Archives for category: Race to the Top
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This Union Is a Hero of Public Education

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2012 //
17

The United Teachers of Los Angeles has steadfastly refused to allow its members to be evaluated by the test scores of their students. Unlike the district leadership, UTLA understands that scholars have found that value-added assessment is inaccurate, invalid and unstable. By this method, excellent teachers may be labeled “ineffective,” and poor teachers who teach to the test may be labeled “effective.”

Despite intense pressure by the Los Angeles Unified School District leadership and the federal government, UTLA has insisted that its members should be evaluated by evidence-based methods, not by “value-added assessment” that has not been proven to work anywhere.

UTLA refused to sign off on the district’s request for $40 million in Race to the Top funding, which would have subjected its members to value-added assessment.

UTLA recognizes that accepting $40 million for RTTT would eventually cost the district hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with the federal government’s mandates. This has been the experience of other districts, where teachers have been laid off and class sizes have increased solely because of compliance with RTTT requirements.

Because it has remained true to principle, because it insists on evidence-based evaluation, because it insists on honest accounting for the public’s dollars, UTLA is a hero of public education and joins the honor roll.

Categories California, Education Reform, Honor Roll, Los Angeles, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, U.S. Department of Education, Unions

Vouchers in Chile: Greater Inequality

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2012 //
0

Valerie Strauss has a good post by Michael Pons about vouchers in Chile. The main effect seems to have widened the divide between rich and poor.

One correction I would offer to Pons. The testing and accountability framework for federal policy (No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top)  is no better than the voucher approach (Romney). In fact, the testing and accountability framework sets the stage for vouchers by the following scenario:

1) set an impossible goal of 100% proficiency or every child must raise his/her scores every year to the extent that the computer predicts

2) grade every school A-F based on test scores

3) convince the public that American education is failing because it can’t meet unreasonable targets

4) privatize the schools that are graded C, D or F

This is actually a process, not a choice of one policy or the other.

Choosing between NCLB/RTTT or vouchers is like choosing whether you prefer to be hung or shot.

The testing regime is part of the privatization plan.

Categories Accountability, International, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, Vouchers

What Matt Taibbi Said About Tom Friedman

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2012 //
13

Matt Taibbi really doesn’t like Tom Friedman. He has written several articles taking Friedman apart, both for his writing and his thinking.

What educators have learned about Friedman is that he has no first-hand knowledge about schools and teaching. Whatever he writes seems to be based on conversations with Bill Gates or Arne Duncan. It’s a shame that a journalist who is so out of touch does not take the time to meet with teachers and principals and students, or take a few days in public schools to learn about their challenges and their accomplishments. Until he does, he should not write about what is happening in education–because he is uninformed–and should not offer advice about what ought to be done to improve education–because he is misinformed.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Race to the Top

The Business Model Does Not Work in Education

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2012 //
18

Here is the great journalist Juan Gonzalez interviewing CTU President Karen Lewis and Professor Lois Wiener on Race to the Top. Arne Duncan, and privatization.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Privatization, Race to the Top

Will Educators’ Disgust with Race to the Top Affect the Election?

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2012 //
59

Many of us have wondered whether President Obama hears the voices of teachers. Many have wondered whether he understands that educators–not only teachers, but principals and superintendents–despise Race to the Top and see it as a calculated effort to undermine professionalism and advance the privatization agenda. And many have wondered whether the President knows that he may be jeopardizing his re-election by turning off an important part of his base.

I would add to all this wondering that a lot of us will have to swallow hard, forget our passion for education, and vote for Obama. The alternative is too alarming to contemplate.

Mark Naison, who blogs regularly, has written an important column about these issues, which I reprint here:

How to Lose a Close Election

Virtually ever poll now has President Obama and Mitt Romney embroiled in an extremely close race. The President could very well win this election; but he could also lose. And if he does lose, I will have to go back to something I first started saying nearly three years- namely that turning off the nation’s teachers with educational policies which silence their voice, and put them under extreme stress, is not only bad for the nation’s schools, it could cripple the President’s re-election efforts.

Many of you have read some of my blog posts which made this argument, and have seen the “Dump Duncan” petition which I helped to draft which called on the President to remove his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, incorporate the nation’s teachers into Education Policy discussions, and stop requiring schools to ratchet up the number of standardized tests to receive federal funding.

But what you haven’t seen, or known about, is my private efforts to engage people close the president in conversation about teachers disillusionment, efforts which were totally unsuccessful. The President’s inner circle, from what I could gather, refused to bend on support for Race to the Top and Secretary Duncan. They were not only convinced that these policies would end up improving the nation’s schools; they felt that the political gains to be made in terms of support from large funders and influential journalists was far greater than any losses that would occur in terms of teacher enthusiasm, particularly since they knew the largest teachers unions would support the President no matter what policies he chose to implement.

