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John Thompson on Education and the Media

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2016 //
11

John Thompson, historian and teacher in Oklahoma, writes here about a growing awareness in the mainstream media of the infusion of Big Money into education. The New York Review of Books is a major influence among highly educated people and has a reach far beyond professional educators.

 

 

The New York Review of Book’s Michael Massing, in “Reimagining Journalism: The Story of the One Percent,” proposes a new journalism to document and explain the effects of secretive corporate elites on our diverse social institutions. He basically calls for a very well-funded version of the Diane Ravitch blog.

 
O.K., it’s more complicated than that. Massing notes that “Education is but one area of American life that is being transformed by Big Money.” He wants a website that is staffed by top investigative journalists, and experts in the fields that are being taken over by “billionaires [who] are shaping policy, influencing opinion, promoting favorite causes, polishing their images—and carefully shielding themselves from scrutiny.”

 
Massing proposes a site, complete with reporters, editors, and “digital whizzes,” who “could burrow deep into the world of the one percent and document the remarkable impact they are having on so many areas of American life.” Similar to Ravitch’s blog, its purpose would be “tracking the major participants, showing the links between them, assessing their influence and impact, and analyzing the evidence on the performance of both public and charter schools.”

 
Moreover, Massing wants a site that:

 
Could also serve as a sounding board for people in the field, encouraging principals, teachers, parents, and grantees to send in comments about their dealings with these institutions. The most thoughtful could be edited and posted on the site, providing a bottom-up perspective that rarely gets aired.

 
Massing explains that “even amid the outpouring of coverage of rising income inequality … the richest Americans have remained largely hidden from view.” And, “journalists have largely let them get away with it.” We need sites that will cover more than education, but Massing, who has been influenced by the work of Mohammad Khan, Zephyr Teachout, and Ravitch, uses their work as a model for the 21st century journalism we need.

 

His website would:

 
Produce an ongoing record of the activities of the foundations and private donors trying to affect education policy. The political and lobbying efforts of the teachers’ unions and their allies would be included as well, showing how much money and influence they are able to mobilize in elections and for what candidates.

 

In the first of two articles, Massing describes Paul Singer, the CEO of the hedge fund Elliott Management as an example of “the ability of today’s ultrarich to amass tremendous power while remaining out of the limelight.” Singer is not merely a key funder of the blood-in-the-eye, anti-union StudentsFirst NY, but also the test, sort, reward and punish policies pushed by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and other corporate school reformers. The billionaire is the single largest donor to the Republican Party; a backer of Marco Rubio and many Tea Party candidates; a funder of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which attacked John Kerry’s war record; a donor to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and the anti-tax group, Club for Growth; and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “which has worked tirelessly to isolate and sanction Iran.”
To illustrate the secretive and far-reaching influence of the One Percent, Massing draws upon the Washington Park Project, and Kahn’s and Teachout’s “Corruption in Education: Hedge Funds and the Takeover of New York’s Schools.” 

 

They offered:

 
An eye-opening look at the large sums being spent by what it called “a tiny group of powerful hedge fund executives” seeking to “take over education policy” in the state. This “lightning war on public education,” they wrote, was “hasty and secretive” and “driven by unaccountable private individuals. It represents a new form of political power, and therefore requires a new kind of political oversight.”

 
Massing then praises the online Hechinger Report and Diane Ravitch who have sharply analyzed the record of the Billionaires Boy’s Club and education reform movement. He explains the need to further document the activities of the Gates, Broad, and Walton foundations, as well as analyze their real world effects on schools.

 
Yes, America needs websites for examining the structure of money and influence on all of our institutions. Ravitch and her contributors, commenters, and readers should all feel proud of our bottom-up efforts. Massing is correct; our nation needs to produce Diane Ravitchs to lead similar grassroots efforts in health, finance, economics, and politics. I bet it will happen.

Categories Billionaires, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Media

Gary Sasso: Why Don’t the Billionaires Support Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2016 //
42

In an article in Salon, Gary Sasso asks why the billionaires are so intent on funding privately-managed alternatives to public schools. Sasso is the Dean of the College of Education at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. After all, if they want to improve education, the vast majority of students in this nation attend public schools. Why aren’t they helping public schools? The reality is that charter schools drain funding from public schools, and they usually don’t get better results (if one considers only test scores). Many of them have a stern disciplinary regime that may raise test scores but does not improve education or the spirit of learning.

