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John Thompson: The New Wave of “MisNAEPery” Heading Towards Oklahoma and Other States

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2019 //
8

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, writes here about the use and misuse of NAEP scores to advance disruption in the schools.

 

A new wave of “misnaepery” is heading towards Oklahoma and other states. After most or all of the corporate reform agenda became law in about 90 percent of states, reading scores dropped so much that even a reform true believer dubbed NAEP as “National Assessment of Educational Stagnation and/or Decline.”

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/07/24/37naep.h32.html
https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cDovL2VkdWNhdGlvbmdhZGZseXNob3cubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M%3D&episode=NzEzNTA2MzJjMDI0NDA0YmJmMjM4NjVhNzAwODE4NzE%3D&hl=en

After test-driven, market-driven reform was implemented, from 2013 to 2019, the nation’s 8th grade math scores for African-Americans dropped by five points. But I would argue that 8th grade NAEP reading scores are the most important and reliable metric, and they dropped seven points in six years for African-American 8th graders.

Today, Oklahoma’s 4th grade NAEP reading scores have dropped to four points below the 1990s pre-HB1017 tax increase level. And since accountability-driven, competition-driven reforms were supposed to improve outcomes for our poorest children of color, it is shocking that from 2013 to 2019 black student 8th grade scores dropped 15 points!

https://www.educationnext.org/make-2019-results-nations-report-card/

https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/worst-news-naep?utm_source=Fordham+Institute+Newsletters+%26+Announcements&utm_campaign=f22e67acec-20160918_LateLateBell9_16_2016_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5fa2df08a3-f22e67acec-71894457&mc_cid=f22e67acec&mc_eid=3095764e3b

Rather than admit their mistakes, reformers have retained their original meme that was used to justify hurried and risky reforms to blow up the education “status quo,” so that “disruptive innovation” can spark “transformative change.”

Two contradictory misnaepery themes are being rushed into the breach by the Fordham Institute. The smiley-faced meme is that teachers and students will naturally rise to meet far more “rigorous” standards. On the other hand, the conservative Fordham Institute has been blaming states like Oklahoma for supposedly hurting student performance by ending high school graduation exams. It is also arguing that we should return to the punitive policies of the former Chief for Change State Superintendent Janet Baressi and retain even more 3rd graders based on reading tests. 

First, ignoring the damage done by their experiments, accountability-driven, competition-driven reformers argue that radically higher testing standards will produce transformative improvements. State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister was a leader in the reaction against Baressi’s privatization agenda, so I can’t be too critical when she has to adopt some policies pushed by Education Next and other “astroturf” think tanks. Rightly or wrongly, she revised the state’s standards and assessments. There are no stakes attached to these metrics, and they allow the State Department of Education to say, “Oklahoma’s new standards [are] one of only 17 ‘A’ grades in the nation, up from the previous rank of 47th and a grade of ‘D.’”

So, for instance, Oklahoma’s 2017 8th grade math tests set a proficiency level which is at the NAEP proficiency level, basically comparable to around a 300 on that rigorous standard. The only groups in the United States were average scores reach that level are white and economically advantaged students in Massachusetts, a state where per capita income is nearly 50 percent greater. Oklahoma’s NAEP scores currently correlate with a level just above Kazakhstan.  Advantaged students in Massachusetts perform at the level of the counterparts on PISA and TMMS in the top performing states and nations, except for South Korea.

https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/naep_timss/profiles.aspx
https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-2015-United-States-MA.pdf
https://www.epi.org/publication/bringing-it-back-home-why-state-comparisons-are-more-useful-than-international-comparisons-for-improving-u-s-education-policy/#_note11

Of course, now that we listened to conservative reformers at the Fordham Institute and raised our expectations, Oklahoma students will soon join students at the top of the world’s education systems …

Fordham and other national reformers are also launching a second round misnaepery memes.  The 2015 NAEP was its first test of 4th graders after Oklahoma’s Reading Sufficiency Act required the retention of 3rd graders who don’t pass a reading test. Once Chief for Change Baressi was defeated by a pragmatic Republican, Hofmeister, educators were allowed more judgment in deciding whether to retain students. Until last year, however, little funding was available for interventions to assist struggling readers, much less adequate training and supports for inexperienced and emergency teachers in early elementary grades. (Oklahoma has hired more than 3,000 emergency certified teachers in a year.)

The 2015, 4th grade test scores increased by 2-1/2 percent. A conservative Republican reformer claimed they “were attributed to the 2014 implementation of a law that barred students from being promoted to the fourth grade if they read at lower than a second-grade level.” Those gains disappeared during the next two NAEPs. So, it is argued that more teeth needs to be restored to the retention policy.

