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“This Land Belongs to You and Me,” not Trump, DeVos, and the Koch Brothers

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2018 //
77

 

One of my favorite non-education bloggers is Andrew Tobias (except on the rare occasions when he ventures into education), who cuts through the economic morass with a fine scalpel and recognizes Trump for the phony that he is. I subscribe (free) at AndrewTobias.com. He gave me his permission to post his latest. Open here to read his links. 

Tobias writes:

YOU Get $930! And YOU Get $930!”

John Grund, one of your fellow readers, offers this wonderfully clear analysis (thank you, John):

Here’s another way to think about the Republican tax bill: Think like an owner.

Sit down quietly and let your mind inventory all that you own as an American. I like to start with the Statue of Liberty. It was a gift from France to the American people; I’m an American person, so that includes me. And the Park Service charges admission, so there’s that.

From there, I like to fly over the country in my mind, surveying all that you and I own. All the beaches and waterways. All the roads and bridges. All the public lands and forests. All the great national landmarks and parks. All the wonderful buildings our fathers and mothers built for us: the libraries and colleges and theaters. 

Take your time. It takes time to even touch on how much there is. The public hospitals and clinics. The harbors and canals. The lighthouses and navigation markers. The reservoirs, rivers, lakes and water systems. The radio and television airwaves. The courts and city halls and schools. The warships, guns and warplanes.

And now reflect that corporations are granted a charter by the state (which you and I own, of course) that allows them to do business. And think of corporate taxes as the rent those corporations pay for using all that we own – the roads to deliver their products, the monetary system the underpins commerce, the police to keep their trucks safe, the schools to train their workers, the military to protect it all.

The Republican tax bill cuts the rent you earn on all that property. The corporate tax rate drops from 35 percent to 21 percent of profits.

Now perhaps you are a gracious and benevolent landlord, and you say you don’t really mind giving your renters a break. You’re feeling generous.

But remember you have a mortgage against all that property, too. It’s the national debt, and you use the rents – the taxes – you receive as owner to pay off that mortgage. And remember that the rents have to pay for upkeep on all that property. Are the roads and bridges in great shape, with plenty of money squirreled away to keep them that way? Or are they in dire need of long-delayed maintenance and restoration?

This is one case where it is right to think like an owner, because that is what you are. Be a calculating landlord when you consider the Republican tax bill.

Isn’t that kinda great?

One could certainly tinker with the implementation. For example, how about revenue-neutral corporate tax reform? Adopt the more-globally-competitive 21% were adopted — but pay for it by closing loopholes that most big corporations have been using to pay far less than the nominal 35% rate.

But the gist of John’s essay, I think, is exactly right.

Again, I urge you to watch Reagan budget director David Stockman’s critique of the massively ill-advised tax cut.

And again, note how beyond nuts — how bizarro-world — it is that this tax bill, designed to help the middle class (yeah, right), and that’s gonna cost Trump a fortune, “believe me” (yeah right), includes a special provision for real estate developers like Trump.

I’m all for the much-heralded $1,000 bonuses a few million employees (maybe 5% of American workers?) have gotten from corporate employers . . . perhaps in part to curry favor with the strong man in the White House, perhaps in part to help Republicans hold Congress in the next election, and surely in part because they’d like to do something nice for their valued employees. That’s great.

And I’m all for the modest but real tax breaks many middle-class Americans will see (if we can afford them; though: can we afford them?). Bloomberg estimates $930 a year for people in the middle fifth of taxpayers ($60 for people in the bottom fifth). But don’t you get it? The motivation here is to help those at the top. You get $930! And you get $930! And you get $930! And — if I’m in the top 1% — I get $51,140. Unless I’m in the top tenth of that group — $193,380. Unless I’m in the top tenth of that group — where Trump and his friend Carl Icahn and his pal Wilbur Ross and his pals Sheldon Adelson and the Mercers and Betsy Devos presumably are. That number Bloomberg doesn’t even try to estimate, but it would be a lot higher.

