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One of the Best Articles You Will Ever Read About Standardized Testing

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2017 //
19

When I read this post by Steven Singer, I was so excited that I thought about devoting an entire day to it. Like posting it and posting nothing else for the entire day. Or posting this piece over and over all day to make sure you read it. It is that important.

Steven’s post explains two different phenomena. First, why is standardized testing so ubiquitous? What does it have a death grip on public education?

Second, in the late 1990s, when I was often in D.C., I noticed that the big testing companies had ever-present lobbyists to represent their interests. Why? Wasn’t the adoption of tests a state and local matter? NCLB changed all that, Race to the Top made testing even more consequential, and the new ESSA keeps up the mandate to test every child every year from grades 3-8. No other country does this? Why do we?

He begins like this:


“It’s easy to do business when the customer is forced to buy.

“But is it fair, is it just, or does it create a situation where people are coerced into purchases they wouldn’t make if they had a say in the matter?

“For example, school children as young as 8-years-old are forced to take a battery of standardized tests in public schools. Would educators prescribe such assessments if it were up to them? Would parents demand children be treated this way if they were consulted? Or is this just a corporate scam perpetrated by our government for the sole benefit of a particular industry that funnels a portion of the profits to our lawmakers as political donations?

“Let’s look at it economically.

“Say you sold widgets – you know, those hypothetical doodads we use whenever we want to talk about selling something without importing the emotional baggage of a particular product.

“You sell widgets. The best widgets. Grade A, primo, first class widgets.

“Your goal in life is to sell the most widgets possible and thus generate the highest profit.

“Unfortunately, the demand for widgets is fixed. Whatever they are, people only want so many of them. But if you could increase the demand and thus expand the market, you would likewise boost your profits and better meet your goals.

“There are many ways you could do this. You could advertise and try to convince consumers that they need more widgets. You could encourage doctors and world health organizations to prescribe widgets as part of a healthy lifestyle. Or you could convince the government to mandate the market.

“That’s right – force people to buy your products.

“That doesn’t sound very American does it?

“In a democratic society, we generally don’t want the government telling us what to purchase. Recall the hysteria around the Obamacare individual mandate requiring people who could afford to buy healthcare coverage to do so or else face a financial tax penalty. In this case, one might argue that it was justified because everyone wants healthcare. No one wants to let themselves die from a preventable disease or allow free riders to bump up the cost for everyone else.

“However, it’s still a captive market though perhaps an innocuous one. Most are far more pernicious.

“According to dictionary.com, a captive market is “a group of consumers who are obliged… to buy a particular product, thus giving the supplier a monopoly” or oligopoly. This could be because of lack of competition, shortages, or other factors.

“In the case of government mandating consumers to buy a particular product, it’s perhaps the strongest case of a captive market. Consumers have no choice but to comply and thus have little to no protection from abuse. They are at the mercy of the supplier.

“It’s a terrible position to be in for consumers, but a powerful one for businesspeople. And it’s exactly the situation for public schools and the standardized testing industry.

“Let’s break it down.

“These huge corporations don’t sell widgets, they sell tests. In fact, they sell more than just that, but let’s focus right now on just that – the multiple choice, fill-in-the-bubble assessments.

“Why do our public schools give these tests? Because peer-reviewed research shows they fairly and accurately demonstrate student learning? Because they’ve been proven by independent observers to be an invaluable part of the learning process and help students continue to learn new things?

“No and no.

“The reason public schools give these tests is because the government forces them. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) requires that all students in grades 3-8 and once in high school take certain approved standardized assessments. Parents are allowed to refuse the tests for their children, but otherwise they have to take them.”

A captive audience of 50.4 million students. Read the full analysis as I am skipping the meaty part.

He concludes with these questions:

If an industry gets big enough and makes enough donations to enough lawmakers, they get the legislation they want. In many cases, the corporations write the legislation and then tell lawmakers to pass it. And this is true for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Standardized testing and Common Core are one pernicious example of our new captive market capitalism collapsing into plutocracy.

Our tax dollars are given away to big business and our voices are silenced.

Forget selling widgets. Our children have BECOME widgets, hostage consumers, and access to them is being bought and sold.

We are all slaves to this new runaway capitalism that has freed itself from the burden of self-rule.

How long will we continue to put up with it?

How long will we continue to be hostages to these captive markets?

