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 
Kristen Cozad — I just want you to know that your responses inspire me. I conduct research on the various things you have said– particularly about Play & Creativity. I am collecting research for a book I intend to write based on the children I have known who do not learn in the conventional manner. So , I just want to say: “thank you!”for being an inspiration to me. See — we just never know who we might influence!! We do need a revolution , we need an Erin Brockovich or Gloria Steinem to help our cause!!!!
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Students in Portland, Oregon are thinking outside the bubble. http://portlandstudentunion.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/pps-portland-student-unions-urge-students-to-boycott-standardized-testing/
The movement is growing.
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I often talk to young teachers, parents and friends who are very uninformed about the issues surrounding charter schools, NCLB, Race to the Top, school closings, teacher evaluations, and the huge policy making role played by corporate foundations. As a veteran teacher–18 years in a much beloved (by the staff, students and community, not the DOE) urban public school, which has been threatened by ALL of these issues–I am up to my eyeballs in these topics. But when I start going on about metrics and value-added this and that, people’s eyes start to glaze over. Can anyone recommend a good, short article, or even a list of talking points, that would help me be more effective in speaking to these friends and colleagues, many of whom have a huge stake in these issues, but just don’t realize what’s going on?
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Samantha, I could recommend my book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. It is available in paperback and can be bought very cheap (no royalties to me) on amazon. It covers all these issues and is an easy read. On my website, dianeravith.com, you will find short articles that you can easily download.
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Thank you so much! I have read Death and Life, and recommend it to everyone. And I will look on your website for shorter pieces that might by more accessible to people just becoming aware of these issues. I am most concerned about some of my younger colleagues, who are joining groups like Educators4Excellence, and not questioning why some experienced teachers are so suspicious of punitive evaluation systems. They do not simply do not understand the effect that “reformers” like Rhee, Klein, Moskowitz and Bloomberg have already have. For years I was happy to work with some of the neediest students at my school, kids who were new arrivals or had been ELLs since Kindergarten. Their test scores were low and getting lower, since the work in all content areas gets more and more dependent on reading and writing ability. But I didn’t worry about how their dismal scores would affect me, back then. I was more concerned about imparting to them a love of learning that might spark a desire to overcome the obstacles they faced. And I think I did do that, for some of my students who also had supportive families, a stable home situation, and other teachers who cared. But after several humiliating years of teacher data reports, and seeing the teacher across the hall (who had no ELLs, and whose students started off with higher scores) also humiliated, but much less so (after all, we are a struggling urban school), and the final humiliation of seeing my name and data report published, my convictions started to waver. Now I am teaching a lower grade, and plan to stay out of a testing grade at all costs. But few have the patience to listen too such a saga, much less parse out all the details about value added and performance ratings, etc. So I am hopeful that I can keep educating myself about these issues, but even more to spread the word amongst colleagues, parents and friends who are not likely to pick up a book, yet. So shorter pieces would be very very helpful. Thank you so much again. I so appreciate your work and efforts. If only you were Obama’s new secretary of education!
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Samantha,
Google this term “VAM is junk science” and you will find many entries, some of them mine, with links to solid research on why VAM is odious and doesn’t identify good or bad teachers.
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Ms. Diane:
I have been following your blog for some months now and I applaud your efforts. I have a request that I have been interested in researching the data for over 7 years.
Could you begin a blog on the teacher illness and death rate? In my area, I have had so many teachers become cancer-stricken or develop some other types of diseases and frankly, die! I think most of it is due to stress and the fact that we do not receive proper breaks for mental health release and bathroom. Many of the teachers I know were stricken with colon, bladder, or intestinal cancers.
We become sick either due to poorly ventilated buildings and we become sick because we are cooped up with various dust particles and germs. Some buildings are filled with asbestos and lead, still. We worry all the time with performance anxiety and observations and we are told we can’t use the bathroom when we need because we have to MONITOR our children so the principals won’t get sued.
Argh!
Please help…
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Samantha, you can find a collection of articles, handouts, etc. cataloged by topic in the Forum section of Dump Duncan: http://dumpduncan.org/forum.
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It seems that everyday there is some good news on the school privatization pushback.
May it will catch on and become contagious.
New York Charter School Parent Pushback
http://www.villagevoice.com/2013-01-30/news/Eva-Moskowitz-Bloomberg-Charter-Schools/
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Interesting article. How do we get Duncan/Obama to read it?
Schools Can’t Do It Alone: Why ‘Doubly Disadvantaged’ Kids Continue to Struggle Academically
http://www.alternet.org/education/schools-cant-do-it-alone-why-doubly-disadvantaged-kids-continue-struggle-academically
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Diane–
Can parents opt out of having their child tested with standardized tests anywhere? Is there any hint at legislation spelling out the rights of parents along these lines?
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Here is a group that can help. http://www.facebook.com/groups/unitedoptout/. On Facebook, search for Peggy Robertson, Denver. She will help.
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Joanna– I have many parents that are asking to have their child Opt out of the Testing also. They are demanding that it should be their choice; that they have not signed parental consent and that in the event that they make the choice to opt out that the school will not suffer the ramifications.
Marge
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Indeed, this may be the most effective weapon against metastasizing testing — parental opt-out. Schools tend to make it difficult however, at the very least not informing the parents about their legal rights to do so.
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There is also the group http://changethestakes.wordpress.com/
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Here are some interesting reads for the day:
E-mails link Bush foundation, corporations and education officials
I love email and electronic records.
A nonprofit group released thousands of e-mails today and said they show how a foundation begun by Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and national education reform leader, is working with public officials in states to write education laws that could benefit some of its corporate funders.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/30/e-mails-link-bush-foundation-corporations-and-education-officials/
In other news in DC, it appears that some DC Council members are somewhat perturbed at the DC OIG’s office for its lack luster work product and investigations.
D.C. Council member questions Inspector General Charles Willoughby’s effectiveness
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-council-member-questions-inspector-general-charles-willoughbys-effectiveness/2013/01/30/396b9590-6118-11e2-b05a-605528f6b712_story.html
Particularly salient paragraphs include:
“And in an unusual step, council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5) recently requested that Willoughby explain delays in investigations and answer questions about the school testing probe.”
And
School testing probe
One of the nine paragraphs that address that investigative fiasco.
“The probe of school testing was wrapped up in 17 months, and its adequacy remains in question.”
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Will charters be next?
Private Prisons to Convert to REIT status.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14255-the-legacy-of-chattel-slavery-private-prisons-blur-the-line-between-real-people-and-real-estate-with-new-irs-property-gambit
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Be sure to check the education article on the front page of the Baton Rouge paper, The Advocate about the teachers’ opinions of the new evaluations based on age and experience and Lottie Beebe’s letter in the same paper on the editorial page on Monday, 2/4
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The article was in the Sunday Feb. 3 paper
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Dear Ms. Ravich,
Thank you for taking the bold move to admit that you were on the wrong track, and for standing on the side of what its right for students.
As a teacher in Baltimore City, I helped to start a caucus in my union for teachers wiling to do likewise. We are very inspired by what the teachers in Seattle are doing, and wrote an open letter of support for them.
I will copy it here, but please understand that it is researched and hyper-linked. I believe the link I’m posting under “website” will take you to the full text with hyperlinks. I’d be very honored if you would repost it on your site, perhaps in the “comments” section around one of your posts on this issue.
Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions about the piece. And thank you again for supporting us.
Sincerely,
Iris Kirsch
PS: You might glance at the column I write on education. It’s at http://www.indyreader.org/future
PPS: Here is the plain text:
To Teachers, Students, Parents, and citizens:
As teachers, and as activists for social justice, Educators for Democratic Schools is proudly in solidarity with all teachers who are standing up to the madness of standardized testing. The teachers of Garfield High School in Seattle, WA have our love and support as they bravely risk their jobs and more by refusing to administer the Washington State Exams. We support the decisions of those educators because we, too, believe that these tests are harmful to students, and are being used to degrade the quality of education in this country in three major ways.
First, state testing is extremely disruptive to the cycle of learning. Hundreds of hours are wasted each year in Baltimore City Schools, as mandatory test preparations are given precedence over student-centered inquiry and learning. Even just administration of exams takes a minimum of 200 hours each school year, and in many cases more. Many students find this stressful, and resent the time taken away from real learning.
Second, tests are being used in ways they were never intended. Standardized tests are designed to give educators information about our students. Instead, they are being used to give politicians information about schools and teachers. As W. James Popham suggests in his report to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, “Employing standardized achievement tests to ascertain educational quality is like measuring temperature with a tablespoon.” Furthermore, many students, parents, and teachers feel like guinea pigs in an elaborate science experiment designed to find ways to chart “effectiveness,” not increase it.That the charts are being drawn incorrectly–much of the data is being misrepresented, making American Education seem much less effective than it is– adds insult to injury.
Finally, these tests are one of many ways that education and other public services are being privatized. Corporations like Pearson and ETS collect billions of dollars for creating, packaging, and in some cases scoring the exams. Then, if schools don’t meet Adequate Yearly Progress, as defined by the No Child Left Behind legislation, they are often closed down and reopened as semi-private charter schools, which takes money, resources and control away from the public.
It is important to note that we are not opposed to all testing, and that we give tests in our classrooms and find them to be important instructional tools when used correctly. The Garfield High School teachers are continuing to test students as usual, with the exception of the standardized tests required by the state, and we support them in their commitment to responsible testing.
Our students deserve better. There are many more effective ways of measuring learning, such as student portfolios. They will take more time, and will not so easily translate into charts and graphs for the media to proliferate. We at Educators for Democratic Schools know that our students are worth the time. We know that countries that trust their teachers have better results.
We also know that Montgomery County–our close neighbor–has two great distinctions: they have one of the top education programs in the country and they just agreed to a three year moratorium on standardized testing. They have this luxury because they do not rely on federal funds from Race to the Top, which requires districts not only to administer these tests, but to use them to evaluate teachers.
EDS supports our more fortunate neighbors as well as these courageous teachers in Seattle and the growing number of parents officially relieving their children from the burdens of these tests. We encourage all teachers, students and parents to think critically about why we believe in education, and what we’re willing to do to ensure that we are preparing the next generation to do more than just serve and consume.
In Solidarity,
Educators for Democratic Schools
A Caucus in the Baltimore Teacher’s Union
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It’s so sad that something that works and is discussed nationally could be destroyed by politicians in Annapolis in pusuit of the almighty dollar.
Another evening of letter writing and emailing for me.
Heads Up! Trouble in MCPS-MD – Teacher Evaluation
Montgomery teacher evaluations fail on state test
Financial consequences could loom if Montgomery doesn’t comply
“If Montgomery chooses not to comply with the state, the state could withhold aid, Starr could be put in jail, or there could be other consequences, Prouty said.”
http://www.gazette.net/article/20130206/NEWS/130209447/montgomery-teacher-evaluations-fail-on-state-test&template=gazette
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Diane, Please read, “Yes, We Are Stupid in America” and find out who’s REALLY responsible for failing public schools.