But we also need to ask what really prompted the one-year jump in test scores. As in other states, the retention of low-performing readers can provide a temporary boost in NAEP scores. If you add up the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders who would have been in 4th grade during 2015, but who were retained, the total comes to about 9,000. Before the RSA, the more typical number of retentions was about 4,000. That means that about 5,000 more of the lowest performing students were missing from the 2015 4th grade class of about 47,000. The retention of more than 10 percent of the tested class could explain the one-time test score boost. As those students subsequently entered 4th grade, test scores dropped back to normative levels.

https://ocrdata.ed.gov/DistrictSchoolSearch#
https://oklahomawatch.org/2018/12/14/oklahoma-nearly-tops-nation-in-holding-back-early-grade-students/
https://journalrecord.com/2019/11/07/free-market-friday-student-results-continue-to-decline/

And what happened to that year’s economically disadvantaged students when they took 8th grade tests in 2019? Their scores were down by 2-½ percent in comparison to their 2015 8th grade peers.

Who knows what will be Fordham’s next misnaepery-driven attack on public education. After all, they were one of the think tanks who argued that the No Child Left Behind Act, which was enacted in 2002 deserved credit for the NAEP gains of the late-1990s! And now it is proclaiming an “Agincourt-level disaster” is the result of weakening NCLB accountability. The thing we know is that the Fordham spin will be picked up, amplified, and used by rightwing lobbyists throughout the nation to slander public schools.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, NAEP, Oklahoma, Propaganda, Testing

Eli Broad Pays Yale University $100 Million to Take Charge of His Controversial Broad Leadership Academy

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2019 //
72

Many school districts have had unfortunate experiences with “Broadies,” the graduates of Eli Broad’s management program for future school leaders. The Broad Leadership Academy has sent forth hundreds of would-be superintendents to impose Broad’s top-down management style, his faith in data, and his belief that the best way to reform a public school is to close it and replace it with a privately managed charter school. Broad is one of the major funders of charter schools in the nation. Although he graduated from the public schools of Detroit, he has zero interest in public schools other than as objects for privatization. In my 2010 book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, I referred to the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Walton Foundation as the Billionaire Boys Club. Since then, I have discovered that the club has dozens of billionaire members, and a few (think Alice Walton) are Girls, not Boys. All, however, share an animus toward public schools and a passion for privatization of what belongs to the public.

The big news is that Eli Broad has given $100 million to Yale University to administer his efforts to train future leaders of schools. It is not clear where the faculty will come from, since the Broad training program is unaccredited and is led by Broad allies, not academicians or scholars.

Now the graduates will be accredited, but their degree won’t mean much unless the philosophy of the program  changes from its current emphasis on DPE (“Destroy Public Education”) to SPE (“Support Public Education”). That change is hard to imagine. If you want to see the fruits of Broad’s distorted thinking, look no farther than Detroit and Oakland, where Broad-trained leaders encouraged (or imposed in the case of Oakland) massive charter expansion, a goal shared with Betsy DeVos. Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority, whose leadership he selected, collapsed in failure.  Oakland continues to suffer from the disruptive actions of Broadie leaders. His efforts to hand half of the students in Los Angeles over to charter schools have thus far been foiled.

Read Mercedes Schneider’s account of the multiple failures associated with Eli Broad’s agenda. 

Eli Broad is aggressive in using his money and policy agenda to destabilize and disrupt public education.

Here is the press release from the Broad Foundation/Broad Center, with the usual puffery and zero admission of the failed policies (privatization, school closings, high-stakes testing, VAM) that Broad and the graduates of his program have inflicted on American schools over most of the past two decades.

 

The Broad Center Will Become Part of Yale University to Train Future Generations of Public School Leaders

$100 Million Donation from The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation will Fund The Broad Center at the Yale School of Management to Offer Tuition-Free Master’s Degree to Emerging Education Leaders and Advanced Management Training to Superintendents and Senior Leaders in Public School Systems

 

Los Angeles, CA – With a gift of $100 million to Yale University, The Broad Foundation today reaffirms its commitment to public K-12 education and makes possible the launch of a major new initiative of the Yale School of Management focused on strengthening leadership in public education. Building on transformative work by The Broad Center in Los Angeles, the initiative will ensure in perpetuity high-impact programs to advance excellence and equity in education.

 

The Broad Center at Yale SOM will develop research, teaching, and policy initiatives devoted to improving the effectiveness of top leaders in America’s public school systems. The ambitious initiative will leverage Yale SOM’s expertise in delivering rigorous management education to talented professionals in fields that have broad societal impact, while furthering and amplifying the previously independent Broad Center’s mission of ensuring high-quality leadership in public education.

 

“I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished in the last 20 years and I can think of no better future for The Broad Center than Yale University,” said Eli Broad.

 

The gift is the largest ever received by the Yale School of Management and will enable the creation of a master’s degree program for emerging public education leaders and advanced leadership training for top school system executives—successors to The Broad Residency in Urban Education and The Broad Academy, respectively. The Broad Center at Yale SOM will also develop extensive research endeavors aimed at assembling the premier collection of data on public education leadership.

