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Michigan Reader Explains Why You Should “Follow the Money”

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2015 //
18

This reader reacted to the post about Steve Mathews, the superintendent in Novi, Michigan who is now on our honor roll for speaking up against punitive corporate reform. This reader explains with great clarity what the game is all about:

 

 

I taught in the same district as Steve Matthews when he was a Curriculum Director some years ago so I am familiar with who he is. He was well liked during his time there.
Something that is missing from Steve’s well spoken article and most of the subsequent comments is the fact that not only is the de-funding of public education deliberate and premeditated but it has a purpose in addition to demoralizing school employees. Two major factors are at play.
One is by keeping school districts cash strapped, it puts less money into the paychecks of teachers. Therefore less money will be going to Democratic candidates running for elected office. Starving the Democrats of donations by teacher union members, who are often the largest union in any particular state, makes it easier to outspend the Democrats by rich Republican donors. No less than Karl Rove, has stated that is a major goal of his political machine.
Another key ingredient of this premeditation for breaking down public schools is public schools are one of the last great untapped sources for the greatest stack of dollars in the country, taxpayer money. By making the school systems appear incompetent, even if it means actually ruining the education of millions of students, Republicans can create large inroads for privatization of school operations. That means Republican’s Corporate Masters will be getting those easy taxpayer monies with long-term contracts for “services.” Republicans/Corporate America have made big strides in taking over school transportation, food and custodial services to date, in addition to creating charter schools with shockingly little accountability for how taxpayer money is used and for actual student achievement. Legislative bills are being introduced in many states that will allow districts to hire non-certified teachers for the classrooms. Those “teachers” will be woefully underpaid and have little skills to deliver any kind of quality education.
The saying of “follow the money” is a real cue to see what those who seek to demonize public education are up to.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Michigan

Bianca Tianis: Whose Side Is the New York State School Boards Association On?

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
12

Parent and educator Bianca Tanis was stunned to discover that the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA) was misinforming parents about their right to opt out of state testing. Tanis is an active member of NYSAPE (New York Allies for Public Education, which represents 50 parent and teacher organizations.) She wrote a response to set the record straight.

As the opt out movement grows, questions about a parent’s right to refuse and potential loss of school funding persist despite the fact that test refusal has been in full swing for two years now with NO negative consequences for any school districts or students. According to the New York State School Board Association (NYSSBA) 2015 advisory , Managing State Assessment Opt Outs, schools risk a loss of funding and unspecified penalties should less than 95% of students participate in the NYS State ELA and Math tests in grades 3-8. This is a patent falsehood, and a significant one, as this organization advises our local school boards and administrators.

According to the New York State Education Department (NYSED), under the ESEA waiver there is NO direct negative financial impact on a school district that does not meet the 95% participation rate if it is in good standing. In the worst-case scenario, a school in good standing that fails to meet the 95% rate for three consecutive years may be labeled a Local Assistance Plan (LAP) School. While the school will then be required to craft a plan detailing how it will seek to increase test participation, there is absolutely no impact on state aid or Title I monies, and the school district would continue to remain in good standing. These facts have been confirmed by Joseph Shibu of the NYSED Office of Accountability, and were recently reconfirmed in a March 24th, 2015 interview with Senior Deputy Education Commissioner Ken Wagner. You can read that interview here.

An April 2nd, 2015 interview credits NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer with saying, “If even a small percentage of children, 5%, boycott the English and math exams, then schools could risk federal sanctions or funding penalties.” The NYSBBA opt out advisory also warns that schools must be careful in how they handle opt outs: “Some district responses could have negative legal and financial consequences for both the district and school district officials.” Yet nowhere in the regulations or laws concerning education in NYS is there anything to indicate that schools stand to lose funding or Title I monies due to test refusal.

It should be noted that a 2014 survey conducted by the New York State Council Of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS) revealed that 35% of superintendents self-reported that their schools did not meet the 95% participation rate, and that none of these districts have been found to have lost any funding. Despite the lack of evidence for loss of funding, NYSSBA stands by its baseless claims. By putting forth false information and utilizing scare tactics, NYSSBA has essentially robbed many local BOEs of the opportunity to advocate for parents who wish to refuse. This is especially true in districts that are significantly under-resourced where loss of funding would be especially devastating.