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Hi Diane,
Your work has influenced my career in many ways. Last week, my husband and I resigned our positions at a charter school in Florida because of a variety of ethically ambiguous choices being made. (kicking students out at the end of the year who have no hope of graduation so they don’t affect our school grade, padding student schedules, having students work on Florida Virtual School classes under the guise of another course so that they still receive the FTE money, labeling all classes “honors” even though most are not taught that way and most students can’t handle them…to name a few.) The final and fatal straw came when they forced me to change a student’s grade because the parent complained so loudly.
We chose to leave to make a statement that what was happening there was wrong. It’s somewhat of a high-profile charter in the city because it is the product of charities run by a former NFL player and former owner of an NFL team. Money is the bottom line there. It is more of a business than a center for educating children.
On top of that, they also refused to pay us the money they were holding back for summer pay because of a shady contract.
I have had experience with at least one good charter school, but truthfully the lack of accountability is frightening. The sad part is that the students are always the ones who suffer. They know what is happening at their school and proudly supported our decision to leave.
Thanks for all that you do to bring these issues to the public eye. I appreciate you!
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Diane,
I have to share this with you – please add this Superintendent to the honor roll. As a Superintendent in Vermont, I am sharing it with my colleagues and will try to rally support for this in our state.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/schools-need-time-to-implement-common-core-standards/2013/02/07/fb3a20dc-6bff-11e2-bd36-c0fe61a205f6_story.html
On a personal note, I deeply admire you and have tremendous respect for the work that you do. Thank you for inspiring me to do my work!
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Diane–
Keep up the excellent work, but be a bit mindful about proofreading (former English teacher, can’t help it). In the February 9 post, “very” in the second sentence should be “every,” and the U.S. Department of Education was created in 1979 (became operational in 1980), not 1965.
Enjoyed “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” and hope it has the impact it deserves to have.
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The federal role began in a large way in 1965 with passage of ESEA. The US Office of Education began to collect statistics in 1867. Many small federal programs and laws predate ESEA.
Legislation authorizing Department of Education passed in 1979. Department established in 1980.
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Diane. I read your blog and other resources about education because I earnestly want to understand all that is going on in education. I read things that make it seem as if education around us is blowing up and yet I see leadership going about equally as earnestly trying to do what I imagine they have interpreted to be appropriate for education. I don’t know what to make if it all yet, except that I know my contributions to education will need to be building back up what is blown up, if that is what is happening, and bring on board with what leadership points me towards as an educator. I am interested in the opinions of people more experienced than I am. I guess so I can be prepared to lead myself one day (since chance favors the prepared mind). So I wonder what do you have to say about the reports states who have adopted RttT share with their education work force. For example,
These links:
2. Dr. Atkinson Talks About the Common Core in Her Latest Blog
In her blog post for Feb. 7, State Superintendent June Atkinson talks about the Common Core State Standards and what they mean for educators and students in North Carolina. This blog post and earlier entries are available at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/statesuperintendent/blog/.
3. Updated Timeline for Measures of Student Learning on the Web
The Measures of Student Learning timeline has been updated and is available on the Educator Effectiveness website at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/educatoreffect/measures/. The Measures of Student Learning are common exams in selected subjects and grades that are not part of the state testing program, or assessments used in promotion decisions for students. The Measures of Student Learning are tools for school districts and charter schools to utilize as one part of the evaluation process for teachers.
——-
When I read these links they seem nebulous enough for a certain comfort level and forward-thinking optimism. Am I missing something? What is it I don’t see that has many of your frequent readers fired up? Anything? Trends towards anything? Or is it possible for a state to make the best of RttT? To churn out something productive and lasting even where other states might be set back? I genuinely want to hear viewpoints. I don’t know what to think except that I want to be a good educator and a good employee and a responsible citizen.
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I will ask readers to respond to you.
In general, RTTT is pushing privatization, standardization, and an unhealthy focus on testing. There is almost nothing it offers that will enrich education or improve the teaching profession.
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Georgia’s Republican Legislature–now with a super majority–continues its attack on public education with an ill-conceived, uninformed and poorly-written parent trigger bill. I wrote about the travesty in today’s Athens Banner-Herald.
http://bit.ly/Yj4wWv
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“School board asserts it owns copyrights to all students’ work” is the title of a recent blog post on the CBS/CNET Smart Planet website. Reporting on a recent Prince George’s County School Board (PGCSB) proposed policy, the article explains that the school board not only feels it owns all student work but also that of the teachers. If the assertion is not concerning enough, the breadth of the claim is even more unsettling—the school board claims that any product created to be used for classroom/school is the property of the school board. Of course the school board has to legitimate its claim in settled law or tradition and it chooses to claim that primary and secondary schools are no different from the university system of research, design, and patents. On this point I applaud the school board’s high level of respect for its teachers. Accordingly it follows that a commensurate level of compensation and a move to pedagogical and professional freedom for the teacher can be expected. In this manner, this is a welcomed development.
If, however, PGCSB’s is something different from the professionalizing of the industry, then teachers and students beware. A continued move to toward anomie—the commoditization and dehumanization of teachers and students—will devastate all that makes education the essential exercise in individual growth and in community civility. On a more personal level, the usurpation of one’s individual creative produce will, without due process: confiscate the intellectual property of teachers and students; deny teachers their right to earn a living, as one may choose to profit from their professional skills outside the school day proper; and, will teach students that the reality of limited government, private property, and natural rights are tenuous, at best.
Here is the excerpt from PGCSB’s proposal as quoted in the aforementioned article:
“Works created by employees and/or students specifically for use by the Prince George’s County Public Schools or a specific school or department within PGCPS, are properties of the Board of Education even if created on the employee’s or student’s time and with use of their materials.
“Further, works created during school/work hours, with the use of school system materials, and within the scope of an employee’s position or student’s classroom work assignment(s) are the properties of the Board of Education. Examples of works which the Board hereby takes ownership are: PGCPS Website: Individual School Website; Curriculum documents; Instructional materials for use in PGCPS or a specific school; Software and platforms developed for use by PGCPS, a specific school and/or the Board; Other works created for classroom use and instruction.”
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/school-board-asserts-it-owns-copyrights-to-all-students-work/12225?tag=nl.e662&s_cid=e662&ttag=e662
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School Improvement Grant Waiver Notice
10 hours ago
Show details
Lynda Fuller
to For
PUBLIC NOTICE
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction for Waivers to
Title I, Part A School Improvement Grants 1003(g)
Notice is hereby given that the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) will submit a request for all applicable waivers to requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as it relates to the state’s application for School Improvement Grants 1003(g). These waivers would allow any local educational agency (LEA) in the state that receives a School Improvement Grant to use those funds in accordance with the final requirements for School Improvement Grants and the LEA’s application for a grant. The NCDPI requests a waiver of the requirements listed below.
Waive the school eligibility requirements in Section I.A.1 of the SIG final requirements, in order to enable the state to replace its lists of Tier I, Tier II and Tier III schools with its list of Priority schools under ESEA flexibility.
The state believes that the requested waiver will increase the quality of instruction for students and improve the academic achievement of students in Priority Schools by enabling an LEA to more effectively use the school improvement funds to implement one of the four school intervention models in its Priority Schools. The four school intervention models are specifically designed to substantially raise student achievement in the state’s persistently lowest-achieving schools.
The public is invited to review and comment on the waiver being requested through 5 p.m., Feb. 20. Interested persons may present their written comments via e-mail to Donna Brown, Federal Program Monitoring and Support Division, at Donna.Brown@dpi.nc.gov or by mail to:
Donna Brown, Director
Federal Program Monitoring and Support Division
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
MSC# 6351
Raleigh, NC 27699-6351
Diane, any idea what the following notice means in laymen terms?:
———-
School Improvement Grant Waiver Notice
PUBLIC NOTICE
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction for Waivers to
Title I, Part A School Improvement Grants 1003(g)
Notice is hereby given that the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) will submit a request for all applicable waivers to requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as it relates to the state’s application for School Improvement Grants 1003(g). These waivers would allow any local educational agency (LEA) in the state that receives a School Improvement Grant to use those funds in accordance with the final requirements for School Improvement Grants and the LEA’s application for a grant. The NCDPI requests a waiver of the requirements listed below.
Waive the school eligibility requirements in Section I.A.1 of the SIG final requirements, in order to enable the state to replace its lists of Tier I, Tier II and Tier III schools with its list of Priority schools under ESEA flexibility.
The state believes that the requested waiver will increase the quality of instruction for students and improve the academic achievement of students in Priority Schools by enabling an LEA to more effectively use the school improvement funds to implement one of the four school intervention models in its Priority Schools. The four school intervention models are specifically designed to substantially raise student achievement in the state’s persistently lowest-achieving schools.
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Human beings creatively manifest and express through play.
Play is not trivial. Play developed the entrepreneurial trough from which this country is feeding. Play is deep engagement, and this takes many forms. Play is deep engagement.
Time to re-engage. Enlist talented teachers who can see the inherent talents within each child and scaffold, and bring them forth. THAT is talented teaching!
Back to basics? OK! Let’s go there.
Play.
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What it means is that NC had agreed to let Duncan set the rules and apply the Chicago turnaround model to NC schools. With lots of staff firings and school closings–all to improve schools. Schools in low-income and minority community will be hit hardest.
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But now they want a waiver from it or a waiver to make it happen faster? I feel like Rip Van Winkle having stayed home for three years with my son and stepping back into teaching after RttT had already been put in. Plus I am a music teacher so I can only guess at some of what is going on in classrooms. Thank you for shedding light on what stuff means as I try to get a clear picture.
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Thanks Diane, for what you do!
http://waxingcrescenthaiku.com/2013/02/12/haiku-no-335/
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Just found out about this a few minutes ago. It’s worth a look.
Dan Rather Reports on AXS TV
Teaching to the Test- mentions Seattle teacher protest
http://www.axs.tv/blogs/teaching-to-the-test-february-12-2013/
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Mark- Thank you for sending this to the blog. It is wonderful. I am forwarding it to all of my teachers encouraging them to forward it to family and/or friends that teach at the high school level. Just when I get super depressed about what is happening to public education , a shining glimmer of hope comes through this blog. Thank you for being that glimmer of hope for me today.
Marge
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You’re most welcome.
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I don’t know if you’ve seen this. Muskegon Heights Schools, the Michigan public school district which was privatized and turned into a charter school, was revealed as having hired non-certified teachers. 10% of its staff, in fact, was not certified, and a great number of the teachers still aren’t. http://www.michiganradio.org/post/investigation-uncovers-non-certified-teachers-muskegon-heights-new-charter-school
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That’s some good news, but only if the state follows up and issues the fines.I’d be curious to see if that happens. Please keep us updated.
