Archives for category: Rhee, Michelle
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A Teacher Has a Question for Hari Sevugan

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
5

Hari Sevugan, the ex-Obama spokesman and ex-StudentsFirst spokesman, has twice commented on this blog in defense of charters and high-stakes testing. In his comments yesterday, he pointed to Florida as a model of excellence, while putting down Massachusetts as not all that it claims to be. In my response, I compared Florida’s NAEP scores to those of Massachusetts. Massachusetts is consistently #1, while Florida ranks about average among the 50 states. I assume that Hari was promoting Glorida because Michelle Rhee ranked it at the top of her personal report card. It is certainly way ahead of Massachusetts in authorizing charter schools, for-profit charters, vouchers, high-stakes testing, and stripping teachers of tenure.

Today, I received a letter from a teacher in Nashville, who asked me to post the following questions to Hari. If he answers, I will post his reply.

“I am a teacher in Nashville Public Schools, who has been teaching for 14 years. I have to be honest that since I have been working on a Masters in Educational Leadership, current reform policies have been gaining my interest. I read Hari’s response on your message board, and I would like to ask him why he would slam Massachusetts’s NAEP results and in the same response hold TIMSS and PIRLS results for Florida as a progressing miracle.

“The same studies that he and the likes of him quote to put schools down and compare us to higher achieving nations are the same tests he uses to hold up academic progress for states that are using the current GERM model. I am fascinated with his spin and ability to turn the student achievement of a state rejecting (for the most part) GERM and yet in the same breath hold up a state that does not perform near Massachusetts as a model for reform.

“Please, have him explain his answer as to why bashing the progress of Massachusetts yet holding up Florida and Louisiana as the proof reform is working. In this country it is so hard to measure which reform is working due to all of the different reforms taking place. But, I do not believe Hari’s and StudentsFirst type of reform will give us sustainable results. So, this letter is really directed to Hari, I just don’t know how to get it to him.

“I hope all is well with you and the rest of your readers and please continue the good fight. The future of public education is relying on this conversation.”

Categories Florida, Massachusetts, NAEP, Rhee, Michelle

Paul Thomas: Et Tu, Liberal Media?

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
15

Paul Thomas recognizes that the big corporate media have bought into the corporate education spin and hype.

But he was baffled that PBS used most of an hour to recycle Rhee’s self-promotion.

By the way, our one consistent ally on national television is the great Jon Stewart. His mother was a teacher, and he knows how hard she worked. Having The Daily Show on our side is great stuff. Jon is more influential than all the others put together. When I appeared on his show, his booker told me I would never be invited on Stephen Colbert’s show because his booker is Jonathan Alter’s wife. Alter is one of the media cheerleaders for corporate reforms. He appeared in “Waiting for Superman” to say, “We know what works. Accountability works.” I am not sure who that “we” referred to.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Rhee, Michelle, Supporting public schools

The Ordeal of the D.C. Whistleblower

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
28

If you have followed the story of the D.C. Cheating scandal, you know that suspicious test scores were flagged at a large number of schools in the district during Michelle Rhee’s tenure. Rhee met with every single principal and got a commitment to raise test scores or be fired. This pressure was effective in perverse ways.

Jay Mathews here explains what happened in stark and alarming detail.

The epicenter of the cheating scandal was Noyes campus, where the gains were meteoric. The principal, Wayne Ryan, was given star treatment and elevated to the central office. The school received a Blue Ribbon award for its incredible test score gains.

Ryan’s successor, Adele Cothorne, came from Montgomery County, a high-performing district in Maryland. She quickly realized that the students’ skill levels did not match the claims. She suspected cheating. She reported her suspicions to two administrators in central office. (One of them, Josh Edelman, is the brother of Jonah Edelman, head of Stand for Children.)

But who got into trouble? The principal who reported her suspicions.

Now, the matter is in the courts. Adele Cothorne has left education, and D.C. officials deny all her claims, as they deny that there was ever cheating, anywhere, in any school. They apparently hope the matter will disappear if they stand together, attack Cothorne’s credibilty, and deny everything.

Just close your eyes, click your heels twice, and try to believe that passing rates can jump up by 40 points, bonuses given out, high-fives for all, then drop down another 40 points. But nobody did nothing.

Move on, move on, nothing to see here.

