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Anthony Cody Disagrees with Randi and Linda

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2014 //
105

Anthony Cody does not agree with Randi Weingarten and Linda Darling-Hammond. They recently published an article saying that California would be a model for the success of Common Core, because the new tests would be used to help schools, not to close them or to evaluate educators.

Cody posts a video from the Common Core website. Here is the script:

“Like it or not, life is full of measuring sticks: How smart we are, how fast we are, how we can, you know, compete. But up until now, it’s been pretty hard to tell how well kids are competing in school, and how well they’re going to do when they get out of school. We like to think that our education system does that. But when it comes to learning what they really need to be successful after graduation, is a girl in your neighborhood being taught as much as her friend over in the next one? Is a graduating senior in, say, St. Louis, as prepared to get a job as a graduate in Shanghai? Well, it turns out the answer to both of these questions is “no.” Because for years, states have been setting different standards for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level. That’s making it too hard to know if our kids are really doing well enough overall and if they can really compete for a job some day.”

The video concludes:

“The world’s getting more and more competitive every day. But now when our kids get to the top of their staircase, they can have way more options of where their life goes from there. Clear goals, confident, well-prepared students, that’s the Common Core state standard.”

Cody writes:

“So let’s unpack the assumptions built into Common Core. First, “like it or not” we are told our world is determined to measure everything. Bizarrely, we even have a picture of someone who looks like Albert Einstein measuring the circumference of his skull, as if this has any value. And these measurements are the basis for competition – and our students are in a race against one another, and against that kid in Shanghai, who may be better prepared for a job than our kids.

“The way to make our students “confident” and “well-prepared” for this race is to set up their learning as a series of steps they must climb, and every student at a given grade must mount these steps in order, and at the same age.

“This is a powerful framework for learning, and I think it is destructive.”

He adds:

“The promise of the Common Core is that we create confident students and help the under-privileged by measuring them on a set of difficult tests, which will show that those who have always been behind are further behind than ever. I just don’t see how this builds confidence. I think that in spite of the best efforts of teachers and leaders in our state, many of our students will do very poorly on these tests. And high-poverty schools will do worse than ever. We will then be obliged to use these scores as an accurate diagnosis of our problems, and in effect this will justify and reinforce inequities, rather than challenge them.”

Cody makes a powerful argument against the assumption that standards and testing will create equity or excellence. It is more NCLB, more Race to the Top, more of the same-old same-old.

Categories Accountability, California, Common Core, Standardized Testing

Heilig: NCLB Failed, What Next?

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2014 //
14

Julian Vasquez Helig says NCLB failed.. It’s time for a new paradigm. He calls it “community-based accountability.”

Categories Accountability, California, NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

The Crucial Race for State Superintendent in California

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2014 //
25

The race for State Superintendent of Education in California pits veteran educator Tom Torlakson–who has held the job since 2010–against Marshall Tuck, who is closely associated with the privatization movement. A third candidate, Lydia Gutierrez, is notable in the race for her opposition to Common Core. With the unions supporting Torlakson and the business sector behind Tuck, Gutierrez is considered a long shot.

The election will be held on June 3.

Gary Cohn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, profiled the two men.

Cohn writes about Marshall Tuck:

“The 40-year-old Tuck is a Harvard Business School graduate who has worked as an investment banker for Salomon Brothers and as an executive at Model N, a revenue-management software company. He is a former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school operation in Los Angeles, and later served as the first head of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools — former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s controversial education nonprofit that tried to improve 17 low-performing public schools, with mixed results.

“Tuck’s candidacy is supported by the same mix of wealthy education privatizers, Silicon Valley and entertainment money, hedge fund and real estate interests that backed privatization candidates in the 2013 Los Angeles Unified School District school board election — when billionaire businessmen such as Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg gave large campaign contributions to an unsuccessful effort to defeat board member Steve Zimmer. (The Broad Residency, an education management program operated by the Broad Foundation, lists Tuck as an alumnus.)”