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, Testing

Indiana Officials Planning State Takeover of Gary and Muncie Schools

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2017 //
5

The far-rightwing organization ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Coucil) owns the state of Indiana. ALEC is determined to crush public education. Check out ALEC exposed, a website that show the ALEC agenda for charters, vouchers, and state takeovers. ALEC hates democracy and local control. It hates local school boards, because they interfere with privatization. In Indiana, with Mitch Daniels as governor, then Mike Pence, ALEC got carte blanche.

Bear in mind that state takeovers have been tried many times and always failed.

I received the following update from Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, parent activist.

“Here at the epicenter of education reform (I suppose every state thinks his/hers is the epicenter–but we do have the distinction of having a model on the ALEC website: Indiana Reform Package), our state legislature is poised to begin state takeover of Gary and now, Muncie.

“Muncie’s parents are reeling from this news. The state legislature was already planning a takeover of Gary’s public schools as they are $100 million in debt (gulp!) and, as I understand it, Gary was asking for this. But no elected official from Muncie requested this—they just slipped them into the bill.

“The economic and educational policies of Indiana have hurt Muncie particularly hard. The property tax caps have had the hardest hits on cities like theirs (this was from 2016: http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/muncie-community-schools-broke-face-115m-budget-shortfall and this from last month: http://indianapublicradio.org/news/2017/03/muncie-community-schools-changes-bus-service-will-apply-for-state-loan/). Although Indiana no longer funds their public schools through property taxes, I believe transportation is part of that and Muncie can no longer afford busing. They were asking teachers to take a 23% pay cut which failed in court! http://www.wthr.com/article/state-rules-in-favor-of-muncie-teachers-association-in-dispute-with-school-district

“In addition to tax caps, the educational reforms have had a dire effect on their schools. In the past four years, Muncie Community Schools have lost $2.5 million to vouchers going to private schools. I am also told that the students transferring out of the city schools into the surrounding smaller community schools –“school choice” in action (taking their per pupil funding) has also led to further bleeding of funds. It’s also clear that there have been some misdeeds on the part of their school board or financial officer (or both) and so some of the community members think that maybe it will be a GOOD thing for the state to take over. I shudder at the thought. I myself grew up in Michigan and went to Kindergarten in Detroit. If ever there were a cautionary tale…

“But regardless of how they got into these financial straits, the state is now setting up to take over the academics as well. All without the okay from the community, local elected legislators or community leaders. In fact, the mayor was quite harsh in response to their financial woes earlier this year: http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2017/03/06/mayor-blasts-state-over-city-school-crisis/98809108/

Here is an overview of the takeover:

http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/education/2017/04/05/house-supports-state-takeover-mcs/100064346/

“And this:

http://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2017/04/03/legislators-muncie-schools-district-opposition/

http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/education/2017/04/02/state-takeover-muncie-schools-proposed/99954928/

“I’m hoping that more people in Indiana can become aware and contact their legislators to talk about how wrong-minded state takeover is! Solutions to public school problems are certainly complex, but people just don’t seem to understand that giving up local democratic control is not the answer and makes fertile ground for people who can profit off of this situation: charters, vouchers, charter management companies.

“You would like to think that when children drank poisoned water in Flint, the connection between privatization and state takeover of local municipalities would have been made across the country. Yes, you saved money–but look at the cost to children.

“Unfortunately, folks struggle to connect the dots. I fear for not just Muncie, but other school districts that our paternalistic legislators might decide to take over next.

“This is also taking place in a legislative session in which they are taking democracy away from us as a state by changing the state superintendent of public instruction (formerly held by Glenda Ritz) from elected position to an appointed one. Because we can’t even be trusted with that pesky thing called a vote when it comes to education?”

Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer

Categories ALEC, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Indiana, Privatization

A Visit to the Offices of SBAC

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2017 //
8

From California parent, Joan Davidson, about her visit with teacher Larry Lawrence to the offices of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which received $180 million in federal funding when Arne Duncan was Secretary of Education, to write tests for the Common Core standards. SBAC was supposed to have 25 states, but it now has only 15. The other consortium is PARCC, which has shrunk from 25 states to only 6 states plus DC

Larry Lawrence and I visited the SBAC office last week before they move which is scheduled to happened by end of June.

It is most concerning. Please read the notes below and attached.

It was concerning that most people are working from remote locations, undisclosed locations, and that a young woman is mostly alone in a 3000 sq. ft. office that is mostly unfurnished and dark.

The SBAC organization is using public funds but refuses to make public their agendas, minutes, meeting locations, budgetary
decisions, etc.

Since the tests are secret as well, someone in one of the 15 states who contract with SBAC needs to explain to the public
how they are using public funds without any public information disclosable to the public.