 

“With its mission to educate leaders for business and society, Yale SOM is a natural home for The Broad Center,” said Yale SOM Dean Kerwin Charles. “We have long recognized public education as critical to the health of our communities, and we believe that our distinctive approach to management education and research can have tremendous impact. Our efforts will build on the extraordinary work of The Broad Center team over the past two decades. Indeed, we are impressed by and grateful for what they have done to advance excellence and equity in public education.”

 

The Broad Foundation has learned through its 20 years of investing in public education that schools alone can’t solve for the inequities, indignities, and challenges facing students from underserved communities: Having The Broad Center housed at Yale SOM means all of its programs can be enhanced with input from Yale University’s leading thinkers in management, public health, law, child development, policy, criminal justice and economic development. The center will draw on the experiences and insights of practitioners, including Broad Center alumni and Yale SOM graduates, to help guide and inform its efforts in both teaching and research.

 

“I am honored that The Broad Foundation is entrusting Yale to carry out this important part of Eli and Edye’s philanthropic legacy. Educating leaders who will serve all sectors of society is part of Yale’s mission, so it is fitting that the Yale School of Management is creating a master’s degree program tailored to delivering management and leadership training that meets the unique needs of public education,” said Yale President Peter Salovey. “The school’s dedication to leadership education and cultivation is unmatched. Its track record of producing transformational leaders across a range of fields speaks to the tremendous promise of the new Broad Center at Yale SOM.”

 

The two programs of The Broad Center, The Broad Academy (founded in 2002) and The Broad Residency in Urban Education (founded in 2003), have trained more than 850 education leaders working in over 150 urban school districts, public charter school networks and state education agencies nationwide. More than 150 Broad Center leaders have served as superintendents or chief executives of local and state systems, and over 70 are currently in these roles. Each program has made great strides in building a diverse network of leaders that better represent the students and families they serve.

 

“The Broad Center has been committed to evaluating and evolving its work since it was founded – continuous improvement is in our DNA,” said Becca Bracy Knight, Executive Director of The Broad Center. “Organizational leadership has a direct effect on school quality, which is why The Broad Center has worked for two decades to elevate the field of public education management. We look forward to new opportunities to increase our impact by combining each organization’s unique and complementary strengths in service of our shared mission to improve public education.”

 

The current cohorts of fellows and residents will finish their programs through The Broad Center as currently structured; successor programs run by SOM will begin in 2020.

 

In its 20 years of investing in public education, The Broad Foundation has made grants to transform school governance, improve district operations, grow high-quality charter management organizations, engage in education policy and advocacy, and develop talented leaders, managers and teachers for public school systems.

 

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Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Detroit, Education Industry, Failure, Los Angeles, Michigan, Privatization

Politico: Betsy DeVos Thanks ALEC for Its Ideas to Defund Public Schools

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2019 //
13

Politico reports that Betsy DeVos thanked her ideological bedfellow, ALEC, for its help in framing proposals to defund public schools (aka vouchers, opportunity scholarships, tax credits, education savings accounts, a rose by any other name, etc.).

ALEC is the far-right extremist libertarian organization that hates public schools, gun control, unions, environmental regulations, and anything else that infringes on the right of corporations to pursue profits without regard to consequences. ALEC is also a strong supporter of charter schools.

 

DEVOS IS SCHEDULED TO THANK ALEC FOR EDUCATION FREEDOM SCHOLARSHIP SUPPORT in a speech to the council’s conference in Arizona today, the Education Department said. The proposal, which has found little traction in Congress, would create a new $5 billion federal tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations to pay for students to attend private schools or expand their public education options.

— DeVos is a longtime friend to ALEC’s group of conservative state legislators. The secretary’s addressed the group’s conferences before, and drawn protests with a push for local control of education issues.

— Arizona unionists have planned extended protests at ALEC’s conference, and have been aware that DeVos would be visiting.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Vouchers

Justin Parmenter: NC Software Giant Pays to Send State Legislators to ALEC Meetings

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2019 //
10

NBCT high school teacher and blogger Justin Parmenter discovered a shocking fact: a company in the state called SAS pays to send state legislators to the annual conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a far-right anti-public school organization that writes model legislation. SAS sells software to districts and states to evaluate teacher effectiveness.  The SAS software is very controversial because it’s algorithms are secret and proprietary. Teachers in Houston sued and won a court judgement against SAS, when the judge ruled that its secret processes were arbitrary and denied due process to teachers, who had no way to know how they were judged or if the calculations were accurate.

Parmenter writes:

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is an infamous legislation factory which is notoriously hostile toward traditional public schools.  Its model bills are passed into law–often word for word–by state legislatures around the country.

