Archives for category: Rhode Island
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Rhode Island Commissioner: Make Public Schools Like Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2016 //
21

Ken Wagner, who was deputy commissioner of education in New York when Jihn King was commissioner, is now commissioner in Rhode Island. He brings with him the tattered faith in charter schools and standardized testing that marked King’s tumultuous tenure.

 

Wagner wants public schools to be more like charter schools. It seems only fair that public schools should be freed of the mNdates that charter schools are relieved of.

 

 

However, some questions should be cleared up.

 

 

Will ill public schools be free to exclude students with disabilities, like charter schools?

 

Will they be free to exclude students who don’t speak English?

 

Will they be free to adopt “no excuses” disciplinary codes?

 

Will they they be free to suspend children as young as 5, repeatedly?

 

Will they be free to pay their CEO $400,000-500,000?

 

Will they be free to break their teachers’ contract?

 

These are a few questions that should be answered before moving forward.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: PARCC Testing Is Designed to Confuse Students

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2015 //
35

Carole Marshall and Sheila Ressger, both retired teachers in Rhode Island, report that the PARCC test was poorly designed and does not measure what students know and can do.

They write:

“While RIDE [Rhode Island Department of Education] insists that the PARCC is a high-quality test, what has been created is instead a test that values a caricature of critical thinking — overly complex, ambiguous questions that are intended to “catch” students. Those who doubt it can google “PARCC sample tests” and see for themselves. Countless adults with advanced degrees have testified that many of the Common Core worksheets and PARCC sample test questions are confusing to the point that even they cannot determine the “correct” answers. English language learners, students with disabilities, and students living in high poverty neighborhoods are particularly hard hit, but all children are hurt by the testing.

“The basic problem is that the PARCC tests are aligned to the Common Core standards, which ignore developmental learning. The stated purpose of the Common Core State Standards and the PARCC tests is to “raise the bar,” under the theory that our children need to be reading far more complex texts starting in the earliest grades.

“They have certainly raised the bar; noted literacy expert Russ Walsh reports that the passages are about two grade levels above the readability of the grade and age of the children. He also reports that while Common Core proponents are claiming that the standards and testing call for a higher level of critical thinking, most questions following the PARCC Language Arts passages have a very narrow focus, and can actually be answered without a firm understanding of the text. Thus, scores on the PARCC don’t in any way reflect what children are truly capable of….

“Here in Rhode Island, representatives of RIDE have acknowledged that the grade level expectations of the Common Core do not align with the expectations of previous standards. In other words, material that used to be taught in fourth grade here may now be taught in third grade. Imagine last year’s second grader who was doing well in all respects. Now in third grade, this student is expected to perform at the fourth grade level on the PARCC without having ever been exposed to the foundation of third grade work.

“Another major problem is that Pearson and RIDE have decided that all children will take the PARCC online if at all possible. Young children are being rushed to learn keyboarding skills for testing. During the tests last spring, while working on an exceptionally long and confusing series of tasks, children were also required to perform functions such as scroll down, switch back and forth, and drag and drop items, as well as type into boxes. There is no way to measure how much impact all of this had on their ability to understand the passages and the questions.”

Common Core testing is reenforcing a false narrative of failure by “raising the bar” so high that most children will fail. These decisions were made knowingly. Those who decided on this cruel policy should be arrested for child abuse.

Categories Common Core, Rhode Island, Standardized Testing

Carole Marshall: The Big Lie Behind Rhode Island’s “Strategic Plan” for Education

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2015 //
14

Carole Marshall is a retired teacher who taught in the schools of Providence, Rhode Island. She was invited to participate in shaping Rhode Island “strategic plan” for 2015-2020, but soon became disillusioned when she realized that the designers of the strategic plan were going through the motions, pretending to listen to the public. Before they even started the process, they knew exactly what they wanted. They surveyed parents but ignored their strong wishes for schools that emphasized student creativity and self-motivation. The ultimate plan proclaimed what the planners wanted all along: blended learning, where students spend hours on a computer and fewer teachers are needed.

