Archives for category: Education Industry
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Which Costs More: Education or Incarceration?

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2013 //
16

Robert Shepherd posted an interesting comment about where our society is willing to”throw money”:

“How well I remember George Bush senior setting the direction for decades of policy by saying “You can’t solve the education problem by throwing money at it.”

“Well, we seem to have no problem throwing money at prisons in this country. As of year-end 2011, 6.9777 million U.S. adults were “under correctional supervision,” that is, on probation, on parole, in jail, or in prison. That’s about 2.9% of the U.S. population. It’s the highest rate in the world. As of 2010, according to a Pew report, average cost of incarceration per inmate in state systems was $47,421 in California, $50,262 in Connecticut, $38,268 in Illinois, $38,383 in Maryland, $41,364 in Minnesota, $54,865 in New Jersey, $60,076 in New York. . . . You get the picture.

“We can pay on the front end to create compensatory environments for the children of the poorest in our society, or we can pay and pay and pay on the back end.

“We have to face the fact that our system is failing the children of the rural and inner city poor and that MAGICAL nostrums like standardized tests aren’t going to fix that (but, in fact, will make things much, much worse). The savage inequalities that Kozol wrote about decades ago are back with a vengeance, and until we address the poverty of kids’ communities and put a great deal of money, much more than we are now spending, into creating COMPENSATORY ENVIRONMENTS, we’re not going to make progress. Only an idiot thinks that one can make real change in the life of a child with meth- or crack-addicted parents simply by testing him or her more.

“Every child deserves a shot at a decent life. That is the promise of our Declaration of Independence. For millions of American kids, that promise is a cruel joke, but every one of those kids, every one, matters.”

Categories Education Industry, U.S. education

Advice from Your Secretary of Education

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2013 //
15

A reader follows Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Twitter feed (I do not; I do not monitor him). She noticed that he often promotes commercial, for-profit vendors. Others have noticed how often he lauds privately-managed charter schools and how seldom he praises public schools, except when their staff has been fired. She writes:

 

Speaking of monitoring, Duncan’s Twitter feed is absolutely amazing. 90% of his links promote some commercial aspect of education reform. Here’s today’s prominent product placement:

“School models that don’t fit within traditional definitions are largely excluded from receiving E-Rate support. Florida Virtual School, the largest virtual school in the United States serving more than 148,000 students, uses a model built entirely around connected learning resulting in
a broadband tab of $53 million, yet the E-Rate only reimburses $5,237. Schools using blended learning approaches that “flip the classroom,” where students watch lectures online at home and use class time for interactive discussion, also do not receive full E-Rate support.”

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/317329-new-education-models-need-a-new-e-rate#ixzz2cbzyzhXm
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

I don’t even think he has to go thru the revolving door from government work to the private sector, like so many of his staffers have. He’s promoting private sector education schemes while in his government job. It’s just shameless.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit

Anthony Cody: The DOE Monitored Us But Ignored What We Said

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2013 //
17

If there is a watch list at the U.S. Department of Education, surely Anthony Cody must be on it, along with me.

Anthony has been one of the most articulate critics of Arne Duncan and Bill Gates and the whole corporate reform agenda.

Just when I think he can’t outdo his last column, he proves me wrong.

This time, he explains his efforts to engage with Arne Duncan and how Duncan brushed him off.

He writes:

I actively sought a dialogue with the Arne Duncan and the Department of Education way back in November of 2009, when I wrote an open letter to President Obama, and started a Facebook group called Teachers’ Letters to Obama. In December of that same year I sent a packet of more than 100 letters to Secretary Duncan and the White House. In return I got a short note from a staffer at the DoEd, and no response at all from the White House. Eventually, the Teachers’ Letters group got a short phone conference with Secretary Duncan, and he followed up with a short personal call as well. But that was a very frustrating and aborted sort of dialogue, where the main emphasis on the part of Department of Education was to convince us all that we were somehow incapable of accurately perceiving their policies and their real-world consequences. Widespread frustration with this sort of response, and with administration policies, led to more than 6000 of us gathering in front of the White House at the Save Our Schools March in the summer of 2011.

Anthony never gave up trying, and was unable to break through the administration’s stony insistence that they know what they are doing, and their minds are closed.