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I am a special education teacher and mother of a 3rd grader with Autism. I am trying to excercise my parental right to opt my son out of high stakes testing in New York State. These tests are detrimental to all children, but even more so for children like my son who will not be able to read the exam or understand why he is being asked to do something that he cannot hope to be successful with. Imagine his confusion and frustration. Presenting a child with a test that is not developmentally appropriate and is inaccessible due to his or her disability is not only educational unsound, but morally as well. I have been told that my son will be tested against my will if he walks through the door on any day within the testing window. The only way to opt him out is to keep him home for 12 days. This violates his right to a free and appropriate education and is tantamount to educational blackmail. I have contacted our state and local representatives, the ACLU and The Autism Society. Can you recommend any other advocacy groups that might be able to help us or offer any words of advice?
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I will ask our readers. Try the Education Law Center in New Jersey. File a complaint with the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. There must be groups that advocate for the rights of those with disabilities.
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Contact these sites:
United Opt Out National
New York | United Opt Out National
Change the Stakes | Because a Good Education Can’t Be Measured By a Test Score
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Meanwhile online in Tennessee at the Tennessee Virtual Academy. They make bad grades virtually disappear.
Email Directs Teachers to Delete Bad Grades
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/21129693/email-directs-teachers-to-delete-bad-grades
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Now blasting off in Washington, DC. The Rocketship Academy and their charter proposal.
DC’s Rocketship Academy Charter Application
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-iMYhgzOOSVN0hvbjczYXBicW8/edit?pli=1
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The headline says it all.
Corporations Advise School Closings, While Private Charters Suck Public Schools Away
As charter proponents aim to cash in on major investment returns, Philly braces for a massive schools shakeup.
http://www.alternet.org/education/corporations-advise-school-closings-while-private-charters-suck-schools-away?akid=10062.1073613.DUUT22&rd=1&src=newsletter795084&t=5
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Florida Tutors with criminal records.
Public schools lose millions to crooks, cheaters
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Public-schools-lose-millions-to-crooks-cheaters-4266893.php
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Bianca– I am not sure where exactly you live in New York State. Many parents of children with special needs are contacting their advocate through AGAPE to assist them in opting their child out of the NYS standardized testing. If you are in the Buffalo area, please email me and I will be more than happy to share the phone number of AGAPE and advocates with you. It saddens me to witness children with special needs taking a test that is at least 2 years (perhaps even more) above their reading level. In so many cases, I have seen such growth in these students.
They do not need to endure the pain and frustration this testing brings upon them when they have worked so hard and overcome so much. I wish you the best in pursuing putting a stop to this testing on behalf of your child. God bless you.
Marge Borchert
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It just struck me that the name “Deborah” means “bee”. Adds something to Rhee’s title of “bee eater” in the context of her conflicts with (and triumph over) Deborah Gist in DC. Hmm.
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Like your stuff diane…question…what are your personal feelings about homeschooling? Or direct me to where you’ve made posts or comments about such in the past. Thanks
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Homeschooling is something I could never do.
I don’t know enough.
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Bored and surfing ed job boards, found an ad looking for “teaching fellows”, of course with “No previous teaching certifications” as one of the qualifications to help close the bilingual achievement gap
http://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/edu/3619211863.html
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sorry, forgot to mention that it is an ad from TNTP (the new teacher project), founded by Michelle Rhee.
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I was suspicious of home schooling because it was primarily used by evangelical Christians. Four of my grandchildren have been home schooled and they’re doing fine. There are networks for home schoolers and programmed courses available. A lesson that I saw for high schoolers on Romeo and Juliet was intelligent and suitable for college-level students. The home schooled students I accepted into the honors program at a state university did fine, except for one who was forced to drop out of the program by her helicopter mother!
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Tthought you might be interested in Gates latest “Request for Proposal: Literacy Courseware Challenge.” More teacher-less, computerized learning to support his Common Core [National] Standards. “Adaptive digital learning tools” are his robo-teachers, because apparently the standards [read: curriculum, no matter how many people say that the CC are not a curriculum] are teacher-proof. Just create a huge quonset hut, or even better, a stadium, full of computer cubicles, sit the kids down, and, voila! A perfect Gates-ian school. Disgusting.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/Pages/rfp-literacy-courseware-challenge.aspx
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And…… We have created a society of people who are facile in computer usage and cannot relate to people and have no empathy for others. Let’s create more violent games for the children to play on the computer while we’re at it —- after all, that’s what makes money. Who cares what impact we have on the world — seems to be the attitude of the elitists!! Really!!
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Diane,
I’ve been an educator for 23 years. Thank your for sharing your energy and wisdom. Without you and a handful of others, I am sure the effects of so much gas lighting would have made me mad as a hatter! We need you! Thank you for the balance and sanity.
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Hi Diane. I am the Hillsborough County, Florida, teacher you featured in your post “Vote for this man for School Board”. Many thanks for that! I want to let you, and any others interested in our fight against Bill Gates, know that my Campaign website, http://michaelweston.org/ is now up and running. There is a volunteer page for an locals wishing to help out, and of course a donate page for anyone, anywhere, who wishes to help us kick Gates our of our school system.
This will be my second run, we had a fantastic showing, but missed the runoff by only 1700 votes out of 100,000 cast. We were outspent by over 7 to 1. We will be outspent this round as well, but will make up for it with feet on the ground!
We also have a Facebook page,
http://www.facebook.com/MichaelWestonforschoolboard7
Many thanks for what you do!
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Diane, have you seen this piece? It explains the real purpose of education reform. I think we should focus our argument on why the ultra rich people bankrolling these reforms would never dream of sending their own children to such schools. The way to reform our schools today is simple – replicate the school that Bill Gates attended. Yes, we will have the money since we’ll no longer be spending billions on purchasing, administering, and scoring standardized tests.
Teach for America’s Hidden Curriculum by Andrew Hartman
“TFA is, at best, another chimerical attempt in a long history of chimerical attempts to sell educational reform as a solution to class inequality. At worst, it’s a Trojan horse for all that is unseemly about the contemporary education reform movement.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/17/the_hidden_curriculum_of_teach_for_america_partner
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Michele, you are right!!
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Jay Mathews/WaPos column
Sad failure of two inspectors general in D.C. schools
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/sad-failure-of-two-inspectors-general/2013/02/10/932bb526-73a9-11e2-aa12-e6cf1d31106b_blog.html#pagebreak
More on DC’s failure to investigate. What an incompetent investigation. What they didn’t look at. Almost as criminal as the cheating scandal itself.
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Just fyi, an article from The Guardian re: Finland http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/15/us-education-reform-lessons-from-finland Note that it’s written by DC’s Linda Moore.
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I don’t know where else to put this and I couldn’t find an e-mail for you. I was wondering if you saw this where the head of Stand for Children Denver who is up for BOE seat said that we should teach creationism in the class. Here is the link,
http://www.ednewscolorado.org/news/two-dps-candidates-back-teaching-of-creationism/#comments
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http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2013/02/ruiz-gets-f-katten-a-on-chicago-tonight.html?showComment=1361375852870
Not sure if there is a better way to do this. This representative from a parent group is armed with facts and basically rules in this debate with a Chicago Public Schools appointed corporate suit.
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I just wanted to share this article with you. I wasn’t sure if you seen it in the New York Post.
Midtown teacher includes questions about SLAVERY in elementary school math homework
By LIA EUSTACHEWICH, JOE TACOPINO and YOAV GONEN
Last Updated: 11:34 PM, February 21, 2013
Posted: 11:33 PM, February 21, 2013
A furor over slavery has erupted at a Midtown elementary school, after a teacher handed out math homework that include questions asking kids to tally the killing and beating of slaves.
The shocking questions were given to at least one class of 9-year-olds at PS 59 in Manhattan — which included the kids of United Nations personnel. The inflammatory queries were only uncovered after a student teacher was asked to hand them out to a second class.
“What a shock! It seems so over the top,” said NYU professor Charlton McIlwain, who instructed the student teacher, Aziza Harding, that spotted the offensive questions.
Education officials said the trouble arose from a clumsy attempt by teacher Jane Youn to meld a history lesson on slavery with an assignment in math.
She asked the students to create their own questions, and distributed them as homework last month with the slave questions included, officials said.
One of the questions reads: “One slave got whipped five times a day. How many times did he get whipped in a month (31 days)?”
A separate subtraction question says: “In a slave ship, there can be 3,799 slaves. One day, the slaves took over the ship. 1,897 are dead. How many slaves are alive?”
The same worksheet was nearly assigned to teacher Jacqueline Vitucci’s class when she went on vacation this month. But Harding — her student teacher — put the kibosh on it before the papers were distributed.
“This is obviously unacceptable and we will take appropriate disciplinary action against these teachers,” said a DOE spokeswoman. “The Chancellor spoke to the principal, and she has already taken steps to ensure this does not happen again.”
Longtime principal Adele Schroeter said she was “appalled.”
“I have already met with the teacher and have arranged for training around this issue ,” she said in a statement.
A message left at a number listed for Youn was not returned.
In a strikingly similar case, third graders at a school in Norcross, Ga. were given homework last year where they had to calculate how many times slaves were beaten.
The teacher who gave that assignment later resigned.
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Found on the Washington State Education Association Website:
____________________________________________________________
Rheegurgitate
02/21/2013
As we all get more exposure to reform puppet, Michelle Rhee, let us not forget how she operated in Washington DC. Check out this post from last August. http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/thats-what-friends-are-for-rhee-and-the-dc-cheating-scandal-revisited/
______________________________________________________________
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Here’s how well the corporate takeover of a Detroit public high school is (not) working for students. http://michigancitizen.com/eaa-is-failing-us/
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At Memphis’ first charter school, M.A.S.E., a 14 year old girl was allegedly attacked and gang raped by 4 student in the boy’s bathroom. This controversy comes on the heals of parents claiming students abused at Cornerstone Prep.
http://www.abc24.com/news/local/story/Accusations-of-Gang-Rape-at-Prominent-Memphis/f5E9iC_W9keN6W3fyzx9eA.cspx?rss=59
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Diane, what do we know about education reformers using heavily ‘facilitated’ town hall meetings to gin up a veneer of support for corporate takeovers of schools? Is there a common playbook or a list of PR firms that concoct these sessions?
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Mark, it happens al the time. In New York City, where I live, there are frequently public events that are carefully staged, with the pretense of dialogue or panels when in fact everyone agrees on the issues.
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See Delphi Method @ Mark
https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_rn=4&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=-ync0xKKVGgDBV56hwrkNg&pq=delphi%20&cp=8&gs_id=z&xhr=t&q=delphi+technique&es_nrs=true&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&oq=delphi+t&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42768644,d.dmQ&fp=edc2cdd6c0fe230d&biw=1920&bih=899
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There are many techniques in play to control the output of town-hall meetings, focus groups, forums, etc. If you are ever in such a session and questions are only accepted on index cards, the meeting is rigged.
Surveys that have no “none of the above” are always suspect as are group discussion questions that only allow you to choose between
Parents should have more say in their children’s education by:
a. Encouraging your state to empower parents through “Parent Trigger Legislation”
b. Supporting your charter schools by joining a parents advisory council.