Now, at crunch time, when it’s too late to change course, I can tell you that this judgment was a severe miscalculation. Not only have the President’s policies failed to narrow testing gaps by race and class, they have contributed to teacher morale in the nation to be the lowest it has been since pollsters began measuring this trait. But the political consequences may have been even more serious than the educational ones. Most teachers will probably end up voting for the President, but from what I have seen, in both New York and around the nation, they will not be manning phone banks, canvassing in their neighborhoods, travelling to swing states on the weekends and generally giving time, money and energy to assure the President’s election the way they did in 2008.

Many pundits attribute the Obama victory in 2008 to an incredibly strong “ground game” composed of huge numbers of volunteers, as well as paid staff, working to get out the vote in battleground states. Many of those individuals, including me, my wife, and many of my friends, were teachers, professors and school administrators. During this election, I know of few, if any educators putting in that kind of heroic effort, almost entirely because they are feeling betrayed by the President, indeed, by the entire Democratic Party, on educational issues, even though they support the President’s positions on reproductive freedom, gay rights, taxation and medical care.

There is no way of knowing whether the phenomenon I am describing is will be a “game changer” in this election. But based on what I have seen in 2008 and in this campaign, there is a chance it could be. And if it is, the Obama brain trust has no one to blame but themselves, because they have had ample opportunity to change course, and indeed have been pleased with by many of their supporters to do just that.

Mark Naison
October 22, 2012

Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/

Categories Duncan, Arne, Obama, Race to the Top

Obama Is Out of Touch on Education

By dianeravitch
October 25, 2012 //
14

Yesterday I announced my intention to vote for President Obama, and given the choice confronting us, I will vote for President Obama.

I will vote for him despite his terrible education policy known as Race to the Top.

It is a disaster. It has all the faults of No Child Left Behind, and it is worse.

It is incentivizing the creation of more privately managed charter schools, which are more segregated than the public schools in the same district and which do not even get higher test scores. It is pushing more testing, more school closings, more destabilizing of communities, more labeling of children, more layoffs, more money spent for compliance with federal mandates.

Race to the Top is harmful to children, to teachers, to principals, and to the future of public education in America.

Education Week reporter Alyson Klein wrote an analysis of what lies ahead in a second Obama term, and it is more of the same. What is especially disgusting is that the President continues to believe that Race to the Top is a positive policy; he seems to think that it will improve public education. He has not heard anything that teachers and parents and principals across the nation have been shouting. Stop the high-stakes testing! Stop the evaluation of teachers by test scores! Stop the privatization!

Federal policy is supposed to be devoted to equity, to helping the neediest children, not to a race. What is the point of a “race” in education? Are we racing to get the highest test scores? How does that promote equality of educational opportunity?

What is even more disgusting is that your representatives in Congress are voting the funds to continue the advance of these toxic policies. Raise your voices. Let your Senator and member of Congress know that Race to the Top is racing for the edge of a cliff. Stop. Stop now.

Here is the article linked above:

What Would a Second Obama Term Look Like on Education?

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 11:28 AM PDT

President Barack Obama has talked a lot on the campaign trail about his education record—but not as much about what he would do in a potential second term.

Yesterday, the Obama campaign put out a big, glossy brochure with ideas for next steps, including:

• Cutting tuition growth in half over the next ten years; recruiting and preparing at least 100,000 new math and science teachers;
• A plan to “strengthen public schools in every community,” in part by expanding Race to the Top to school districts
• Offering states waivers from the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act;
• Using community colleges as economic development engines.

None of the ideas outlined in the brochure are brand new—and at least one of them, Race to the Top for districts—is going to happen whether or not Obama wins a second term. But it makes sense for Obama to highlight some of the proposals still on his to-do list, to give voters an idea of where he wants to take education policy.

As districts struggling to finalize their applications know, Congress has already provided $400 million for the district competition, and the U.S. Department of Education has already crafted the rules. The dollars are scheduled to go out the door by the end of the year, no matter what happens on election day. Still, if Obama is re-elected, there could be additional rounds of Race to the Top, which could conceivably go to school districts.

And granting states waivers from parts of the No Child Left Behind Act isn’t a second-term idea, it’s already well way underway. Waivers for districts in states that didn’t apply are a whole other matter.

When it comes to slowing the growth of college tuition, the Obama administration already has a bunch of ideas on the table—in fact there’s even a proposal to create yet another iteration of the administration’s signature Race to the Top franchise, this time to reward states for their efforts on higher education. So far, Congress has yet to bite, in part, I’m guessing, because of the program’s $1 billion price tag.

The proposed competition would reward states that maintain their own spending on higher education, improve alignment between K-12 graduation requirements and higher education entrance standards, and seek new ways to curb costs without sacrificing educational quality.

Mr. Obama has also floated the idea of tying some federal college aid—specifically campus-based aid programs, such as Perkins loans—to college outcomes, including graduation rates for at-risk populations, such as disadvantaged students, and the ability to keep tuition in check.

As for the math and science teacher proposal, anyone paying attention to the campaign has probably heard it—the president mentioned it in his speech accepting the Democratic nomination this summer. So that’s not a new idea either, although, so far, Congress hasn’t acted on the proposal.