Anthony is a teacher, and he believes in education, so he keeps reaching out. I think even Anthony now realizes that this administration has no intention of changing course, no matter what the evidence.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Race to the Top

“Disruption”: The Worst Cliche of Our Time

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2013 //
12

Judith Shulevitz has written
a brilliant essay in “The Néw Republic” about the
corporate and political leaders’ infatuation with “disruption.” It
is “the most pernicious cliche of our time.” She identifies its
author, Clayton Christenson, and shows how it explains some
technological change yet is now used in policy circles to undermine
and privatize public functions. Shulevitz observes: “Christensen
and his acolytes make the free-market-fundamentalist assumption
that all public or nonprofit institutions are sclerotic and unable
to cope with change. This leads to an urge to disrupt,
preemptively, from above, rather than deal with disruption when it
starts bubbling up below….they don’t like participatory democracy
much. “The sobering conclusion,” write Christensen and co-authors
in their book about K–12 education, “is that democracy … is an
effective tool of government only in” less contentious communities
than those that surround schools. “Political and school leaders who
seek fundamental school reform need to become much more comfortable
amassing and wielding power because other tools of governance will
yield begrudging cooperation at best.” This observation leads to an
enlightening discussion of the Broad-trained superintendents and
their love of disruption. When they move into districts to impose
transformation and disruption, they sow dissension and turmoil.
None of this is good for children.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit

A Hero Educator Who Heads a Private School in Manhattan

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2013 //
24

What does it take to be a hero educator? It takes brains, courage, integrity, and a deep understanding of education and children.

Steve Nelson, headmaster of the Calhoun School in Manhattan, is a hero educator because he has all these qualities. He wrote a brilliant article about why the Common Core won’t work.

He knows that David Coleman, the architect of the Common Core, now heads the College Board. He knows that Coleman wants to align the SAT to the Common Core, so no one can escape his handiwork, not even students in prestigious private schools.

Here is a sample of Nelson’s article.

“Actual children, as opposed to the abstraction of children as seen in policy debate, are not “standard.” Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of child development knows that children learn in different ways and different times. Some children “read” (meaning a very limited ability to recognize symbols) at age 3 or 4. I have known many students who did not read well until 8, 9 or, rarely, later. The potential (or ultimate achievement levels) of these children does not correlate with the date of reading onset.

“It is rather like walking. Children who walk at 9 months do not become better runners than children who walk at 15 months. “Standardizing” the expectation of reading, and setting curricula and tests around this expectation, is like expecting a child to walk on her first birthday. If she doesn’t, shall we get our national knickers in a knot, develop a set of walking tests, prescribe walking remediation, and, perhaps inadvertently, make her feel desperately inadequate? In the current climate, Pearson is ready to design walking curriculum and its companion tests. The Gates and Broad Foundations will create complementary instructional videos.”

And he also writes:

“If policy makers and test writers had even rudimentary knowledge of rich individual differences, they would know that any standard test is unfair and, ultimately, useless. Just as children learn in very different ways, they express mastery in many different ways. The Common Core tests (and I’ve suffered the experience of wading through the many samples provided in the media) assume that all its takers process information in the same way, have the identical mix of cognitive and sensory abilities, and can, therefore, “compete” on level ground. This is nonsensical and damaging. Some of the most brilliant people I know would grind to a suffocating halt after trying to parse the arcane nonsense in a small handful of these questions. Even the math questions assume a homogeneous ability to understand the questions and a precisely common capacity for reasoning and concluding.

“I could go on: Stress inhibits learning, so we design stressful expectations; dopamine (from pleasurable activities) enhances learning, so we remove joy from schools; homework has very limited usefulness with negative returns after an hour or so (for elementary age kids), so we demand more hours of work; the importance of exercise in brain development is inarguable, so we eliminate recess and gym; the arts are central to human understanding, but we don’t have time.

“I have been accused of complaining but not offering solutions, so here’s a solution: Properly fund schools and allow good teachers to select the materials and pedagogy that serve the actual students in their care. The rest will take care of itself.

“And we can take the billions we’re wasting on NCLB, RTTT, Common Core and other nonsense and spend it to improve the lives of the shameful number of children who live in poverty in the “richest nation on Earth.”

Steve Nelson, welcome to the honor roll as a hero of American education.

Please someone, anyone: send this article to Bill Keller and Paul Krugman at the New York Times.

Categories Arts Education, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core, Education Industry, Honor Roll, Students, Testing

A Review of My New Book

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2013 //
65

Sara Mosle reviewed
my book in The Atlantic, which is unusual because it
won’t be published for another month. I have read Sara’s work over
the years and always found her thoughtful. She is now teaching in a
charter school. There are a few things I don’t agree with here,
starting with the claim that I was the “architect” of the corporate
reform movement. I had nothing to do with the writing of No Child
Left Behind or Race to the Top. At worst, I was a cheerleader for NCLB on
the sidelines, but that doesn’t make me the “architect.” And I publicly recanted my support three years ago.

I also question her implied suggestion that I am far too energetic for a
woman my age, that I blog too much, tweet too much, am too active
altogether. Maybe I should retire to a rocker and take up knitting.