Categories Rhee, Michelle

Expert: Why Cheating in DC Was Never Investigated

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
29

Mary Levy is a veteran civil rights lawyer and budget analyst in Washington, D.C., who has reviewed developments in the D.C. Public schools for more than 30 years. She wrote the following description of the D.C. cheating scandal, which was revealed by USA Today in March 2011 but never subject to a full and independent investigation:

Re: the U.S. Department of Education Inspector General’s “investigation” of cheating in the DC Public Schools on D.C. standardized tests

It is always interesting to watch power and ideology corrupting people’s judgment, in this case the belief that Michelle Rhee’s approach to education reform must be shown to be effective. There have been no meaningful investigations of the evidence of widespread cheating on DC’s state tests between 2008 and 2010. The ED IG’s statement implies that he relied on the DC IG, who only investigated one school. How could either know about the 102 other DCPS schools flagged for possible cheating? And why is the Department of Education so casual about test integrity? Why did Arne Duncan not ask his IG for a broader investigation?

I’ve studied DCPS data, policies, budget, and history for over 30 years. People with personal knowledge of what occurred during the testing aren’t talking to me any more than to anyone else, but my own data analysis supports the need for a real investigation. Among the top 10 DCPS erasure schools (over one-third of their classrooms flagged over a three year period), scores plummeted at all but one by 2010. At four-fifths of the top 20 erasure schools, scores fell by ten percentage points or more. These are schools with one quarter or more of their classrooms flagged. The bottom dropped out by chance at all those schools?

Contrary to Michelle Rhee’s assertion of “dozens and dozens of schools [with] “very steady gains” or even “some dramatic gains that were maintained,” DC CAS test scores rose significantly after 2008 at only a small number of schools (I counted). Ironically, several of those have been closed or are on the current closing list. Security was only tightened gradually, and is still vulnerable to exploitation, so we’re not at the end of the possibilities even now.

Over the months of preparing the Frontline documentary broadcast on Tuesday, January 7, John Merrow tried very hard to break through on investigating the evidence of cheating. He asked me and my colleagues for contacts and data often, and he actively and persistently sought out witnesses. But witnesses aren’t talking. They’re afraid. People in authority tend to dislike and distrust not only whistleblowers, but critics, even the friendly ones. Principals in DCPS serve at will, and the IMPACT evaluation system makes it easy to terminate teachers who displease their superiors. And after all, since cheating is so unimportant to the Department of Education and the leadership in DC, those who could bear witness can expect no result but retaliation.

Mary Levy
January 9, 2013

Categories Philadelphia, Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, U.S. Department of Education

John Merrow: D.C. Whistleblower Under Attack

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
19

If you saw John Merrow’s program “The Education of Michelle Rhee,” you will remember that there was one educator willing to go on camera and say, “Yes, I saw cheating. I locked the tests up and the scores dropped.” That principal is now under attack by Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s successor.

I urge you to read this article.

This is the chilling inside story that did not appear on the air. This is a story of fear and intimidation, of cheating and covering up. This is a story of people afraid to talk and people who did not want the truth to come out.

How I wish this shocking story had been on the air instead of the tripe about eating a bee.
.

John Merrow writes on his blog:

Friends,
I’d like you to know more about Adell Cothorne, who spoke openly about what she saw at one school in Washington, DC. You met her briefly in last night’s Frontline program, and she’s being attacked openly now by the current Chancellor. I applaud her courage and want you to know that she was one of a very small handful of people in the know who were willing to speak on the record about Michelle Rhee.

As we pointed out on Frontline, the widespread erasures (almost always ‘wrong’ to ‘right’) on the DC-CAS during Michelle Rhee’s first year, 2007-2008, were never investigated. In her year at Noyes Education Complex, Cothorne insisted on tight security, and test scores dropped–plummeted is a better word.

The details are in this post, along with more from Adell Cothorne. http://bit.ly/TLEsou

I will be writing more about this in the near future.

Please comment on the blog. Write me directly if you would rather not receive these notes.

John

John Merrow
Education Correspondent,
PBS NewsHour, and President,
Learning Matters, Inc.

My blog:
http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/

Categories Rhee, Michelle

Bruce Baker on Rheeformy Logic & Goofball Rating Schemes

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
2

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.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Merit pay, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Hari Sevugan Responds: UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
34

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

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Massachusetts, NAEP, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Do Public School Students in Florida Get Art and Music?

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2013 //
18

A reader in Florida saw the description of the Rocketship charters, where students get no art or music. She was not surprised because her child’s school has neither art nor music, just testing:

“My children attend a Title I school in Florida called Triangle Elementary in Mount Dora. They have no art class, no music class, and no recess (my children are 6 and 8). Florida puts all its emphasis on high-stakes testing, and this is the norm unfortunately, unless you can afford private school.”

Florida was one of the two highest rated states on Michelle Rhee’s report card. Providing the arts and a full curriculum does not qualify as education reform in her ranking system. Only testing and pro privatization policies.

Categories Arts Education, Education Industry, Florida, Rhee, Michelle, Testing

What Did Rhee’s Report Card Actually Measure?

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2013 //
11

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.)

Categories Charter Schools, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations

Michelle Rhee’s Upside Down Agenda

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2013 //
22

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.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst
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