ALEC’s education platform claims the nation’s K-12 education system is “failing our students, leaving them unprepared for college, careers, or life,” and the policies the organization writes for lawmakers offer a smorgasbord of legislative pathways for defunding public schools, especially those that serve high-poverty students.

That’s why it’s so disappointing to learn that one of North Carolina K-12 public education’s most high-profile partners, SAS Institute, is paying for members of North Carolina’s General Assembly to travel to ALEC’s annual meetings, where viewing and discussing the group’s suggested anti-public school policies is one of the primary activities.

SAS Institute is a privately held analytics software company based in Cary, NC.  Its founder and CEO James Goodnight’s net worth is estimated at more than $13 billion, making him the richest person in North Carolina by a wide margin.

SAS has an extremely cozy relationship with the NC Department of Public Instruction (DPI).  Just last month, for example, SAS hosted an event where company software specialists and professional educators including DPI Deputy Superintendent of District Support Dr. Beverly Emory presented on how to use SAS data in public schools.

Millions of North Carolina taxpayer dollars go to SAS every year for a variety of software-related education contracts.  The company provides K-12 teachers with EVAAS ratings, which employ a secret algorithm to measure individual teachers’ effectiveness using DPI’s standardized test data.  It also produces the North Carolina School Report Cards.

North Carolina’s School Report Cards assign each school a single A-F letter grade representing its overall performance. The report cards have been controversial since state legislators introduced them in 2013 as the grades are highly correlated with levels of poverty and sometimes have the effect of pushing families away from traditional public schools.

Probably not by coincidence, ALEC has been peddling its “A-Plus Literacy Act” to lawmakers since early 2011.  The model bill recommends a statewide A-F school report card system with a special focus on reporting results for students who score in the lowest 25th percentile, and it refers to the grading system as a “lynchpin for reforms.”  One such reform is also included in the bill, as ALEC recommends students who attend F schools be given an opportunity to enroll in private schools instead.

A cozy arrangement indeed!

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Education Industry, Education Reform, North Carolina, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations

Thomas Ultican: Wealthy White Elites Are Attacking the Little Rock School District

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2019 //
4

Thomas Ultican writes here about the Walton-funded effort to control the public schools of Little Rock. Given the Walton love of charter schools, we can safely assume that they hope to eliminate democratic control of the citizenry and impose charter schools. Ultican follows the money, where it comes from, where it goes.

He writes:

In an apparent reaction to the 2014 school board election, new Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson and the state of Arkansas assumed stewardship of Little Rock School District (LRSD). A law passed January 28, 2015 authorizing the takeover requires the state to give control back to Little Rock voters by January, 2020. New racially motivated proposals hearkening back to the days of openly racist governor, Orville Faubus, ensure minority residents lose their democratic rights. Big money from the Waltons – The world’s wealthiest family – is driving privatization and segregation within LRSD.

A leading Little Rock community activist, Reverend Anika Whitfield, said in an interview, “The Governor, the Attorney General and the state legislature are all controlled by the Walton family.” In 2016 when new Superintendent Mike Poore came to Little Rock from Bentonville, Arkansas (headquarter of the Walton family), Whitfield was suspicious and asked him about his relationship with Walmart’s owners. He replied, “I know you all are apprehensive; I don’t even know Jim Walton.”

Driving Corporate Education Reform in Little Rock

Littls Sis Map Attacking Little Rock Schools

Little Sis Map Showing Leaders of the Attack on LRSD

Bear in mind that the point of corporate reform (as practiced by the Waltons, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and other of their ilk) is disruption, not school improvement. Their efforts seldom lead to better schools, but always produce disruption.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Little Rock, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Two Conservative Billionaire Foundations Collaborate to Fund Disruptive Innovations

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2019 //
12

The Walton Family Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation are joining forces to fund disruptive innovations. Both foundations are hostile to democratically governed public schools. Both have supported charter schools and vouchers.

Philanthropic groups associated with billionaire businessman and activist Charles Koch have announced two initiatives to deepen their involvement in K-12 education. 

One initiative is Yes Every Kid, a group that intends to find common ground between groups that typically have disagreed vehemently over issues such as labor protections and school funding. It’s a social-welfare organization—a 501(c)4 in the language of the Internal Revenue Service—that will be able to take part in lobbying and political campaign work such as promoting ballot measures and committees. It will operate under the umbrella of Stand Together, a nonprofit group backed by Koch that promotes anti-poverty efforts.

The other initiative is an agreement between the Charles Koch Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation for each group to donate $5 million to what’s essentially a Silicon Valley-style incubator for education called 4.0 Schools. This group will use that $10 million donation, and another $5 million from other donors, to seed “500 new schools, programs and education tools across the country,” according to a statement from the Koch and Walton foundations. Among its activities, the Walton Family Foundation supports charter schools and private school choice programs. (The Walton Family Foundation provides grant support for coverage of parent-engagement issues, including charters and school choice, in Education Week.)

