stack ranking” or “rank and yank” is a perfect example of how Rhee sees schools as indistinguishable from businesses. She and her husband both portrayed themselves as progressive liberals stating that charter schools needed to be heavily regulated and that failing charters needed to be closed. This qualification was obviously too little too late to establish any semblance of “balance” in their ideology.
For all their talk of accountability, no one thought to ask them who holds them accountable to prove their claims of miracles, turn-arounds, or the selfish agenda of kid hating unions whose one desire is lifetime tenure. If anyone wrote that question for them, it was not asked.
The night ended with one final anti-union joke when Johnson asked if they were out of time. Weinstein smugly responded that the Moderators Union had called and they had to wrap it up, audience applause.
The authors of this report-back are among the founders of a new annual event called LaborFest Hawaii, a celebration and examination of working class and labor history and current events, and a place where working people can assess present conditions to better organize. Our first event will focus on education with a screening of the Grassroots Education Movement made documentary “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.” This film is a counter-argument to Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting for Superman” which targeted teacher unions and pushed privatization, charter schools, and the business model of education. Guggenheim advocates the same austerity-based, anti-union, anti-teacher, and ultimately anti-student reform regime championed by Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, and others.
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I hope this is not too long to post here. I think our report back on this Rhee/Johnson presentation at the University of Hawaii might be of interest to readers of this blog.
On August 7, 2012 Michelle Rhee and Kevin Johnson spoke at a University of Hawaii event co-sponsored by the William S. Richardson School of Law, and the Shidler College of Business on the topic of “Ethics in Education”.
We were as shocked as you are at the title of this event, which approaches a level of surreality that might have caused Andre Breton to do a double, or triple take. Although the event was not billed as a partisan promotion of a specific ideology there were no other presenters or perspectives. The only perspectives on educational ethics the audience of about 200 heard were those of Rhee and her husband, Sacramento Mayor and and former NBA athlete Kevin Johnson.
As we entered the venue, there were notecards and pens for people to write questions on. We suspected immediately, and correctly, that this was a way to weed out questions the moderator did not want Rhee and Johnson to have to deal with. Sure enough, every single question asked at the end of the evening was either framed in a pro-Rhee way, or an anti-union way. For example: “How can one teacher make a difference in a system protected by the union?” And then there was: ” How can we do in Hawaii what was done in Washington D.C.?” The latter sent a shudder down our spines, but their answers even more so. Rhee and Johnson noted that in Hawaii, there is only one school district for all public schools, which makes the political structure more conducive to “aggressive” reforms. They stated that since Hawaii is “at the back-end of reforms” one way to move to the front end would be for Hawaii’s Governor to invite Rhee’s “Students First” organization (as other states’ Republican Governors have done) to push through reforms. Johnson noted that Hawaii has a strong presence of Teach For America (TFA) teachers, (big round of applause) which should translate into TFA school board members, principles, and political candidates at “every key position” where they could shape policy. TFA’s concentrated efforts in districts with high drop out rates have only exacerbated the teacher attrition rate in those struggling districts’ schools. TFA programs and their accompanying accelerated teacher preparation programs have received tremendous financial backing from anti-union foundations in Hawai’i. The majority of TFA candidates are not from Hawai’i but have a genuine desire to help the poor. Imagine the political climate that manipulates their goal to add TFA experience to their resume, their genuine altruistic notion (and youthful naiveté) that a two year commitment in a poor community benefits a struggling school, and their willingness to undermine labor gains made by traditionally licensed teachers. This scenario positions TFA candidates as unknowing union-busters within a neoliberal framework. The Hawaii DOE has guaranteed 80 teaching jobs to TFA candidates, in addition to 32 more Special Education teaching jobs over the next two years. Local teacher candidates who are paying tuition and taking additional education courses in traditional teacher preparation programs at the University of Hawaii, Chaminade University, Brigham Young, Hawaii Pacific University have not been guaranteed jobs within the DOE system, and will be competing for the remaining positions.
Both Johnson and Rhee promoted the anti-union film “Waiting For Superman.” When Johnson asked how many in the audience had seen the film, only about 20 of 200 raised their hands. Rhee told the stories of children in the film trying to get into better schools, and how their parents struggled with this, to make the point that vouchers would have paid the needed tuition. This concern over parents’ powerlessness over their children’s educational options led to a promotion for another upcoming film, this one funded by the Walden Foundation (Walmart), called “Won’t Back Down.” This film deals with the “parent trigger” in which parents can step in to privatize a failing school (by NCLB standards) have the faculty fired and reapply for their positions en masse, or create some other type of charter. No mention was made of the fact that in Los Angeles, it could in reality end with the closure of the community school, nor that chain charter schools actively recruited parents to do this. Sadly missing was any reference to the research that has determined that, although great teachers can make a difference in students lives, the “teacher effect” is a relatively small part of student achievement, rendering efforts to blame and punish teachers as the singular or main cause of low student achievement dubious at best, and transparently political at worst. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ptsrdyxBE&fb_source=message)
Rhee gave several examples of a “parent trigger” scenario. One was in Los Angeles, in which the parents were threatened with deportation, although she did not indicate how the teachers or unions would have been behind the threat. In Sacramento, Johnson said there had been a 161 point gap in student achievement between Latino and Black versus White students. He said once the school was chartered the gap vanished, due largely to students, teachers, and parents signing a contract to turn a school around. We were not able to find the documentation of this incredible sounding turn around, but are open to seeing it.
Johnson pointed to several factors for the success of his charter. Teachers could be called at 8 or 9pm to help with homework, and that every party was committed to helping students in any way possible. No one in the audience chafed at the idea of a teacher being on call during any and all of their waking hours, and many were nodding in approval at this idea. Rhee also promoted the idea of teachers being assessed by how many extra-curricular unpaid “community contribution” hours they put in, for example, math tutoring after school, coaching a sports team, or other unpaid service after school hours. This would be combined with value added assessments utilizing standardized scores to determine how “effective” teachers are. Rhee explained that they had corrected for economic, social, and other aspects that could be factors in why some students did better than others, in order to leave these value added assessments as purely reflective of the effectiveness of teachers. It was never explained how this works, what research backs up their model, or what institutions or studies support their methods.
