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What Our Friends in New Zealand Are Reading

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2012 //
1

Allan Allach of New Zealand has compiled a reading list, some drawn from U.S. sources (one from this blog). What is interesting is the commonality of concerns among so many of us worried about the standardization of education, corporate control of schooling, and the worship of data as the goal of education:

 

Weekend Readings
By Allan Alach
One common element of ‘deform’ across the world, is the use of PISA tests to justify the implementation of GERM.  As Phil Cullen observes in his latest Treehorn Express these tests are an offshoot of the OECD, an organisation of economists. Since when did economists have valid educational credentials? This begs the question- why do we take any notice of PISA? Anyone able to explain this to me?
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.
This week’s homework!
Charter Schools and Corporate Ed Reform
As other countries rush down the charter school road, evidence to the contrary keeps coming out of USA. Naturally our GERM minded politicians take no notice – powerful string pullers behind the scenes? Thanks to Barbara Nelson for this link.
“The following is an excerpt from Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education: What’s at Stake? co-authored by Michelle Fine and Michael Fabricant. The book traces the evolution of the charter school movement from its origins in community- and educator-based efforts to promote progressive change to their role today as instruments of privatization and radical disinvestment in public education.”
New school year: doubling down on failed ed policy
Or ‘how we need to learn from our mistakes”
“This was written by Lisa Guisbond, a policy analyst for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as FairTest, a Boston-based organization that aims to improve standardized testing practices and evaluations of students, teachers and schools.”
10 Ways School Reformers Get It Wrong
“When it comes to education reform, we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel anymore; instead, we’re building square ones.” Nothing else needs to be added. Thanks to Phil Cullen for this link.
Secret Teacher has had it with WALTS, WILFS and other education jargon.
The Guardian newspaper, UK, runs a regular feature where a different secret teacher each time writes about issues of concern. This one is written by an Academy School (aka charter school) teacher, and provides a warning of what is to come.
Yong Zhao on PISA
For the last 18 months or so, I’ve been raising questions about this PISA test programme that is being used by ‘deformers’ all over to justify their educational agenda. Why is a test developed by an economic organisation being used in this way? Why do we give it any credit at all?  Think about it – the PISA tests to determine any country’s educational achievement have exactly the same drawbacks as using tests to determine a child’s achievement. This blog by Diane Ravitch, referencing comments by Yong Zhao, covers this more authoritatively. Getting rid of PISA would be a major step forward.

Technocratic Expansion of Education Data Systems Stirs Privacy Concerns

This is an extremely important article by Anthony Cody.  The online student database system he describes here is also being developed in New Zealand, ready for implementation in 2014. Are similar systems being developed in Australia, UK and elsewhere? This is big brother, people. No exaggeration.  The only thing Orwell got wrong was that he anticipated a far left state, not a right wing corporate based state with fascist overtones. Just to back this up, there’s also another link from a homeschooling website.
Eight problems with Common Core Standards
Another great article by Marion Brady. New Zealand readers might ‘enjoy’ reading this, substituting ‘national’ for ‘common core.’ Aren’t coincidences wonderful?
Thank God for standardized test scores
With the coming publication of ‘achievement data’ for New Zealand schools, as the government rushes in a ‘me too’ fashion’ to join the bandwagon, this satirical article by Joe Bower is timely.
Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Curriculum, Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International

Why Home-Schooling Is Uncommon in the U.K.

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2012 //
7

A reader from the U.K., who has engaged in the discussion about the role of parents, comments on the relative infrequency of home-schooling in the U.K.:

Home-schooling is legal in the UK but it isn’t common. Most parents in the UK that have the time to homeschool either lack the required level of education/intelligence to do so successfully or have enough money to send their children to private school.

