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Texas Parent Says: Count Me Out of State Testing

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2012 //
31

This letter is posted on Facebook. The parent sent it to me:

Dear (school principal),

This letter is to respectfully inform you of the decision my husband and I have made to opt our children out of the 3rd grade STAAR tests on Apr. 24 and 25 and the make-up tests on Apr. 26 and 27. We understand it is Austin ISD’s position that “by law there is no opt out for students” and that even though the test will not count towards school ratings this year, our children’s “unexcused” absences may negatively impact the school’s Adequate Yearly Progress report. We have been active, involved members of the school community, and our family has always supported the school and its many wonderful teachers, but after long and careful thought about what is best for our children and a great deal of reading on the topic of high-stakes standardized testing, we feel we must act on our convictions and engage in civil disobedience rather than be coerced into participating in a testing system that is deeply flawed morally and pedagogically, the result of corporate greed and political agendas that do not serve our children or anyone else’s.

The decision to engage in civil disobedience is not an easy one, and I would like to explain how we came to it. Our opt out story begins exactly two years ago when David, then a first-grader, came home from school and blurted out, “I hate the TAKS test!” At a loss to understand how he could be so upset about a test he didn’t have to take, I started asking questions and was stunned to learn that his class had had a substitute most of TAKS week because his teacher was required to serve as a proctor for the test. The substitute, it seems, was little more than an unenthusiastic babysitter who sat at her desk and handed out worksheets day after day. As David understood it, she told the children they couldn’t use the bathroom so much because the noise of the flushing toilet would disturb a child testing in the next room.

As the mother of first graders, the TAKS had barely been on my radar, but when I questioned David further, I was upset to have to learn from my seven-year-old what impact the TAKS was having on the entire school: all specials and recess had been cancelled not only for testing grades but for every grade.

In his email to school administrators explaining that “Parents may not opt out of testing of any kind,” AISD General Counsel Mel Waxler encourages “parents who believe the standardized tests place undue pressure on their students . . . to meet with their child’s school counselor to develop solutions tailored to their child’s needs.” But “undue pressure” is endemic in high-stakes testing! When schools are virtually hermetically sealed during testing weeks, when all visitors, mentors, and parents who just want to have lunch with their child in the cafeteria are virtually banned from the school, when everyone must tiptoe and whisper in the hallways, when adults responsible for children’s well-being tell them they can’t go to the bathroom because the toilet flushing makes too much noise, children absorb it all, and the damage is done. I vividly recall my own “culture shock” seeing the window in the door of the testing coordinator’s office covered in black construction paper. No matter that I was an adult who didn’t have to take the test, even I felt anxious.

It was after I posted a rant on the school listserv the following fall, hoping to start a discussion with the new school year, that I learned I needed to redirect my outrage. Without legislative change, the teachers and administrators, too, are under “undue pressure,” trapped in an education system in which there is way too much emphasis placed on standardized test scores.

I learned from talking with you after your STAAR presentation on March 20 that what children endured with the TAKS was even worse than I had realized. I had had no idea that because the test had no time limit, some children were still testing at 5:30pm and later, laying their head down to nap when too tired to continue. Since the STAAR is timed, hopefully no child will be testing into the evening, but a four-hour exam for third graders is still far too long.

You explained to me that it’s not really a four-hour test but a four-hour testing window, and you fully expected the third-graders to finish the test in 2 to 2 1/2 hours, after which they would return to their usual schedule.

I’m still concerned that most of testing week will be far from “learning as usual.” First of all, Ms. A, the AISD administrator you referred me to, confirmed that the test will contain field test items and “the inclusion of field test items will make for a longer [than four-hour] exam.” Almost certainly there will be at least a few children who use most or all of the time allowed, so for two days in a row many children may be forced to sit in their seats after finishing a long, stressful exam and read silently for over an hour while others struggle to finish the test. Also, unlike a normal day, not only are all specials cancelled but so, too, are afterschool classes, which I cannot understand the need for now that there is a time limit on the test and presumably no students will be testing anywhere in the school at that time. The sad irony is that it’s the creativity class that’s cancelled.

I’m even more concerned about the quality of the test. The dearth of information from TEA about how the STAAR was written and field-tested casts doubt on the validity of the test itself as an assessment tool. Are the test items fair and well written? Do they measure what they’re intended to measure?