 

Sasso says that the huge disparities in income today and the erosion of the middle class explain more about educational outcomes than anything that happens in schools. Why are the 1% focused solely on the schools?

 

Sasso speculates:

 

Charter schools will never be the answer to improving education for all. It is simply not scaleable. And yet titans of industry such as Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton family, and billionaires such as John Paulson who earlier this year gave $8.5 million to New York’s Success Academy charter school system, are pouring their millions into support for charter schools—millions that will not, incidentally, be invested in improving the schools that the vast majority of U.S. students attend: traditional public schools.

 

Can it be a coincidence that those who have benefited most from the last 50 years of steadily increasing income inequality—the top 10 percent–support an education solution that hinges on denigrating public school teachers, dismantling unions and denying that income inequality is the underlying condition at the root of the problem?

 

The most generous explanation for this phenomenon says that the wealthiest among us are motivated to support charter schools purely out of ideology. They are operating under deeply held beliefs that a school system run by the government smothers innovation and that teachers unions inhibit a free market system that, if allowed to operate, would result in better teachers and child outcomes. In addition, these philanthropists believe that public education has become so hidebound that meaningful change within the system is no longer possible, and that fresh ideas and programs not beholden to a system that resists change will provide programs and ideas that are more effective.

 

Another explanation that has been posited is that good, old-fashioned greed is at the root. After all, the wealthy did not achieve their wealth through an indifference to achieving a return on their investments—and our public school system is a $621 billion per year endeavor. For example, a recent investigation by the Arizona Republic found that the state’s charter schools purchased a variety of goods and services from the companies of its own board members or administrators. In fact, the paper found at least 17 such contracts or arrangements totaling more than $70 million over five years.

 

In addition, there are specific tax loopholes that make it especially attractive to donate to charter schools. Banks and equity and hedge funds that invest in charter schools in underserved areas can take advantage of a tax credit. They are permitted to combine this tax credit with other tax breaks while they also collect interest on any money they lend out. According to analysts, the credit allows them to double the money they invested in seven years.

 

However, applying the principle of Occam’s Razor (the simplest explanation is usually the best), the super-rich may support charter schools to weaken unions. That strategy increases inequality of wealth and income, especially for the poorest kids whom the charter promoters claim to be “saving.”

 

Sasso suggests that the best path forward for the 1% would be to focus on rebuilding the middle class, which is currently being squashed.

 

Rebuilding the middle class—not expanding charter schools—is the most effective path to increasing access to quality education and to giving more students the opportunity to achieve their dreams.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Jobs, Privatization

Walton Family Foundation Will Spend $1 Billion to Start New Charters Across the Nation

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2016 //
29

The Walton Family Foundation announced that it plans to spend $1 billion over the next five years to increase the number of privately managed charter schools. If experience is any guide, almost all of these will be non-union. This was reported by politico pro, which is behind a paywall (I inquired, and it costs $3,500 to gain access). The emphasis in this massive spending will be startups.

 

“Just as we were in 1997 with our first charter grants, we are inspired by the ideas and passion of our startup grantees, and we’re determined to do all we can to help them succeed. I’d like to wish you, your teams and all of the students and communities we serve a 2016 of progress and accomplishment,” Marc Sternberg, director of the foundation’s K12 program, wrote in a letter to stakeholders obtained by POLITICO.

 

The Bentonville, Arkansas,-based foundation is run by the family of Walmart founders Sam and Helen Walton and is a frequent target of teachers unions for its promotion of school choice efforts, including research. Since 1997, it has poured more than $385 million in 2,110 new public charter schools – or about a quarter of all charters nationally, the foundation said.

 

Imagine that! The Walton Family Foundation, which was created by the billions earned by Walmart, is anti-union. Walmart does not have unions. It has fought unionization and had to be pushed kicking and screaming to agree to pay minimum wages, eventually. Every member of the Walton family is a billionaire. Now, why would unions not like the Walton family? Anyone? This is a family that enjoys the wealth created by the sweat of others who are not paid a living wage. Do the Waltons sleep well at night?

