Archives for category: Students
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Hillsborough County: A Culture of Fear

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2013 //
36

Many years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that students have First Amendment rights.

In 1969, in a decision called Tinker V. Des Moines Community School District, the High Court voted 7-2 that the school could not prevent students from wearing black armbands to protest the war in Vietnam.

Hillsborough County, Florida, never heard of that decision. At the high school graduation ceremonies, the principal of a high school cut off the salutatorian mid-speech and withheld his diploma. This was not a response to anything he said, but apparently retaliation against him for posting a YouTube video criticizing the condition of the boys’ bathrooms. Even the local media noticed.

Teachers responded by saying that they too had experienced the same top-down, heavy-handed approach. “All across the country, teachers are afraid to speak up. No where is that more true than in Hillsborough county, the countries 8th largest district. With 15,000 teachers, Hillsborough is home to the Gates Foundation’s EET teacher evaluation system. This system may look good on paper, but it has been overwhelmingly unpopular with teachers, More than anything, it has established a culture of fear that has effectively silenced teacher expression.”

Apparently, when Bill and Melinda Gates show up to check on their investment, they get smiles and adulation from the teachers at Potemkin Village High. But when they leave, business as usual means “shut up. “

Categories Florida, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Students

Michael Weston: Teacher Evaluation Will Not Change the BIG Problem

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2013 //
15

Michal Weston, a teacher in Hillsborough County, Florida (at least for now), is running for the local school board. Regular readers know that he was recently fired by his principal for speaking out too much. Since Hillsborough County was one of the few that received a big Gates grant, it is heretical to question the idea that teacher evaluation is the very biggest problem in the world and that the right model will make all students proficient and college bound. Weston displays his heretical views here:

He writes:

Don’t get me wrong – teaching can and should be practiced and improved. My point is that teachers are not the BIG problem. We are not a mid-sized problem. Some of us are a small problem. The BIG problem is what we are doing about the “achievement gap”. I quote “achievement gap” because it is really an income gap. Neither gap is the problem.

The BIG problem is:

*Dumbing down the curriculum so everyone can succeed.
*Increasing rigor so everyone will be challenged.
*Testing kids until they cry. This is the name of holding accountable those who do not make them excel.
*Punishing schools and teachers who cannot magically make the “achievement gap” go away – in spite of all the excellent support being provided.
*Teaching the test to avoid punishment (teachers) or to amass treasure (administrators).
*Re-writing the textbooks so there are more balloons, insets, practice tests, pictures and web links than information.
*Encouraging EDUIndustry to create the next magic curriculum to sell us.
*Encouraging the notion of failing schools so as to sell them off (read give away) to for-profit institutions.
*Eliminating the arts in favor of STEM.

The list goes on.

What should we be doing. Easy. First, do no harm. Stop all of the above.

Next – get to work on the income gap. How? Graduate employable kids. We have to abandon the notion of one-size-fits-all education. We must abandon the requirement that all kids be prepared for college. We have to place kids in educational settings where they can succeed. For some that means AP Physics. For some that means Creative Writing. For others that may mean auto shop. For some it is carpentry.

99 times out of 100, you will not succeed in taking a high school freshman (a 16 year old freshman), with fourth grade math skills, and get that kid into AP Physics. It seems like 100 times out of 100, that is our goal however. Most of these kids drop out; never to pay a dime of income-tax in their often short lives.

We must redefine high school, and what we intend to do with kids for four years of their lives. College is grand; we must provide a high quality path; one where 50% of kids do not require remediation. Trades are grand; a graduate with a career in masonry will earn a good living; provide for his children; and provide a a greater respect for education. His son may go into trades, or may choose the college route. They are both available because mom and dad will not allow him to be left behind in fourth grade. This family WILL have a college graduate someday.

Just not tomorrow.

That is the piece we refuse to accept, That it will not be tomorrow. Instead, we seek the Holy Grail, the silver bullet, the magic elixir, SOMEONE TO BLAME!

The achievement gap will be closed with the income gap. It will take generations, because there is no silver bullet. The BIG problem with education is that as long as we are hunting the Holy Grail, we have yet to begin the real work.

Categories Students, Teacher Evaluations

The Shame of Providence

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2013 //
6

Providence and the state of Rhode Island allowed a school to use developmentally disabled students to do manual labor for little or no pay.

Both the city and state received a stern letter from the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice.

