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Nicholas Tampio: The New York Regents Should Reject the Failed, Renamed Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2017 //
27

Nicholas Tampio calls on the Regents of the State of New York, the state school board, to reject the rebranded Common Core standards.

Tampio is a professor of political science at Fordham University.

He writes:

“On Sept. 11-12, the New York State Board of Regents will consider adopting the Next Generation Learning Standards for English language arts and mathematics. The standards are nearly identical with the Common Core and keep the features that parents have loudly, and justifiably, protested. New York should not keep wasting time and money on low-quality academic standards. The Regents should vote no on the renamed Common Core standards.

“The New Paltz Board of Education made a public comment describing how the “new” standards are virtually indistinguishable from the Common Core. “Of the 34 ELA anchor standards, 32 are word-for-word identical when compared to the original anchor standard,” the board said.

“Here is the first Next Generation ELA anchor standard: “Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly/implicitly and make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.” This is the first Common Core anchor standard and the basis of Common Core’s emphasis on “close reading.”

“On assignment after assignment, assessment after assessment, Common Core close reading works the same way. Students provide verbatim evidence from a text to answer questions about the text. As a professor, I know that this pedagogy fails to prepare students for college, and as a parent, I see that it leads to a dreary school day.

“The Common Core standards train children merely to regurgitate other people’s words.

“For instance, the 2017 Regents ELA examination, based on Common Core, asked that students write an essay on whether school recess should be structured play. The exam provided four texts and instructed students to “use specific, relevant, and sufficient evidence from at least three of the texts to develop your argument.”

“Three of the four texts argued for structured recess. The three that argued for structured recess were two pages; the one that argued for free play was one page.

“Parents expressed outrage on social media that this exam provided a wealth of evidence for students who argued for structured recess and little evidence for students who thought that students might enjoy free play.

“This problem is baked into the standards. The Common Core standards give students few opportunities to share their own thoughts or responses to the material. New York can do a better job writing standards and showing the rest of the country that the federal Every Student Succeeds Act really does open a door to exiting the Common Core.”

New York had far superior standards prior to adopting the Common Core standards as a devil’s bargain to win Race to the Top money.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Industry, New York, Teachers and Teaching

NYC Shuts Down Key Part of “Leadership Academy,” Legacy of Bloomberg-Klein Era

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2017 //
35

The New York City Department of Education announced that it was closing down the “Aspiring Principals” program, which was the linchpin of the NYC Leadership Academy. The Leadership Academy was launched by Joel Klein as a bold effort to attract business leaders, young teachers, and out-of-town principals who wanted a fast track to be a principal in New York City.

The first chairman of its board was Jack Welch of General Electric, who believed in grading all employees every year and firing the bottom 10%. The first CEO of the Academy was Robert Knowling Jr., a tech executive from Denver whose company had just collapsed. He brought a staff of more than 20 people with him to New York, including his personal coach.

Bloomberg raised $75 million for its first three years of operations. After that, the Department had a “competition” and awarded $50 million to the Leadership Academy, at which time Klein was chairman of the board.

The Leadership Academy was announced with great fanfare, like all Bloomberg initiatives, and school boards came from across the country to learn about it. What a great idea! Training business executives to be principals! It was about as good an idea as Bloomberg’s choice of a publishing executive to become chancellor after Klein stepped down. She lasted only three months.

The results of the Leadership Academy were unimpressive.

The only out-of-town principal who joined the program departed after six months. No business executives finished the program. It served as a pipeline for typically young teachers, who didn’t want to wait to gain the experience to become a school leader. Those who became principals found themselves in charge of a staff of veteran teachers who resented the quickie principals who had little experience and were in their late 20s or early 30s.

The city also cut its ties with TNTP, which Michelle Rhee created before she was D.C. Chancellor.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York City, Principals

Alan Singer: Do Test Scores Really Measure Success?

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2017 //
19

Alan Singer is not impressed with the sensational test scores posted by Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy.

“On its website, Success Academy reported “For the ninth consecutive year, Success Academy Charter Schools have scored among the highest-performing schools in New York State,” claiming that “students with disabilities and English Language Learners at Success Academy schools not only surpassed their peers statewide, but also outperformed students without disabilities and native English speakers, respectively, across New York.”

