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News Flash from L.A.: Science Teacher Suspended for Teaching Science Now Back in Classroom

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2014 //
34

Strange things happen in Los Angeles. Maybe all that nonstop good weather rattles people.

High school science teacher Greg Schiller was suspended after an administrator concluded that science projects made by two of his students were dangerous.

Schiller has now been allowed to return to his classroom.

“Both projects overseen by teacher Greg Schiller were capable of launching small objects. A staff member at the downtown Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts had raised concerns about one of them. Both are common in science fairs.

“I am very excited to be back with my students and help them prepare for the Advanced Placement tests, which are a week away,” Schiller said Thursday. “We have a lot of work ahead of ourselves.”

Schiller teaches AP Biology and AP Psychology. He also coaches the fencing team, which had to miss a major competition due to his suspension.

Has anyone considered checking the credentials of the administrator who removed him?

Categories Los Angeles, STEM, Teachers and Teaching

Breaking News: Colorado Teachers Force Union to Join Fight Against High-Stakes Testing!

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2014 //
26

This just in:

Dear Colleagues:

I write to you specifically to inform you of recent action taken at the Colorado Education Association’s delegate assembly.
This past Tuesday, April 22nd, Pat Kennedy and I met here at my office at UNC to discuss what had recently transpired at the Colorado Education Association’s delegate assembly held earlier this month. The CEA adopted a new business item which reads as follows:

“CEA shall join in coalition with other organizations demanding the withdrawal of Colorado from the PARCC assessment and will place a three year moratorium on high stakes standardized tests.”

At long last the CEA is willing to take action. Pat, who was a delegate at the assembly, was encouraged by the possibilities of such a new business item. She will take the names of organizations which have been created to resist the invasion of high stakes standardized testing which has so devastated public education. Pat will supply this information to the Communications Department and CEA executive offices including the office of President Kerrie Dallman.

Over 500 delegates (public school educators from across the state of Colorado) directed CEA to join in coalitions with other organizations to take the next steps to withdraw Colorado from the PARCC and seek a three year moratorium on high stakes standardized tests. Colleagues, let’s give this new business item some teeth. Please write to Pat (pkennedy1950@msn.com) and inform her of the details of your organizations. This will be a point of strength and a point of departure as the CEA makes demands on the Colorado Department of Education. We know what is pedagogically sound. We know what malpractice looks like. Let’s continue to speak from strength and demand truly humane policies that dignify the autonomy of our children and their professionals in the classroom.

In solidarity,

Don Perl
http://www.thecbe.org

Department of Hispanic Studies
University of Northern Colorado
Greeley, Colorado 80639
don.perl@unco.edu
970-351-2746

Categories Colorado, Resistance, Standardized Testing, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, Unions

Obama and Duncan Plan to Control Teacher Institutions with Their Failed Ideas

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2014 //
54

With the Obama administration’s latest policy pronouncement, the federal grip on American education grows tighter and stupider every day.

The latest: the administration plans to reward the best teacher-training institutions and drive the “worst” ones out of business. This is like Race to the Top for teacher preparation programs.

What are their measures? Of course, student test scores loom large.

“The goal: To ensure that every state evaluates its teacher education programs by several key metrics, such as how many graduates land teaching jobs, how long they stay in the profession and whether they boost their students’ scores on standardized tests. The administration will then steer financial aid, including nearly $100 million a year in federal grants to aspiring teachers, to those programs that score the highest. The rest, Duncan said, will need to improve or “go out of business.”

Thus, programs that send their graduates to work in urban districts with high-needs students will get low ratings. Duncan will drive them out of business. Smart institutions will steer their graduates to affluent suburbs, where scores will go up regardless of what they do.

The message from the U.S. Department of Education to the nation’s colleges of teacher education:

1. Do not send your graduates to teach struggling students who are likely to get small or no gains on standardized tests, such as students with extreme disabilities and English language learners, as well as gifted students, who are unlikely to post gains because of the ceiling effect.

2. Teach to the test. Drill the students hour after hour. Extend the school day whenever possible so there is more time for test prep.

3. Don’t waste time on non-tested subjects like the arts, history, civics, and science. They don’t count.

4. Invest in Pearson and McGraw-Hill stock.

The evidence is overwhelming that value-added measures for teachers are inaccurate, but neither secretary Duncan nor the White House care about evidence.