Torlakson, by contrast, takes pride in his years as a teacher. “Torlakson is a veteran science teacher and track coach. Torlakson, who is still a teacher on leave from Contra Costa County’s Mount Diablo Unified School District, says he usually teaches one community college course every year. He was elected as California’s 27th State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2010 after serving in the state legislature.”

Tuck supports the parent trigger law, which allows a simple majority of parents to seize control of their school and hand it over to a charter corporation. He also supports the plaintiffs in the Vergara case, a lawsuit that seeks to eliminate teachers’ due process rights.

Robert D. Skeels, writing in L.A. Progressive, rips Marshall Tuck for closing down ethnic studies programs and heritage language studies programs while running the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. He reviews Tuck’s record at Green Dot charter schools and the Mayor’s Partnership and renders a scathing judgment.

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Categories Administrators, superintendents, California

Weingarten and Darling-Hammond Call for a New Accountability

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2014 //
93

Randi Weingarten and Linda Darling-Hammond have co-authored a major new statement on accountability.

They write that:

“If we assume that the goal of accountability should be better education, the test-and-punish approach must be replaced by a support-and-improve model. A new approach should ensure that students get what they really need: 1) curriculum, teaching, and assessment focused on meaningful learning, 2) adequate resources that are spent wisely, and 3) professional capacity, so that teachers and school leaders develop the knowledge and skills they need to teach much more challenging content in much more effective ways.”

They add:

“Implementing the standards well will not be accomplished by targets and sanctions. It will require more adequate and equitable resources and greater investments in professional capacity, especially for currently underfunded schools that serve the highest-need students.

“Raising standards in ways that punish children and educators for not meeting them produces the wrong responses from schools. Evidence shows that, rather than improve learning, sanctions tend to tamp down innovation, incentivize schools to boost scores by keeping or driving out struggling students, hasten the flight of thoughtful educators from the profession, and disrupt learning for students whose local schools are shut down.”

They use Néw York as an example of how do accountability wrong, and California as an example of how to do it right.

There are some very good ideas in their statement. I would add my two cents: when some children and families live in such desperate circunstance, not even the best standards, curriculum, assessments, and professional development will be enough to create equality of opportunity. Some kids have tooany strikes against them, and that is a societal failure.

Categories Accountability, California, Common Core, New York

Peter Schrag Reviews the Vergara Case

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2014 //
44

Peter Schrag has written sensibly about education issues for many years.

In this article, he analyzes the complexities of the Vergara trial, in which a rich and powerful coalition of corporate reformers are trying to eliminate due process rights for teachers.

In the end, he argues, the outcome of the trial won’t change much for poor kids.

If the plaintiffs win, some very good veteran teachers may be fired to save money.

The legislature will enact some new laws, perhaps basing layoffs on “effectiveness” (i.e. test scores) rather than due process, but as we know from the recent report of the American Statistical Association, test-based accountability (VAM) is fraught with problems and will end up stigmatizing those who teach in high-poverty schools.

He quotes Russlyn Ali, who was Secretary Arne Duncan’s assistant secretary for civil rights and is now supporting the Vergara plaintiffs:

 

Laws that make it hard to dismiss or replace teachers were originally designed to protect them against the nepotism and the racial, social and cultural biases that were all too common in education until well after World War II. If those protections are curtailed, and if a new system relying heavily on “effectiveness” — itself an uncertain standard — is put in place, what’s to say it won’t make teachers competitors and undermine morale and collaboration?
It’s possible that if the courts find that the tenure laws in this case offend constitutional equal protection guarantees, many of the system’s other inequities might be open to legal challenge as well. Ali, among others, has that hope, and she sees Vergara as a first step in that larger battle.
But if the Vergara plaintiffs win a resounding victory in this case, don’t look for any quick change in the schools or some great improvement in outcomes for disadvantaged kids. There are just too many other uncertainties, too many inequities, too many other unmet needs.

