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What Do Parents in New York City Want Most?

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2012 //
5

Every year, as part of its customer service, the New York City Department of Education asks parents what they would like to see changed.

Every year since the question has been asked, parents have chosen as their top priority: Reducing class size.

In 2007, when the survey was initiated, the Mayor minimized parent concerns by lumping together all other choices as if they were one, to say that parents had many concerns.

This year, when the Department presented its slide show of the results, it left “class size” out of the slide.

Wonder why.

The Huffington Post article linked in the first sentence is nearly an exact copy of the post on the NYC Parent blog in the second link.

Thanks to Leonie Haimson, parent advocate, who is a tiger on the subject of class size.

Categories Accountability, NYC, Parent Groups, Parents

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

Parents Vs. Goliath

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2012 //
3

This morning, parent groups in New York City are leading a protest against high-stakes testing at the headquarters of Pearson. They call their action “a field trip against field tests.” It happens to be a professional development day, so many parents plan to bring their children. Half a dozen different parent groups are coordinating their plans. Among other planned highlights of the demonstration, there will be a marching band!

They hope to inspire parents in other cities and across the nation.

The parents are demonstrating against the Pearson field tests that will be administered in schools across the city and the state this month, wasting another day of instruction to help develop test items for future tests. Pearson needs the field tests for its purposes but the parents don’t want to see more time spent on testing to prepare for more testing.

Yesterday parent activists discovered that Pearson had created a Facebook page called “Parents Kids & Testing.” They began bombarding the site with their comments, which disappeared as soon as they were posted. One parent wrote that her comment was still up, after thirty-six minutes, “maybe they are sleeping,” but soon wrote to say that it was gone. Soon there was a contest to rename the Pearson Facebook page, and one suggestion was “The Black Hole,” to identify the fact that any dissident comments would soon be gone. So many of the Parent Voices continued the game, posting their comments of outrage and watching a faceless person on Facebook delete them.

Another parent soon made the connection from Pearson to Students First, and she recounted her Twitter exchange with that group, which was purposely confusing “learner-centered” education (computer instruction) with “child-centered” education (engagement of the teacher with children’s individual needs and interests).

“Is it wrong that I’m a little excited to have more Pearson b.s. to debunk?
In a similar vein, I just picked a fight with @studentsfirst on Twitter re an article they Tweeted on “learner-centered” education. Not to be confused with CHILD-centered education, which presupposes the humanity of both the student and the teacher, learner-centered education replaces teachers with computers that can deliver “individualized” content. http://gettingsmart.com/news/digital-learning-is-critical-for-move-to-learner-centered-instruction/ I mean….REALLY? How could I not?

What does all this mean? It means that parents–the sleeping giant–have been awakened. If their movement against high-stakes testing continues to build, the conversation will change. They will not sit idly by as their children’s education is sacrificed to the insatiable need for more and more testing, producing more and more data, and less and less education.
Diane
Categories Parent Groups, Pearson, Testing

Calling All Parents!

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2012 //
12

In an earlier post, I described how a parent organization called out Scantron, the testing company, for inserting a blatantly propagandistic item into its standardized tests. The reading passage was about the alleged superiority of charters as education reform and named a fictitious “multi-millionaire” who sends his own children to a charter. Public school students in Chicago were shown this advertising for charters, with no critical views included.

The parent group is called PURE, or Parents United for Responsible Education. They are watchdogs for public education in Chicago, and they are fearless. Every city should have a group like PURE. This parent group is an affiliate of Parents Across America, and Julie Woesterhoff–its leader–was a co-founder of PAA.

One important lesson to be learned from this episode is that parents can be powerful. Parents have the freedom that teachers don’t have to call out bad test items like this one, which was blatantly untrue. If a teacher called a press conference or put out a statement blasting a test item, the teacher might be fired for revealing what was on the test. Parents are not bound to remain silent.

And parents should not remain silent.

The best parent organization in the United States today is Parents Across America. Unlike the national PTA, which has taken sizable contributions from the Gates Foundation, PAA fights for children and public education. Like PURE in Chicago, PAA is fearless. Google it, and if you like what you see, join them. (I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see that the National PTA–which should be staunch defenders of public schools–had a showing of “Waiting for ‘Superman'” at its 2011 national convention in Orlando.)

Or better yet, start a chapter of PAA in your town or city.

Diane

Categories Parent Groups

A New Low in Standardized Testing

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2012 //
14

Scantron, the test publishing company, was compelled to delete a reading passage that was highly propagandistic after parent activists learned about it and called attention to it. The item was brought to the attention of the media by Parents United for Responsible Education.

The Chicago Sun-Time wrote: “PURE executive director Julie Woestehoff said the passage, titled “Reforming Education: Charter Schooling,’’ is so one-sidedly pro-charter that its use amounts to an attempt to “brainwash” children ‘with propaganda about charter schools.’'” Julie Woesterhoff is a co-founder of the national parent organization Parents Across America.

The reading passage on the test was a paean to charter schools, with pie charts and bullet points, all intended to show that charters were decidedly superior to the public schools in which the test-taking students were enrolled. It even had the nerve to identify a presumably fictional “multimillionaire” who enrolled his own children in a charter school. It would be interesting to know if there are any real-life multi-millionaires who have done so. I guess that the folks who wrote the test passage didn’t know that charters are supposed to be “saving” poor kids from failing schools, although not many of them do that.

The test question was presented as “non-fiction,” but Scantron initially responded by saying it was fiction intended to test reading comprehension. Even Scantron eventually realized that the question was inappropriate. That is putting it mildly. The question was charter propaganda, intended to misinform students and persuade them that charters were proven better than public schools. That’s not inappropriate, that’s lies.