As reporter Stephanie Simon points out:

“The formulas for measuring how much “value” a teacher adds to a student’s test scores are complex and often carry a sizable margin of error.

“Earlier this month, the American Statistical Association warned that such formulas must be used with caution because teachers generally account for less than 15 percent — and in some studies, as little as 1 percent — of the variability in student test scores. Value-added models spit out precise-sounding numbers that purport to quantify a teacher’s impact on her students, but in fact the formulas “typically measure correlation, not causation,” the group concluded.

“A recent study funded by the Education Department found that value-added measures may fluctuate significantly due to factors beyond the teachers’ control, including random events such as a dog barking loudly outside a classroom window, distracting students during their standardized test. A 2010 study, also funded by the Education Department, found the models misidentify as many as 50 percent of teachers — pegging them as average when they’re actually better or worse than their peers, or singling them out for praise or condemnation when they’re actually average.

“Yet another challenge: Calculating scores for educators who do not teach subjects or grades assessed with standardized exams. Nationally, some 70 percent of teachers — including most high school and early elementary teachers, plus art, music and physical education teachers — fall into that category.

“Despite such complications, [White House policy director Cecilia] Muñoz made clear in a call with reporters on Thursday that Obama wants student test scores, or other measures of student growth, to figure heavily into states’ evaluations of teacher prep programs.

“This is something the president has a real sense of urgency about,” she said. “What happens in the classroom matters. It doesn’t just matter — it’s the whole ballgame.” So using student outcomes to evaluate teacher preparation programs “is really fundamental to making sure we’re successful,” Muñoz said. “We believe that’s a concept … whose time has come.”

Yes, using student test scores to evaluate teachers, principals, schools, and teacher colleges is “a concept… whose time has come,” despite the fact that there is no evidence for it, despite the fact that the nation’s leading scholarly organizations have warned about its limitations and misuse, despite the fact that it fails to account for factors beyond the teachers” control, and despite the fact that it misidentifies teacher effectiveness at an alarmingly high rate.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/barack-obama-arne-duncan-teacher-training-education-106013.html#ixzz2zuFEulXw

Categories Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Randi to Pearson: Remove the Gag Order and Test Secrecy

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2014 //
22

Randi Weingarten, on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers, sent representatives to the Pearson shareholders’ meeting in London and wrote the following letter to the leaders of the world’s biggest testing corporation. By shrouding the tests in secrecy, Pearson denies information to teachers to help diagnose student needs. The tests become useless by having no diagnostic value. Speculation abounds about hidden “Pineapple” questions and other test errors. If the lives of students and teachers and principals hinge on the tests, the tests must be made public after they are administered. Otherwise, teachers will be fired and students will be failed and schools will be closed without seeing the validity of the instruments of punishment. This is wrong.

For Immediate Release
April 25, 2014

Contact:

Marcus Mrowka
202/531-0689
mmrowka@aft.org

Kate Childs Graham
202/615-2424
kchilds@aft.org

AFT’s Weingarten to Pearson: Lift Gag Order on Testing, Meet with Stakeholders

WASHINGTON— In conjunction with the annual Pearson shareholder meeting in London, AFT President Randi Weingarten today released a letter sent to Pearson executives, board members and shareholders calling on the corporation to remove “gag orders” preventing educators from expressing concerns about Pearson-developed tests and to meet with educators, parents and other stakeholders to address their concerns regarding these tests. Pearson is the largest testing company in the world and derives 57 percent of its profits from the U.S.

Representatives from the AFT are at the shareholder meeting this morning to deliver the letter and discuss the concerns of educators, parents, students and shareholders. The AFT also launched an online action allowing educators, parents and others across the world to make the same demands of Pearson executives and board members.

“Principals and teachers in New York who recently administered the Pearson-developed Common Core tests have said they are barred from speaking about the test content and its effects on students,” wrote Weingarten. “This appears to be a result of a Pearson contract term that has been construed as disallowing them from expressing their concerns and views. …On behalf of teachers, parents, students and your shareholders, including our pension plans, I ask you to immediately remove these prohibitions (referred to as “gag orders” in the press) from existing and future contracts.”