 

The Walton family represents the face of rapacious avarice in modern America. Having made their billions, they now use them to destroy the one basic democratic institution on which generations of Americans have relied for the education of their children: The American public schools. They will use their billions to divide communities and to turn citizens into consumers. That’s the Walmart way.

 

 

To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/education/whiteboard/2016/01/walton-foundation-to-donate-1-billion-to-promote-school-choice-065681

 

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Walton Foundation

David Kirp: How to Fix “Failing Schools”–and How Not to

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2016 //
28

 

David Kirp, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, has a smashing article in the New York Times comparing the failure of corporate reform in Newark and the success of incremental, collaborative reform in Union City, New Jersey.

 

Newark is a paradigm of all the bad reform ideas: Schools closed against the will of parents and students. Charter schools opened, some of which skimmed the students they wanted. Mark Zuckerberg, egged on by then-Mayor Cory Booker and Governor Chris Christie, put $100 million into the reformer dream that every student in Newark would achieve proficiency if every school were turned into a charter school. Zuckerberg’s $100 million disappeared down the rabbit hole, and Newark continues to struggle.

 

 

Meanwhile, Union City made real progress, without the help of Zuckerberg’s millions.

 

 

 

 

Kirp writes:

 

No one expected a national model out of Union City. Without the resources given to Newark, the school district there, led by a middle-level bureaucrat named Fred Carrigg, was confronted with two huge challenges: How could English learners, three-quarters of the students, become fluent in English? And how could youngsters, many of whom came from homes where books were rarities, be turned into adept readers?

 

Today Union City, which opted for homegrown gradualism, is regarded as a poster child for good urban education. Newark, despite huge infusions of money and outside talent, has struggled by comparison. In 2014, Union City’s graduation rate was 81 percent, exceeding the national average; Newark’s was 69 percent.

 

What explains this difference? The experience of Union City, as well as other districts, like Montgomery County, Md., and Long Beach, Calif., that have beaten the demographic odds, show that there’s no miracle cure for what ails public education. What business gurus label “continuous improvement,” and the rest of us call slow-and-steady, wins the race.

 

 

Two points to be made based on this article:

 

  1. Why does anyone expect politicians to know how to fix schools that struggle?
  2. Does anyone still believe that charters and vouchers and high-stakes testing will improve education for the nation’s poorest children?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Jersey, Privatization

Scott Schmerelson: A Hero of Public Education in Los Angeles

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2016 //
19

Billionaire Eli Broad aims to privatize the schools of half the children in the Los Angeles Unified School District; he has even funded a phony, astroturf organization called “Great Public Schools Now” to push his plan. He has no intention of submitting his proposal to the vote of the people of Los Angeles. He forgets that their tax dollars built the facilities; he thinks that because he is a billionaire, he should have the right or at least the power to privatize what rightfully belongs to the people of Los Angeles, without asking permission from them.

 

State law, adopted during the aggressively pro-charter Schwarzenegger era, clears the path for rapid expansion of charter schools. If LAUSD rejects a charter, it will be approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Education. In the rare instance that the county board does not approve, the charter can appeal to the state board of education. Los Angeles currently has the largest number of students in charters of any school district in the nation. The charters are deregulated and unsupervised. Neither the state nor the district has the personnel to oversee their financial or academic operations.

 

One member of the Los Angeles school board has had the courage to stand up and boldly say NO to billionaire Broad. He is Scott Schmerelson, the most recently elected board member and a retired educator in the LAUSD schools.

 

An article in LA School Report says:

 

 

“As a retired, life-long LAUSD educator, I believe that I have a moral obligation to raise awareness and understanding of externally driven strategies that support the uncontrolled proliferation of charter schools at the expense of the District’s ability to adequately provide for the needs of all students, especially the most disadvantaged students who rely on public education,” Schmerelson told LA School Report.

 

As impassioned as the resolution may be, it’s effectively toothless in terms of changing how the district deals with charter applications and renewal requests that come before the board. State law creates the rules for charters, and it only provides for denials in the cases of questionable finances or managerial weakness.

 

In his review of the resolution, LA Unified’s chief legal counsel, David Holmquist, said as much: “It should be noted that any analysis done by the district on any charter school proposal needs to be in accordance with the provisions of the Education Code.” He added, “The Board should be cautioned against using any fiscal impact to the district and potential decrease in revenues as bases for denying a charter.”