The strategic plan was produced by a California organization called “the Learning Accelerator.” The leaders wrote recently that the state’s plan for 2015-2020 was created by thousands of Rhode Islanders “through a process that is built upon the principles of transparency, engagement, empowerment and respect.” But in reality the public has been kept in the dark about what is really happening and why. The process was not at all transparent, and what looked like engagement was really a dog and pony show with a completely different agenda.

The “sole method” of this organization, Marshall writes, is to sell blended learning through disruptive innovation.

Marshall warns that the plan sounds good but it is not. Who will benefit? Not teachers or students, but venture capitalists and vendors of technology products.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Rhode Island

Study: Teachers and Students in Rhode Island Dislike PARCC

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2015 //
7

Professor Janet D. Johnson and Brittany A. Richer of Rhode Island College surveyed teachers in the state about their reactions to PARCC, the federally funded test of Common Core standards. Their goal was to allow teachers to voice their assessment of the assessments.

The study can be found here.

Teachers are the experts when it comes to teaching and learning. See what they say.

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, Rhode Island, Standardized Testing

Not Everyone in Rhode Island is Thrilled with New State Superintendent

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2015 //
12

Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo is a former venture capital entrepreneur. As state treasurer, she redirected the state’s pension funds. Her husband Andy Moffitt is a co-founder of the Global Education Practice at McKinsey. He is active with the anti-union, anti-teacher Stand for Children. He was a member of Teach for America. Moffitt co-wrote (with Paul Kihn and Michael Barber) “Deliverology 101: A Field Guide for Educational Leaders.”

The blog site “RIFuture” wrote of McKinsey:

“In terms of corporate education reform, one prominent McKinsey-watcher and follow-the-money researcher puts the firm in a class by itself:

“They have been the leaders in crafting the dominant narrative of an education crisis for decades, and now deeply entrenched in education reform policies, they are reaping the financial and political benefits of marketing solutions to the problems they manufactured in the first place.”

Governor Raimondo recently selected Deputy Commissioner of Education Ken Wagner as the new State Superintendent in Rhode Island. In Néw York, he was known as a strong supporter of high-stakes testing, VAM, and corporate reforms.

Sheila Resseger, a teacher in Rhode Island for many years, was unhappy with Raimondo’s choice. She wrote, in response to a post about Néw York’s Common Core curriculum called EngageNY:

“Here was my comment to the post that Diane referenced. I am going to make it my mission to inform Rhode Islanders about the total disdain that Ken Wagner has for authentic teaching and learning. According to the RI Dept of Ed and Gov. Raimondo, he “developed” EngageNY. By his own admission he is opposed to Opt Out and for data collection. These are the trifecta of evil in my book: Common Core/Pear$on testing/data mining.

“I find this so profoundly disturbing that I can hardly see straight to type this comment. I live in RI. As you may know, our Governor, Gina Raimondo, recently nominated NY State Deputy Commissioner of Ed Dr. Ken Wagner to be our new Commissioner of Education (replacing Broad-trained Deborah Gist). This past Monday night the RI Board of Education and Council on Elementary and Secondary Education met to decide whether or not to confirm Dr. Wagner. I was the only one to speak against his confirmation. Dr. Wagner was credited with developing EngageNY, and seemed to be delighted that it has been downloaded for free 20 million times. He also declared that the Common Core does not script lessons, but actually frees up teachers to teach creatively. Another egregious comment of his was that we don’t have to be concerned with Piaget’s developmental stages–that theory is passé. Now we know that children can do so much more than we had expected of them before. Yes, every first grader is delighted to learn about the Code of Hammurabi.

“Here is my post in RIFuture.org, published before the meeting. http://www.rifuture.org/will-ken-wagners-past-in-new-york-shape-his-future-in-rhode-island.html”

Categories Data and Data Mining, New York, Rhode Island, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

Pawtucket Teacher Reinstated After Stern Reprimand by Administrators

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2015 //
16

Bill Ashton, a teacher in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was suspended for discussing opting out with his students. They launched a campaign to “Bring Back Ashton,” and he was reinstated.