“But a closer look at a successful Success school shows how selective recruitment and pressure to leave “cooks the books.” According to the website Inside Schools, Success Cobble Hill of “got to go” fame, with 469 students grades K-5, has 10% of its students with registered disabilities and 5% who are English Language Learners, compared to 16% of students citywide with registered disabilities and 14% who are ELL. Students with disabilities and ELL are also very broad categories. For teaching and testing, there is a big difference between a middle-class student who has a 504 designation for mild attention deficit syndrome and needs additional time to complete tests and assignments, and a disruptive student with severe emotional issues or a student with serious learning difficulties. ELL students range through four categories from new arrivals who speak no English and may never have attended school in their home country to children who are very literate in their first language and are rapidly mastering English. An accurate comparison of schools requires knowing who the students are that attend the schools.”

The real damage done by Success Academy is that it “succeeds” by playing a game that many educators believe is inherently meaningless and harmful to real learning.

As Singer writes:

“It may just be that success at Success demonstrates the illegitimacy of the entire national high-stakes testing regime. Before celebrating Success Academy test scores and granting the network waivers to hire uncertified teachers, New York State education officials should investigate how the schools operate. If they do magic, they deserve credit. If it is a smoke and mirrors show that produces test scores through selective recruitment and the intimidation of children and families, it should be shut down.”

I would put a different spin on the conclusion.

Whether or not the scores are valid misses the point. Education cannot be measured by standardized tests. Standardized tests corrupt education. Getting the right answer is less important than asking the right question. What matters more than scores? The four C’s. Character. Citizenship. Creativity. Compassion.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Mercedes Schneider: Students, Faculty, and Alumni at Michigan State Protest DeVos as Speaker at Research Center Her Family Paid For!

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2017 //
31

Mercedes Schneider reports on a developing story at Michigan State University.

Students, faculty, and alumni are signing a petition protesting the invitation to Betsy DeVos as keynote speaker at the opening of a research center that her family paid $10 million for. If their petition is ignored, expect a protest. DeVos is the most unpopular member of Trump’s abysmal cabinet. It’s hard to say if she’s the most incompetent, because there’s always Scott Pruitt, Jeff Sessions, Rick Perry, Ryan Zinke, Mick Mulvaney, Tom Price, and so many others.

She writes:

“MSU PhD student, Sarah Kelly, has started a petition imploring MSU President Lou Anna Simon and MSU College of Human Medicine Dean, Norman Beauchamp, to rescind the invitation.

“The text of the petition, which appears to have been drafted on August 31, 2017– and which appears to rapidly be gaining signatures– is as follows:

“To:

“Dr. Lou Anna Simon, President, Michigan State University

“Dr. Norman Beauchamp, Dean, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine

“We, the faculty, students, staff and alumni of Michigan State University, and other interested citizens, sincerely request that you rescind the invitation to Betsy DeVos, Education Secretary in the Trump Administration, to speak at the grand opening of the MSU Grand Rapids Research Center (GRRC) on September 20, 2017.

“Secretary DeVos’ past activities have included:

· Lobbying for the privatization of the US public education system under the guise of “school choice.”

· Support for political candidates in Michigan who worked to implement her privatization plans and in the process, have slashed millions from the public education budget.

“As Education Secretary, Secretary DeVos:

· Recommends a $9 billion cut in federal education funding, including cuts to higher education, training and after-school programs.

· Supports cutting financial aid to low-income college students making it easier for private loan servicers to prey on Michigan families. The MSU College of Human Medicine already has some of the highest per student debt in the nation.

· Rolled back regulations on for-profit colleges and has made it easier for low performing for-profit colleges to defraud students.

· Refuses to limit federal education funding for schools who actively discriminate against LGBTQ students.

“The undersigned believe that Secretary DeVos’ agenda is diametrically opposed to the education and inclusion mission of Michigan State University. While her father-in-law’s gift in support of the GRRC is welcomed and appreciated, giving Secretary DeVos an MSU-sponsored platform to speak sends a message to the public, alumni, faculty, staff, students and their families, that the compromising of MSU’s standards can be easily purchased.

“Further, the undersigned are very concerned that planned protests of Mrs. DeVos’ visit will disrupt the GRRC Ribbon Cutting and distract media focus away from the celebration of MSU’s newest state-of-the-art research facility in Grand Rapids.”

Congratulations to the intelligent, courageous and appropriately outraged members of the MSU community!