Charles Koch, along with his brother David, have long been associated with conservative political causes through groups such as Americans for Prosperity. And for some time, the Koch brothers have been some of the biggest antagonists for Democrats and liberal groups, including teachers’ unions. In January, the Koch donor network announced plans to get more involved in K-12 education. At that meeting of the Seminar Network, a Koch-backed organization, the group said it was interested in promoting personalized learning, improving schools, and working “alongside” teachers. 

The billionaires are restless. They are worried. Nothing they have done or funded has succeeded. The Red4Ed movement has put them on the defensive. The backlash against charters has shocked them (the billionaire Waltons claim credit for launching one of every four charters in the nation). The all-charter New Orleans District, where half the schools were rated D or F by the state, is a disappointment. The Koch Network was walloped last year by parent and teacher activists in Arizona, who blocked voucher expansion.

All the billionaires have is money. Endless money. The Waltons increase their wealth by $4 million AN HOUR. so they are putting up about 2 and 1/2 hours of revenue for this new venture. They can’t be serious. They are just producing disruption, sowing chaos, creating jobs for their followers. Keep your eyes on them and Mr. Koch.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Koch Brothers, Technology, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

SomeDam Poet on PISA: “That’s a Moron”

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2019 //
19

Our blog poet reflects on the meaning of the latest international test scores (PISA).

That’s a Moron

When the test hits your eye
Like an old PISA pie
That’s a moron

When the scores make you drool just like a pasta fazool
You’re a moron
When you dance down the street with a test as your beat
You’re insane
When you walk in a dream but you know you’re not dreaming signore
Scuzza me, but you see, back in old Napoli
You’re a moron
A moron, that’s a moron

https://youtu.be/1TWhFmCRdoU

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, International, Testing

The Lucrative Loophole That Charter Operators Exploit

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2019 //
40

This article about charter real estate dealings was written by Professors Preston Green III, Bruce Baker, and Derek W. Black.

They argue that lax state laws allow charter operators to reap profits while maintaining an ostensibly “nonprofit” status.

While critics charge that charter schools are siphoning money away from public schools, a more fundamental issue frequently flies under the radar: the questionable business practices that allow people who own and run charter schools to make large profits.

Charter school supporters are reluctant to acknowledge, much less stop, these practices.

Given that charter schools are growing rapidly – from 1 million students in 2006 to more than 3.1 million students attending approximately 7,000 charter schoolsnow – shining a light on these practices can’t come too soon. The first challenge, however, is simply understanding the complex space in which charters operate – somewhere between public and private.

Unregulated competition

Charters were founded on the theory that market forces and competition would benefit public education. But policy reports and local government studiesincreasingly reveal that the charter school industry is engaging in the type of business practices that have led to the downfall of other huge industries and companies.

Charter schools regularly sign contracts with little oversight, shuffle money between subsidiaries and cut corners that would never fly in the real world of business or traditional public schools – at least not if the business wanted to stay out of bankruptcy and school officials out of jail. The problem has gotten so bad that a nationwide assessment by the U.S. Department of Education warned in a 2016 audit report that the charter school operations pose a serious “risk of waste, fraud and abuse” and lack “accountability.”

Self-dealing

The biggest problem in charter school operations involves facility leases and land purchases. Like any other business, charters need to pay for space. But unlike other businesses, charters too often pay unreasonably high rates – rates that no one else in the community would pay.

One of the latest examples can be found in a January 2019 report from the Ohio auditor-general, which revealed that in 2016 a Cincinnati charter school paid $867,000 to lease its facilities. This was far more than the going rate for comparable facilities in the area. The year before, a Cleveland charter was paying half a million above market rate, according to the same report.

Why would a charter school do this? Most states require charter schools to be nonprofit. To make money, some of them have simply entered into contracts with separate for-profit companies that they also own. These companies do make money off students.

In other words, some “nonprofit” charter schools take public money and pay their owners with it. When this happens, it creates an enormous incentive to overpay for facilities and supplies and underpay for things like teachers and student services.

Many millions of dollars of public funds that were intended to educate children are squandered, they say.

It is called “legal graft.”

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization

Yong Zhao: How PISA Created the Illusion of Education Quality and Marketed It to the World

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2019 //
25

Yong Zhao, the brilliant education analyst, writes here about the great PISA illusion. If you have not read any of Zhao’s books, do so now. If you have not heard him speak, google him or invite him to your next big conference. He is insightful, provocative, thoughtful, absolutely delightful! He is a master at making people think and debunking hoaxes.  Please read the entire post to learn how we and the rest of the world have been hoaxed by promoters of fake ideas.

He writes:

PISA is a masterful magician. It has successfully created an illusion of education quality and marketed it to the world. In 2018, 79 countries took part in this magic show out of the belief that this triennial test accurately measures the quality of their education systems, the effectiveness of their teachers, the ability of their students, and the future prosperity of their society.