The fact is, at every turn, this organization discourages school districts from recognizing parents’ rights to protect their children from a controversial test that no one, save the child, may view. According to NYSSBA the “State Education Department has stated that there is no provision in statute or regulation allowing parents to opt their children out of State tests.” The March 24th interview with Senior Deputy Education Commissioner Ken Wagner reports that “Wagner did not deny that there is nothing in place forbidding parents to refuse.” And it is worth noting that the Empire State School Administrators Association (ESSAA) reported to school administrators on 3/25/15 that the NYS Commissioner of Education’s Office has advised that “while the ordinary procedure is to present the test to a student and have him/her refuse, if a parent asks you to not present the test at all, NYSED has recommended that you comply with the parent’s wishes.”

These actions do not align well with NYSSBA’s self-proclaimed core beliefs in “open communication” and “Public education as grassroots democracy.” Their goal to “Serve as the primary information source on public education” is clearly undermined by what appears to be either a willful dissemination of false information or a failure to do their due diligence.

In response to NYSUT president Karen Magee’s very recent call for parents to refuse the NYS Common Core Test in grades 3-8, NYSSBA president Tim Kremer credits the union with a “brilliant strategy.” With this statement, Kremer once again undermines the role that parents have played in directing their children’s education and falsely characterizes test refusal as a union initiative. It is doubtful that Kremer is unaware that prior to President’s Magee’s 3 day old call for opt out, the parent driven test refusal movement has been in full swing for almost two years with more than 60,000 refusals last year.

In response to the passing of Governor Cuomo’s budget, the NYS PTA issued a statement in which they said, “Today is a sad day for the students and teachers of New York. The Governor, claiming to be the best advocate for children, has tied inadequate school funding to questionable education reform based on volatile state tests…” The School Administrators Association of New York (SAANYS) issued the following statement, “SAANYS and its members are extremely disappointed with many of the education components negotiated in this budget, specifically in regard to principal and teacher evaluations (APPR)” and according to the latest Quinnipiac polls, 71% of the public opposes the use of test scores to evaluate teachers. Parents, administrators and educators unilaterally denounced the bill as harmful for public education. Yet NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer had this to say in about the state budget, “All in all, school boards have been given additional resources and tools they need to invest in educational programs and improve teaching quality” and in an interview on the Capital Pressroom Kremer maintained that “overall, school boards are pleased with many of the education changes.” Once again, NYSSBA is out of synch with parents, educators, administrators, and the public.

It seems clear that NYSSBA has made a choice through their advice to school boards to put as many road blocks as possible in the way of parents seeking to refuse tests that erode local control, siphon school resources and adversely affect teaching and learning, thereby downplaying the concerns of communities across NYS. As the information available has evolved, NYSSBA’s direction to those they advise has not. Without speculating about why this organization seeks to diminish the role of parents in the direction of their children’s education, the effect of their disdain and disregard for opt out has in many ways diminished local control by attempting to silence the concerned voices of parents, and in many cases, school board members. If a school administrator or a Board of Education presents false information to a parent or community, can they be faulted if they are acting on false information from the body tasked with advising them?

While parties may agree to disagree on the merits of the Common Core and the Common Core based ELA and Math tests and their impact on children and schools, shouldn’t those in positions of school leadership be tasked with providing their communities with the most factual information available? NYSSBA claims that “School board members are the educational leaders of their communities.” Is it not then incumbent upon these leaders to educate parents and allow them to make informed, reasoned decisions for their children? It is ever OK for those in positions of power to mislead the public, no matter how well intentioned their reason? Until NYSSBA is willing to advise Boards of Education on how to effectively advocate for the rights of parents within the parameters of the law and until NYSSBA provides fully factual information to our local boards of education, parents and community members will urge their elected board members to spend tax-payer dollars elsewhere.

Open the article to find all the links.

There are rumors that some local school boards may drop out of NYSSBA to protest its actions in defending Cuomo’s anti-teacher actions. NYSSBA needs to take another look at its policies and the information it distributes to school boards.

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Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents

11 Atlanta Educators Convicted in Cheating Scandal

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2015 //
40

The message from Atlanta: Don’t cheat. Never. Don’t erase answers. Don’t do anything to violate professional ethics, no matter how you may be threatened or offered bribes (merit pay, bonuses) by higher-ups.