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, Education Reform, Michigan, Privatization

Peter Greene: Get Your Barf Bag Ready for September 8, When Mrs. Jobs Reveals How to Fix Education

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2017 //
40

Peter Greene has a timely warning for us. Laurene Powell Jobs has lined up multiple TV channels and a star-studded cast to tell the world how she is fixing education. Her group is called the Emerson Collective. She hired Arne Duncan to advise her, despite the fact that he wasted $5 billion of federal funds (taxpayer money) on a failed effort to “reform” public schools by privatizing them, closing them, firing teachers and principals, and making standardized tests the purpose of education.

Peter notes that no working educator helped Mrs. Jobs formulate her plans. What do teachers know about education?

He writes:

“Brace yourselves. It’s time for a star-studded ed erformstravaganza.

“Another wave of PR dropped yesterday, touting a four-network, celebrity-packed, media event, proudly trumpeted everywhere from Variety to USA Today. On September 8, a huge line-up (including Tom Hanks, Yo-Yo Ma, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Hudson and (sorry) Common) will present “an hour-long live television special about reinventing American high schools….

“The XQ Institute is an offspring of the Emerson Collective, a Palo Alto-based do-gooding group founded by Laurene Powell Jobs. The organization is dedicated to removing barriers to opportunity so people can live to their full potential in order to develop and execute innovative solutions that will spur change and promote equality. They were one of the first groups to hire Arne Duncan after his Ed Secretary stint (do not miss his hardcore street pic here). Oh, and they just bought controlling interest in the Atlantic which, for reasons we’ll get to, is kind of a bummer.

“Jobs was always a philanthropic power player, and she’s logged time in the ed reform biz with NewSchools Venture Fund (We raise contributions from donors and use it to find, fund and support teams of educators and education entrepreneurs who are reimagining public education), but as the widow of Apple Empresario Steve Jobs, she has a huge mountain of money to work with. She is, in fact, the fourth richest woman in the world. And she has decided she would like to fix education.

“Jobs has said, “We want to make high schools back into the great equalizers they were meant to be.”

“To do that, she launched XQ Institute, which launched a big competition– XQ: The Super School Project.

“The Super School Project is an open call to reimagine and design the next American high school. In towns and cities far and wide, teams will unite and take on this important work of our time: rethinking and building schools that deeply prepare our students for the rigorous challenges of college, jobs, and life…

“Jobs doesn’t use many of the dog whistles or talking points of reformsters, except for one that she really loves:

“Jobs told the NYT, “The system was created for the work force we needed 100 years ago. Things are not working the way we want it to be working.”

“In USA Today: The XQ Institute aims to “rethink” American public high schools, which, it maintains, have remained virtually unchanged for a century while the world has transformed dramatically.

“Schools haven’t changed in 100 years” is the dead horse Jobs rides in on, a criticism that only makes sense if you don’t know what schools were actually like in 1917, and if you haven’t actually visited one in the last century….

“I also note that in all the publicity for the event that I’ve now read, there is no mention of other sponsors, so while I don’t have proof, I’m pushed to conclude that Laurene Powell Jobs just busted out her checkbook and bought a full hour of Friday night primetime television on four networks.

“What can we expect. Well, music and comedy and documentaries are billed. And we’re talking about a SuperSchool live, so presumably we won’t bother with any coverage of those dopey Clark Kent schlubby schools where the rest of us slog away. This special will just focus on Jobs’ own created reality.”

Don’t you wish that billionaire dilettantes would fix health care or save national parks or find some other pet hobby? When do they get tired of failing? Again and again and again…

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

My Response to Andrew Tobias about the “Success” of Success Academy

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2017 //
24

Andrew Tobias writes about the economy and politics. I recently subscribed to his blog. I received a post gushing about Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charters, swallowing every claim she makes, and I wrote back to him. He has many links, which I would have to add by hand, so include only Eva’s report.

Here is the exchange:

From Andrew Tobias:


SUCCESS!!!

Next week your kids or grandkids start school, but here is the report card for Success Academy charter schools — #1 in New York State.

With 46 schools and 15,500 students this year, the Success Academy network is now the size of the state’s 7th largest school district. On this year’s state exams, 95% of Success students passed math and 84% passed [English] — making Success #1 for student achievement in New York State.

As long-time readers of this page know, over and over (and over and over): the Success Academy methods work, are replicable, and are free for the taking by any teacher or principal or school board member who wants to give them a try.

