John Kuhn is recognized among many educators as our most eloquent spokesman, a champion of students, educators, and public school.
Here he is interviewed on “The Chalkface,” speaking as he always does, from the heart.
Archives for category: Corporate Reformers
It is useful every so often to review the list of organizations that are funded by the ultra-rightwing Walton Foundation. This past year, the foundation gave out $158 million for “education reform.” As you will see, almost all of that money went to support charter schools and vouchers and organizations that advocate for privatization.
Of course, this is the foundation’s list of grants, and it does not include the millions of dollars that the members of the Walton family have poured into privatization campaigns and elections in Georgia, Washington State, and elsewhere.
The New York Times published a page one story about the closing of the Jonathan M. Levin High School in the Bronx. The school was opened ten years ago to commemorate the life and tragic death of a young teacher who happened to be the son of the CEO of AOL Time Warner. He was murdered by some of his students, who came to his apartment (he let them know that they were always welcome), murdered him, stole his credit cards, and his ATM card.
After a promising start, the school went into decline. As in most other closing schools, most of its students are black, Hispanic, poor, English language learners, and/or in need of special education. Where will these students go? If a school closes because it serves so many needy students, who will take them?
I received an interesting analysis from an educator in NYC.
He writes:
A story published on Thursday in the New York Times profiled the Jonathan M. Levin High School, a school in the Bronx that is about to be shuttered after being deemed failing. As is becoming more and more common in New York City, replacement schools are themselves being replaced. This school was established only ten years ago to replace a large comprehensive high school that was deemed failing. New York City education bureaucrats defended the decision by claiming that other new schools in the very same building supposedly have comparable student populations while “getting dramatically different outcomes.” They somehow forgot to mention that the school in the very same building with the most similar student population, The Academy for History and Citizenship for Young Men, is also being shuttered. That school has the lowest incoming students test scores (in other words the test scores of the students before they even entered high school were well-below grade level) of all the six schools in the building. Want to hazard a guess as to which school has the second lowest? Would it surprise you that the answer is “Jonathan M. Levin High School?” New York City also publishes a “peer index” for each high school, which is supposed to account for student demographic factors. Which schools do you think have the lowest and next to lowest “peer indexes” in the building? Would it surprise you to find out that it is the same two schools in the same order?
The New York Times kindly included some graphs that were supposed to show that the closing Jonathan Levin High School was failing while another high school in the building, Bronx Collegiate Academy, was succeeding with very similar students. But they somehow forgot to include a table showing student attrition at the “dramatically different outcomes” school. I will give those numbers (the underlying data can be found here): 134 students entered as freshmen in 2006, but there were only 84 seniors in 2010. Over 37% of the students were lost. 122 freshmen entered in 2007, but in 2011 only 85 seniors were left. Over 30% missing. 117 freshman entered in 2008, but in 2011 there were only 86 juniors. Over 26% of the students disappeared in only 3 years. Another way to look at this is to realize that in 2009-10 the school should have had 496 students if they had actually held on to them, but instead had only 391. 105 students gone missing. You would be right to wonder who these students are and what happened to them, Want to bet that these were students who weren’t doing well? And that they were encouraged to go elsewhere. So instead of serving as evidence of a school doing better, the New York Times should have realized this is evidence of the con-games and deceptions schools feel forced to pull in this high-stakes accountability era to make their numbers look good. But there is no underlying educational improvement, just lots of data-driven gaming of the system. In fact, students from the failing school attend college at a 7% higher rate than do students from the “dramatically different outcomes” school.
Let’s look at the bigger picture. In 2003 Taft High School, a large comprehensive school in the Bronx was closed. 10 years later, out of the 6 schools that replaced the failing school: 1 is phasing out, 1 should have been closed already based on the official criteria after having received a “D” on 2 school progress reports in a row (officially a single D or F opens a school to closure), 1“is seen as being on its last legs” according to the New York Times story after having received 3 C’s in a row on its progress reports (3 C’s in a row being the other official criterion for closing a school), 1 school is a screened school and therefore only admits students that have performed at or above grade level in middle school, 1 school, as we have just seen, somehow manages to disappear huge chunks of their students, and the Jonathan M. Levin school is about to be shut down. Nonetheless, Mayor Bloomberg still plans on continuing this charade and his appointees in the New York City Department of Education pretend that closing and opening schools really improves education for students.
