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Will Educators’ Disgust with Race to the Top Affect the Election?

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2012 //
59

Many of us have wondered whether President Obama hears the voices of teachers. Many have wondered whether he understands that educators–not only teachers, but principals and superintendents–despise Race to the Top and see it as a calculated effort to undermine professionalism and advance the privatization agenda. And many have wondered whether the President knows that he may be jeopardizing his re-election by turning off an important part of his base.

I would add to all this wondering that a lot of us will have to swallow hard, forget our passion for education, and vote for Obama. The alternative is too alarming to contemplate.

Mark Naison, who blogs regularly, has written an important column about these issues, which I reprint here:

How to Lose a Close Election

Virtually ever poll now has President Obama and Mitt Romney embroiled in an extremely close race. The President could very well win this election; but he could also lose. And if he does lose, I will have to go back to something I first started saying nearly three years- namely that turning off the nation’s teachers with educational policies which silence their voice, and put them under extreme stress, is not only bad for the nation’s schools, it could cripple the President’s re-election efforts.

Many of you have read some of my blog posts which made this argument, and have seen the “Dump Duncan” petition which I helped to draft which called on the President to remove his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, incorporate the nation’s teachers into Education Policy discussions, and stop requiring schools to ratchet up the number of standardized tests to receive federal funding.

But what you haven’t seen, or known about, is my private efforts to engage people close the president in conversation about teachers disillusionment, efforts which were totally unsuccessful. The President’s inner circle, from what I could gather, refused to bend on support for Race to the Top and Secretary Duncan. They were not only convinced that these policies would end up improving the nation’s schools; they felt that the political gains to be made in terms of support from large funders and influential journalists was far greater than any losses that would occur in terms of teacher enthusiasm, particularly since they knew the largest teachers unions would support the President no matter what policies he chose to implement.

Now, at crunch time, when it’s too late to change course, I can tell you that this judgment was a severe miscalculation. Not only have the President’s policies failed to narrow testing gaps by race and class, they have contributed to teacher morale in the nation to be the lowest it has been since pollsters began measuring this trait. But the political consequences may have been even more serious than the educational ones. Most teachers will probably end up voting for the President, but from what I have seen, in both New York and around the nation, they will not be manning phone banks, canvassing in their neighborhoods, travelling to swing states on the weekends and generally giving time, money and energy to assure the President’s election the way they did in 2008.

Many pundits attribute the Obama victory in 2008 to an incredibly strong “ground game” composed of huge numbers of volunteers, as well as paid staff, working to get out the vote in battleground states. Many of those individuals, including me, my wife, and many of my friends, were teachers, professors and school administrators. During this election, I know of few, if any educators putting in that kind of heroic effort, almost entirely because they are feeling betrayed by the President, indeed, by the entire Democratic Party, on educational issues, even though they support the President’s positions on reproductive freedom, gay rights, taxation and medical care.

There is no way of knowing whether the phenomenon I am describing is will be a “game changer” in this election. But based on what I have seen in 2008 and in this campaign, there is a chance it could be. And if it is, the Obama brain trust has no one to blame but themselves, because they have had ample opportunity to change course, and indeed have been pleased with by many of their supporters to do just that.

Mark Naison
October 22, 2012

Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/

Categories Duncan, Arne, Obama, Race to the Top

Obama Is Out of Touch on Education

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2012 //
14

Yesterday I announced my intention to vote for President Obama, and given the choice confronting us, I will vote for President Obama.

I will vote for him despite his terrible education policy known as Race to the Top.

It is a disaster. It has all the faults of No Child Left Behind, and it is worse.

It is incentivizing the creation of more privately managed charter schools, which are more segregated than the public schools in the same district and which do not even get higher test scores. It is pushing more testing, more school closings, more destabilizing of communities, more labeling of children, more layoffs, more money spent for compliance with federal mandates.