I emailed Ms. A with several questions about the STAAR. First, I asked if I might be able to see not only sample test questions but also the corresponding standards a sample question assesses to help clarify for me the difference between standards for the “current year’s grade,” vs. “readiness for the next grade” vs. “readiness for the year after that” (from your PowerPoint presentation). Without examples, this is obfuscating language. It seems to me that success at the current grade in itself should indicate readiness for what comes next. Ms. A took the time to send me what sample test items she could, and I sincerely appreciate the effort she put into her reply to my email, just as I do yours. Unfortunately, what I was looking for is not available.

The only information I could find pertaining to STAAR field-testing on the TEA website states, “field-test items will, for the most part, be imbedded in the actual test,” (as Ms. A confirmed) but nothing about how the test has been field-tested. After reading the Pearson test passage about a sleeveless pineapple that’s been in the news and learning that same nonsensical passage with its ridiculous questions has been in several Pearson tests, I’m more skeptical than ever about the quality of test items on the STAAR, which is produced by Pearson.

Based on all I’ve read, even if I could confirm the test questions are valid and well written, I still could not agree with you that the STAAR is of value to parents because, as you say, it will “provide valuable information on [a] child’s performance relative to others in the school, district, and state.” Just as researchers have rejected TAKS test results as bad data, so, no doubt, will they dismiss the results of the STAAR, another criterion-based test with arbitrary passing scores, which won’t even be decided for this year’s test until fall!

How did we get here? The obsession with high-stakes testing, it seems, began with NCLB; Education Commissioner Robert Scott recently called the current system a “perversion” of what was originally intended. Even when research shows that standardized testing is a poor measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness, even when we know a test-driven curriculum does not “promote innovation, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking” (National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing), our legislators pretend the emperor has clothes. Why?

Superintendent John Kuhn speaks truth to power when he says, “Follow the money and you will find where our education dollars go and who benefits the most from those dollars. You will not find teachers. You will not find students. You will not find parents. You will not find effective teaching and learning. You will find Pearson [with whom the state of Texas has a $500 million contract] and legislators,” and “when it’s about profit, it’s not about kids.”

A system that fails to cultivate creativity and innovation will never prepare our children for the future. “The Creativity Crisis” describes Indiana University professor Jonathan Plucker’s tour of China, where “there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach. Plucker recently toured a number of such schools in Shanghai and Beijing. He was amazed by a boy who, for a class science project, rigged a tracking device for his moped with parts from a cell phone. When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. ‘After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,’ Plucker says. ‘They said, “You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.”‘”

As strongly as we feel against high-stakes testing, we would not be opting our children out without their full support. When it came time to ask both boys, “What would you say if I told you that you could choose whether to take the STAAR test or not?” David started cheering and hugged me and Paul grinned. I’ve explained to them the gist of what I’ve learned and assured them that we know and their teachers know they’re fully capable of passing the test; opting out has nothing to do with concern they won’t pass. They understand that they will miss out on a post-test celebration, and they’re fine with it. “That’s okay, Mom, I’ve missed other parties.”

In fact, I briefly considered asking their teachers if they would allow them to do a research project as an alternative challenge to earn the right to attend the party, but when I started to tell David and Paul about my idea, I got no further than “research project.” David, who this year grew from a fact sponge into a researcher, was literally bouncing up and down with excitement, “I LOVE research projects! I want to research more about deep ocean creatures and learn more about creatures I haven’t studied yet! I want to make a poster, I love making posters!” Paul, who loves learning about the natural world just as much as his brother, was very excited, too. At that moment I realized they really just want to learn and have fun doing it, no reward necessary, and the knot in my stomach over the decision to opt out completely disappeared.

We are taking full advantage of opt out week and David and Paul will be night fishing in Port Aransas and visiting the Texas State Aquarium, where they will gather information for a poster display. On Thursday they will have a tour of Amy’s Ice Cream, go to Amy’s website for a reading scavenger hunt, and use the menu for math practice.

To conclude, our reasons for opting out of the STAAR are twofold: to do what we feel is best for our children and to protest against the high-stakes testing industry by choosing not to participate in it. Now that the school board has passed the resolution on high-stakes testing, my hope is that the momentum will build and the legislature will gather the political will to tackle real education reform. When you see David and Paul next week, you might ask them what they learned this week. If you do, you’re likely to be buried under a happy avalanche of information about the ocean and ice cream.