 

My view: the trial continues the blame game favored by the Obama administration and the billionaire boys’ club, in which they blame “bad” teachers as the main culprit in low academic performance. Their refusal to recognize that standardized tests accurately measure family income and family education is their blind spot. It is easier to blame teachers than to take strong action to reduce poverty and racial segregation. It is sad and ironic that the most segregated schools in the United States today are charter schools, yet the Obama administration wants more of them. If the Vergara plaintiffs win, there will be fewer teachers eager to risk their reputation teaching the kids who have the greatest needs. If the plaintiffs win, this case will then be a setback for the rights of the kids, no victory at all.

 

If the corporate reformers refuse to attack the root causes of low test scores, then Peter Schrag is quite right to say that nothing much will change.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-schrag-vergara-teacher-union-20140403,0,3459594.story#ixzz2ygmthcp2

 

Categories California, Education Reform, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Teacher Tenure, Testing

A Veteran Teacher Defends the Teacher at the Center of the Vergara Trial

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2014 //
27

The Vergara trial in Los Angeles is an effort funded by a very wealthy man to eliminate due process for teachers in California. The theory of the case is that when teachers have tenure (due process), then it is hard to fire bad teachers. Thus, the civil rights of minority students are violated by the very concept of due process, because more of those who teach them should be fired. But tenure ties the hands of their administrators, so students are harmed.

 

The lead plaintiff, a student named Elizabeth Vergara, had a teacher named Anthony Mize. As it happens, Mize doesn’t have tenure and has never had a complaint lodged against him or a disciplinary proceeding. If he was the “bad” teacher as the plaintiffs’ attorneys claim, why wasn’t he fired?

 

One of his colleagues wrote to describe him.

 

Next month will mark 20 years that I have taught with LAUSD.
I had the privilege of working with Mr. Anthony Mize , one of the alleged “grossly
incompetent teachers”, named in this suit. for four of those years. Despite the precarious and ever-vacillating status accorded him by LAUSD, the RIF notices, his relegation to long-term sub status in his own previous classroom and the subsequent loss of benefits such as paid sick leave and holidays, I never saw him give less than 100% to the school, and to his students. Mize is a natural teacher, knows his content area and is sensitive to his students needs, both as learners and as human beings. He is sorely missed at our school site, To anyone who has worked alongside this young man, it would be almost laughable that he could be so singled-out, were it not so deplorable. The latest insult in a long line of abusive treatment by the Powers That Be… As an early commenter stated, if Mr. Mize was the best example of a poor teacher that the plaintiffs could summon, they really don’t have much of a case.
Does anyone remember Attorney Joseph Welch’s reply to Senator Joe Mccarthy in the Army-Macarthy hearings? It resounds in my ears as I follow this case:
” Have you left,Sir, no sense of decency? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” (I paraphrase)
That quietly uttered statement is widely credited for the beginning of the end of the tyranny and witch hunts initiated by Senator Mccarthy. We must all continue to speak truth to power, for when we do, tyrants fall. Thank you, Anthony, for all of us.

Categories California, Teacher Tenure

Linda Darling-Hammond Testifies in Vergara Trial

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2014 //
33

A friend who observed the proceedings in the Vergara trial sent me the following notes, based on the testimony of Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond. She is probably the nation’s leading expert on issues related to teacher recruitment, preparation, retention, and support. Her testimony, based on many years of study and experience, was devastating to the plaintiff’s case.

Linda Darling-Hammond’s testimony

Overview

Yesterday, expert witness Linda Darling-Hammond, a renowned scholar and Stanford professor, has refuted the main arguments of the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Darling-Hammond, whose insights come from both research and experience, stated that measures based on student test scores do not identify effective teachers, that two years is enough time to identify teachers who should be counseled out of the profession, and that extending that period beyond two years would harm students.

Excerpts

On what a good evaluation process looks like.