Race to the Top is harmful to children, to teachers, to principals, and to the future of public education in America.

Education Week reporter Alyson Klein wrote an analysis of what lies ahead in a second Obama term, and it is more of the same. What is especially disgusting is that the President continues to believe that Race to the Top is a positive policy; he seems to think that it will improve public education. He has not heard anything that teachers and parents and principals across the nation have been shouting. Stop the high-stakes testing! Stop the evaluation of teachers by test scores! Stop the privatization!

Federal policy is supposed to be devoted to equity, to helping the neediest children, not to a race. What is the point of a “race” in education? Are we racing to get the highest test scores? How does that promote equality of educational opportunity?

What is even more disgusting is that your representatives in Congress are voting the funds to continue the advance of these toxic policies. Raise your voices. Let your Senator and member of Congress know that Race to the Top is racing for the edge of a cliff. Stop. Stop now.

Here is the article linked above:

What Would a Second Obama Term Look Like on Education?

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 11:28 AM PDT

President Barack Obama has talked a lot on the campaign trail about his education record—but not as much about what he would do in a potential second term.

Yesterday, the Obama campaign put out a big, glossy brochure with ideas for next steps, including:

• Cutting tuition growth in half over the next ten years; recruiting and preparing at least 100,000 new math and science teachers;
• A plan to “strengthen public schools in every community,” in part by expanding Race to the Top to school districts
• Offering states waivers from the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act;
• Using community colleges as economic development engines.

None of the ideas outlined in the brochure are brand new—and at least one of them, Race to the Top for districts—is going to happen whether or not Obama wins a second term. But it makes sense for Obama to highlight some of the proposals still on his to-do list, to give voters an idea of where he wants to take education policy.

As districts struggling to finalize their applications know, Congress has already provided $400 million for the district competition, and the U.S. Department of Education has already crafted the rules. The dollars are scheduled to go out the door by the end of the year, no matter what happens on election day. Still, if Obama is re-elected, there could be additional rounds of Race to the Top, which could conceivably go to school districts.

And granting states waivers from parts of the No Child Left Behind Act isn’t a second-term idea, it’s already well way underway. Waivers for districts in states that didn’t apply are a whole other matter.

When it comes to slowing the growth of college tuition, the Obama administration already has a bunch of ideas on the table—in fact there’s even a proposal to create yet another iteration of the administration’s signature Race to the Top franchise, this time to reward states for their efforts on higher education. So far, Congress has yet to bite, in part, I’m guessing, because of the program’s $1 billion price tag.

The proposed competition would reward states that maintain their own spending on higher education, improve alignment between K-12 graduation requirements and higher education entrance standards, and seek new ways to curb costs without sacrificing educational quality.

Mr. Obama has also floated the idea of tying some federal college aid—specifically campus-based aid programs, such as Perkins loans—to college outcomes, including graduation rates for at-risk populations, such as disadvantaged students, and the ability to keep tuition in check.

As for the math and science teacher proposal, anyone paying attention to the campaign has probably heard it—the president mentioned it in his speech accepting the Democratic nomination this summer. So that’s not a new idea either, although, so far, Congress hasn’t acted on the proposal.

The community college idea isn’t new either—it was part of a recent budget proposal. But it too, has not made it very far in a Congress bent on curbing costs. More here.

What else might be in the hopper for Obama’s second term, if it happens? Comments section is open.

– Alyson Klein

   
Categories Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Love Us Less. Respect Us More.

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2012 //
33

The blogger known as Students Last usually writes parodies.

But the last Presidential debate made him turn serious.

Both candidates said they “love teachers.”

Yes, everyone really, really loves teachers.