Most parents send their children to a local state school. The way the system works means that it is difficult to get children into schools unless you live near the school. This raises the prices of properties near outstanding schools. Affluent, educated people tend to be better at picking out good schools and gaming the system (buying a house next to a good school, using a family members address rather than their own, pretending to be of a certain faith to get their kids into a faith school etc). This means that those that might want to home school can generally get their kids into a “good” school and so do not need to.

The exceptions to this are those who cannot get their children into a faith school that matches their beliefs. This is rare as there are catholic schools, church of england schools, jewish schools and islamic schools in growing numbers. Some Jehovah’s witnesses homeschool for example…

In the UK the worst schools sadly tend to be in the poorest areas. The parents in these areas are either working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet and so cannot home school or are not capable of home schooling for reasons of language, education, intelliegence, motivation or a combination thereof. That doesn’t stop some of them from trying but it is rarely a success. More often than not we have to rectify the situation in a short space of time so these pupils have a shot at exam success.

Often home schooling is a necessity rather than a choice here. When a child gets permanently excluded from a school they can have problems finding a new school place. This is especially true when they were excluded for violence, sex offending or drug related incidents. The special schools for excluded pupils (called Pupil referral units) are full to brimming and very difficult to get pupils into. It is equally difficult to get pupils places in special schools for those with behavioural, emotional or social difficulties.

i suspect that home schooling may become more prevalent in areas where there is significant demand for school places. This is because there are not enough new schools being built. Central government think that local government should pay for them. Local government are faced with swinging cuts and simply cannot afford to do so. They think that if they wait for the situation to get bad enough central government will be forced to pay for it. In the meantime the pupils, parents and teachers suffer.

Unfortunately the government is more concerned with making education cheaper rather than better.

Categories International

Pearson Plans to Award Degrees

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2012 //
10

Last year, for reasons not altogether clear to me, the British government issued a white paper saying that non-teaching institutions would soon have the power to award degrees. Now, as was anticipated, the Pearson corporation says that it plans to award degrees to complete its role as the ultimate education organization of our era. Of course, Pearson could just buy a struggling college or university and change its name, but it doesn’t plan to do that. It has already opened “Pearson College.”

This is all very puzzling. Businesses awarding degrees in business, technology, or maybe even in liberal arts, perhaps online. 

I am not enough of a visionary to understand why it is a good idea for a university education to be redefined to mean that you can pick up a degree over the counter or online without ever meeting a scholar. And I am no fan of for-profit universities in principle.

Is it about handing out degrees? Is it about dumbing down higher education? Is it a business plan to make money?

Or is it something else?

Categories Higher Education, International, Pearson

A Nice Hat Tip from England

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2012 //
2

A reader in England writes this.

The blog has readers around the world, literally on every continent. Most readers, of course, are in the U.S., but followed by readers in Canada, the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, Korea, Japan, Russia, Israel, and dozens of other nations in South America, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and on and on, even some small islands.

Isn’t the Internet wonderful? Hats off to social media!

We are everywhere!

Categories International

Yong Zhao on PISA

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2012 //
13

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman had a column a few days ago saying that PISA would soon make it possible for everyone to compare the scores of their school to schools all over the world. No one will be average anymore! Just being able to take tests and compare scores will drive us all to the top!

After I read this with a sinking sensation, thinking of the whole world competing to get better test scores (why?), I asked the eminent scholar Yong Zhao to react to this column.

He sent the following as he was traveling in Australia:

“Imagine, in a few years, you could sign onto a Web site and see this is how my school compares with a similar school anywhere in the world,” says Schleicher. “And then you take this information to your local superintendent and ask: ‘Why are we not doing as well as schools in China or Finland?’ ”

Sounds like a commercial for a global standardized testing service? Well, it is. And it is from one of the most influential media outlets The New York Times and endorsed by one of the most popular voices about globalization Thomas Friedman in an op-ed piece last week http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/opinion/friedman-average-is-over-part-ii-.html.

 

The product is OECD’s PISA, the international assessment program that claims to test reading, math, and science skills of 15 year olds. PISA should a great case study of marketing strategy in business schools. In about 10 years, it has been successfully marketed to governments and educational authorities in over 70 countries.