PISA’s magical power in the education universe stems from its bold claims and successful marketing. It starts by tapping into the universal anxiety about the future. Humans are naturally concerned about the future and have a strong desire to know if tomorrow is better than, or at least as good as, today. Parents want to know if their children will have a good life; politicians want to know if their nations have the people to build a more prosperous economy; the public wants to know if the young will become successful and contributing members of the society.

PISA brilliantly exploits the anxiety and desire of parents, politicians, and the public with three questions (OECD, 1999, p. 7):

  • How well are young adults prepared to meet the challenges of the future?
  • Are they able to analyse, reason and communicate their ideas effectively?
  • Do they have the capacity to continue learning throughout life?

These words begin the document that introduced PISA to the world in 1999 and have been repeated in virtually all PISA reports ever since. The document then states the obvious: “Parents, students, the public and those who run education systems need to know” (OECD, 1999, p. 7). And as can be expected, PISA offers itself as the fortuneteller by claiming that:

PISA assesses the extent to which 15-year-old students, near the end of their compulsory education, have acquired key knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies. … The assessment does not just ascertain whether students can reproduce knowledge; it also examines how well students can extrapolate from what they have learned and can apply that knowledge in unfamiliar settings, both in and outside of school. This approach reflects the fact that modern economies reward individuals not for what they know, but for what they can do with what they know. (OECD, 2016, p. 25).

This claim not only offers PISA as a tool to sooth anxiety but also, and perhaps more importantly, makes it the tool for such purpose because it helps to knock out its competitors. As an international education assessment, PISA came late. Prior to PISA, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) had already been operating international assessments since the 1960s, offering influential programs such as TIMSS and PIRLS. For a start-up to beat the establishment, it must offer something different and better. That’s exactly what PISA promised: a different and better assessment…

However, the claim, the foundation upon which PISA has built its success, has been seriously challenged. First, there is no evidence to justify, let alone prove, the claim that PISA indeed measures skills that are essential for life in modern economies. Second, the claim is an imposition of a monolithic and West-centric view of societies on the rest of the world. Third, the claim distorts the purpose of education.

Made-up Claim

The claim that PISA measures knowledge and skills essential for the modern society or the future world is not based on any empirical evidence. Professor Stefan Hopmann of the University of Vienna writes:

There is no research available that proves this assertion beyond the point that knowing something is always good and knowing more is better. There is not even research showing that PISA covers enough to be representative of the school subjects involved or the general knowledge-base. PISA items are based on the practical reasoning of its researchers and on pre-tests of what works in most or all settings — and not on systematic research on current or future knowledge structures and needs. (Hopmann, 2008, p. 438).

In other words, the claim was just a fantasy, an illusion, entirely made up by the PISA team. But PISA keeps repeating its assertion that measures skills needed for the future. The strategy worked. PISA successfully convinced people through repetition…

Although PISA claims that it does not assess according to national curricula or school knowledge, its results have been interpreted as a valid measure of the quality of educational systems. But the view of education promoted by PISA is a distorted and extremely narrow one (Berliner, 2011; Sjøberg, 2015; Uljens, 2007). PISA treats economic growth and competitiveness as the sole purpose of education. Thus it only assesses subjects — reading, math, science, financial literacy, and problem solving — that are generally viewed as important for boosting competitiveness in the global economy driven by science and technology. PISA shows little interest in other subjects that have occupied the curricula of many countries such as the humanities, arts and music, physical education, social sciences, world languages, history, and geography (Sjøberg, 2015).

While preparing children for economic participation is certainly part of the responsibility of educational institutions, it cannot and should not be the only responsibility (Labaree, 1997; Sjøberg, 2015; Zhao, 2014, 2016). The purpose of education in many countries includes a lot more than preparing economic beings. Citizenship, solidarity, equity, curiosity and engagement, compassion, empathy, curiosity, cultural values, physical and mental health, and many others are some of the frequently mentioned purposes in national education goal states. But these aspects of purpose of education “are often forgotten or ignored when discussions about the quality of the school is based on PISA scores and rankings” (Sjøberg, 2015, p. 113).

Zhao presents a devastating critique of the validity of PISA. It is a must read.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, International, Testing

Chris Whittle Tries a Splashy Comeback

By dianeravitch
December 3, 2019 //
19

Chris Whittle is the Uber entrepreneur of for-profit education. Back in the 1990s, he launched the Edison Project, assuming that George H.W. Bush would be re-elected and would get a voucher plan through Congress. That didn’t happen, so Edison sought contracts to run low-performing schools. Lots of push back from districts and parents. The share price plummeted. To learn th3 story of Edison, read Samuel Abrams’ excellent book, Education and the Commercial Mindset.