The moderator, Will Weinstein, who created the “ethics” series of which this presentation was a part, fawned over Rhee and Johnson all night long. His sarcasm was apparent whenever he asked a “tough” question of the couple. They obviously charmed him and the audience, made up seemingly of law and business students and faculty. This was apparent, when, after about an hour of their promoting union busting, attacks on collective bargaining, and their marveling and wonder at why Republican politicians seem so much more supportive and knowledgeable about their progressive school reforms, Weinstein jokingly asked them why they were “such right-wing conservatives” eliciting a ripple of knowing chuckles throughout the audience. They responded that they had been given a bum rap, with Michelle playing the victim of political Democrats who were in bed with unions.
This was a major theme of the evening, the obstruction that unions present to meaningful reform. Johnson gave a powerful telling of his work to convert Sacramento High from a public school a charter. He stated that the unions stepped in to oppose this, spending vast sums of money to fight against it. No context was given as to why, leaving the audience to assume it was because they opposed poor and minority children receiving a quality education. The flip side of the demonization of unions throughout the night was the way in which the actual results of Rhee’s programs were blatantly whitewashed, or barely addressed. No mention of a D.C. test cheating scandal, of the lackluster performances of charter schools, of the billionaires that back up Rhee’s attacks on teacher unions, of the lack of effective teacher training for TFA graduates (who are assumed to be better than the “bad” experienced public school teachers), and no mention of the corporate funding of the anti-union films they were promoting. Rhee also promoted the corporate model of merit pay for the “best” (according to flawed assessment models) teachers, and punishment for the bottom-performing percentile. This corporate model known as “stack ranking” or “rank and yank” is a perfect example of how Rhee sees schools as indistinguishable from businesses. She and her husband both portrayed themselves as progressive liberals stating that charter schools needed to be heavily regulated and that failing charters needed to be closed. This qualification was obviously too little too late to establish any semblance of “balance” in their ideology.
For all their talk of accountability, no one thought to ask them who holds them accountable to prove their claims of miracles, turn-arounds, or the selfish agenda of kid hating unions whose one desire is lifetime tenure. If anyone wrote that question for them, it was not asked.
The night ended with one final anti-union joke when Johnson asked if they were out of time. Weinstein smugly responded that the Moderators Union had called and they had to wrap it up, audience applause.
The authors of this report-back are among the founders of a new annual event called LaborFest Hawaii, a celebration and examination of working class and labor history and current events, and a place where working people can assess present conditions to better organize. Our first event will focus on education with a screening of the Grassroots Education Movement made documentary “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.” This film is a counter-argument to Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting for Superman” which targeted teacher unions and pushed privatization, charter schools, and the business model of education. Guggenheim advocates the same austerity-based, anti-union, anti-teacher, and ultimately anti-student reform regime championed by Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, and others.
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thank you for this illuminating report.
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La Vonne Miller
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Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip is dealing with education in this weeks strips. Check them out. His sidebars often include pithy items like the one below. Vatterott is a for-profit, online college.
“Welfare Mom w/Kids. Pregnant Ladies. Recent Divorce. Low Self-Esteem. Low Income Jobs. Experienced a Recent Death. Physically/Mentally Abused. Recent Incarceration. Drug Rehabilitation. Dead-End Jobs-No Future.”
—
Vatterott’s internal “Student Profiles”, detailing the demographic subgroups it targets for enrollment
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As a casual citizen it is amazing how talented people waste their time arguing. Rename your blog to Me versus Rhee because the articles and posts are all about that. If you want to be taken seriously then you have to be serious about various opinions that are not your own. Rarely will two people be 100% in agreement, but the tone of this site is clearly such that many are beyond looking for anything of value from others. It reminds me of high school where this behavior was called “being cool” and now I’ll just call it sophomorish.
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There are two sides in this fight. They have fundamental differences about public education. I know it is strange in our current culture to have principles, but Diane Ravitch has principles. If you don’t stand for something you stand for nothing.
Diane is speaking for thousands of teachers and students whose lives are being torn up by people who are only thinking about their personal profit, not the common good. Her primary concern is what this attack on public education is doing to the next generation of students, not herself!
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Well said, Phil.
I will only add this:
If our children and the future of their education isn’t worth “arguing about” (as Why it Matters puts it), what is?
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I just read this article about the time a teacher spends per day working and, if you haven’t seen it, it is worth reading. Thank you for your work!
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Diane,
Rachel Maddow did a piece on for-profit colleges last night that I think you’ll be interested in.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/48603715#48603715
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The Brave New World has come to Philadelphia with money from the Gates Foundation.
from the Philadelphia Public School Notebook:
“Mastery poised to expand its influence around teacher coaching”
1. “The Philadelphia Great Schools Compact is asking the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for $2.5 million, some $650,000 of which would pay for Mastery to train teacher coaches to work in District and Catholic schools and other charters.”
2. “Mastery’s coaches, who work with a group of nine to 12 teachers over six or seven weeks, give them a series of techniques for running a tight, focused classroom, such as circulating regularly around the room and promoting student participation. The coaches then monitor how well the teachers use the techniques through forms and checklists based on different levels of observation and feedback.
Each lesson has a measurable objective around student outcomes and teacher actions, such as counting how many students are actively on task or have answered verbal questions.
There are different levels of observation and feedback – up to and including real-time, in-person coaching sessions in which the coach gives the teacher instructions through an earpiece. Teachers can also opt for wearing a device called a “motivator” that buzzes them at preset intervals as a reminder to repeat certain activities, such as circulating around the room, until they become habitual.”
3. “In addition to being focused, Mastery’s method assumes that teacher behavior can change and effectiveness increase “in a short amount of time, that changes can happen quickly and need to happen quickly,” she said.
Wu said that Mastery also “does the best job of incorporating data into the coaching.” She gave an example that the coach might observe that at 9:05 just 6 students were on task, but at 9:20, 18 were on task. This kind of close observation helps the teacher pinpoint student weaknesses, focus her attention, and develop new strategies.
Mastery’s method has a lot in common with the book “Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College” by Doug Lemov, which has garnered a lot of attention.”
The full article is at http://thenotebook.org/blog/125063/mastery-tpoised-expand-its-influence-around-teacher-coaching
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I wasn’t sure where to post this but here goes.