Eleven of twelve Atlanta educators were convicted of racketeering. One was acquitted. Others who were indicted made plea bargains. Superintendent Beverly Hall, who was accused of rewarding principals and teachers who got high scores and punishing those who could not raise scores, died a few weeks ago; her terminal illness prevented her from ever going to trial.

A reader asked me to contrast Atlanta with Washington, D.C., where an investigation by USA Today uncovered widespread cheating, as well as evidence of many erasures changing answers from wrong to right. The difference is that the Governor of Atlanta put together a serious investigative team and broke open the scandal. In Washington, D.C., the investigation was limited and cursory. The cheating happened, during Michelle Rhee’s tenure in office, but no one was ever held accountable.

The bottom line: don’t cheat and don’t permit students to cheat. Period.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Atlanta, District of Columbia

The New York Superintendents, Board Members, and PTA Leaders Who Signed Declaration of Support: UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2015 //
9

In a post earlier today (https://dianeravitch.net/2015/03/29/nearly-100-superintendents-sign-petition-to-save-public-education-in-ny/), I reported that “nearly 100” superintendents had signed the statement questioning Governor Cuomo’s agenda for the schools. Some readers asked for a list of names. Here is a letter with the names of 102 superintendents who signed the declaration, plus Board members and PTA presidents who signed. In some cases, entire Boards of Education wanted to sign the statement. As word gets out, expect the list to grow.

For the copy of the letter with 16 pages of signatures, select the link below.

3-27-15 pm AllianceLetter

 

This is a press release from the Alliance to Save Public Education:

 

 Superintendents and community leaders want meaningful reform

 

A group of superintendents from Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties gathered at South Side High School in Rockville Centre to discuss a legislative proposal to establish a special commission that would create a new teacher evaluation system. The educators, members of the Alliance to Save Public Education, first came together in late February to draft and sign a letter that urged legislators to separate education reform from the state budget process.

 

To date, the letter has 150 signatures, representing support from 13 percent of the school districts in New York State, which span a wide range of demographics – poor and wealthy, big and small, urban, rural and suburban, upstate and downstate. While the group agrees with the idea of a commission, they said the plan to evaluate teachers and principals must be valid and appropriate and reflect the best interests of students. “We want a commission that will create an evaluation system that promotes student growth,” Shoreham-Wading River Superintendent Steven Cohen said. “It should include educational researchers, world-renowned experts in the field, psychometrics, superintendents and teachers.” Members of the alliance said they are in favor of testing that values education and works for students, and indicated that if the state is not willing to create a commission that includes relevant stakeholders, they would create a commission that does.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Education Reform, New York, Teacher Evaluations

Michigan Superintendent: How to Kill a Profession

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2015 //
30

Steve Matthews, superintendent of the Novi school district, here explains how the education profession has been attacked and demonized, with premeditation.

 

He begins:

 

So you want to kill a profession.

 

It’s easy.

 

First you demonize the profession. To do this you will need a well-organized, broad-based public relations campaign that casts everyone associated with the profession as incompetent and doing harm. As an example, a well-orchestrated public relations campaign could get the front cover of a historically influential magazine to invoke an image that those associated with the profession are “rotten apples.”

 

Then you remove revenue control from the budget responsibilities of those at the local level. Then you tell the organization to run like a business which they clearly cannot do because they no longer have control of the revenue. As an example, you could create a system that places the control for revenue in the hands of the state legislature instead of with the local school board or local community.

 

Then you provide revenue that gives a local agency two choices: Give raises and go into deficit or don’t give raises so that you can maintain a fund balance but in the process demoralize employees. As an example, in Michigan there are school districts that have little to no fund balance who have continued to give raises to employees and you have school districts that have relatively healthy fund balances that have not given employees raises for several years.

 

Then have the state tell the local agency that it must tighten its belt to balance revenue and expenses. The underlying, unspoken assumption being that the employees will take up the slack and pay for needed supplies out of their own pockets.

 

Additionally , introduce “independent” charters so that “competition” and “market-forces” will “drive” the industry. However, many of these charters, when examined, give the illusion of a better environment but when examined show no improvement in service. The charters also offer no comprehensive benefits or significantly fewer benefits for employees. So the charters offer no better quality for “customers” and no security for employees but they ravage the local environment.

 

Then create a state-mandated evaluation system in an effort to improve quality…..

