Archives for category: Poverty
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Advice for the “Charitable-Industrial Complex”

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2013 //
35

Peter Buffett, son of billionaire Warren Buffett, is not happy with the philanthropic giants that have decided to save the world.

In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Peter Buffett writes what he has learned about Philanthropic Colonialism:

“People (including me) who had very little knowledge of a particular place would think that they could solve a local problem. Whether it involved farming methods, education practices, job training or business development, over and over I would hear people discuss transplanting what worked in one setting directly into another with little regard for culture, geography or societal norms.”

Now he realizes that philanthropy has become a vehicle to assuage the guilt of the super-rich, who can “give back” instead of actually doing anything to change the structural income inequality that creates the problems the rich want to solve:

“Inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left. There are plenty of statistics that tell us that inequality is continually rising. At the same time, according to the Urban Institute, the nonprofit sector has been steadily growing. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of nonprofits increased 25 percent. Their growth rate now exceeds that of both the business and government sectors. It’s a massive business, with approximately $316 billion given away in 2012 in the United States alone and more than 9.4 million employed.

Philanthropy has become the “it” vehicle to level the playing field and has generated a growing number of gatherings, workshops and affinity groups.

As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.

But this just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place. The rich sleep better at night, while others get just enough to keep the pot from boiling over.”

I don’t think that any reader of this blog knows Peter Buffett.

But if you do, please tell him that his father added $30 billion to Bill Gates’ $30 billion, and that this money is being used to privatize American public education and to dismantle the teaching profession.

Tell him this money is being used to tell states that teachers should not be paid more for extra degrees or experience.

Please tell him that this money is being used to impose Bill Gates’ wrong ideas about how teachers should be evaluated.

Please tell him that this money is being used to reduce everyone to a data point.

If we could get just one intelligent billionaire on our side, we could stop the other ones in their tracks.

Why? Because they are doing exactly what Peter Buffett described in this article. Engaging in Philanthropic Colonialism. Imposing their idea of what works in institutions about which they know nothing and where they have little or no experience. Furthermore, they are using “education reform” to claim that poverty doesn’t matter. They are “conscience laundering” and hurting the children of the poor by denying them the very real reforms they need: small classes, experienced teachers, a full curriculum with arts, physical education, and all the other studies that belong in schools, and a genuine national effort to reduce poverty and segregation.

Categories Class size, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Poverty

Are Teachers to Blame for Achievement Gap Between Black and White Students?

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2013 //
56

Joy Resmovits, the education reporter for Huffington Post,  is usually a sharp and thoughtful reporter, but she had a bad day today.

Today she posted an article blaming “bad” teachers for the achievement gap between black and white students.

Along the way, she makes some factual errors. For example, she states that the achievement gap in ninth grade reading narrowed from 1994-2012, from 33 points to 13.

But that is wrong, for two reasons.

First, NAEP doesn’t test ninth grade. It tests fourth and eighth grades.

Second, the achievement gap for eighth grade shrank during that period from 30 points to 25 points.

She says the achievement gap persists because black students get less experienced teachers (Teach for America?) and have less success in raising test scores (tautology, anyone?).

Joy should know that the achievement gap exists before the first day of school in kindergarten.

It is nourished by large socioeconomic differences.

The achievement gap is an opportunity gap.

Black students are far likelier than white students to live in poverty, to miss school because of illness, to live in bad housing, to be homeless, to have less access to medical care, to live with tremendous economic insecurity.

Their families have fewer resources to invest in them.

The fact that there is an achievement gap is not prima facie evidence that those who teach black students are not good teachers.

Frankly, it is not like Joy to sound like Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and Arne Duncan.

Joy Resmovits owes an apology to the many thousands of urban teachers who are hard-working, dedicated to their students, and determined to educate them despite the insults hurled their way by politicians and the media.

 

Categories NAEP, Poverty, Teachers and Teaching

A Shocking Display of Candor in Bridgeport

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2013 //
27

Ann Evans de Bernard is retiring as principal of a Bridgeport, Connecticut, K-8 school. She decided it was time to tell the truth about urban education.

She explained that rises and falls on average test scores mean nothing because of the high mobility rate of her students. They move in and move out with stunning frequency. What do the scores mean? Nothing.

The kids persevere despite many obstacles. Yes, being poor makes life very hard for them and their families.