“With respect to tenure decisions, first of all, you need to have – in the system, you need to have clear standards that you’re going to evaluate the teacher against, that express the kind of teaching practices that are expected; and a way of collecting evidence about what the teacher does in the classroom. That includes observations and may also include certain artifacts of the teacher’s work, like lesson plans, curriculum units, student work, et cetera.”

“You need well-trained evaluators who know how to apply that instrument in a consistent and effective way.

“You want to have a system in which the evaluation is organized over a period of time so that the teacher is getting clarity about what they’re expected to do, feed back about what they’re doing, and so on.

In California – note related to the tenure decision, but separately – there is a mentoring program that may be going on side-by-side; but really, that does not feed into the tenure decisions. It’s really the observation and feedback process.”

On the problem with extending the tenure beyond two years

“It’s important that while we want teachers to at some point have due process rights in their career, that that judgment be made relatively soon; and that a floundering teacher who is grossly ineffective is not allowed to continue for many years because a year is a long time in the life of a student.

“So I think that having the two-year mark—which means you’re making a decision usually within 19 months of the starting point of that teacher – has the interest of allowing a – of encouraging districts to make that decision in a reasonable time frame so that students aren’t exposed to struggling teachers for long than they might need to be.”

Other reasons why two years is enough

“My opinion is that, for the first reason I mentioned earlier—the encouragement to make a judgment about a grossly ineffective teacher before many years go by is a useful reason to have a shorter tenure period – or pre-tenure period.

“But at the end of the say, the most important thing is not the amount of time; the most important thing is the quality and the intensity of the evaluation and support process that goes on for beginning teachers.

On the benefits and importance of having a system that includes support for struggling teachers

“Well, it’s important both as a part of a due process expectation; that if somebody is told they’re not meeting a standard, they should have some help to meet that standard.

The principal typically does not have as much time and may not have the expertise in the content area that a mentor teacher would have. For example, in physics or mathematics, usually the mentor is in the same area, so the help is more intensive and more specific.

“And in such programs, we often find that half of the teachers do improve. Others may not improve, and then the decision is more well- grounded. And when it is made, there is almost never a grievance or a lawsuit that follows because there’s ben such a strong process of help.

“The benefits to students are that as teachers are getting assistance and they’re improving their practice, students are likely to be better taught.

“And in the cases where the assistance may not prove adequate to help an incompetent teacher become competent, the benefit is that that teacher is going to be removed from the classroom sooner, if, sort of, they allowed the situation to just go on for a long time, which is truncated by this process of intensive assistance….

“The benefits to districts are that by doing this, you actually end up making the evaluation process more effective, making personnel decisions in a more timely way, making them with enough of a documentation record and a due process fidelity, that very rarely does there occur a problem after that with lawsuits; which means the district spends a little bit of money to save a lot of money and to improve the effectiveness of teaching for its students.

On peer assistance and review (PAR) and other mentoring programs

“A PAR program and other programs that mentor teachers typically improve the retention of teachers; that is, they keep more of the beginning teachers, which is where a lot of attrition occurs. But they do ensure that the teachers who leave are the ones that you’d like to have leave, as opposed to the ones who leave for other reasons.”

On firing the bottom 5% of teachers

“My opinion is that there are at least three reasons why firing the bottom 5 percent of teachers, as defined by the bottom 5 percent on an effectiveness continuum created by using the value-added test scores of their students on state tests, will not improve the overall effectiveness of teachers….

One reason is that, as I described earlier, those value-added metrics are inaccurate for many teachers. In addition, they’re highly unstable. So the teachers who are in the bottom 5 percent in one year are unlikely to be the same teachers as who would be in the bottom 5 percent the next year, assuming they were left in place.