When the ultra-rich were taxed at a 90% top federal tax rate (Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower), it was too high (though designed to lower our National Debt, relative to the economy as a whole, which it did help do). And when they were taxed at 70% (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter) it was still too high (though it, too, helped shrink the Debt relative to the economy as a whole). Even when they were taxed at 50% (Reagan’s first cut), I would argue it may have been too high.

But, with his second cut, Reagan, and then Bush 43, and now Trump have exploded the National Debt — borrowing not to build infrastructure that’s been crumbling for 35 years, but to enrich the already-rich by cutting their taxes to record-low levels.

Criminal.

Well, not literally. But immoral.

And dishonest (Bush told us “by far the vast majority” of his tax cut would go to people “at the bottom”).

And . . . well, tragic.

Only Clinton and Obama managed to turn the deficits around, leaving their successors with economies growing faster than the debt . . . thus shrinking the debt relative to the economy as a whole.

This massively irresponsible Republican tax cut reverses that, once more. It puts us back over $1 trillion in deficit spending . . . gets the debt growing faster than the economy again, as under Reagan, Bush, and Bush . . . and is sold to the voters as, “Look! You get $930! And you get $930!” (And me? Don’t bother your pretty little head with that. If you can’t trust Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Devin Nunez and Vladimir Putin — Trump trusts him, why shouldn’t we? — whom can you trust?)

Right?

Copyright © 2018 Andrew Tobias
All rights reserved.
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Categories Billionaires, Economy, Equity

Ed Johnson on the Hypocrisy of School Choice Advocates

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2018 //
17

Edward Johnson is an advocate for high quality public schools for all children. He lives in Atlanta. He has studied the works of G. Edwards Deming, who understood that you don’t blame frontline workers for problems with the system. If things go wrong, fix the system.

He wrote the following letter to Rev. Diane Daugherty about the absurdity of “choice” as a fix for the system (see her letter after his). In fact, “choice” is an abdication of responsibility by those who have the power to fix the system. They turn problems over to the market and hope for the best, ignoring the well-documented fact that the market deepens pre-existing inequities.

Of course, anyone who thinks that the Walton family, the DeVos family, Trump, ALEC, and other plutocrats are committed to civil rights and equity is either hopelessly naive or on their payroll.

He writes:

 

Rev. Diane Daugherty,

Thank you for lending your voice to the matter. Interestingly, one may take your understanding as a key aspect of the law research paper Opt-Out Education: School Choice as Racial Subordination, by Osamudia R. James, currently Vice Dean, University of Miami School of Law.

Atlanta superintendent Meria Carstarphen, Atlanta school board members, and BOOK, including especially its supporters UNCF and Andrew Young Foundation, would do well to learn from Vice Dean James’ paper.

But it may be unreasonable to expect any of them would. For example, this AJC article makes clear the superintendent, arguably Atlanta school choice proponents’ leader, holds an unshakable mindset fixated on commercializing public education in Atlanta by transforming it from a systemic public good into disparate private consumer goods, à la KIPP and others. So transformed, and unlikely to have resulted in improved schools, parents as consumers may then choose a school for their child just as they would choose a McDonald’s Happy Meal for the child. So goes the superintendent’s reasoning.

The pushback that arose in response to the superintendent’s profane conflation of consumerism and public education prompted school choice advocate Robert Holland to rise in her defense, with an attempt to say what the superintendent really meant to say. Holland, at the conservative and libertarian public policy think tank The Heartland Institute, blogged “The School Choice Generation Wants a Full Educational Menu.”

The Atlanta superintendent, school board, and BOOK would also do well to take from their partner and supporter, Walton Family Foundation, a lesson about how consumerism’s choice really works. Last week, the AJC and other media reported that, “based on a number of factors, including financial performance,” the Waltons made the decision to close their Lithonia Sam’s Club at Stonecrest. Was the store’s consumer community consulted or otherwise involved beforehand? Nope. Did the store’s consumer community have a choice? Nope. Now that once consumer community fears the Waltons have put upon it more problematic, if not new, food desert they did not “choose.”