 

But the leaders of the school and the district made it clear that he had violated district policy and was on thin ice. They accused him of editing anti-testing fliers that ridiculed the Rhode Island Department io Education. They were especially angry that his son was leading an anti-testing protest.

 

“Ashton was sent home on paid leave last Friday after telling students at the Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts that the school would not lose funding if they did not take the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam, according to a letter written that same day by JMW Principal Elizabeth Fasteson. Ashton was back to work on Tuesday morning, according to school.”

Categories Opt Out, Resistance, Rhode Island, Standardized Testing, Students

Rhode Island NEA Endorses Opt Out and Teachers’ Right to Speak About It

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2015 //
13

The Rhode Island NEA endorsed a resolution supporting the right of students to opt out of state testing and the right of teachers to discuss opting out with parents.

The resolution read, in part,

“There is an over-abundance of these tests in Rhode Island public schools. The Rhode Island Department of Education, through individual school districts, must provide all parents with yearly, written information fully explaining their right to opt out of these assessments. Students who opt out of high-stakes assessments, such as PARCC, will not be included in data used by state or federal entities in grading or ranking schools or districts, or for any other punitive measures. No parent or student should be penalized based on a parental decision to remove a student from standardized assessments.”

The resolution also said:

“Open dialogue is essential in the parent and educator relationship; as a result, no educator should be disciplined in any school or district for discussing – with students, parents, or community members – options available to parents for opting students out of PARCC or other high-stakes standardized assessment. These include individual conversations, parent/teacher conferences, community meetings, or any other social or professional conversations. Testing, and the frequency of testing, is a working condition, governed by collective bargaining, and educators have the right to speak openly and freely about those conditions.”
In a separate resolution, the NEA R.I. also recommended that, due to weather interruptions in the continuity of instruction, all further PARCC testing be suspended for this school year and the time be used for such instruction. It is clearly a much better use of student time if learning is not disrupted for testing. From this point forward, the validity of any testing should be questioned.”

Categories Opt Out, Rhode Island, Standardized Testing

From a Teacher: Brace Yourself, Rhode Island!

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2015 //
21

A teacher in Connecticut, signing in as Linda, wrote the following comment:

 
Brace yourself Rhode Island…it is worse than you think. Hide your children and warn the teachers. He is coming to charterize, privatize, monetize your schools. See Pelto research here:

Gina Raimondo’s husband Andy Moffitt was Cory Booker’s roommate.
Moffitt is a member of Stand for Children Board of Directors

Moffit is a Senior Practice Expert and member of core leadership team for McKinsey & Company’s Global Education Practice.

“Since co-founding the Global Education Practice in 2005, Andy has worked with multiple large urban districts, state education departments and charter management organizations to markedly improve system performance and close achievement gaps.

He co-authored a recent book, Deliverology 101: A Field Guide for School System Leaders (Corwin Press, 2010), which describes key success factors and steps in driving results in global school system reforms.

Before joining McKinsey, Andy was an elementary school teacher in an inner-city school in Houston, Texas as a corps member of Teach For America.”

From my recent article in the Progressive:

The Corporate Education Reform Industry effort to buy control of Public Education

This year’s election season provided a series of textbook examples of how corporate education reformers used their personal fortunes to contaminate the democratic process.

Let’s begin with the little state of Rhode Island, where former hedge fund owner and charter school champion, Democrat Gina Raimondo was elected governor with 40 percent of the vote in a three-way race—one in which there was an unprecedented level of campaign spending.

Raimondo, who as Rhode Island’s state treasurer won national acclaim from conservatives for successfully dismantling the state employee pension fund, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors associated with funding the education reform movement and profiting from the charter school industry. Her running mate, Cumberland Mayor Daniel McKee, one of the state’s most vocal supporters of charter schools, was elected lieutenant governor with help from many of the same donors.