I met a parent at Wal-mart and she commented on how she is glad bad teachers will finally be fired and good teachers like me will be the norm! I told here how the Value added really works and that I can get fired now just as easily as a bad teacher. She was shocked! She kept saying but Jindal only wants to get rid of bad teachers right? She asked why good teachers would be fired.
I said well it is like giving a number score to parents that is based on their children’s “success” in society. Lots of great parents have kids who get in trouble, drop out of school, get arrested or end up in prison. Lots of horrible parents have kids who manage to persevere and succeed despite their parents. Now imagine if your taxes were based on a score given to your kids that is SUPPOSED to show how much you benefited or did not benefit your children. Your kids benefit to society or cost to society. FOREVER. Even as adults.
Even if you did everything you could when your child was young to raise them to be successful citizens, YOUR taxes even when your kids are adults, is based on their benefit to society. Great kids; you get tax breaks. Kids with problems; higher taxes to “Pay” for the costs to society. No other factors; who your child associates with, how much education they have, how much money they make or where they live, is considered in the calculations. Just their cost to society.
Then I asked her, “Your parenting abilities influence your kids, in fact research shows that parents are the most influential aspect of a child’s success. But should your child’s behavior determine how much you have to pay society in taxes?” Does your child’s behavior over his or her life span accurately reflect your parenting input and effort?
Does an 8th graders test score really reflect how “good” I am as a teacher? Are there any other things that can make a child do well or do poorly on a test? If a young adult gets in trouble or arrested, does that mean they had bad parents?
There are hundreds of successful people who as children survived horrible parenting; http://annecarolinedrake.com/2010/02/28/famous-people-celebrities-who-have-survived-abuse-whose-inspiring-story-do-you-want-to-read/
Should their parents get tax breaks because their children are successful?
There are many more parents who did everything they could and their children have “cost” society a great deal; should they pay higher taxes?
Just trying to frame this in a way more people outside of teaching will understand how ludicrous this all is.
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Diane,
There is a great article in the Dallas Morning News:Texas’ standardized tests a poor measure of what students learned, UT-Austin professor says. Here is the link:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20120811-texas-standardized-tests-a-poor-measure-of-what-students-learned-ut-austin-professor-says.ece
When I see articles like this and read your blog, I feel hopeful that the tide is starting to turn. I know we have a long way to go and must continue to fight for public education!
It’s subscriber content only so just in case you can’t get access, here’s the entire article:
By JEFFREY WEISS
JEFFREY WEISS The Dallas Morning News Staff Writer
jweiss@dallasnews.com
Published: 11 August 2012 10:12 PM
University of Texas education professor Walter Stroup says he’s spilling the beans about an open secret among educators: The state’s standardized test scores have relatively little to do with whether the kids know math, English, social studies or science.
If you tell him a student’s score on a math TAKS test from any year, he says he can predict with some precision how the student scored in previous or following years in math. And on every other kind of test — English, social studies, science.
If Stroup is right, then TAKS, and now the STAAR exams, aren’t very specific at identifying the effects of classroom instruction. He says that less than 30 percent of the differences in student scores can be related to content knowledge, teaching skill, and differences in curriculum design. But the tests are used to rate the effectiveness of teachers, schools and school districts. And Texas is spending about $90 million every year on the testing regimen.
His critics say Stroup is making a statistical mountain out of a well-known molehill: Students who are good (or less good) at one subject tend to be good (or less good) at others. And they say the tests can be used properly as one part of a comprehensive system of accountability.
Pearson is the company that designs the standardized tests for Texas — and for many other states and programs. Walter “Denny” Way is senior vice president for measurement services. He’s not remotely persuaded by Stroup’s analysis. Regardless, he said, Stroup’s 30 percent figure is not shocking. It’s in the ballpark with other estimates of how sensitive such tests are, he said.
“I don’t think this is anything other than the way kids really do, the way they really perform,” he said.
Stroup and his supporters, however, say the performance being measured is really about how good kids are at taking these particular kinds of tests. Other kinds of tests, they say, are much more sensitive to content.
And even some of Stroup’s harshest critics agree that many people aren’t aware of how limited the Texas tests are at measuring what students have actually learned.
After all, TAKS stands for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. And STAAR is the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness. The very names imply that they’re primarily measuring specific kinds of content.
And these tests have been by far the largest component in the accountability ratings that affect districts, schools and teachers. Just last week, the state released the results of the federal Annual Yearly Progress evaluations mandated under the No Child Left Behind law. The state’s standardized tests were the only academic component in the standards.
Two problems
Stroup is making two kinds of claims about the limits of Texas tests:
Imagine visiting your doctor’s office. The nurse sticks a thermometer in your mouth. But only 28 percent of the reading has to do with your core temperature. The rest is related to, say, the acidity of your blood. Every other measurement in the room — blood pressure, pulse rate, weight — is affected exactly the same way.
That might miss important changes in your vital signs that could impact diagnosis and treatment. For teachers, schools and districts, the question is whether the TAKS and STAAR tests are sensitive enough to hold educators accountable.
Now imagine an impossibly representative class of Texas students, seated in the order of their scores on the algebra-based TAKS test. Stroup says the order in which they’re sitting would have been pretty close if it were based on last year’s geometry-based TAKS results. And would also be about the same for this year’s science, history and English tests. And will be about the same for all of next year’s tests.
But this is the sort of result that you’d get from an IQ test, which is not tied to content and is supposed to measure innate ability.
Stroup became what even he calls “obsessed” by this topic after developing a math intervention used by the Richardson school district starting in 2006. Students who scored below a particular level on the TAKS were given a booster shot of teaching. Classroom tests showed a dramatic improvement.
When the TAKS scores for that year came back, Stroup expected a home run but only got a single. The improvement was not nearly as much as his in-class exams had indicated. So he and a couple of other researchers dug into the TAKS data.
They discovered, he said, the unexpectedly high correlation between tests from year to year and from subject to subject. And they decided that test design was largely responsible for what they identified.
“You cannot hold teachers accountable for that,” he said.
Item response theory
Stroup says what’s happening with Texas test scores on TAKS and STAAR is largely a product of a test-design system called item response theory. It is intended to achieve at least two important goals: ensuring that various versions of a particular test have the same level of difficulty, and that test results allow the students to be ranked consistently in a way to help set the passing standards.