The lesson, then, is who, in consumerism’s commercialized world, truly has choice and who truly does not.

Diane Ravitch offers an excerpt from Vice Dean James’ paper that amplifies the lesson (my emphases):

“James advocates for limitations on school choice ‘to prevent the disastrous social consequences–the abandonment of the public school system, to particularly deleterious consequence for poor and minority schoolchildren and their families–that occur as the collective result of individual, albeit rational, decisions. I also advocate for limitations on school choice in an attempt to encourage individuals to consider their obligations to children not their own, but part of their community all the same….The actual impact of school choice cannot be ignored. Given the radicalized realities of the current education system, choice is not ultimately used to broaden options or agency for minority parents. Rather, school choice is used to sanitize inequality in the school system; given sufficient choices, the state and its residents are exempted from addressing the sources of unequal educational opportunities for poor and minority students. States promote agency even as the subjects supposedly exercising that agency are disabled. Experience makes clear that school choice simply should not form an integral or foundational aspect of education reform policy. Rather, the focus should be on improving public schooling for all students such that all members of society can exercise genuine agency, initially facilitated by quality primary and secondary education. Ultimately, improving public education begins with preventing its abandonment.’”

 

This is Dr. Daugherty’s letter to the Atlanta Board of Education:

 

From: Diane Dougherty [mailto:doughertyadd@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2018 8:01 PM
To: EdJohnsonAfQPE <edwjohnson@aol.com>
Cc: AfQPE@aol.com; bamos@atlantapublicschools.us; cbriscoe_brown@atlanta.k12.ga.us; epcollins@atlantapublicschools.us; jesteves@atlantapublicschools.us; lgrant@atlantapublicschools.us; nmeister@atlantapublicschools.us; pierre.gaither@atlanta.k12.ga.us; mjcarstarphen@atlanta.k12.ga.us; annwcramer@gmail.com; Erika Y. Mitchell <eymitchell@gmail.com>; Kandis Wood <kandiswood@gmail.com>; Michelle Olympiadis <michelle.olympiadis@gmail.com>; education@naacpatlanta.org; president@naacpatlanta.org; info@bookatl.org; david.mitchell@bookatl.org; Naomi.Shelton@uncf.org; sekou.biddle@uncf.org; cmeadows@morehouse.edu; mbinderman@geears.org
Subject: Re: BOOK and newly installed Atlanta Board of Education Members

BOOK seems to promote better outcomes outside any effort to make existing public education better. Their methodology seems to create parallel academic structures diminishing schools that need an infusion of structures and funds. To me their short term efforts will not evolve into a sustainable plan 30 years from now. Without any data that supports their perceived “Better Outcomes, BOOK’S emphasis on School Choice has proven a poor strategy in decimated African American schools in Tennessee, Michigan and Louisiana….in spite of billions spent…why would there be improved outcomes here if it has not worked there? Rev. Diane Dougherty

Diane Dougherty, ARCWP

Avondale Estates, GA 30002

678-918-1945

doughertyadd@gmail.com

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, School Choice, Walton Foundation

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Inspires Young Children Today

By dianeravitch
January 15, 2018 //
9

 

At a time when the White House is a source of vulgarity and racism, it is inspiring to read about the young children who entered a contest to display their understanding of Dr. King’s message as it applies today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/01/13/i-may-not-look-like-dr-king-but-i-believe-like-dr-king-a-childs-stirring-homage-to-mlk/?utm_term=.144588f0f530

I have a dream. My dream is that these young people will spend an hour in the White House tutoring Mr. Trump.