 

That’s part of the problem, Schmerelson said, pointing to state regulations that restrict how the school board monitors, controls and approves charter schools. “We need to change state law and clarify ambiguous state and district guidelines that hamper our ability to act as responsible charter authorizers and exercise diligent oversight of existing charter schools,” he said.

 

Understand this state law: school boards cannot deny a charter application simply because it will impoverish the district and rob the children of necessary resources. So Broad wants to create a system that is separate and unequal. The students in his privately run charters will have the resources they need, while the children who remain in LAUSD will be stripped of courses, programs, teachers, nurses, staff, and maintenance. Broad promises to create his little empire by robbing those children not lucky enough to gain admission. Eli Broad does not believe in equality of educational opportunity. He believes in the free market, so long as he is in control.

 

His proposal is a disgrace. He wants “great schools now” for some children, and “rotten schools now” for others. This can’t be America.

 

Scott Schmerelson most certainly is a hero of American education and of this blog.

 

This is Board Member Schmerelson’s resolution (Item 25 at this link):

 

 

Mr. Schmerelson – Excellent Public Education for Every Student (Res-019-15/16) (Noticed November 10, 2015 and Postponed from a Previous Meeting)

 

Whereas, The recently released report from the Los Angeles Unified School District Independent Financial Review Panel indicates that declining enrollment is one of the critical issues that the District needs to proactively address in order to remain fiscally viable and to be able to provide a high quality, full service public education for every child who enters public schools in Los Angeles;

 

Whereas, The recently released “Plan for Great Public Schools” from the Eli Broad Foundation seeks to aggressively move over 250,000 students from LAUSD public schools to privately operated, under-regulated charter schools;

 

Whereas, The Broad Foundation plan does not address the impact, implications and potential for collateral damage to the approximately 300,000 students who would be left in a LAUSD system precariously drained of resources, programs and support systems;

 

Whereas, The Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District passed the “Believing in our Schools Again” resolution in May 2015 directing the Superintendent to identify successful programs within the District including but not limited to magnets,

 
  

 

 

International Baccalaureate programs, Dual Language Immersion programs, STEM/STEAM programs, and Pilot schools and develop a comprehensive strategy to grow these programs and strengthen instruction and support at neighborhood schools;

 

Whereas, The Independent Financial Review Panel made similar recommendations for investment in successful District programs;

 

Whereas, The Board serves as both the authorizer of the largest number of charter schools in the nation and is responsible for ensuring an excellent educational program for over 540,000 students in LAUSD schools and programs;

 

Whereas, Rather than incubating ideas and sharing best practices between robust LAUSD programs and innovative charter schools as originally envisioned, recent tactics of saturation and strangulation threaten to create unnecessary competition for precious resources and to divides students and communities; and

 

Whereas, The Board is committed to the most important and comprehensive education equity mission in the nation and must have the needed resources to implement the A-G for All resolution, the School Climate Bill of Rights, the Equity Index and other essential initiatives to ensure 100% graduation of all students who are college and career ready; now, therefore, be it

 

Resolved, That the Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District, while diligently seeking new District leadership, affirms and publicly commits to making every possible effort to attract and retain students and parents by engaging with all stakeholders to develop a framework for excellent public schools, and improved outcomes, for every student by relying on tested strategies and forward thinking new models that include:

 

  • Research based curriculum and instruction designed to provide all students with equitable and rigorous learning opportunities to equip our graduates with the skills and knowledge necessary for college readiness, career training and preparation for successful lives after high school;
  • Fostering Community Schools intentionally directed at improving student achievement, through a holistic approach to teaching and learning, by implementing policies and programs that recognize and support the social, emotional, physical and academic needs of all students;
  • Demanding, supporting and cultivating accountable school leadership and teaching staff who understand and project a clear vision and high expectations of academic excellence for all students;
  • Leveling the playing field for our youngest students, who daily endure the disadvantages of poverty, by providing access to high quality early learning opportunities that are aligned with first-rate early literacy programs;
  • Equitably funded, sequential arts and music education curricula that advance creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication skills for all students regardless of their socioeconomic status;
  • Acknowledging that student safety is our highest priority and that parents expect their children in our care to be vigilantly protected and educated in secure, well maintained facilities; 
 