Weingarten continued, “These gag orders and the lack of transparency are fueling the growing distrust and backlash among parents, students and educators in the United States about whether the current testing protocols and testing fixation is in the best interests of children. When parents aren’t allowed to know what is on their children’s tests, and when educators have no voice in how assessments are created and are forbidden from raising legitimate concerns about the quality of these assessments or from talking to parents about these concerns, you not only increase distrust of testing but also deny children the rich learning experience they deserve.”

Weingarten’s full letter to Pearson can be found below.

April 24, 2014

John Fallon
Chief Executive
Pearson PLC
80 Strand
London WC2R ORL
UK
john.fallon@pearson.com

Glen Moreno
Chairman
Pearson PLC
80 Strand
London WC2R ORL
UK
Glen.moreno@pearson.com

Dear Mr. Fallon and Mr. Moreno:

I was deeply disturbed to read recently in the New York Times and other newspapers of the issues teachers, principals, parents and students raised about Pearson tests. Principals and teachers in New York who recently administered the Pearson-developed Common Core tests have said they are barred from speaking about the test content and its effects on students. This appears to be a result of a Pearson contract term that has been construed as disallowing them from expressing their concerns and views. Elizabeth Phillips, the principal at Public School 321 in Brooklyn, N.Y., summarized these concerns in a recent New York Times opinion piece. On behalf of teachers, parents, students and your shareholders, including our pension plans, I ask you to immediately remove these prohibitions (referred to as “gag orders” in the press) from existing and future contracts.

These gag orders and the lack of transparency are fueling the growing distrust and backlash among parents, students and educators in the United States about whether the current testing protocols and testing fixation is in the best interests of children. When parents aren’t allowed to know what is on their children’s tests, and when educators have no voice in how assessments are created and are forbidden from raising legitimate concerns about these assessments’ quality or talking to parents about these concerns, you not only increase distrust of testing but also deny children the rich learning experience they deserve.

Continuing these practices may also have severe financial consequences for your corporation. Growing mistrust and concerns by parents, teachers and others over the asserted lack of transparency at InBloom appears to have been a driving factor in the company’s recent decision to end operations.

This is the third consecutive year that Pearson’s standardized tests have led to headline risk and reputational damage to the company. We’re concerned that Pearson is using gag orders to cover up-rather than address-problems with its standardized tests. If Pearson is going to remain competitive in the educational support and testing business, the company must listen to and respond to the concerns of educators like Elizabeth Phillips who report that the company has ignored extensive feedback.

Parents, students and teachers need assessments that accurately measure student performance through questions that are grade-appropriate and aligned with state standards-especially since standardized tests have increasingly life-altering consequences for students and teachers. By including gag orders in contracts, Pearson is silencing the very stakeholders the company needs to engage with. Poll after poll makes clear that parents overwhelmingly trust educators over all others to do what is best for their children; educators’ voices, concerns and input should be included in the creation and application of these assessments.

We intend to bring these concerns to the attention of senior management, the board and other shareholders during your annual meeting on Friday, April 25. We also are asking that you meet as soon as practical with stakeholders to discuss a comprehensive response to their concerns and to this serious threat to the company’s reputation, brand and share price. If you have representatives in the United States who meet with potential customers routinely to sell Pearson products, we believe you also can meet with stakeholders.

We look forward to your reply. Pearson must move quickly to address a serious and emerging threat to its brand, business model and ability to generate long-term value for shareholders.

Sincerelv.

Randi Weingarten
President

Categories Students, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, U.S. education, Unions

Alexandra Miletta: edTPA: Good Thing or Bad Thing? Part 1

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2014 //
25

A few years ago, the Powers-That-Be decided that the biggest problem in American education was the teachers. McKinsey said that other nations attracted the top performing graduates of the most prestigious universities into teaching, while our own sorry teachers came from the bottom of the barrel. In the hunt for perpetrators of what was wrongly assumed to be a national education disaster (after all, test scores and graduation rates were at an all-time high), the nation’s teacher-preparation institutions were a natural scapegoat. They were also an easy target, since people have complained about them for generations, and they have no high-profile defenders. Even Arthur Levine, former president of Teachers College, Columbia University, joined the ranks of the critics.

The answer: more tests for would-be teachers. Of course. And who would own the tests? Pearson. Of course.

Any policy talk about the proliferation of online masters’s degrees sold by for-profit diploma mills? No.

