According to this story in Philadelphia’s Notebook, the Gates Foundation has been generously funding a teacher-training program tailored to test prep.
Philadelphia schools need higher scores, so the Philadelphia Great Schools Compact wants more, please, of this test-prep teaching training.
The city is also investigating dozens of schools for cheating on tests.
Step back a minute and ask yourself.
How did these tests become the goal of education instead of one measure?
Anthony Cody has worked for nearly two decades in the Oakland public schools. He knows what poverty does to children. He knows what hunger and violence do to their lives. He thinks the Gates Foundation should stop pretending that it can end poverty by putting “a great teacher” in every classroom. How will that feed children? How will it end the violence to which so many are exposed? How will it change the terrible conditions in which so many live?
In this post, Anthony Cody brings the facts to light that never figure in the Gates’ plans. Let’s hope that the executives at the foundation pay attention.
It is time for the Gates Foundation to take a risk and prove what they promote.
Instead of scattering its billions around the nation and chanting incantations about great teachers, why doesn’t the Gates Foundation select one school district–say, Oakland or Newark–and use that district to demonstrate its theories for all to see? What we have now is a multi-billion foundation using its clout to spread unproven ideas everywhere. How about evidence before pushing the entire nation’s education system over the edge of a Gates-built cliff?
A few things we know about the Pittsburgh public schools.
They were led by Broad-trained superintendent Mark Roosevelt. Now they are led by his deputy Linda Lane, also trained by the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy.
They received a $40 million grant from the Gates Foundation for teacher evaluation.
They have a bold plan to close the achievement gap.
Scores in 2012 in Pittsburgh dropped for the first time in five years.
Scores dropped across the state and it may have been because of heightened security.
A Pittsburgh parent posted this comment:
| Don’t forget our Broad influence either — our “reforms” were begun with Mark Roosevelt being named superintendent with the backing of a foundation supported “community watchdog group.” He was replaced by his second in command and also a Broadie, Linda Lane. He said when he left that he’d “planted the garden” and all we had to do know was to tend the growth. We just got a new Broad fellow this year, too, to join our crop. Teachers have been furloughed, but administration has been doing fine. |
A reader of this blog who teaches in the Pittsburgh school posted the following comment:
| I teach in Pittsburgh Public Schools and can attest to conditions in Pittsburgh being similar to those faced by children and teachers and parents around the country. Simultaneously, the social fabric of the lives of our children and their parents has become more and more unraveled (jobs, housing, income, public transit, cost of higher ed, etc. wrecking havoc) AND their schools are victims of radical budget cuts and huge focus on curriculum modified to get those test scores up AND teachers, as everywhere, are vilified and furloughed and humiliated and attacked. But we teachers and our union keep doing our best to hold our heads up and keep our eyes on the real only important thing, and that is trying to hold things together for our beautiful children. And we will keep doing that, because that’s who we are. There is so much more to our children and our schools and our teachers than these test scores. Of course. |
Test scores dipped in Pittsburgh for the first time in five years, and the graduation rate is flat.
Here are some possible reasons.
Budget cuts.
Teacher layoffs.
Budget cuts and layoffs mean larger class sizes.
Schools will be closed, and teachers are uncertain about where they will be assigned.
One thought: budget cuts and turmoil do not enhance learning.
Both cause anxiety among teachers and undoubtedly among students as well.
Time for leaders in Pittsburgh to think some more.
Newsflash! This tweet just arrived:
I forgot that Pittsburgh is one of the districts that received a big grant from the Gates Foundation ($40 million) and adopted the Gates’ approach: data-driven instruction, Gates-style teacher evaluation, etc. Pittsburgh was one of the Gates’ prize districts. We will wait to hear what Bill Gates says about this. It seems clear by now that the Gates Foundation has never reformed any district, but has no hesitation telling districts what to do so that every teacher is in the top quintile. Their constant meddling makes you long for the days when all they wanted to do was create small schools, not tell everyone what to do all day. |
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Anthony Cody, the exemplary science teacher-mentor (NBCT), from Oakland, California, has engaged the Gates Foundation in a dialogue about its agenda.
Anthony was concerned that the foundation has propelled the frenzy to test more, to blame teachers for low scores, and to ignore poverty.
Vicki Phillips of the foundation responded here to his challenge.
And on the same page, you will see Anthony’s response to Phillips.
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On another site, for which there is no link, I saw the following comment on the foundation’s statement to Anthony Cody:
This is a stunning article. A real journalistic achievement.
It shows in remarkable detail how certain politicians and investors and entrepreneurs are working together to privatize public education and to generate huge profits for certain companies.
Read this.
Principal Carol Burris is one of the co-founders of the Long Island principals’ revolt against high-stakes testing. When she heard that Governor Cuomo’s commission would be holding hearings in New York City, she joined up with fellow principal Harry Leonardatos and they headed for the hearings.
Read their gripping account of the proceedings, where the deck was stacked in favor of the corporate agenda.
They were among the first to register, but soon discovered that they would not be allowed to speak.
Who was allowed to speak? Campbell Brown, an ex-anchor for CNN who spoke about sex abuse in the schools (her husband is on the board of Rhee’s StudentsFirst, which she did not disclose); the TFA executive director for New York City; someone from the New Teacher Project (founded by Michelle Rhee); an 18-month-veteran of teaching who is now heading a Gates-funded group of young teachers who oppose tenure and seniority. “…they all represented organizations that embraced the governor’s policies, and they all advocated for the following three policies: state imposition of teacher evaluation systems if local negotiations are not successful, elimination of contractually guaranteed pay increases, and the use of test scores in educator evaluations.”
Although the two principals were told that the last 30 minutes would be reserved for those who signed up first–which they had–they were not allowed to testify. Instead the commission heard from the leader of Rhee’s StudentsFirst in New York. They thought they would be allowed to testify against the NY system of grading teachers on a bell curve, which guarantees that half will be found “ineffective.”
Please read this article. It is alarming. Governor Cuomo and his commission have aligned themselves with the enemies of public education.
Doing some research on for-profit virtual schools, I come across study after study about their poor performance, high attrition rates, and low graduation rates.
But then I discovered a document produced by Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellent Education and Bob Wise’s Alliance for Excellent Education. It is called “the Ten Elements of Digital Learning” and it is a rallying cry for deregulation and proliferation of every manner of virtual education, including for-profit virtual charters.
Among other recommendations, it says that teachers should not be certified, as that would hamper innovation and diminish quality. It claims that digital learning will transform education, close the achievement gaps, and narrow the income divide in American society. It promises the world, in short. Digital learning is the magic bullet, so it says.
It does not take note of the studies that say that digital schools underperform brick-and-mortar schools.
The report was funded by–no surprise–the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Walton Foundation.
Maybe it is the Magna Carta of virtual schooling. But the gap between promise and reality is a giant canyon.
A reader has a suggestion for the next Comissioner of Education in Florida. I am mentioning this because he made me laugh out loud. More than once.
I actually think that Bill Gates might like this job. He could try his bracelets on the kids, and use Florida as a kind of laboratory for reform. Florida always scores near the bottom with testing anyway, so what the hell. It is all the fault of the unions…oh I forgot, they don’t have unions, sorry. It may be something to do with the heat and optimal temperature for brain function. The kids could wear special helmets that would reduce the temperature of their heads to 72 degrees. He could lower the teaching requirements and start pulling people off the street to come in and try to raise test scores. “Hey you with the surfboard!” “Have you ever thought about being a teacher for two years?” “Put down that board and come with me.” Something like that. The rich people (the people who count/the job creators) already send their kids to private schools, so he wouldn’t get any pesky lawsuits. It sounds like a plan. Maybe he could bring Rhee in with him to fire them after two years. He could bring them in off the street, and Rhee could shout “no excuses for poverty” and fire them. I have some e-mails to write.
Nancy Flanagan was a music teacher for thirty years in Michigan and a National Board Certified Teacher. She writes a smart blog at Education Week called “Teacher in a Strange Land,” which is an apt title for the disjointed and bizarre times we live in. Her perspective is rooted in her deep experience. I always learn something new when I read her posts.
Her current post is called “Sleeping with the Enemy.” She asks why can’t we all just get along? Can the lion and the lamb lie down together? She offers James Carville and Mary Matalin as a case in point. It can happen.
And she writes about the pent-up anger among so many teachers, who don’t understand why they are treated so abusively in the media and by the policymakers who have never taught a day or maybe taught for a few months or even two years.
Nancy is clearly conflicted. She can’t decide whether compromise is possible, whether there is a middle group between the corporate reformers and the nation’s battered teachers. Or whether compromise reveals a lack of moral conviction.
She ends with a story about a colleague who is attending a conference where he will display his best lessons, in hopes of being chosen to attend an international conference. And she wonders, as do I, why Bill Gates appointed himself to choose America’s best teachers. As do I.
She leaves us pondering that compromise, pondering what we give up and what we gain. And who really wins.
Diane Ravitch's blog 