Archives for category: Duncan, Arne
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Common Core Testing Is No “Game-Changer”

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2014 //
13

Arne Duncan is one of the most fervent advocates of the Common Core standards and testing. As Valerie Strauss explained in this article, Duncan said:

“I am convinced that this new generation of state assessments will be an absolute game-changer in public education. For the first time, millions of schoolchildren, parents, and teachers will know if students are on-track for colleges and careers — and if they are ready to enter college without the need for remedial instruction.”

Nope, the new tests will not be a “game-changer.” States keep pulling out, and more are thinking about following suit.

Strauss writes:

“With Tennessee’s recent departure from PARCC, that consortia is now down to 15 members, 14 states plus D.C. public schools, and Smarter Balance has 22 members.

“An Education Week analysis found that in the next school year, 19 different accountability tests will be given in various states in which, collectively, more than half of America’s students go to school.”

Reminder: there is still NAEP, which has been comparing states’ academic performance since 1992.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Testing

Peter Greene: The Arne Duncan Drinking Game

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2014 //
32

Peter Greene proves himself a man of infinite patience. In this post, he analyzes and deconstructs a speech that Arne Duncan gave to the annual meeting of the PTA.

He writes:

“Arne opens up his speech as pretty much anybody would (Glad to be here! Your organization is great! Let’s here it for your leaders!) and then moves on to tales of his children’s schooling. Their experience was not the typical 25-30 desks in a row. His son got to work ahead in math because, technology. His daughter got to attend a constitutional convention and Civil War day.

[Duncan says]: “But it’s those kinds of opportunities that I think are so special. And why are those experiences so important? Because I think all of us – all of us as parents – want our children to be inspired, to be challenged, to be active participants in their own learning.

“This is not the last time that Arne will say something that is true, but also completely disconnected from the kind of schooling promoted by his department’s policies. I’m pretty sure we can make it a drinking game; every time Arne says something that would make a great basis for educational policy, but US DOE actually does the opposite–drink! Do I need to point out that Arne’s kids attend a school that remains untouched by the policies that are being inflicted on the rest of us?”

See if you can actually wade through this speech.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, U.S. Department of Education

The Last Word: Peter Greene on What Arne Should Have Said

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2014 //
31

Comments have been intense about Arne Duncan’s plan to hold states accountable for higher test scores for students with disabilities.

Peter Greene said his proposal was really bad. Really bad.

That set off a vigorous debate.

Here is the last word, from Peter Greene, on what Arne should have said (but didn’t).

Categories Duncan, Arne, Special Education

Peter Greene: Is This the “Stupidest Thing Ever to Come Out of the U.S. DOE?”

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2014 //
113

Peter Greene writes that Arne Duncan has figured out why children with disabilities get lower test scores: Low expectations.

Greene writes:

“In announcing a new emphasis and “major shift,” the US Department of Education will now demand that states show educational progress for students with disabilities.

“Arne Duncan announced that, shockingly, students with disabilities do poorly in school. They perform below level in both English and math. No, there aren’t any qualifiers attached to that. Arne is bothered that students with very low IQs, students with low function, students who have processing problems, students who have any number of impairments– these students are performing below grade level.

“We know that when students with disabilities are held to high expectations and have access to a robust curriculum, they excel,” Duncan said. (per NPR coverage)”

Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman agreed with Duncan.

Greene writes:

“And that’s not even the stupidest thing. We’re not there yet.

“Kevin Huffman, education boss of Tennessee, also chimed in on the conference call, to explain why disabled students do poorly, and how to fix it.

“He said most lag behind because they’re not expected to succeed if they’re given more demanding schoolwork and because they’re seldom tested.

“That’s it. We should just demand that disabled students should do harder work and take more tests.

“When Florida was harassing Andrea Rediske to have her dying, mentally disabled child to take tests, they were actually doing him a favor, and not participating in state-sponsered abuse.”