Students Last couldn’t stand the fake love and wrote this:

We know you come to this site for a laugh but some things are just NOT funny. Here’s a non-satirical editorial from Students Last.
————
How nice to be told by the presidential candidates, during their last debate, that they “love teachers.” Too bad it’s bullshit, like the flowers a woman gets the day after her abuser gives her a black eye. And it’s not just the candidates who are “loving” teachers to death. America itself has, at least as of late, quite the abusive relationship with teachers – claiming to love teachers but repeatedly disrespecting them in a myriad of ways. What teachers need is fewer meaningless words and a helluva a lot more deeds of respect.

When teachers tell you that standardized testing is robbing instructional time, narrowing curriculum and encouraging cheating but you act like their concerns are a ploy to avoid accountability, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

When you hold education conferences and there are no public school teachers on the panel but there are five CEO’s, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

When the solution to turning around a failing school is to fire half the staff, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

When you accuse teacher unions of protecting child molesters, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

When teachers tell you that generational poverty hangs over the lives of their students like an impenetrable fog dampening desire, fostering anger, distracting young minds and you think they are making excuses, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

When you refer to teachers as “professionals” but then dilute their ranks with those who have ten-watts of enthusiasm and five-weeks of training, shoving them into the neediest schools where they cut their teaching teeth on defenseless children, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

When the most well-known names in education today are people who taught for three years or….never, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

When, despite teachers’ knowledgeable objections, your idea of measuring teaching and learning is to administer more and more flawed bubble exams to younger and younger students, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

When you laud the test results of charter schools that cherry pick their students, receive extraordinary private funding, create an aura of fear with high suspension rates coupled with the expulsion of under-performing students, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

When those who make policy send their children to private schools while shoveling mounds of unvetted nonsense onto the overburdened shoulders of public schools, you are NOT showing love to teachers.

Perpetrators of domestic abuse tell their victims they love them and moments later clench their fists, preparing to strike another blow. So candidates, so America, hold onto your amorous bouquets and stop mouthing words you clearly do not mean or understand.

“Love” us less. Respect us a helluva a lot more.

Categories Obama, Romney, Mitt

Education in Last Night’s Debate

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2012 //
41

My first impulse was not to write about the debate last night. But then a reader contacted me to ask why I hadn’t written anything. I oblige.

The debate was about foreign policy, supposedly, but the candidates still managed to restate their talking points about education.

I was hoping they wouldn’t mention education because neither of them says anything that is accurate. They are out of touch with what is happening in the schools and seem to have no clue about what is needed.

Mitt Romney still claims credit for the Massachusetts reforms, even though they were enacted 10 years before he was elected, and even though his own education platform today rejects the Massachusetts reform strategy of more funding, higher standards for teachers, and improved standards and assessments. His reform strategy today can be summed up in one word: privatization. Also, attack teachers unions and any certification for new teachers. And no new federal aid to reduce student debt in higher education. Also, he wants the banks to regain control of student loans because they were making huge profits before Obama took it away from them.

President Obama, thank God, did not mention the much-loathed Race to the Top, but he said that his policies were working, which is absurd. He talked about gains and results, and no one but Arne Duncan seems to know where those gains and results are. The biggest results of Race to the Top are the demoralization of the nation’s educators and the steady advance of privatization. The biggest result of the Common Core standards is an explosion of new testing, reaching all the way down to kindergarten and even younger. Our children shall eat, live and breathe tests, from birth to the end of their education, and the massive data warehouses will track their every move.

When educators vote, they will have to look at other issues, not the one they know best. Neither of the candidates has a realistic vision of the damage that their policies–actual and proposed–are doing to the nation’s schools and children.

Categories Obama, Romney, Mitt

Some Questions for the Debate Tonight

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2012 //
1

Jere Hochman, the superintendent in Bedford, New York, previously acknowledged as a hero of public education on this blog, offers some thoughtful questions for the Presidential debate tonight. Since the topic is foreign affairs, none of these questions is likely to be asked, but surely journalists who encounter the candidates and their surrogates in the days ahead could ask these questions.