Let’s look at one more set of numbers to see how widespread such charades and games are in New York City. The high schools that New York City is in the middle of closing have, on average, about 25% special education students, 13% special education students with the most challenging disabilities, 2.40 Math/English incoming test scores (a “3” represents grade level), and a 1.46 “peer index” (to give some context, Stuyvesant High School has the highest “peer index” in the city of 4.01). Non-selective high schools in New York City as a whole have, on average, roughly 19% special education students, 8.1% special education students with the most challenging disabilities, 2.65 Math/English incoming test scores, and a 2.00 peer index. It is clear that, as has been pointed out again and again, failing schools are not really failing. They are, however, taking on challenges that other schools, supposedly more successful ones, are not. And what about the new schools that are replacing the failing schools? Are they as a whole working with the same challenges? The data suggests that the new schools have managed to employ and numbers dodge and are educating a relatively privileged group of students. They educate, on average, approximately 17.5% special education students, 6.7% special education students with the most challenging disabilities, 2.75 Math/English incoming test scores, and a 2.15 “peer index.” So the new schools as a whole have managed to avoid educating the students with the heaviest needs that the failing schools educate (approaching 10% fewer high needs students in every conceivable category). On top of that they have managed to select students who come in with less challenges than all other non-selective city schools as a whole. Yet the education reformers want us to believe that a charade like this represents genuine progress!
That the education reformers are willing to gloss over the truth is somewhat understandable. They are driven by ideology and not facts. By dogma and not by empirical evidence of what works best for kids. But citizens have the right to expect that the Federal Government would serve as an objective check and look behind the smokescreen. Unfortunately, in the current political climate that is not happening. The U.S. Department of Education is encouraging these sorts of tricks. Hopefully, in the near future, before much more harm is done to students, we will be able to focus on truly improving education for all children through genuine reform and not mere chicanery.
One of the readers of this blog, experienced teacher Brian Ford, has written a new book. It seems to encapsulate the major themes of today’s privatization movement.
Respect for Teachers and the Rhetoric Gap:
How Research on Teaching and Schools is
Laying the Ground for New Business Models in Education
(A New Economy Story about the State of the Union)
Author: Brian Ford
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Summary of Book
For the last 30 years we have been in the midst of a paradox. In the discourse on education reform, national attention in the US has focused on how to improve the education system as a means to keep the US from slipping in international economic competition. It the end we may have actually done the opposite – made the US less competitive economically, with a system that has gotten worse at its core, in its philosophical tenets and in its ultimate effect on children and young adults, by placing unwonted pressure on them and in stifling their creativity.
Still, claims that the public schools in the US are failing are rampant. The teacher evaluation system is broken. America is being out-educated. The bottom rank of teachers are beyond redemption. New, effective teachers can eliminate the achievement gap in four years, but they aren’t given the chance because our education system is in the thrall of teachers unions, ignores our children and emphasizes ‘adult interests.’ ‘Respect for Teachers,’ which takes its title from a phrase President Obama used in a State of the Union address, examines these claims, looking first at the rhetoric and the research that supposedly backs it up. It argues that most of this is not only wrong, but endangers both the egalitarian basis of democracy and broad-based forms of learning which promote creative and critical thinking.
But what is the source? Money changes everything and the book suggests, on the one hand, that we are all connected to money. On the other hand, research on education has been systematically misreported, presenting a bleaker picture overall while ignoring the central problem: our schools are failing in areas of concentrated poverty. It does so by looking at how research is presented, the gap between rhetoric and research and how one hand might be washing the other.
Working as if from a common script, private interests present a false picture. Schooling is big business, after all — two trillion dollars world-wide. Joseph Schumpeter once said, “No bourgeoisie ever disliked war profits.” One would assume no bourgeoisie ever disliked the spoils of school reform, either.
Philadelphia columnist Will Bunch couldn’t believe the onerous, mean-spirited proposal made by school officials to the city’s teachers. They are asked to accept a cut in pay and benefits, larger classes, a longer work day, and, adding insult to injury, no copying machines or supplies, no water fountains or parking facilities, not even desks.
Students will be in larger classes, in schools with no libraries, no librarians, no guidance counselors, and a corps of beaten-down teachers.
Way to go, School Reform Commission! I am reminded that the best corporations in the United States pamper their employees and make sure they have excellent working conditions. They want their employees to have high morale. In Philadelphia, they want to crush their teachers’ morale. The school officials are not employing a business model, unless they have in mind the 19th century idea of treating workers like scum.
If ever there were conditions for a strike against witless, cruel management, this is it.
Bear in mind that Philadelphia has not had an elected school board in over a decade. The School Reform Commission is appointed by the governor and mayor.
Will they care if there is a mass exodus of teachers? Will they happily employ scabs? Do they care about the quality of education? Or is driving down the cost of teachers more important than anything else?
Corporate reformers are taking no chances.
They have raised more than $3 million to make sure that they control the Los Angeles school board.
