Archives for category: Race to the Top
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How “Reform” Is Ruining Education and Killing Schoools

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2013 //
22

A comment from a reader who has seen the results of No Child Left Behind:

“1) The system is broken from top to bottom. The vast majority of people making these decisions have not set foot into a classroom since they graduated from college.

2) An administrator makes any where from double to four times as much money as the teachers who work 50+ hours a week teaching, prepping, and grading.

3) Common Core, NCLB, Race to the Top, and any other program designed to “make education better” are nothing more than band-aids that only slow the bleeding. We need to completely reconstruct our education system from the bottom up and focus more on the individual needs of every child through curriculums designed to highlight the creative exceptionalism of each child.

4) Cutting money from the public system to then allow room for vouchers should be a red flag to any citizen with an ounce of common sense – we’re not addressing the issue of horrible school reforms of the past, but instead we’re aiding in the speed of how fast our public system will die. If every child deserves a quality education, why aren’t we evaluating our current system and finding ways to completely reconstruct it in a way that it is successful.

5) For everyone on this board who has attacked educators and their apparent “lazy” behaviors, it is obvious that you have no idea what is happening inside the classrooms now. Since “A Nation at Risk”, teachers have been slowly stripped of their ability to do what it is that they are overpaid to do: teach. Instead, they have been forced into a world of teaching to a test that barely covers the amount of practical knowledge students need. I am an English Teacher at a community college here in NC, and every semester in my 2-3 freshman comp classes I see the results of NCLB. I have 30 18-21-year-olds who can’t write a complete sentence. I have never blamed a single high school teacher, middle school teacher, nor have I blamed any elementary teacher for this lack of skill. 15 years ago when I entered the profession, the quality was much higher even for a community college. I have witnessed the slow decline of intelligence, and it has nothing to do with the teachers, but the resources that these teachers are losing. You want to support the cut in funding? Fine. Let’s divert the money that administration is getting into better programs, let’s re-envision how education works and construct a system that allows for the money we are dealt, and let’s face the facts: “bad” teachers make up less than 5% of the working population. The rest of the teachers out there are fighting to keep this sinking ship afloat.

If you think you can do a better job, get the damn degree and do the job yourself. Other wise, let the people who have been trained to do this job do their job.

Categories Common Core, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Are You a Quantitative Learning Gains Facilitator?

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2013 //
5

In this post that appeared on Valerie Strauss’ “Answer Sheet” at the Washington Post, David Lee Finkle takes on what passes for education “reform” these days.

Finkle is a cartoonist and middle school teacher in Florida.

Finkle takes on the myth that American schools are failing and points out that they are far more rigorous than ever.

The federal government’s obsession with test scores is not improving education. To the contrary, it is ruining real education and demoralizing teachers.

He concludes:

“We have a choice in this country. Keep listening to the story told by the “reformers” and end up with test-score mills even worse than the ones we have now, or listen to teachers who want a public education system that isn’t an industrial factory spitting out test takers but that offers schools that are places for deep thinking, learning, creativity, play, wonder, engagement, hard work, and intense fun.”

Which will it be?

You decide.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Los Angeles Times: A Wise Editorial about NCLB and Race to Top

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2013 //
23

The Los Angeles Times published a first-rate editorial about the disastrous federal micromanagement spawned by NCLB. It also takes the Obama administration to the woodshed for its own misguided micromanagement of the nation’s public schools.

It says: “The nation is ripe for rebellion against the rigid law and the Obama administration’s further efforts to micromanage how schools are run.”

It adds:

“Passed in 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act used the leverage of federal education funding to push states into doing more for their disadvantaged, black and Latino students, whose academic achievement was appallingly low. Although public schools fall under state rather than federal purview, the rationale behind the interference was that because Congress provided some funding, it had an interest in making sure that the money was achieving its aims. That’s fair enough.

“Unfortunately, the punitive law ushered in a regimen of intensive testing and harsh sanctions against schools that failed to meet improvement markers that were extremely difficult to achieve, sometimes meaningless and often counterproductive. Later, the Obama administration added more layers of interference by pushing its own favored reforms — such as a common curriculum for all states and the inclusion of test scores as a substantial factor in teacher evaluations — in some cases in return for waivers on the No Child Left Behind requirements.”

