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What Romney Reform Looks Like

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2012 //
8

We don’t have to wonder what Mitt Romney’s education plan would look like if he is elected. It would look like the Jindal legislation passed this spring in Louisiana.

The Louisiana “reforms” represent the purest distillation of the rightwing agenda for education.

First, they create a marketplace of competition, with publicly funded vouchers and many new charter schools under private management.

Second, more than half the children in the state (400,000+) are eligible for vouchers, even though only about 5,000 seats have been offered, some in tiny church schools that don’t actually have the seats or facilities or teachers.

Third, the charter authorities will collect a commission for every student that enrolls in a charter, a windfall for them. And of course, there is a “parent trigger” to encourage the creation of more charters as parents become discouraged by neglected, underfunded public schools.

Fourth, the money for the vouchers and charters will come right out of the minimum funding allocated for the public schools, guaranteeing that the remaining public schools will have less money, more crowded classes, and suffer major budget cuts.

Fifth, the law authorizes public money for online instruction, for online for-profit schools, and for instruction offered by private businesses, universities, tutors, and anyone else who wants to claim a share of the state’s money for public education.

Sixth, teacher evaluation will be tied to student test scores and teachers can be easily fired, assuring that no one will ever dare teach anything controversial or disagree with their principal. Teachers in charter schools, the biggest growth sector, will not need certification.

Rather than go on, I here link to a blog I wrote at Bridging Differences (hosted by Education Week). My blog links to an article written by a Louisiana teacher who happens to have been a professional journalist. You should read what she wrote.

The Jindal plan is sweeping and it seeks to dismantle public education. It is a plan to privatize public education. It is not conservative. Conservatives don’t destroy essential democratic institutions. Conservatives build on tradition, they don’t heedlessly cast them aside. Conservatives are conservative because they take incremental steps, to fix what’s broken, not to sweep away an entire institution. Jindal’s plan is not conservative. It is reactionary.

And it is a template for what Romney promises to do.

Diane

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, On-Line Education, Parent trigger, Privatization, Romney, Mitt, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Questions for the Candidates

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2012 //
2

As I watch President Obama and Mitt Romney compete, I am appalled by the absence of any substantive analysis of education issues.

When Romney released his education agenda, it was reported with impartiality, as it should have been. But no one asked questions about his claims.

I reviewed his proposals in the New York Review of Books, but I have seen no other effort to analyze his plan and check his assertions. Maybe that happens later. I hope so.

Take the issue of vouchers. Kudos to Trip Gabriel of the New York Times for noticing that Romney avoids using the V word even as he advocates loudly for vouchers. Clearly, his pollsters must have told him that the American public has questions about the wisdom of sending their  tax dollars to support religious schools.

The general public is uninformed about the ongoing debacle of vouchers in Louisiana or about the weak evidence for privately managed charters or about the high cost of returning control of federal student loans to commercial banks, which Romney wants to do.

Here is an example of a fact that might easily have been checked but so far has not been. When Romney first addressed education issues, he claimed  that the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (aka, the federally-funded voucher program) should be considered a national model. He made the ludicrous claim that students in the program gained “19 months” in reading after only three months in the program. That was untrue, but no journalist pointed that out. As I said in my article on the blog of the New York Review of Books, the federal evaluation found no gain in achievement for students in the voucher program. Romney also exaggerated the graduation rate for students in the voucher program, but no journalist noted that either. Will any of Romney’s advisers tell him the truth about D.C.? Will any journalist check the facts on the D.C. voucher program?

President Obama should also be subject to similar journalistic scrutiny. The claims he makes for his Race to the Top program have no evidentiary basis. The main thing that his : Race seems to have accomplished is to have demoralized vast numbers of teachers, which was documented by the Metlife Survey earlier this year. Race to the Top has also generated an army of consultants and edu-entrepreneurs to soak up federal dollars with dubious claims of their ability to turn schools around. And we have yet to hear the debunking of Obama’s demand that states evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students. It’s happening in state after state, but the evidence about its positive effects does not exist, while the evidence of collateral damage accumulates. More teaching to the test, more cheating, more narrowing the curriculum, more experienced teachers leaving the profession, more attacks on the profession, more attacks on teachers’ unions, more profits for the vendors as school budgets shrink.

A few months ago, I published an article in NiemanWatch at Harvard, for journalists. These are questions that journalists and the public should be asking candidates this year. We need a national debate about what the federal government is doing to our public schools. It is not likely to happen between the candidates. It will happen only to the extent that the media is a watchdog.