You can’t really evaluate what she writes because no one except the
publisher and a few advance readers has actually read the book. But
clearly she was not happy about my criticism of charter schools.
She is fond of KIPP. It gets high test scores. I don’t like the
idea of charter chains, it is true. I think they destroy
communities and some get their high scores by excluding the most
needy students.

KIPP may be a wonderful chain, but it has yet to
accept the challenge of managing an entire district, leaving no
child behind. KIPP is one charter chain of 100-plus schools, but there are more than 6,000 charters, some good, some mediocre, some run by incompetents some run to take advantage of tax breaks. Typically, research concludes that charters get the same results when they enroll the same demographic. What, exactly, is the rationale for having a dual system, one that can push out kids it doesn’t want, the other required to take them all?

I was disappointed that Sara did not directly address
the central theme of the book, which is my criticism of
privatization and the danger it poses to the very survival of
public education. I think that deserved discussion.

Despite my reservations, I am grateful to have received a relatively even-handed review
from a knowledgeable journalist whose work I have respected over
the years.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, KIPP Charter Schools, Ravitch, Diane

James Meredith: Public Schools Are Being “Destroyed by Greed, Fraud, and Lies”

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2013 //
26

CIVIL RIGHTS HERO CALLS FOR EMERGENCY

NATIONAL DIALOGUE ON THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION

 

Just Awarded Harvard’s Highest Education Honor, James Meredith Challenges Parents and Teachers to Demand Answers to 21 Questions and Take Back Control of Public Schools

 

Upcoming 50Th Anniversary Tie-In: August 18, 2013

 

On the 50th anniversary of his historic graduation from the University of Mississippi on August 18, 1963, civil rights hero James Meredith says “America’s public schools are being hijacked and destroyed by greed, fraud and lies,” and is calling for an emergency National Dialogue on the Future of American Education.

Meredith is challenging parents, teachers and community leaders and elders to take back control of America’s public schools and to demand answers and evidence from politicians and education officials on 21 questions on the future of American public education. “If politicians and bureaucrats refuse to fully answer these critical questions about our children’s future,” he adds, “then we should withhold our votes and support from them until they do.”

Meredith, the 2013 winner of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education’s Medal for Educational Impact, the school’s highest honor, says “the lives of our children and the future of our nation is at stake.”

“The civil rights issue of our time is to stop unproven co-called education reforms from totally destroying our children’s public education,” says Meredith, “and to get parents, teachers, community leaders and elders, the whole ‘Family of God,’ to take back control of our children’s education from politicians, bureaucrats and for-profits, who have turned our public schools into pawns in a game of money and power.”

He adds, “It is time we as citizens arm ourselves with the best evidence and information and take back control of our schools.”

Meredith urges Americans to join a national discussion on public K-8 education on his website: https://www.facebook.com/jamesmeredithusa

Meredith recently published his critically-hailed memoir, A MISSION FROM GOD: A MEMOIR AND CHALLENGE FOR AMERICA (Simon & Schuster), co-written with award-winning, New York Times bestselling author William Doyle.

 

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization

Phyllis Bush: Choice, Letter Grades, and Accountability—For Whom?

By dianeravitch
August 14, 2013 //
38

This great letter by Phyllis Bush, retired teacher in Indiana, is going viral. Phyllis is a fighter for public education and a member of the board of the Network for Public Education. When I met her, she gave me a tee-shirt that says, “Sisyphus Rocks.”

This came to me from an education activist in Indiana:

“Parents and Educators,

“Here is a call to action. We reported this morning that the Fort Wayne Community Schools (FWCS) School Board “presented a resolution stating the board would no longer publicly recognize schools based on the letter grade assigned to a school based on the A-F grading system. The resolution passed 6-1.”

“The following statement was written and shared by public education advocate Phyllis Bush in Fort Wayne. Please share this resolution and message with your local school board and, if you feel comfortable doing so, ask for their consideration of following FWCS’s school board in no longer publicly recognizing the A-F grading system. Thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Lately I have grown so weary of all of the labeling and grading of children that when I drive down the road and see a car proudly sporting a bumper sticker which proclaims,”My child is an HONOR student at “X” school or when I see a school sign board boldly proclaiming, “We are an A school,” I wonder if the purpose is to honor that child and that school, or is it to let others know that they are not good enough?

“Since buildings are not people, I wonder how a building can receive a grade, unless of course, it comes from a building inspector. I also wonder how it must feel to students and teachers who go to a C school in a nearby neighborhood? I also wonder how it must feel to be a valedictorian at a school which receives a C, D, or F rating? Does that mean that all of the work that that student has done to excel academically is for naught? I also wonder if my neighborhood school receives a lower grade, what does that rating mean to my property value? What does it mean to my community?