“Both Providence and the state allowed the Harold H. Birch Vocational School to operate a “sheltered workshop” that segregated kids with disabilities from other students and denied them the opportunity for integrated employment when they completed their schooling, according to a letter from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Birch obtains contracts with private businesses to perform work, such as bagging, labeling, collating, and assembling jewelry,” the letter stated.

“One former student stated that she was required to spend a much greater portion of her school day in the workshop, including full days, when the workshop had important production deadlines.”

Categories Special Education, Students

A Word from the Cripples

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2013 //
16

The state of Pennsylvania, the School Reform Commission, Governor Corbett, and the Legislature have decided to strip bare the publuc schools of Philadelphia. They are doing to these students what they would never do to their own. They are vandals.

This morning, i received this poem written by a student, Siduri Beckmann. Why is Siduri less deserving of a full education than the children of the city and state’s leaders?

“This poem has brought tears to many eyes in Philadelphia in the last twenty-four hours!

“Siduri Beckman is a ninth-grader at Julia R. Masterman School. She is the city of Philadelphia’s first Youth Poet Laureate. She “felt like it was part of my job and my duty as a Masterman student to write a poem protesting the school budget cuts.”

A Word from the Cripples

I’ve got something

to say.

It won’t take long

Just as long as it took you

to snatch everything away

One fourth of the body is

the leg

You have crippled us

Cursing us to hobble

all of our lives.

I cannot run

cross-country

on just

one leg.

Rip song

off of our tongues

to find songs are not Velcro but flesh

Snap the bows of the violins

in case the students could ever get the idea

that music

is alive

Because then you would have blood on your hands.

God forbid.

You see us as a problem

the classic class problem

INNER CITY streaked like mud across our faces

they’re all on the street anyway.

But leeches don’t suck out the disease

just the lifeblood.

I am angry

But I will not stoop

and hurt you

As you have hurt me

Thrusting fear

into our hearts

Why make us feel

so small

helpless

Forgotten by the people

whose duty it is to remember

Turn your back on your city

that chose not to choose

you

Because they feared

and now do all fears dawn true.

Bust the beehive

We will come out

In droves of wasps

We sting and live

to sting again

We will show ourselves to be

as formidable a foe

as all of those frackers

who you refuse to tax.

But you have also forgot

all of those ink marks slashed

with no faces or hopes or dreams or blood or flesh

Dismiss us

We cannot vote.

But in this country

we can speak.

Categories Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Philadelphia, Stand for Children, Students

The Negative Consequences of Pressuring Students to Take AP Courses

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2013 //
58

A reader commented on an ongoing discussion of Advanced Placement courses and the rating of high schools according to how many students, ready or not, take them.

She writes:

“The highly publicized rankings based on AP tests taken did a lot of harm in my sons’ high school. AP courses used to attract the students who were genuinely ready for college-level work, but about seven years ago, the school system instituted a policy that required every student who took an AP course to take the AP exam, and also began to push students into AP who did not really need to be there. There were parent meetings about AP and IB and the message was sent that if our kids wanted to be high achievers, they would take these classes. Soon, through school system pressure and peer pressure, a two-tiered system developed where the “smart” kids were in AP, and “everyone else” was in regular classes. The school began to make the “Challenging High Schools” list, but the teachers (who are evaluated by students scores on the tests and not just by how many take them) were now under great pressure to keep their scores up. They could not afford to slow down, or to differentiate for students with learning differences, or do much at all for those who were just not ready for the level of difficulty of the AP courses. It was sink or swim, and a lot of kids sank.

“My older son was a high achiever and a good tester, so he did fine, although we got a rude shock when he got to college and realized that acceptance of AP scores varies HIGHLY from university to university and even from school to school within a university. Almost none of his high scores actually allowed him to skip college courses.

“My younger son has some learning differences, and AP courses were frustrating and overwhelming for him, while at the same time, his non-AP courses were, as he put it, “filled with slackers”. Fortunately we had a very good counselor who was able to transfer him to classes that were a better fit. He has now graduated, but I hear from friends that the school’s policy for next year is NO TRANSFERS OUT of AP, even if the student is failing. So many kids were bailing on AP that it was messing up class sizes.

“I firmly believe that students do better if they are challenged, but AP is not for every student. It is not even for most students.”

Categories Curriculum, Students

An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2013 //
24

A diverse group of individuals have joined to sign an Education Declaration to Rebuild America. Please read the statement and if you agree, send it to your friends, tweet it, add it to your Facebook page.