Diane

Categories Education Reform, Obama, Romney, Mitt, Vouchers

Don’t Believe the Romney Hype

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2012 //
1

The Romney campaign released its education policy paper last week, which included a number of factual inaccuracies.

One of them, which we are likely to hear more of during the course of the campaign, is that Romney presided over a dramatic improvement in academic achievement in Massachusetts while he was governor. In fact, during his time in office, as Jeb Bush states in the introduction to the Romney plan, Massachusetts’ students were recognized as first in the nation in fourth and eighth grade tests of math and reading.

He refers, of course, to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which has been testing state-level performance in those grades since 1992.

Romney’s plan states that no new money is needed to improve education. What is needed, he believes, is school choice: vouchers, charters, online learning, tutoring, in short, a free market of choices.

Mitt Romney had the good fortune to be elected as governor of Massachusetts in 2003. He was in that office until 2007.

Be it noted that the Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) was signed into law by Governor William Weld in 1993. It doubled state funding of education. It established foundation funding for every district in the state, with more funding for those that needed it. It authorized the creation of curriculum frameworks and tests, as well as graduation requirements and tests for incoming teachers. Massachusetts added new funding for early childhood education and professional development.

There are three salient points to be made about the Massachusetts reform:

1. It was successful: Massachusetts is indeed at the top of NAEP in fourth and eighth grades, in reading and math.

2. It was expensive: state funding increased from $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion from 1993 to 2000.

3. Mitt Romney had nothing to do with its success.

Diane

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Romney, Mitt

Does Class Size Matter?

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2012 //
31

Mitt Romney launched his foray into education by visiting the Universal Bluford charter school in West Philadelphia, an impoverished, largely African-American neighborhood. He went to tout his plan for vouchers and charters as the new civil rights crusade of our era.

While there, thinking he was in friendly territory, he made some unfortunate remarks. First, he asserted that class size wasn’t important. That is no doubt the advice he had received from his advisors, who like to claim that having a “great teacher” is far more important than class size reduction. Then, he advised his listeners that one of the keys to education success is to be a child of a two-parent family. He got called out on both comments.

A music teacher rebuked him on the class size issue, saying: “I can’t think of any teacher in the whole time I’ve been teaching, over 10 years — 13 years — who would say that more students would benefit them. And I can’t think of a parent that would say ‘I would like my kid to be in a room with a lot of kids,’” Morris said. “So I’m kind of wondering where this research comes from.”

His advice about having a two-parent family was not well received. It’s the kind of analysis one expects to hear in a think tank discussion, but not the advice you offer to a community that deals with real-life circumstances rather than academic speculation.

When challenged to explain his comments on class size, Romney said that the global consulting firm McKinsey concluded that class size doesn’t matter. Of course, it mattered a lot to the Romney family. Mitt Romney went to the Cranbrook School in Michigan, where class size is said to be less than 6:1. His children also went to an elite private school, and elite private schools are known for small classes.

Parent activist Leonie Haimson called on President Obama (for whom she worked in 2008) to take a stand on the class size issue. She wrote an open letter to the President, asking him to repudiate comments by Secretary Arne Duncan that sounded no different from what Romney had said. Secretary Duncan is a graduate of the University of Chicago Lab School, where class size is 10:1. Just a year ago, Bill Gates set off a firestorm among teacher bloggers when he said that better teachers were more important than smaller classes. Gates went to Lakeside School in Seattle, where classes are never more than 16.

I propose a rule for advocacy by politicians and academic experts: Never advocate for other people’s children what you are unwilling to accept for your own.

Diane

Categories Romney, Mitt

Who Will Vouchers Benefit in Louisiana?

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2012 //
6

As Mitt Romney continues his advocacy for vouchers, he should follow  developments in Louisiana.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the New Living Word School has offered to nearly quadruple its student enrollment, from 122 to 437, even though it lacks the facilities or teachers for the new students. Millions of public dollars will flow to this small church school, where students spend most of their class time watching DVDs.

A reader alerted me that another little school that will reap the benefits from the voucher program is the Eternity Christian Academy in Calcasieu Parish. It currently enrolls 14 students. It has offered to take in 135 new students. Its small budget will grow by $1 million in taxpayer dollars.

Perhaps Romney and Jindal might hold a joint press conference to explain why they think that putting more students into religious schools will prepare them for the 21st century. I wonder if they will learn about science as it is taught in the public schools. Will they learn about evolution and modern biological concepts? We need to hear more from reformers like Jindal and Romney about their views of what constitutes a good education.