And she wonders: what if we could overcome all those obstacles; what if our children were really well prepared? Would those corporate leaders, who love to bash the schools, have good jobs for those well-educated youngsters?

Categories Connecticut, Poverty, Students

Paul Thomas: Why Education Does Not Trump Poverty

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2013 //
21

Paul Thomas here explores this question: is it better to be born rich or to get a college degree?

Can a “no excuses” school overcome poverty?

Can 1,000 such schools change South Carolina?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

The Problems That Federal Legislation Studiously Avoids

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2013 //
15

The commenter who calls himself or herself “Democracy” says the following about the Reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently known as NCLB):

“Bill Mathis correctly points out that education legislation pending in the Congress “would still ‘disaggregate’ test results by ethnic affiliation and income levels so as ‘to shine a light’ on the disparities and inequalities of educational opportunities and outcomes.” He adds this: “These inequalities have been well-documented for the last half-century.” And yet, they persist.

The problem is that proposed legislation does nothing to address the inequities. To provide substance would “require politicians and inside the beltway actors to actually press for funding equal to the mandates. It would require significant investments in job, community and comprehensive educational support systems.”

Over at the Center for Education Reform, resident crackpot Jeanne Allen dispenses some horrifically bad information and advice on education “reform.” Allen claims (incorrectly) that “65 percent of America’s K-12 student population that is failing and falling through the cracks” (she must not read anything about NAEP scores or disaggregated PISA scores).

Allen says that “the federal role should be one of assessment and data gathering,” and “there must be firm consequences for federal spending at state and local levels” because “local control is a hallow theme when it is school board groups and teachers unions doing the controlling.” Yet, when it comes to charter schools, Allen wants no accountability whatsoever.

Allen demands merit pay for regular public school teachers based on student test scores, even though there is no solid research to support it. As Mathis notes, “test-based evaluation systems have such a high error rate that their use in teacher evaluation is unstable.” This troubles Jeanne Allen not at all. But then, the Center for Education Reform gets its funding from conservative organizations like the Arnold, Bradley, Broad, Kern, Milken, and Walton Foundations, and from the Gates Foundation.

To cite but two examples, the Arnold Foundation is a right-wing organization founded by a hedge-funder who resists accountability and transparency in derivatives markets but calls for them in education. Its executive director, Denis Cabrese was former chief of staff to DIck Armey, the Texas conservative who now heads up FreedomWorks, the group that helps to pull the Tea Party strings and gets funding from the billionaire arch-conservative Koch brothers.

And the Walton Foundation focuses on “competition”, “charter school choice,” “private school choice,” and teacher effectiveness. It funds groups like Teach for America, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (whose board of directors includes Rick Hess and whose advisory board includes a KIPP founder, a Walton board member, and education blatherer Andrew Rotherham) and the Charter School Growth Fund (interestingly, Kevin Hall sits on the board of both this group AND the Charter School Authorizers and was previously the “Chief Operating Officer of The Broad Foundation” and “worked at…Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Teach For America.”).

The corporate-style “reformers” – and their Republican and Democratic allies – care not for addressing the real inequities in American public schooling.

And that truly is a shame.”

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty, Race to the Top, U.S. Department of Education, US Education

Who Abandoned the Children of Philadelphia?

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2013 //
36

A new survey shows that Philadelphia has the highest poverty rate of any of the nation’s 10 largest cities.

28% of the city’s people are poor, as are 39% of its children. The national child poverty rate is 23%.

Now we know from reformers that poverty is no “excuse” for low test scores, but we also know from the reality-based world that low income is highly correlated with low test scores. If you want to learn more, read Richard Rothstein’s “Class and Schools,” or google Helen Ladd’s “Education and Poverty: Confronting the Evidence.”

Thus, it makes no sense to strip the city’s schools of the arts, physical education, librarians, guidance counselors, social workers, and every other support personnel. These children desperately need a good education.

The state of Pennsylvania has a constitutional obligation to educate its children.

And the state thus far has cynically told Philadelphia to extract more taxes from its impoverished population. That is worse than no answer. That is negligence of a high order.

When the next election comes round, the people of Pennsylvania should hold accountable those who inflicted harm on the state’s most vulnerable children.