Categories Civil Rights, Equity, Love

The Greatest Scandal Afflicting Our Nation Today: Inequality

By dianeravitch
December 24, 2017 //
49

A few years ago, I read a wonderful book titled “The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger” by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. I strongly recommend it to you.

Their thesis is that the societies with the greatest equality are happier and healthier. As inequality grows, so do social problems that cost huge amounts of money to address. But nothing succeeds like equality. That is not to say that societies need to have everyone with exactly the same amount of everything. But that societies should aim to reduce inequality of income and wealth to the greatest extent possible. In 1960, the average CEO made 50 times the wages of the average worker. Today, the average CEO makes 271 times the wages of the average worker.

The concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny number of people erodes the foundations of our society. It creates grievance, rage, depression, poor health, poor schooling, stagnant opportunity, overuse of drugs, addiction, suicide, and a sense of hopelessness. As inequality grows, our optimism about our society and its future declines.

Consider this:

The wealthiest 1 percent of American households own 40 percent of the country’s wealth, according to a new paper by economist Edward N. Wolff. That share is higher than it has been at any point since at least 1962, according to Wolff’s data, which comes from the federal Survey of Consumer Finances.

From 2013, the share of wealth owned by the 1 percent shot up by nearly three percentage points. Wealth owned by the bottom 90 percent, meanwhile, fell over the same period. Today, the top 1 percent of households own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. That gap, between the ultrawealthy and everyone else, has only become wider in the past several decades.

The tax bill just passed by the Republicans in Congress without a single Democratic votes will deepen that inequality.

It will provide windfall gains for corporations and real estate investors (like Donald Trump).

The Republicans say the tax cuts for the top 1% and for corporations will create jobs and raise wages. But when the Washington Post polled the nation’s 20 largest corporations, most of them said they planned to pay dividends to investors.

A commentary in Fortune magazine said that corporate tax cuts were likelier to benefit shareholders than workers.

Some argue that corporate tax cuts lead to wage and job growth because they encourage corporations to invest in additional capital. But if companies are unwilling to invest in today’s environment—with extraordinarily high after-tax corporate profits and low interest rates—it is unlikely they will do so after a corporate tax cut.

Evidence from 2004, when a repatriation holiday allowed corporations to bring back overseas profits at a lower rate, provides a good case study. The 15 companies that brought the most profits back to the U.S. used them to buy back shares instead of boosting investment, and actually ended up cutting jobs and slightly lowering their research and development spending.

The tax cut does nothing to enhance income equality or wealth equality. It is simply getting worse.

The persistence of poverty in the United States directly affects schools. About half the children in the U.S. public schools qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Poverty is the most significant cause of poor academic performance. Children who are poor are less likely to have good medical care, good nutrition, and live in a safe neighborhood in a good home.

If we want to make America great again, we should revive the goals of the New Deal. A society where people are free from want and fear.

This is not a good Christmas present.

Categories Economy, Equity

David C. Berliner on the Latest International Test Scores: It’s Poverty, Not Common Core, That Matters

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2017 //
15

A few days ago, I wrote a post speculating about whether Common Core had caused the decline in forth grade reading scores on the latest international test.

David C. Berliner, one of our nation’s most distinguished social scientists, wrote to say that Common Core is not the culprit; demographics is.

I stand corrected.

He writes:

It may be, as you posit, that the introduction of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) had its effects on our PIRLS scores. But before you or any others of us worry about our latest PIRLS scores, and the critics start the usual attacks on our public schools, remember this: Standardized Achievement Tests are quite responsive to demographics, and not very sensitive at all to what teachers and schools accomplish.

With that in mind, let’s ask first what the average score for the USA was in comparison to a few other nations that we often think of as high performing nations. On the paper and pencil version of PIRLS 2016 the USA achieved a score 549. (There was also an e-version of the test reported separately, but nothing in that analysis contradicts anything I say below) Singapore, however, scored 576, Hong Kong scored 569, and Finland scored 566. Clearly these other nations exhibited considerably higher scores than did the USA. Our public schools would seem to be doing something wrong. Perhaps it is related to the introduction of the CCSS. But since demographics are powerful influences on Standardized Achievement Test scores, let’s break down the US PIRLS scores by some of the demographic information that we have available to us.