Sincerely,
Texas Parent Against High-Stakes Testing

Categories Education Reform, Parents, Testing, Texas

Randi Weingarten Responds to Parent Trigger Film

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2012 //
9
TO:     Interested Parties

From:  AFT President Randi Weingarten

Date:   August 28, 2012

RE:      “Won’t Back Down”
 

 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

One can’t help but be moved by the characters and story portrayed in Walden Media’s film “Won’t Back Down.” The film is successful in driving home the sense of urgency parents and educators feel to do everything they can to provide the best possible education for their children. That is abundantly evident in this film—it’s what I hear as I visit schools across the country, and it’s what I heard when I sat down with parent and community groups from across the country last week.

We share that pain and frustration. And we firmly believe that every public school should be a school where every parent would want to send his or her child and where every teacher would want to teach. Unfortunately, using the most blatant stereotypes and caricatures I have ever seen—even worse than those in “Waiting for ‘Superman’”—the film affixes blame on the wrong culprit: America’s teachers unions.

As a former public school teacher and president of the American Federation of Teachers, I have spent my entire adult life working on behalf of children and teachers. After viewing this film, I can tell you that if I had taught at that school, and if I were a member of that union, I would have joined the characters played by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis. I would have led the effort to mobilize parents and teachers to turn around that school myself.

I don’t recognize the teachers portrayed in this movie, and I don’t recognize that union. The teachers I know are women and men who have devoted their lives to helping children learn and grow and reach their full potential. These women and men come in early, stay late to mentor and tutor students, coach sports teams, advise the student council, work through lunch breaks, purchase school supplies using money from their own pockets, and spend their evenings planning lessons, grading papers and talking to parents. Yet their efforts, and the care with which they approach their work, are nowhere to be seen in this film.

This movie could have been a great opportunity to bring parents and teachers together to launch a national movement focused on real teacher and parent collaboration to help all children. Instead, this fictional portrayal, which makes the unions the culprit for all of the problems facing our schools, is divisive and demoralizes millions of great teachers. America’s teachers are already being asked to do more with less—budgets have been slashed, 300,000 teachers have been laid off since the start of the recession, class sizes have spiked, and more and more children are falling into poverty. And teachers are being demonized, marginalized and shamed by politicians and elites who want to undermine and dismiss their reform efforts.

Parent engagement is essential to ensuring children thrive in the classroom. The power of partnerships between parents, teachers and the community is at the heart of school change.

But instead of focusing on real parent empowerment and how communities can come together to help all children succeed, “Won’t Back Down” offers parents a false choice—you’re either for students or for teachers, you can either live with a low-performing school or take dramatic, disruptive action to shut a school down.

Real parent engagement means establishing meaningful ways for parents to be real partners in their children’s public education from the beginning—not just when a school is failing. The goal should be to never let a school get to that point. Parents are actually calling for real investments in their neighborhood public schools and that should be our collective focus. 

Across the country, AFT teachers and leaders are partnering with parents and community groups to create real parent engagement that strengthens schools and neighborhoods:

  • In the South Bronx, the Community Collaborative to Improve District 9 Schools (CC9) partnered with the United Federation of Teachers on a school reform agenda focused on teacher quality, school leadership and family-school partnerships. Through the partnership, teachers participated in neighborhood walks to visit with the families of their students. And they established the lead teacher program, which allowed experienced teachers to provide mentoring and guidance to newer and struggling teachers. CC9 members were involved in hiring the lead teachers.
     
  • In Minnesota, AFT affiliates negotiated the Parent-Teacher Home Visit Project into their contract, training teachers to visit their students’ families to establish bonds with parents outside of the school environment and help parents support their children’s learning. And the AFT’s affiliate in St. Paul surveyed parents to get their concerns and thoughts about their schools, and then incorporated the results into their contract negotiations. 
     
  • In Connecticut, the AFT helped create a law that provided an avenue for parents to become involved in their children’s schools. The 2011 law requires that certain low-performing schools create School Governance Councils to develop parental involvement policies and make recommendations on administrator hiring and, ultimately, on the school improvement plan. School councils are composed of parents, teachers and community members, with parents having a majority. This year, Connecticut’s new education reform law requires the creation of such councils in every low-performing school in the state.
     