But those goals aren’t necessarily linked to how good a math test is in scoring how much a student knows about math.
Pearson and Texas officials respond that test design also includes a rigorous evaluation of questions for content. Pearson says that the amount of variation in the scores is larger than an IQ exam’s and plenty large enough to be useful.
Texas education officials also say that a steady increase in TAKS scores from 2003 to 2010 showed that improved mastery of topics could be assessed by the tests.
The new STAAR tests, the state says, are designed to be more sensitive than TAKS to specific content and better able to identify particular topics that a student, classroom or campus need to focus on for improvement.
Stroup’s claims about the Texas tests are backed by some highly technical analysis done by one of his graduate students, using actual TAKS test data from all middle school tests given in 2004-06.
Some of Stroup’s academic peers totally reject his conclusions and say he should have waited to push his critique until it was accepted into a peer-reviewed journal — a common standard for science.
But even among his critics, many say he’s talking about an issue that the public and policy makers need to know more about.
Derek Briggs is the program chairman for research and evaluation methodology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He’s one of those who see nothing like a smoking gun in Stroup’s work. But he agrees that there needs to be better evidence that tests are actually sensitive to spotting what happens in the classrooms.
“The critique of these tests as not being instructionally sensitive is a reasonable concern,” he said.
Way, the Pearson vice president, declined to discuss whether too much emphasis was being placed on the results of the exams. That, he said, is a policy question that needs to be answered by people who set policy.
He said the test scores should be considered only one part of an effective system of evaluation.
“It is not appropriate to say that if too many of your students do badly on your TAKS test, that your teachers should be fired,” he said.
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Diane:
PSSA testing in Pennsylvania
Dr. Jill Tombasco Seubert is a 2001 graduate from Hazleton Area High School, a school just designated by Pennsylvania as a low performing school. She was part of the team that just landed the Mars Curiosity rover. Can such a “bad” school (according to the test) produce such a brilliant scientist? Here’s a quote from the article:
“The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has the world’s best track record in deep space exploration, but everything about this landing event was more difficult and had never been demonstrated in spaceflight before. No matter how confident we were that the mission would succeed, we still partook in the traditional ‘good luck peanuts,'” the 2001 Hazleton Area High School graduate wrote in an email to the Standard-Speaker.
Here is the link:
http://citizensvoice.com/news/area-native-played-role-in-mars-landing-1.1357757
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http://www.doe.state.la.us/coursechoice/
not sure what to think about this other then more money lost to public schools, giving choice to parents who may not necessarily recognize a good educational program and I am sure the marketing and advertising will be very heavy once this starts..
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The so-called reform/accountability movement that is now firmly rooted in American schools has led to more “teaching to the test’. Everyone in education knows this and those who don’t are either blind or naive. Politicians and administrators tacitly approve of this kind of teaching because it creates the illusion that their “efforts” have led to improvements in student achievement. Nonetheless, I have never heard any politician or administrator actually verbalize this. They don’t have the guts. It’s their dirty little secret. Well, for the first time, I actually saw an ad for a HSPA teacher. http://k12jobspot.com/Jobs/?ID=408340 HSPA (High School Proficiency Assessment) is a test given to all 11th grade students in NJ. So now, we’ve come to hiring “test teachers”! We all knew it was there but it’s never been so blatant to me.
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Dear Dr. Ravitch,
I read your book “the death and life of the great American school system” immediately after receiving it as a present last Christmas, and since that time I have been following you on Twitter and reading anything related to public schools. In other words, you’ve inspired me to get active about educational policy. I was wondering if you would mind writing about a subject that is probably the #1 issue in my community: how to make our public schools more equitable and less segregated. I live in Louisville, KY, where there has been extensive busing for decades in efforts to desegregate our public schools. Although I have heard positive things about the diversity in Louisville public schools, many parents hate it. Parents from neighborhoods with good schools complain about their children travelling long-distances to go to an inferior public school across town, and I could see about how such a situation would make them feel angry. I don’t like the busing system myself because there is a lot of anxiety about where your child will end up, it is very costly and I feel that $$ could be spent on other resources, and it is not ecological. At the same time, I am not one of those “lets stop busing” parents because I do think having diverse schools is a valuable goal. I read about how many schools in impovershed neighborhoods in Wake County, North Carolina went downhill after they decided to dismantle their progressive busing sytem. I don’t want this to happen to the public schools in Louisville. Do you have any ideas of other ways to approach this problem? Can you write about this topic or refer me to other writers covering this issue? Thank you very much.
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Sofia,
These are important questions. Many people would prefer to send their children to schools with children just like themselves, but it’s a tremendous cost to all of us if we self-segregate.
Please read Gerald Grant’s “Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There are No Bad Schools in Wake County.”
Sadly, right after the book came out, the Tea Party took control of the school board and started to unravel the plan that made all the schools good schools.
A sensible board took control at the following election.
They will continue to struggle with these issues as youndo in Louisville.
It’s important to work together for a better society than the one we have now, where there is liberty and justice for all.
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Sofia, I commend your interest in making “public schools more equitable and less segregated.” I agree with you that this one is a critical education policy issue that is far from being solved.
I extend you an invitation to share your passion on this subject with HispanEduca, the nonprofit organization I preside, which is focused exclusively on education policy issues.
In fact, I would like to interview you, as a parent, about this subject for HispanEduca’s upcoming news website. My email is Lourdes.Perez@hispaneduca.org, and my phone # is 319-331-5827.
A passionate, yet objective opinion like yours, especially on this spot-on subject, is always welcomed at HispanEduca.
I look forward to hear from you.
Thanks,
Lourdes
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Remember Chester Upland School District outside Philadelphia? Last spring their teachers worked for a few weeks without pay until the state restored a little of what Governor Corbet had cut from their education budget in 2011-2012 so they could get through the school year. The state has now taken over the District.
The Chief Recovery Officer appointed by the Governor is Joe Watkins. Watkins has been a leader in trying to get school vouchers in Pennsylvania despite massive public opposition. Watkins also is both a registered lobbyist and the chairman for Students First. Students First donated thousands of dollars to the campaign of Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.
