Archives for category: Budget Cuts
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Wish I Had a Newspaper Like This in My Hometown

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2012 //
17

The Mercury of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, has an editorial describing the devastating effects of budget cuts and tax caps on Pennsylvania’s public schools.

The cuts threaten the future, says the editorial. Class sizes are growing. Thousands of teachers have been laid off. On the chopping block and already cut are music and art, sports, kindergarten, early childhood education, after-school activities.

State budget cuts, combined with the transfer of public funds to charter schools and voucher schools, are eroding public education for the vast majority of the state’s children. The great many are suffering because of privatization.

What is at risk?

“Public education is the foundation of our democracy,” said William LaCoff, Owen J. Roberts School Board member. “You need an educated populace to make good decisions about the nation’s future and education is expensive. If we have no public schools, or if they are the school of last resort, not everyone is going to get an education and then we have a permanent under-class? That’s the last thing we want.”

My comment on the editorial: as privatization expands, public education will implode. And maybe that is the goal of the privatizers. As they grow, they are plundering a basic democratic institution.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Spread the Word about October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2012 //
77

I will write about this every single day from now until October 17.

Please write your thoughts about what needs to change in federal education policy and send a letter to President Obama by that date.

You can write it now and follow instructions here.

Anthony Cody, experienced middle school science teacher and fabulous blogger, has offered to coordinate our campaign to write President Obama on October 17.

We call it the Campaign for Our Public Schools.

Our campaign is meant to include everyone who cares about public education: students, parents, teachers, principals, school board members, and concerned citizens. We want everyone to write the President and tell him what needs to change in his education policies.

Tell your friends about the Campaign. If you have a blog, write about it. Wherever you are, spread the news. Join us.

Here are the instructions:

You can send your letter to Anthony Cody or to this blog.

Or you can send it directly to the White House, with a copy to me or Anthony.

Anthony will gather all the emails sent to him and me and forward them to the White House.

1. Email your letters to anthony_cody@hotmail.com.

2. Or submit them as comments to this blog. You can respond to this post or to any other post on this blog about the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools.

All letters collected through these two channels will be compiled into a single document, which will be sent to the White House on Oct. 18.

In ADDITION to this,

3. You can mail copies of your letters through US mail to The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 20500

4. You can send them by email from this page: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

If you choose to write or email the White House, please send us a copy so we can keep track of how many letters were sent to the President.

One more thought: when you write to the President, also write to your Senators and Congressman or -woman and to your state legislator and Governor. Send the same letter to them all.

Let’s raise our voices NOW against privatization, against high-stakes testing, against teacher bashing, against profiteering.

Let’s advocate for policies that are good for students, that truly improve education, that respect the education profession, and that strengthen our democratic system of public education.

Let’s act. Start here. Start now.

Join our campaign. Speak out. Enough is enough.

Diane

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Obama, Parents, Privatization, Race to the Top, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, US Education

Hands Off Big Bird!

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2012 //
23

During the Presidential debate, Mitt Romney said he would stop funding PBS. He made it clear that there would be no more government subsidies for Big Bird, who is apparently a freeloader, one of the 47% who couldn’t survive without federal assistance.

Charles Blow wrote a terrific column about Big Bird and about the value of subsidizing high quality programs that provide news, in-depth documentaries, education, and the best of culture, whether high or middlebrow.

If the government were to withdraw support for the arts and for cultural institutions, we would lose a lot more than Big Bird. We would lose museums, libraries, concerts, and everything else that is not self-sustaining.

To remove all government support for the arts and humanities is profoundly anti-educational. It would dumb down the public and impoverish us all.

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform

Putting a Stake in the Heart of the Vampire

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2012 //
14

On Sunday evening, after I spoke to the joint meeting of the Texas School Boards Association and the Texas Association of School Administrators, and after I spoke to parents and teachers at Eastside Memorial High School, I met Abby Rappaport, who writes for The American Prospect.

Abby knows Texas politics well. She asked me many good questions, and reprinted a slightly edited version of the interview. I boiled down everything I said to TSBA and TASA in the interview. I told her what I thought about high-stakes testing, about the Chicago strike, and about choice.

The only thing with which I disagree in her post is that I was not famous for promoting the “reform movement.” The so-called reform movement of today didn’t exist until about five years ago, and by then I was on my way out the door.

I don’t know if I was famous, but I’d like to think I got to be known among educators for the histories that I wrote, like The Great School Wars (a history of the NYC schools) in 1974; The Troubled Crusade (1983); Left Back (2000); and The Language Police (2003). Those books survive, and none is about testing/accountability/choice/competition.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Unions, US Education

The Big Tradeoff: Common Core and the Budget

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2012 //
12

Mike Fair, a Republican legislator in South Carolina, worries about the cost and complexity of the new standards and tests.