  • A meticulous and urgent review of our parent engagement efforts that recognizes that we are not always successful in creating welcoming and resource rich environments and policies that support and encourage critical family involvement in student achievement;
  • Developing aggressive and definitive plans for improving student and staff attendance and reducing our unacceptable dropout rate;
  • Bold and consistent advocacy for adequate and equitable local, state and federal funding while improving responsible, transparent and accountable management of public revenues; and be it finally

     

  • Resolved, That the Board directs the Superintendent to analyze all external proposals targeting

    the District for their impact in terms of enrollment, fiscal viability and the District’s ability to

    provide an outstanding public education with comprehensive student and family supports before

    that proposal is considered by the Board.

 

Categories Broad Foundation, Education Industry, Los Angeles

The Cruel Charter School Addiction in Philadelphia

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2016 //
23

Eileen DiFranco, a retired school nurse in Philadelphia, describes an episode from “The Twilight Zone” in which a sober family man encounters slot machines in Las Vegas and becomes an addict. He can’t help himself. He gambles everything and can’t stop.

 

She compares this gambling fever to the charter school addiction of districts like Philadelphia. No matter how many charter schools fail, the district leaders want more of them. They are in love with the lure and promise of magic and they can’t stop. Meanwhile, the public schools suffer as do the children who attend public schools, while millions are squandered on charter schools that are no better–and often worse–than the public schools.

 

She writes:

 

With their “no excuses” mantra, highly paid charter school CEOs promise school administrators that they will bring students up to grade level in no time at all. It all sounds so attractive. And believable. School districts all over the country have been sucked in by this big, brash idea that sounds wonderful on paper, but has largely failed to deliver on its promises. This has not stopped the charter school operators from repeating their claim of educational superiority over and over again until it takes on the ring of truth.

 

But the reality is that the charter schools’ claims contain more “truthiness” than actual truth. According to Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a national study by CREDO that many cited to tout the superior performance of charters actually found that “less than one hundredth of one percent (<0.01 percent) of the variation in test performance in reading is explainable by charter school enrollment.”

 

Let’s put that alleged 0.01 percent success rate into a Philadelphia perspective. The SRC has approved charter school establishment and expansion even while the traditional public schools languish. As children are injured, or even die, as did Laporshia Massey at Bryant Elementary, or as violence occurs, as it did at George Washington High School, the fault somehow lies with the resource-starved schools and not the SRC’s addiction to the lure of charter schools.

 

The underwhelming performance of charter schools for an overwhelming amount of money should set off alarms. Their quick solutions to educational woes follow the logic of past failures: Just hand over the money and we’ll do it all for you. In the end, however, there is only one certainty: If something is too good to be true, it is not the truth.

 

Several questions need to be asked about this scenario. The first is, why would the SRC allow the majority of Philadelphia’s children to attend dirty, unsafe schools without counselors, nurses, and assistant principals while other children clearly do not? Why is there hardly any discussion about this glaring disparity?

 

I have a couple of answers. The first is that there is a plan afoot to break public schools deliberately so that they can be handed over to charters. Thus, the SRC and Hite are wreaking havoc by deliberately deferring maintenance and cutting staff to dangerous levels in traditional schools. This practice effectively insures the failure that is necessary to hand over the now low-performing, intentionally broken “seats” over to more “successful” charter operators who feel justified in cutting into the resources available to District schools. This is being done in a calculated way in order to break the teachers’ union, the whipping boy of modern school reform.

 

The second is that District leaders and politicians are trying to appease elected officials in rural areas who perceive city schools and urban children as great leeches feeding off public dollars who divert resources away from more deserving populations. For them, giving more money to ”those” children in urban areas is like throwing money into a pit. The idea in the Pennsylvania House and Senate is that throwing money at schools doesn’t fix them, although they believe that having enough money fixes just about everything else.

 

The third is that the SRC has become the ball carrier for hedge fund managers for whom education is a place where they can make money. The fact that school reform is being led by MBAs rather than by educators is telling.

 

Philadelphia public schools are dying. Who will be held accountable? The legislature? Former Governor Tom Corbett? Superintendent William Hite?