I have not researched PARCC.

Is PARCC as secretive as SBAC?

Thanks
Joan Davidson

Larry Lawrence and I drove to the UCLA campus today to visit the SBAC office located at the Peter Uberroth building on Le Conte Ave in Westwood.

We were unsure if we would also visit the Graduate Education building office #300 as well known as the GSEIS Building – Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences.

We arrived at approximately 12pm to the building. SBAC office #1400 posted the SBAC name and room #on a paper sign and showed this sign telling visitors to use the door around the corner. The office could not be entered without punching a code.

We went around the corner to that office number that only posted the sign for the CRESST office. #1400 and #1355.

I rang the bell. The code system for entry was also in place.

A woman named Amulet opened the door. I asked if Paisha Allmendinger was in the office. She asked who we were and I said my name is Joan.

Paisha came to the door. It was dark behind Paisha with a very long hallway. She asked what we wanted. I explained that we were educators and we wanted some information regarding SBAC. Asked if she could spare a few minutes.

She invited us into the offices.

I was struck by the vast space approx. 3000 sq. ft. The only occupants that we saw were the woman Amulet and Paisha.

We followed Paisha to her office. She is listed as the director of finances for SBAC. She is approx. 30 years old.

Larry had printed up a SBAC employee list from online and there were 28 people on the list. I asked Paisha were they were. She explained that only 3 people were here in this office while 35 people worked as a virtual office across the Nation.

I said I heard that SBAC was moving. She said yes, there is an RFP currently due on April 6, 2017. This RFP is only open to public agencies that participate in the CA retirement system.

I asked why SBAC was bumped out of UCLA. She said that the contract with the grad school was not renewed.

She said that possibly the RFP would be responded to by Cal State Univ., a UC campus or 1 bidder is a County Office of Education.

The SBAC is concerned about retirement and other employee benefits so they are attempting to remain attached to another public institution associated with the CA benefits program.

I asked what happened to state of Washington as fiscal agent. Paisha said when UCLA signed the MOU with SBAC UCLA became the fiscal agent.

SBAC is aligned to the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Sciences

SBAC employees want to maintain the service credits of employment with a CA public agency.
I asked about Administrators and Paisha said there are 6-10 people acting as Administrators that work at home and come into the office 2 days a week.

She asked what our interest is in this? Larry answered that as a math teacher, he’s interested in the new tests. She pointed out the new test item site online.

The SBAC is matching up questions to the state standards. (CC standards I suppose)
People wanted SBAC to have actual sample questions.

She spoke about accommodations and accessibility and translations for test takers.

I asked if Agendas for meetings were available to public. No.

What about who are the Executive Board of Directors. It’s online according to her.

She stated that the CRESST center is their partner and now is consolidated at the Grad School of Ed offices.

CRESST provides psychometric work to SBAC and validity studies and research.

I asked where this can be found? On CRESST website she said.

We asked who was located across campus in the SBAC office next to CRESST?

No one, it’s just acting like a mailbox for their purposes.

We asked about the status of the SBAC employees who were listed as occupying office space in the GSEIS building across the campus.

Paisha told us that all these 12 people worked at remote locations and none of them were physically located on the UCLA campus. The address listed for them on the SBAC website (GSEIS Building 300) served as a post office box type function. The GSEIS Building is primarily the location of the CRESST staff while the main location of the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences is Moore Hall, located in the central area of the UCLA campus.

My observations and unanswered questions:

The 3000 sq. ft. + office is empty except for Allmendinger’s office and a few partitioned stations. It was mostly dark and eerie.

Paisha’s office had 3 top to bottom bookshelves–all empty.

The only other person that was visible was Amulet who answered the door.

Paisha is titled the Financial Director that would put in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars. She does not seem qualified with prior experience to oversee this agency.

Who is really directing this center?

Strangers such as Larry and I have most likely never visited the SBAC offices.

It is a bizarre atmosphere and should have been bustling.

Where are all of the other 35 people located and who are they?

What are they paid?

What are there qualifications?

What do they do?

Paisha stated there are 6-10 administrators who work with SBAC and come into the office 2 days a week. It was not clarified whether it is 6, or 10.

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, Testing

Bombshell! California Charter Report: Hundreds of Millions of Taxpayer Dollars Wasted

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2017 //
10

The nonpartisan group In the Public Interest has released a major new report on wasteful spending on charter schools in California. It is called Spending Blind: The Failure of Policy Planning in California’s Charter School Facility Funding.