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Ladies — I have to share this with you— many teachers have told me that they are Opting their children out of the testing . If all of the teachers in each state who are also parents OPTED their children out of the tests QUITE a statement would be MADE. Everyone needs to be mindful that there is strength in numbers!!! All of this high states testing is WRONG on so many levels. PARENTS need to speak out and protect their children from becoming a number in a Data Warehouse!!
Marge Borchert
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SAT to be redesigned as announced today by David Coleman in the Washington Post – Just as you predicted ! Why are we not surprised !
http://tinyurl.com/bg2gu3d
http://tinyurl.com/anlgzhz
No doubt you have seen these two articles – but thought I would share as it truly comes on the heels of one of your recent blogs about the Common Core.
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I thought this might be of interest to you. I live in New Mexico and recently our Public Education Commission denied the charter application for a new charter that will contract with Connections Academy. Our Secretary of Education Designate Hanna Skandera (she has held the position for nearly 3 years, but has not gained senate approval because she doesn’t actually meet the criteria set forth by the constitution) overruled that. It looks very much like she did that because of her connections with Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education which receives donations from Connections Academy. Today, I learned that the Commission that they will appeal her approval and would like to stop any new virtual charters from opening until a study can be made on their effectiveness. State lawmakers are also looking into the legality of using state public education funds to pay for virtual charter schools run by out-of-state private companies. More information can be found here http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2013/02/01/news/skandera-oks-virtual-school.html
and here:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/02272013PEC#.US5gzjBNKSp
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Hi Diane. I thought this worthy of daylighting. Bills just introduced in WA legislature.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/02/27/rodney-tom-hates-teachers
(beware, the stranger uses some colorful language, but I’m grateful for them writing an article about this.
thanks for your good work.
Seattle mom
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Check out this story today in the Detroit Free Press. Feel free to pass it on as everyone needs some good nrews about what is working in public education.
http://www.freep.com/article/20130228/COL10/302280241/Rochelle-Riley-DPS-lauds-reading-tutors-for-kids-gains?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
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March 1, 2013
Is it just me or do we have our priorities mixed up?
In response to the NY SAFE Act, “Angry demonstrators, at least 1,000 of them traveling from Erie County on 14 packed buses, showed their frustrations in colorful signs such as ‘Cuomo has to go’..” (Buffalo News 03/01/13)
Gun advocates rage against the trampling of their Second Amendment rights. Why don’t we rage at the profound trampling of our children’s Constitutional rights? NYS’s Constitution guarantees children a fair and equitable education. Yet, for five years NYS has underfunded schools by $765 million. In 2009, when the courts ordered more equitable school funding, Foundation Aid was created to provide at least a 3% aid increase each year. Just one year later, Foundation Aid was frozen and the five-year “take back” of aid began. That “take back,” known as the “Gap Elimination” is decimating our public schools. Where are these 14 packed buses on their way to Albany?
Pounding another nail in the coffin, Albany passed the Tax Levy Cap, which further defunded schools and swept away school board control over local revenue. Heralded as a help to taxpayers facing soaring local property taxes, Albany looked heroic. Albany neglected to mention that local property taxes were soaring because local taxpayers picked up the tab for funding Albany took away … and for mandated expenses Albany won’t address. The “Gap Elimination” take-back and tax levy cap have fast tracked schools to financial and educational ruin. Schools are cutting programs left and right to save costs. Our children’s transcripts will be too thin for entrance to our own NYS four-year schools. Where are these 14 packed buses on their way to Albany?
Finally, in an effort to grab $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds, Albany committed to transforming our educational system into one that promotes high stakes testing and linked those high stakes, unreliable assessments to teacher performance.
Albany swept away school board control over evaluation of their own teachers. Instead, that authority was given to a time-consuming, unproven system that dramatically escalates expenses for schools, pushing costs far beyond the initial Race to the Top funding. This at a time when Albany took away funding that was Constitutionally-guaranteed. Where are these 14 packed buses on their way to Albany?
Where is the outrage? The colorful signs? The microphones and cameras? We need to take a lesson from the gun advocates and raise our voices in united outrage. Recently, in a letter sent to the Governor, which was initiated by Senator Gallivan and signed by 17 of his Upstate fellow Senators; the inequitable funding of schools was addressed. The letter urges the Governor to restore funding to low-wealth school districts that have been disproportionately impacted. This is a start, but where are these 14 packed buses from Western New York on their way to Albany?
Jeffrey R. Rabey
Superintendent of Schools
Depew Union Free School District
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Ms. Ravitch,
My media team and I are working on a story that I think you and your audience will find interesting. We’re taking an in-depth look into the Confucius Institute.
As you may know, the Confucius Institute is a Chinese government-funded program that sends teachers around the world. The Chinese government pays these teachers and gives extra money to the schools that house them. These teachers then instruct their students in the Chinese language and culture.
There are over 420 Confucius Institutes around the world. The majority of these institutes are in the United States. Poorer states tend to have more of these programs. Because you have an entire category dedicated to Georgia, you might find it interesting to know that Georgia has more Confucius Institutes than any other state. Kentucky is a close second.
Some schools (like Stanford University) have refused to accept Confucius Institutes. They fear that these institutes might be a soft power ploy by the Chinese government. The Confucius Institutes have also been in the news lately because they are suspected of having discriminatory hiring practices for the teachers they send abroad.
Much of this story revolves around the education system here in America, as well as education systems around the world. My team and I would be eternally grateful if you would check out our Facebook site and share your opinion of the materials that we have posted there. It would be great if your readers could contribute as well.
We want to make sure that we do justice to this story. We would be grateful for your input.
http://www.facebook.com/InsideConfucius
Stephanie Bronner
Fusion Journalist at Western iMedia
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Head of the Class
Idaho launches first-of-its-kind partnership with Khan Academy
Idaho will launch a pilot program in the fall, becoming the first state to partner with the Khan Academy to provide free, online access to math, physics and history classes. The program, to be implemented in 47 schools, is funded through a $1.5 million grant from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation. “Idaho has the students, the schools and the determination to succeed in showing the nation how to innovate within our public education system,” said Jamie MacMillan, the foundation’s executive director. KBOI-AM (Boise, Idaho)/The Associated Press (2/28)
Interesting – Khan Academy and Idaho – hmmm !
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Ms. Chayette:
Please see “Corporate Reform in Idaho” for more about this Kahn/Albertson Foundation initiative.
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FYI – this is an interesting article that maps voucher-based schools teaching creationism. Is the march to national education standards and vouchers enabling theocracy over democracy?
http://billmoyers.com/content/interactive-map-voucher-schools-teaching-creationism/
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So what we do know is that the Common Core is going to force spending at all levels when we’re basically running on empty now.
Sounds like a national disaster in the making. Does the Department of Education really expect both students (families) and teachers to meet or exceed these content and test standards?
What’s wrong with the standards we have now? I can’t believe that communities and their state governments wouldn’t push back with alternatives and better solutions than supporting a corporate take-over of American schools by Rupert Murdoch. I thought the Republican Guard was against BIG GOVERNMENT??
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Thanks for posting this. I’m worried about how much money the Common Core will take to implement, at a time when what we need is more teachers.
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I’m assuming that the corporate powers will drive out the desire to be a career educator in the classroom. No contracts, no tenure and no rewards or bonuses for exceptional work either. The plutocracy is winning against democracy. Even this White House regime has fallen to the powers of the lobbyists and the corporatists. They are one in the same now. I feel blessed and thankful for my public school education. I guess every civilization or society eventually crumbles or is replaced by the next civilization. What exactly will happen, I’m not so sure will be good or bad with the Common Core (it’s certainly not the end of the world but it’s not the solution either). Just keep the conversation going, keep asking questions and support your community schools.
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How interesting to see that Pearson will be making more $$$$.
“The city will procure the materials through five vendors, including the state’s vendor and Pearson, a British publishing and education company, said Shael Polakow-Suransky, the city’s chief academic officer.”
Is that why Bloomberg is building his empire in London?
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Leon Galis, captures the impact of politics on poor kids and districts in his column in today’s Athens (GA) Banner-Herald. His discussion is concise and eloquent. http://onlineathens.com/opinion/2013-03-02/galis-politics-holding-back-poor-school-districts?&&#comment657611comment657610comment657608
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Hello,
I’m a failed member of the NYC Teaching Fellows. I had a lot of personal problems that interfered with my ability to complete the program, and I got no support from NYCTF or their partnering college. In the end, they told me it wasn’t their responsibility to support me. I’ve made blog to tell my story, and a YouTube channel.
My post telling my whole story of how I flunked out can be found here:
http://anumberatmercy.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-i-flunked-out-of-new-york-city.html
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BREAKING NEWS – March 5, 2013 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Hello PCAPS (Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools & Moratorium Endorsers,
The fight for education has just reached new levels! Parents, community activists, retired teachers and allies are sitting in the Mayor’s office as we speak and they are refusing to leave until we win a one year moratorium on school closings.
Members like yourself are joined by NAACP President Jerry Mondesire and Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan.
This is a historic day for public education in Philadelphia!
The School Reform Commission in Philadelphia will vote on March 7, 2013 for the closing of 29 Public Schools after three days of public testimony calling for a one year moratorium. The plan was revised by Dr. William Hite, Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia.
PCAPS is a combination of Parents, Parent Groups, Community, Unions, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Clergy who have come together to fight for Public Education.
http://politic365.com/2013/03/05/pa-school-closings-addition-of-subtractions-dont-add-up/
http://www.citypaper.net/news/Closing_Arguments.html
http://thenotebook.org/
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Interesting news for Clark County School District.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/clark-county-school-district-superintendent-dwight-jones-plans-departure-195479811.html?fb_action_ids=143964862437926&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%22143964862437926%22%3A444104522334696%7D&action_type_map=%7B%22143964862437926%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D
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So the race is on between Rupert’s team and the rest of the industrial-educational complex to own every classroom seat, public or private. Content from the masters of mass media. Time to read 1984 again.
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Wondering if you know anything about the Next Generation Science Standards…Developed by National Science Teachers Association. Link to article in Climate News:
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130304/next-generation-science-standards-man-made-climate-change-consensus-global-warming-skeptics-heartland-institute
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Dear Dr. Ravitch,
Just read an article in NY Times: “News Corp. Has a Tablet for Schools.”
This after my fellow teachers at PACE High School here in NYC learned last week that the NY State Regents English Exam would be replaced in 2014 by a Common Core English exam administered online. (Roll-out to begin next school year.) My fellow teachers joked about how we’d do with with our school’s crappy laptop computers. I try to resist cynical and conspiratorial lines of thinking, but this is too much. Carol Burris, you, all reform critics are right. Parent opt-out will be only solution.
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Diane,
I’m a teacher in Rhode Island.
Recently, Bill Gates agreed to loan (some say “give”, but it was a loan) the town of Central Falls $10 million to be spent on “high performing schools”:
http://news.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/2013/03/gates-foundation-gives-10-million-loan-to-central-falls-to-increase-seats-a-1.html
If you look here you will see that this translates to “charter schools”, because it looks like none of the money has been earmarked for CF High (the town’s only public high school):
http://www.turnto10.com/story/21526608/money-watchers-central-falls-schools-get-10m-from-gates
I am now curious how much of this money has been earmarked for charters to buy product from Gates in the form of tablets, etc. If he is loaning the state $10 million to buy product from him and then pay him back $10 million, he is one heckuva philanthropist!