Please sign here.
·

An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

Americans have long looked to our public schools to provide opportunities for individual advancement, promote social mobility, and share democratic values. We have built great universities, helped bring children out of factories and into classrooms, held open the college door for returning veterans, fought racial segregation, and struggled to support and empower students with special needs. We believe good schools are essential to democracy and prosperity — and that it is our collective responsibility to educate all children, not just a fortunate few.

Over the past three decades, however, we have witnessed a betrayal of those ideals. Following the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, policymakers on all sides have pursued an education agenda that imposes top-down standards and punitive high-stakes testing while ignoring the supports students need to thrive and achieve. This approach – along with years of drastic financial cutbacks — are turning public schools into uncreative, joyless institutions. Educators are being stripped of their dignity and autonomy, leading many to leave the profession. Neighborhood schools are being closed for arbitrary reasons. Parent and community voices are being shut out of the debate. And children, most importantly, are being systemically deprived of opportunities to learn.

As a nation we have failed to rectify glaring inequities in access to educational opportunities and resources. By focusing solely on the achievement gap, we have neglected the opportunity gap that creates it, and have allowed the re-segregation of our schools and communities by class and race. The inevitable result, highlighted in the Federal Equity and Excellence Commission’s recent report For Each and Every Child, is an inequitable system that hits disadvantaged students, families, and communities the hardest.

A new approach is needed to improve our nation’s economic trajectory, strengthen our democracy, and avoid an even more stratified and segregated society. To rebuild America, we need a vision for 21st Century education based on seven principles:

· All students have a right to learn. Opportunities to learn should not depend on zip code or a parent’s abilities to work the system. Our education system must address the needs of all children, regardless of how badly they are damaged by poverty and neglect in their early years. We must invest in research-proven interventions and supports that start before kindergarten and support every child’s aspirations for college or career.

· Public education is a public good. Public education should never be undermined by private control, deregulation, and profiteering. Keeping our schools public is the only way we can ensure that each and every student receives a quality education. School systems must function as democratic institutions responsive to students, teachers, parents, and communities.

· Investments in education must be equitable and sufficient. Funding is necessary for all the things associated with an excellent education: safe buildings, quality teachers, reasonable class sizes, and early learning opportunities. Yet, as we’ve “raised the bar” for achievement, we’ve cut the resources children and schools need to reach it. We must reverse this trend and spend more money on education and distribute those funds more equitably.

· Learning must be engaging and relevant. Learning should be a dynamic experience through connections to real world problems and to students’ own life experiences and cultural backgrounds. High-stakes testing narrows the curriculum and hinders creativity.

· Teachers are professionals. The working conditions of teachers are the learning conditions of students. When we judge teachers solely on a barrage of high-stakes standardized tests, we limit their ability to reach and connect with their students. We must elevate educators’ autonomy and support their efforts to reach every student.

· Discipline policies should keep students in schools. Students need to be in school in order to learn. We must cease ineffective and discriminatory discipline practices that push children down the school-to-prison pipeline. Schools must use fair discipline policies that keep classrooms safe and all students learning.

· National responsibility should complement local control. Education is largely the domain of states and school districts, but in far too many states there are gross inequities in how funding is distributed to schools that serve low income and minority students. In these cases, the federal government has a responsibility to ensure there is equitable funding and enforce the civil right to a quality education for all students.

Principles are only as good as the policies that put them into action. The current policy agenda dominated by standards-based, test-driven reform is clearly insufficient. What’s needed is a supports-based reformagenda that provides every student with the opportunities and resources needed to achieve high standards and succeed, focused on these seven areas:
1. Early Education and Grade Level Reading: Guaranteed access to high quality early education for all, including full-day kindergarten and universal access to pre-K services, to help ensure students can read at grade level.

2. Equitable Funding and Resources: Fair and sufficient school funding freed from over-reliance on locally targeted property taxes, so those who face the toughest hurdles receive the greatest resources. Investments are also needed in out-of-school factors affecting students, such as supports for nutrition and health services, public libraries, after school and summer programs, and adult remedial education — along with better data systems and technology.

3. Student-Centered Supports: Personalized plans or approaches that provide students with the academic, social, and health supports they need for expanded and deeper learning time.

4. Teaching Quality: Recruitment, training, and retention of well-prepared, well-resourced, and effective educators and school leaders, who can provide extended learning time and deeper learning approaches, and are empowered to collaborate with and learn from their colleagues.

5. Better Assessments: High quality diagnostic assessments that go beyond test-driven mandates and help teachers strengthen the classroom experience for each student.