The bottom line is that California spends on charter schools without planning, without supervision, and without accountability. Vast sums of public money have disappeared, as charters close or mismanage funds. Every attempt to impose accountability on the charter industry has been vetoed by Governor Brown. The State Board of Education, which the governor appoints, does not demand accountability. California thinks of itself as a blue state, but when it comes to education funding, it is a Trump/DeVos state.

The key findings:

The report’s key findings include:

Over the past 15 years, California charter schools have received more than $2.5 billion in tax dollars or taxpayer subsidized funds to lease, build, or buy school buildings.

Nearly 450 charter schools have opened in places that already had enough classroom space for all students—and this overproduction of schools was made possible by generous public support, including $111 million in rent, lease, or mortgage payments picked up by taxpayers, $135 million in general obligation bonds, and $425 million in private investments subsidized with tax credits or tax exemptions.

For three-quarters of California charter schools, the quality of education on offer—based on state and charter industry standards—is worse than that of a nearby traditional public school that serves a demographically similar population. Taxpayers have provided these schools with an estimated three-quarters of a billion dollars in direct funding and an additional $1.1 billion in taxpayer-subsidized financing.

Even by the charter industry’s standards, the worst charter schools receive generous facility funding. The California Charter Schools Association identified 161 charter schools that ranked in the bottom 10% of schools serving comparable populations last year, but even these schools received more than $200 million in tax dollars and tax-subsidized funding.

At least 30% of charter schools were both opened in places that had no need for additional seats and also failed to provide an education superior to that available in nearby public schools. This number is almost certainly underestimated, but even at this rate, Californians provided these schools combined facilities funding of more than $750 million, at a net cost to taxpayers of nearly $400 million.

Public facilities funding has been disproportionately concentrated among the less than one-third of schools that are owned by Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) that operate chains of between three and 30 schools. An even more disproportionate share of funding has been taken by just four large CMO chains—Aspire, KIPP, Alliance, and Animo/Green Dot.

Since 2009, the 253 schools found by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California to maintain discriminatory enrollment policies have been awarded a collective $75 million under the SB740 program, $120 million in general obligation bonds, and $150 million in conduit bond financing.

CMOs have used public tax dollars to buy private property. The Alliance College-Ready Public Schools network of charter schools, for instance, has benefited from more than $110 million in federal and state taxpayer support for its facilities, which are not owned by the public, but are part of a growing empire of privately owned Los Angeles-area real estate now worth in excess of $200 million.

This squandering of public funds is outrageous. Will the Legislature and the Governor demand accountability?

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider: The Secrets of Profiteering with “Tax Credits” for Vouchers

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2017 //
5

Mercedes Schneider explores a paper published by Carl Davis of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, in which he explains how tax credits for vouchers allow the rich to cut their taxes and make a profit. With such an alluring inducement by the states and the federal government, people of great means are able to reduce their taxes and undermine public schools at the same time. And, as they do great harm to the majority of children enrolled in increasingly underfunded public schools, they will be celebrated as “philanthropists,” when they are, in reality, raiders of the public good.

Davis’ paper begins like this:

<blockquote>One of the most important functions of government is to maintain a high-quality public education system. In many states, however, this objective is being undermined by tax credits and deductions that redirect public dollars for K-12 education toward private schools. Twenty states currently divert a total of over $1 billion per year toward private schools via special tax credits and deductions. These tax subsidies are essentially backdoor voucher programs, or “neovouchers,” as they use the tax code to provide what amount to private school vouchers even when traditional voucher programs are unpopular with the public or outright unconstitutional.

Because of the ways that state and federal tax law interact, the subsidies offered in ten of these states turn the concept of a charitable “donation” on its head by offering upper-income taxpayers a risk-free profit on contributions they make to fund private school scholarships. In these cases, even taxpayers who would not ordinarily be interested in contributing to private schools may find the incentive too strong to ignore.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Democracy, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Vouchers

Nancy Bailey: Poor Memphis! The Guinea Pig District of Tennessee

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2017 //
3

Nancy E. Bailey, who teaches in Tennessee, posted a blog about the legislature’s habit of using poor Memphis as its experimental district, where disruption is the rule and failure is persistent. Jim Gifford, a high school English teacher in Murfreesboro wrote the post on Nancy’s blog.

Tennessee Legislators Cry, “Thank God for Memphis!”