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My dad taught poli sci at a few universities.He had a nice visual aid for why you can’t run a government like a business, to counteract a slogan that became trendy late in his teaching career. It was a sign you saw in most businesses, which could not be posted in any government office.
A one-word variant seems appropriate to most of the institutions that are replacing public schools:
“We Reserve The Right To Refuse Education To Anyone”
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Diane,
I am currently enrolled in a MAT program in Chicago, and I have been following your blog closely for quite a few months. One side of the story that I think is missing is how all these corporate reforms and testing have a negative impact on preservice educators. With teachers held to such high accountability, it seems that less are willing to have us preservice teachers come observe or work with them. With isat testing going on, my classmates and I have had very little success setting up observation times at schools. This is something that we have all been struggling with (even when testing is not happening). These observation hours are required for our degree. Also, I have heard anecdotes from a student teacher a year ahead of me about how the teacher is so concerned with testing that she would not let the student teacher teach.
I doubt that “reformers” and proponents of accountability think about how these high stakes measures make it difficult for preservice educators to learn the craft of being a teacher. The time spent observing, helping, interviewing students and teachers, and teaching are invaluable experiences for us and teach us so much about being teachers, but current reforms make these experiences hard to come by. I think a shared sentiment among my classmates and I is frustration. We want to be successful, prepared educators, but it feels like we have to jump through hoops and beg for time in schools. If we really cared about preparing quality educators, it should not be so difficult to get into schools, to see. feel, and experience the real deal.
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Diane,
A piece I wrote about one NYC teacher trying semi-successfully to use the union contract to mitigate bureaucracy and eliminate redundant and superfluous paperwork.
So he can… you know…*teach*.
Regards,
Paul Hogan
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Here are 2 recent articles about Charter Schools and the Gates Foundation from Lancaster, PA that I thought might interest you.
Gates: Finding the gateway to a better education
http://lancasteronline.com/eedition/pages/news/edition/CEAM/20130226/A/1/2453121/2/1
Excerpt: “Slamp has worked in education for 30 years, spending the past year and a half as senior program officer for the College Ready Work Team of the $36 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The College Ready team is part of the foundation’s U.S. Program, which is dedicated to improving public school education across the nation.
The director of education for the U.S. Program is former School District of Lancaster superintendent Vicki Phillips.
Completing the Gates Foundation’s Lancaster County connection is Irvin Scott, a former principal at McCaskey East High School who is now deputy director of education for the U.S. Program.”
Charter school proposal draws friends and foes to SDL school board meeting
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/822595_Charter-school-proposal-draws-friends-and-foes-to-SDL-school-board-meeting.html
They have lost supporters because the proposed charter school didn’t disclose it’s affiliation with Gulen.
Excerpt: “In 2011, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported the FBI and other federal agencies were investigating whether employees at 125 U.S. charter schools were kicking back money to Hismet, a Muslim movement founded by Gulen.”
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Putting Legislators in charge of curriculum is like giving a NASA project to an 8th grade robotics team. Today’s piece on the Georgia Legislature’s amateurish, misguided attempt at curriculum. http://m.onlineathens.com/opinion/2013-03-09/blackmon-lawmakers-shouldnt-guide-curriculum
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Hi Diane–
I am so thrilled you are coming to Baton Rouge. Louisiana is an education disaster.
I am an NBCT teacher in Los Angeles on leave here in Louisiana. As you know LA is the disaster waiting to happen (and they’ve made great strides to make it so). Michelle Rhee knows if she can win in California, she has a tremendous foothold for the rest of the country.
One of my former students has become an accomplished filmmaker and wants to make a documentary about education from the kids’ perspective. I know you are time crushed on your visit to BR, but would it be possible to briefly share what the potential of such a film could be to counter WAITING FOR SUPERMAN and DON’T BACK DOWN?
This is a sophisticated examination by students FOR students.of the LA Reforms and their propagators demonstrating their vast pedagogical wreckage.
Thanks for the support,
–Joshua Leibner, NBCT
jleibner@lausd.net
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Hi, Diane! I was part of your Neo-Con Seminar at TC many years ago. You probably have only a fuzzy recollection of me, but I’m very happy to note you’ve come over to my side, that of the good, the true and the beautiful.
Alex Levy
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Getting rich off of schoolchildren
Stop pretending wealthy CEOs pushing for charter schools are altruistic “reformers.” They’re raking in billions
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/getting_rich_off_of_schoolchildren/
A journalis who has connected the dots!
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I would like to share part of a letter my family received today from Mark Dudenhefer, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. It goes as follows:
The second bill, House Bill 2084, brings the non-profit organization “Teach for America” to Virginia. This bill creates a two-year provisional license for participations in the program. Teach for America aims to close the achievement gap for students in low-income areas. This program will allow Virginia to recruit better teachers and improve performance in the classroom.
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Worth reading. An articulate response to top down education standards promoted by corporate masters… and their puppets in The White House who are destroying our national heritage of public schools.
http://rationalmathed.blogspot.com/2013/02/wont-get-fooled-again-reasons-to-resist.html
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Another thoughtful response to Rupert Murdoch’s “industrial” educational complex taking over public (community-based) education and calling it “reform” or whatever buzzword numbs the mind. The promise of personalized learning is just another marketing tactic to sell the same set of corporate content programs and textbooks.
I think we’ve already mastered personalized learning and understand how it works; one teacher-one student. Just have to hire more teachers. Short of having more teachers, then a loving family and friends that share the love of learning should be our dream for every learner. The Common Core should be replaced by Common Sense – a declaration to free ourselves from the tyranny of command and control education.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/03/13/the-problem-with-high-tech-personalized-learning-tools/
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Hey my name is Kelly I live in Rome, GA .
I have been rallying trying to raises awareness about the government and higher up people starving out public education. This year Floyd county lost 119 teachers due to budget cuts. Over the past ten year we have been cut 10 million dollars in our funds. On the other hand privates schools are being awarded more funds. I do believe they are killing public schools as we know. My point is I would love to speak to you about how to change this as it seems that Georgia is not the only one doing this.
Thanks,
Kelly Ullery
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Game On for Kansas Schools is grassroots advocacy group based in the Shawnee Mission School District. Its mission is to share information relating to public education and public education funding advocacy in Kansas and to encourage parents and other interested community members to “get in the game” and advocate for Kansas public schools. A member of their leadership group, Heather Ousley is walking to Topeka this weekend to protest the legislative assault on public education. She plans to arrive in Topeka to participate with KNEA in their advocacy day on Tuesday. Here is her Facebook post announcing her walk:
To my facebook friends. To my fellow Kansans.
Those of you who know me personally, who have had a beer with me, a beer with Jarrod, who have been with us for the last 20 years, or maybe just the last couple of months, know that when something is important to me, I support it.
So it should come as no surprise, that now that I feel that the future that I thought was possible for my kids is threatened, I’m a little up in arms.
Since this legislative session began, there has been an unprecedented number of bills and attempts to dismantle and defund the system that provides public education in the state of Kansas.
And let there be no doubt – that system has been functioning at a remarkable level, despite a lack of funding, for many years.
There has been a coordinated attempt to justify this defunding, from outside business interests, who lobby through the Kansas Policy Institute (KPI) and the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC), to discredit our schools and what they are capable of, to justify their attempts to undermine their sources of revenue.
Because of this effort, our government is considering amending our Kansas Constitution to get out of its funding obligations. Obligations that have been upheld in court decisions.
I will not sit idle, while large business interests try to destroy the mechanism that can provide my children, and the children of their generation, whom I care about as a mother, and friend, troop leader, and school volunteer.
I will not sit idle, while they attack the teachers that educated me. That educated my husband and brother. That are now educating my children.
I will not sit idle while they cut funding to the vital backbone of our state. Not as a parent. Not as a Jayhawk.
I have been invited, by the teachers’ union, KNEA, to attend various legislative sessions on Tuesday of next week.
I will go.
I plan on walking to Topeka.
I leave tomorrow morning.
I will walk for three days.
I will post facebook updates, and twitter updates, on my newly minted twitter feed (bear with me while I get the hang of it).
I walk to raise awareness.
I walk for my kids.
I walk for our teachers.
I walk for our schools.
If you would like more information on the current legislative climate, and why it is so damn detrimental that I am willing to walk 60 . . . miles in only three days, in the cold and rain (seriously universe, it couldn’t be nice weather this weekend?), then please follow me. I plan on posting updates to twitter and facebook. I’m Heather Ousley @ just1walk
This is how I do March Madness. I’m Mad. It’s March. I’ll march.
I’ve got a basketball I plan on taking with me. I’m writing on the basketball, “Game On” for Game On For Kansas Schools. (It’s not a full size ball – that’d be a little clunky to carry. It’s a miniature. Josh won’t miss it; I promise 😉 )
This organization has come about in direct response to the funding cuts. It exists to encourage parents to get in this game.
I plan on delivering it, along with the message, “Game on” to whomever in Topeka will accept it and listen.
If you would like to join me, send me a message.
If you are with me in spirit, please like @Game On for Kansas Schools. I’ll consider every like on that page a signature on my basketball.
It’s time to pay attention.
I’d walk to the ends of the earth for my kids. In the grand scheme of things, Topeka ain’t that far.
With all my heart,
Heather Ousley
Game On for Kansas Schools can be reached on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/gameonforksschools, on the internet at http://www.gameonforkansasschools.com and by email at gameonforpubliceducation@gmail.com.
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My column today on why the “parent trigger” won’t solve anything. http://bit.ly/100MZGB
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Ms. Ravitch,
I am likely going to the Education Nation panel, as a panel member, this Saturday in Detroit. If you would like, I could send you an email to inform you of the proceedings and structure of the event.
My email is skorpusik408@yahoo.com.
I am a dedicated reader of your blog and have frequently forwarded your posts and articles to colleagues.
Steve Korpusik
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You’re One of EducationWorld’s Top 25 Educator Blogs for 2013
Congratulations!
You’ve been honored in EducationWorld’s Top 25 Educator Blogs for 2013 list. The list represents EducationWorld’s favorite educator blogs to follow in 2013, and our team thinks that your work is worth celebrating. Below you’ll find links to our honoree lists, and an award badge is attached to this message for displaying your achievement on your blog. Thanks for everything that you do to help educators in their mission and more!
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/top-educator-blogs-2013.shtml (List Part 1)
http://community.educationworld.com/content/edworlds-top-25-educator-blogs-2013-continued (List Part 2)
Best,
Jason Cunningham
Social Media Editor, EducationWorld.com
(203) 599-4809
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Ms. Ravitch,
I am a Brooklyn neighbor and an educator and fellow advocate for justice in education; I thank you for all your work for schools, teachers, and students. I’d like to share a petition I created to highlight yet another area of high stakes testing abuse – the forcible removal of teachers from their classrooms to grade standardized tests. For a quick look at the petition, please look here: http://signon.org/sign/chancellor-walcott-let. For a more comprehensive overview of the topic, please read on. Thanks in advance for your support, everyone!