 

That is how it begins.

 

For his willingness to speak out honestly and courageously, I add Steve Matthews to the blog’s honor roll as a hero of public education.

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Honor Roll, Michigan, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

New York City: Should Mayoral Control Continue?

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2015 //
37

The issue of mayoral control of the schools in New York City is now before the State Legislature, as its authorization expires in 2016. The current form of mayoral control was established in 2002, when the Legislature responded to newly elected Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s request for complete control of the sprawling school system. Mayoral control was renewed by the Legislature in 2009. Bloomberg promised to bring efficiency to the system and managerial expertise. Now the Legislature must decide whether to renew mayoral control or to tweak it or to substitute some other form of management.

 

I have written about mayoral control on many occasions over the years. My first book, published in 1974, was a history of the New York City public schools, and a large part of the story consists of the search for a competent way to govern the schools of a huge city. The city as we now know it was created by popular vote in 1898 (many people in Brooklyn, who opposed consolidation, thought the vote was rigged). In the nineteenth century, New York City consisted only of what is now Manhattan. Brooklyn was a separate city, and the other regions were towns and villages in what are now the boroughs of Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

 

I won’t recapitulate the history of governance here; I wrote a paper on the subject a few years ago. It is not necessary to go into the twists and turns of the nineteenth century other than to point out that there was only one time in the past when the Mayor took total control of the previously independent New York City Board of Education and turned it into a department of the city government. That was during the heyday of the Tweed Ring. William Marcy Tweed (Boss Tweed), then in the legislature, steered through “reform” legislation in 1869 that gave over the entire school system of New York to his crony, who packed the board with allies and steered contracts to favorites of the Tweed Ring. The Tweed board canceled all book contracts with Harper Brothers as punishment for its publication of Thomas Nast cartoons ridiculing Boss Tweed. In 1871, the Tweed Ring was exposed, and its members eventually prosecuted. In 1873. the legislature restored the independent Board of Education.

 

For most of the history of New York City’s public schools, the members of the central board were appointed by the mayor. Mayoral control was typical, not atypical. In addition, there were local boards where citizens could participate in the governance of their community public schools and make their views known. For a time in the nineteenth century, the central board and the local boards were elected. After the debacle of the Tweed takeover, both boards were appointed, not elected, in an attempt to insulate them from politics. It is clear, however, that politics can intrude on any arrangement, whether appointed or elected.

 

When the city was consolidated as the Greater Metropolitan New York City in 1898, each borough had its own school board. However, there were frequent conflicts over money, curriculum, hiring policy, and other issues. The city leaders agreed that uniformity was needed, so in 1902, the legislature established the New York City Board of Education as a single governing body for the large school system. The new board consisted of 46 members, all appointed by the Mayor, representing all the boroughs. The city was divided into 46 local school districts, each of which had its own appointed local school board.

 

True power in the new, consolidated system rested in the hands of the professional Superintendent of Schools and his Board of Deputy Superintendents. As it happened, New York City had an outstanding educator as its first Superintendent, William Henry Maxwell. He was a superb administrator and a visionary, who saw the responsibilities of the schools as extending beyond academics to the health and well-being of children. He served for 20 years in that post, setting academic standards, opening schools for children with disabilities, creating adult education centers, and producing a host of innovative reforms that benefited the city. The city also had a Board of Examiners, which tested those who wanted to teach in the system.

 

Over the course of the twentieth century, the size of the school board was reduced from 46 to 7 and then expanded to 9, but it continued to be appointed by the mayor. The system was highly centralized until 1969.

 

From the mid-60s until 1969, black and Hispanic activists engaged in demonstrations and protests to demand desegregation. When their demands were ignored, they sought community control of the schools. The Ford Foundation subsidized an experiment in community control in three districts. In 1968, the city’s teachers went on strike for two months to protest the firing of union teachers without due process in one of those districts, Ocean Hill-Brownsville in Brooklyn. Mayor John Lindsay sided with the black community leaders. In 1969, the Legislature passed a new decentralization law, establishing a seven-member central board and local community boards (which for a time were elected). The seven-member board consisted of five members appointed by the five borough presidents and only two members appointed by the mayor. This was most certainly a rebuke to Mayor Lindsay. Even under this new form of decentralization, the mayor still exerted considerable control, both through his control over the budget and his alliances with at least two of the borough presidents.