Tennessee had the bad fortune to win a bundle of Race to the Top cash, so some district had to be the donkey where everyone pinned the tail. It was Memphis. Every bad reformer idea lands on the students, teachers, and schools of Memphis (Shelby County).

Bill Gates dumped a barrel of money into Memphis to try out his pet ideas about teacher evaluation. Oops!

Then came the so-called Achievement School District. A total disaster!

Now legislators have decided to experiment with vouchers. Where? Memphis, of course.

The people who live in Memphis don’t like the idea of vouchers. But nobody cares what they think.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Failure, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Memphis, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Tennessee

Joshua Starr: The American Public Opposes Vouchers

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2017 //
17

Joshua Starr, a former school superintendent who is now chief executive officer of Phi Delta Kappa, reports that the American public opposes vouchers. They like the idea of “charters,” but most don’t know what charters are, that they may be run by for-profit or run by national corporations. They like the generic idea but they are not asked what they know about it. Perhaps they have nmagnet schools in mind.

Starr writes:

“Since 1969, PDK International has conducted an annual poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools. The methodology is rigorous, the questions are vetted by a politically diverse group of advisers, the data are robust and the results suggest that DeVos hasn’t been listening very carefully.

“Consider school choice, which DeVos has placed at the top of her policy agenda. Our poll reveals that, in general, Americans like the idea of choice in public education. On the specifics, though, DeVos’s positions are out of tune with majority opinion, particularly when it comes to school vouchers. Most respondents tell us that they disapprove of using public funds to support voucher programs. Since 1993, we have asked Americans 20 times whether they support allowing parents to choose a private school at public expense, and every time a majority has said “No.”

“DeVos is equally tone deaf when it comes to charter schooling, which is her other favored means of promoting choice. While charter schools themselves are quite popular — 64% supporting, 25% opposing in 2015, the last time we asked this question — the secretary’s views on charter school governance (specifically her fierce resistance to any kind of public oversight of these schools) are less mainstream. We asked Americans four times in the early 2000s whether they wanted charter schools to be held accountable to the same standards as traditional public schools and the response was overwhelmingly “yes.” The country is more split now, but 48% still say they want the same standards to apply to charters, compared with 46% who don’t.

“The bottom line: While DeVos may claim to be speaking for millions of average Americans (and at her Senate hearing, she lauded herself as “a voice for parents”), the evidence suggests otherwise. If she hears an insistent clamoring for new investments in voucher programs and unregulated charter schools, then she’s listening to the wrong station.

“If not vouchers and unregulated charters, then what do Americans want? In general, the poll results are complicated, suggesting that attitudes toward public education are much more nuanced, even conflicted, than policymakers admit. On some key issues, though, public opinion is quite clear. For example, a clear majority of Americans tell us that they trust teachers, value their work highly, respect their skills and expertise and want teachers to be paid more. Further, our data have shown consistently over many years that a majority of Americans favor spending more money on the public schools, especially on their local schools (which people tend to rate much more highly than the public schools in general). A majority of people even say that they would be willing to pay higher taxes as long as the money goes directly to education.

“Secretary DeVos may have her reasons for wanting to cut back on some federal programs and to ramp up funding for her preferred forms of school choice. But let’s be honest: Those reasons are grounded in ideology, not in practical experience (she has none) or evidence (she cannot cite any). Her enthusiasm for the president’s budget proposal has nothing to do with the will of the American people and it is more than a little disingenuous for her to claim that she has listened to or speaks for millions of moms, dads, teachers and students.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Arizona: Legislators Welcome Profiteers to Scam Taxpayer Money to Subsidize Private Schools for the Affluent

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2017 //
23

Carol Burris spent time in Arizona to find out what happens with the state’s school choices. What she discovered was unbridled profiteering on the taxpayers’ dime.

She wrote in the Arizona Capitol Times that Arizona taxpayers are being hoaxed by the education industry.

It is time for Arizonans to take a hard look at who really benefits from school choice. While some families may want tax-payer funded options, the dizzying array of choices, combined with lax oversight and weak laws, make Arizona’s taxpayers easy marks for profiteering on the taxpayers’ dime.

Arizona is the Mecca of School Choice – for-profit charters, non-profit “fronts” for for-profit charters, Empowerment Scholarships Accounts (ESAs), and tax credits all compete with little regulation and oversight.

Let’s begin with charters. Arizona’s charter laws are some of the worst in the nation when it comes to protecting taxpayer money. For example, the Arizona State Office of the Auditor General is not allowed to monitor charter school spending.

Only the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools (AZCB), whose members (with one exception) are appointed by the charter-friendly Governor, can keep an eye on charter school finances.