First, we can note that Asian Americans scored 591. That is, our Asians beat the hell out of Asian Asians! Since the vast majority of Asian Americans go to public school it would appear that there isn’t much of anything wrong with the public schools they go to, nor can the curriculum in use in those schools be bad, even if it is the CCSS. And from Asian American achievement in literacy, we must acknowledge that the skills of their reading teachers appear to be more than adequate.

White kids in the USA, taken as a group, are generally wealthier than non-whites. How did white kids do on PIRLS? They scored 571, close to Singapore, and better than Hong Kong and Finland. Since white kids make up something like 50% of the public school population of the USA, we can say that about half of our school kids, about 25 million or so, are, on average, high performing students in the area of reading—whatever the method chosen to teach them.

How do kids in schools where there is little poverty do on PIRLS? The data tell us that in schools where there are fewer than 10 percent of the students on free and reduced lunch, students had a score of 587—handily beating Singapore, Hong Kong, and Finland. In fact, even higher average scores were found in in schools that cater to upper middle-class kids, schools where the poverty rate is between 10 and 24 percent. That very large group of American public school kids scored 592, handily exceeding the schools that serve even wealthier families, and easily beating the two Asian nations and Finland. Furthermore, there was also a group of kids from schools where 25 to 50 percent of the kids were considered to be in poverty because they were eligible for free and reduced lunch. These were schools that clearly do not cater to the very wealthy. Yet they scored 566, the same as Finland, a nation we always look up to and one with childhood poverty rates of about 4%.

So why did the USA, overall, look mediocre in score and rank on this test? I think it is for the same reason that we always look mediocre in score and rank on PISA! It’s our social and economic systems, not our schools, that cause lower scores than is desired by our nation.

Poor kids in general, but often Black and Hispanic kids in particular, do not grow up in the same kinds of stable families and secure neighborhoods that are more likely to nurture higher levels of school achievement. It’s not America’s schools that are a problem: its America’s social, economic, and housing policies that are our educational problem. While Singapore and Hong Kong both have disturbingly high poverty rates, compared to Finland, both are so small that poor and rich live in proximity to each other. Thus, there is a lot more mixing of children from different social classes and ethnicities than is true in the USA, where income determines housing and housing determines schooling. Here, schools that predominantly serve poor and minority kids, and schools that predominantly serve wealthier kids, are the rule, not that exception. It seems clear to me that those demographic realities are the predominant determinants of scores on Standardized Achievement Tests—be they domestic (NAEP, ACT, SATs) or international (PISA, PIRLS).

So, if we want better scores on such tests, we need to get off the backs of teachers and schools. Our teachers and schools are presently educating a high percentage of our kids to very high levels of literacy. But that is not true for another high percentage of our kids. What we need to help those kids is to exert a lot more influence on our nations politicians to give us the equitable society that will promote higher achievement for all our citizens.

David C. Berliner
Regents’ Professor Emeritus,
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College,
Arizona State University,
Tempe, AZ 85287

Categories Equity, International, Testing

John Kuhn Takes 2 Minutes to Identify the Real Culprit Behind Inequity in Funding Schools: MUST WATCH!

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2017 //
20

Please watch this two-minute video of John Kuhn, Texas Superintendent, who tells the story of two adjacent school districts, one rich, one poor. He explains with eloquence and passion why schools should be equitably funded and how unjust it is to fund schools differently and expect to get the same results.

This video is part of a series of short videos produced by Michael Elliott for the Network for Public Education.

Please watch it, tweet it, share it on your Facebook page, and wherever else you reach your friends and acquaintances. Send it to everyone you know.