Diane

Categories Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Romney, Mitt, Vouchers

How Charters Compete

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2012 //
19

A while back, I read a story in the New York Times that really bothered me.

It explained that neighborhood public schools are now compelled to “market” themselves because of competition with charters. In Harlem, charters are omnipresent, and the city administration has closed many public schools to make way for charters. New York City Department of Education officials make clear their preference for charters, leaving no one to fight for or defend the public schools against their competitors. If charters want public school space, they get it, usually over the opposition of the parents and community.

But what was so striking about the story–and you have to read to the end to find this–was the contrast between the resources of the public school and the invading charter. The public school had $500 or less to market itself, with flyers, brochures, volunteers. The charter–in this case, Harlem Success Academy–spent $325,000.

Wow. How can a public school compete when the charter can expend $325,000 to persuade people to participate in the lottery?

This story made me realize that the lottery isn’t really about admission to the school. The lottery is a marketing device. By whipping up interest, curiosity, and enthusiasm, all that money produces large numbers of applicants for the lottery. The lottery is an extravaganza with balloons, the turning of the wheel, the announcement of the winners, the disappointment of the losers. The daughter of a hedge fund manager in Connecticut, who is deeply involved in the charter school “movement,” produced a documentary called “The Lottery,” to promote charters.

Marketing is part of the business plan. Public relations is part of the business plan. Promoting the idea that charters are a cure for the ills of poverty is part of the business plan. Presenting charters as “the civil right idea” of our time is part of the business plan (a cry echoed by both Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney).

In some cities, the business plan is to replace public education altogether with corporate sponsors.

It’s sad that public schools must waste money and time marketing themselves. They should be devoting themselves completely to their mission, not to competing with the charters.

It’s also sad that the corporate and philanthropic interests that push charters so insistently don’t give a thought to the damage they do to an essential democratic institution.

Diane

Categories Charter Schools, Duncan, Arne, Harlem Success Academy, Romney, Mitt

Romney’s Absurd Claims

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2012 //
10

Mitt Romney is out on the campaign trail, pushing vouchers and charters and online learning and for-profit schools and larger class size as the answers to our “failing” public schools.

I wish someone would give him some actual facts to work with. Are our schools failing? No, they are  not.

According to the latest federal data, the high school graduation rate is now at the highest point in our history for every group: for white students, black students, Hispanic students, low-income students, middle-income students, and high-income students.

According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, test scores in reading and math are at their highest point in our history. Forgive me if I quote an earlier blog from this site:

“Proficient [on NAEP] is akin to a solid A. In reading, the proportion who were proficient in fourth grade reading rose from 29% in 1992 to 34% in 2011. The proportion proficient in eighth grade also rose from 29% to 34% in those years. In math, the proportion in fourth grade who were proficient rose from 18% to 40% in the past twenty years, an absolutely astonishing improvement. In eighth grade, the proportion proficient in math went from 21% in 1992 to an amazing 35% in 2011.”

“When the scores are broken out by race, you can really see dramatic progress, especially in math. In 1992, 80% of black students in fourth grade were below basic. By 2011, that proportion had dropped to 49%. Among white students in fourth grade math, the proportion below basic fell in that time period from 40% to only 16%.”

“The changes in reading scores are not as dramatic as in math, but they are nonetheless impressive. In fourth grade, the proportion of black students who were below basic in 1992 was 68%; by 2011, it was down to 51%. In eighth grade, the proportion of black students who were reading below basic was 55%; that had fallen to 41% by 2011.”

These numbers tell a story not of failing schools, but of steady–and in some cases, very impressive–progress.

Should we do better? Of course. But people don’t do a better job if you keep telling them (falsely) that they are failing. It is important to acknowledge success if you want to keep moving forward.

Mitt Romney tried pushing his education policies at a charter school in West Philadelphia. He probably thought that what he was offering would be greeted with cheers, but he looked very foolish when he told his audience that class size didn’t matter.

Steven Morris, a music teacher at the school, said: “I can’t think of any teacher in the whole time I’ve been teaching, over 10 years — 13 years — who would say that more students would benefit them. And I can’t think of a parent that would say ‘I would like my kid to be in a room with a lot of kids,’” Morris said. “So I’m kind of wondering where this research comes from.”

Romney knew better than the teacher, it seems, because he cited a study by McKinsey saying that class size doesn’t matter. No doubt, he also had heard the same from his stable of uber-conservative think tank experts.

Had Romney consulted a wider body of research, he would have known that class size does matter.