 

The leaders are chasing a rainbow, bright promises that have never come through for the children. They are killing a democratic institution that society depends on and needs. Can they sleep at night?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

VAM Insanity in Michigan

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2016 //
34

Mitchell Robinson, who teaches music at Michigan State University, writes here about the madness of assessing teachers by “value-added” or growth measures, especially when they don’t teach the tested subjects.

 

State officials listen attentively to the unaccredited National Council on Teacher Quality, which was created by the conservative Thomas B.Fordham Foundation and kept alive by an emergency infusion of $5 million by then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige.

 

A state official explained why VAM was necessary:

 

Venessa Keesler, deputy superintendent of accountability services at MDE, said measuring student growth is a “challenging science,” but student growth percentiles represent at “powerful and good” way to tackle the topic. “When you don’t have a pre-and-post-test, this is a good way to understand how much a student has progressed,” she said. Under the new law, 25 percent of a teacher’s evaluation will be based on student growth through 2017-18. In 2018-19, the percentage will grow to 40 percent. State standardized tests, where possible, will be used to determine half that growth. In Michigan, state standardized tests – most of which focus on reading and math – touch a minority of teachers. One study estimated that 33 percent of teachers teach in grades and subjects covered by state standardized tests.

 

Robinson comments:

 

What Dr. Keesler doesn’t seem to understand is that the student growth percentiles she is referring to are nothing more than another name for Value Added Measures, or VAM–a statistical method for predicting students’ academic growth that has been completely and totally debunked, with statements from nearly every leading professional organization in education and statistics against their use in making high stakes decisions about teacher effectiveness (i.e., exactly what MDE is recommending they be used for in teachers’ evaluations). The science here is more than challenging–it’s deeply flawed, invalid and unreliable, and its usefulness in terms of determining teacher effectiveness is based largely on one, now suspect study conducted by a researcher who has been discredited for “masking evidence of bias” in his research agenda.

 

Dr. Keesler also glosses over the fact that these measures of student growth only apply to math and reading, subjects that account for less than a third of the classes being taught in the schools. If the idea of evaluating, for example, music and art teachers by using math and reading test scores doesn’t make any sense to you, there’s an (awful) explanation: “‘The idea is that all teachers weave elements of reading and writing into their curriculum. The approach fosters a sense of teamwork, shared goals and the feeling that “we’re all in this together,’ said Erich Harmsen, a member of GRPS’ human resources department who focuses on teacher evaluations.”

 

While I’m all for teamwork, this “explanation” is, to be polite, simply a load of hooey. If Mr. Harmsen truly believed in what I’ll call the “transitive property” of teaching and learning, then we would expect to see math and reading teachers be evaluated using the results of student learning in music and art. Because what’s good for the goose…right?

 

The truth is, as any teacher knows, for evaluation to be considered valid, the measures must be related to the actual content that is taught in the teacher’s class–you can’t just wave some magical “we’re all in this together” wand over the test scores that miraculously converts stuff taught in band class to wonderful, delicious math data. It just doesn’t work that way, and schools that persist in insisting that it does are now getting sued for their ignorance.

 

Why should teacher evaluation be standardized when there is so much messy human, social, and economic intervention in the scores that cannot be controlled or measured?

 

Robinson disputes the value of standardization:

 

Teachers work with children, and these children are not standardized.

 

Teachers work in schools, and these schools exist in communities that are not standardized.

 

And teachers work with other teachers, custodians, secretaries, administrators, school board members, and other adults–none of which are standardized.

 

So why should teacher evaluations systems in schools in communities as diverse as the Upper Peninsula and downtown Detroit evaluate their teachers using the same system? And why is the finding that “local assessments can vary among ‘teachers at the same grade, in the same school, teaching the same subjects'” a bad thing?

 

The thing that we should be valuing in these children, schools and communities is their diversity–the characteristics, talents and interests that make them gloriously different from one another. A school in Escanaba shouldn’t look like a school in Kalamazoo, and the curriculum in each school should be tailored to the community in which it resides. The only parties that benefit from “standardizing” education are the Michigan Department of Education and the testing companies that produce these tests, because standardizing makes their jobs easier. Standardizing teaching and learning doesn’t help students, teachers or schools, so why are we spending so much time and money in a futile attempt to make Pearson and ETS’s jobs easier?

