Bruce Baker has prepared what may be the most devastating critique of Michelle Rhee’s absurd state rankings. The criteria are without merit, as are her policy ideas.
Best of all, Bruce says he is eager to see some well-known reformers move to Louisiana to take advantage of the schools that Rhee gave top billing in her report.
A few days ago, I posted a letter from Hari Sevugan on this site, in which he defended Michelle Rhee’s agenda of privatization and high-stakes testing. Sevugan was (according to Wikipedia) the former national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee and was the senior spokesman for the Obama campaign in 2008. In June, 2011, he became vice-president of communications for Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.
I invited him to post again. I wrote:
“I hope he will write again to explain why he thinks that Rhee’s support for for-profit charters, for vouchers, and for the agenda of rightwing governors helps our society’s most vulnerable children.”
Rhee has worked closely with Governor Scott Walker, Governor John Kasich, Governor Rick Scott, and other Republicans who want to privatize education, curtail collective bargaining rights, and take away any job protections for teachers.
Many readers of the blog wrote responses to Sevugan. He responded with a letter this morning (I confess I missed it and read it first on the Huffington Post). He did not answer my questions, but he did respond to a letter from a Florida teacher and parent. I am updating this post because I did not see his comment on the blog (unlike Rhee, who has a large staff, I have no staff, not even a secretary; I read all comments myself, and I write all the responses myself, I write all my own tweets, all my own articles, all my own books, no ghostwriters).
In his comments to Huffington Post, Sevugan scoffs at the success of Massachusetts and Maryland because “only 40-50%” of students in those states are proficient on NAEP. I don’t think he knows much about NAEP’s achievement levels. “Proficient” on NAEP is not above average. It represents solid achievement. I spent seven years as a member of the NAEP governing board. Proficient on NAEP is like getting a B+ or an A. Massachusetts can be proud that half its students have such outstanding performance.
Sevugan fawns all over Florida, because Rhee gave Florida and Louisiana her highest grades. (He doesn’t even try to defend Louisiana, one of the nation’s lowest performing states on NAEP.)
But why is he so admiring of Florida? True, it is overrun with charters, both nonprofit and for-profit. But it doesn’t come close to Massachusetts (or Maryland) on NAEP.
Florida (whose education policies are tightly controlled by Jeb Bush) is far behind Massachusetts on NAEP. In fourth grade math, for example, an astonishing 59% of students in Massachusetts rank proficient (which is outstanding), as compared to 37% in Florida (slightly below the national average of 39%).
In eighth grade math, an impressive 51% in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to 28% in Florida (well below the national average of 34% proficient).
In reading, the story is the same. Massachusetts students far outperform those in Florida. In fourth grade, 51% of Massachusetts students are proficient, as compared to 35% in Florida (the national average is 32%). In eighth grade reading, 46% of students in Massachusetts are proficient, compared to only 29% in Florida.
Michelle Rhee gave one of her highest grades on her report card to the D.C. schools, despite their low test scores, low graduation rates, and scandalous achievement gaps. Michelle Rhee and her successor have been in charge of the D.C. public schools since 2007, yet the black-white achievement gap and the Hispanic-white achievement gap there are the largest of any city or state in the nation and they are even larger now than when Rhee took over.
If Michelle Rhee knows how to reform schools, why did she fail to do so in D.C.?
Sevugan’s letter is just more of the public school-bashing and teacher-bashing that StudentsFirst has perfected. He thinks our nation and our schools are failing. He is wrong. Our nation is the most powerful, most creative, most innovative in the world, and 90% of Americans were educated in public schools.
Sevugan obviously has never looked at NAEP scores. If he had, he would know that the scores for black students, white students, Hispanic students, and Asian students in 2011 (the latest NAEP) were at their highest point in history.
Sevugan has a lot to learn about education. I’ll be happy to help him. The first thing he needs to learn is that the doom-and-gloom narrative of the corporate reformers is wrong. It is factually untrue, and I’ll demonstrate how wrong it is in my next book.
We have heard the same doleful complaints since the 1950s, and the peddlers of decline have been wrong every time. They are wrong now too.