  • In Cincinnati and elsewhere, AFT locals are working to mitigate the impact that poverty and other out-of-school factors have on students by offering wraparound services, including health and mental health services, meal programs, tutoring, counseling and after-school programs. Many of the services offered in Cincinnati schools were based on survey responses from neighborhood parents on what was needed for children and the neighborhood.
     
  • The AFT is leading a coalition of businesses, community groups, parents and educators to completely transform the educational and economic opportunities available to children and families in McDowell County, W.Va.
     
  • The AFT worked with a British corporation to develop a digital filing cabinet of lesson plans and resources for teachers called Share My Lesson. It’s an online community for teachers to share their best ideas and collaborate with one another.  

Sadly, this film chooses to ignore these success stories and the many others happening across the county. Instead, it promotes the deceptively named “parent trigger” laws, which are marketed as parent-empowerment laws. Actually, these laws deny both parents and teachers a voice in improving schools and helping children, by using parents to give control of our schools over to for-profit corporations. Parent trigger laws are being pushed by organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which Walden Media owner and oil billionaire Philip Anschutz helps fund.

The film advances a policy that in reality limits teacher and parent voices, the very voices that are celebrated and empowered in the movie.
 
In real life, there have been only two attempts to pull the parent trigger. One never made it to the approval process. In Adelanto, Calif., where the trigger petition is still in progress, many parents report feeling deceived by the for-profit charter-backed organizers who came in to gather petitions. They actually sued to take their signatures back when they found out they were being used to give their school away to a charter company.

Confusing the matter even further, those supporting the parent trigger asked the court to rule that once a signature was on a petition, it could not be rescinded. The court ruled in their favor, stating that the parent trigger law did not allow for rescinded signatures. But just this month, the Adelanto school board rejected the parent trigger proponents’ call for a charter operator and instead instituted numerous reforms including the formation of a community advisory council, an extended school day and improved technology, among other reforms. In both situations, the use of the parent trigger law has been disruptive and divided the school community. 
 
That’s one reason why a Florida parent coalition representing half a million parents joined with the Florida PTA and others to oppose parent trigger legislation when the bill was proposed there last year. They knew from the California parents’ experience that it would put all the power in the hands of for-profit companies, not public school parents.

It must be pointed out that the film contains several egregiously misleading scenes with the sole purpose of undermining people’s confidence in public education, public school teachers and teachers unions.
 
The film advances the “bad teacher” narrative through the character of Deborah. This teacher barks at students from her desk, uses her cell phone in class, refuses to let students use the restroom, puts children in a closet as a disciplinary measure and resists all reform efforts, yet miraculously remains employed at the school. She tells parents that she refuses to stay after school hours to help her students, and Davis’ character in the film asserts that union rules prohibit teachers from working past 3 p.m., an egregious lie. I know of no contract or local union that would ever prevent a teacher from remaining after school to help a student or do the work necessary to help children.

Let’s be clear—this teacher, or any teacher who engages in such deplorable actions against children, should be fired for this outrageous behavior.
 
The film features the union leader sharing a quote that anti-public education ideologues and right-wing politicians often attribute to former AFT president Albert Shanker: “When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.” Despite the frequency with which corporate interests claim Shanker said this, a review of news reports, speeches, and interviews with Shanker’s aides and biographers, and even an analysis by the Washington Post, failed to find any person or report that could corroborate the statement. 

This is not the only time the movie resorts to falsehoods and anti-union stereotypes. Viola Davis’ character tells other teachers that the new school they create cannot be unionized because the union would restrict their ability to implement reforms that help kids. This is a false—unions are democratic organizations made up of individual educators, and collective bargaining is the process by which individuals come together to make things better. Many examples demonstrate that far from blocking reform efforts, unions fight for the things children need to thrive in school, like safe classrooms and smaller class sizes. And unions empower educators to win the tools and voice they need to help children.

Half of all teachers in the United States do not have collective bargaining contracts. The reality is that the states with the highest union density—states such as Maryland, Massachusetts and Minnesota—are the states that lead the nation in student achievement. And a recent Education Sector survey of teachers made clear that America’s teachers—both union and nonunion—recognize the importance of unions in strengthening the teaching profession and our public schools.
 
Though deeply unfortunate, it is also unsurprising that “Won’t Back Down” is such a false and misleading depiction of teachers and unions. Anschutz’s business partner is on record saying that he intends to use Walden Media (which also produced the equally misleading “Waiting for ‘Superman’”), as way for him to promote their values.
 
