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Reader: The Power and Importance of Opting Out of Mandated State Testing

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2018 //
14

Trudy Jermanovich writes:

“I’m a retired teacher with 35 years experience teaching all grade levels and several subjects including “gifted” students. Luckily, most of my experience was before high stakes testing destroyed the autonomy of teachers. These state tests are primarily a vehicle for grading and closing some schools, diverting students to privately controlled charter schools, or to private schools through a state voucher system. This practice leads to further economic and racial segregation in our society. The yearly state tests are not indicative of anything except the social class of the parents. To be designated as a “gifted” child, there are a battery of tests and teacher observations which are required so that additional public funding is allocated to that student. Frankly, I would bet that often it is the parents of gifted or high achieving students who see through this farce and choose to have their child “Opt Out” of the yearly standardized state tests. The money and time which has been diverted to the collection of student data is a prime cause of many problems in our public schools. Becoming involved in the “Opt Out” movement is one way that concerned citizens can voice their outrage and help “the system” return to trusting the professionals in the classroom I urge everyone to seek out their state and local Opt Out group and stand up for real public schools before it’s too late. I want to thank all the people around the country who continue their support for this important movement.”

Categories Opt Out, Parents, Standardized Testing

Florida: The Parents’ Opt Out Guide

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2018 //
7

 

Testing season has started in Florida.

Test scores are used by the privatization industry to seize public schools and punish teachers.

Deny them the data!

Here is a guide written specifically for Florida parents about how to opt out of testing.

Starve the beast!

Opting out against punitive and pointless tests is the most effective way to make your voices heard.

Categories Education Industry, Florida, Opt Out, Parents, Privatization, Students, Testing

Detroit: Families, Students, and Teachers Speak Out Against “Choice”

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2018 //
8

 

At a town hall meeting in Detroit, students, families, and teachers spoke out against the damage caused to them by the false promise of “school choice.” Allie Gross covered the meeting for the Detroit Free Press.

One parent described the wonderful school attended by his child with cerebral palsy; it was to save money.

“In 2008, Alfred Wright enrolled his son, Timothy, in kindergarten at Oakman Elementary/Orthopedic, a small school on the Detroit’s northwest side that specialized in teaching students with special needs.

“Timothy had recently been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and the school — which came with spacious hallways, discreet changing rooms, small class sizes, and an on-site nurse — seemed like the perfect match.

“And, according to Wright, it was. For five years, he watched his son thrive in the close-knit and accepting community. Oakman not only was prepared to accommodate Timothy’s needs but it helped Wright, as a parent, better understand his child.

“But then the seemingly unexpected happened. In spring 2013, Roy Roberts, Detroit Public Schools’ second emergency manager, announced that Oakman would be one of six schools to close the following school year. It would add to the list of nearly 100 district schools that had shuttered since 2009, when the state took over DPS due to finance.

LWright and the rest of the parents were given two traditional public school options: one that was 1.2 miles away and the other that was 2.4 miles. Both choices fell within the bottom 5 percent of schools in the state for academic performance. More notably, neither were handicap accessible.

“All of the things we feared happened,” Wright said, explaining how issues at Henderson Academy, where Timothy ultimately ended up, ranged from bullying and isolation to a lack of knowledge and preparedness when it came to educating students with special needs.

”This reality — instability, uncertainty and inefficient resources — is why on Tuesday night, Wright and Timothy made their way to Wayne State University’s Law School to participate in an Education Town Hall hosted by the #WeChoose Campaign. A movement made up of 25 organizations from across that country — including the NAACP, Advancement Project, Dignity in Schools and Journey for Justice Alliance — the group is working to support racial justice and end educational inequality via, among many things, town hall gatherings that bring attention to what the group sees as “the illusion of school choice.”

“Parents, students, and educators do not choose the sabotage of their neighborhood schools, school closings, zero tolerance policies that target black and brown students, punitive standardized testing school deserts,” the group’s mission statement explains. “We choose equity, not the scam called school choice.”

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Failure, Parents, Privatization, Students, Teachers

History Lesson: The Founders Cared about Education Before the Constitution Was Adopted

By dianeravitch
January 15, 2018 //
78

We often hear that the word “education” is not included in the U.S. Constitution. That is true, but it does not mean that the Founding Fathers were indifferent to the importance of education. The U.S. Constitution was written and signed in 1787. Before the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1789, the Congress passed Ordinances that expressed their commitment to the importance of public schools.

Congress enacted the Land Ordinance of 1785 to show how the new lands in the western territories should be settled. This ordinance laid out new townships into 36 sections. Section 16, in the center, was to be set aside in every township in the new Western Territory for the maintenance of public schools. (“There shall be reserved the lot No. 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within the said township.”) The committee that wrote the Land Ordinance included Thomas Jefferson of (Virginia), Hugh Williamson (North Carolina), David Howell (Rhode Island), Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts) and Jacob Read (South Carolina).