Diane
Rocketship will open eight charters in Milwaukee. Local leaders have raised $3.5 million to persuade the charter chain to come to Milwaukee. The city already has a large charter sector and a large voucher sector. The three sectors–Charter, voucher, and public–get about the same results on state tests. As the private sector grows, the public sector shrinks and has a growing and disproportionate number of students with disabilities. But the city’s leaders continue to believe that private management will create great schools. Read this article and, as usual, follow the money.
A reader writes to alert us to developments in Winston-Salem:
Diane:
Another School Board Scandal is developing in Winston-Salem, NC. The recent long-time chair has been elected to the General Assembly, and the handling of vacancies has been outrageous, particularly in light of the fact that the elections are supposed to be non-partisan!
Once a new chair was named for the Board, the Vice-Chair selected was an official that was appointed (not elected) by the majority Republican County Commission to fill a vacant seat from a well-known Democratic member of the Board.
http://www.camelcitydispatch.com/new-school-board-vice-chair-unelected-official-john-davenport/
The vacant seat has basically be bungled, first when the county GOP nominated an extreme right-winger and then he had to withdraw after his residency was questioned:
http://www.camelcitydispatch.com/ccd-reporting-leads-to-regnery-withdrawal/
Then they chose a total unknown with a history that includes working for the Koch Brothers’ America for Prosperity.
http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/article_466e746e-55e3-11e2-bdad-0019bb30f31a.html
http://www.camelcitydispatch.com/unknown-irene-may-appointed-to-ws-forsyth-county-school-board/
To sum up: the GOP has hijacked two seats (and the vice-chairmanship) on what is supposed to be a Board chosen through non-partisan elections, naming two candidates that are voucher supporters and corporate reformers.
Hope you can help us shine some light on this terrible problem.
G.F. Brandenburg, retired math teacher, has done a close analysis of Michelle Rhee’s. state report card.
He calls it a “Brave New World-type Orwellian fantasy,” in which words mean the opposite of what they say.
Her ranking does not measure whether states have high test scores or high graduation rates. it does not measure whether states have laws and policies that have encouraged better teaching and successful schools. It des not measure anything that matters.
Read the full story on his blog to see how and why Rhee gave out her abysmal grades, in which almost every state gets a D or an F except those run by her rightwing buddies.
Here is a sample from Brandenburg, stating first what Rhee claims she is measuring, followed by Brandenburg’s short explanation of what she really measured:
■ Reduce legal barriers to entry into teaching profession and permit alternate certification programs to provisionally place teachers in the classroom (Brandenburg: In other words, make a 5-week summer program like TFA, or no program at all, the legal equivalent to a traditional one- or two-year professional teaching license system.)
■ Pay structures based on effectiveness and performance pay (Brandenburg: In other words, make teachers’ pay dependent on the score from an arcane mathematical algorithm that no one understands (VAM) and which jumps around widely and wildly from year to year for the same teacher; and which correlates with nothing else. BTW, none of the many studies conducted on performance pay has yet shown that ‘performance pay’ for teachers does anything to help students. What’s more, many teachers in jurisdictions that have bonuses for teachers who score high on these formulas refuse to accept the bonuses, because of the ‘poison pills’ attached to the bonuses.)
■ Parental notification and parental consent for student placement with ineffective teachers (Brandenburg: in other words, public shaming of teachers who happen to end up on the short end of the VAM yardstick; this is part of Rhee’s Orwellian use of the phrase “Elevate the Teaching Profession”)
■ Remove arbitrary caps on public charter establishment and establish alternative authorizing and fast-track process for high-performing public charters (Brandenburg: We now know that charter schools are frankly aimed at destroying public education, not improving it. We also know that in 5/6 of the cases, charter schools do the same as OR WORSE THAN their peer public schools. We also know that the few charter schools that have good student achievement records do so by winnowing out all of the problem students — who are sent back to the public schools — and by having longer days, longer years, and summer programs, all of which cost more money.)