 

 

Categories Accountability, Arts Education, Education Industry, Michigan, Testing

Why Will Some States Use SAT or ACT for Accountability?

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2016 //
15

This is a bizarre and troubling turn of events. Several states have decided to use the SAT or ACT to meet federal accountability requirements for students. But neither examination has been validated for this purpose.

 

Catherine Gewertz writes in Education Week:

 

High school testing is on the brink of a profound shift, as states increasingly choose college-entrance exams to measure achievement. The new federal education law invites that change, but it comes with some big caution signs and unanswered questions.
The questions are hanging over a provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act that lets states measure high school achievement with college-entrance exams instead of standards-based assessments.
If many states make that change, it would represent an important national shift in the meaning of high school testing, assessment experts say.
That’s because most states’ current tests are based on their academic standards and are built to measure mastery of those standards. Moving to a college-entrance exam such as the SAT or ACT, which are designed to predict the likelihood of students’ success in college, would mean that states had chosen instead to measure college readiness.
“It’s a really big shift,” said Wayne Camara, who helped design the SAT and oversaw research at the College Board for two decades before taking a similar post at ACT in 2014. “States need to think about what they want their accountability system to measure and choose the test best suited for that. Ultimately, it’s a judgment. It depends on what you value most.”

 

She reports that seven states have gained permission from the U.S. Department of Education to use one of the two exams for federal accountability, and a large number of others are considering the same move.

 

How well a national exam can reflect state standards is a central—and unanswered—question in the use of college-entrance exams for accountability purposes.
FairTest, a group that opposes standardized testing, warned that that provision in the new law “must be treated with caution; those tests are no better educationally than existing state tests, and they have not been validated to assess high school academic performance.” The college-entrance exams have long been criticized, too, as biased in favor of wealthier students from college-educated families.
Sound assessment practice requires that a test be validated for its specific intended use. But there are no independent research studies analyzing how well the newest versions of the SAT or ACT reflect the depth and breadth of the Common Core State Standards, which are used by more than 40 states. States that use other standards would have to obtain their own “alignment” studies.
Without that kind of evidence, testing experts said, states are on shaky ground if they use a college-entrance exam to measure mastery of their content standards.
“How can a state tell teachers to teach the standards, and then use a test that hasn’t been proven to align [to them]?” said Scott F. Marion, the executive director of the Center for Assessment, which helps states design testing systems. “It’s a major problem. It’s like a bait-and-switch.”

 

This is a big win for the Common Core, since both the SAT and ACT determined to align with the new and unproven standards. It is also a big win for the corporations that own the SAT and the ACT, which will clean up as they build their market share.

 

It is a huge loss for students who are not the best and brightest, who have always faltered on these tests of college-readiness. When they fail, as they will, what will our society do with them? Will they still be eligible for a high school diploma? Will they drop out and join the ranks of the unemployed and hopeless?

 

What we know about the SAT, and every other standardized test, is that they effectively replicate family income. The wealthiest students get the highest scores, and the poorest get the lowest. In addition, the families with means hire SAT or ACT tutors, adding to their initial advantage.

 

Once again, tests are in the saddle, determining what will be taught. In a sane world, the tests are based on the curriculum; in this not-so-brave new world, the tests will drive the curriculum. And predictably, the kids with the least advantage will be punished by stupid policy.

Categories Education Industry, Testing

Wisconsin: Right-Wing Bradley Foundation Spent $108 Million to Privatize Public Education

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2016 //
7

A major new report from the progressive One Wisconsin Institute finds that the right-wing Bradley Foundation spent more than $108 million, working with 130 partner groups, to privatize public schools in Wisconsin between 2005 and 2014. During the same period, the state’s public schools experienced dramatic budget cuts.