After the failure of the Edison Project, Whittle raised many millions to start a for-profit private school called avenues that was to have locations around the world. He hired educators with long experience in elite private schools and had splashy openings in Manhattan and in China. tuition was over $50,000 a year. In 2015, he and the board had differences, and he moved on.

Now Whittle is opening a new international for-profit chain, and openings are planned in multiple locations, including the District of Columbia, Brooklyn, and international locations. As the roll out of the new chain proceeds, with glitz and glamour, the board of Avenues is suing Whittle for $5.8 million that he allegedly owes them.

 

Leslie Brody of the Wall Street Journal wrote:

As he wooed hundreds of guests with cocktails, mini lobster rolls and goat cheese bonbons at a reception in Brooklyn, entrepreneur Chris Whittle made an audacious claim: There are no world-class K-12 schools, anywhere.

And he intends to change that.

“Our mission is to actually create the first modern school,” Mr. Whittle told a crowd last week at the launch of a downtown site of Whittle School & Studios. His new for-profit enterprise aims to create one school with 36 campuses world-wide in a decade, with a shared curriculum and “a collective intelligence,” according to its stylish 118-page brochure.

At 72 years old, Mr. Whittle is known for marketing prowess, bold visions and major setbacks in his quest to build educational empires. He says he has raised more than $1 billion for Whittle School, including funds from investors and real-estate expenses borne by firms that construct and own its campuses. Its first sites started operating this fall in Washington, D.C., and Shenzhen, China. The Brooklyn venue, to open next fall, will be the third.

“It’s an ambitious, risky venture,” said Thomas Toch, director of FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University. “It’s classic Chris Whittle, to throw a long pass and attempt to run under it for a touchdown.”

Mr. Whittle, a former publisher of Esquire magazine, co-founded Edison Schools, a company that aimed to bring private-sector efficiencies to managing taxpayer-funded schools in the 1990s. The company helped usher in the charter school movement, but ran into financial problems.

In 2002, Edison Schools was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which said it inaccurately described aspects of its business in SEC filings. The company settled, saying it would add an internal audit function, without admitting or denying the SEC findings. It was taken private and renamed, and Mr. Whittle left.

Mr. Whittle’s first attempt at launching a global school in New York fizzled in the 2008 financial crisis. Then he co-founded Avenues: The World School, a for-profit institution in Manhattan, in 2012 with a pitch of 15 campuses world-wide by 2021. But he left Avenues in 2015. So far, the school has only three sites, including São Paulo and Shenzhen, China, plus a new online program with 20 students…

Whittle School plans capacity for 90,000 students in 15 countries, with much of its leadership from China, India and the U.S. “We were building from scratch an organization that was very intentionally bi- and tri-cultural,” Mr. Whittle said. “It’s been very challenging.”

His team includes such high-profile educators as Benno Schmidt, the former Yale president who worked with him at Edison Schools and Avenues; Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley; and Jim Hawkins, former head of the elite Harrow School in London. Designing the schools is Renzo Piano, architect of the Whitney Museum.

Such big-ticket staff and glossy marketing are expensive, said Jonathan Knee, a Columbia Business School professor who called Whittle the “Wizard of Ed” in his book “Class Clowns: How the Smartest Investors Lost Billions in Education.” Mr. Knee questioned whether the school will be sustainable, given Mr. Whittle’s lavish spending.

“This is a startup that is going to be losing money for a long time,” Mr. Knee said. “It’s sort of breathtaking, given the track record, that he could get away with using his name as the brand.”

Mr. Whittle says his investors take the long view: “This is what I would call patient and long-term capital.”

Thomas Franco, an early investor, said he was drawn by Mr. Whittle’s expertise and deep networks in education. “Chris is a catalyst for constructive change in an industry that is very ripe for disruption,” he said. “The obvious challenges are the execution risks but so far the team has demonstrated an ability to manage these.”

Mr. Whittle puts the price of launching the Brooklyn site at more than $300 million, including the developers’ costs. It involves renovating 10 floors of the old Macy’sbuilding on Livingston Street, with a roof terrace, theater, boarding facilities and 16-foot ceilings to inspire creativity.

It advertises hands-on, personalized learning and Mandarin lessons from age 3 to help children compete in a fast-changing global economy. In an echo of Avenues, it promises students will be able to hop among campuses to study abroad. New York already has several established for-profit schools with sister sites in other countries.

With its first open house for parents on Thursday, Whittle School is soliciting applications for preschool and kindergarten next fall. Tuition and fees cost $49,500. Mr. Whittle says the bill for older grades, to start in fall 2021, will reflect the city’s other independent schools, which can top $56,000 yearly.

Some parents are leery of the model. Samuel Abrams, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, cautions that seeking profit from tuition doesn’t fit with an educational mission, or putting as much money as possible into instruction.

“There is a lot of opacity” in the business operations, Mr. Abrams said. “You have to trust, in the case of a complex service, that the provider is going to do what was promised.”