A look at the organizations in which Anschutz invests makes those values crystal clear. He has funded 20 organizations, including ALEC, Americans for Prosperity and the National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation. All of these groups operate against the public interest in favor of corporate interests, and all of them actively oppose collective bargaining rights and other benefits for workers. Anschutz has also invested millions in anti-gay and extreme religious-right organizations such as the Promise Keepers, whose founder declared that “homosexuality is an abomination against almighty God,” and organizations affiliated with Focus on the Family. 
 
The last thing that the country and the debate over public education reform needs is another movie that maligns teachers, caricatures teachers unions and misleads the American public about what is happening in public education today. Children deserve great schools. That’s how we build great communities. And real public education reform comes from teachers, parents and communities working together to help all kids thrive.

I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues further. To learn more about what AFT members are doing to help all children succeed, contact Marcus Mrowka at 202-531-0689 or mmrowka@aft.org.

 

Categories ALEC, California, Charter Schools, Florida, Parent trigger, Parents, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

What Parents Need to Know about “Reform”

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2012 //
3

Carol Burris has written an article addressed to parents, explaining what tests are good for and how they are being misused.

Send this to your friends, especially if they are public school parents.

She identifies three “reforms” that parents should be concerned about, involving the misuse of testing.

This is the “reform” that you should keep your eye on:

The amassing of individual student scores in national and state databases.

State and national databases are being created in order to analyze and house students’ test scores. No parental permission is required. I wonder why not. Students who take the SAT must sign off before we send their scores to colleges. Before my high school’s students could participate in the National Educational Longitudinal Study, they needed written permission from their parents. Yet, in New York, massive amounts of student data are now being collected and sent beyond the school without parental permission —end of year course grades, test scores, attendance, ethnicity, disabilities and the kinds of modifications that students receive. This data will be used to evaluate teachers, schools, schools of education and perhaps for other purposes yet unknown. Schools are no longer reporting collective data; we are now sending individual student data. Although the name remains in the district, what assurances do parents truly have that future databases will not be connected and used for other purposes? The more data that is sent, the easier it will be to identify the individual student.

Eleven states have agreed to give confidential teacher and student data for free to a shared learning collaborative funded by Bill Gates and run byMurdoch’s Wireless Corp. Wireless received $44 million for the project. With Common Core State Standards testing, such databases are expected to expand. Funding for data warehousing siphons taxpayer dollars from the classroom to corporations like Wireless and Pearson. Because Common Core testing will be computer-based, the purchase of hardware, software and upgrades will consume school budgets, while providing profits for the testing and computer industries.

Although all of the above is in motion, it can be modified or stopped. Parents should speak to their local PTAs and School Boards, as well as their legislators. They should ask questions regarding what data is being collected and to whom it is sent.

Burris recommends that:

It is time to get Back to Basics. Let’s make sure that every test a student takes is used to measure and enhance her learning, not for adult, high-stakes purposes. Basic commonsense tells us that student test results belong to families, not databases. Remind politicians that the relationship between student and teacher, not student and test helps our young people get through life’s challenges. Finally, let’s return to the basic purpose of public schooling — to promote the academic, social and emotional growth of our children. It is the role of schools to develop healthy and productive citizens, not master test takers.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Parents, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Texas

The Power of Involved Parents

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2012 //
23

This parent writes about how he and his wife decided to enroll their children in an urban public school and to remain closely involved in their schooling and their lives. As black parents, they knew all the risks, and they decided not to move to the suburbs. As college graduates, they wanted the best for their children, and they made an informed choice.

As it happened, both kids got a good education, both went to top colleges, and both are on their way to good professional careers.

This is a testament to the power of informed parenting.

In the Scholastic-Gates survey of teachers, teachers were asked what they wanted most. The greatest number said they wanted families to be more involved. (What mattered least: longer school days and hours, merit pay).

This family showed what a difference it makes when families do their share–and more.

Categories Parents

What We Can Learn from the New PDK/Gallup Poll

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2012 //
2

The annual Phi Delta Kappa-Gallup poll on education was released today.

The sponsors characterize public opinion as split, which is true for many issues.

We must see this poll in the context of an unprecedented, well-funded campaign to demonize public schools and their teachers over at least the past two years, and by some reckoning, even longer.