 

Key findings of the updated “P Is For Payoff” report include:

 

 

Bradley Foundation head Michael Grebe, a political insider who chaired Gov. Walker’s presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, continues to orchestrate a massive propaganda campaign to advance the privatization of public education;

 
An analysis of IRS Form 990 records and Bradley Foundation reports reveals over 130 organizations supportive of their education privatization agenda and working to advance their cause have received over $108 million from 2005 through 2014;

 
Bradley’s tactics have continued to evolve, now featuring litigation to advance their privatization agenda and intimidate opponents. Leading the effort is the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty which since its inception in 2011 has been larded with over $2 million from Bradley;

 
According to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the voucher program will cost Wisconsin taxpayers over $1.1 billion from 2011 through the end of the 2015–17 budget cycle. Meanwhile, a new report found that Wisconsin schools have suffered the 4th biggest cuts in in the nation through 2014.

 

The Bradley Foundation is one of the nation’s most active reform organizations. It hopes to reform public education out of existence. Watch how skillfully the Bradley Foundation followed the usual reformer script:

 

Original research by One Wisconsin Institute in 2013 first exposed the Bradley Foundation as a leading player in the campaign to gut public education and promote the unaccountable, radical privatization of K-12 education. The Milwaukee-based group spent millions to support organizations, think tanks, journalists and right-wing academics. They engaged in a campaign that manufactured a crisis, singled out their enemies, generated a cure, justified their scheme with pseudo-science, broadcast their message through the media, helped elect politicians to advance their agenda and kept them in line with high-powered lobbyists and well-funded pressure campaigns. [Emphasis added by me.]

 

Ross concluded, “Wisconsin families and public schools are left paying the price as billions of dollars that could have been used for public education are siphoned off for the Bradley Foundation’s ideologically driven experiment. Until a majority of policy makers are willing to stand up to the Bradley Foundation’s millions, Wisconsin’s tradition of great public schools will remain under assault.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Hoax, Privatization, Testing, Vouchers, Wisconsin

EduShyster: Why Charter Schools Are the New Subprime Mortgages

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2016 //
27

EduShyster has a fascinating and important interview with Preston Green, the John and Carla Klein Professor of Urban Education at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, who explains why charter schools are the new subprime mortgages. Green says he used to be a strong charter supporter, but he has become wary because of the excesses of deregulation. He predicts that just as the subprime mortgage bubble burst, the same is likely to happen to the charter school bubble. Just like subprime mortgages, charters are expanding rapidly without oversight. Promoters of charters, often with the best of intentions, seek multiple authorizers so that oversight is slack. Parents in urban communities line up on the hope that they will get better education, but they often (usually?) don’t.

 

Green says:

 

Promoters of charter school expansion are calling for an increase in independent authorizers, such as nonprofits and universities. Supporters of charter school expansion believe that multiple authorizers will issue more charters, in part, because they are less hostile to charter schools than school districts. However, our research suggests another reason that multiple authorizers result in more charter schools: multiple authorizers are like mortgage originators with no skin in the game. In other words, these authorizers don’t assume the risk of charter school failure. That means that if something happens with the charter school, the authorizers don’t have to clean up the mess. Multiple authorizers may also weaken screening by giving charter schools the chance to find authorizers who *won’t ask questions.* In fact, CREDO has found that states with multiple authorizers experienced significantly lower academic growth. CREDO suggested that this finding might be due to the possibility that multiple authorizers gave charter schools the chance to shop around to find authorizers who wouldn’t provide rigorous oversight….

 

 

Where I see this playing out is that if you have too many charters or options that aren’t public having a negative impact on the education system as a whole, you may start seeing challenges in these communities saying that the state is failing to provide children with a system of public education, or that the options provided aren’t of sufficient quality to satisfy the state’s obligation to provide a public education. The assumption is that if kids fail to get an education in a charter school they can return to the traditional system. But what happens if you don’t have that option? You may soon see that develop in all of these urban settings. The really scary scenario that I could see happening is that you end up with all of these options that aren’t traditional public schools with insufficient oversight by the authorizers and no real pressure to get these schools to perform well….

 

If we’re going to have multiple authorizers, we have to impose standards to ensure that they do a good job, because without those standards there is really no incentive for them to ensure that these schools are operating in an acceptable manner. I should also mention putting sanctions in place to prevent the really squirrely practice of *authorizer hopping,* where schools are closed by one authorizer and then find another authorizer, which has happened quite a bit in places where oversight has been really weak, like Ohio. Further, authorizers should guard against predatory chartering practices, including fining students for discipline violations.

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