Does that lack of thorough, objective oversight matter? You bet. Sound oversight produces fiscally responsible charter schools that can afford to stay open. Without it, scams, bad real estate deals and old-fashioned mismanagement abound.

When charters close, millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted and students are left stranded. In a five-year period (2009-2013), 111 Arizona charters shut down. According to former superintendent and charter school administrator, Curt Cardine, in 2013-2014, 138 charter schools “did not meet the AZCB Financial Performance Recommendation. This is fully 33.91% of the charter groups in the state that were financially rated by AZCB.”

Are the citizens of Arizona indifferent to the waste and fraud that permeates the charter industry? Or is it that they just don’t care what they are paying for? Do they fall for every fraud that the hucksters sell? Would they buy snake oil to cure baldness?

There is no penalty for the owners if the school fails. In fact, it is an opportunity for enrichment. All property belongs to the charter owner by law. That means taxpayer-funded buildings, books, computers, and equipment go to the owner of the failed school, which he can sell.

Fiscal problems are not limited to “mom and pop” charter schools. Even well-established charter chains can run into fiscal difficulty. The most recent audit for the BASIS charter chain shows a huge deficit in assets of over $13 million, and a 2014-2015 net loss of $3,074,317. BASIS School Inc., which collects the taxpayers’ dollars, is a non-profit. However, it is managed by the for-profit, BASIS Educational Group, LLC. In 2014-15, just shy of $60 million went from the BASIS non-profit to the for-profit corporation to provide services to BASIS schools. When that happens, spending is blocked from public view.

Additional frauds are perpetrated with Arizona’s so-called Empowerment Savings Accounts, aka deregulated vouchers.

But charter schools are not Arizona’s only worry. Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), which some in the legislature want to expand, have been a “hot mess” of misspending and even fraud.

For those unfamiliar with the program, parents who participate are given a debit card to buy educational services for their child instead of sending them to a public school. Although it is touted as a program to help poor families escape “failing schools,” an analysis of the state’s ESA program found that most families using it are leaving high-performing public schools in wealthy districts to attend private schools. Students from schools with the fewest students receiving free or reduced-priced lunches received an average ESA benefit of $15,200 – more than twice the average ESA benefit of $7,350 given to students from schools with the highest share of children receiving free or reduced-price lunches.

Parents have used the debit card to purchase personal items for themselves instead of their kids. There was even an attempt made to use it for a dating service. There are cases of parents getting and using the debit card even though their children are enrolled in public school. The state has collected only a fraction of what has been misspent.

Other Arizona school privatization programs have been equally fraught with problems. The $140 million dollar a year tax-credit program is nothing more than a gift of public funds masquerading as a “good cause.” Contributors get a dollar for dollar credit with the money going to support private school tuition. Yes, you make a contribution, but it costs the taxpayers, not the donor.

When will the citizens and taxpayers of Arizona wake up and realize that their tax dollars are underwriting fraud, conflicts of interest, nepotism, and self-dealing?

Do they care?

No, they don’t care about waste and fraud. Yesterday the Arizona legislature voted by 16-13 to expand the voucher program, so that more students can use public money to go to private and religious schools.

Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, had originally sought universal vouchers. Her plan was built on the fact that the cap on enrollment, currently about 5,000 students, is scheduled to self-destruct after 2019, making vouchers available for every one of the 1.1 million students now in public schools.

But Lesko could not get the votes for her plan, with objections ranging from philosophical issues of state aid to private schools to the fact that her legislation would have increased the cost to the state by $25 million a year by 2021.

The stalemate was broken when Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, agreed to go along. But Worsley insisted on a series of changes, including the cap he said should keep the number of vouchers at probably no more than about 30,000 by 2021.

That proved little comfort to Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, who pointed out it would take only a simple majority of a future legislature to remove that cap and create universal vouchers.

Worsley conceded the point. “I think it’s the best deal we can get,” he said. Worsley also said that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and that the next six years will be an “experiment” to show whether vouchers result in better education.

Vouchers were first approved in 2011 to help parents whose children with special needs could not get the services they need in public schools.

Foes sued, charging that it violates a state constitutional provision barring public dollars from being used for religious worship or instruction.

But the state Court of Appeals said the money goes to the parents who decide how to spend the funds, making who ultimately gets the dollars irrelevant. And the judges said the vouchers do not result in the state encouraging the preference of one religion over another, or religion over atheism.

