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Do Not Accept the New Normal

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2012 //
14

Since No Child Left Behind began its reign of error a decade ago, the American public has slowly but surely changed its understanding and expectations of schools.

We have come to think that every school must “make” every student proficient, and if it cannot, then the school is a “failing” school.

We have come to look on schools as “failing” if they enroll large numbers of students who don’t perform well on standardized tests, regardless of their personal circumstances, their language ability, or their disability.

We have come to believe that teachers alone can bring every student to high test scores. And if we don’t believe this is possible, we are accused of defending the status quo or not caring about students or not believing they can succeed.

In pursuit of impossible goals, goals that no nation in the world has reached, we have come to accept (with glee, if you are a corporate reformer, or with resignation, if you are informed by reality) that schools must close and staff must be fired en masse in pursuit of that evanescent goal of “turnaround” from failure to success.

And here is the latest small and barely noticed episode in the continuing assault on common sense and public education.

The Los Angeles Times reported that students and parents demonstrated to protest the planned layoff of at least of the staff at Manual Arts High School. This school has been run for four years by a private group called L.A.’s Promise.

It is no longer unusual to see students and parents protesting the mass dismissal of teachers, so they will be ignored. That’s the new normal.

What is odd here is that L.A.’s Promise laid off about 40% of the staff last year. 50% last year, 40% this year.

It seems that this organization will just keep firing teachers until they finally get a staff that knows how to raise test scores and graduation rates higher and higher.

Such punitive actions display a singular lack of capacity on the part of leadership to build and support a stable staff.

Such heavy-handed measures surely demoralize whoever is left.

We have become so accustomed to mass firings and school closings that we have lost our outrage, even our ability to care.

Another school reconstituted, another school closed, more teachers fired. Ho-hum.

That’s the new normal. That is what is called education reform today.

So normal are such crude and punitive measures that the events at Manual Arts High School didn’t even merit a real story in the Los Angeles Times. It was posted in a blog.

Destroying public schools is called reform. Mass firings of staff are called reform.

It’s the New Normal.

Don’t accept it. Don’t avert your eyes. It’s not supposed to be this way.

Schools need a stable staff. Schools need continuity. Schools need to be caring and supportive communities.

Schools need to be learning organizations, not a place with a turnstile for teachers, administrators and students.

Don’t lose your own values. What is happening today is wrong. It is not education reform. It is wrong.

It does not benefit children. It does not improve education. It is wrong.

Diane

Categories Accountability, California, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Vermont Stands Up for Its Children

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2012 //
10

Vermont decided not to apply for a waiver from NCLB.

Not because it loves NCLB. No one does.

But because Vermont education officials had their own ideas about how to help their schools.

And they discovered that Arne Duncan’s offer to give them “flexibility” was phony.

He did not want to hear Vermont’s ideas. Contrary to his claims, the waivers do not offer flexibility.

What Arne Duncan wants states to do is to agree to his own demands, not to shape their own destiny.

He wants them to allow more privately managed charters. He wants them to evaluate teachers by student test scores. He wants them to adopt Common Core state standards.  He wants them to agree to threaten and close down schools with low test scores. He has a laundry list of what he wants them to do.

Of course, this is all very puzzling since none of Arne Duncan’s mandates have a solid basis in research or evidence. In that regard, they are not much different from NCLB. You might say they represent NCLB without the timetable.

Even more puzzling is the assumption that Arne Duncan and the U.S. Department of Education know how to reform the schools of the nation. It is not as if anyone would look at Arne Duncan’s Chicago as a model for the nation. That district is once again being “reformed,” this time by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

And from a strictly Constitutional point of view, the U.S. Department of Education has never been empowered to tell schools and school districts how to reform themselves.

Quite candidly, there is no one at the U.S. Department of Education who is competent to tell entire states how to reform their schools.

So, kudos to Vermont.

A state that said no to federal control, federal mandates, privatization, and other bad ideas.

As often, I add a footnote to the original post: Bruce Baker of Rutgers alerted me to a change in governance in Vermont. The legislature just passed a bill to have the state commissioner of education report to the governor. This opens the way for business community and privatizers to exert more influence. Privatizers like to eliminate input from parents and communities, making it easier for them to get what they want.

Vermonters: Don’t let it happen.

Stay outside the consensus.

Keep Vermont and Vermont parents and communities in charge of your schools.

Diane

Categories Duncan, Arne, Federal Waiver, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Vermont

BLOCK THAT EUPHEMISM!

By dianeravitch
April 30, 2012 //
4

I wonder why our policymakers in Washington, D.C., love euphemisms. Ten years ago, Congress passed No Child Left Behind, and by now, is there anyone in the United States who takes seriously the idea that “No Child” has been “Left Behind”? Since Congress can’t agree on how to change the law, maybe they could just rename it and call it “Many Children Left Behind” (MCLB) or “No Child Left Untested” (NCLU). When the name of a federal law is so clearly at odds with its actual results, either we must rename the law or declare it a failure or both. But, please, no euphemisms, no flowery predictions in the title of the legislation.

Then there is Race to the Top. No one has explained what it means to “race.” Does it mean that with more and more pressure on teachers, their students will get higher test scores? Surely, a “race to the top” has nothing to do with equality of educational opportunity. And what, exactly, is “the top”? Does that mean that if we just test everyone with greater frequency, then student scores will rise to the top of the world? Where is the evidence for that? Another deceptive euphemism.

The euphemisms that are most annoying, however, are “turnarounds” and “transformations.” When we think of a turnaround, we are likely to think of a charming little dance, perhaps one where we all hold hands and circle the Maypole, with rosebuds fluttering around the heads of the children. But “turnaround” means something dark and sinister, not a happy dance. It means that if you get the money, you must fire the principal, fire half or all of the staff, close the school, give it a new name. That’s harsh medicine, not a turnaround. Whether the new school will be better or worse than the old one is by no means clear. What is it about closing a school that promises that the achievement gap will close or that children who don’t read English will now learn English and speak it fluently? I don’t see the logic or the sense.

Honesty is the best policy. If the federal government really wants to fire the principals and teachers in the 5,000 schools with the lowest scores, why don’t they call it the Close Bad Schools policy? Or something that approximates the brutal reality? Why don’t they explain the mechanism by which mass firing leads to better education?

Just call it what it is.

Diane

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

A college professor in Arkansas describes NCLB generation

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2012 //
5

A friend has been corresponding with a college professor in Arkansas. He asked about well prepared students are for college studies. This was the answer he received. As usual, in the current world of education, no one’s names will be mentioned for fear of offending the vindictive and powerful:

“How are you????

“In response, from the Higher Education end, we see these overly tested students and it affects them through their senior year. They expect you to tell them what is going to be on the test, review that, give them the test over exactly that material, and then review the entire test on what they missed.
They do not know how to take notes, outline a chapter for studying, what their learning style is, how to use deductive reasoning and have no critical thinking skills. This is common talk amongst University professors.
In my human physiology class, I have to teach note taking skills and resist them when they want study guides, word list, etc. Anything that is spoon-fed is what they want. NCLB Baby Birds.
Given all these paper tools and a plethora of online tools, they are not used. We can track their usage statistics. I don’t think they know how to use them to self-educate or supplement what they are to be learning.
They cannot Google because they do not know how computers work, the guts of it all, like Boolean logic.
Therefore, they will not be prepared for the workplace after a degree if they are allowed to be No College Left Behind.”

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind)
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