 

Almost every mayor subsequently asked for a larger role in the running of the schools but was ignored by the Legislature. When Michael Bloomberg was elected in 2001, one of his major campaign promises was to gain control of the schools and reform them. The Legislature complied and granted him full control in mid-2002. What was once the New York City Board of Education is now the New York City Department of Education, just another city agency, akin to the Police Department, the Fire Department, the Sanitation Department. The legislation kept a central board of 13, but the majority (8) was appointed by the mayor and serve at his pleasure (Mayor Bloomberg called it the Panel on Educational Policy, to signify its powerlessness). Local school boards were replaced by powerless community education councils. Mayor Bloomberg appointed attorney Joel Klein as his first chancellor (and subsequently replaced him with publisher Cathie Black, who had a brief and stormy three-month tenure, then replaced her with Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott). The system went through several reorganizations. The Bloomberg administration relied on test scores to close low-performing schools and to open many new small schools and more than 100 charter schools.

 

What should be done now? Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Mayor Rudy Guiliani have appealed to the state legislature to retain mayoral control and to make it permanent.

 

Here is what I think, based on what I know: I agree that there should be mayoral control. But it should be modified to add checks and balances. No one chief executive should have total control of the public’s schools. No one chief executive should have the unlimited power to change the schools without referring to anyone else. No one mayor should be able to ignore the views of public school parents.

 

The mayor should continue to appoint the members of the New York City Board of Education. Those who wish to serve should be vetted by a review panel composed of representatives of civic and educational organizations (this was the practice in the early 1960s). This prevents the mayor from stacking the board with campaign donors and friends.

 

Members of the Board of Education should serve for a set term of three or four or five years, to ensure their independence. At present, they serve at the pleasure of the mayor, making the Board a rubber-stamp.

 

The Board of Education, not the mayor, should select the Chancellor. The Chancellor should report to the Board of Education and seek their approval for his/her proposals and budget.

 

Local school boards should be elected by parent associations, with the approval of the borough presidents.

 

Mayor Bloomberg was right to restore mayoral control, but it should now be improved upon by inserting checks and balances. The mayor should appoint the Board of Education, and this board should serve set terms and be responsible for the appointment and replacement of the chancellor.

 

No one should imagine that mayoral control is a panacea. It is not. Cleveland has had mayoral control for many years, and it continues to be one of the nation’s lowest-performing cities (and also a city with extreme poverty). Detroit had mayoral control for a few years, until voters eliminated it (one of the city’s mayors went to jail a few years ago). Chicago has mayoral control, and this enabled the mayor to close 50 public schools and to ignore the outcry from the affected communities; no one (except perhaps Arne Duncan) would consider Chicago to be a national model. Boston has mayoral control, and performance varies with economics, as it does everywhere. The District of Columbia has mayoral control, and it also has the largest black-white, Hispanic-white achievement gaps of any urban district tested by NAEP. The highest performing districts on NAEP (Charlotte and Austin) do not have mayoral control.

 

Mayoral control, with the checks and balances I described, makes sense organizationally. By itself, it solves no problems. It still requires the hard work of school improvement, the hard work of creating good schools and a good working environment for students, teachers, and principals. And schools in urban districts still require the resources to meet the needs of the children they enroll, regardless of who appoints the central board.

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Education Reform, New York City

Ken Mitchell: A Thoughtful Idea for Policymakers in Education

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2015 //
6

Ken Mitchell, who recently retired as a school superintendent, attempts to shed light on thorny problems in current education policy in this article.

 

No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have been dismal failures, and their main result appears to be the creation of chaos and incoherence at the local level. Both assume that standardized tests are not only the measure of education but the goal of education. Legislators are reacting by passing laws about how to evaluate teachers, a subject about which they are not expert and not well-informed.

 

Mitchell calls for the creation of an education summit, but with a twist:

 

It is time for an education summit, but not one that emanates from the governor’s office.

 

The governor has appointed commissions on mandate relief, school reform, and Common Core, naming members who often lacked expertise or objectivity. This time we need a summit involving stakeholders: teachers, principals, superintendents, parents and school boards. We need a de-politicized venue to ensure an objective analysis of the evidence behind current and proposed reforms related to assessment, teacher evaluation, Common Core and charter schools. If policymakers continue to mandate without evidence and allow profiteers to influence educational decisions, children will be harmed and public education ruined.