The federal government was wrong to make scores on standardized tests the measure of all things. It was a colossal error. We didn’t need NCLB to tell us that poor and minority kids were not getting the same test scores as their advantaged peers. We knew that from state scores and SAT scores and multiple other sources. The issue was what to do about it. Congress decided that measuring the gap was reform. however, none of their “remedies”–enacted without any evidence–was effective. Twelve years after the law was enacted, none of the law’s so-called remedies has worked.

The fact is that no one–repeat, NO ONE–in Congress or the U.S. Department of Education (then or now) knows how to reform the nation’s public schools. Secretary Rod Paige didn’t, nor did Secretary Margaret Spellings. Certainly Secretary of Education Arne Duncan doesn’t. His Renaissance 2010 plan in Chicago was a much-hyped failure that has left the wreckage of lives and communities in its wake. Why was he allowed to turn Renaissance 2010 into Race to the Top?

The one-size-fits-all NCLB is wrong for most schools, and Race to the Top heaps on more punishments while blaming teachers for low test scores. This law and this program, and the thinking behind them, have diverted the public’s attention from the root causes of poor academic performance, which include poverty, segregation, and under-resourced schools. Instead of confronting root causes, our elites confront the failure of the NCLB regime of high-stakes testing by demanding more of the same and making the stakes higher for teachers and principals.

Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for recognizing that the federal government has overstepped the bounds of federalism, has imposed impossible mandates, and is out of its league.

The dilemma in framing the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is that Congress can’t see beyond the narrow and punitive mindset of NCLB. It is locked into stale thinking. It refuses to see the disastrous consequences of both NCLB and Race to the Top.

Future historians will puzzle out why the Obama administration threw away the chance to bring a fresh vision to federal education policy and why it chose to tighten the screws on the nation’s schools and teachers and why it chose to lend its prestige and funding to the privatization movement.

In the future, I believe, the period that began in 2001 and continues to this day will be remembered as the “Bush-Obama era” in education. It will be recalled as a time when a liberal Democratic president watched in silence as states attacked the teaching profession, lowered standards for entry into teaching, enacted laws to end collective bargaining, authorized privatization with federal funding and encouragement, and passed laws permitting vouchers for private and religious schools.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top

When This Reader Heard President Obama Discuss Trayvon Martin

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2013 //
83

A reader posted this comment:

“Listening to President Obama’s speech about Trayvon Martin in which he said regarding young black men,”And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?” the thought struck me:

“How about not closing their schools and undermining their neighborhoods; how about providing them with an education like the one you want for your children; how about trying to do something about the poverty that they endure? How about standing with the people who helped to elect you with their votes and their belief in you rather than with the 1% whom you seem now to identify with in deeds if not in words.”

Categories Obama, Race to the Top

Heilig: Feds Want to Reduce Collection of Data That Affect Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2013 //
14

This is an astonishing post by Julian Vasquez Heilig. He has a passion for equity, and he bridles when reformers lower the standards for becoming a teacher and claim they are doing it “for the kids.”

He asks, Would you rather fly with an experienced pilot or fly with one who had only five weeks’ training? Or how about one with 30 hours of training? If the answer seems obvious, and if you prefer that your children have teachers who are well prepared and highly qualified, wait until you see the chart in the middle of his post, showing the explosive growth in teachers with alternate certification.

Then consider that the U.S. Department of Education wants to STOP collecting this data. And that’s not all. In the Department’s single-minded commitment to something-or-other (not equity), this is what they propose to stop reporting:

“That brings us to the federal governments request to no longer keep track of this huge influx of teachers with a modicum of training to “pilot” our classrooms. The Department of Education is seeking public comments on the Civil Rights Data Collection process for 2013-2016. The feds have decided that it is no longer necessary to keep track of the FTE of teachers meeting all state licensing/certification requirements. The feds have also decided these data points are also no longer important for Civil Rights:

“Number of students awaiting special education evaluation (LEA)

“Whether students are ability grouped for English/Math

“Harassment and bullying policies (LEA)

“Number of students enrolled in AP foreign language(disaggregated by race, sex, disability, LEP)

“Number of students who took AP exams for all AP courses enrolled in (disaggregated by race, sex, disability, LEP)

“Number of students who passed AP exams for all AP courses enrolled in (disaggregated by race, sex, disability, LEP

“Total personnel salaries”

Categories Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Race to the Top, Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching, U.S. Department of Education

The NY Times Tires of Testing

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2013 //
21

For the past dozen years, there has been no louder cheerleader for No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and their demand for test-based accountability than the Néw York Times’ editorial board.