The school board president Monica Garcia will have $1 million, more or less, to fight off education activist Robert Skeels, who has raised $20,000, more or less.
Inexperienced Kate Anderson, the corporate favorite, will have $1 million, more or less, to battle incumbent Steve Zimmer, an experienced teacher. Zimmer will be outspent many times over.
The money continues to pour in from out of state donors, zeal Street, equity investors, and others who think it would be fun to buy a school board of a major city.
Meanwhile, back in New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has announced the closing of another 26 years. This, after 11 years of mayoral control with no dissent permitted. The closing schools are, as usual, disproportionately black, Hispanic, poor, and enrolling large numbers of students with disabilities. Too bad he can’t run for a fourth and fifth and sixth term so he can finish the job of reforming the city’s schools.
Mayor Bloomberg wants Los Angeles to follow his lead. He has contributed $1 million to the corporate campaign fund.
Gary Rubinstein wrestles with the issue of language and rhetoric of reform.
Long ago, a reformer was someone who wanted to improve the public schools.
Now, a “reformer” advocates closing them and replacing them with privately managed schools.
Once upon a time, a reformer was someone who wanted to raise standards for new teachers.
Now, a “reformer” wants to hire teachers who have only five weeks of training.
The word “reform,” he suggests, has become hopelessly tainted among educators by those who now claim it.
The question today is what to call those who object to the punitive methods of the “reformers”?
They say we are “defenders of the status quo,” when in fact we are opponents of failed ideas.
Gary says we are people who care about evidence.
But what is the one- or two-word description that positively defines those who want to improve schools and teaching, not demolish them?
Reporter Colin Woodard’s brilliant exposé of the profitable ties between Jeb Bush, Maine’s Governor Paul LePage, and the online industry won the prestigious George Polk award for reporting in 2012.
If you have not read it, do so now. You will be an informed citizen.
More about this great journalist:
Colin Woodard, an award-winning author
and journalist who writes for Washington
Monthly, The Christian Science Monitor,
and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
He is currently State and National Affairs
Writer for the Portland Press Herald /
Maine Sunday Telegram, where he
received a 2012 George Polk Award for
his investigative reporting. A native of
Maine, he has reported from more than
fifty foreign countries and six continents,
and lived for more than four years in
Eastern Europe.
He is the author of the New England
bestseller The Lobster Coast: Rebels,
Rusticators, and the Struggle for a
Forgotten Frontier (Viking Press, 2004),
a cultural and environmental history of
coastal Maine; Ocean’s End: Travels
Through Endangered Seas (Basic Books,
2000), a narrative non-fiction account of
the deterioration of the world’s oceans;
and The Republic of Pirates: Being The
True And Surprising Story Of The
Caribbean Pirates And The Man Who
Brought Them Down , on which the
forthcoming NBC series “Crossbones” is
based.
His fourth book, American Nations: A
History of the Eleven Rival Regional
Cultures of North America (Viking, 2011)
was named one of the Best Books of 2011
by the editors of The New Republic and
The Globalist and won the 2012 Maine
Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
He lives in midcoast Maine.
This is a letter from a kindergarten teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada, to her state legislators. Nevada has the lowest graduation rate in the nation, lower even than the District of Columbia. As she explains in her post, the schools of Las Vegas are underfunded, and the needs of the children are huge. Please read and remember: Everything you need about school reform may be learned from a kindergarten teacher.
The session has begun and I’m worried. What worries me?
FUNDING
Money. People say money should not matter in education but it does. Money buys stuff and staff. Bottom line: Schools are an expenditure. You get what you pay for.
There is a public school funding unfairness in the state – the Nevada Plan. Frankly, Vegas money needs to stay in Vegas. Our children and public schools need the money. I don’t want to see other schools in Nevada starve, but it’s only fair that the tax dollars made with the labor in my community come back the the families and children in my community. We are last in funding in a state last in funding. And we pay everyone else’s bills?
85% of the total state revenue comes from Vegas. 75% of Nevada’s students and teachers live in Vegas. Only 50% of the general fund comes back to Vegas schools. There is something very unfair about this formula.
Isn’t a student in Vegas worth just as much as a student in Eureaka?
REFORM
I’m worried about the scary reform movement. I have had 6 principals in 12 years, 6 reading programs, 3 math programs, taught 3 different grade levels, and taught at 3 different schools. Reform implies that teachers are not willing to change or are stuck in bad habits. Frankly, I have whiplash.
Screaming reform at 17,000+ teachers in Vegas who experience constant change is …. Ridiculous. Our community only has 50% of the teachers it had 5 years ago anyhow. In a profession with high turnover – in a community as transient as Vegas – who are you demanding reform from? The few that are left? Dumb and a waste of time.