Since that time, proponents have repeatedly added to the list of who is eligible. It now includes everything from children of people in the military on active duty and foster children to all children in failing schools and those living on Indian reservations.

And supporters have made it clear from the beginning the ultimate goal always has been universal vouchers, which was precisely where Lesko was headed.

Worsley insisted he’s neither a supporter or foes of vouchers, formally called “empowerment scholarship accounts,” describing himself as a “pragmatic arbitrator” between supporters and foes.

Farley scoffed at that contention, saying this “compromise” does not acknowledge there are many lawmakers who believe public dollars should not be used to send children, in whatever numbers, to private and parochial schools.

“This is no compromise at all,” added Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs. “This is lipstick on a pig.”

Worsley said his amendment does more than cap the number of vouchers — at least unless and until future lawmakers decide otherwise.

He said the amount of the voucher given to a student will be based on the amount of state aid given to students in that district. Worsley estimated that average figure at $4,400 a year, versus the current $5,600.

What that also means, he said, is if the maximum number of children eligible can get vouchers in 2021 there will be a net savings to the state of $3.4 million, versus the $25 million cost.

Worsley said that’s nothing to be sneezed at, pointing out that $28.4 million swing is twice as much as Gov. Doug Ducey, who lobbied in support of this plan, put into this year’s budget for teacher raises.

That still leaves the question of who benefits.

There is some evidence that many of the 3,800 students who are now getting vouchers have moved from schools in affluent neighborhoods. That leads to charges that vouchers help defray what parents pay to have their youngsters attend private schools where tuition can top $15,000 a year.

“They’re just having the taxpayers of Arizona subsidize that tuition,” said Sen. Sean Bowie, D-Phoenix.

The $4,400 will be a nice subsidy for affluent parents. But it won’t be enough to put poor children into elite private schools, which has no space for them anyway.

The research on vouchers has pointed in one direction: It does not produce better education. It produces a lobby to keep the money flowing to private and religious schools without regard to the quality of education.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization, Vouchers

Van Schoales: Colorado’s Teacher Evaluation Mess

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2017 //
18

Van Schoales is part of the corporate reformer group that has controlled public education in Colorado for most of the past decade. When I visited Denver in 2010 to talk about my recently published book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education,” Van was running Education Reform Now on behalf of Democrats for Education Reform, the hedge-fund managers organization that lobbies for charters and high-stakes testing. I recall what a very nice guy he was and how generous he was in introducing me, even though we disagreed.

At the very time I arrived in Denver, the state legislature was nearing a vote on a teacher and principal evaluation plan devised by a young state senator named Michael Johnston, whose background was in Teach for America and New Leaders for New Schools. Several members of the legislature, who were former teachers, showed up for my lecture in Boulder and spoke to me afterwards about their concerns about this fast-moving bill. Johnston’s legislation, known as Senate Bill 10-191, promised to evaluate teachers and principals based on the test scores of their students. Fifty percent of their evaluation would be tied to test scores. I was scheduled to debate Johnston on the day of the vote, but he did not enter the room until the minute I finished speaking, so he never heard my side of the debate. Johnston, however, was flushed with excitement about his legislation. He said that if every educator was evaluated by test scores, then Colorado would have “great schools, great principals, and great teachers.” I tried my best to dissuade him and the audience of their obsession with the value of standardized testing, but it was too late. The legislature passed 10-191, and Johnston was considered a rising star.

Except, as Van Schoales now admits in this article in Education Week, the corporate reformers were wrong. SB 10-191 did not work out as planned, even though the framers relied on the very best Ivy League prognosticators.

He writes:

Back in May 2010, hundreds of the nation’s education foundation, policy, and practice elites were gathered for the NewSchools Venture Fund meeting in Washington to celebrate and learn from the most recent education reform policy victories in my home state of Colorado and across the country.

The opening speeches highlighted the recent passage of Colorado Senate Bill 10-191—a dramatic law which required that 50 percent of a teacher evaluation be based upon student academic growth. This offered a bold new vision for how teachers would be evaluated and whether they would gain or lose tenure based on the merits of their impact on student achievement.
Colorado would be one of several “ground zeros” for reforming teacher evaluation in the country. Many, including myself, thought these new state policies would allow our best teachers to shine. They would finally have useful feedback, be differentiated on an objective scale of effectiveness, and lose tenure if they weren’t performing. Teachers would be treated like other professionals and less like interchangeable widgets.