So that’s the Department of Education’s solution for children with special needs: Give them harder work and test them more frequently. But why should that be surprising. That is the DOE’s idea for pre-K, for K, and for all children. Harder work and more tests.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Special Education, Testing, U.S. Department of Education

Arne Duncan Proposes New Accountability for Special Education

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2014 //
132

Arne Duncan proposed new accountability standards for students with disabilities.

Claudio Sancez of NPR wrote:

“The Obama administration said Tuesday that the vast majority of the 6.5 million students with disabilities in U.S. schools today are not receiving a quality education, and that it will hold states accountable for demonstrating that those students are making progress.

“Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced what he calls “a major shift” in how the government evaluates the effectiveness of federally funded special education programs.”

He added:

“Under the new guidelines, Duncan says he’ll require proof that these kids aren’t just being served but are actually making academic progress.

“We know that when students with disabilities are held to high expectations and have access to a robust curriculum, they excel,” Duncan said.

States that don’t comply with the new guidelines might lose federal funding.

And now for a commentary on the new guidelines, written by BeverleyH. Johns, a national authority on special education. She is Illinois Special Education Coalition Chair for 32 years and was President of the Learning Disabilities Assn., President of the Council for Exceptional Children, and author of many books about students with disabilities.

In a widely circulated email Beverly Johns writes:

We know that when students with disabilities
are held to high expectations and have access
to the general curriculum in the regular classroom,
they excel.” Arne Duncan, June 24, 2014

Really? Where is the evidence that the general
curriculum in the regular classroom results
in such excellence for all students with disabilities?

It is just the kind broad general statement
that Arne Duncan is so fond of making.

The U.S. Department of Education today announced
new standards for judging States on special education.

The new system greatly reduces compliance enforcement
for IDEA, on the theory that States are in procedural
compliance with IDEA, in return for using NAEP test
results to judge educational outcomes for students in
special ed.

NAEP was NEVER designed or tested for any such purpose
(see below). NAEP is a test taken by a sample of
school districts from each State, every 2 years.

Below is my summary of the conference call hosted
by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today.

Conference call on new Special Ed requirements
for States, June 24, 2014.

USDOE plus two Commissioners of Education,
called Superintendents in some States –
Massachusetts (MA), Mitchell Chester, and
Tennessee (TN), Kevin Huffman.

TN: “States build up their little special education
units.” 40 percent of students with SLD can
achieve same test results as others – “not
students with significant cognitive disabilities.”
(last comment made several times by others)

MA: identifies 17 percent of students for SE.
Tom Hehir assisting them: double the number of
students in poverty identified for SE. More students
of color need to be in general ed classrooms.

USDOE: New system has fewer data reporting requirements,
no need for reporting on results of actions taken
on previous non-compliance, no need to have improvement
on previous indicators, etc.

Arne Duncan to the 2 Commissioners: “Other stuff we
should be looking at to eliminate?”

Reporter question: NAEP ever been used this way?
NAEP designed for high stakes testing?
NAEP designed for students with disabilities?

Duncan: “Only accurate measurement we have. Imperfect…”
“I would not call it high stakes.”
“NAEP given every 2 years.”

Reporter question: reinventing the wheel? If States
cannot meet requirements, then change the requirements
in 5 years?

USDOE: “We have to own these kids.”

MA: SE needs to be integrated into the mainstream.

Reporter question: What are the consequences?

Duncan: No real answer, withholding funds not his
first priority.

Reporter question: What outcomes? The same proficiency
for all students?

USDOE: Vast majority of students in SE must achieve to the
same high standard required by NAEP of all students.
“do not have cognitive disabilities”
Most students in SE now do not have access to content
standards or to the same assessment.

The tone of the call was set by having 2 non-experts in special ed, the 2 Commissioners.