Two years later came the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. This ordinance provided land in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions for settlement. (This region eventually broke into five states: Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Illinois [and a part of Minnesota]).

Of particular interest is Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance, which reads in part:

Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

These two ordinances were written by the Founding Fathers and the earliest Congresses, preceding the adoption of the Constitution. In addition to their central purpose, to lay out the rules for settlement, they were meant to encourage the development and proliferation of public schools in every township in every new state. The ordinances also prohibited the spread of slavery into the new territory and the new states after 1800.

While the Founding Fathers had high regard for religion, they did not want government to establish any religion. They incorporated this view into the First Amendment, which was part of the ten amendments included in the Bill of Rights, adopted on December 15, 1791. Responsility for the development and maintenance of public schools was left to the states, as is implicit in the Tenth Amendment.

The Founding Fathers were well aware of the history of religious warfare that had divided Europe for centuries and plunged the continent into chaos again and again. They wanted this new democracy to be a place of religious freedom, where each person could live in accord with his conscience without the interference or the support of government. In a land of many different forms of Christianity, as well as Judaism, the Founders wanted vigorous and successful public schools that neither favored nor opposed any religion.

It is ironic that four of the five states created under the terms of the Northwest Ordinance–Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin–have chosen to disregard the clearly stated wishes of our Founding Fathers. The Northwest Ordinance did not set aside a section for religious schools or private schools. Section 16 in every town was for public schools.

Categories History, Parents, Religion

New York City: Parent Leader Seeks to Block Release of Student Info to Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2017 //
20

Johanna Garcia, a New York City public school parent and president of her district’s Community Education Council, has lodged a formal complaint to the U.S. Department of Education about the city Department of Education’s policy of turning over student records to charter schools for their marketing and recruitment campaigns.

Here is the press release.

Question: we have heard for years about charter school waiting lists, about their need for more seats. Why do they need to spend so much effort and money on recruitment and marketing if these wait lists actually exist? Why do they need to extract students names and addresses (and more) from the public schools if they have wait lists?

Leonie Haimson writes about Johanna Garcia’s complaint here:

“In her complaint, Johanna questions whether charter operators are receiving students’ test scores, grades, English learner and/or disability status from DOE in addition to their contact information, based on her personal experience with the selective charter recruitment of her three children. More evidence for this possibility is also implied by an email that I received from the DOE Chief Privacy Officer Joe Baranello, in response to my inquiry about the legal status of these disclosures.

“DOE has voluntarily supplied the contact information for students and families without parental consent to Success Academy and other charter schools since at least 2006 and perhaps before, as revealed in emails FOILed by reporter Juan Gonzalez in 2010 and cited below.

“As Eva Moskowitz wrote Klein in December 2007, she needed this information to “mail 10-12 times to elementary and preK families” so that she could grow her “market share.” Attention has been paid recently to Moskowitz’ current goal of expanding to 100 charter schools, and her aggressive expansion plans will be facilitated by SUNY’s recent agreement to change their regulations, exempting her from teacher certification rules and allowing her to hire teachers with just a few weeks of training to staff her schools.

“Just as critical to her plans for rapid expansion is her ability to send multiple mailings to families for recruiting purposes. In 2010, it was estimated that Success Academy spent $1.6 million in the 2009-2010 school year alone on recruitment and promotion costs, including mailings and ads, amounting to $1300 for each new enrolled student. The need to do a massive amount of outreach to fill seats is intensified by the fact that only half of the students who win Success Academy admissions lotteries actually enroll in her schools, according to a new study.

“In stark contrast to DOE’s voluntary and continuing practice of helping charter schools recruit students by providing them with the personal information of NYC public school students, the Nashville school board has recently refused to provide their students’ contact information to charter schools, prompting a lawsuit filed against them by the State Education Commissioner. The Commissioner cites a Tennessee law passed by the Legislature in August that she claims requires the district to share student contact information with charters.

“In response, Nashville attorneys argue that the release of information to charter operators for the purpose of marketing their schools to families is forbidden by FERPA, as this would be a commercial use of the data. Last spring, a Nashville charter school agreed to pay parents $2.2 million to settle a class action lawsuit against them for spamming them with text messages urging them to enroll their children in the school.”

Open the post to read it in full and to follow the links.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Parents, Privacy, Privatization, Tennessee

The Parents’ Letter to Eva Moskowitz

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2017 //
72

A large group of parents wrote a letter of complaint to Eva Moskowitz about the harsh discipline at their Success Academy school in her new space, which appears to attract a white, middle-class enrollment. They objected to the no-excuses code, which they say broke their children’s spirit.