Kuhn is powerful and eloquent on behalf of children, communities, public schools, justice, and equity.

Categories Equity, Funding, Network for Public Education, Supporting public schools

Global Report on Choice: Beware! Choice May Undermine Quality and Equity

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2017 //
16

The Global Education Monitoring Blog just released a bulletin about the risks of school choice. The blog is published by UNESCO, which the Trump administration recently abandoned.

Be that as it may, its conclusions are evidence-based. The full report, which is linked on the blog offers extensive documentation and references.

The overall conclusion:

In the last three decades, reforms rooted in the school choice logic have been implemented in more than two-thirds of OECD countries, for instance. Across the 72 systems participating in PISA 2015, the parents of around 64% of students reported that they had at least two schools to choose from for their children.

However, a closer look at the evidence suggests that school choice often doesn’t work as it’s meant to, and can in fact increase inequalities and undermine quality education…

The main criticisms of market-oriented policies are that they benefit wealthier schools, families and communities, increasing inequality and segregation…

Studies have repeatedly shown that school choice benefits wealthier families, while further marginalizing disadvantaged parents and schools…

School choice is meant to strengthen accountability but often concentrates disadvantaged students in disadvantaged schools…

All these concerns indicate that governments should be extremely cautious in pushing forward reforms that promote an education ‘market’, as school choice may actually have negative effects on the quality and equity of education.

Categories Accountability, Equity, School Choice

Education Law Center Wins Court Ruling on School Funding in New York

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2017 //
9

New York has had a long running court battle over equitable funding. The plaintiffs seeking additional funding have won in court, but the legislature and the Governor have ignored the rulings and owe the urban districts $5.5 billion.

Yesterday the Education Law Center won another judgment in court, this time on behalf of the state’s “small cities.” Will the legislature and Governor obey the court ruling?

IN SMALL CITIES FUNDING CASE NY APPELLATE DIVISION COURT UPHOLDS CAMPAIGN FOR FISCAL EQUITY

ORDERS TRIAL COURT TO MAKE DETERMINATION REGARDING FUNDING NEEDS OF SCHOOLS
October 26, 2017

New York’s Appellate Division Third Department issued a groundbreaking ruling today in Maisto v. State, a challenge to inadequate school funding for students in eight New York “Small Cities” school districts.

The Appeals Court unanimously reversed the trial judge’s ruling, which dismissed the case without examining the extensive evidence presented during the two-month trial in 2015. The Court reaffirmed the framework established in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) rulings for analyzing claims of violations of New York’s Education Article. The Court made clear that in school funding cases, the trial court must examine the evidence regarding deficiencies in essential education resources, or inputs, student performance, or outcomes, and whether a lack of funding is a causal factor in resource deficits and low outcomes.

The Appeals Court remanded the case to the trial court for specific findings on inputs and causation for each of the eight Maisto districts: Jamestown, Kingston, Mount Vernon, Newburgh, Niagara Falls, Port Jervis, Poughkeepsie and Utica.

Highlights of the Appellate Division ruling include the following:

1. The trial court erred by refusing to apply the CFE standards and failing to examine the extensive evidence presented for each district regarding inputs, outputs and causation;

2. On remand, the trial court must consider a broad range of inputs necessary for a sound basic education, including not only teachers and instrumentalities of learning, but also class size and supplemental services, such as academic intervention services, extended learning opportunities and social workers.

3. The proper standard for establishing causation on remand is whether the plaintiffs showed that increased funding can provide inputs that yield better student performance, evidence the State’s own experts conceded for every district.

“This is a great victory for the 55,000 children in the eight districts, and for children across New York State,” said Greg Little, Education Law Center’s Chief Trial Counsel and lead counsel in the Maisto trial. “The abundant evidence showed massive deficiencies in basic educational resources that deprived these needy students of their constitutional rights. We are confident that after considering the evidence on remand, the court will vindicate the rights of the students in these impoverished districts.”