Bev Johns

Categories Duncan, Arne, Special Education, U.S. Department of Education

Horton: Not a Conspiracy Theory: The Gates Foundation Bought Control of U.S. Education

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2014 //
23

A year ago, Paul Horton wrote a letter to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, asking him to conduct hearings on the Common Core and Race to the Top, and specifically to inquire about the role of the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation in shaping federal education policy. Nothing happened. Now that the world knows that the Gates Foundation, working in alliance with the U.S. Department of Education, underwrote the creation and promotion of the Common Core standards; now that we know that Bill Gates bought and paid for “a swift revolution” that bypassed any democratic participation by the public; now that we know that this covert alliance created “national standards” that were never tried out anywhere; now that we know that the Gates Foundation’s willingness to invest $2 billion in Common Core enabled that foundation to assume control of the future of American education: it is time to reconsider Horton’s proposal. How could Congress sit by idly while Arne Duncan undermines state and local control to the chosen designees of the Gates Foundation? How could Congress avert its eyes as public education is redesigned to create a marketplace for vendors?

Paul Horton wrote:

CORPORATE INVOLVEMENT INTHE RTTT MANDATES AND CCS

Jun 4, 2013 by Contributor EducationViews.org
The Honorable Tom Harkin
Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education
Senate Appropriations Committee
June 3, 2013

Dear Chairman Harkin,

I was very saddened to hear that you have decided not to run for reelection as a United States senator. You have always represented the most honest branch of the Democratic Party and the long proud legacy of Midwestern prairie populism extending from James B. Weaver, to Williams Jennings Bryan, to Bob LaFollette, the Farm-Labor party, Paul Simon, George McGovern, and Tom Daschle. We could also count the comedian turned senator from Minnesota in this, but he needs a few more years of “seasoning.” I am sure that you are mentoring him in the tradition. Your friend and my senator, Dick Durbin, shares this tradition, but I am worried that he has cozied up too closely with the Chicago plutocrats to be an effective spokesperson for “the small fry.”

I write because you hold a very important position in congress that has oversight over Education. I am a history teacher, a historian, a leader of history teachers, and a critic of the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top Mandates. I have thirty years of teaching under my belt, including service to the people of the great state of Iowa at Malcolm Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls where I taught high school students and trained pre service history teachers at the University of Northern Iowa.

Your friend and colleague, Senator Grassley, has sent you a letter expressing his concerns about the Race to the Top mandates and the Common Core Curriculum Standards, so I will not belabor the concerns that he has already expressed to you, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/19/common-core-standards-attacked-by-republicans/.

I would like to encourage you to call our Secretary of Education before your committee and ask him some hard questions about the way that the RTTT mandates were constructed. His responses to the concerns that many citizens have from all points on the political spectrum have been exceedingly evasive. He typically claims that those who are opposed to the RTTT mandates and the Common Core Standards are hysterical wing nuts who fully embrace Glenn Beck’s conspiracy theories about attempts to create a one world government: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/04/paul_horton_of_common_core_con.html
In fact, despite the claims of a recent Washington Post story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tea-party-groups-rallying-against-common-core-education-overhaul/2013/05/30/64faab62-c917-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html), critics of the RTTT mandates and the CCS come from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. In the national education debate, the status quo agenda that is being pushed comes from the corporate middle of both parties that is backed by many of those who have been the biggest beneficiaries of the current economic “recovery” in Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Manhattan (and Westchester County) and large foundations.

I humbly recommend that Mr. Duncan be called before your committee to answer some serious questions under oath about corporate and investor influence on Education policy. Mr. Duncan told a committee of congress that he did not want to “participate in the hysteria” surrounding the RTTT and the CCS. Because he is a public servant, it is his duty to serve the people of the United States. Part of his job is to be accountable to the public.

I recommend a few questions that any populist or progressive senator would have asked in the 1890s or early twentieth century:

How many of your staffers have worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Who are they, and why did you hire them?

What role did these staffers and Bill Gates have on the formulation of the RTTT mandates?