Colorado’s law and similar ones in other states appeared to be sound, research-backed policy formulated by education reform’s own “whiz kids.” We could point to Ivy League research that made a clear case for dramatic changes to the current system. There were large federal incentives, in addition to private philanthropy fueled by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, encouraging such changes. And to pass these teacher-evaluation laws, we built a coalition of reform-minded Democrats and Republicans that also included the American Federation of Teachers. Reformers were confident we had a clear mandate.

And yet. Implementation did not live up to the promises.

Ah, implementation! The Soviet experiment might have worked had it been implemented the right way. When allegedly great ideas don’t work out in reality, then something is wrong with the idea. For one thing, it never had the support of educators, who were expected to make Michael Johnston’s big idea work. It didn’t work.

What went wrong? Almost everything.

Most teachers don’t teach tested subjects. The majority of teachers teach in states’ untested subject areas. This meant processes for measuring student growth outside of literacy or math were often thoughtlessly slapped together to meet the new evaluation law. For example, some elementary school art-teacher evaluations were linked to student performance on multiple-choice district art tests, while Spanish-teacher evaluations were tied to how the school did on the state’s math and literacy tests. Even for those who teach the grades and subjects with state tests, some debate remains on how much growth should be weighted for high-stakes decisions on teacher ratings.

Few educators “embraced” the new evaluation system. They complied, but they never believed.

Teacher evaluators were giving teachers higher scores than they allegedly deserved. This, of course, was a problem with the district and school culture, not the model, which was supposedly flawless.

Last, every one of the state’s charter schools waived themselves out of the teacher evaluation system.

Van Schoales doesn’t mention that test-based accountability has been criticized by leading scholarly organizations, like the American Statistical Association and the American Education Research Association.

Value-added measurement, or VAM, has fallen into disrepute for two reasons. First, it has not produced positive results anywhere. There is a solid body of research that has shown that it doesn’t work and will never work, because students are not randomly assigned, because home influences outweigh teacher influences on student test scores, and because most teachers do not teach the tested subjects.

Colorado had the perfect teacher evaluation plan, in theory, perfect enough to excite the corporate reformers, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, et al. Except it didn’t work. I salute Van Schoales for admitting that the experiment failed.

Unfortunately it is still the law in Colorado. Educators are still evaluated by flawed and invalid measures. Seven years after passage of SB 10-191, Colorado does not have “great schools, great principals, great teachers.” Actually, it does have great schools, great principals, and great teachers in affluent districts, as it did in 2010. It even has great educators and schools in urban districts, but only if they are not measured by their students’ test scores. Don’t blame the victims of this effort to turn educators into widgets. The best evaluation of professionals is done by human judgment, taking multiple factors into account, not by standardized test scores.

Due to term limits, Michael Johnston is no longer in the State Senate. In January, he announced that he is running for Governor of Colorado. On his wikipedia page, he still boasts about SB 10-191. He owes an apology to the thousands of dedicated educators who were subjected to his invalid teacher evaluation plan, many of whom were unjustly terminated and lost their careers.

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Education Industry, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, VAM (value-added modeling)

Maryland: General Assembly Overrides Governor’s Veto, Protecting Public Schools from DeVos Agenda

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2017 //
12

Yesterday the Maryland General Assembly voted to override Governor Larry Hogan’s veto of a bill meant to protect public schools against the privatization agenda of Betsy DeVos.

Maryland has a rightwing Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, who has appointed a pro-privatization state board of education.

But Maryland also has a legislature controlled by Democrats. They hold a veto-proof majority.

The legislature passed an anti-privatization bill called the “Protect Our Schools Act,” intended to block state takeovers and the Trump/DeVos agenda.

Governor Hogan vetoed the bill on Wednesday, saying it would prevent the state from identifying low-performing schools and taking them over (and privatizing them). His appointed state board agreed with him.

Yesterday, the Democratic-controlled legislature overrode Hogan’s veto.

The governor is angry:

The bill [that he vetoed] would set standards for how the state would identify low-performing schools that Hogan says rely too little on standardized tests. And it would prevent the state from taking several actions to improve those schools, including converting them to charter schools, bringing in private management, giving the students vouchers to attend private schools or putting the schools into a special statewide “recovery” school district.

Hogan and members of the state school board argue that the bill would tie their hands as they try to rescue low-performing schools.

Let it be stipulated that neither the governor nor any member of the state school board has EVER rescued a low-performing school.

Congratulations to the educators and parents and students of Maryland for defeating Governor Hogan’s effort to impose the DeVos agenda on the state’s public schools.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Maryland, Privatization, Trump, Vouchers
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