■ Provide comparable funding and prohibit authorizers from charging fees from public charter schools for oversight and administration (Brandenburg: In other words, make sure that charters get MORE money per pupil than the regular schools, since just about all charter schools receive large private donations. My administrator friends in DCPS and elsewhere tell me that private donors essentially refuse to give anything to regular public schools these days, no matter how worthy the program.)
Will Rahm Emanuel go down in Chicago history as the mayor who destroyed public education? Will he take his vengeance on the Chicago Teachers Union by closing 100-140 public schools while opening charters? How will history judge him?
A reader sends this comment:
We are feeling the pain DC is facing in Chicago as well.
In Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools board is seeking to close up to 140 schools. The educators, clinicians, paraprofessionals, parents and community members are speaking out about this.
Even today, educators handed out information about school closings at different train stops across the city.
And unfortunately, we are seeing these school closings occur primarily in African American neighborhoods.
People are speaking about this and there its even a petition on the White House website that was established by a community member that resides in one of the neighborhoods that will be hit hard by these school closings.
It is at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-education-policies-promote-massive-closing-traditional-public-schools-while-expanding-charter/7N4DRln5….please sign and share.
Michelle Rhee issued a report card yesterday that graded states by whether they satisfied her.
What she wants is privatization of public education (charters and vouchers); high-stakes testing by which to judge teacher quality; an end to teacher tenure; and the weakening if not outright elimination of teacher unions.
Here is what we can say about her agenda:
THERE IS ZERO EVIDENCE THAT HER POLICY PREFERENCES PRODUCE HIGHER TEST SCORES OR BETTER SCHOOLS.
To the contrary, the states that follow her advice tend to have the lowest test scores!
The public schools of Massachusetts are unquestionably the most successful in the United States. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, they are number one in the nation, by far. When Massachusetts students took part in the latest international assessment, they were ranked among the highest performing nations in the world in math and science. Black students in Massachusetts performed as well as Finland. Rhee graded Massachusetts D+.
Rhee gave a D to Connecticut and New Jersey, which are consistently among the top three on NAEP.
Rhee gave Louisiana one of her highest marks, even though the state is among the lowest ranking states in the nation on the NAEP. But it scores high with Rhee because Bobby Jindal is following the ALEC playbook on vouchers, charters, online learning and for-profit schools.
Rhee rated Washington, D.C., #4 among all states even though it is one of the nation’s lowest performing districts with the lowest graduation rate and the largest black-white achievement gap and Hispanic-white achievement gap of any big city. Having shifted nearly half its pupils to privately managed charters, it is a success by Rhee’s metrics, even though the students do poorly and teacher turnover is among the nation’s highest at 20% annually.
This much is clear: Rhee has no regard for evidence. As Richard Zeiger, the deputy superintendent of instruction in California told the New York Times, the state’s F rating was a “badge of honor.”
“This is an organization that frankly makes its living by asserting that schools are failing,” Mr. Zeiger said of StudentsFirst. “I would have been surprised if we had got anything else.”
A group of parents in Tennessee has formed to support public education and local control. Most of them are public school moms. Their group is “Standing Together for Strong Community Schools.” They oppose vouchers, and they oppose the governor’s plan to create a commission to impose charters on local communities, whether the locals want them or not.
Their inspiration is Amy Frogge, a Nashville parent who was elected to the Metro Nashville school board despite being outspent 5-1. Amy Frogge is a member of our honor roll because she has started a parent movement to defend public education against privatization and profiteers. Amy took a strong stand against the Great Hearts Academy of Arizona, which wants to open a charter school in a mostly white and affluent neighborhood of Nashville. Remember how charters were supposed to “save minority children from failing schools” and “close the achievement gap.” That is not Great Hearts’ plan, and the Metro Nashville board voted to deny the charter. It voted not once, but four times to deny the charter. To punish the school board, State Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman withheld $3.4 million in state funding that the state owed to the children of Nashville.
And here is the odd part of the Nashville story. Commissioner Huffman told the Metro Nashville school board that the $3.4 million was to be withheld only from public schools, not from charter schools. Remember a few days ago, we discussed here the question of whether charter schools are public schools? Well, apparently, Commissioner Huffman thinks that charter schools are NOT public schools. Only the children who attend public schools in Nashville will be penalized by his decision, not those in charter schools.