We need security, retention, and better working conditions. Some consistency and balance would be nice. I would like to see some work to KEEP good teachers because we are driving them off.
STANDARDIZED TESTS
25 years ago … During my undergraduate studies the professor who was teaching me about tests said this: Standardized tests are racially and culturally biased. Nothing has changed.
He also said: Be careful what you assess because it will drive your instruction. When we place such high pressure on standardized test scores – we are going to force everyone to teach to the test.
What if the test will not get students ready for life or academic success? A, B, C, D multiple choice questions are not measuring authentic life skills. We all know people who test well who lack skills in other areas.
Currently, I spend 75% of my instructional time testing or preparing for testing. My students are 5 years old and I only see them 2 hours a day. It’s too much. I’m not even teaching anymore.
I’m wondering why my community that is predominantly minority insists on testing our children with biased standardized assessments? Traditionally – these tests have been unfair to minority groups.
We are basing how our students are doing based SOLELY on this kind of assessment. There is no balance in this. Teachers will be evaluated ONLY on these scores and this is fair? We will turnaround our schools, develop charters, and sell more schools to Edison because of these biased scores?
States that have been using these standardized tests for years are now moving to OUTLAW their use at all. Standardized tests do not test higher level thinking skills. Real life skill is not measured by them. Innovation, invention, synthesis, analysis, and creativty are not measured by these types of tests.
There is no balance when you place so much pressure on one type of assessment.
Something is wrong when you can tell how many schools will be privatized by test scores -and you can also predict scores based on race.
Sadly race and poverty are brothers and sisters.
POVERTY
The research says: Household income is the leading indicator of how well students will do academically.
My students are poor. I have homeless students. I have a revolving door. Four students did not come back after winter break – they just disappeared. This is normal. My school has a 75% turnover. My school has a high ELL population. My school has 85% free and reduced lunch students.
Guess what? My school has NOT qualified for TITLE funds because there are so many other schools in the district that are at 95% to 100%. I guess my school is considered normal in Vegas.
Teachers are rowing the boat as fast as we can – but the boat has a hole!
CORPORATIONS
While I’m busy tutoring, furthering my education, and working — the wolf has been in the hen house!
I’m calling out the wolf!
Charter school corporations do no better than public schools. They do not take the high needs students. They are not regulated like public schools. They are resegregating our population by race and interest – sometimes religious interest. Tax payer funds are being misused. Yep – misused. Charters are more expensive and with few exceptions no more effective than public schools. This charter experiment is failing across the nation. Nevada does not need to participate in this movement until it proves to be working someplace.
Using tax payer money to fund someone fancy smancy private school idea aka charter schools – is no good.
Now there is legislation to “empower” parents to pull the trigger and turn their neighborhood school into a charter? I can think of so many different ways to empower parents. Killing public schools is a horrible mistake.
Edison claimed it would make money and fix failing schools. It hasn’t. It won’t. Yet these corporate hybrids expand and continue to receive additional money. Someone is making money – not students or teachers. From my point of view, Edison is an investment scam. Joke on the tax payer.
Giving money to a corporation to run a school – is money that is not spent on kids.
Teach for America claims it will give our schools the best and brightest to teach at-risk for two or three years. TFA come untrained and are placed in the hardest areas and expected to know after 6 weeks of intense training what to do? What could go wrong? I guess this is why so few make it through the first year and it’s a very rare person who stays in the classroom for a career. Tourist teachers?
Inexperienced and untrained teachers – are not worth the three or four times the money it will take to hire through TFA.
Elaine Wynn spent A LOT of her own money and her friend’s money to obtain some board seats for TFA friendly board members. I would question – WHY?
The New Teacher Project is a Michelle Rhee non-profit. Michelle Rhee controlled her students with duct tape when she had her own classroom. Then she became an adminstrator who fired teachers on TV. Now she makes money telling governors how to unionbust and get rid of veteran teachers. Students First lurks around waiting for opportunities in Nevada. They invested heavily in campaigns – for extreme conservatives.
I’m not sure why people listen to this foul Rhee woman or any of her banter? She is cruel and making money. Not unlike Ann Coulter.
These privatizing vultures all have one thing in common – promises they can NOT keep because it’s quick fixes and not research based. And they are earning a lot of money. I’m not a fan of privatizing or spending money on someone or a corporation which is NOT effective.
To get at those education dollars — we need our schools and kids to appear to fail right?
FAILING
Someone explain to me please why Nevada needs a High School Math Proficiency Test that is the third hardest in the nation?