—–
Let Teachers Serve Students, Not Standardized Tests:
As educators, we are exposed to a range of demands and opinions when it comes to high stakes standardized testing – the importance of showing “growth,” the limitations it places on our curriculum and creativity, the myriad ways that this data can purportedly showcase skills and progress amongst students and teachers alike. However, there is one aspect of high stakes testing that has yet to receive much attention – the fact that every spring, thousands of New York City teachers are pulled from their classrooms, and their teaching responsibilities, to grade these tests. Although public school educators are excluded from the creation of these tests, as well as the decision-making process when it comes to how and why to administer them, we are deemed “expert” enough to grade them for hours and days on end while our students are left behind with substitutes. Rather than pay qualified professionals outside of school hours to do this tedious work, NYC schools, teachers, and students are forced to bear the burden of preparing for, administering, and finally grading these tests.
Pearson Education, Inc. is currently in possession of a 5-year, $32 million contract to administer standardized testing in the state of New York. Their contract also includes an inside track to selling curriculum and textbooks within the state. A cloud of controversy has shadowed both the circumstances of this lucrative contract and the content of the actual tests, many of which received negative publicity in 2012 for their ambiguous and confusing wording and answers. These tests were developed independent of NYC public school teachers; yet the onus and price of grading them rests squarely upon the shoulders of public schools. This is no small task; a test that takes a minimum of 6 hours to administer over a span of three days requires thousands of people, for thousands of hours, to sort, collate, check and double-check – using rubrics created by Pearson, naturally. Tax payers continue to pay Pearson for the privilege of their high-stakes testing service; the cost of grading the tests is paid directly through public schools’ budgets.
In late April and early May, NYC public schools are required to send content-area teachers to grade the tests, and to pay for substitutes to replace each teacher while they are gone. Generously, the city offers schools the opportunity to “buy out” of test grading at the price of $1,500 per teacher – approximately double what it costs to replace that teacher with a substitute. One typical middle school is required to send 8 teachers to grade math and ELA exams, for five days a piece, and 4 math teachers, for 6 days each. At a price of $150.00 per substitute per day, that school will pay $9,600 out of their limited budget, just to cover missing staff who have been pulled to grade exams.
In my public school, the large population of special education students is serviced by a team of trained educators. My ELA class has two teachers, one certified in special education, so that we can align curriculum and work in small groups to meet the needs of all students. Each year, when I am pulled to grade standardized tests, my students are denied the differentiated, personalized instruction that they require in order to learn. A substitute teacher is unlikely to be certified in my content-area, and is obviously unfamiliar with the students and curriculum. Students whose teachers are pulled to grade often end up engaging in inferior classwork and watching movies while their classroom teachers are off grading tests, the results of which are used to determine everything from the success of their principal to whether they will pass seventh grade.
With the current fixation upon using student test data to rate the effectiveness of teachers, it’s impossible to miss the irony of pulling teachers from classrooms to grade tests. The union and the city couldn’t agree on a new teacher evaluation plan because of the city’s demand that ratings take student test scores into account. The question begs to be asked – if teachers are so vital to a child’s education that their efficacy can be calculated according to test scores, then why can they be pulled from their classrooms for upwards of 5 days, and replaced by non-certified substitute teachers who know neither their curriculum nor their students?
As a teacher, my job is to instruct and administer to the needs of my students, not grade standardized tests. Teachers, schools, and students should not be obligated to bear the burden of excessive high stakes testing. Please share this message with your colleagues and your students and their families, and make sure they understand the true price that is being paid for the use and misuse of high stakes testing.
If you support this position, please read, sign, and share my petition to Chancellor Wolcott, demanding that teachers be left in in the classrooms with their students, where they belong:
Chancellor Walcott: Let NYC teachers serve their students, not standardized tests – http://signon.org/sign/chancellor-walcott-let
Thank you for your support of this petition, and please share!
Respectfully,
Deanna D’Onofrio, 7th grade ELA teacher, Brooklyn
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Dear Ms. Ravitch,
I am part of a grassroots organization called ReThinking Testing, Mid-Hudson Region. We are educators, parents and community members that have joined together to build a public information campaign about the negative impacts of high-stakes testing. On April 16th, 2013, The first day of the NYS testing season, we will be holding a one day opt out rally for families and students who wish to take a stand against high stakes testing in the NYS capital. We will send our message by resisting the corporate education agenda and teach our children that in the words of Gandhi, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
If your readers are interested in joining us, more information can be found on our website…
http://rethinkingtestingmidhudson.blogspot.com
and our FB page…
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rethinking-Testing-Mid-Hudson-Region/545472652129519
Sincerely,
ReThinking Testing
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Ms. Ravitch,
I am a married mother of two young girls in San Francisco. My husband and I are co-owners of a food cooperative (Other Avenues), a successful business that serves the western Sunset district of the city. My husband and I earned our Bachelor’s degrees in our early thirties. I also teach music theory and strings privately, having taught since 1989.
I graduated in 2006, earning a B.S. degree in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, with a concentration in Meteorology, from San Francisco State University (SFSU). I am proud of the rigorous mathematics and physics I studied, and am proud that SFSU is one of just a few schools in California that offers an undergraduate degree in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science. In addition to the heavy mathematics and physics, I have also studied chemistry extensively, briefly being a pre-med student.
I received high accolades (from the sixth grade teacher) for my period volunteering at a sixth grade science classroom at inner-city James Denman Middle School at San Francisco Unified School District. I am at ease in a diverse, city classroom. I have a physical science degree, and very nearly a math minor. Teaching makes me feel connected and invigorated. It’s a tiring job, but uplifting. All that is not the problem.
The problem is that my unbelievably rigorous degree, the degree that I sweated blood to work on proofs and solve physics – that degree? My degree does not qualify me to waive either a science CSET or a math CSET.
I have contacted former university, and the response was immediate, from the advisor: The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing will not budge. I am not qualified to teach math or science even just as an intern, despite my degree and despite my recommendation from volunteering at a math and science classroom at a city middle school. Furthermore, I would have to take two CSETs to teach math and science.
“No Child Left Behind” is leaving behind teachers. Let me say it again: I cannot enter a program for teaching in California, because the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing says I do not know mathematics or science, including Earth science!
This is ironic, because – as any teacher knows – scoring well on a test bears little relevance to teaching well. There are probably very, very few teachers who retain in memory the breadth of knowledge required to teach each particular lesson in fields like mathematics and science. One needs to review the next day’s lesson in order to have a fresh and complete depth of knowledge of the particular topic.
In a less chaotic period of my life, before my second child was born, I thought I would jump through the series of hoops lying before me and so many other would-be teachers. (Many of these other people are even more qualified than me to teach, being teachers from other states!) I took the CBEST several years before, but decided I could try for the CSET.
If I did not work full-time, if I did not live paycheck-to-paycheck, if I did not have a family, if I were not married, if I were a hermit, then maybe I would have time to study for this completely masochistic rig called the CSET. In fact, the mathematics CSET has nothing to do with teaching math, especially to inner city children! The CSET – math or science – is an expensive, winding, Kafka-esque journey of multiple exams, some with questions so obscure that I call all math and science Ph.Ds to answer these questions (and quickly).
Does not California need math and science teachers? I cannot move my family out of state. We cannot afford it.
Who benefits from this? Why have I met more teachers and interns at public and private schools who do not have math or science degrees, and have not taken the Single Subject CSET in math and/or science?
That is my story, and unfortunately there are hundreds upon hundreds of stories like that for highly qualified individuals wishing to teach in California. We need a positive solution to this broken result of “No Child Left Behind.”
I plead with you for a solution to this strange problem. I have always been a teacher. Now I just want to be a teacher of record of my own classroom. I just want to teach math and science to middle school students. Really. It’s not a glamorous job, it’s not a high-paying job, but it’s the best one for me.
I am sending copies of this letter (via email and hardcopy) to all members of the California government, and all CA State Board of Education members, as well as to state and national teachers, parents, students, education policy analysts, education activists, and members of the Federal Government.
Thank you for your time and any help or insight you may provide.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Saussy
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Diane, Asseblymembers Patricia Fahy and John McDonald from NY propose eliminating 6 million of a 35 million budget for Charter Schools in Albany. I actually can’t believe they get that much money. Three out of 10 charter schools in Albany have or are closing for poor performance.
Assemblymembers for public education and the 99%!!!!!
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We won a round in Georgia!!! House Majority Whip Ed Lindsey withdrew the Parent Trigger bill. He didn’t have the votes to get it out of committee! This was a bipartisan effort and it worked! Is this the first crack in the great divide! CELEBRATE!
http://bit.ly/ZPE1tY
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Diane,
Do you have any knowledge about what’s happening with the universal mandate (a “district initiative”) that all 8th graders in Cincinnati Public Schools will now take algebra? It’s causing fear among teachers of 8th graders, who are already dealing with failure data and test pressures.
Now added to the mix is that all teachers of 8th graders must have additional credentials in order to award high school credit, even facing the highly probable event that not many will pass.
I have heard (but it is not confirmed) that this is all based on Ohio’s new requirement for students to have four high school math credits to graduate. Since 9th graders often fail algebra, they will now have two years to pass it — take it once in 8th grade and if you pass, great. If not, you’ll get to take it again. And if you pass it, you won’t have to take math in 12th grade, like now. How is this any better?
The sad fact is that at least two CPS Montessori high schools already require 4 HS math credits, and one has had this policy for nearly 18 years. It must change, as well. Middle school Montessori teachers, who have special training in Montessori methodology and pedagogy, now must gain new credentials, or “they” will be replaced by other teachers. This is not fact, just fear, but teachers are listening because we can’t find the truth.
By the way, it is my understanding that principals have not gotten a mandate to replace the middle school math teachers, but are being “scared” into this thinking as quickly as the teachers it affects.
Your quick help at investigating this matter is appreciated! Perhaps just posting this will wake some folks up!
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I’m in Mass. and I’m a parent of kids in the public school system in a small city with over 50% low-income students and over 50% ELL students; our state scores place us in the bottom 10% of Mass. schools.
That said, algebraic concepts are taught in our district starting in elementary school. I’ve seen some algebra in my 4th grader’s homework, for example. My city has had algebra in grade 8 for at least the past 7 years. My oldest child had some trouble with it in grade 8, and since he had a C, the teacher recommended that he retake it in high school, which he did (and then got As, and also passed his state standardized math test in the advanced level in grade 10).
Meanwhile, his friends who did well in algebra in grade 8 were able to move to pre-Calculus by grade 11 and Calculus in grade 12, which helped kids get into colleges in the sciences and math, whereas my son was only able to get as far as pre-Calculus before graduating.