In part 1 of this two-part series, teacher educator Alexandra Miletta reviews the origins and workings of Pearson’s edTPA.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Who Wrote the Common Core Standards? Here is a List

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2014 //
118

There has been much debate about who wrote the Common Core standards.

Here is a press release that lists the names of the writing teams for each subject as well as “feedback” groups.

You will notice a large representation of people from the testing industry (College Board and ACT), as well as people from Achieve, a D.C. think tank.

Notice that the statement says:

“The Work Group’s deliberations will be confidential throughout the process.”

Notice that the statement says:

“Final decisions regarding the common core standards document will be made by the Standards Development Work Group. The Feedback Group will play an advisory role, not a decision-making role in the process.”

Count how many people on either the writing teams or the feedback groups are identified as classroom teachers. Count how many have any experience in teaching children with disabilities. Count how many are experienced in teaching early childhood classes or English language learners.

Compare that number–whatever it may be–to the number who are experienced in testing and assessment.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core, Special Education, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Chile: Dismantling the Most Pro-Market Education System in the World

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2014 //
39

The following post was written by Mario Waissbluth, President of Educación 2020 Foundation, a Chilean citizen’s movement founded in 2008. Its latest reform proposals (in Spanish) are called “La Reforma Educativa que Chile Necesita”, and were published in April 2013. A book on this subject (in Spanish) is also available. These proposals were mostly adopted by and included in the educational program of the recently elected government of Michelle Bachelet, and are starting to be implemented now.

Valentina Quiroga (32) was one of the student founders of this organization and is now Undersecretary of Education.

Although Educación 2020 remains as a fully independent movement, the positions stated thereon are in many ways similar to those of the current government.

Chile: Dismantling the most pro-market education system in the world

Mario Waissbluth

In August 2013 I wrote in this blog a three piece series, called “Chile: The most pro-market system in the world.” The first described the origins and structure of the system. The second explained its educational and social results, good and bad. The third pointed the way Chile should choose to get out of this mess. If the reader wants to fully understand this situation (the most “Milton Friedmanish” in the world), incomparable with any other country, it is advisable to read those beforehand.
Although some might disagree, from both extremes of the political spectrum, we are happy to inform that the proposals we made are very similar to those being implemented now. However, the political, financial and cultural obstacles will be formidable.

Bachelet was elected by a large margin of voters and has a majority in both the House and the Senate. Nonetheless, positions within the government’s coalition are not fully homogeneous. In addition, there is an impending tax reform that is vital for funding these reforms, costing no less than 2% of gross national product in gradual increments.

Of course, many powerful companies, with strong lobbying capability, are not happy about that. The educational reforms will include dozens of new laws and budgets, covering from preschool to tertiary education.

A warning for American readers. I am fully aware that many of you are criticizing charter schools, profit, teaching to the test, skimming, and the destruction of the teaching profession. I myself have cited Diane Ravitch’s books many times. But you have to be aware that, after 30 years of neoliberal schemes in Chile, charter schools subsidized by government are a majority (55%). One third of them are religious. Two thirds of them are for-profit, and one half of them charge anywhere from US$ 10 to US$ 180 a month on top of the subsidy, therefore skimming quite efficiently.

Teaching to the test, with consequences, has been taken to the greatest extreme imaginable. Policies to destruct public education are too numerous to mention here, and the result is that this system is in acute crisis financially, managerially and emotionally. The teaching profession is in far worse condition than in the US, by any statistical criteria.

In this situation, it is simply not possible to pretend now that charter schools could vanish. Less so if millions of parents have chosen to send their children to highly segregated charters, in a country whose social inequalities are far worse than those in the US, which I know are ugly by themselves.

In short, if the US is navigating towards hell, we are already there and are trying to get out without sinking the ship. It is a very different situation.