So that question is settled. In the eyes of Commissioner Huffman (who previously served as public relations director of Teach for America), charter schools are not public schools. Only the children in public schools are to be affected–punished—by his decision.
And now you know why the parents in Tennessee have created a parent group to fight for public education. Because Commissioner Huffman and Governor Haslam and the far-right members of the Legislature want to privatize public education in Tennessee. The parents want to support their community schools. They want one Nashville.
Groups like “Strong Community Schools” in Tennessee are springing up in states, cities and school districts across the nation. In Texas, there is a moms’ group known as “Moms Against Drunk Testing,” but its real name is Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment. In Ohio, there is a new group called “Strong Schools, Strong Communities.” A civic group in Indiana called Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education got started last year and was key in the campaign to beat corporate reform state superintendent Tony Bennett.
None of these groups is funded by the big foundations or the big corporations that support ALEC or the Wall Street hedge fund managers that support Democrats for Education Reform or Stand for Children.
They are grassroots citizens who care about their public schools. There will be many more such groups as the public awakens to the privatization juggernaut that is aimed at our public schools.
The Walton Foundation likes vouchers and charters. It does not like public schools.
Last year, it spend $159 million to promote vouchers and charters.
In addition, members of the billionaire family have dumped a few million here and there into political campaigns, like the Georgia referendum to allow the governor to create charters despite the opposition of the local school board, or the Washington State referendum to allow charters in that state.
Now the Walton Foundation plans to expand. As a local Arkansas blogger puts it, “Wow, when the Walton family — which has put more than $1 billion into “education reform” through its foundation and spent untold millions more in separate political activties — indicates it’s going to increase its political effort it’s time for political opponents to build a bomb shelter.”
It is important that when the Walton Foundation says “education reform,” what they really mean is privatizing public education, getting rid of local school boards, and allowing for-profit corporations to run your neighborhood school.
Sort of like Walmart. When they come into your local region, the mom-and-pop stores go out of business, and the Waltons own everything. If they don’t make enough money, they leave, and your town has a lot of empty stores on Main Street.
The other dy we learned from an article on the Huffington Post that several top Democratic staff members quit Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst. One of them was Hari Sevugan, who had been a leading figure in the 2008 Obama campaign. Sevugan’s departure set off speculation about why he left: was it Rhee’s union-busting goals? Was it her advocacy for rightwing governors? Was it her support for privatization?
Sevugan dashed off a comment to this blog in which he insisted that he cares deeply about helping children, nothing more complicated than that.
This teacher-parent in Florida was inspired by the exchange to write this open letter to Hari Sevugan:
Hari,
I would like to say to you … I am a teacher and I am a parent. I see this reform from both sides. I see depleted public schools and public programs. I see our public funds channeled to corporate charter schools. I see those schools failing the communities, and most importantly, the children. I am not the only one who sees it.
I read, just today, that Michelle Rhee praised my state, Florida, for their education reform. I disagree. Last year, in Florida, we reviewed the testing results. We found that less than 10% of all Florida schools are charter schools, yet they comprised 51% of the failing schools in Florida. In some counties, such as my own, the only failing school was, in fact, a charter school. The same is true for many counties in Florida, including the very large Broward county.
How can you convince us that charter schools are the answer?
I don’t believe it is possible to convince us, parents or teachers, that lobbying for charter schools is for the benefit of our children. Certainly not when we can drive down our streets and find a failing charter school, or closed charter school, with huge profits that disappeared in the wind. These are our streets … these are our children.
I do not believe it is possible to convince us. I applaud you for coming on this blog and trying … but these are our kids. We know they deserve better. This is the civil rights issue of our generation. The separation now is between the haves and have nots. Charter schools are furthering that division. I get it that the charter vision sounds good on paper, but the reality proves differently.
We need to refuel and revitalize our public schools … not punish and privatize. Remember, It is a core Democratic value to ensure free and equal public education for all. We learned once, not so long ago, that separate is not equal.
Never was … never will be.
Just my opinion as a parent and teacher. I am simply an ambassador for my child… no fancy title or IPhone for me.