While I’m against standardized testing as it is used by our state, and I’m against charter schools as they are currently funded, and I wish President Obama would rethink his approach to public education, I’m not against having algebra in grade 8. If teachers need some addiitonal training to be able to teach it, their districts should give them the time to get that training before implementing the change, and so perhaps this should be where you should focus your attention — asking for time for this training before implementation.
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Greetings from DC. Just a few items that got my blood boiling.
DC Mayor Gray – Appoints former TFA’er Abigail Smith as Deputy Mayor for Education
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/gray-names-abigail-smith-deputy-mayor-for-education/2013/03/21/d24decb2-923d-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239_story.html
A little background on: (previous Bill Turque article)
“Smith was a major player in some of Rhee’s most controversial initiatives, such as the 2008 closure and consolidation of 23 schools and Capital Gains, the now-defunct program that paid cash to middle schoolers in exchange for good grades and behavior.”
Also PG County Executive Seeks Control of Schools:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/p.g.-county-executive-rushern-bakers-school-reform-bill-moves-from-maryland-house-to-senate/article/2525100
Most prophetic comments: a press release from PG County BOE:
“Mr. Baker’s proposal reduces public oversight of schools and voids the rights of our parents, students and labor unions,” the statement says. “The bill resembles that of the D.C. school takeover by former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty. However, similar to the District, the bill falls short and fails to address the core issues facing our community.”
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Indiana has been wrestling with adoption of the Common Core and is now taking a “let’s think more about this” approach. For many concerned citizens, the problematic issues are as much about the process of adopting the Common Core as the substance of the standards. My main concern is the mass testing component, which adds to the misuse and overuse of standardized testing. That’s mainly what I’m currently addressing in an eight-part series on my own blog, Advancing Learning and Democracy (http://advancinglearning.blogspot.com).
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Ms. Ravitch –
I’m a public school teacher in Boston. USA Today recently published my op-ed on lockdowns and boredom, and I thought it might interest you and your readers: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/17/school-security-newtown-gun-column/1979723/
Thanks for your research and your thoughtful comment. Even when I don’t agree with the latter, I’m grateful for both.
Sincerely,
Peter Sipe
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I heard in the news this week about a school somewhere in the US that was in lockdown for some reason (ultimately there was no reason — maybe an escaped convict in the area, or a fake threat) for 3 HOURS. All I could think of was all those children in the school hiding behind their desks for hour after hour…. I agree with the writer of the article: This is not how we want to live!
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Poor Mexico!
It’s not enough that we are hell-bent on wrecking public education here in the US of A. We want to “export” our reforms to Mexico. And guess what? It’s led the same cast of characters!
¡Ay, caramba! indeed
This piece appeared in the most recent NATION magazine by David Bacon:
US-STYLE SCHOOL REFORM GOES SOUTH
http://www.thenation.com/article/173308/us-style-school-reform-goes-south#
Olé suckers!
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It’s important to add to this thread about common core the insidious reading modules just released for 9-12 English in New York state. No publications that I know of have examined this yet alone published it, But it is eye-opening. Imagine teaching Broke Back Mountain and Song of Solomon to 10th graders. How about The Scarlet Letter and 1984 in 9th grade? Dante’s Inferno in 11th grade? How are these developmentally appropriate? Parents need to know this.
http://engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attachments/9-12-ela-text-list.docx
And here is the pep talk the commissioner gave to those teachers in grades 3-8, and my favorite reformy part:
Of course, any major change initiative comes with anxiety and challenges. Some have even called for delaying the alignment of curriculum, instruction, professional development, classroom feedback, and assessment to the higher standards required for college and career success in the 21st century. But in point of fact, our students are already accountable for the Common Core. They do not have time to wait. Every time a college freshman takes a placement exam that first month on campus, he or she is being tested against the very expectations in the Common Core. Every time a high school graduate faces a daunting task on a challenging job (from the welder applying knowledge of fractions to the electrician reading the National Electrical Code), he or she is being tested against the Common Core. And quite frankly, our students are not doing well enough on those real world tests. Only about 35 percent of our students graduate with the skills and knowledge necessary to be called college- and career-ready. That’s why the Regents moved forward so decisively in 2009. They understand that going slow means denying thousands of students the opportunity to be successful.
Here is the full link:
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Commissioner-King-on-Common-Core-Implementation.html?soid=1110847617454&aid=h1uoXxbqV34
Keep your eye on New York. We are the next Tennessee.
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I hope that you can help Texas deliver a significant blow to the standardized testing regime by posting about the vote in the Texas House and Senate on 3/26 and 3/27 on HB5 and SB3/1724. They will reduce the number of tests from a ridiculous 15 to 5 and create several paths to graduation, not the one-size-fits all approach that leaves thousands of kids disinterested and dropping out.
Texas! Where it all started and where the end will begin!
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Diane…
In NYC, teachers of profoundly and severely handicapped students are being evaluated by administrators using the Danielson Framework, designed for use in general ed classrooms with general ed teachers. The result is artificially low ratings for teachers who go into this demanding and difficult variety of teaching.
I posted an analysis of the situation on my blog. Here’s an excerpt:
“It is not a trivial issue. Evaluating teachers of severely multiply-handicapped children with a rubric that is designed to evaluate teachers in general education settings with general education students is tantamount to punishing and penalizing teachers who go into this demanding , difficult and highly *specialized* type of teaching. Our union was formed in order to protect teachers from administrative malpractice… not to facilitate it. “
Perhaps your followers would like to link to the full article. Feel free to share as you see fit:
Sincerely,
Paul Hogan
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Professor Ravitch,
I am a graduate student at UC-Santa Cruz and am currently working on a documentary film about the reconstitution at Crenshaw High School in South Los Angeles for my master’s thesis. I am a great admirer of your work, so wanted to show you a video that I just did for a class of mine at UCSC. It’s a day in the life of a high school teacher in East San Jose. I’m hoping to do a series of short videos like this to highlight the incredible work that teachers are doing across the nation, despite the criticism that the profession is getting, especially in this current era of ‘reform.’ I am trying to change the conversation that is so often portrayed in mainstream media.
Anyways, please let me know what you think, I look forward to hearing from you!
Thanks,
Lena Jackson
Link: https://vimeo.com/62045275
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I hope you don’t mind I lifted your words for a letter to NYDOE
To Education Commissioner John King and the Board of Regents:
As a special education related service provider, I call upon you to rethink the obsession with standardized testing, devote time and resources to allow educators to develop a relevant/developmental curriculum and evaluation right, and invest in student learning, not testing.
Here’s what you need to know about what my students are experiencing. Kindergarten students picking their cuts, demonstrating tics, asking how they’re doing in the middle, telling me they didn’t finish, walking out with shoulders down; defeated.
I was their hero on the way in to be tested, now upon leaving, I’m that evil person. The sight of me conjures up memories of anxiety and worthlessness for these kids. We are stealing the souls of these kids. It is abusive and goes against anything I’ve ever learned about child development; let alone special education strategies.
I am doing harm.
Why don’t we just tell special education students their idiots; basically that’s what you’re doing by putting this jibberish in front of them. I can’t imagine someone making ME to take a HS advanced math test, time and time again. I’d become ill.
Imagine someone putting a Russian language test in front of you.
I offer the following solutions to ensure student assessment and teacher evaluation are done right.
We support schools that offer a full and rich curriculum for all children, including the arts, physical education, history, civics, foreign languages, literature, mathematics, and the sciences.
We support schools that are subject to democratic control by members of their community.
We support schools that have the resources that their students need, such as guidance counselors, social workers, librarians, and psychologists.
We support the equitable funding of schools, with extra resources for those students with the greatest needs.
We support schools that have reasonable class sizes, so that teachers have the time to help the children in their care.
I support early childhood education, because we know that the achievement gap begins before the first day of school.
I support high standards of professionalism for teachers, principals, and superintendents.
I support the principle that every classroom should be led by a teacher who is well educated, well prepared for the challenges of teaching, and certified.
I support wraparound services for children, such as health clinics and after-school programs.
I support assessments that are used to support children and teachers, not to punish or stigmatize them or to hand out monetary rewards.
I support assessments that measure what was taught, through projects and activities in which students can demonstrate what they have learned.
I support the evaluation of teachers by professionals, not by unreliable test scores.
I support helping schools that are struggling, not closing them.
I support parent involvement in decisions about their children.
I support the idea that students’ confidential information must remain confidential and not be handed over to entrepreneurs and marketing agents.
I support teacher professionalism in decisions about curriculum, teaching methods, and selection of teaching materials.
I support public education because it is a pillar of our democratic society.
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Dianne,
Do you have any opinion on The Chalkboard Project in Oregon?
http://chalkboardproject.org
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Diane,
Sorry for misspelling your name! I have a dear friend who spells her name “Dianne.”
Curious as to your take on the Chalkboard Project.
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Diane, which states are getting it right at this time? Instead of looking internationally, is there one of the 50 we can use as a model for success? Or is the entire nation dealing with public education identity crisis?
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Great piece in the online Esquire on the Atlanta Admin/Teachers Cheating Scandal
Loving RICO!
Cheat or lose your job. This is the face of education “reform.” To hell with Superman, I’m just waiting for someone who isn’t a crook.
Read more: Atlanta School Reform Scam – Yet Another Education Reform Scam – Esquire
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/atlanta-school-reform-scam-040113#ixzz2PK61n8pB
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Ms. Ravitch, Could you please check out my blog @ 70jamsession.wordpress.com ?
I am an educator of 16 years in NYS. I am also a mother of a 4 year old son who will attend Montessori for kindergarten next year due to the state of our public schools and our obsession with testing. I currently have a petition with 833 signatures calling for NYS to disconnect all ties with the Federal Race To The Top. I also recently posted first-hand experience of what teachers are being forced into for the sake of a test. I sure could use your help and exposure, activist-to-activist. Thank you. Regards, Julie Mitchell
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Diane,
In light of the Occupy D.O.E. gathering this week, you and your readers might appreciate this letter of resignation by a New York teacher:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/133658678/Gerald-Gerald-Conti’s-retirement-letterConti-Letter
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The industrial “ecosystem” that is now part of every community; tutoring and coaching to the test regime is part of the NY Times story below.
For me and my family, it’s not practical learning to focus on the test. Testing is not classroom engagement. No. It’s all about performance on a piece of paper called a test. A test that represents a single MOMENT in time.
It’s not a character test. It’s not a personality test. It’s not even a “whole” person test. It measures what you do in a fixed amount of time at that moment in time. And it’s being used to determine who you are for the rest of your life… and that’s not REALITY. That’s not education. That’s not how we live life and engage with others in a lifetime of learning. But, at this point in time, we have come to belief that the test is the person. Perception is reality. And that is the tragedy of the test-obsessed life we lead today. It becomes a religion, a cult and worse, an industry that serves one purpose; pay to play.
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Nice piece in the Voice:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2013-04-03/news/system-failure-the-collapse-of-public-education/
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A letter I emailed & snail-mailed to Melinda Gates, from a mom to a mom:
April 2, 2013
From one mom to another, I’m asking you to please read my letter. I am sure you receive countless pleas for money, but this one is different. I do not want any money, just a moment of your time to consider my perspective as a Mom…
I married my high-school sweetheart after graduating from college, and I am now a full-time mom to our two wonderful daughters. My husband and I made the decision for our family to live frugally so that I can stay at home to raise our children and be more involved in their lives. I enjoy volunteering at their school and at our church. Our life is richly blessed.