6. Effective Discipline: An end to ineffective and discriminatory discipline practices including inappropriate out-of-school suspensions, replaced with policies and supports that keep all students in quality educational settings.

7. Meaningful Engagement: Parent and community engagement in determining the policies of schools and the delivery of education services to students.

As a nation, we’re failing to provide the basics our children need for an opportunity to learn. Instead, we have substituted a punitive high-stakes testing regime that seeks to force progress on the cheap. But there is no shortcut to success. We must change course before we further undermine schools and drive away the teachers our children need.

All who envision a more just, progressive, and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

Signatories
· Greg Anrig
The Century Foundation

· Kenneth J. Bernstein
National Board Certified Social Studies Teacher

· Martin J. Blank
Director, Coalition for Community Schools

· Jeff Bryant
Education Opportunity Network

· Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige
Co Founder, Defending Early Years Foundation

· Anthony Cody
Teachers’ Letters to Obama, Network for Public Education

· Linda Darling-Hammond
Professor of Education, Stanford University

· Larry Deutsch, MD, MPH
Minority Leader (Working Families Party), Hartford City Council

· Bertis Downs
Parent, Lawyer and Advocate

· Dave Eggers
Writer

· Matt Farmer
Chicago Public Schools parent

· Dr. Rosa Castro Feinberg, Ph.D.
LULAC Florida State Education Commissioner;
Associate Professor (Retired), Florida International University

· Nancy Flanagan
Senior Fellow, Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA);
Blogger, Education Week; Teacher

· Andrew Gillum
City Commissioner of Tallahassee, Florida
National Director of the Young Elected Officials Network

· Larry Groce
Host and Artistic Director, Mountain Stage, Charleston, West Virginia

· William R. Hanauer
Mayor, Village of Ossining;
President, Westchester Municipal Officials Association

· Julian Vasquez Heilig
The University of Texas at Austin

· Roger Hickey
Institute for America’s Future

· John Jackson
Opportunity To Learn Campaign

· Jonathan Kozol
Educator & Author

· John Kuhn
Superintendent, Perrin-Whitt School District (Texas)

· Kevin Kumashiro, Ph.D.
Incoming Dean, University of San Francisco School of Education;
President, National Association for Multicultural Education

· Rev. Peter Laarman
Progressive Christians Uniting

· Chuck Lesnick
Yonkers City Council President

· Rev. Tim McDonald
Co-Chair, African American Ministers In Action

· Lawrence Mischel
Economic Policy Institute

· Kathleen Oropeza
Co-Founder, Fund Education Now

· State Senator Nan Grogan Orrock
Georgia Senate District 36

· Charles Payne
University of Chicago

· Diane Ravitch
New York University, Network for Public Education

· Robert B. Reich
Chancellor’s Professor, University of California at Berkeley;
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor

· Jan Resseger
United Church of Christ, Justice & Witness Ministries

· Nan Rich
Florida State Senator

· Hans Riemer
Montgomery County Council Member; Montgomery County, MD

· Maya Rockeymoore, Ph.D.
Center for Global Policy Solutions

· David Sciarra
Education Law Center

· Rinku Sen
President and Executive Director, Applied Research Center

· Theda Skocpol
Harvard University
Director, Scholars Strategy Network

· Rita M. Solnet
Co Founder, Parents Across America

· John Stocks
Executive Director, National Education Association

· Steve Suitts
Vice President, Southern Education Foundation

· Paul Thomas, EdD
Furman University

· Dennis Van Roekel
President, National Education Association

· Dr. Jerry D. Weast
Former Superintendent, Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools;
Founder and CEO, Partnership for Deliberate Excellence

· Randi Weingarten
President, American Federation of Teachers

· Kevin Welner
Professor, University of Colorado Boulder School of Education;
Director, National Education Policy Center

Roger Hickey
Campaign for America’s Future
office: (202) 587-1604 cell: (202) 270-0300

Categories Students, Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching

Tucson Stores Student Data on Murdoch’s Other Site

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2013 //
6

Columnist David Safier of Tucson keeps close watch on the corporatization of education in Arizona.

He recently reported that the Tucson school district is outsourcing student data to a Murdoch owned site called mCLASS. This is different from the Murdoch data storage program called inBloom.

Safier is concerned about the security of student data, as we should all be. Why can’t schools respect student privacy?

Categories Privacy and Privacy Rights, Students

An Extraordinary Student

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2013 //
3

When I visited South Side High School in Rockville Center, where Carol Burris is principal, I was questioned by a group of students as part of my presentation. One of them is featured in this article. He is a young man with a severe disability. He has a sunny disposition and is an inspiration to everyone else in the school.