The financial recovery plan instituted by the Governor can include closing schools, cutting staff and transforming schools into charters.
http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2012/08/18/news/doc502f0a7a3fdee860194486.txt?viewmode=fullstory
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Check out the Austin American Statesman today. There is an article about how charters are more efficiently run than public schools. Recently, I’ve noticed that the Statesman has been jumping on board with this whole anti-public school movement. In Texas, our legislature is dominated by politicians who want to cut funding to the bare bones and testing rules all.
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/can-traditional-schools-learn-a-lesson-from-charters-2438103.html
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NBC and MSNBC are promoting Education Nation again. It would be great to include Diane on any discussion about public education. You can go to the “Contact Us-NBCNews.com link here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339/?__utma=5875948.622522546.1345394241.1345394241.1345398739.2&__utmb=5875948.1.10.1345398739&__utmc=5875948&__utmx=-&__utmz=5875948.1345398739.2.2.utmcsr=google|utmccn=(organic)|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=chris%20hayes%20blog%20msnbc&__utmv=5875948.|8=Earned%20By=cable%7Cmsnbc%7Cchrishayes%7Cchrishayes=112=Landing%20Content=Original=113=Landing%20Hostname=upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com=130=Visit%20Type%20to%20Content=Earned%20to%20Original=1&__utmk=116644226
There is a drop down for all the different shows like Ed, Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes
This is what I wrote:
Please consider having NYU Professor Diane Ravitch on your show to talk about public education. She is an educational historian and held public office under both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Dr. Ravitch is an expert on the so called educational “reform” movement that seeks to privatize public education and turn them over to for profit charter schools. These charter schools on average do not perform better than public schools. She also exposes the myth in the value of using high stakes standardized tests to evaluate students, teachers, principals, schools, and districts. Dr. Ravitch also debunks the use of teacher merit pay schemes to improve public education. Any discussion about public education would be enhanced by including Dr. Ravitch. Thank you for your consideration.
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At the Huffington Post, there was an article published called, “Obama Back-To-School Report Highlights Education Cuts, Teacher Layoffs”. What I found most interesting was the discussion taking place by video conference at the end of the article. I found the dialogue encouraging. I shows that people understand what’s at state with RTTT.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/18/obama-back-to-school-education-cuts_n_1799289.html?utm_hp_ref=education&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008
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Please forgive me if I am pulling this conversation back to farmed-out ground (I’m new); but is it fair to say that the gist of the corporate-backed educational “reform” movements today is generating cheaper teachers?
This is how the equation boils down for me (a public school teacher). As I’ve been trained to show my work, my thinking is that the greatest “reform” that privatization and charter school movements bring is the elimination of union contracts. And that the primary consequence of eliminating unions in any field is lower labor costs.
If the above argument holds water, is it acceptable to eliminate the obfuscating phrase “educational reform movement ” and replace it with the clearer “reducing educator salary” movement? Or, more simply, the “labor-busting” movement? Or the “cheapness” movement?
In a similar vein, I am wondering if Dr. Ravitch and others have exposed the cant behind the argument that problems with tenure stem from unions. There don’t seem to be many general-public sources pointing out that no one from a public teacher’s union awards tenure to teachers. Every single public decision to grant tenure is made by an elected school board, advised by its appointed educational managers. If the nation’s schools are saddled with incompetent tenured teachers, the blame falls on leadership and management, does it not? From all the complaints being voiced about tenure that outsiders — many from the world of corporate management — it seems pretty clear to me that the nations educational managers apparently couldn’t recognize an incompetent teacher if they got hit with a hammer by one of them. What is eliminating tenure going to help this group of apparently bumbling crop of managers transform into brilliant predictors of pedagogy? At least tenure forces educational decision-makers to live with the consequences of their incompetence. Lifting the pressure of having to evaluate their teachers in three years and educational managers will be even less accountable for their bad decisions. In the world of corporate management, weakening the chains of accountability is an insane act — something that you would think the corporate nabobs nattering about our schools would understand. Unless they absolutely do understand what they are saying is absurd but don’t care, since the real goal isn’t improving our schools at all.
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You are a bit late to the party, but welcome anyway. We talk about these things frequently. I wrote a book making similar points–read Chapter 9 of “Death and Life of the Great American School System,” available in your local public library.
Please feel free to browse through some of the older posts. Look under the categories for teacher evaluation, teachers, unions.
The only other point to consider is this: the big push for online schools in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania is driven both by the desire for profit and the added benefit (?) of no unions, no tenure, large classes. What a dynamite combination!
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Hi Diane, I nominated you for the One Lovely Blog Award. Thank you for all of your hard work! Check it out here: http://abbyescart.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/thank-you/
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Diane,
As a native Texan and an advocate for public schools, I thought you might be interested in an organization called the Friends of Texas Public Schools. Their website is http://www.fotps.org/index.php
The founder of the organization, Leslie Milder spoke at our district convocation today.
It was the most inspiring and relevant convocations I’ve ever attended in my 20 years as a Texas teacher. Leslie and her husband Scott started this organization to counter the lies and distortions about public education in Texas and the US. Leslie spoke of the importance for Texas teachers to act as ambassadors for our public schools. Teachers need to “convey a positive message” about public education and share our many successes with the community.
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Thank you for your work Diane. Please keep it up. Do you have a suggested reading list for educators who want to become and stay informed about issues in American Education today -besides your own wonderful books and articles? Please publish some suggested reading on your blog.
Thanks!
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Read Richard Rothstein’s “Class and Schools.”
Read Barbara Veltri Torre “Learning on Other People’s Children” about TFA
Follow Anthony Cody’s blog “Living in Dialogue.”
Follow Gary Rubinstein’s blog.
Follow Valerie Strauss “The Answer Sheet”
Google Philip Kovacs and his posts about TFA.
Join Parents Across America and read its posts
I’ll try to put together a reading list. This is top of the head ideas.
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Hi Diane and Caroline, I have recently become involved in this discussion, entering my 5th year of teaching, and being disgusted by what has become of our education system. I hate promoting myself, but I too have published a book about my experiences. It’s called Teaching to the Child, and is available on Amazon.com if you’re interested.