“Politicians keep saying that parents need to be able to choose which school their children should attend, but I would contend that they already have those choices. While our legislators assume that the reason a family would choose a school is because of a dubious letter grade, I would counter that people choose schools for a variety of reasons, the least of which is an arbitrary grade. Perhaps, many people choose their schools because they want their children to attend neighborhood schools within walking distance from home. Some choose schools because of programs like Montessori or New Tech or IB. Some choose schools because of music or arts programs. Some choose schools because they have talked to friends and neighbors and church members and found that a particular school seems like a good fit for their child. I have never heard anyone say that their kids are going to this or that school because of the State letter grade any more than I remember any kid ever coming back years later to walk down memory lane to remember some awesome test I gave.

“Accountability has become the catch phrase of the reformers; however, for many reformers/policy makers/politicians/know-it-alls, data seems to be the only means of assessment that they understand. However, this flies in the face of what most educators know. If a test is to be meaningful, it should only be used for diagnostic or for evaluative purposes. Tests should give us information about what skills and concepts have been mastered and which skills and concepts still need more work. Most teachers can assess what is happening in their classrooms by walking up and down the aisles, by looking at student work, by looking and listening to what the students are saying and doing, and by reading the clues of the classroom environment. Can those things be measured on a data sheet? Probably not. However, most of us know a good school, a good class, a good teacher when we see it.

“I have no issue with holding teachers to the highest standards; however, why do we not hold that same level of accountability to students, to parents, to administrators, and to policy makers? When we single out teachers and schools as the only ones who are to be held accountable, that does make me wonder what the real agenda is. Why in the world should we siphon even more tax dollars out of all already cash strapped schools to pay a dubious testing company with some mysterious grading system to come in to evaluate students, teachers, and whole school communities based on a test score which may or may not have any bearing on what the teachers are teaching or what the students are learning.

“Perhaps, one solution might be to untie the hands of teachers, administrators, and school boards and to allow them to create programs and assessments which are instructionally sound. Instead of hampering the classrooms with the latest, greatest experts’ ideas, why not trust them by giving them the resources, the class sizes, and the support needed to improve what has been judged so harshly?

“Perhaps we should include parents and teachers in this very important discussion.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Indiana

Proof that There is No Liberal Media

By dianeravitch
August 14, 2013 //
27

This article from the Daily Kos proves there is no liberal media by listing the stories almost never mentioned in the major newspaper and TV shows.

Think how little attention the reform wrecking ball has gotten. Only a major scandal like Bennett’s grade-fixing is noticed. No major paper would touch John Merrow’s exposé of cheating under Rhee.

No one in the media cares about the US having the highest poverty rate of any advanced nation.

No one cares about segregation.

Almost no one mentions ALEC.

Almost no media outlet thinks it matters that public education is privatized for fun and profit.

NBC became an outlet for reformy propaganda because of “Education Nation.”

Even Rachel Maddow steers clear of education issues.

Gates, Duncan, and Rhee have had hours and hours of national TV time.

Liberal media bias?

Categories ALEC, Budget Cuts, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry

Reader: What We Learned from the New York Test Score Debacle

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2013 //
20

The first Common Core test produced a massive decline in test scores across the state. Charter schools fared even worse than public schools, with many dropping by 50 percentage points in their proficiency rates.

This reader read the handwriting on the wall:

 

“These test scores emphatically highlight the failure of vision that the corporate reformers bring to the table.

What scares me is the tremendous profit motive that drives and informs so much of what is happening in education. It’s as if capitalism, as a system, has its own needs and agendas that operate outside any kind of moral frame- work. Those who stand to gain, like hedge-fund managers, Rupert Murdoch styled billionaires, the industrial complex built up around curriculum and assessment, and the many charter chain operators are all aligned to push data driven, high stakes testing, and privatizing education with very little awareness or concern for the real implications that the free market has on public education.

I don’t think I’m overstating it when I say that they are dismantling a free public education system that is premised on equity, and established along with the founding of our democracy. They are replacing it with, well-connected, chain charters that don’t even address the needs of students and communities whose needs are highest. (These get counseled out, or lack the self efficacy to opt in in the first place.)

These “reformers” under-write politicians, thus gaining undemocratic access and influence. They own media outlets and know how to shape the national conversation. They tell us teachers suck, not poverty. They tell us teacher tenure undermines student achievement, not chronic underfunding of low-income school districts. They tell us that the labor movement and unions are a threat to our economy and to our way of life. When, in-fact, unions helped to establish and stabilize our middle class with the five day work week, the eight hour work day, a living wage, and more. They tell us public schools are failing when, in fact, every assessment, and decades of studies demonstrate that poverty is hurting children, not public schools. They tell us they know how to fix education, though they have been “fixing” it with charters and vouchers for over a decade, while sucking the life out of, low income, public schools with little to show for all their bluster.

They are still waiting for superman.”

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Testing
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