How much classroom teaching experience do the principal authors of the RTTT mandates have, individually, and as a group?

Why are these individuals qualified to make decisions about education policy?

Were you, or anyone who works within the Department of Education in contact with any representative or lobbyist representing Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill, or InBloom before or during the writing of the RTTT mandates?

What is the Broad Foundation? What is your connection to the Broad Foundation? What education policies does the Broad Foundation support? How do these policies support public education? How do these policies support private education? What was the role of the Broad Foundation in the creation of the RTTT mandates?

How many individuals associated with the Broad Foundation helped author the report, “Smart Options: Investing Recovery Funds for Student Success” that was published in April of 2009 and served as a blueprint for the RTTT mandates? How many representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation assisted in writing this report? What was their role in authoring this report? How many representatives of McKinsey Consulting participated in authoring this report? What was David Coleman’s role in authoring this report?

Do you know David Coleman? Have you ever had any conversations with David Coleman? Has anyone on your staff had any conversations with David Coleman? Did anyone within the Department of Education have any connection to any of the authors of the Common Core Standards? Did anyone in your Department have any conversations with any of the authors of the Common Core Standards as they were being written?

Have you ever had any conversations with representatives or lobbyists who represent the Walton Family Foundation? Has anyone on your staff had any conversations with the Walton Family Foundation or lobbyists representing the Walton Family Foundation? If so, what was the substance of those conversations?

Do you know Michelle Rhee? If so, could you describe your relationship with Michelle Rhee? Have you, or anyone working within the Department of Education, had any conversations with Students First, Rhee’s advocacy group, about the dispersal foundation funds for candidates in local and state school board elections?

This is just a start. Public concerns about possible collusion between the Department of Education and education corporations could be addressed with a few straightforward answers to these and other questions.

Every parent, student, and teacher in the country is concerned about the influence of corporate vendors on education policy. What is represented as an extreme movement by our Education Secretary can be more accurately described as a consumer revolt against shoddy products produced by an education vendor biopoly (Pearson and McGraw Hill). Because these two vendors have redefined the education marketplace to meet the requirements of RTTT, they both need to be required to write competitive impact statements for the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice.

Senator Harkin, I have a simple solution to this education mess. You represent a state with a great education system. In Iowa, there are great teachers in Cumming, Hudson, and West Des Moines. Most teachers across the country are dedicated, talented, and creative. They, and not Pearson, McGraw Hill, or InBloom , have a better sense about what is good for kids. Allow teachers to create national rubrics to evaluate authentic assessments and allow teachers to do their jobs and grade these assessments. We can save billions of dollars in a time of austerity if we do this. You have control over the disbursement of RTTT funds. These funds should go to teacher assessments, not assessments designed by people with little or no classroom experience. Likewise, these assessments should be graded by teachers, not by temporary employees or computers under the control of for profit corporations.

Let’s invest in our teachers to insure that this investment stays in our communities and states. Education vendors are not loyal to kids, parents, or states. They seek profit, and they will invest their proceeds wherever they can make the most money. It is time for some common sense. We need education policy for the small fry, not education policy for plutocrats.

I would love to speak to you and to your committee on these issues.

The very best to you,

Paul Horton

History teacher, The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (former History Instructor, The University of Northern Iowa, Malcolm Price Laboratory School, Cedar Falls, Iowa)

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Peter Greene Deconstructs Arne Duncan’s Statement on Vergara Decision

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2014 //
57

Peter Greene explicates for you what Arne Duncan really meant in his statement about the Vergara decision.

He concludes:

“God, just when I think the Obama administration has found every conceivable way to signal that they consider teachers vermin to be stepped on and crushed, they find one more way to drive that point home. At this point, I think the GOP would have to run a convicted ax murderer in order for me to vote Democrat in a national election. This is a whole new level of pissing on us while telling us it’s raining. This is a whole new level of disregard for the teaching profession– no, no, that’s wrong, because this is not disregard. This is assault. This is deliberate, lying with a straight face, cheering for the dismantling of teaching as a profession.”