When you read about the heavy spending that lies ahead, in a time when school budgets are being slashed and teachers laid off, you can see why the Common Core national standards/national tests movement is warmly endorsed by the technology industry.

This is an excerpt:

School districts will need enough computers to allow almost every student to take multiple annual exams. These computers must be suitable for the “innovative” test items and must be maintained and upgraded. Add to this the cost of increased IT staffing, and you begin to realize the problems of buying a Porsche test on a Ford budget.

A recent study projects that states will collectively spend $2.8 billion and $6.9 billion over seven years on technology alone for Common Core. And the authors cautioned that they were accepting the consortiums’ cost estimates at face value; analyst Ze’ev Wurman has predicted that South Carolina’s annual testing costs may skyrocket to $100 per student, compared with $12 per student today.

School districts that can’t afford substantial new technology will have to rotate students through the computer labs; Smarter Balanced recommends a 12-week testing window. But that creates significant security problems — how to keep the earlier-tested students from talking to the later-tested ones? — as well as inequity in results. The students tested late in the window will have almost three more months of instruction than those first out of the gate. Might this give an unfair advantage? And might teachers, whose evaluations depend on these test scores, resent having their students put at the front of the testing window?

These problems will have to be worked out, assuming the whole concept of nationalized standards, tests and curricula doesn’t collapse under its own weight. When that collapse or implosion happens, I hope it is before too much damage is done to our budgets, our schools and our children.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Technology, Computers, Testing

A Recipe for Failure?

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2012 //
13

In response to a post about standards for pre-schoolers, this reader wrote:

As far as I am concerned, with all the variety of disabilities under special education, English language learners, 504, medical plans, modifications and accommodations, full inclusion, differentiation, and now the new term: responsive teaching and any other new fad coming our way…this is an impossible feat and the Common Core State Standards will just widen the achievement gap even more.

But, maybe that is the purpose and then they can close down even more schools and further segregate the children into other categories and sub-categories….I guess the levels within the American caste system are yet to be determined.

We have larger class sizes, less supports, more children with a wider range of abilities in the same classrooms with limited supplies…..even the superman or woman we are all waiting for would fly away ASAP. They do not understand what we deal with everyday, so they have no idea what they are asking us to do. This is a recipe for failure.

Categories Budget Cuts, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform

How to Destroy Public Education: Lessons from Pennsylvania

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2012 //
17

In a brilliant column, Bill White of the Lehigh Valley News compares Governor Tom Corbett’s education policies to carpet-bombing of Vietnam. The goal nearly half a century ago was to “bomb Vietnam back into the stone age.” White says that Corbett is doing the same with public education with his program of budget cuts, charter schools, and voucher proposals, which have thus far produced layoffs, program cuts, falling test scores, and soaring class sizes.

It seems that the Governor’s goal is to drive parents out of public education and into charters or to demand vouchers to escape the mess the Governor is creating.

Charter advocates always say that charters are truly accountable because if they fail, they are closed. That is not the case in Pennsylvania. Once charters are opened, it is expensive and difficult to close them:

The state law is a nightmare. To revoke the charter of a troubled school, the home district must potentially engage in a lengthy legal battle in which local taxpayers must pay for lawyers on both sides. Once a charter school is approved and operational, the law allows it to continue receiving tax dollars even if it loses its school building, lays off its teaching staff or is in the midst of revocation hearings.

I’m not blaming Corbett for the shortcomings of this law, which passed in 1997. I do fault him for policies and priorities that are dragging down public schools, ultimately stacking the deck for more parents to pursue charter schools and other forms of non-public education, which, if his proposals for education “reform” are enacted, will divert even more money from public schools.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Pennsylvania, Privatization

Don’t Mess with Texas. The Revolution Begins Here.

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2012 //
12

Texas brought No Child Left Behind to the nation.

Remember that candidate George W. Bush said that Texas had figured out how to fix the schools. He said test every child every year, post the results, reward the schools where scores go up, humiliate those where scores go down. And, wow, a miracle: the scores go up, up, up; the achievement gap closes; graduation rates go up. Win-win-win-win.

Except it didn’t happen. And now the whole country is stuck with a testing regime that is sucking the life out of education.

This report from Texas describes a growing revolution against testing. The schools are up in arms: 77% of the school boards enrolling 86% of all Texas students have passed a resolution opposing high-stakes testing. The Houston superintendent said that 65 days (out of 180) are consumed by testing.

Now a group known as “Moms Against Drunk Testing” has joined the fray. They are mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore. Last year, the state cut the school budget by $5.4 billion, while handing a fat contract to Pearson for $468 million. Meanwhile the state wants more and more and more testing.