Billy Easton, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education, said, “Once again, a court has upheld the rights of students to a sound basic education. We hope the legislature and Governor will take heed of this decision, the second in two months, and finally make CFE’s decade-long promise a reality, without further delays or the need for further court cases. New York cannot sacrifice another generation of children to political or legal gamesmanship.”

In addition to ELC’s Greg Little, David Sciarra and Wendy Lecker, the Maisto school children are represented by Robert Biggerstaff and David Kunz in Albany, and Robert Reilly and Megan Mercy of the NYSUT General Counsel Office.

More information about the Maisto case is available here.

Press Contact:

Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24

Categories Accountability, Equity, Funding, New York

John King: High-Stakes Testing Is Necessary for Equity and Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2017 //
167

John King, who served as Secretary of Education after Arne Duncan departed, went to the Cleveland City Club to praise high-stakes testing as the route to equity and civil rights. He spoke highly of No Child Left Behind and its successor, the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

He is so wrong. Not just wrong, but misinformed, misguided, and ignorant of facts and evidence about the injurious effects of high-stakes testing on children, teachers, schools, and education. When you read things like this, you remember how the Obama administration sold public education out and paved the way for Betsy DeVos.

All that testing, he said, raises test scores.

Clearly, he never read the report of the National Academy of Sciences (2011) “Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education.”

I recommend that King read Daniel Koretz’ new book: “The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better.” Koretz shows that high-stakes testing produces score inflation, teaching to the test, cheating, and loss of instructional time for non-tested subjects.

Someone should explain Campbell’s Law to John King. Whenever high stakes are attached to a measure, it corrupts the measure as well as the social process that is being measured. That means that when you attach high stakes to tests, you can no longer trust the test results and you mess up what is being measured.

Tests are normed on a bell curve. Every bell curve has a top half and a bottom half. The most advantaged kids cluster in the top half. The most disadvantaged kids cluster in the bottom half. Could someone explain to John King that standardized tests never produce equity? That they measure gaps without reducing them? That they discourage children who are told year after year that they didn’t meet the standard? How does it promote equity to rely on a tool that is designed to measure and reproduce inequity?

Categories Accountability, Campbell's Law, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Equity, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing

Bookshelf: Pasi Sahlberg’s “FinnishEd Leadership: Four Big, Inexpensive Ideas to Transform Education”

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2017 //
10

The first thing to say about Pai Sahlberg is that you should read his superb book “Finnish Lessons.” It is the living evidence that we in the U.S. have lost our way. After reading that book, I had the chance to visit Finland for a few days, and the luck to have Pasi as my guide. Imagine a country whose schools have no standardized testing, where teachers are trusted and well prepared, where schools are architecturally impressive, where the emphasis is on the well-bring of children, not test scores; where creativity and the arts are encouraged; where all education, including graduate school, is tuition-free.

I will assume you have read that book. Now you should read Pasi’s short book of advice for education leaders, which elaborates on four ideas. They seem simple, even obvious, but they are not.

Here is Pasi presenting in a small session at Teachers College, Columbia University, just a week or two ago.

The first big idea is that all children should have ample time for unstructured play. In Finland, every hour includes 15 minutes of recess. This not only gives children a break, it gives teachers a break.

The second big idea is that small data, the information gathered by teacher observations, has more value than Big Data, the collection and analysis of large quantities of information that often invades privacy and typically provides correlations, not causation.

The third big idea is the importance of equitable funding, sending money where it is needed most.

The fourth big idea is to beware of urban legends about Finland. Finland, for example, does not recruit the best and the brightest into teaching. It selects those with the strongest commitment to the life of a teacher. There is no Teach for Finland.

It is a short book. Only about 90 pages. It is refreshing. It will remind you about what matters most. Clears away the foggy thinking that is now common among our political leaders.

Categories Creativity, Data, Equity, International, Play
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