 

PISA has convinced many that it is the gold standard of education quality. Although there are other international assessment programs, which has had a long history, but more countries participate in PISA, which by itself is a great marketing slogan, just like “More Doctors Smoke Camel” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMzjJjuxQI.

 

 

Up until now, PISA has remained at the system level, reporting averages of groups of students, which has already generated a “PISA Score Race” across the world. With this new round of PISA and the system OECD is developing, it is coming to a school near you and your house. But before you log on and “march to your local superintendent and ask ‘Why are we not doing as well as schools in China or Finland,’ it would be good if you ask the PISA advocates the following questions:

 

  1. Why didn’t the Chinese have a big party celebrating its stunning PISA performance? When the last round of PISA results were released in 2010, China’s Shanghai scored #1 in all three areas, but China, a country eager to celebrate any international achievement, did not even have much national media coverage. In fact, whenever PISA was discussed inside China, it is often associated with “so what?” (Read my blog posts: The Real Reason Behind Chinese Students Top PISA Performance http://zhaolearning.com/2010/12/10/a-true-wake-up-call-for-arne-duncan-the-real-reason-behind-chinese-students-top-pisa-performance/ and The Grass is Greener: http://zhaolearning.com/2011/09/18/the-grass-is-greener-learning-from-other-countries/)
  2. Why the Chinese, who supposedly enjoy the best education according to PISA, spend their life’s savings to send their children to U.S. schools, which supposedly offer a much inferior education? Those who cannot afford to send their children overseas work hard to send their children American schools inside China. If they cannot even do that, they send their children to after school programs modeled after American schools. One of the programs that spread like wildfire in China claims to offer “authentic American K-12 education.” “Attend American Schools in China” is its marketing line.

 

The reason is perhaps best illustrated by OECD itself. A report (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/46581016.pdf)  about lessons to learn from high PISA performers produced by OECD says:

 

Compared with other societies, young people in Shanghai may be much more immersed in learning in the broadest sense of the term. The logical conclusion is that they learn more, even though what they learn and how they learn are subjects of constant debate. Critics see young people as being “fed” learning because they are seldom left on their own to learn in a way of their choice. They have little direct encounters with nature, for example, and little experience with society either. While they have learned a lot, they may not have learned how to learn. The Shanghai government is developing new policy interventions to reduce student workload and to refocus the quality of student learning experiences over quantity. (p. 103)

 

Essentially, the issues (and questions we must ask) are:

 

  1. Is what the PISA measures truly valuable? Ultimately, we all want a great education for our children, but does PISA scores really measure the quality of education our children will need?
  2. What is sacrificed to achieve such high scores? Are the sacrifices worth the scores?
  3. If China has such a great education, why don’t we just outsource it to China?

 

Read my op-ed in Education Week: Doublethink http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/07/18/36zhao_ep.h31.html)

 

In a nutshell, American education is far from perfect, but China is not a model for emulation. For more about China, PISA, and American education, read my latest book World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students http://zhaolearning.com/world-class-learners-my-new-book/or Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Leading-Way-Education-Globalization/dp/1416608737/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Categories Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Testing

Ola! What About Those Teachers in Brazil!

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2012 //
20

The teachers in Brazil said they would not give tests that did nothing to help their students.

They would not give tests that harm their students by giving them demeaning labels.

Testing is not teaching.

They said they are professionals and cannot be driven to do things that are wrong and violate their professional ethics.

Remember the Hippocratic Oath: “At least do no harm.”

Teachers must do the same as a minimum, to protect the children who are in their care.

Categories International, Testing

In China, the Cost of High Test Scores

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2012 //
6

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and billionaire Bill Gates and gadfly Michelle Rhee wring their hands over American students’ test scores. They look enviously at Shanghai and wonder why we can’t be like them.

But the Los Angeles Times had a story explaining that Chinese educators have mixed feelings about those high test scores. They know that they are squeezing the joy of learning out of their schools and pressuring children to grind, grind, grind. They worry that their students lack creativity and imagination.

Before we follow China’s example, we should think about the qualities that we value. Do we want good test-takers or do we want creativity and innovation? Do we want obedient and compliant workers or do we want divergent thinkers? Which will serve us better in the decades ahead?

Categories Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Testing

A Good Idea for StudentsFirst

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
33

This reader has some good ideas for StudentsFirst’s next campaign, now that the Olympics is over:

It really disgusted me how Rhee compares education in the US to being in the Olympics and how we wouldn’t want countries like Luxembourg and Hungary to get more gold medals than us, yet they are beating us in education. I mean, seriously?
Luxembourg?

Luxembourg has a $80,119 GDP and is one of the most wealthy of countries. Their children learn 3 mandatory languages in school, and they only have a 4.5% child poverty rate. Of course, those students are going to be more successful.

Hungary, on the other hand, only has a $19,591 GDP. However, when I looked at comparisons in literacy and math, the U.S. and Hungary were close in many areas, usually with the U.S. edging Hungary out a little. Hungary has a 10.3% child poverty rate.

The United States has a $48,386 GDP. Much higher than Hungary, but much lower than Luxembourg. The U.S. also has a 22.4% child poverty rate, second only to Mexico, which has 26.2. (I got these statistics from NationMaster.com)

To me, one of the greatest factors in education is poverty! It’s kind of like the little dirty secret that keeps getting swept under the rug. The U.S. needs to start addressing this. The school I teach at has a 75% free and reduced lunch population. These kids are more worried about the next meal than the next test. According to the US Census Bureau, “more than one in five children in the United States (15.75 million) lived in poverty in 2010. 2010. More than 1.1 million children were added to the poverty population between the 2009 ACS and the 2010 ACS. The 2010 ACS child poverty rate (21.6 percent) is the highest since the survey began in 2001.”

If StudentsFirst really cared about putting their students first, they would put their money into addressing the poverty issue instead of making insulting advertisements like the one with the out of shape Olympian.
Categories International, Poverty, StudentsFirst

Spoof on Offensive Rhee Olympics Ad

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2012 //
1

Tim Slekar and his merry band of public education advocates have just released a spoof of the offensive Michelle Rhee/StudentsFirst ad.

The Rhee ad ridicules the United States, students, teachers, public schools, obesity, and gays. The man in her ad is presented as flabby and effete, performing in an Olympic sport called rhythmic gymnastics that is for women only and falling on his back. He is supposedly a representation of American education.

Just as an aside, the international test score rankings are meaningless. They reflect the high rate of poverty among children in the U.S. When the international tests were first given, we came in 11th out of 12. That was in 1964. We have since then gone on to outperform the nations that had higher test scores by every economic measure. In the years from 1964 to the present, our students never had high scores on the international tests. They don’t predict anything.

Here is the spoof.

Categories Education Reform, International, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

A View from New Zealand

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2012 //
0

As I have noted before, the idea of introducing a “free market” into education has strong appeal to conservative governments in other nations. Pasi Sahlberg of Finland calls this idea the “Global Education Reform Movement,” or GERM, characterized by testing, accountability, competition, and choice. GERM is now infesting New Zealand, which has a very successful education system.

One of the leading anti-national testing sites is called the Treehorn Express, a blog written by NZ educator Phil Cullen. While the names and organizations will not be familiar to you, the issues will be. New Zealand officials want to introduce charter schools to New Zealand, and this post sees it as a huge step backward that will mean privatization, funding of religious schools, and eliminating the expectation that teachers in these schools must be credentialed.

If you want to see how the global issues are shaped by American developments, and if you want to learn how your peers in New Zealand are reacting, this is a good place to start.

Categories Charter Schools, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International
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