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Dear Dr. Ravitch,
Thank you for inspiring teachers everywhere to share their voices and to be heard in school and political discussions. As a teacher in higher education at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music (Oberlin, OH), I was once again disheartened this week when I received yet another nonsensical “handbook, this time provided by Pearson for our teacher education candidate assessment. The “TPA” (Teacher Performance Assessment) and “teaching for the test” has now hit Ohio (and from what I hear and read, other states as well). As you wrote, it is a dumbing down of higher education. Our students are working at a higher level than the banal TPA tasks require. Further, the level of reflection-for-action is nowhere near that which we ask of our students. The TPA almost asks students to create something in their videotaping in the classrooms that might not otherwise need to exist.
I thought higher education was somehow excluded from the standardization of education. Yes, there are PRAXIS exams, etc., but now that we are being forced to take valuable time out of the class schedules in order to assist students’ preparation of TPA portfolios, I’m feeling demoralized. Our alumni, albeit a small number, have 100% employment placement, and employers seek our graduates because they are caring, knowledgeable, and have the personal and professional habits of mind that our educational systems desire. How are these traits measurable?
For TWO student portfolios submitted in Spring 2012, Oberlin College paid for 73 staff hours…not for teaching but for preparing for and assisting students compile and submit written and video data onto the TPA website.
I received the scores for these two “pilot tested” portfolios. Each task received a number. BUT, there was no qualitative explanation for the numbers, suggestions for how to better guide the students’ submissions, or what specifically the raters observed in the portfolios that was acceptable or less acceptable. Further, when I inquired from TPA what a “passing” rating would be for Ohio, the person said that that was yet to be determined. So now we’re playing a game where the rules are not known and no one knows who wins or loses? How’s that for academic freedom in higher education, especially when a company (making A LOT OF $$$$ from this and other assessments) is driving the definition of educational expectations. Who exactly is the professional educator here?
What can we as professors in higher education do, in order to say, “Enough Pearson/ETS! We are not going to bow down to you! We refuse to administer this form of assessment, and we refuse to waste time preparing portfolios that provide no information about the quality of teacher education, the quality of teacher education programs/faculty, or the quality of teachers going into our profession. I am disgusted! Any suggestions how to handle this, Dr. Ravitch?
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Does Eli Broad really want to rule the world? It’s not enough to take over the educational system of the United States. He is using the strong arm tactics his “Superintendents” use in education to get his tentacles into the the art world.
“Eli Broad’s foundation withholds pledge payments”
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-moca-eli-broad-20120811,0,5421031.story
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It should be noted Broad is opening his own art museum in Michigan November 9th.
“Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum to open at MSU November 9th”
Click to access 1165-120712msuopening.pdf
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Have you heard:
California State University System Outsources Online Education to Pearson http://www.hackeducation.com/2012/08/24/hack-education-weekly-news-8-24-2012/
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Just in case folks missed my post on the Rhee/Johnson “Ethics in Education” thread, I am linking to a video of their presentation at the University of Hawaii here.
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Also, in case this has not yet been posted. CNN News Room posted the Randi Kaye interview with Diane Ravitch. There is a comments section which I’m sure we’ll use responsibly. 🙂
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Diane, could you start a thread listing your articles about Common Core in the Blog Topics section? You have posted so many good comments recently it would be great to have them in one place!
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There is a category for “Common Core.” It is listed under “Blog topics” in small print. Click there and all the articles will appear. Diane
On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 8:07 AM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> ** > philaken commented: “Diane, could you start a thread listing your > articles about Common Core in the Blog Topics section? You have posted so > many good comments recently it would be great to have them in one place!” >
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Look for “Common Core” under blog topics. It is there in small print.
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Got it! I was looking at the pop down list for Blog Topics in the menu bar. It is not listed there.
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Diane,
Do you have any opinion on the work of Sir Ken Robinson? He was featured in the latest Costco magazine.
http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/201208/&cm_re=1-_-Right_Nav-_-Connection#pg1
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He cares about creativity, so I like him.
Diane
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That’s a very good reason!
Thanks.
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A good article about teachers on Daily Kos:
The Emotional Appeal for Blaming The Teachers
“I was disheartened to hear Chris Hayes on C-SPAN say that the educational “reform” movement is “winning the argument.” That’s not to say they’re winning on any factual level, Hayes meant that in terms of public debate, anything short of blaming the teachers means supporting the status quo.
It’s worth noting that this scapegoat has resonance for a reason, there’s an emotional appeal for blaming the teachers.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/26/1123609/-The-Emotional-Appeal-for-Blaming-The-Teachers
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Diane,
Did you hear Chris Christie’s comments about teachers in his RNC keynote this evening? They are outrageous.
“They said it was impossible to speak the truth to the teachers union. They were just too powerful. Real teacher tenure reform that demands accountability and ends the guarantee of a job for life regardless of performance would never happen. For the first time in 100 years with bipartisan support, we did it.”
“We believe that the majority of teachers in America know our system must be reformed to put students first so that America can compete. Teachers don’t teach to become rich or famous. They teach because they love children.”
“We believe that we should honor and reward the good ones while doing what’s best for our nation’s future — demanding accountability, higher standards and the best teacher in every classroom.
“They believe the educational establishment will always put themselves ahead of children. That self-interest trumps common sense. They believe in pitting unions against teachers, educators against parents, and lobbyists against children.
“They believe in teacher’s unions.
We believe in teachers.”
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Transcript-of-Gov-Christie-s-remarks-3822633.php#page-1
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Diane, did you see this. It’s a great article in that it (1) quotes you (2)explains why ELLs do so horribly on multiple choice tests (3)Discusses real teaching and learning (4)dissects the Value Added formula.
Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/mission-high-false-low-performing-school?src=longreads
Contributing Writer
Kristina Rizga covers education for Mother Jones. She’d love to hear your ideas on what she should be covering in schools. Email her at kristina@rizga.com. You can also follow her on Twitter.
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Yes, I had a post about this article a few days ago
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After seeing Christie, Bush, Ryan, and Romney all attack teachers’ unions in their quest to privatize education this week, I am proud and thankful for my union this Labor Day Weekend.
And I will remember in November.
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An excellent analysis from Yinzercation about where we are.
The Elephant at the White House
“So there we were at the White House. Forty “education leaders” from Pennsylvania invited to meet with President Obama’s senior policy advisors as well as top staff at the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). The room contained district superintendents, school board members, principals, college presidents, education professors, representatives from a host of education associations, a super-PAC school privatizer, educational consultants, and various non-profit directors. And one elephant.”
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Christie can never admit that NJ is one of the top states in the nation on NAEP and will never credit the teachers. He is a graduate of a public high school, but will never give credit to his teachers, who belonged to a union. He is a free market zealot and a bully.
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No conclusive achievement difference in voucher, MPS schools
from the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Stneinel
“A five-year longitudinal study found students in voucher schools on average improved slightly more on state tests than those in Milwaukee Public Schools. But a state audit of the study released Thursday said no conclusion could be reached on voucher schools’ impact on test scores because of a recent change in test data reporting requirements.”
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/168014606.html
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Diane,
Once again, Michelle Rhee gets free airtime to promote the parent trigger and the anti-public education and teacher movie, “Won’t Back Down.” This time Rhee was on MSNBC’s Chris Jansing & Co this morning to promote her propaganda. Jansing mildly challenged Rhee (she did better than Randi Kaye) about how the parent trigger laws circumvent elected school boards and can invite abuses by charter school operators. Rhee’s predictable response is we tell parents to be more involved in their “failing” schools so how can we deny them the use of the parent trigger? So it’s an all or nothing approach from Rhee and the “reformers” when it comes to parent involvement in their schools. Let’s take laws written by ALEC (not brought up by Jansing) and give parents the ability to fire the principal and teachers and turn the school over to a charter school operator that does not perform better than public schools on average. That will save the “failing” school-yeah right!
It would have been fair journalism if they had you or Randi Weingarten on at the same time or following Rhee but I guess that’s too much to expect from MSNBC or CNN when it comes to this issue.
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How about a parent trigger for charter schools to allow them to rejoin the public school system?
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Here’s the video of Michelle Rhee on Chris Jansing & Co.:
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/jansing-and-co/48885506/#48885506
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Here in Milwaukee Wisconsin we just beat the American Federation for Children and conservative Democrats over vouchers vs. public schools in 6 Democratic primaries (5 assembly and 1 senate). We are particularly proud of seeing Jason Fields, the darling of the voucher movement in Wisconsin, beaten two to one. His opponent, Mandela Barnes, started his race in front of a closed school house and made support for public schools a centerpiece of his race.
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Diane —
We started an education advocacy group out of Georgia about 2 years ago. The organization is made up of 3.500 parents, students, educators, and concerned citizens from across the state. Our name is EmpowerED Georgia. You have previously featured a parent ad (that we ran in Cherokee County) on your blog. Could we re-publish some of your posts on our website and link back to your site? We are always trying to expand our list of contributors and spotlighting your voice/work on education issues would be a great addition to our content. We are doing good work here in Georgia, but it is tough and many times feels like there are too many fires — any help you could give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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Wonderful!
Send me your work and I will post it here.
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Oh, and try to link up with Parents Across America, a great parent advocacy group
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Hi Diane, I wanted to inform you of a problem that the new NY APPR is going to create with every band program in the state. It seems that we are being phased out!
As I understand it each teacher is responsible for student test scores based on their “seat time.” They have to write SLO’s and will get graded in their AAPR based on the 51% of the total student “seat time” in a particular subject.
A band program operates on once a week pull out lessons. By pulling students out of class the “seat time” number now changes which has the possibility of making a teacher’s SLO’s invalid based on the 51% figure.
In the case that a student does come out of a class being used to evaluate a teacher in their APPR I will have to create a “scheduling event” for that student. On our current system, e-school, that takes approximately 1.5 minutes per student. I currently have 174 students in my grade 4-6 band program. That means the possibility of being required to spend 261 minutes, 4 hours 21 minutes, every week inputting scheduling events into the computer.
If I were to try and to avoid the Math and ELA classes completely that would diminish the amount of periods I could pull from. Students are group by like instruments and by ability, as they would be in any good academic program. For me, this breaks down to 40 lesson groups. Of those 40 lessons groups 19 have only 1 period available, 10 have two periods available, 10 have 3 periods available, and 1 has 4 periods available.
Within this breakdown all 4th grade students, but one, are only available 8th period. All 5th grade students, except two groups, are only available 8th or 9th period, and most 6th grade students are only available periods 1,4, and 5.
If I were to rearrange the students based on their availability rather than their instrument and or ability I still would not have enough available periods to service all the students. Not to mention I’m responsible for my own APPR. Would you ask the ELA class to put the highest achieving students in with the ones who are struggling? I think not!
What do I do?
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You immediately join the Long Island principals, now called New York principals, who are fighting APPR.
They have 5,000 plus signatures. Get every music teacher you know to join them.
Contact Carol Burris at South Side High School in Rockville Center and get active.
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Diane,
I respect Nicholas Kristof for his excellent reporting on genocide in Africa but was very disappointed to read his article on the Chicago teachers strike and school reform.
Kristof cites a “gold standard study” by the National Bureau of Economic Research on the “huge differences in the effectiveness of teachers even within high-poverty schools.”
Kristof says that teachers think they shouldn’t be held accountable until poverty is solved.
Shame on Kristof for not doing his homework and carrying the water for the deformers.
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Check out this parent’s plea to stop the testing mania in the Malverne School District in NY. http://malverne-lynbrook.patch.com/articles/malverne-parent-says-state-testing-like-monty-python-s-holy-grail-video#video-11356305
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Ms. Ravitch,
What do you think about a 1 day nationwide teacher walkout to bring awareness to the issues facing teachers today? I truly believe many of our citizens have no idea how bad the scapegoating of teachers has become.
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My daughter and nephew both teach in small high schools that Bloomberg pushes. Both schools share their buildings with two other schools. The three principals make about $500,000 altogether., a ridiculous amount of money since only one principal is needed. In neither school are there content area supervisors or many teams or clubs. The selection of courses is limited and teachers often teach out of license. For example, a math teacher was teaching poetry, another genetics. Considering the limitations and costs of these schools, why are so many people behind them? They waste money and don’t provide much for their students, especially on the high school level
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I received an email from Ron Johnson, CEO of JCPenney. He ended his communique with an explanation of the jcpCares program beneficiary of September, Teach for America:
Dear valued customer,
Let me start with a special thanks to those who responded to my first
email. Praise or criticism, nothing beats honest feedback. It’s what
makes us better.