Here is the parents’ letter.

https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2017/10/hudson-yards-success-charter-parents-to.html

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Discipline, Harlem Success Academy, Parents

Parents Complain about Eva’s Boot Camp Discipline in Model School

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2017 //
30

A group of parents at Eva Moskowitz’s New $68 Million flagship Success Academy don’t like the boot camp discipline and heavy homework nightly.

“Moskowitz’s heavily hyped Success Academy Hudson Yards Middle School, which so far enrolls about 200 kids in grades five and six, is meant to be a model for her to share her education gospel with schools from around the world through a new Education Institute that was launched at the school in June.

“But already Moskowitz has encountered some difficulties.

“An anonymous group of parents at the school has sent scathing letters to Moskowitz and Hudson Yards Principal Malik Russell that decry what they call draconian disciplinary tactics.

“The parents charge Russell gives detention for minor infractions such as failing to clasp their hands, failing to make eye contact and inadvertently breaking wind in class.

“It’s like a military-style boot camp,” said one of the parents, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.

“The kids have two hours of homework a night,” the parent added. “They don’t have time for playdates, they have no time for a life.”

As Trump would say, “they knew what they signed up for.” Draconian discipline.

As Betsy DeVos would say, “Get out and make another choice.”

Categories Discipline, Harlem Success Academy, Parents

North Carolina Forges Ahead with Plan to Copy Tennessee’s Failed “Achievement School District”

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2017 //
21

Five years ago, Tennessee was flush with cash from its Race to the Top grant, and it created a state takeover plan called the “Achievement School District.” The idea was to identify the schools with the lowest test scores and give them to private companies to manage. The promise was explicit: within five years, the lowest-performing schools would join the ranks of the highest-performing schools thanks to the magic of privatization. In the five years since, two leaders have departed, and the schools that were privatized remain among the lowest performing in the state.

North Carolina had to copy this model–after all, it was recommended by ALEC, the corporate bill mill. They had to copy it even after hearing testimony from a Vanderbilt researcher who found no evidence that the ASD was on track to meet its goal.

Given the failure of the Tennessee ASD, North Carolina continued to pursue the idea but renamed it: the North Carolina Ipportunity School District. Same plan, new name. Six schools across the state are on the state’s list for ending local control.

Educators in Durham are fighting back. Two Durham schools are targeted for takeover, and the Durham community says NO.

The elected school board says it will fight the state takeover.

The legislature hasn’t considered the impact of their budget cuts or their attacks on the teaching profession or the decline of teacher salaries as causes of poor performance. And of course they have not given a thought to poverty and segregation.

For some inexplicable reason, Republicans have become the enemies of local control. They think that only the state can fix schools, despite the abysmal results of the Tennessee ASD.

Recently NC elected a young TFA alum to be its state superintendent. He taught for two years but there’s no reason to believe he knows how to turn around schools, never having done it.

Nothing fails like copying failure.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, North Carolina, Parents, Privatization, Tennessee

New York: Senator John Flanagan Hates Public Schools, Proposes Permanent Tax Cap

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2017 //
42

In 2011, with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s blessing, the New York State Legislature enacted a 2% property tax cap for spending on public schools. Expenses and inflation might be greater than 2%, but that doesn’t matter. The only way to raise the tax cap is for a district to pass a bill by a super-majority of 60%. This is blatantly undemocratic, since elections and referenda are typically adopted by a vote of 50% plus 1, not 60%.

Now, Senator John Flanagan–one of the state’s most virulent opponents of public schools–has proposed making the 2% tax cap permanent.

Flanagan loves charter schools but not in his district.

He represents an affluent district in Suffolk County on Long Island (including the beautiful town of Smithtown and portions of Huntington and Brookhaven), the epicenter of the opt out movement.

It is past time for the parents of his district to wake up and throw him out. Surely there is someone who can fairly represent the children and families of his district. He does not.

Categories Accountability, New York, Opt Out, Parents

New York: NYSAPE Blasts New Standards as a Pathetic Compromise

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2017 //
11

The New York State Allies for Public Education–the state’s leaders of the opt out movement–blasted the new standards adopted by the Board of Regents as nothing more than a rebranding of the hated Common Core standards.

A few changes were made in hopes of mollifying critics, but the standards are the same old test-based accountability system. A failed system survives.

“Parents are no longer content with crumbs, baby steps, and the lesser of evils. These are our children and they are running out of time. For many it is already too late. This was a huge opportunity to put New York on the right educational path and once again we chose the path of test-based accountability and standards written without grade-level practitioner expertise. We intend to hold the Regents to their promise that they will continue to revise the Next Generation Learning Standards and add more Opportunity to Learn factors to our accountability system. And we will continue to ensure that schools pay attention to these issues and focus on providing students with what matters: a quality education and a real chance to thrive.”

Go, NYSAPE!

Categories Common Core, Hoax, New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Parents
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