Mr. Whittle says parents care about innovation far more than nonprofit status. “There is no way we could assemble these resources philanthropically,” he said.

The new head of the Brooklyn site, Larry Weiss, has led two nonprofit private schools, Brooklyn Friends and Saint Ann’s. He says Whittle School’s resources will liberate him from the onerous job of raising donations. “It’s an enormous relief for parents, who end up besieged by fundraising” at nonprofits, Mr. Weiss said. “People get angry with each other. People get disappointed.”

Joyce Szuflita, admissions consultant at NYC School Help, says she will watch how the school fares before recommending it. Parents “occasionally grumble that a for-profit school will be less choosy because they have to fill seats,” she said. “Any new school, for profit or not-for-profit, will have this problem.”

Another consultant, Victoria Goldman, says she is happy a new school is coming to Brooklyn, which lacks enough options. “This may not be for everybody,” she said, “but it will be on everybody’s list” to check out.

Some parents are curious. Ari Goldstein, a real-estate executive with a baby and a 3-year-old in Brooklyn Heights, wants to explore public schools nearby as well as Whittle School. He says he likes that it has “the capacity to step back and think about what is the best educational environment, and create something from scratch.”

 

In a follow up article, Brody of the Wall Street Journal described the legal battle between Whittle’s previous venture, Avenues, and Whittle. The board is prepared to force Whittle to sell his lavish East Hampton estate on Long Island, valued at more than $100 million, to settle his debt.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/schools-entrepreneur-chris-whittle-still-owes-5-8-million-to-avenues-11574289768?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

Chris Whittle, the education entrepreneur who is launching a new for-profit global school in New York City, has been mired in a legal battle over his multimillion-dollar personal debt to his previous local startup, Avenues.

Legal filings by the school’s company, Avenues Global Holdings, say it lent its co-founder, Mr. Whittle, a sum in 2013 that grew to more than $13 million in 2017. He didn’t repay it on time, and the dispute landed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan in 2018.

Officials at Avenues and Mr. Whittle agreed this month that he still owed it roughly $5.8 million, records show. Avenues is one of the city’s biggest independent schools, with annual tuition topping $56,000.

Avenues officials said Wednesday that Mr. Whittle still hadn’t paid the debt and that they are seeking to force a sale of his estate in Long Island’s East Hampton, which they say was appraised at more than $100 million. It sits near the Atlantic Ocean with a view of Georgica Pond.

“Chris has failed to meet his commitments to Avenues,” said Jeff Clark, president of Avenues: The World School, by email. “Despite giving him many chances and time to cure this, we are now pursuing other remedies because of his track record of unkept promises.”

A representative for Mr. Whittle said Wednesday that “Chris anticipates paying the final $5.8 million due over the next couple of weeks.”

Mr. Whittle is known for his bold visions and major setbacks in a series of educational projects. His new business is Whittle School & Studios, which he says will become a single private school with 36 campuses world-wide in a decade. One site is scheduled to open in Brooklyn next autumn.

In a 2017 arbitration filing, Avenues Global Holdings said it lent him about $10.8 million in 2013 “to ameliorate his dire personal financial situation so he could focus on his work for Avenues.” The filing was included as an exhibit in Avenues’ 2018 legal action against Mr. Whittle. He resigned in 2015 because of disagreements with the company’s leadership, and his outstanding loan grew to more than $13 million in 2017, the arbitration filing said.

In his separation agreement, he promised he wouldn’t engage in school operations in New York City and other major cities until November 2018, according to the arbitration filing. Avenues accused him of violating that noncompete clause and his confidentiality agreement by working on the Whittle School before the clause allowed. Some Chinese officials mistook Whittle School representatives for those of Avenues, the arbitration filing said.

Whittle School’s business plan reflects Mr. Whittle’s “effort to copy wholesale the Avenues model in direct violation of his covenants,” the arbitration filing said.

Mr. Whittle vehemently denied violating the noncompete and confidentiality clauses, his representative said Wednesday, noting that the settlement agreement required that he pay only the loan amount due, and no additional damages. The representative said the allegation that Chinese officials mistook anyone from Whittle School as being part of Avenues was never substantiated.

Mr. Whittle has said he has raised more than $1 billion for Whittle School, including funds from investors and real-estate expenses borne by firms that construct and own its campuses.

Mr. Whittle is a former publisher of Esquire magazine and co-founded Edison Schools, a company that helped usher in the charter-school movement in the 1990s but ran into financial problems.

He went on to help start Avenues, which opened in the city’s Chelsea neighborhood in 2012.

Benson Lu, a Whittle School board member, said he was aware of Mr. Whittle’s dispute with his former company. “I don’t think this will be important to parents,” Mr. Lu said. “Parents care more about the quality of education and faculty members.”

 

Categories Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Privatization
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