Consider this: with an average household income of just $32,191 — versus $291,242 for the kids in Scarsdale and $129,375 for the kids in Chappaqua — and with just 9% of its kids white or Asian versus 86% in Scarsdale and 88% in Chappaqua — the Success Academy public school kids outperformed both the Chappaqua and the Scarsdale kids. Chappaqua and Scarsdale are outstanding school districts, deserving of high praise, ranked near the top in the state. But Success Academy kids did better.

And consider this: of all 2400 public elementary schools in New York State, Success had 14 of the top 30.

Citywide, just 29% of the kids of color (and 61% of the white kids) passed the English test — versus 83% of the kids of color at Success Academy schools. In math, the results were even a little more dramatic.

New York’s 46 Success Academy schools are non-profit, public schools. Students are selected by lottery — not aptitude. With the Success results well known throughout the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods, almost every parent signs up for the lottery.

What Success Academy is accomplishing helps not just each student who succeeds (which is to say, almost all of them, and which would be important enough) but it also, thereby — and for all the generations that will follow — breaks the cycle of poverty and despair, of teenage pregnancy and crime, that so drag our society down.

What if all schools adopted variations of the Success methods — or any others that worked — so a lottery were not needed?

Imagine the impact on our nation’s future well-being if almost all her kids succeeded.

I wrote back:

Dear Andrew,

My friend Linda Gottlieb recommended your blog to me and I enjoy it.

However, I was shocked to read your praise for Eva Moskowitz’s charter chain this morning.

It is not replicable. It costs far more than real public schools. It “Succeeds” by attrition and exclusion.

Its schools do not “backfill,” meaning no new students are accepted after third grade, so every succeeding class gets smaller.

The chain does not accept students who don’t speak English or students with serious disabilities. Those students go to public schools.

It has the highest teacher turnover rate of any school in New York City, in some schools, 50-60% of the teachers leave every year. That doesn’t happen in good schools.

Eva M. has her own PAC and uses it to shower money on Cuomo and favored legislators.

Her board includes billionaires like Daniel Loeb, who also gives to the GOP Congress. She has a huge resource advantage over public schools in her neighborhood (http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-secrets-to-their-success.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FCqnJA+%28Jersey+Jazzman%29)

I have met with many SA teachers. They tell me they spend most of the year on test prep until the state tests are over. Yet despite these stellar test scores, the graduates of her eighth grade can’t manage to pass the entry exam for Stuyvesant or Bronx Science or the other exam schools. In the first two classes, not a single one passed the citywide exam for the selective high schools. In the third year, only two did. They didn’t prep for those tests.

Eva welcomed Ivanka and Paul Ryan to see her “miracle.” Dan Loeb, the chairman of her board, recently called the state’s top black legislator, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, worse than the KKK because of her opposition to charters. Meanwhile, Loeb supports the group of breakaway Democrats in the State Senate who keep the Republicans in control and able to block all progressive legislation. SUNY told Eva that if Loeb doesn’t step down, she won’t get any more charters.

How could public schools replicate what she does? Who would take the kids who have cerebral palsy? Who would take the kids who don’t speak English? Where would the kids go who are slow learners? Should we throw them all away, as she does?

The NAACP recently released a report critical of charters because of their exclusionary practices and refusal to be held accountable. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/07/26/naacp-report-charter-schools-not-a-substitute-for-traditional-public-schools-and-many-need-reform/?utm_term=.1e148b0796af

I suggest you do some research before you make such a misguided proposal. If you picked stocks like you pick schools, you would be bankrupt.

Diane Ravitch

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization

Nicholas Tampio Slams ESSA As Common Core in Disguise

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2017 //
11

At a meeting at Fordham University, Professor Nicholas Tampio slammed ESSA as the same old Common Core, with lipstick. If Nick sends me his speech, I will post it in full.

https://news.fordham.edu/politics-and-society/professor-slams-essa-common-core-another-name/

Here is the university press release:

Nicholas Tampio, Ph.D., associate professor of political science, made an impassioned plea for New York State to reject participation in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), saying it does little or nothing to stem the growing takeover of education by the federal government.

Speaking at Fordham Law School as part of the Education Law Collaborative’s first education law conference, Tampio made the case that, despite ESSA provisions that allow states to opt out of Common Core, as a practical matter it is no different.

“ESSA requires states to remain within the standards, testing, and accountability paradigm . . . if they want Title I funds.”
That means that if a state wants to follow a more original model of educating, such as the John Dewey model, they forfeit federal funding. “John Dewey said standardized tests can only be useful to help us figure out how to help a particular child, but they shouldn’t be used to rank children, because children have all sorts of special gifts, talents, and interests.”