(A few hours after this post appeared, I received the following message: So glad we have support around the country! Our real name is TAMSA (Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment) and we have a facebook page and a website. Please “like us” and “join in” on our website! The more members and “likers” we have, the stronger we will be in the upcoming legislative session.

website: http://tamsatx.org/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tamsatx)

Go, Texas, go! If the testing vampire is slain, the whole facade of faux reform collapses. No test scores, no merit pay, no evaluation by test scores, no closing schools by scores.

Don’t mess with Texas!

I am speaking on Sunday morning to a joint convention of the Texas School Boards Association and the Texas Association of School Administrators at the Austin Convention Center.

On Sunday from 2-4, I am meeting with parents and teachers to talk about the kind of stuff we discuss on this blog. Eastside Memorial High School. Y’all come!

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing, Texas

About Those Pennsylvania Test Scores

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2012 //
1

Scores dropped in Pennsylvania.

Many respected and some not-so-respected schools failed to make AYP.

School officials attributed the drop to budget cuts and anti-cheating measures.

The state Commissioner of Education said that deep budget cuts, loss of programs and personnel, had nothing to do with it.

Categories Budget Cuts, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Pennsylvania

Scores Down, Beatings Will Continue

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2012 //
0

The following comes from the regular posting by the Keystone State Education Coalition, a pro-public education group that is fighting for public education in Pennsylvania and against budget cuts and privatization.

You can find them here: http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org

COMMENTARY ON RELEASE OF 2012 PSSAs
Ten years ago when NCLB was passed we talked about unrealistic targets of 100% proficiency that would one day cause all public schools to be labeled “failing”. We are reaching that point. Lower Merion High School, one of the top high schools in the state, in one of the wealthiest school districts in the state, did not make AYP this year.

No matter that the AYP targets have increased.
No matter that funding has decreased by a billion dollars.
For public school teachers, the beatings will continue.

But this year Pennsylvania’s “failing public schools” narrative has been updated: the lazy, greedy, pension-bloodsucking, incompetent union hacks who don’t care about kids are now also cheaters.

More justification for more charter schools and EITC “scholarships” to private and religious schools that are never subjected to public scrutiny and don’t have to give these damn tests to their students. More justification for increasing the taxpayer funded bailout of our parochial schools while accepting their performance as a matter of faith. More justification for doing nothing to address conditions in our high poverty schools that are required to accept ALL students.

It would be useful for the Governor, the Secretary of Education or perhaps some of the over 100 members of the statewide press corps who receive these KEYSEC emails to go and actually spend a full day (or two) shadowing a teacher in one of our high poverty public schools. Not just a whistle-stop photo op, but a hands-on, roll up your sleeves opportunity to see first hand the challenges that our teachers face every day.

Last year we posted that of 12 PA cyber charters only 2 made AYP, while 8 were in corrective action status. This year only one cyber made AYP. Coincidentally, that school, the 21st Century Cyber Charter, was created and is governed by professional educators – the Chief School Administrators from the four suburban Philadelphia counties’ intermediate units and public school districts. (what a concept!) and has made AYP for 6 out of the past 7 years.

Agora Cyber, run by K12, Inc. continued their streak of never making AYP and is now in their 3rd year of Corrective Action 2 status. A federal lawsuit filed against K12, Inc. in Virginia alleges that:
· The company did not tell investors how much their business depends on “churn,” signing up new students when others drop out. The company also did not reveal that more than half of students at some K12 school did not return the following year.
· The company listed students as inactive rather than sending them back to their home district. That allowed K12 virtual schools to continue collecting that student’s funding.
· Some teachers reported having as many as 400 students.
In 2011 Ron Packard, K12 Inc.’s CEO received $5 million in compensation. Charles Zogby, PA’s Budget Secretary and Former Secretary of Education under Governor Ridge, served as K12’s Senior Vice President of Education and Policy prior to being recruited to serve in the Corbett Administration.

Chester Community Charter, the state’s largest brick and mortar charter did not make AYP this year after being investigated for cheating in prior years. The owner of the management company under contract to run the school is still fighting pending right-to-know requests in court. The charter school reform legislation passed by the State House last June included specific language that would exempt him from the state’s right to know laws. The Philadelphia Education Notebook reports that “Chester Community’s proficiency rates plummeted about 30 points in both reading and math, and the declines were fairly uniform across all grade levels and demographic subgroups. The school, with more than 2,500 students on two campuses, …. is operated for-profit by Gov. Corbett’s single largest campaign contributor, Vahan Gureghian. Its CEO sent a letter to parents blaming the sharp drops on severe state funding cutbacks that caused “sharp declines in services.”

PA Cyber, the state’s largest cyber charter, did not make AYP this year. It’s founder and group of related companies are under investigation by the FBI and IRS.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), On-Line Education, Pennsylvania
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