The community college idea isn’t new either—it was part of a recent budget proposal. But it too, has not made it very far in a Congress bent on curbing costs. More here.

What else might be in the hopper for Obama’s second term, if it happens? Comments section is open.

– Alyson Klein

   
Categories Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Sam Chaltain Takes Tom Friedman to the Woodshed

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2012 //
2

Sam Chaltain has an excellent post dissecting Tom Friedman’s clueless column praising Race to the Top.

Sam points out that Friedman’s book The World Is Flat made the case for collaboration, not compulsion.

Sam gently explains to Friedman that Race to the Top contradicts what Friedman recommended in his best-selling book.

He concludes that Race to the Top is fundamentally flawed because it lacks both technical expertise and emotional commitment.

“…its formulas for technical expertise, such as new teacher evaluation systems (good idea) based significantly on student test scores (bad idea), move the goalposts but ignore the skill levels of the players. As international change expert Michael Fullan points out, RTTT ‘pays little or no attention to developing the capacity of leaders to improve together or as a system: it is based on a failed theory that teacher quality can be increased by a system of competitive rewards, and it rests on a badly flawed model of management where everyone manages their own unit, is accountable for results, and competes with their peers – creating fiefdoms, silos, and lack of capacity or incentives for professionals to help each other’ – in short, the sorts of habits Friedman defines as the key to becoming successful in the flat world of the twenty-first century.

….programs like RTTT reflect a technocratic insensitivity to the actual rhythms of human beings, and a complete disregard for the necessity of building a shared emotional commitment for the changes we seek (Chicago, anyone?). So whereas attaching a dollar sign to the “recommended” reforms of RTTT was an effective strategy, as was tying each state’s conditional funding under ARRA to its agreement to adopt the common core learning standards, it’s equally true that there are short games and there are long games. And what I loved about The World is Flat was its recognition that to win the long game of the current century, compulsion was fool’s gold; commitment was the gold standard.”

 

Categories Race to the Top

EduShyster Is Seriously Worried about Tom Friedman’s Value-Added Rating

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2012 //
3

Poor Tom Friedman! Everyone who knows anything at all about education knows that Tom has egg all over his face. They are either angry at him or laughing at him. He made such a fool of himself with his over-the-top (the same one we are racing to) praise of Race to the Top. If he had ever talked to a real educator, he would have not have praised Race to the Top. Instead, he would have written about Libya or Syria. But, no, he chose to act like Arne Duncan’s PR flack, repeating Arne’s favorite lines and doing no fact-checking.

Fortunately we have EduShyster, who has done the fact-checking. The result of this laborious activity is that E.S. is worried that both Tom Friedman and Arne Duncan have extremely low value-added scores. Before long, both may be replaced by someone young, innovative, and data-driven.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Race to the Top

Thomas Friedman Needs Your Help

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2012 //
25

I am assuming Thomas Friedman knows a lot about foreign affairs, which is what he mostly writes about. He certainly knows very little about America’s public schools. I wonder when was the last time he stepped into a school or talked to a real teacher. My guess: it has been many years. Maybe he went to a public school.

His article in Sunday’s New York Times demonstrates that he is not only out of touch, but woefully misinformed. Everything he knows about Race to the Top he learned not by any research or school visits or investigative reporting, but by talking to Arne Duncan.

Guess what? Arne Duncan thinks Race to the Top is a huge success. He says so. It must be so. It will make the entire population college-ready. Everyone will go to college, get a good job, poverty will end, and we will outcompete every other nation in the world.

If you believe that, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. It’s not too far from where I live, and it is regularly sold to the gullible.

Of course, Friedman also really admires No Child Left Behind too, even though it wasn’t perfect. and he sees the close connection between NCLB and RTTT. Where do you begin with a man who opines but knows so little?

Please, someone, bombard Mr. Thomas Friedman with the nearly 400 letters from parents, teachers, administrators, and students about the massive disaster called Race to the Top.

Ask him where we are racing. Ask him who will get to the top. Ask him why we ditched equality of educational opportunity.

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

Why Won’t the Reformers Let Us Teach?

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2012 //
20

An English teacher in Rhode Island writes:

I’m a great teacher. I’m waiting for the opportunity, at the ripe old age of 49, to switch careers. My heart is broken. I am deluged with PLC’s, SLO’s, dog and pony lesson plans that go nowhere, and impossible observations that require me to make my students lie through their teeth. I’m tired of the “idiocracy” that states things like “the SAT is an achievement test” and that “all children can learn” without providing qualifiers and quantifiers. I am waiting for the hammer to fall when I get caught not teaching the new Common Core Curriculum because I’m ignoring it and teaching to the curriculum I created that works VERY well. If I have to learn one new acronym I’m going to eat a bullet. Rhode Island is being run into the ground by a Broad Academy robot. Teachers in my district are running scared, the administrators are capos, the union has been neutered, and the school board couldn’t find it’s hiney with a flashlight. All of this “educational reform” is just making us chase our tails; it’s not letting us teach.

Categories Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching
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