The most difficult hurdle in front of us is not legal, political or financial, but cultural. Parents have been led to believe, for decades, that the “best” school is that which is segregated, both academically and socioeconomically. We have a true cultural and educational apartheid. Therefore, the changes will have to be gradual and careful. At the same time, the government is sending strong signals: this is not going to be a minor adjustment but a major change in the overall orientation of the school system; not to make it fully state owned, but simply to resemble the vast majority of OECD countries, probably in a way similar to that of Belgium or The Netherlands. The whole strategy is described in more detail in the above mentioned entries of this blog,

Recently, the Education Minister, Mr. Nicolás Eyzaguirre (with a powerful political and financial experience and profile) has announced the first wave of legislation, to be sent to Congress in May, whose details are now being drafted. They include, amongst other things, the radical ending of academic selection and skimming, the gradual elimination of cost-sharing (to reduce social skimming), the phasing out of 3,500 for-profit schools (to be converted into non-profits), the radical pruning of the standardized testing system, the strengthening and expansion of the public network of schools (so that they can compete in a better way with the charters) and a major reform to the teaching profession, from its training (completely unregulated so far), to improving salaries and working conditions.

This is an evolving situation. I will be most happy (if I can) to answer questions through this blog, and also to inform you about new developments in the future.

Categories International, Privatization, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

Peter Greene: TNTP’s Brilliant Néw Idea

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2014 //
5

If you have an eye for quackery, as Peter Greene does, you will never run out of material in the world of reform tomfoolery.

In this post, Greene has fun with TNTP’s brilliant new way to identify better teachers: multiple-choice test. I kid you not.

TNTP used to be called The Néw Teacher Project. According to legend, it was founded by Michelle Rhee, although partisans of Wendy Kopp say it was her idea and she asked Michelle to do it. I really don’t know. Maybe someone who was there can let us in on the true story.

So Greene discovers that TNTP has this idea that a multiple-choice test can do what nano human can do. Identify a future talented teacher. He runs with it.

Categories Humor, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Vivian Connell’s Journey: On Her Way

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2014 //
1

You have read here about the courageous journey of Vivian Connell. She lives in North Carolina, where she was a teacher for many years. In 2010, discouraged by the state legislature’s hostility to teachers and low salaries, she left the classroom to enter law school. She graduated last May with honors. Vivian recently learned she has ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and she returned to teaching for whatever time remains to her. Her goal right now is to raise $20,000 to take her class to the U. S. Holocaust Museum in D. C.

Read her story here.

You can find the link here to make a donation. Send $5, $10, $25, whatever you can afford.

Let’s help Vivian fulfill her dream.

Do it in the spirit of Easter. Or Passover. Or humanity.

Categories North Carolina, Teachers and Teaching

What Myra Blackmon Learned in School About Restorative Justice

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2014 //
6

Myra Blackmon, a regular columnist for The Online Athens Banner-Herald (Ga.), frequently substitutes in her local elementary school and enjoys it. One day recently, the class of second-graders was rude and undisciplined. When the regular teacher returned, she did not discipline or punish the students. She had each of them write a letter of apology to Ms. Blackmon.

Ms. Blackmon was moved.

She writes:

“Instead of keeping them in from recess, which really accomplishes nothing and creates different problems, or some other group punishment, this teacher had them write letters of apology. They range from perfunctory to pleading for forgiveness. Some offer excuses or explanations for their behavior. One simply wrote, “I wasn’t in school that day.”
This simple act is a classic example of restorative justice. Instead of being punished, these children had to make it right with me — and their teacher. They had to use their writing skills, they had to think about what they had done. They had to take responsibility for their behavior.

“The concept of restorative justice is not new. In Exodus 22:1-14, we read of required restitution for a variety of crimes against people. The Pentateuch recognizes that crimes of theft or arson are crimes against victims, who must be made whole.”

And she adds:

“Research has shown that restorative justice in school settings — replacing suspensions and punitive practices that teach no lessons and leave perpetrators behind in their school work — leads to fewer repeat offenses. Coupling it with counseling, tutoring and helping students figure out better behavior has shown to dramatically reduce dropout rates.

“In a season where Jews have recently celebrated Passover and God’s redemptive release from bondage, where Christians rejoice that Christ died and rose again to save us from our sins, we should reflect on restorative justice. How do we teach people to right their wrongs and not just pay for them? How do we learn to forgive in the face of personal injury? How do we as a community make our lives whole and unite in learning to love one another?

“God never said it would be easy. Jesus encouraged us to go against our very nature in loving and forgiving those who wrong us. As we learn and grow together in love and forgiveness, can we better move forward to offer a community that encourages all its members to live their best lives?

“That is my Easter prayer.”

Categories Students, Teachers and Teaching
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