 

His suggestion makes sense. The Legislature should listen to the experts, rather than attempt to regulate the teaching profession. They would never dream of passing laws to evaluate the medical profession or any other profession. Why should they tell principals and superintendents how to evaluate teachers?

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Parents, Principals, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers

Long Island Superintendent Gamberg Tells Parents How to Opt Out

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2015 //
6

David Gamberg, superintendent of schools in Greenport and Southold, two neighboring towns on the North Fork of Long Island in Néw York, sent a letter home to parents, outlining the procedure they should follow if they don’t want their child to take the Common Core tests.

He assured parents that students will not be compelled to “sit and stare,” a punitive approach in some districts.

An enlightened educator, Gamberg is a strong supporter of the arts in schools. The elementary school in Southold has its own orchestra and a vegetable garden where children raise food for the cafeteria.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, New York, Opt Out, Parents, Students, Testing

Laura Chapman: Ohio State Superintendent Promotes Sham Methods for Testing Students and Evaluating Teachers

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2015 //
15

Laura H. Chapman offered the following comments about Ohio’s shell game of assessment. Among other troublesome issues, Ohio will encourage “shared attribution” for evaluating teachers; that means that teachers who do not teach tested subjects will be assigned a rating based on the scores of students they do not teach.

 

 

Chapman writes:

 

In Ohio, the State Superintendent of Public instruction, Dr Ross, has a request in to Governor and the legislators to lighten the testing load. The “Testing Report and Recommendations” ( January 15, 2015) includes some cockamamie statements about the purposes of tests, along with some revealing stats.

 

Among these highlights are there. Ohio students in grades K-12 spend about 19.8 hours a year taking tests on average. Ohio students spend approximately 15 additional hours practicing for tests each year.

 

A chart on page 5 shows that Kindergarten students are tested for 11.3 hours on average, and grade 1 students 11.6 hours on average. These are the lowest times. Add the test prep for a total of 26.3 hours and 26. 6 hours respectively for testing. That is slightly more than the time allocation for elementary school instruction in the visual arts in the era before test-driven policies determined everything about K-12 education.

 

The highest testing times are in grade 3–28 hours, and at grade 10–28.4 hours, not counting the test prep. The spike at grade 3 is from Kasich’s guarantee–“read by grade three” or repeat the whole grade. Dr. Ross wants to cut out some of the current test time for reading (about four hours) by letting grade three teachers do those super high stakes at will, more than once if necessary, with a summer grade three test being decisive for students who have not passed muster earlier. This strikes me as a shell game, not really a reduction but an increase for students who are still learning to read.

 

This report also recommends that testing time be reduced by cutting tests for SLOs. “Eliminate the use of student learning objective (SLO) tests as part of the teacher evaluation system for grades pre-K to 3 and for teachers teaching in non-core subject areas in grades 4-12. The core areas are English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies.”

 

“Teachers teaching in grades and subject areas in which student learning objectives are no longer permitted will demonstrate student growth through the expanded use of shared attribution, although at a reduced level overall. In cases where shared attribution isn’t possible, the department will provide guidance on alternative ways of measuring growth” (p.10).”

 

This obscure language about the expansion of “shared attribution” as a way to measure student learning is not clarified by the following statement (pp. 10-11).

 

”…when no Value-Added or approved vendor assessment data is available, the department gives teachers and administrators the following advice.

 

First, educators should not test solely to collect evidence for a student learning objective. The purpose of all tests, including tests administered for purposes of complying with teacher evaluation requirements, should be to measure what the educator is teaching and what students are learning.

 

Second, to the extent possible, eliminate the use of student learning objective pre-tests. When other, pre-existing data points are available, teachers and schools should use those instead of giving a pre-test.” (pp. 10-11).

 

The convoluted reasoning and ignorance about testing is amazing. “The purpose of all tests, including tests administered for purposes of complying with teacher evaluation requirements, should be to measure what the educator is teaching and what students are learning.” Student tests are not direct measures of what teachers are teaching. Many tests document what students have or have not learned beyond school. Compliance with legislative mandates means you can ignore undisputed facts and sound reasoning about testing.