It may not be coincidental, but it’s worth noting that Scantron was a corporate sponsor of ALEC. When the publicity about ALEC’s role in the Trayvon Martin affair got too hot, Scantron was one of the corporations that withdrew from ALEC.

The fake charters-are-best question is an even bigger scandal than Pearson’s pineapple question. The pineapple story (which by the way was given to Illinois students in the past) was at worst idiotic, not insidious. It was in some way typical of the sanitized, vacuous reading passages that often appear on standardized tests, which explains how it got past the test review panels that approve test content.

The charter question is far worse than the pineapple question. The pineapple question wasn’t selling pineapples. It was not an advertisement for Dole or another corporation. The charter question was taking a one-sided stance on a matter of public policy. It was dishonest propaganda. It advanced a political cause and, in today’s reality, it advanced the commercial interests of for-profit charter operators.

Do these people have no shame?

Diane

Categories ALEC, Parent Groups, Testing

In Praise of Leonie Haimson

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2012 //
2

One of the people I have come to admire most in the past few years is Leonie Haimson.

You may not know Leonie, but you should. Leonie lives in New York City. Her children attend public schools. She is New York City’s leading parent activist. She created an organization called “Class Size Matters.” She was a founder of Parents Across America.

For many people in New York City, especially parents, Leonie is their main source of news about public education in New York City and the nation. Leonie created a listserv (nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com) and the New York City parent blog (http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/).

Long before I had my own blog, I began blogging for the New York City parent blog and got to meet some of the smartest and most dedicated parents and teachers in the city.

In addition to being a tireless organizer, Leonie is also a talented writer. Her own blogs, both on the New York City parent blog and at Huffington Post, are always incisive. She is a brilliant analyst of research and is able to take apart whatever claims are made in studies, reports, and press releases. No one is able to put anything over on her. And she is fearless: She goes after the powerful with data, knowledge, and the wrath of a parent who cares deeply about children, and not just her own children.

It’s important to note that Class Size Matters and Parents Across America operate on something less than a shoestring. I tried at one point to get foundation funding, but every door was closed to a genuine parent group. As we know, the astroturf groups collect millions to advocate for privatization and to attack teachers. Since Leonie worries about class size and speaks out against privatization, she is not in tune with the agenda of the faux-reform movement.

I am on the board of Class Size Matters. We meet once a year. Needless to say, the board is unpaid, as Leonie is unpaid. She testifies at City Council meetings, at Assembly hearings, she issues press releases, she is a one-woman campaign to restore sanity to the New York City public schools and to public education across the nation. There have been times–rare, to be sure–when she felt discouraged. And I reminded her that it was our duty to outlast all the bad ideas now swamping education.

Those bad ideas will in due time be publicly understood to have failed. And when they are, one of those  most responsible for revealing their flaws and for pointing the way to wiser policies is Leonie Haimson.

Class Size Matters will have its annual dinner on June 12, honoring Regents Kathleen Cashin and Betty Rosa, both of whom have bravely resisted the popular tide of high-stakes testing and mean-spirited accountability. If you live in or near New York City, please come: http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2012/05/please-join-us-june-12-for-fourth.html

Diane

Categories Education Reform, Honor Roll, Parent Groups

Anti-Testing Movement Gains Momentum

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2012 //
7

The movement to slow down or stop or reverse high-stakes testing is moving forward at a rapid pace. This past week, the Houston Independent School Board endorsed a resolution opposing the overuse and misuse of standardized tests (http://blog.chron.com/k12zone/2012/05/hisd-joins-anti-testing-movement/). The resolution has now been endorsed by about 450 school boards in Texas, representing nearly half the state’s students.

The Texas resolution picked up steam after Robert Scott, the state commissioner of education, blasted the misuse of tests earlier this year. He said that testing had grown into the “be-all, end-all” of education and had become “the heart of the vampire.”(http://goo.gl/Az246)

Scott stepped down recently but it turns out that he spoke for vast numbers of Texans who are sick and tired of the tests that now control education and children’s lives.

Parents in Florida are now on board the anti-testing train, as are parents in New York.(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303505504577406603829668714.html?mod=WSJ_hp)

New parent organizations opposed to high-stakes testing seem to be forming in many cities and states.

I recently posed a question on Twitter that is relevant to this development. I asked, what happens in your district if children vomit while taking the test? I got many answers from teachers about the policy in their district. In some, the test must be placed in a plastic baggie and preserved. In others, the child must immediately retake the test. There were all sorts of variations on what to do when test anxiety causes a child to lose his or her breakfast.

Test anxiety is only part of the problem. Pineapplegate opened a national discussion about the quality of the tests and why they  are used to decide the fate of children and their teachers.

Diane

Categories Florida, New York, Parent Groups, Testing

A Parent Chooses

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2012 //
6

This is one of the best stories I have read in days.

Here is an example of a parent who said “enough is enough.”

http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/05/11/a-request-to-make-the-pearson-tests-public/?partner=rss&emc=rss
This parent filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding that the Pearson tests be released for public review.
He is right. Why should this company and this state have the power to make decisions about our children (and my grandchildren) without showing us what their criteria are?
I say to him, “Thank you!”
It’s time for parents to stand up and stop this top-down controlling of children and misuse of testing.
Standardized tests have their place as diagnostic tools. They have their place, used sparingly, for information purposes.
But they are being overused and misused.
Parents, say no.
Diane
Categories Parent Groups, Pearson, Testing
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