Carol Burris posts a letter from a young teacher in DC who graduated from Burris’ school in Long Island. She is not happy with the high-stakes testing, test-based accountability, and Common Core. Want to know why so many teachers are leaving? Corporate, punitive, gotcha reform.
Archives for category: Corporate Reform
Gary Rubinstein knows reformers better than most people. He started his career in Teach for America in Houston in the early 1990s and eventually became a career math teacher in New York City. He is one of the most perceptive critics of reform, having started in the early days of the movement.
In this post, he deconstructs the boasts of Kevin Huffman about the Achievement School District in Tennessee. Huffman is now trying to export this model to other states, despite its failure thus far to achieve its goals. Rubinsteinreviews the record of the ASD and finds it mixed at best:
“Just by the numbers, the results are truly mixed. Of the original 6 ASD schools that are currently in their third year under the ASD, two schools have improved, two have stayed about the same, and two have gotten worse.” Some success.
“ASD tries to put all the positive spin they can on their results, but the thing that they try not to mention is that in this past year the ASD got the lowest possible score on their ‘growth’ metric, a 1 out of 5. In Tennessee they take their ‘growth’ scores very seriously. They have been experimenting with this kind of metric for over twenty years and they base school closing decisions on it and also teacher evaluations. So it is hypocritical, though not surprising, that Huffman fails to mention that the ASD, on average, got the lowest possible score on this last year, and instead they focus on the two schools that have shown test score improvements.”
Rubinstein writes:
“There is absolutely no reason why Kevin Huffman should be given the opportunity to pitch his ideas to the Pennsylvania senate or in the media over there. It is like a state trying to improve their economy and asking for guidance from a man who got rich by winning the lottery. Huffman is a person who knows very little about education, but who has been very lucky to get to where he is. He taught first grade for two years, spent a bunch of years working for Teach For America, got appointed as Tennessee education commissioner mainly because of his famous ex-wife, and only managed to keep his job for three years before basically getting run out of town. He has gotten credit for the 4th and 8th grade NAEP gains between 2011 and 2013, but has taken none of the blame for the lack of progress for 12 graders or for the recent drops in the Tennessee State reading test scores. This is a new kind of phenomenon, the edu-celebrity who rises to power, leaves after a few years having accomplished very little, and then making a living as a consultant. Some gig.”
Kevin Huffman, former state education leader in Tennessee, came to Pennslvania to sell the glories of corporate reform as practiced in Tennessee. Peter Greene recounts his claims here.
Huffman wanted particularly to sell the virtues of the Tennessee Achievement School District, which gathers the state’s lowest performing schools into a group, eliminates local control, and converts them to privately managed charters.
As Greene shows, the ASD in Tennessee has been a bust so far.
“So first, strip local school boards and voters of authority over their own schools. Second, allow a mixture of innovation and stripping teachers of job security and pay. The stated plan in Tennessee was that the bottom 5% of schools would move into the top 25% within five years. Doesn’t that all sound great? But hey– how is it working out in Tennessee?
“That depends (surprise) on who is crunching which numbers, but even the state’s own numbers gave the Tennessee ASD the lowest possible score for growth.
“In fact, Huffman forgot to mention the newest “technique” proposed to make ASD schools successful– allow them to recruit students from outside the school’s geographical home base. This is the only turnaround model that really has been successful across the nation– in order to turn a school around, you need to fill it with different students.”
Greene read Huffman’s op-Ed with advice to Pennsylvania
Huffman wrote:
“When I spoke with Pennsylvania state senators last week about school turnaround work, one senator asked me directly, “When you created the Achievement School District, were you worried that it was too risky?” I responded, “The greatest risk would be to do nothing.”
Greene comments:
“Pretending that any senator actually answered that question, the answer is still dumb. Your child is lying on the sidewalk, bleeding and broken after being struck by a car. A guy in a t-shirt runs up with an axe and makes like he’s about to try to lop off your child’s legs. “What the hell are you doing?” you holler, and t-shirt guy replies, “Well, the greatest risk would be to do nothing.”
“Doing Nothing is rarely as great a risk as Doing Something Stupid.
“Achievement School Districts are dumb ideas that offer no educational benefits and run contrary to the foundational principles of democracy in this country. They are literally taxation without representation. Huffman should move on along to his next gig and leave Pennsylvania alone.”
The latest poll from the respected Siena Reaearch Institute finds that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s approval rating has dropped to 41%, his lowest rating on this poll since he became Governor. (Another poll said his approval rating had fallen to 37%.)
Voters are upset by corruption in state government/ both the leader of the Assembly and the leader of the State Senate were recently indicted.
“Still, corruption is not the only thing New Yorkers are worried about. The poll found that voters rated the economy and education as the top two most important issues they want to see improvement on, while corruption ranked third.
“Voters have been expressing disapproval of Cuomo since he began his second term in January. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in March suggested that growing discontent with the governor’s new education policy could be at the root of the disapproval.”
Voters are divided over Cuomo’s Education Tax Credit proposal, but more oppose it than support it.
Peter Greene writes that student protests in Newark have exposed the lie about corporate reform defending civil rights. Thousands of students in Newark, mostly African American, went into the streets to oppose the corporate reform policies of the superintendent Cami Anderson. She was given an assignment by Governor Chris Christie to privatize the public schools of Newark.
The students demand to be heard but no one will listen.
Greene writes:
“As always, the students’ actions were thoughtful, measured and positive. Their message was vocal and clear. Accountability for superintendent Cami Anderson (skewered in one sign as “$cami”). A return to local control. And end to charter takeover of schools that have no need of takeover.
“Imagine you are someone thinking, “I believe that equitable education is the civil rights issue of our era. I believe that students who are not wealthy and not white are not represented and their needs are not respected. I am concerned that without test results, these students will become invisible.”
“Could you possibly have stood in Newark and said, “Boy, I just wish there were some way to find out what black families and students want, or what they think about the direction of education in Newark….
“Reformsters repeatedly claim that they are most concerned about American students like the students of Newark. The students of Newark have given them a chance to put their money where their mouths are, and reformsters have stayed silent. Cami Anderson remains unwilling to so much as talk to the students of Newark, and no leading “reform” voice has stepped up to call her out.
“Newark is a clear and vivid demonstration that reformster talk about civil rights and the importance of hearing and responding to the voices of students and families– it’s all a lie. In walking out, the students of Newark have stood up, not just for their own community and schools, but for students and communities all across the country.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 