Categories Obama, Romney, Mitt

EduShyster’s Sister Offers Advice to President Obama

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2012 //
2

Little did Anthony Cody and I know that the sister of Edushyster had a letter in the collection that we forwarded to the President this week.

EduShyster is the acerbic, hilarious blogger in Massachusetts who sees through all the baloney that we read day after day about “reform.”

One detail emerged in this post. EduShyster refers to herself. So, unless he is pulling a fast one with a fake pronoun, we have narrowed the possibilities in the Bay State by half.

Categories Humor, Obama

How to Respond to the Letter from the White House

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2012 //
43

Earlier today, I posted the form letter that the White House is sending to people who write to complain about the damage caused by Race to the Top.

The form letter shows clearly that no one read your letters indicting RTTT. The White House response is canned and insulting. There are hundreds of individual letters. Every one of those letters was written from experience. None was slapdash. Some were eloquent.

None deserved this shabby response from a President who needs our votes. At the very least, you would think by now the White House would have a form letter explaining why the President still believes in Race to the Top, asking for patience. Instead, we got indifference and self-congratulatory pap.

We won’t give up. We will continue to raise our voices. We will stand together, speak out, document the damage done by high-stakes testing and privatization, whether the White House responds or not.

It’s time to plan for collective action. It’s time to encourage opting out of high-stakes testing by parents, school boards, superintendents, entire districts. It’s time to mount demonstrations at strategic places against the privatization and profiteering that now shows its ugly face without shame.

It’s time to act up to save our children and grandchildren. It’s time to do what we must to protect a basic democratic institution and keep it out of the hands of speculators, entrepreneurs, rightwing ideologues and amateurs.

Look to yourselves, your colleagues, your associates. You have the power to change the present destructive course. Organize, mobilize, educate the public, use your imagination.

It’s time to think anew. It’s time to stop complying with mandates that demand educational malpractice.

Diane

Categories Obama

The Voice President Obama Should Hear

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2012 //
4

Whether the President listens or not, we won’t stop telling him to pay attention to the people who work in the nation’s classrooms and schools every day. His Race to the Top is NCLB 2.0. The original failed because its sponsors tried to impose their theories on practitioners without listening. When we get the President’s attention, he will learn from letters like this one.

October 17, 2012

Dear President Obama,

I believe you are passionate about the potential for education to change the future for children and thus our nation. But the innovations your administration is seeking are taking us down the wrong path. Some of us have been working to improve education for many years. We have studied learning, curriculum, the change process, and supporting children in poverty. We are the professional educators that have had no voice in this administration. We have been able to make important changes in various schools throughout the nation, but have never had the commitment of time and money necessary to make the level of change we seek. I believe you would be inspired by what we do and have done.

For me and my colleagues, the teacher’s unions have been irrelevant throughout my more than 40 years of living my passion for children and teaching. I am dismayed that the union is shown to be the face of education everywhere I look. I think the unions have a role but it is so minor compared to the myriad of professionals who have dedicated their lives to accomplishing what I believe are your goals. Please listen to those who are, not tied to ideology, but to a search for understanding. Listen to professional educators.

Sincerely, Kathy Richardson Math Perspectives Teacher Development Center Bellingham, WA

Categories Obama

President Obama’s Disappointing Response

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2012 //
51

This is the disheartening response from the White House to a reader who wrote to complain about the destructive effects of Race to the Top.

So a letter that explains the pernicious consequences of RTTT gets a response saying it’s just a wonderful initiative. It’s all about the kids. It’s succeeding. Hello?

We have been wondering together: Will the President listen? Here is the answer:


October 17, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Diane,

I mailed my letter this Saturday. I got this response via email. They must have had my email in their database. I suppose everyone will be getting this form letter. I handwrote a note saying I did not want a RTTT form letter. I suggested they save the paper, stamp and the staff person’s time and buy a book for a D.C. child instead.

Well, I guess they didn’t read my note or they didn’t really care.

Here is a cut and paste of the email letter I just received.