By SCOTT EIDLER scott.eidler@newsday.com

McKingsley Ryan Williams is beloved at South Side High School in Rockville Centre. Classmates applauded when he was beamed into an International Baccalaureate class after heart surgery, he was voted Homecoming King and has returned to the principal’s advisory committee.

For a month last fall, McKingsley Ryan Williams dealt with the rigors of senior year all from a hospital bed — the limits of integration, conjugating French verbs.

The Rockville Centre student was recuperating from heart surgery, six years after he was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that has left him in a wheelchair.
Still, it was his final year of high school and Williams insisted on not falling behind. The school set him up with an iPad, and through the FaceTime video chat program his International Baccalaureate classes were streamed live.

“So I wouldn’t be totally lost when I got back,” he said.

Williams, 18, of Rockville Centre, kept at it — though he had to swap BC Calculus for an easier AB class, so he could end his day earlier and rest.

Williams is beloved at South Side, where he is part of the principal’s advisory committee, works in the main office and presses lecturers on issues as diverse as Middle Eastern politics and educational reform. When Andrew Young visited, Williams didn’t ask him the customary Civil Rights-related question. According to Principal Carol Burris, who said she thought Williams might ask Young about meeting famous people, Williams asked about the Middle East conflict between Palestine and Israel. She remembers Young being “quite impressed” with the question.
Burris describes Williams as “an inspiration to his classmates,” who is “humble, but still understands the unique opportunity” he has to affect his peers.

His classmates cheered as he was beamed into IB class the first morning, promptly at 8:02.
By October, Williams was fully recovered. He won science competitions and kept managing his tutor network. When he was ready to return to South Side, his schoolmates greeted him with a surprise, choosing him to be Homecoming King. Weeks later, he made sure he was ready for the coronation.

“I didn’t want to let anybody down,” he said.

HIGHER ED: Williams will attend Stony Brook University, where he will major in engineering science.

AT COLLEGE I’M MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO: “All the clubs, making new friends. And advancing science research: I want to do something that will help change the world.”

WHAT MAKES YOU EXTRAORDINARY: “My personality — usually when anything happens, I always have a positive and optimistic outlook.”

http://www.newsday.com/lifestyle/mckingsley-ryan-williams-south-side-high-school-1.5417875

Categories Students

I Received a Letter from a Student

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2013 //
21

I received a letter from a student in Renton, Washington. I will not include the student’s name, to protect his or her privacy. I was moved by the honesty and thoughtfulness of this letter. If we have 11-years old this smart, our nation’s future is secure. This young person makes me feel like a teacher. I can’t think of a better way to feel today!

 

“Dear Mrs. Ravitch,

 

First of all, let me say that you are my inspiration. I love all that you do. I love how you blog every day. It helps me find out what’s happening to our world.

My name is —– ——. I go to Nelsen Middle School. I live in Renton, Washington. I am 11 years old. I especially like one of the blogs you wrote about on March 13, 2013, “The Day the Teachers Said No.” I strongly agree with you there’s no point to do this pointless testing if all they are doing is marketing students. I like how you said, “in unity there is strength.”

Another one of your blogs called “National day of action for Garfield High School and Seattle Schools Boycotting the MAP.” I’m so glad they’re boycotting it because there is no need to take the test. Like I said before, it is pointless.

The last blog piece I really liked was “Are You As Smart as a 5th Grader,” some of the stuff I thought we were supposed to learn in another grade, I mean really.

Thank you for what you do. I bet thousands of thousands of people read your blog every day and I’m happy to be one of them.

 

Sincerely,

 

——- ———“

Categories Students

In Person with Jon Stewart: The Story of the I.S. 318 Chess Team

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2013 //
13

Yesterday I wrote about the championship chess team at I.S. 318 in Brooklyn, which needs $20,000 to travel to tournaments and remain in competition. The after school funding that keeps the program alive was cut by the New York City Department of Education.

I thought you would enjoy watching the segment on “The Daily Show” when Jon Stewart interviewed the producer and one of the students who are featured in the film.

My favorite moment is when the student, Pobo, says spontaneously, “I love my teachers!” And the audience breaks into applause because they love their teachers too.

John Galvin, the assistant principal at 318 in charge of the chess program, has been reading this blog. John, give us a name and address, and we will do some fund-raising for our chess program.

Categories Budget Cuts, NYC, Students, Support for public schools, Teachers
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