“And the third reason is that when you create a system that is not oriented to attract high-quality teachers and support them in their work, that location becomes a very unattractive workplace. And an empirical proof of that is the situation currently in Houston, Texas, which has been firing many teachers at the bottom end of the value-added continuum without creating stronger overall achievement, and finding that they have fewer and fewer people who are willing to come apply for jobs in the district because with the instability of those scores, the inaccuracy and bias that they represent for groups of teachers, it’s become an unattractive place to work.

“The statement is often made with respect to Finland that if you fire the bottom 5 percent [of teachers], we will be on a par with achievement in Finland. And Finland does none of those things. Finland invests in the quality of beginning teachers, trains them well, brings them into the classroom and supports them, and doesn’t need to fire a lot of teachers.”

Categories California, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

California: The Language Police Are on the Job!

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2014 //
49

A teacher in California sent me the latest state testing guidelines and was disturbed to see the large number of forbidden topics.

I was not surprised because in 2003, I published a book called “The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn.” I reported that testing and textbook publishers, the federal government and state education agencies collectively adhere to a long list of banned words, topics, and graphics (Do Not Show a Rainbow! Do Not Show a Female in a Tank Top! Do Not Show the Sole of a Shoe! Do Not Show a Cow with Udders! Do Not Even Mention Sex, Poverty, Religion,Violence, War, Witches, or Evolution!)

Actually, the only new addition to the list of banned topics is “complex discussions of sports,” and I assume this was added on the assumption that boys are likely to know more about sports than girls. So the topic is gender biased.

You might well wonder what material is permissible on the state tests once all if the below has been deleted. Me too. Maybe a discussion of the healthfulness of grains and vegetables?

Here are the current guidelines, no different from what I wrote about in 2003:

“To keep the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) free from potentially biased, sensitive, or controversial content, the following topics are avoided on the examination:

“Violence (including guns, other weapons, and graphic animal violence)

“Dying, death, disease, hunger, famine
War

“Natural disasters with loss of life

“Drugs (including prescription drugs), alcohol, tobacco, smoking

“Junk food

“Abuse, poverty, running away

“Divorce

“Socio-economic advantages (e.g., video games, swimming pools, computers in the home, expensive vacations)

“Sex

“Religion

“Complex discussions of sports

“Slavery

“Evolution, prehistoric times, age of solar system, dinosaurs

“Rap music, rock concerts

“Extrasensory perception, witchcraft
Halloween, religious holidays

“Anything disrespectful, demeaning, moralistic, chauvinistic

“Children coping with adult situations or decisions; young people challenging or questioning authority

“Mention of individuals who may be associated with drug use or with advertising of substances such as cigarettes or alcohol

“Losing a job, home, or pets

“Rats, roaches, lice, spiders

Dieting, other concerns with self-image
Political issues

“Any topic that is likely to upset students and affect their performance on the rest of the test.

“It is important to note that these guidelines are applied in the context of the purpose of the test as well as the overall passage or item. For example, some topics (e.g., the socio-economic advantages) may be mentioned in a text, although an entire passage would not focus on these topics.”

Categories California, Testing

The Vergara Trial: Read All About It

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2014 //
36

The Vergara trial in California is a calculated effort to remove due process protections from teachers. The plaintiffs claim that the superintendent must be able to dismiss teachers at will, without the bother of a hearing. The billionaires sponsoring this attack on teachers’ job protection insist that any protections for teachers in the workplace violates the civil rights of students. They gathered a group of students who were willing to blame their teachers for their low test scores, hired a team of crack lawyers, and sued. Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy, whose district is being sued, testified for the plaintiffs; he wants the power to fire more teachers without delay.

Win or lose, the billionaires hope to create a template for similar attacks on teachers in other states.

An observer at the trial distributed this account of the proceedings last week.

“On Friday, two teachers pegged as “grossly incompetent” by the Plaintiffs took the stand: Anthony Mize and Dawna Watty.

“Mize was the eighth grade English teacher of the case’s namesake, Elizabeth Vergara. He worked at Maclay Middle School for five years. He started at Maclay as an intern teacher in 2008, was laid off due to reduction in force in 2010 and was then hired back as a long-term substitute for the following three years. He was never hired back on tenure-track, nor did he ever achieve tenure.