October 17, 2012

Dear Linda:

Thank you for writing. My Administration is working to ensure all America’s young people have educational opportunities worthy of their potential, and I appreciate hearing from you.

There is no stronger foundation for success than a great education. We must provide our children with the world-class schools they need to succeed and our Nation needs to compete in the global economy. Our classrooms should be places of high expectations and success, where all students receive an education that prepares them for higher education and high-demand careers in our fast-changing economy.

My Administration has made historic investments to strengthen our education system, including our Race to the Top program—the most ambitious education reform our country has seen in generations. Race to the Top focuses on what is best for our students by engaging state and local leaders and educators in turning around our lowest performing schools, developing and rewarding effective teachers, adopting meaningful assessments, and tracking the progress of our students.

To comprehensively reshape our educational system and better meet state and local needs, we also need to reform the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)—a law that has helped advance accountability and expose disparities in opportunities and outcomes, but labels too many schools as failing and imposes too many unworkable remedies. Because America’s students could not afford to wait any longer for Congress to act, my Administration launched a new Federal-State partnership to provide States flexibility to advance educational reforms in exchange for a commitment to raise standards, improve accountability, and help teachers become more effective. The first round of States to receive flexibility was announced in February 2012, and while they are required to maintain a focus on underserved students, they can now move away from one-size-fits-all interventions and mandates and instead do what is best for students.

The future of America’s economic strength is determined each day in classrooms across our Nation. To be successful, we must cultivate a learning environment with an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective principal in every school. Supporting a strong teaching workforce and inspiring school leadership is a top priority for my Administration. In these challenging financial times for State and local budgets, we have worked to help schools keep teachers in the classroom, preserve or extend the regular school day and year, and maintain important afterschool activities. My Administration has also put forward a robust plan to strengthen and transform the teaching profession through a series of investments to help States and districts pursue bold reforms at every stage of the profession. This includes attracting top-tier talent and preparing educators for success, creating career ladders with opportunities for advancement and competitive compensation, evaluating and supporting the development of teachers and principals, and getting the best educators into the classrooms of the students who need them most.

Across our country, young people are dreaming of their futures and of the ideas that will chart the course of our unwritten history. A world-class education system will equip our Nation to advance economic growth, encourage new investment and hiring, spark innovation, and ensure the success of the middle class. Preparing our students for higher education and rewarding careers fulfills our promise to our Nation’s young people and strengthens America for generations to come. To learn more about my Administration’s work, please visit http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/Issues/Education.

Thank you, again, for writing.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Reply

Categories Obama

The Debate: Ugh!

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2012 //
11

I confess: the debate gave me a headache, and I’m not prone to headaches.

Must have been Romney’s smug tone. Obama can be smug, but Romney has smugness down to a science. And he was really grating. The smoother he was, the more grating. Why did I feel like he was trying to sell me something I didn’t want?

Okay, they said very little about education but the little they said was wrong.

Obama said his program was already showing results, but it’s not true. The biggest results of his Race to the Top are:

1. Massive demoralization of teachers
2. Unleashing an unprecedented wave of privatization of public schools
3. Encouraging hedge fund managers to think that they can make a hobby of reforming public schools even though they went to an elite prep school and are totally ignorant about teaching and learning
4. Turning federal programs into competitive grants instead of directing resources to where the needs are greatest

Romney claimed credit for the academic success of Massachusetts’ public schools, but he had nothing to do with it. The reform plan was passed by the state legislature in 1993, and it involved massive new spending (which Romney opposes) and a new system of standards and tests, as well as tests for new teachers. Plus a big new investment in early childhood education–which Romney opposes. And all the great improvements were accomplished by unionized teachers with tenure (which Romney opposes).

So if Romney wants a successful federal policy, he should do what seems to have worked in Massachusetts and ditch his privatization agenda.

Categories Obama, Romney, Mitt
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