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How Rhee Cons the Innocent

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2012 //
6

A reader submitted this post:

http://backburner-nkk.blogspot.com/2011/08/ive-been-conned.html

It tells the now-familiar story of how an unwary person was conned by Michelle Rhee’s Students First. The reader was going through her email, and along came a “puppies-and-kittens” petition from Change.org, and “Click!”

Too late: “And suddenly, there it was…the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the Trojan horse of all Trojan horses: Join the Fight to Save Great Teachers,  a petition initiated by Students First, the education policy lobby run by faux education expert, Michele Rhee.  Remember her?  The mythologized Bee Eater who got results in the Washington, D.C. schools, and then quickly ducked out when her mayoral patron was evicted from office?”

This blogger was repentant but not fooled:

Here’s what Students First says they’re for which sounds a lot like “kittens and puppies” at first blush:
  • Elevating the teaching profession by valuing teachers’ impact on students;
  • Empowering parents with real choices and real information; and
  • Spending taxpayers’ money wisely to get better results for students.
But Students First (SF) perpetuates a fraud on families through smoke and mirrors:
  • SF narrowly defines the value of teachers’ impact on students, equating impact with large scale test scores.  It devalues the impact of teachers’ relationships with students and their families by minimizing the effects of teacher experience and the trust that families build with teachers over time. It fails to recognize the strength and local knowledge that comes from commitment of and by the school community.
  • SF says that choice is good but is blind to the information on the demographic consequences of school choice. A National Education Policy Center study suggests that charters actually increase segregation of students. For many children excluded by charters through “cherry-picking” and “counseling out” there is no choice if they are to get the supports they need. And the children who are disproportionately affected by these tactics? The poor, those with disabilities, English language learners, the very children SF claims to be helping.
  • SF promotes responsible use of taxpayers’ money, but ignores the shell games played by commercial charter operators to profit at public expense.  Hedge fund investors capitalizing on the “crisis in education” have joined the fray.  Public school districts lose in this tug-of-war for resources.
Earlier today, another reader sent in a comment and chastised me for my description of D.C. test scores under Rhee. He said I should have written about the change in test scores during her tenure in office, not just the fact that D.C. has the largest achievement gaps for black and Hispanic students of any city in the nation. He was right.
So I looked up the scores  in fourth grade reading, which Rhee says is a disgrace to the nation, and recorded the changes over time in her district. This is what happened on her watch. The scores of higher-income students went up significantly from 2007-2011. The scores of lower-income students were flat from 2007-2011. The scores of white students, black students, and Hispanic students were flat from 2007-2011. Why is she telling the nation how to improve achievement when she didn’t do it?
Diane
Categories Education Reform, NAEP, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Romney’s Absurd Claims

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2012 //
10

Mitt Romney is out on the campaign trail, pushing vouchers and charters and online learning and for-profit schools and larger class size as the answers to our “failing” public schools.

I wish someone would give him some actual facts to work with. Are our schools failing? No, they are  not.

According to the latest federal data, the high school graduation rate is now at the highest point in our history for every group: for white students, black students, Hispanic students, low-income students, middle-income students, and high-income students.

According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, test scores in reading and math are at their highest point in our history. Forgive me if I quote an earlier blog from this site:

“Proficient [on NAEP] is akin to a solid A. In reading, the proportion who were proficient in fourth grade reading rose from 29% in 1992 to 34% in 2011. The proportion proficient in eighth grade also rose from 29% to 34% in those years. In math, the proportion in fourth grade who were proficient rose from 18% to 40% in the past twenty years, an absolutely astonishing improvement. In eighth grade, the proportion proficient in math went from 21% in 1992 to an amazing 35% in 2011.”

“When the scores are broken out by race, you can really see dramatic progress, especially in math. In 1992, 80% of black students in fourth grade were below basic. By 2011, that proportion had dropped to 49%. Among white students in fourth grade math, the proportion below basic fell in that time period from 40% to only 16%.”