 

In the proposed policy, teachers who do not receive a VAM based on scores from PARCC tests (ELA and math) and/or tests from AIR (science and social studies) or from some other VAM-friendly standardized test from an “approved vendor” are asked to get used to the idea of “sharing scores” produced by students and teachers of subjects they do not teach and state-wide scores processed through the VAM calculations. There is no evidence these tests are instructionally sensitive, meaning suitable for teacher evaluation. The state approved tests seriously misrepresent student achievement, especially those from PARCC, because those tests assume learning of the CCSS have been in place, fully implemented, with cumulative learning from prior years.

 

SLOs and the district-approved tests for these appear to be dead (or dying) in Ohio, not because they were seriously flawed concepts from the get-go, but because those tests took longer to administer on average than others. The “loud and clear” demands for less testing are most easily met by cutting the SLO tests (those usually designed by teacher collaboration) in favor scores allocated to teachers under the banner of “shared attribution.”

 

Like many other states where governors and legislators are trying to micromanage teachers, there is an unconscionable insistence that any data point is as good as another, that tests are “objective,” and that junk science marketed as VAM is not a problem.

 

Unfortunately, all of the talk about “high quality” this and that does not extend to expectations for fair, ample, and ethical portrayals of student and teacher achievement.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Ohio, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Ohio: Another Brave Superintendent Speaks Out

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2015 //
10

Ohio seems to have an amazing number of district superintendents with integrity, unafraid to speak up. Superintendent Steve Kramer of the Madeira City schools wrote an open letter to the state superintendent Richard Ross, describing the unnecessary burden of testing.

For standing up for students, I name Steve Kramer to the honor roll.

He writes:

Dr. Richard Ross, Superintendent Ohio Department of Education
25 South Front Street
Columbus, OH 43215-4183

Dear Dr. Ross:

This week the Madeira City School District joined districts across the state and nation in implementing the new PARCC and AIR state-mandated testing. After witnessing the monumental amount of time and resources our faculty, staff and administrators have spent in preparing for, and now executing these tests, I am profoundly concerned that they are neither relevant nor important to the high quality instruction Madeira City Schools has been proud to provide for over 80 years.

State and federal legislation regarding high stakes testing has been enacted with little or no regard to best educational practice. Public school districts have been given no option but to administer the tests as mandated by law. And yet, many of our parents are now seeing first hand the amount of time that these tests are taking and questioning the overall value of their results. I would tend to agree with them.

The Madeira City Schools Board of Education and I have discussed these concerns at great length. While everyone can agree that school districts should have some measure of accountability to its taxpayers, I would argue that when those measures impact an organization’s ability to accomplish its core mission, assessment in the name of accountability has gone too far. This is certainly the case in our K-12 public schools. I urge you as an educational leader in this state to advocate for reducing the amount of state mandated testing and demand a more common sense approach that balances the needs of what we know about our students with how they learn. In Madeira, we are about kids and high quality teaching and learning, not testing.

Three clear recommendations have been talked about amongst my colleagues that I would like you to consider:

1. Continue to review the state mandated test schedule and advocate for reducing the amount of testing to one content area per grade level, per school year, starting no sooner than the third grade.

2. In your review of testing, stay focused on the state mandated tests and not on limiting the amount of diagnostic or meaningful formative assessments that actually help teachers in guiding instruction. The survey you
recently sent out neglected to focus on the state mandated tests.

3. As more mandates are discussed and debated amongst the politicians in Columbus, I urge you to support your
colleagues in the field and stand up for public education and against the misguided policies of lawmakers. Insist that lawmakers and the Ohio Department of Education involve local school leaders on any educational changes PRIOR to implementing new laws. The students of Ohio demand nothing less from the state superintendent of public instruction. Students and valuable instructional time are at risk when we chase practices that are not research-based or for that matter, are contrary to what educational research would say is effective.

I have been meeting the past few months with area superintendents and board members from southwest Ohio about how we can work together to effect change and return local control back to our communities. To that end, parents and community members of Madeira will be asked to join me in sharing their views with our elected officials on state and federally mandated testing as well as other significant issues related to our loss of local control.

Sincerely,

Steve Kramer Superintendent Madeira City Schools

cc:
Senator Bill Seitz
Representative Jonathan Dever
Ohio School Board Representative Pat Bruns, District 4

Su

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Honor Roll, Ohio, Testing
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