In his talk, “ESSA and the Myth of Return to Local Control,” Tampio traced the evolution of education reform in the United States, including the programs Nation at Risk (1983), Improving America’s Schools Act (1994), No Child Left Behind (2001), and Race to the Top (2009). ESSA, which was signed by President Obama in 2015, ostensibly reversed the trend toward federalizing education, but Tampio said it has not been effective.

That’s important, he said, because. A top-down approach squelches local control, and students should feel like their voices and opinions are valuable.

“Part of a democratic education is to get kids to learn about the world, and feel empowered that they have a voice in it,” he said.

Local control also benefits low income and minority communities, he said. He cited examples from Kitty Kelly Epstein’s A Different View of Urban Schools: Civil Rights, Critical Race Theory, and Unexplored Realities (Counterpoints, 2012).

“All the research confirms that when parents are involved, students do better. And yet, if they don’t have a voice other than what color cupcakes to bring to the PTA, they’re not going to be active in [local]school boards,” he said.

In New York, the Department of Education has renamed Common Core the “Next Generation Learning Standards,” but on issues of standards and accountability, Tampio said, they’re largely the same. Seventy-sevent percent of the existing Common Core standards will have no change whatsoever, and “clarifications” have been issued for just 15.9 percent of them. In order to receive $1.6 billion in federal funds, the state must comply with the changes and submit them to the federal government next month.

ESSA states that there is “no requirement, direction, or mandate to adopt Common Core standards,” but Tampio says that does not help states rid themselves of Common Core standards already in place. ESSA’s language on standards requires states to maintain “challenging academic content standards.”

“When ESSA was signed in 2015, most states already adopted Common Core. The question [should be]what is the federal government going to do to help facilitate states trying to exit the Common Core?” he said.

“[It] is an incredible burden for any state to choose an alternative, and I don’t think we’re going to see any.

“I’d be delighted if they did, because it would be a road map for every other state on how to do it,” he said.

Tampio, an education activist, claims that Common Core standards, with its test-based model, do little to develop creativity and independent thinking in developing children.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Testing

Mercedes Schneider: Beware, Houston! They Will Use the Hurricane to Try to Privatize Your Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2017 //
7

Mercedes Schneider is a native of Louisiana. She hopes that the corporate reformers don’t do to Houston’s public schools what they did to those in New Orleans.

Arne Duncan memorably and disgustingly said that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to the schools in New Orleans. Katrina killed nearly 2,000 people. It also made it possible to eliminate public education, which Arne celebrated. Most schools were taken over by charters. The union was crushed. All the teachers, mostly black, were fired. Charter chains and TFA took over.

In this post, Schneider warns Houstonians to defend their public schools against the privatizers. They will see Houston as a new opportunity. The predatory Walton Family Foundation has already targeted Houston for mass charter expansion.

Houston: Beware of a Post-Harvey Charter Conversion of Your Schools

As a graduate of the Houston public schools, I say “repel the barbarians at the gates of Houston.” Send the mercenaries and profiteers packing. Let the city heal. Don’t raid its public schools. Go away. Stop preying on the public sector. Vultures.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

A Message to Education Deans: Resist!

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2017 //
18

More than 200 deans of education at scores of colleges and universities have organized to resist the corporate reformers’ efforts to deprofessionalize teaching and destroy public education. They call themselves Education Deans for Justice and Equity. They work in partnership with the National Education Policy Center. If you are a faculty member, please ask your dean to sign on. If you belong to an education organization, please consider adding its support.

“Dear Education Deans:

“As the start to a new academic year unfolds, so do increasing attacks on public education. Building on the “Declaration of Principles” that was released in January of this year and signed by 235 education deans, many of us feel compelled to continue to speak out collectively, publicly, and forcefully.

“Towards this end, we have prepared a new statement from education deans, “Our Children Deserve Better,” that counters the harmful rhetoric and actions currently coming from Washington with alternatives that are grounded in an ethical foundation, sound research, and a commitment to democratic values. The statement is a project of Education Deans for Justice and Equity, in partnership with the National Education Policy Center.

“Invited to sign are all current and former deans of colleges and schools of education in the United States (or comparable positions such as chairs, directors, and associate deans in institutions where there is no separate dean of education or school of education). We urge signing by August 30, because we are planning for the public release and distribution of the statement in early September.

“Please consider signing, and please consider committing to encouraging at least several other education-dean colleagues to sign so that we reach our goal of hundreds of signatories. The statement and the form for you to sign on is here:
https://goo.gl/forms/JXR2s1LZUcd6DaNh2.

“In solidarity,

“Kevin Kumashiro, on behalf of EDJE and NEPC”

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Resistance, Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Erik Mears: Why I Teach My Students in the Bronx About the Awesomeness of KIPP

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2017 //
25

A few days ago, I posted a story about a high school teacher in the Bronx who was annoyed because he felt compelled to teach his public school students a story in a textbook that celebrated KIPP and put down their neighborhood.

The story attracted a lot of attention, and the teacher Erik Means wanted to answer your questions in this follow up post.

On August 25th, you linked to my Counterpunch article, which criticizes HMH for publishing a pro-charter essay in its 12th Grade Collections textbook. In part because of comments that a few of your readers posted, I feel obliged to make some clarifications:

When a school such as mine purchases HMH Collections, they buy textbooks for Grades 9-12, as well as electronic resources and supplementary materials – including a 180-day pacing guide. A set of scripted, Common Core-aligned questions follows each text. You buy these books because they are Common Core-aligned, and because they feature an array of shorter fiction and non-fiction texts that will help students practice for the Regents exam.

My administrators expected me to stick to this textbook, and use few “outside texts,” for these reasons. If I raised an issue with any text, they would tell me to teach it alongside a “counter-text” that provides a differing point of view. (I wrote the Counterpunch piece, in part, to create such as “counter-text” – since none really existed to suitably counter Gladwell’s claims and omissions).

To their credit, my administrators allow me to script my own questions. They respect me, my colleagues, and our academic freedom. They are also hard-working, good-hearted professionals who care deeply about the students and teachers in our building.

Do they require me to teach “Marita’s Bargain?” Given that they expect me to make my way through the textbook, as the year progresses, and only exclude certain texts because of time constraints, the answer is “yes.” You do not omit the first text in a textbook (it appears on pages 3-14) because of time constraints.

But the major reason why I teach “Marita’s Bargain” is because it is so glaring, in a literal sense. Throughout the year, all of my students will eventually leaf through the textbook, and see, in prominent letters, on page 5, “Just over ten years into its existence, KIPP has become one of the most desirable public schools in New York City.” They will see a photo of blighted South Bronx buildings on page 9. And they will see “Our kids are spending fifty to sixty percent more time learning than the traditional public school student” in prominent letters, on page 12.

My students would rightly wonder why I am skipping an article about schools in their community, when it appears as the first text in our textbook. If they read the most salient parts of the article, they might even suspect that I am skipping “Marita’s Bargain” because I am a self-interested public school teacher who wishes to obscure the miracles that KIPP charter schools are performing in their own community.

Thus, the fact that “Marita’s Bargain” appears so early in my textbook demands that I address it in some way. And if the text were not so prominent, I would not teach it; not in 100 years.

For my own part, I guide my students through “Marita’s Bargain” as critically as possible. But anyone who suspects that HMH would encourage teachers to do so can read its scripted questions, and judge for themselves (see pages 15-16):

Click to access maritas_bargain.pdf

Moreover, although most NYC ELA teachers are excellent, few of them are as knowledgeable about education reform as I am. “Pushing back” against Gladwell, as I do in class, requires a certain esoteric knowledge that many teachers lack – and this hardly discredits them as ELA instructors.

In this letter, I have written more about myself and my school than is my wont in a public forum. I have done so in order to make clear that my administrators acted, more or less rationally, in purchasing HMH Collections, and defensibly, in expecting me to teach most of its texts. I do not believe that they deserve much blame.

In my Counterpunch piece, I wrote primarily about the flaws and omissions of Gladwell’s piece itself. I attempted to demonstrate that the text failed to achieve a certain standard of quality, and that by deduction, HMH must have selected it for propagandistic purposes. This text should not be in my, or any, textbook, unless it is to be used as an example of certain defects. HMH did not wish this latter, if its scripted questions are any indication. I fault HMH for including the text in its Collections textbook, and for selling it to many schools throughout New York City. I fault Gladwell, to a lesser extent, for writing it in the first place.

Sincerely,

Erik Mears

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Education Industry, KIPP Charter Schools
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