I have a lot of great news to share this month.
First, we had an amazing response to our “free kids’ back-to-school
haircuts” offer. It was far bigger than I expected. We gave away over
1.6 million haircuts in August. We’re delighted that we could help so
many kids make a great impression on their first day of school.
The haircuts were so popular, we’re going to keep them going. Starting
in November, kids (K-6) get free haircuts every Sunday at jcpenney.
Just call for an appointment and we’ll help keep your kids looking
their best.
I also have exciting news about the store itself. The “new jcpenney”
is starting to emerge!
We’re on our way to turning jcpenney into a collection of shops
featuring your favorite brands, staffed by specialists who really know
their merchandise. We have now opened Levi’s®, Liz Claiborne®, Izod®
and The Original Arizona Jean Company® shops in over 600 stores.
And we’ve just launched an entirely new line of clothing. We’re so
proud of this merchandise, we’ve put our own name on it. The new jcp
brand (for men and women) offers fashion essentials in wonderful
fabrics and colors, all at great prices every day. I invite you to
visit your local jcpenney to see our new line.
Finally, I’d like to thank everyone for “rounding up to the nearest
dollar” at checkout as part of our jcp Cares program. Combining your
efforts with ours, over $3 million will be donated to our August
partners, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and 4-H. This month’s
charity partner is Teach for America, an organization that develops
teachers and leaders to make America’s schools great.
I’m proud of the jcpenney team’s passion for innovation, and I promise
we’re going to keep pushing. My goal is nothing less than to make
jcpenney your favorite store.
Of course, it’s your opinion that counts most. So if you have a
minute, please click the link below and share your thoughts.
Thanks again for shopping at jcpenney.
Yours truly,
Ron
This is the feedback I sent to him:
“I appreciate that you are looking for opportunities for us as customers to give back to our communities. However, as a public school teacher, I have a problem with soliciting donations to Teach for America, which puts poorly trained young adults in classrooms in some of the neediest schools in our country. Those TFA instructors typically leave within 3 to 5 years. This lack of stability is what children with unstable home lives, who are dealing with the real impacts of poverty, really do not need. These children need our most experienced and capable teachers. They do not need to be the training coliseum for short-time novices.
Rather, I would prefer you add to the funding for PTA, which sends funding received into schools to be spent on resources in the classrooms. http://www.pta.org provides more information about their programs and about the local organizations composed of parents and teachers at local schools. After all, who better to know the needs of individual classrooms and schools than the parents of the children who attend them?
Thank you for asking for feedback. I hope that you research this and see that there are much better alternatives to helping our children than in funding Teach for America.
Kim Midkiff, M.Ed.
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The problem with “reforms” is that they are making things worse. It is not so much that we reject change; it is just that we reject bad change. I live right next door to Muskegon Heights School System, which is the first complete school system in the nation being operated by a for-profit company, Mosaica. They sold themselves to us as a magic wand that will make the problems of poverty vanish into thin air. The things we are hearing out of this district are unbelievable. I am trying to meet with the superintendent to find out what is going on. Thus far, she has done a wonderful job of avoiding me. I’ll keep you posted.
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Yes, I guessed right. Saw your other email first.
Diane
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Please send updates.
Diane
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You’ve got an “A”!
“I am a rock,” they sweetly sang in Central Park.
But do you occupy my pain?
Hope springs eternal in which human breast?
The eighth part chronically missing,
or those who wish they were?
Character counts! an endearing slogan.
And as studies show, important, too,
In growing and teaching our young.
Keep moving, nothing to see here, folks.
Pearson can’t pyschomeasure it–yet.
If part of the continent, an island entire,
whence comes this fire in that jolly belly,
to your hedged yard and crowned head,
roasting faculty and family
for each fault found?
Indict the poor! The common man
sitting passively in her desk,
suffering without breakfast or lunch or dinner.
Did you offer a cup of cold water,
the chance to sup at the table?
As you scorn and scoff from the throne?
Grade us then, sharing our letter,
knowing it is Hester Prynne’s as well.
There is enough guilt to go around.
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Hi Diane,
Can you comment on the following Harvard study on VAM, Chetty et al (2011)?
Click to access value_added.pdf
Kristoff referred to it in his recent editorial. It seems that this study is also what people have in mind when they say that having 3 good teachers in a row will fix the achievement gap. Has this study been debunked? They make a very strong case for VAM in this study. As a public school teacher, I was really scared when this study came out.
Thanks!
Dave O’Shell
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I wrote about the Chetty study when it came out on my blog at Bridging Differences.
Read here: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2012/01/dear_deborah_just_days_ago.html
It suffers from many defects. As Bruce Baker points out, the income differences are actually quite small–I think it was $250 a year.
And while the macro point is correct–students who get higher scores have advantages in life–it is not so easy to pinpoint which teachers were responsible. It is also noteworthy that no other nation in the world has adopted this idea that the way to improve schools is to check test scores and start firing teachers, “sooner rather than later.”
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more bullshit from the NYT today
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Michelle Rhee shares her political wisdom and ed theory expertise regarding the Chicago Teacher Strike
http://www.studentsfirst.org/press/entry/rhee-on-state-of-ed-reform-movement-post-ctu-strike
motopu’s view (all obvious stuff):
It’s fracking amazing that for Rhee, unions, and teachers are special interests, and billionaires with no democratic support attacking the public school system are “protecting the civil rights of children.” Teachers fighting union busting and privatization of public resources are “defending the status quo.” As if capitalism itself was some revolution against tyranny in the name of the defenseless. She then claims that her policies are based on assessing “teacher effectiveness” even though the whole assessment of teachers through student test scores is debunked in virtually all serious educational scholarship (and you will constantly hear the “reformers” claiming the exact opposite).
My favorite section is where Rhee complains about “unlimited resources” backing the strike, as if the money was the only thing “mobilizing activists [not teachers, parents, kids, workers, but ‘activists’] for the status quo.” Does she really expect we won’t notice she raised hundreds of millions of dollars from supportive members of the one percent, both liberal and conservative, to back her “grass roots” Students First?
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