Despite the fact that greater test score gains were recorded before the implementation of NCLB than since; despite the finding of the National Research Council that test-based accountability was ineffectual; despite numerous examples of cheating, gaming the system, narrowing the curriculum, and other negative consequences of high-stakes testing, the Times’ editorial board has stubbornly defended this regime of carrots and sticks based on standardized tests.

Even now, in an editorial saying that testing had gone too far and had turned into a “mania,” the Times can’t resist referring to the passage of George W. Bush’s NCLB (based on the non-existent “Texas miracle”), as “a sensible decision.”

It was not. NCLB was a disaster for the quality of education in the United States. Furthermore, it sent the privatization movement into high gear, since “failing” public schools could, under the law, be closed, privatized, handed over to charter operators. We now know that none of these remedies actually works unless low-performing kids are excluded or kicked out, and we know that the overwhelming majority of so-called “failing” schools are schools that enroll mostly black and Hispanic students, many of whom are poor, have disabilities, or don’t speak English. Schools are being closed and privatized because they enroll the neediest students, not because they are “failing.”

Now the Times looks forward to the Common Core and the computerized testing it requires to bring the wonderful progress promised by NCLB.

It is good to see that even the Néw York Times and its education editorial writer Brent Staples recognize that enough is enough. If only they had said so five years ago, before so many schools were unfairly closed based on test scores. If only they would acknowledge that standardized tests mirror advantage and disadvantage. If only they would ask questions about how more rigorous testing will affect the kids who are now struggling with the current tests.

But let us be grateful that after 12 years of NCLB and four years of Race to the Top, the Times’ ardor for high-stakes testing has cooled.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

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

William Mathis: NCLB Reauthorization is a Bipartisan Disaster

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
10

William Mathis, a former school superintendent in Vermont, now associated with the National Education Policy Center, analyzed the proposed legislation of both Democrats and Republicans and finds that both parties have no understanding of the damage wrought by No Child Left Behind.

Washington insiders continue their hapless crusade to “reform” the schools by high-stakes testing and privatization. The Democrats want the federal government to do more of it, and the Republicans want the states to do it. Neither has a vision for the future.

Neither shows the slightest indication that they understand the real problems of American education, many of which have been inflicted by NCLB and Race to the Top.

So instead of ditching the failed policies of the past dozen years, both parties cling tenaciously to them.

He concludes:

“When Abraham Lincoln called on the mystic chords of memory, he drew upon those principles that bind us together. He drew upon the common good. At that time, equality was so embraced that it found Constitutional power and protection in the thirteenth amendment. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a wave of state Constitutional amendments enshrined public education because a functioning democracy demanded education and equality for all. In 1965, when we dreamed of a great society, we furthered our reach with the supportive help of the ESEA.

“Today, both Democrat and Republican versions of the reauthorization give vacant, distracted nods to these principles. They fail to ring with great purpose. They do not stir the soul. They are unlovely and parrot our social and economic strategies. In both they punish the poor, loudly proclaim liberty and
equality, and provide only the rhetoric of opportunities.”

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democrats, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Testing

Susan Ohanian Joins the Honor Roll

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2013 //
9

Susan Ohanian has been speaking, blogging, and agitating against bad education ideas for many years. Her writing is informed by a finely tuned sense of humanism–that is, she cares about people, especially children, more than big ideas and grand policies that treat people like widgets.

She speaks with honesty, candor, courage, and integrity. She is tireless. She is the real deal. She has taught every grade in school. To Susan, every issue always comes down the same question: is it good for children?

Susan Ohanian is a fearless advocate for children and good education, grounded in reality, not abstractions.

She is truly a hero of American education, and I gladly add her name to the honor roll of this blog.

To get a sense of her work, read one of her latest posts.

I especially enjoyed this tribute to Mr. Rogers.

Susan regularly posts cartoons that lampoon the madness of the NCLB-Race to the Top regime.

See here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

Read her collection of Outrages.

And for more, read her running commentary on the Common Core.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Honor Roll, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

TeacherKen: BAT Has a Website: Join Us

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2013 //
18

TeacherKen reports that the Badass Teachers Association has enrolled more than 20,000 members in only two weeks.

It has a new website, so you can join without going to Facebook. TeacherKen has the link. That’s great news for those of us who are not on FB.

Keep it going.

You don’t have to be a teacher to join. You have to be mad as hell at the mess the corporations, the foundations, and the federal government have made of education and what they are doing to our kids.

We can take back our schools and our profession.

Yes, we can.

Categories Education Reform, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teachers and Teaching, Testing
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