The media has parroted endlessly the assertion that our public schools are failures, they are (as Bill Gates memorably said to the nation’s governors in 2005) “obsolete,” and “the system is broken.” How many times have you heard those phrases? How many television specials have you seen claiming that our education system is disastrous? And along comes “Waiting for ‘Superman'” with its propagandistic attack on public education in cities and suburbs alike and its appeal for privatization. Add to that Arne Duncan’s faithful parroting of the claims of the critics.

That is the context, and it is remarkable that Americans continue to believe in the schools they know best and to understand what their most critical need is.

Here are the salient findings:

1. Americans have a low opinion of American education (how could they not, given the bombardment of criticism?): only 18% give it an A or B. And here is the real accomplishment of the corporate reformers: Those who judge American education as a D or F have increased from 22% to 30% in the past 20 years. Actually, their success in smearing U.S. education is even greater, because in 2002, before the implementation of NCLB, only 16% judged the nation’s schools so harshly. So the reform campaign has doubled the proportion of Americans who think the nation’s schools deserve a D or F.

2. When asked to evaluate the schools in their own community, 48% give them an A or B, which is the highest rating in 20 years.

3. When asked to evaluate the school their oldest child attends, an astonishing 77% give it an A or B. This is the highest rating in 20 years. Only 6% give it a D or F. This question elicits the views of informed consumers, the people who refer to a real school, not the hypothetical school system that is lambasted every other day in the national press or condemned as “obsolete” by Bill Gates.

4. When asked whether they have trust and confidence in teachers, 71% said yes. Americans continue to respect and admire teachers, despite the nonstop public bashing of them in the media.

5. When asked whether standardized test scores should be used to evaluate teachers, opinion split 52-47 in favor. Considering that the public has heard nonstop endorsements of this bad idea from President Obama, Secretary Duncan, and most other political figures–and very limited dissent–it is surprising that opinion is almost equally divided. How did so many Americans manage to figure out that this idea is problematic at best?

6. When people were asked to describe the teachers who had the greatest influence in their lives, they used words like caring, compassionate, motivating, and inspiring. Interesting that few remembered the teachers who raised their test scores.

7. There has been a big change in what the public sees as the biggest problems facing the schools today. Ten years ago, the biggest concerns were about discipline (fighting, gangs, drugs, lack of discipline, overcrowding). Today, the biggest problem that the public sees, by far, is lack of financial support. 35% chose that option. Among public school parents, it was 43%. Concerns about discipline almost faded away in comparison to concerns about the lack of financial support for the schools.

8. On the subject of vouchers, there was a surprising increase in the proportion who would support “allowing students to choose a private school at public expense.” It increased from 34% to 44%, which is a big jump. I recommend that future questioning ask about support to allow students “to choose a private or religious school at public expense.” That would be closer to the reality of voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, D.C., Louisiana, Ohio, and Indiana.

9. On the subject of charters, public opinion dipped, from an approval rating of 70% in 2011 to 66% in 2012. It will be interesting to see where this number goes as the public begins to understand more about charters in their own communities.

10. A question about the parent trigger was so vacuous as to be misleading. The question was “Some states are considering laws that allow parents to petition to remove the leadership and staff at failing schools. Do you favor or oppose such laws?” 70% favor, 76% of public school parents favor. This is a misleading question, however, as the parent trigger is not a matter of simply allowing parents to sign a petition, but of allowing parents to take control of a public school and hand it over to private management. My guess is that the public doesn’t know much about the parent trigger concept and hasn’t heard a discussion about the pros and cons. So, I don’t put much stock in the response–after all, why shouldn’t parents have the right to sign a petition to change the staff at their school? It does show how clever the corporate reformers are in framing issues that advance privatization and doing it in ways that are deceptive and alluring.

11. In a series of questions about the Common Core standards, most people believe they are a good thing and that they will make the nation more competitive globally; about half think they will improve the quality of education while 40% think they will have no effect. These answers exemplify why polls of this kind must be viewed with caution. I am willing to bet that the majority of respondents has no idea what the Common Core standards are; and willing to bet that 98% have never read them.

In future versions of the poll, I hope that questions will be asked about for-profit schools, privatization, and vouchers for religious schools. These are big issues today, and the poll should ask about them.