Categories Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Poverty

The Superintendent of a High-Performing District Speaks Out

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2013 //
77

An earlier post linked to an article by Scott Waldman in the Albany Times-Union, in which Waldman pointed out that rankings accurately reflect the socioeconomic status of families in the schools, not the quality of the schools. He asked, what do those school rankings really demonstrate?

This letter came from a superintendent in the area of upstate New York about which Waldman wrote:

 

I am the superintendent of one of the high performing schools Waldman identified. He is, of course, absolutely accurate. The issue has always been poverty–urban, rural, and increasingly, suburban. It is easier and more expedient for politicians and naysayers in general, to attack schools–their costs, their teachers, their calendar, their curriculum–rather than address the root cause of the discrepancies–multi-generational systemic poverty. We have known about the impact of poverty on student achievement for hundreds of years. We have known how standardized test scores are skewed by zip code for years. Even the inventors of standardized testing (in the very early twentieth century) argued that they should be used judiciously because they are so sensitive to environment. I know an urban educator very well, who constantly states that it is not that his kids (grade five) can’t learn–indeed, they have already learned some skills about survival that are much more compelling than their ELA scores. The problem is that the things they have learned can not be reduced to a multiple choice test.

 

Categories Poverty, Teacher Evaluations

Will Extremes of Inequality Create a New Movement for Change?

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2013 //
11

One of our regular readers and commenters Is a Tea Party activist who likes to joust with anyone who dares to express compassion for those whose lives are blighted by poverty. He scoffs at the idea that there is such a thing as communal responsibility. In his world, it is always nasty and brutish, and it is each one for himself.

So here is a story that appeared in the New York Times on July 2. It is about a woman who works for Kentucky Fried Chicken. She is a shift manager, and she is paid $7.75 an hour. She makes an extra 50 cents an hour because of her title and extra responsibilities. Her husband is unemployed. From her meager earnings, she must feed and clothe three children and pay the rent. She said, “I’m beyond not satisfied. This isn’t the life I want for my children. This isn’t the life I want for myself.” Last year, when boiling oil scalded her hands and she was out of work, she got $58 a week in workers’ compensation. A welfare queen, right?

The CEO of YUM!, which owns Taco Bell and KFC, makes $11.3 million per year. The Times says he “helped lead the battle against paid sick days.”

Fast food workers and other workers whose wages are barely above the poverty line are trying to unionize. Imagine that.

Categories Economy, Poverty

What Do All Those School Rankings Really Demonstrate?

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2013 //
24

Scott Waldman writes thoughtfully about education for the Albany Times-Union newspaper in upstate New York.

In this article, he demonstrates what most educators know and what ought to be common sense for everyone else:

The schools rankings in affluent districts have the highest rankings, and the schools in districts with high levels of poverty have the lowest rankings.

Some people don’t seem to know this. Unfortunately, the people who don’t know this are in Congress, state legislatures, the U.S. Department of Education, and the governors’ offices.

Thus, policymakers berate those who teach children in impoverished districts and even close or privatize their schools.

Children who grow up poor are not destined to do poorly in school. If they attend well-resourced schools that are not dominated by poverty and segregation, they do better in school.

Call it peer effects, or something about getting the attention and resources needed.

Categories Poverty, Privatization

How Fare the Pritzkers? Very Well Indeed.

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2013 //
27

I recently attended the commencement ceremonies at Queens College in New York City, one of the nation’s finest public institutions.

At the ceremony specifically for graduates of the education program, the dean opened his remarks by citing an African proverb, “How fare the children?”

The answer should be “The children are well.”

In a good and decent society, we take care of the children, because in doing so, we not only express our humanity, but we ensure our future.

In this society, it might be well to ask, “How fare the 1%?”

The 1% fare exceedingly well. Their share of the national income rises each year.

And none fare so well as the Pritzker family of Chicago.

Penny Pritzker was a member of the Chicago Board of Education.

She voted to close 50 Chicago public schools while increasing the growth of charter schools, one of which bears her name.

Soon she will be President Obama’s Secretary of Commerce.

Her brother fares well too.

How fare the children?

Not so well.

Nearly one of every four children in the United States lives in poverty.

Many go to bad hungry; growing numbers are homeless.

Many are in schools without art or music, without guidance counselors or librarians.

Many are in classes so large that they get no individual attention.

Whose fault is this?

It must be their teachers.

They must be graded, ranked, evaluated closely.

Makes no sense, but the mainstream media has swallowed it whole.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Poverty
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