Categories California, Duncan, Arne, Teacher Tenure, Teachers

Stephen Krashen: Pearson Poll Finds Support for Common Core!

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2014 //
32

Stephen Krashen shows himself to quite the satirist in this report.

HUMOR ALERT: I post this notice because it is hard to tell the difference between satire and reality in American education these days.

Krashen writes:

“There is now no doubt: Americans overwhelmingly support the common core. In a poll organized by the Pearson Publishing Company, 96% strongly agreed with the statement, “Schools should teach important things.” By a wide margin, those surveyed also agreed that “teachers should help students learn stuff.”

But that’s only the beginning: as you might expect, Arne Duncan says of the Pearson poll, “This is a game changer”

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Pearson

Oregon Educator: When Did the Federal Role Change from Equity and Integration to Control?

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2014 //
12

Oregon Educator, a high school principal in that state, poses some hard questions about the federal role in education.

The federal government puts up about 12% of the cost of public education but has grown increasingly assertive about exercising maximal control over state and local decision-making.

She writes:

“In 1965, President Johnson’s landmark education bill was designed to equalize schooling as part of his War on
Poverty. It went a long way to accomplishing that. Unfortunately, now fifty years later, the federal dollars constitute less help and more control, resulting in testing regimens and a hyper-concentration on the tested skills that undermine programs in the arts and sciences as well as experiential learning that has been shown effective. We are now down the rabbit hole of tightly managed programs with single metrics (tests) that lead to ever more restrictive programs. Schools in poor neighborhoods are scapegoated while other poverty factors are ignored. And because we can now blame public schools for their alleged poor performance, more and more of public education dollars are skimmed off by charter schools, many of them run by highly profitable corporations.”

Is the transfer of power to Washington, D.C., irreversible. No, it is not. As the public becomes aware that all of the Bush-Obama initiatives have failed and that state and local control has been replaced by corporate control, there will be a demand to reverse the power-hungry federal control of public education. Federal control was not the intent of Congress in 1965 when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed. Nor was it the intent of Congress when the Department of Education was created in 1979. No child Left Behind was and is a failed aw. Obama’s Race to the Top is NCLB on steroids. The two in tandem are imposing failed ideas and doing serious harm to public education. The only question is whether our schools can survive nearly three more years of Arne Duncan’s destructive “leadership.”

Categories Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Special Education, U.S. Department of Education

Has Arne Heard About NAEP?

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2014 //
20

Someone sent me this clip from Tennessee, where Arne Duncan was trying to salvage the federally-funded online Common Core test called PARCC.

“DUNCAN: TENNESSEE CAN STILL SALVAGE TESTS: At Brick Church College Prep in Nashville, Tenn., Education Secretary Arne Duncan showered the state with praise for becoming the fastest improving state in the country. But it still has a long way to go, he said after a town hall event [http://bit.ly/1tgEe8P ] with state chief Kevin Huffman. The legislature delayed Common Core-aligned PARCC tests for a year, but Tennessee has time for a fix, he said. “I think that having high standards is really important,” Duncan said. “Having an honest way to measure that you’re hitting those high standards and to have transparency across the country. So if all you’re able to do is measure Tennessee students against Tennessee students and not have any sense of how you’re doing versus Massachusetts or Kentucky or Mississippi, I think that misses the point. I think the state still has a chance to do the right thing going forward.”

Question: has Secretary of Education Duncan heard about the federally-funded National Assessment of Educational Progress? Since 1992, it has been measuring academic progress in the states. Using NAEP, it is possible to compare students in Tennessee to students in Massachusetts, Kentucky, Mississippi, and other states. Instead of testing every single student, it tests scientific samples in every state and nationally. It has no stakes attached. Isn’t that as much testing as we need to compare states?

Categories Duncan, Arne, NAEP
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »