Archives for category: Indiana
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How Charters Prosper

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
5

This is a good one. Florida charter chain Charter USA is expanding into Indiana, where it will run three charter schools. It is a for-profit operator. The states where it operates don’t require it to spend any minimum on educating kids. So it has enough money left over in its profits to make political contributions. According to our friend Coach Sikes, Charter USA contributed to the political campaign of state superintendent Tony Bennett, who in turn will be real friendly in granting more charters so they will have more profits to contribute to more political campaigns. Florida taxpayers are subsidizing Indiana’s race for state superintendent.

Remember education reform? Oh, that.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Indiana

More on the Study of Indiana State Tests

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2012 //
1

I’m hoping to get a link to the full study by Adam Maltese of Indiana University and Craig Hochbein of the University of Louisville, but in the meantime, here is the abstract. It provides interesting additional details:

Abstract

For more than half a century concerns about the ability of American students to compete in a global workplace focused policymakers’ attention on improving school performance generally, and student achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) specifically. In its most recent form—No Child Left Behind—there is evidence this focus led to a repurposing of instructional time to dedicate more attention to tested subjects. While this meant a narrowing of the curriculum to focus on English and mathematics at the elementary level, the effects on high school curricula have been less clear and generally absent from the research literature. In this study, we sought to explore the relationship between school improvement efforts and student achievement in science and thus explore the intersection of school reform and STEM policies. We used school-level data on state standardized test scores in English and math to identify schools as either improving or declining over three consecutive years. We then compared the science achievement of students from these schools as measured by the ACT Science exams. Our findings from three consecutive cohorts, including thousands of high school students who attended 12th grade in 2008, 2009, and 2010 indicate that students attending improving schools identified by state administered standardized tests generally performed no better on a widely administered college entrance exam with tests in science, math and English. In 2010, students from schools identified as improving in English scored nearly one-half of a point lower than their peers from declining schools on both the ACT Science and Math exams. We discuss various interpretations and implications of these results and suggest areas for future research. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 804–830, 2012

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Indiana, Testing

New Study Shows Irrelevance of Gains on State Tests. UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2012 //
20

I am reposting this because I forgot to include a link to the study, its title and the names and affiliations of the authors in the first posting. Pretty awful oversight. Actually inexcusable on my part. I apologize to my readers and to the authors of the study.

We have known for some years that the scoring of state tests is easily gamed. In fact, proficiency rates don’t tell us much, because state officials may raise or lower the passing score for political reasons. It happened in New York for years, when the proportion of students passing the state tests went up and up until it collapsed in 2010 as a result of an independent investigation. The state officials enjoyed their annual press conferences where they announced annual too-good-to-be-true gains. And they were too good to be true. They were fake. When the fraud was revealed, there was no accountability. No one admitted having done the dirty deeds. No heads rolled. Accountability is for “the little people,” as real estate queen Leona Helmsley once said about paying taxes. In education, the little people are teachers and principals. At the top–at state departments of education–heads don’t roll. They crown themselves and use their exalted position to blame those who are far, far below them. Think “Yertle, the Turtle.”

An important new study  by Professors Adam Maltese of Indiana University and Craig Hochbein of the University of Louisville sheds new light on the validity of state scores. This study found that rising scores on the state tests did not correlate with improved performance on the ACT. In fact, students at “declining” schools did just as well and sometimes better than students where the scores were going up. The study was published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching. Its title is “”The Consequences of ‘School Improvement’: Examining the Association Between Two Standardized Assessments Measuring School Improvement and Student Science Achievement.”

Consider the ACT an audit exam.

Consider the state tests an invalid way of measuring student achievement and an invalid way of judging students, teachers, and schools. Consider them an invalid way of closing schools and awarding bonuses and firing people.

When students are prepped and prepped and prepped to pass the state tests, they aren’t necessarily better educated, just prepared to take a specific test. Too much prepping distorts the value of the test.

When your measure is invalid, don’t use it for rewards and punishments.

Perhaps if we used these exams appropriately, just for information, they might begin to have some value. As high-stakes, their validity is corrupted, as Campbell’s Law predicts.

Categories Accountability, Campbell's Law, Indiana, Testing

Cyber Scam Expands

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2012 //
4

The latest news from Indiana is that the state education department–which seems to be in lockstep with the rightwing group ALEC–has given the green light to for-profit online corporations to expand without accountability.

The three largest and oldest cybercharters have received a D and two Fs. But unlike public schools, there are no consequences for the cyber schools. They can keep expanding regardless of the lousy education they offer up to gullible students.

The state currently has 4,000 students in these pretend schools, and the number is expected to double or triple because of legislation passed last year that makes it easier for them to expand, increases their payment per student, and increases the amount of extra funding they get for special education students.

The spokesman for State Superintendent Tony Bennett and Governor Mitch Daniels–who seem to leading the education section of the Tea Party–make clear that quality is not a consideration, only choice. They want the families and children of Indiana to be able to choose without regard to quality.

Interesting that the defense of the cyber scams to their poor academic performance is that the students are “transient.” Of course, they are transient. That’s part of the business plan: A) lure new students; B) students get bored, drop out and return to public schools; C) Keep the state tuition reimbursement; D) lure new students.

The other interesting point in the article is that the only point of these cyber schools is to get students to take and pass the state tests. No one knows who is actually taking the test. But that is school in America today, boiled down to its essential element: pass the multiple-choice state test.

Could there be a clearer demonstration of the bankruptcy of “reform”? It has literally nothing to do with quality or accountability. It is all about profit and only about profit.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Indiana, On-Line Education

Will Common Core Standards Matter?

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2012 //
2

A reader in Indiana makes a prediction about the Common Core standards:

The common core standards will not fundamentally change teaching and learning in this country.  If improving instruction COULD ever be accomplished by handing out a new set of standards, wouldn’t we have already seen great improvements in teaching and learning?  Traditions in schooling are not changed that easily.  Another way to think about this–  We have some really difficult set of standards in Indiana.  Does it mean that our little Hoosiers are getting a superior education because our standard are more rigorous?  Nope.   Ask any Indiana teacher to list the concepts that nobody ever understands, no matter what she tries.  When those standards are tested, a small percent get it correct and the rest do not.   I WISH that the problems that are coming as a result of implementing the CC could be headed off by simply piloting the standards. That won’t work.  The real problem is how students will be assessed on CC standards and how those results will subsequently be used to judge teachers, schools, teacher prep programs, etc.   Don’t we already have a pretty good idea what is going to happen?  It is not going to be pretty.

Categories Common Core, Indiana

Hoosiers Speak Out for Public Education

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2012 //
11

Indiana is one of the states where the governor and the state commissioner of education seem determined to put public education out of business. They are implementing vouchers, expanding charters, and given the green light to for-profit online charter schools. They do not have a shred of evidence that any of this will improve the education of children in Indiana, but that doesn’t slow them down. They are in love with the ideology of choice and competition and the glories of the marketplace, and that’s the end of the discussion. Plenty of entrepreneurs will get rich off taxpayers’ dollars in Indiana.

Fortunately, there is strong resistance from parents and educators in Northeast Indiana. When I spoke in Indiana last fall, I met some of the parent leaders. They were in despair about the destructive policies being pushed through the legislature. I am glad to say that they organized and are speaking out. They can serve as a model for other concerned citizens.

They have drafted a statement in opposition to what Governor Mitch Daniels and State Superintendent Tony Bennett are doing. They not only oppose these harmful policies, but they offer a platform describing the positive steps that must be taken to save public education in the state of Indiana.

Congratulations to these courageous, thoughtful, and concerned citizens of Indiana!

I hope that others will take this statement of principles and adapt it to their own community and state. Help it go viral, as the Texas anti-high-stakes testing resolution has gone viral. Join with your friends and neighbors to awaken the American public to support good education policies that strengthen our public schools and our democracy.

Categories Education Reform, Indiana, Parent Groups, Parents, Pre-K, Teacher Evaluations

Corporate Reformers Love Lofty Goals

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2012 //
12

One of the favorite tactics of corporate reformers is to set lofty goals.

We have learned over the past twenty years that you can’t have reform without goals.

I remember back when No Child Left Behind was passed, and it included the goal (mandate, actually) that all students in grades 3-8 would be proficient by the year 2014. (By the way, if anyone wonders, I was not an architect of NCLB. I wasn’t involved at any point in writing it. That distinction goes to Sandy Kress, Margaret Spellings, Education Trust, and maybe even Rod Paige, who was Secretary of Education.)

I remember the six  national goals set in 1990 by the nation’s governors and the George W. Bush administration. Goal one was, “By the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn.” There was also, “By the year 2000, United States students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.” The Clinton administration added two more national goals I don’t think any of the national goals were met, but there were no punishments attached to them so they quietly disappeared.

With NCLB, everything changed. Suddenly, there were real consequences attached to not meeting a goal (100% proficiency) that no nation in the world had ever reached.

Schools that persistently failed to make “adequate yearly progress” would eventually be closed or turned over to a private management company or turned into a charter (same difference) or taken over by the state or staff would be fired. At the time, none of these sanctions had any evidence behind them. They still don’t. No state had ever taken over a school and made it a better school. Charters had almost no record at all. And private management companies had failed to demonstrate that they knew how to “fix” schools with low scores.

So now we have moved on to higher levels of goal-setting, since that is what business strategists like to do. Reformers must have goals! And goals must have accountability!

When I was in Detroit, the local business-civic groups that wanted to take over the schools said that if they were given a free hand, the graduation rate would rise to 90% in ten years. Well, why not 100%, as long as they were making promises? Why only 90%?

In Indianapolis, a local group of corporate reformers has proposed the usual remedy of privatization and promised remarkable achievements, come the by-and-by.

In Philadelphia, the former gas company executive who is currently in charge promised that if the plan he purchased from the Boston Consulting Group were adopted…well, you know, a dramatic increase in test scores, graduation rates, etc.

As I wrote just yesterday, Mike Miles—the Broad-trained military man who holds his troops in low regard—pledged grand goals for 2020.

But my current favorite goal is the one pledged by John White, the Broad-trained Commissioner of Education in Louisiana. White has promised that by 2014, all students in Louisiana would be proficient. (http://louisianaeducator.blogspot.com/2012_05_06_archive.html). Now, the reason I especially like this goal is that the timeline is so short. That means that we can hold Commissioner White accountable for results in only two years! If 100% of Louisiana’s students are not proficient in 2014, he has failed.

Now there is a man willing to stake his career and reputation on his goals. That’s impressive.

I wouldn’t exactly take that pledge to the bank, but I think we should treat his promise seriously and hold him to it in 2014.

Diane

Categories Broad Foundation, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Philadelphia

Indianapolis Charters Dumping Students

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2012 //
3

Sharon Higgins, a parent activist in Oakland, manages an important blog called “charter school scandals.” she collects articles from around the nation about the misdeeds of charter operators. That’s how I learned about the story below.

I have heard from many public school principals about the practice of dumping low-performing students and keeping the tuition money. Don’t be surprised if Tony Bennett doesn’t turn a blind eye:

“IPS superintendent calls for state investigation into charter schools.” FOX59 (IN), 10/24/2011
Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Eugene G. White called for a state investigation Monday.  White called for the state to investigate what he calls an illegal charter schools practice that will cost his district $500,000 in state aid this year.

In a letter to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett, White claims that charter schools are intentionally waiting until after the states average daily membership date to release special needs, homeless and other difficult to place students back to IPS, thereby keeping state aid for the students, while shouldering IPS with the responsibility to educate them…

White said 72 children have come back to IPS because they were homeless and could not be transported to charter schools or the charter school was unequipped to handle their special disabilities or they faced disciplinary expulsion…

White said IPS staff videotaped interviews with returning students and parents about their decisions to leave charter schools and those tapes will be made available to state officials and Mayor Greg Ballard, who sponsors the schools, and Ball State University, which oversees the system.

White said the practice violates state and federal laws and is asking for investigations of 10 charter schools in particular…

Categories Charter Schools, Indiana
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