Had he thought about the choices he made for his own children, he would have not been so foolish as to suggest that class size doesn’t matter. I don’t know where they went to school, but I have read that they were educated in private schools. I am willing to bet they had class sizes of 12-18. (A reader informs me–see comments below–that the Romney children attended an elite school where average class size was 12. Wonder how that would work in the public schools of Detroit, Cleveland, Fresno, Philadelphia, and Baltimore?)

Why would Romney propose that children who need as much or more attention as his own children should get less?

Diane

Categories Charter Schools, NAEP, Romney, Mitt, Testing

The Romney Education Agenda

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2012 //
18

What would education policy look like in a Mitt Romney administration?

As the saying goes, people are policy. Romney’s list of campaign advisers was released this week and it is a re-run of the George W. Bush administration.

There is Rod Paige, Nina Rees, Bill Hansen, Russ Whitehurst, Bill Evers, Carol D’Amico, and possibly others who were high-level Bush II appointees. Margaret Spellings has also advised Romney but is not on this task force. There are representatives of big corporations, and there is a state superintendent (Tom Luna of Idaho) known for his love of online learning (and getting campaign contributions from providers of same). There are also conservative policy academics, such as Paul Peterson, Herbert Walberg, Robert Costrell, and John Chubb.

There was a time when I would have been on the same side with these like-minded folks. But I am no longer like-minded. What I can bring to the table, however, is that I know their policies and ideas well because I once shared them.

Their core beliefs are school choice, testing and accountability. These were the hallmarks of No Child Left Behind, as they are now the foundation for Race to the Top. So a new Romney administration would seek to advance vouchers, charters, online learning, and test-based accountability. But because Republicans don’t like to be perceived as proponents of federal control, they would seek to minimize the heavy hand of the Department of Education, or at least the perception of control by D.C.

The advisers share a belief in free markets and entrepreneurship, so they will advocate for policies that increase the market share of for-profit corporations and online companies in the “education industry.”

Alyson Klein of Education Week obtained a copy of the talking points for the Romney education policy, which clearly describes what to expect.

The basic idea is that parents make choices armed with information. The information will be derived from test scores, school report cards, and other measures. Testing will be as important, possibly even more consequential (if that is possible), than it is today.

Once parents make choices, then federal dollars follow the child. This concept is meant to enable Title I dollars and other federal aid to support vouchers, charters, tutoring companies, online corporations, and any other education providers.

On teacher quality issues, a Romney administration will follow the lead of Race to the Top and offer money to incentivize states to reward and retain teachers whose students get higher test scores and to ditch teachers’ seniority and tenure.

The administration will oppose “unnecessary” certification requirements, which means that it is unlikely to support teacher certification of any kind. Conservatives don’t believe that teachers need credentials, just the ability to produce higher test scores. Expect a wave of ill-trained new teachers who got their degree online, continuing support  for Teach for America (again in the footsteps of Race to the Top), and encouragement of any who want to try their hand as teachers for a few years. Back to the good old days when anyone could teach.

The unions are the perpetual bad guys in the talking points memo, and no door in the Romney administration will ever be open to them. This will quicken the heartbeat of conservative activists. Expect support from this administration for any state that wants to roll back collective bargaining.

In higher education, expect no federal efforts to help students pay for college.

Anticipate a return to private sector management of student loans, which the Obama administration ditched as wasteful. Bill Hansen was once a lobbyist for the private sector lenders.

The talking points memo blasts Obama for not controlling the costs of higher education but offers no plan for doing so. Expect that online higher education, which is cheap, profitable and low quality, will get a boost in the Romney administration as a means to make college affordable.

What we see in this memo is what the architects of NCLB wished they could have proposed: Not only tough accountability but unlimited school choice. Back in 2001, the Democrats forced the Republicans to give up their choice goals. But Race to the Top paved the way for charters and for-profit entrepreneurs.

NCLB established the test-based accountability agenda. Race to the Top built on NCLB’s accountability agenda and required states to expand charters if they wanted a chunk of the $5 billion in discretionary funding. Now the Romney advisers are building on the Race to the Top agenda of choice & accountability.

What’s missing in the Romney agenda is any reference to early childhood education, which is research-based; no reference to asking Congress to pay the long-promised share of the costs of special education; nothing about equity issues; nothing about professional preparation or professional development (which gets entangled with credentials, which the task force opposes). All of these issues–and others–will be left to the workings of the free market, which is not known for producing equality of educational opportunity.

Most consequentially, there is not a word of support for America’s public schools. Not one.

Diane

Categories Romney, Mitt
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