“The changes in reading scores are not as dramatic as in math, but they are nonetheless impressive. In fourth grade, the proportion of black students who were below basic in 1992 was 68%; by 2011, it was down to 51%. In eighth grade, the proportion of black students who were reading below basic was 55%; that had fallen to 41% by 2011.”

These numbers tell a story not of failing schools, but of steady–and in some cases, very impressive–progress.

Should we do better? Of course. But people don’t do a better job if you keep telling them (falsely) that they are failing. It is important to acknowledge success if you want to keep moving forward.

Mitt Romney tried pushing his education policies at a charter school in West Philadelphia. He probably thought that what he was offering would be greeted with cheers, but he looked very foolish when he told his audience that class size didn’t matter.

Steven Morris, a music teacher at the school, said: “I can’t think of any teacher in the whole time I’ve been teaching, over 10 years — 13 years — who would say that more students would benefit them. And I can’t think of a parent that would say ‘I would like my kid to be in a room with a lot of kids,’” Morris said. “So I’m kind of wondering where this research comes from.”

Romney knew better than the teacher, it seems, because he cited a study by McKinsey saying that class size doesn’t matter. No doubt, he also had heard the same from his stable of uber-conservative think tank experts.

Had Romney consulted a wider body of research, he would have known that class size does matter.

Had he thought about the choices he made for his own children, he would have not been so foolish as to suggest that class size doesn’t matter. I don’t know where they went to school, but I have read that they were educated in private schools. I am willing to bet they had class sizes of 12-18. (A reader informs me–see comments below–that the Romney children attended an elite school where average class size was 12. Wonder how that would work in the public schools of Detroit, Cleveland, Fresno, Philadelphia, and Baltimore?)

Why would Romney propose that children who need as much or more attention as his own children should get less?

Diane

Categories Charter Schools, NAEP, Romney, Mitt, Testing

Stop the Campaign Against Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2012 //
13

My review of the Council on Foreign Relations’ report on US public schools as a “grave threat to national security” is now available online. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/07/do-our-public-schools-threaten-national-security/?page=1

I hope it is widely read. I urge everyone who reads it to send it to their friends and colleagues.

The report I reviewed was written by a task force chaired by Joel Klein and Condaleeza Rice. I believe the report is part of a campaign to undermine public education. Public education needs constant improvement, of that there can be no doubt. But it does not need to be disparaged and demeaned as a national security threat.

As I say in the review, the real threat to our future is growing poverty and income inequality and intensifying racial isolation. The report mentions these issues but fails to offer any suggestions to reduce their negative impact on our society.

The report goes out of the way to find every possible way to show public education in a negative light. It does not mention that high school graduation rates and NAEP test scores in reading and math are at historic highs for all groups. This is a hit job on one of our society’s essential democratic institutions.

I wish I had said more in the review about the role of public education in creating citizens for our democracy. In teaching students what they need to know to vote wisely, to serve on a jury, to develop the judgment they need to make good decisions for themselves and their community. Test scores are not the same as education. They are not even the same as achievement. Our metrics are too narrow. They distort the work of the schools. Schools have a far larger role to play than raising test scores. They shape character and they develop citizens.

Those who insist on trashing our public schools and ignoring their importance are really attacking our nation. They forget that we live in the world’s most powerful nation with the largest economy and the most creative thinkers and entrepreneurs (yes, entrepreneurs–I have no objection to money-making as long as entrepreneurs are not invited to make money by running schools). Public schools, which educated 90% of our population, deserve credit for our national success. The constant carping and criticism strike at one of the mechanisms that made this success possible.

It’s time to stand up for public education, to stand up for the dignity of the teaching profession, and to speak out against those who attempt to do them harm.

Diane

Categories Klein, Joel, NAEP

How Does Rhee Sleep at Night?

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2012 //
3

The latest report on Michelle Rhee shows her collecting millions of dollars from Wall Street financiers, assorted billionaires, and mega-foundations, all to redesign American education as she sees fit. www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-education-rheebre84e1oa-20120515,0,7834441.story

She has become a convenient vessel for the most rightwing governors who want to dismantle public education and reduce the teaching profession to at-will employees.

How can she sleep at night knowing that through her efforts, millions of teachers will live in fear and insecurity, knowing that their job depends on their students’ scores on lousy tests? That’s quite a legacy.

How can she sleep at night, knowing that she is promoting for-profit entrepreneurs whose first interest is profit, not children?

What exactly is her credibility for redesigning American education? She left behind a school district with the largest black-white achievement gap of any city tested by the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress. The average black-white achievement gap for big cities is about 30 points; in the District of Columbia, after Rhee’s tenure, it was over 60 points.

Her IMPACT program is discredited by the day. Scores went flat after it was imposed by Rhee.

We have not heard the last of the massive cheating scandal that occurred on her watch.

In my one encounter with her, last summer in a panel discussion on Martha’s Vineyard, I found that she just repeated the same stale slogans about teachers and poor performance. She seemed woefully unaware of current research. She looks for applause by bashing teachers. She has chosen to be a tool for those who want to privatize public education and undermine the teaching profession.

It’s really a shame. She could have used her moment in the sun to improve public education and to help those who work in our nation’s classrooms. She has chosen not to.

Diane

Categories NAEP, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

What Do NAEP Scores Mean?

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2012 //
10

Every once in a while, a new set of test scores is released by the National Assessment Governing Board, the federal agency that supervises the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Just a few days ago, the NAEP scores for science were released for 4th and 8th grades, and once again there was woe and gnashing of teeth in the land (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/10/31naep_ep.h31.html?tkn=VPXFO3wzO2s%2Bbex2WwFqNNnCfYtzrpCNzSmA&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1). The scores had improved, but not enough to satisfy the nay-sayers.

The media react with alarm every time the NAEP scores appear because only about one-third or so of students is rated “proficient.” This is supposed to be something akin to a national tragedy because presumably almost every child should be “proficient.” Remember, under No Child Left Behind, ALL students are supposed to be proficient in reading and math by the year 2014.

Since I served on NAGB for seven years, I can explain what the board’s “achievement levels” mean. There are four levels. At the top is “advanced.” Then comes “proficient.” Then “basic.” And last, “below basic.”

Advanced is truly superb performance, which is like getting an A+. Among fourth graders, 8% were advanced readers in 2011; 3% of eighth graders were advanced. In reading, these numbers have changed little in the past twenty years. In math, there has been a pretty dramatic growth in national scores over these past twenty years: the proportion of students who scored advanced in fourth grade grew from 2% in 1992 to 7% in 2011. In eighth grade, the proportion who were advanced in math grew from 3% in 1992 to 8% in 2011.

Proficient is akin to a solid A. In reading, the proportion who were proficient in fourth grade reading rose from 29% in 1992 to 34% in 2011. The proportion proficient in eighth grade also rose from 29% to 34% in those years. In math, the proportion in fourth grade who were proficient rose from 18% to 40% in the past twenty years, an absolutely astonishing improvement. In eighth grade, the proportion proficient in math went from 21% in 1992 to an amazing 35% in 2011.

Basic is akin to a B or C level performance. Good but not good enough.

And below basic is where we really need to worry. These are the students who really don’t understand math or read well at all. The proportion who are below basic has dropped steadily in both reading and math in fourth and eighth grades since 1992.

When the scores are broken out by race, you can really see dramatic progress, especially in math. In 1992, 80% of black students in fourth grade were below basic. By 2011, that proportion had dropped to 49%. Among white students in fourth grade math, the proportion below basic fell in that time period from 40% to only 16%.

The changes in reading scores are not as dramatic as in math, but they are nonetheless impressive. In fourth grade, the proportion of black students who were below basic in 1992 was 68%; by 2011, it was down to 51%. In eighth grade, the proportion of black students who were reading below basic was 55%; that had fallen to 41% by 2011.

The point here is that NAEP scores show steady and very impressive improvement over the past twenty years. Our problems are tough, but they are not intractable. The next time someone tells you that U.S. education is “failing,” or “declining,” tell them they are wrong.

Diane

Categories NAEP, Testing
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