“Mize was a good teacher. He took on leadership roles in the school. He was creative and caring in the classroom. He never was disciplined. He never received negative evaluations or observations. His evaluations all had positive comments. He testified that he believed Vergara learned in his class – in which he followed an instructional guide with a lesson-by-lesson layout provided by LAUSD, and used a textbook to supplement.

“Watty taught Brandon DeBose in her fifth grade class at Ruby Bridges Elementary. She has taught more than 900 fifth graders over her 28 year career. Despite having opportunities to transfer to more affluent schools in Alameda Unified School District, Watty chose to stay put because she loves the students and because the school has a strong community feel. She said, “It’s a diverse population. I learn from them. They learn from me. We’re a family. We’re a community. We have students with some severe needs, and we try to meet the needs of all of our students…coming to school is the one thing that they have that is constant in their life…”

“Like Mize, Watty has never received a negative evaluation. She has never received a complaint from a parent about her teaching. She has received much positive feedback, including parents of her students asking to have their younger children assigned to her. She often receives visits from former students.

“Both Mize and Watty testified that neither Vergara nor DeBose nor their parents ever complained or asked for additional help.”

So, neither teacher ever received a negative evaluation.neither was ever disciplined. One never had tenure or tenure rights (why hasn’t John Deasy already fired him, since he was Vergara’s teacher?) should teachers be fired whenever a student doesn’t like them?

Who will want to teach when any teacher can be fired for any reason or no reason at all?

Here are some readings about the trial.

Categories California, Teacher Tenure

Will California Elect an Educator or an Investment Banker as State Superintendent of Education?

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2014 //
38

California is in the midst of a crucial election for State Superintendent. This article by Gary Cohn describes the players and the context.

On one side is experienced educator Tom Torlakson, who is running for re-election.

On the other side is Marshall Tuck, graduate of Harvard Business School, investment banker, former leader of Green Dot charter schools. He is a strong supporter of privatization of public education and has attracted support from the usual crowd of entrepreneurs, millionaires, billionaires, etc.

California now has more charter schools than any other state in the nation. If Tuck wins, the privatization movement will gain a major stronghold.

Start here to understand the setting for this crucial campaign:

“An election campaign now being fought almost completely out of public view could radically alter the way California’s school children are taught. If Marshall Tuck unseats incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the state’s public education system could become a laboratory for a movement that prizes privatization and places a high value on student test scores over traditional instruction. The contrasts between the two top contenders in the nonpartisan race could not be more dramatic – nor could the stakes for the country’s largest education system.

“The 40-year-old Tuck is a Harvard Business School graduate who has worked as an investment banker for Salomon Brothers and as an executive at Model N, a revenue-management software company. He is a former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school operation in Los Angeles, and later served as the first head of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools — former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s controversial education nonprofit that tried to improve 17 low-performing public schools, with mixed results.

Tuck’s candidacy is supported by the same mix of wealthy education privatizers, Silicon Valley and entertainment money, hedge fund and real estate interests that backed privatization candidates in the 2013 Los Angeles Unified School District school board election — when billionaire businessmen such as Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg gave large campaign contributions to an unsuccessful effort to defeat board member Steve Zimmer. (The Broad Residency, an education management program operated by the Broad Foundation, lists Tuck as an alumnus.)

“Tuck is also supported by former Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, a polarizing figure who was once believed to be a potential contender for Torlakson’s job. Like Rhee, Tuck supports using student test scores as a way of evaluating individual teachers’ performances. Critics of this policy, which is favored by school privatizers, claim that it forces classroom instructors to “teach to the test” and scrap curriculum that is not seen as reaping high student test scores.”

We must keep watch on what happens in California. This race may determine the survival of public education in that state, or whether the state will continue monetizing education and creating a dual-school system.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, California, Charter Schools
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