My takeaway from the 2012 poll is that the corporate reform movement has succeeded in increasing support for vouchers, but that the American public continues to have a remarkably high opinion of the schools and teachers they know best despite the concerted efforts of the reformers to undermine those beliefs. This is an instance where evidence trumps ideology. The reformers have not yet been able to destroy the bonds between the American people and their community’s schools.

 

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Opinion Polling, Parent trigger, Parents, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, US Education, Vouchers

Texas Parents Plan Rally for Chicago Teachers

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2012 //
3

Just in:

Here in Austin, Texas on Saturday, August 25th 7:00-9:00 pm we’ll be having a rally to support the Chicago teachers. Parents supporting teachers. Solidarity!
TexasParentsOptOutStateTests@yahoo.com
Categories Chicago, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Parents, Texas

A Parent’s Letter to Frank Bruni of the New York Times

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2012 //
33

I just received this comment. This parent should be invited to appear on NBC’s “Education Nation,” on Morning Joe, on Rachel Maddow, on CNN’s “Newsroom,” and on any other talk show, most of which put people on camera who have never been public school parents or teachers or principals. She is more knowledgeable than Michelle Rhee or Bill Gates or any of the other “reformers”:

Dear Dr. Ravitch,I was composing my own letter to Frank Bruni early this morning, and didn’t see your post until later. Thanks, as always, for your advocacy. Below is a copy of the letter I emailed to Mr. Bruni this morning.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Poyourow

Dear Mr. Bruni,

While I usually enjoy your opinion articles, I was dismayed by yesterday’s article on parent trigger laws. It seems to me that you do not know much about the issue and are relying for your talking points on the PR campaigns of the groups that support them, ironically not grass-roots parents’ groups but primarily astroturf groups with financial, policy, and personnel links reaching back to groups like ALEC (groups which you are certainly no fan of when it comes to their impact on other policy areas).

You seem to take for granted several ideas I would challenge you on: (1) that American public schools and teachers are failing, (2) that middle-class families should desert urban, public schools, (3) that charter schools are the answer to any problems in the current public educational system, and (4) that parent trigger laws would a helpful tool for remedying problems.

For the record, I am a parent with two children in my neighborhood public school in Philadelphia. Our school manages to hold together and serve well a coalition of low-income, blue-collar, and middle-class families with striking racial as well as socioeconomic diversity in a Philadelphia neighborhood–61% of our students are economically disadvantaged, 45% white, 45% black, 5% Latino, and 5% multiracial and other designations. We are not a rich school and cannot stage fundraisers such as the ones held by the Upper West Side public schools in NYC profiled in the NYT earlier this summer. In fact, we (and all public schools in PA) were hit hard by the education budget cuts enacted when a wave of extremist state legislators came into our state government in 2010. $1 billion has been cut from public education statewide in PA, and it has impacted our school heavily, raising class sizes while stripping the school of necessary teaching and support personnel, contracting the curriculum (music and language teachers were cut last year, and the school had no money previously for an art teacher), and leaving kids behind academically without the tutoring previously provided.

Yet our school remains strong, continuing to make AYP and to attract neighborhood parents, primarily because of the cross-class coalition using the school. Even if we haven’t raised $1 million for our school, many parents volunteer, run after-school clubs, and try to solicit community resources to help the school provide what has been eliminated because of cuts at the state level. The reward is that our children get to attend an integrated, academically sound public school in our city neighborhood that is open to all. We are part of a growing movement in several cities (including NYC) that has parents choosing to invest their time and energy in public schools, not only for their own families’ good but to strengthen the fabric of their neighborhoods and cities.

Which brings me back to your op-ed. I am a public school parent–not a teacher and not a union employee. I find the representations of the state of public education in the U.S. promulgated by films such as “Won’t Back Down” and “Waiting for Superman” to be harmful and inaccurate depictions of the current dilemmas faced by public school students, parents, and teachers.

Private schools have done a good sales job over the last decade or so, feeding the cultural panic among middle-class parents, creating anxieties in them that they cannot use the public schools and must purchase high-priced private schooling, tutoring, etc. at any price if their children are to succeed in life academically and economically. However, it is the class and educational background of parents that is the most critical variable in children’s success. While many currently make the claim (which you echo) that U.S. public schools are way behind other countries, when socioeconomic class is taken into account, American students do as well or better than the countries we say we wish to emulate. It is poverty that is our greatest problem. Middle-class children who attend urban public schools, even those in schools with very low average scores, do fine. If we want to solve the educational crisis that does exist for kids from low-income families, then creating jobs, stable health care, and an economic security net for their families is one key–and finding ways to create schools integrated by race and socioeconomic background is another–and providing appropriate funding, early childhood education, and smaller classes is a third.

The voucher, charter school, and parent trigger movements aim in precisely the opposite direction by draining public schools of funds desperately needed in this climate of scarcity and creating a two-tier system of schools, segregating kids even further by race, class, English language learner status, and disability. Indeed as the CREDO study by Stanford University shows, charter schools do not provide better educational opportunities; many provide worse. The people behind the push for parent trigger laws are not idealistic parents but chain charter operators hoping to expand their profits at the public expense–and their right-wing backers hoping to undermine our understanding of education as a public good. I hope you do some research on this topic and reconsider your opinion.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Poyourow (a usually appreciative reader)
Categories Budget Cuts, Parent trigger, Parents, Pennsylvania, US Education

Dilemmas of School Choice

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2012 //
7

Karen Francisco writes about education for the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. Whenever I see her work, I wish I lived in Fort Wayne, so I could see everything she writes. She is one of our most thoughtful commentators on the subject of education.

In this article, she ponders the complexity of school choice.

What happens when parents want their children to go to a school even though it has low scores?

What should public officials do? What are the tradeoffs between accountability and choice?

What should we expect of public officials who say on one hand that parents know best, but then proceed to shut down a school that parents love?

How should we balance priorities?

Categories Accountability, Indiana, Parents

Defending Parents Against Stereotypes

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2012 //
2

A reader writes in support of low-income and working-class families and reminds us of the importance of collaboration:

Diane, thanks again for your clarity and calm through what must have been a difficult week.  Your small manifesto looks so obvious, when it is quietly laid out.

Unfortunately, the conversation also gets hijacked by those with an agenda to attack low-income families, and working class parents in general, with false and degrading stereotypes. When that happens, it undermines the teachers who serve the majority of honorable inner city residents and uneducated, but nonetheless dedicated, low-income parents. It undermines our support for the struggles of real people to attain fair and just education opportunities for their own children, and it undermines the struggle of teachers to provide one.

It reinforces the political drive to destroy public education, with the underlying argument that economically stressed Americans can disinvest in the education of the “hopeless” poor, and save their own children by setting up willfully exclusive institutions.

Commentators have to be careful not to let their own “side” do that in the name of the teaching profession.  Notice that the opponents of public schooling readily join in on such denunciations; its their bread and butter, after all.

Two decades ago, I subbed in a Boston high school with a newly appointed minority principal (it was Juliet Johnson, in fact).  Court ordered busing had desegregated the students, but not the entrenched teaching corps, and some older teachers really did maintain a mutually reinforcing culture of bitterness, racial prejudice, and resentment.  The generation parenting today’s Boston students suffered those attitudes as children.

Their trust isn’t automatic, especially considering the concerted attack their own children  now face.  Colleagues, let’s build trust with the families we serve, and earn it, and cherish it.  When family support does break under the onslaught of violence or drugs or despair, there is a whole community in place that knows it, and tries to come to the rescue of its own children.  Reach out to them, and lets add our voices to theirs.

Categories Parents

What’s Needed Now: R-E-S-P-E-C-T

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2012 //
8

A reader comments on the discussion about parents, teachers, and students:

It is amazing to me how fast the conversation gets hijacked by those with an agenda to trash public education. I have stated before and will repeat it. Parents and educators must work together in partnership. It is the most productive way for our students to benefit from an education. It bothers me to hear disrespect directed toward either teachers, parents, or students.
As an educator I feel it should always be our position to be positive role models. Others may disagree, but I hope that those students and adults who I have worked with over the years have felt respected by me. No matter what behavior I am faced with, I always try to react in a positive way. Believe me, I am faced with these situations daily. I have had to learn this, over the years, because it isn’t always easy when you are faced with negative or disrespectful behavior. But I can say that a positive, respectful reaction almost always turns the situation around. A negative reaction almost always results in an escalation of the problem.
Thanks Diane, for being such a positive role model for us. I hope that we, as educators, are able to keep the fight for public education going in a positive direction, with positive results. It’s not easy when we are faced with such negative and false media reports, and especially negative parent reactions. We need to turn the tide back to a respect for educators.
Categories Parents, Students, Teachers and Teaching
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