When the school situation in our suburban area started to go sour due to a merge with the Memphis City Schools, and my children’s neighborhood school was threatened, I became an advocate for all the children in our community. I wrote our State Legislators and School Board Members. I attended public meetings. I traveled to the Capitol and spoke with Legislators. I used my voice to speak up on behalf of all students in our community. Even though we are losing crucial staff to budget cuts, class sizes will be larger, and extra-curricular programs will be cut, I thought we were winning for all children until I read some alarming news articles.
These articles opened my eyes to see the big picture… our children have become commodities. This new “reformed” educational system is experimenting with their education, and it is not succeeding. It is harming our children. They are being tested to death. Even my own daughter started having chronic stomach aches in 2nd grade. After invasive testing by doctors, she was diagnosed with anxiety. Yes, my 8 year old child had anxiety over taking the TCAP standardized test in 2nd grade! She is not the only one. And now I hear that this year, kindergarten and 1st graders will be taking standardized tests, as well. This breaks my heart!
How did this happen? Simple: The teachers are forced to focus on testing because their job depends on it. Students even learn songs about TCAP testing in music class! Our school pretty much comes to a halt in the spring to focus on THE TEST. Is worthwhile learning going on? No. Test taking skills and strategies are the main focus. They cram in as much info that might be on the test as they can. Their jobs and our school funds depend on how those babies score on the test!
After hearing complaints about the Common Core curriculum being confusing and irrelevant, I researched it myself. I’m not at all happy with what I see. If a team of experienced Educators were to write the Common Core Curriculum, I might put more faith in it. However, it is written by businessmen and lawyers who are getting richer and richer off of this hoax on our children. I was alarmed to read in the news that the Common Core curriculum in New York is using videos from the Church of Scientology for their 5th graders! If this curriculum is supposed to be across-the board, does that mean my 5th grade child in Tennessee is learning that, too? How did our State of Tennessee become so naïve to fall for this??? Well, they wanted the big $$$ that came from Race to the Top, and now they are after the generous grants from philanthropists. The wheels were further greased by elected officials whose campaigns were partially funded by “reform” groups such as Stand for Children & Teach for America. It was easy to pull the wool over the eyes of parents & teachers when everyone’s eyes were so glued on the big $$$.
Furthermore, they are hiring inexperienced non-certified people to teach in the poorest schools. The Teach for America program has a pitiful track-record, and the students who are in those classrooms of a novice young adult who has no degree in Education, with no Student-teaching experience, with no teaching certification, with untrained classroom management skills, with only 16 hours of training by Teach for America… it is wrong! The whole program is not logical. Teach for America should be targeting the Education majors who really have a heart for teaching, and they should be supporting these teachers instead of letting them learn on a huge class of poverty-level students. Honestly, veteran teachers who know how to effectively teach should be in those classrooms working with disadvantaged students! It is not fair to those poor students to be guinea pigs on these brand new “teachers” who are there mainly to beef up their resume and pay off their college loans. Would you put an untrained person in the shoes of a doctor and expect the patient to benefit? Of course, you would not. Children are real human beings, and they deserve the best that America can provide.
We all know that parents are the biggest influence to a child, and second-most is teachers. None of the teachers I know went into the teaching profession to get rich. They are there to make a difference in children’s lives. It saddens me that teachers are being blamed for the current state of education in our country. Do you know how much a teacher receives in our school system for classroom supplies? Roughly $200 per year is all. About $100 of that $200 goes to the copier maintenance fund. The remaining $100 goes to buy copy paper, classroom supplies, educational materials, pencil sharpeners, class rewards, educational posters, etc. Every teacher I know spends out of their own pocket for their class. Some even purchase supplies, clothes, and food for the poor students in their classroom. They go above and beyond by spending their free time searching on Pinterest and other teacher websites to learn new methods and strategies to teach their students. They truly have hearts of gold! How much longer will they keep teaching if they are not appreciated? It is insulting to hire expensive Teach for America staff. It adds salt to their wounded profession to make them compete with their fellow teachers for merit pay.
The worst part is that our children’s personal information is being gathered. Why? There are a lot of speculations on the internet… to sell to companies, for marketing purposes, for political gain, to use to recruit future employees, etc. I honestly don’t know what to believe, but I do know that I don’t want my children’s personal information used in any manner. No parent would! Would you want your children’s testing scores, health information, income status, religion, family history, political affiliation, etc. in another person’s control? The States are supporting this Data Mining because of the strings attached to the grants & donations from your Foundation, the Walton Foundation, The Broad Foundation, & the Federal Government.
Daily in the news here in Tennessee, I see names of organizations & businesses that have direct ties to your Philanthropic Foundation…
• The Proact Search Group, which you help support, was hired to find our next Superintendent, even though we already had a wonderful, effective one under contract. We’ll most likely end up with a businessman Superintendent who has attended their Superintendent Academy and who supports the radical education “reform” I just wrote about above.
• The Parthenon Group is making big bucks ($4.2 million from our county district this year) to devise a merit-based pay system to penalize our teachers, while at the same cutting teacher pay, and health & retirement benefits. Teachers will be competing for the best students, and further cramming testing into our children’s brains. No one on the Parthenon “education” team is a classroom educator. They’re all business strategists, investors, lawyers, and former members of your Gates Foundation.
• Stand for Children, funded by the Gates & Walton Foundations, is lobbying legislators for our Shelby County School system to have the largest school merger in history, creating a mega-district of 160,000 students, one of the largest in the country. Yet, Stand for Children supports Charter schools, which aren’t held accountable to the same rules as public schools are, and only serve a small, but privileged, portion of the student population.
• Teach for America, funded by Gates & Broad Foundations, is also a portion of our school budget to find teachers, when we have great Universities nearby with A+ Education Majors who can’t find jobs after they graduate.
• Kevin Huffman is our Commissioner of Education in Tennessee, and his ties to the Teach for America program and Stand for Children (and his ex-wife, Michelle Rhee) are quite loyal.
• Those in power are using the Delphi Technique to “survey” parents & teachers, but we never see the actual results, only the ones they want us to see. It is very unethical, and it is splitting our community into polarized camps. Furthermore, the local media inaccurately depicts truth & facts, so that we are even further divided and unaware of the “big picture” going on with the major changes to our children’s education.
It is maddening as a parent to realize that our children have become pawns in this huge business deal! These business people are scratching each other’s backs and filling their wallets, while our community and parents are being manipulated to go along with it!
What am I asking of you? I want you to please take back all your money you’ve sent to Tennessee. Yes, you heard me correctly: stop giving us money. Let us worry about educating our own children. Talk to your husband and other philanthropists and convince him that it is not right that America’s children have become a business endeavor. Our children are not commodities. These organizations have no business with our children’s personal information, with putting unqualified instructors in their classrooms, or with mandating our children’s curriculum. Listen to parents, teachers, and principals instead of businessmen and lawyers. Our children cannot afford these expensive educational experiments that gamble with their futures. America’s children need:
proven educational strategies
quality curriculum
qualified teachers who are supported and respected in their calling
smaller class sizes
support staff in the buildings working to support students & teachers
Please hear me when I say that: Parents and teachers truly have the best interests of these children at heart, so listen to them if you want to make a difference in children’s futures.
You make such a difference in this world with the financial power that you have. Please, use your power as a Mom to do the right thing for all children.
Thank you, from one Momma Bear to another,
~Jennifer Proseus
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Link to my letter to Melinda Gates, from one Mom to another:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6xxsHmiZBQ5UllFV1ZVc2lmM2s/edit?pli=1
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Diane,
I have been following your work closely since reading your most recent book a few years ago. My local paper, the Akron Beacon Journal, today ran an article analyzing the impact of the new state report card system on public schools, particularly the charter schools. The link is below to the article. The part that jumped out at me was the comments from the vice president of research and accountability for the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools. She claims that the high failure rate of these schools is caused by the special needs of the students (autism, drop-out recovery programs, etc.). She also used the excuse that most of the failing charters are in urban areas, and that geopgraphic location affects those charters. Mobility and the environmentla factor are aso cited as possible causes of low scores in the charters. Clearly she did not get the memo about “no excuses” and “every child can learn” that we hear so much about. Please share this article if you can. Keep up the good work.
http://www.ohio.com/news/local/academic-ratings-for-ohio-charter-schools-likely-to-tank-in-new-scoring-system-1.386455
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Unbelievable but true… it’s not enough to take-over education… grading of essays will be handed over to AI-based systems to give professors more time to look for another job.
In my dream world, every student has a teacher/mentor not a computer. I love technology but I love human interaction, conversation and emotion more.
From the New York Times on automated essay grading systems…
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http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/funtheyhad.html
Very relevant these days…
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Ron — I love technology too, but after having read Alone Together by Sherry Turkle , I fear what type of heartless, uncaring society we are creating. We already see the effect technology has on student attention span and listening skills. Let’s strive to keep empathy for one another alive.
Marge
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I taught freshman writing classes at 3 major universities in Boston for 10 years, and I now edit college textbooks and scholarly books for academic presses. Even now in books written by tenure-track professors at good universities, I find patches of very poor writing.
This approach to human writing will NOT result in better writers, that’s for sure!
Most frightening is this rationale for having an AI system grade papers:
“There is a huge value in learning with instant feedback,” Dr. Agarwal said. “Students are telling us they learn much better with instant feedback.”
… Once again, the desire for instant gratification strikes!! Why can’t students wait a week for feedback on the draft of an essay? Or if they can’t wait, they could in the meantime go to a Writing Center on campus and meet with a tutor who could read through their argument AND look at their grammar, sentence structure, sentence variety, etc. — all the elements that make a paper a good paper and make writing good writing.
I’d love to see an example of a paper graded by AI. Do they very nicely say “Your argument is rather weak here because ….” ? Do they notice lack of transitions between ideas? or plodding writing styles?
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Bill Gates & Sam Walton just wrote themselves write into our children’s history lessons!
Part of the Common Core Curriculum for 5th graders in TN:
“5.87 Identify and explain the significant achievements of entrepreneurs and innovators including but not limited to:
Ray Kroc
Lee Iacocca
Sam Walton
Bill Gates
Jeff Bezos
Michael Dell
Steve Jobs
Mark Zuckerberg”
Click to access Fifth_grade_D1.pdf
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Notice, also, that these are all white men… no diversity and no women on the list.
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For some, my answer would be: they’ve destroyed public education as we know it.
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How can we solve the dropout problem if we can’t even define it? My column from today’s Athens Banner-Herald in which I “found” more than 5000 Georgia dropouts who did not drop out at all! http://bit.ly/Y69eHY
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I don’t know, Diane, but I may be on to something here…
http://centralcalifornian.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/how-educational-reform-actually-works/
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