We fund last in the nation – but expect our children to test at the highest levels? Then scream because a high number drop out or do not receive a diploma?
It’s a known fact that you can graduate just fine with a Nevada education – you just need to move to another state your senior year if you can NOT pass the math proficiency. We export our seniors?
We fail most of our kids and no one is questioning the RIGOR of the test? I’m questioning the actual validity of every measurement tool I’ve seen. The tests are — BAD tests.
I’ve challenged every school board member to take the math proficiency – and pass. No takers yet.
The “math” proficiency is actually a very technical reading test – word problems. Statistics, proabability, algebra, geometry – all couched in word problems.
Why would this be a problem? 60,000 language learners? Do you think the large number of kids who are not receiving a diploma are primarily second language students who fail the so-called “math” test which is actually a reading English test? It is not adminstered in Spanish.
EARLY INTERVENTION
Speaking of failing ….
My students fail on the first day of school. Yep. Kindergarten. My students are two to three years behind the nation on the first day of their public school experience. Before the public school teacher ever sees the child – they are behind the nation.
Kindergarten is not mandatory in Nevada. Vegas still has a large number of half day Kindergarten programs. We are supposed to compete with the rest of the nation that invests in early intervention and compete with parents who are placing their children in preschool at age two?
30% of Kindergarten students fail. And go to first grade. They are behind and stay behind. At-risk kids in half day programs, class sizes between 30 to 40, racing to catch-up to the nation who began 3 years ago.
We aren’t failing them in high school; Kids fail before the public schools even know their name.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
60,000 identified ELL students. “Identified” because this depends on self identifying when parents enroll their child. For whatever reason, parents may or may not check the right box on the form.
I have a Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. Research shows it takes students 5 to 10 years to develop the academic language ability to be successful. We are not supporting students so it might even be longer.
Studies show that it would take $175 million to support our language learning students in Vegas properly. $50 million would be the bare minimum.
I’ll say it — $14 million? $10 million? I guess if your name is Sandoval you don’t want to be the only Governor with a significant number of ELL students and give them NOTHING.
Our kids have real needs that are not being met.
MISSION STATEMENT
The reason the business model fails public schools is — mission statement.
Business is about making money – the mission statement is about the bottom line.
Public schools are about helping citizens – all people, the mission statement is about a literate democracy.
Public schools are always going to be an expenditure and investment.
When we try to use only data and scores from a biased measuring tool to evaluate our students and teachers like a business – we will get a privatizing business result.
My students are more than a test score. I am more than a collection of their test scores. My craft is an art more than a science. Hard to measure but still valuable. Learning will still take place in my classroom – even if I never give another test.
POWER
Teachers have very little power. All I have is e-mail. I have worked non-stop since the last legislative session to get to know as many legislators as I could and educate my community. I’m the alarm in my own frenzied way
I’m worried.
I see too much willingness to sell our public schools instead of invest in them. We are giving money to snake oil salesmen instead of getting it to the classroom and kids. It’s wasting our precious limited funds.
I believe we are damaging our kids with excessive data collection and testing. We are failing everyone and I’m questioning this – WHY?
I’m worried about disadvantaged kids.
I’m worried about money. I don’t understand why I live in a state that is so rich in money and gold — and we can’t even fund our schools? What does this say about my state?
And I’m worried about Democrats. Yep. It was Democrats last session who did the damage. Why do Democrats follow the extreme right wing logic when it comes to public schools? Stand Up. We believe in a free public education for everyone. It’s worth protecting and fighting for.
We aren’t here to collect money for our next election by selling public schools down the river in a canoe with a hole and a frantic screaming kindergarten teacher!
Do what is right this time around.
Angie Sullivan
Coach Bob Sikes in Florida knows how phony that state’s A-F grading system is. (This was confirmed recently by Matt Di Carlo of the Shanker Institute, who pointed out that the state changed the system to improve the results.)
Now he finds that Oklahoma State Superintendent Janet Barresi is copying the Jeb Bush playbook.
This is hardly surprising because she is a member of the Jeb Bush group of rightwing state superintendents called “Chiefs for Change.”
Barresi wants Oklahoma to grade its schools with a simple-minded A-F grade, just like Jeb Bush did. If Jeb did it, it must be right. Remember the “Florida miracle”?
Unfortunately a group of Oklahoma researchers examined her proposal and sharply criticized it.
No problem for Barresi. She has been going around the state telling people that the researchers have recanted their views. Except they haven’t.
Before Barresi was elected superintendent, she was a speech pathologist. In 1984, she became a dentist. Later, she opened Oklahoma City’s first charter school and served on the board of another charter school. She is a big supporter of privatization.