Over the course of her gubernatorial campaign, Raimondo collected checks from many of the major players in the charter school and “education reform” movement, including donations from billionaires Eli Broad and members of the Walton Family. (The Broad Foundation and Walton Foundation, along with Gates Foundation, are the primary funders behind the overall education reform movement.)

Another billionaire, former Enron executive John Arnold along with his wife, not only donated directly to Raimondo’s campaign and her political action committee, called Gina PAC, but the couple’s $100,000 check made them the largest donors to the American LeadHERship Council, a Super PAC affiliated with Raimondo. The second largest donor to the Super PAC was Eli Broad with $15,000.

A proponent of doing away with public employee pensions, Arnold also donated as much as $500,000 to an advocacy group called Engage Rhode Island, which spent approximately $740,000 lobbying for Raimondo’s successful assault on public employee pensions. Over the past three years, the John and Laura Arnold Foundation has donated more than $100 million in support of charter schools and entities involved in the corporate education reform industry, including being one of the largest contributors to Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence.

Raimondo’s success in raising funds from the charter school industry includes at least $50,000 from the members of the board of directors of Achievement First, Inc., the large charter chain that recently opened a school in Rhode Island, adding to their existing schools in Connecticut and New York.

Jonathan Sackler, an investment manager and heir to the Purdue Pharma fortune, is not only a founding member of Achievement First, Inc, but a founder of a national charter school advocacy group called 50CAN. One of 50CAN’s related entities, 50CAN Action Fund, dumped $90,000 to run TV commercials to help Raimondo’s running mate win his primary race.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Pensions, Privatization, Rhode Island, Teach for America

RI: Will Deborah Gist Survive as State Commissioner?

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2015 //
24

Rumors are swirling about whether Deborah Gist will be reappointed as Commissioner of Education in Rhode Island. RI public radio prematurely announced that her contract would not be renewed but the state board said that no decision had been made. Gist is one of the few remaining members of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. She has been an advocate for high-stakes testing and charter schools. She received national attention (and acclaim by Duncan and President Obama) for supporting the mass firing of the staff at Central Falls High School (some of whom were rehired).

Politico reports:

“THE ACCIDENTAL STATE SUPERINTENDENT: Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist is known as a change agent, an education reformer who ushered in a new era of teacher evaluations, lifted the state cap on charter schools and created a statewide funding formula based on school district capacity and student need. But her turbulent time in office might be coming to an end. Her contract expires this June and the state board hasn’t indicated whether they’ll renew it. Gist says she has more work to do, such as implementing the state’s five-year education plan and expanding access to early childhood education. But she’s mum on her career plans. “I’ve never been someone who takes a job and thinks how that’s going to propel me to the next thing,” Gist said. In fact, she never even meant to leave her job teaching students in the classroom. I have the story, part of POLITICO’s Women Rule: Getting There series: http://politico.pro/1DwLTou”

The article is no longer behind a paywall. It is here.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Rhode Island

Providence Teachers Reject Contract

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2014 //
2

By an overwhelming margin, the Providence Teachers Union rejected a contract that would have eliminated all job security.

“PROVIDENCE — The Providence Teachers Union on Monday rejected a three-year contract proposal that would have eliminated the job-security clause and allowed management to create a new compensation system that would have awarded extra pay for additional responsibilities.

The 1,900-member union voted 611-182 to strike down the proposed deal, according to Maribeth Calabro, union president.

The membership struck down the proposal due to “misrepresentations” by Mayor Angel Taveras’ administration when the tentative agreement was unveiled that “poisoned the well,” Calabro said. Also, language in the new compensation plan, for example, was unduly vague, in the membership’s view, and “a lack of trust” had developed between the union and the school administration and the city.”

Mayor Angel Taveras, an advocate of non-union charter schools, said there was nothing left to negotiate.

Categories Rhode Island, Teachers, Unions
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »