Archives for category: Teachers and Teaching

Several people wrote to say that membership in the highly distinguished Badass Teachers Association was closed, that they applied and were turned down. This seemed unlikely to me, given the group’s desire to spread, so I contacted its founder Mark NAISON and asked him if there was a glitch. I also asked him if he could create a website for those who are not on Facebook. Here is his response (for some reason, whenever I write Mark’s last name on my iPad, it always turns into caps):

Hi Diane!

We now have six administrators on the site so anyone who applies gets In quickly!

As to how to create a non Facebook option for the group, I will have to discuss that with the five people who have been working with me in this, who are much higher tech then I am!

This whole explosion of interest caught me totally by surprise! I hav e started several Facebook pages and I would have never predicted tha this is the one that would go viral and capture so many people’s imaginations

Now people are talking about just showing up in Washington on Labor Day and surrounding Congress with teachers parents and students

Given what has happened in the last few days, I would not write this off as impossible!!

Best, Mark

Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/

Categories Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching

Michael Feuer: The Flaws of the NCTQ Report

By dianeravitch

June 18, 2013 //

Some in the mainstream media have given credence to the report of the National Council on Teacher Quality about teacher preparation. They should have talked to some of the institutions that were graded before venturing an opinion.

In this post, Dean Michael Feuer of the George Washington University School of Education explains how far wrong the report was about his school, its programs, and its students.

Categories National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Teachers and Teaching

Linda Darling-Hammond on the NCTQ Report

By dianeravitch

June 18, 2013 //

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Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University is one of the nation’s leading experts on teacher preparation. This is her commentary on the report released by the National Council on Teacher Quality, which attempts to rate the quality of the nation’s colleges of education by reviewing their catalogues and course syllabi.

What Can We Learn about Teacher Education Quality
from the NCTQ Report on Teacher Prep?

Linda Darling-Hammond

This week, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) issued a report titled: NCTQ Teacher Prep Review. Billed as a consumer’s guide, the report rates programs on a list of criteria ranging from selection and content preparation to coursework and student teaching aimed at the development of teaching skills. While the report appropriately focuses on these aspects of teacher education, it does not, unfortunately, accurately reflect the work of teacher education programs in California or nationally.

NCTQ’s methodology is a paper review of published course requirements and course syllabi against a check list that does not consider the actual quality of instruction that the programs offer, evidence of what their students learn, or whether graduates can actually teach. Concerns about the organization’s methods led most schools of education nationally and in California to decline to participate in the data collection. (NCTQ’s website indicated that fewer than 1% of programs in the country “fully cooperated” with the study.) NCTQ collected documents through websites and public records requests. The ratings published in this report are, thus, based on partial and often inaccurate data, and fail to evaluate teacher education quality.

The field’s concerns were reinforced last month when NCTQ published ratings of states’ teacher education policies which bore no relationship to the quality of their training systems or to their outcomes as measured by student achievement. In this study, the highest-achieving states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — including Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, and Minnesota — all got grades of C or D, while low-achieving Alabama got the top rating from NCTQ. It is difficult to trust ratings that are based on criteria showing no relationship to successful teaching and learning.

In this latest study of programs, the indicators used to measure the criteria often fail to identify the aspects of practice that are most important or the actual outcomes that programs achieve. A case in point: Graduate programs at highly-selective universities like Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford got low ratings for selectivity because they do not require a minimum grade point average or GRE score, although their students in fact rank far above national averages on these measures. NCTQ was uninterested in the actual grades or test scores earned by candidates.

In addition, the degree of inaccuracy in the data is shocking. Columbia was rated highly for the selectivity of an undergraduate program that does not even exist. Stanford received low scores for the reported absence of courses in secondary mathematics education that do in fact exist (indeed candidates must take three full courses in mathematics curriculum and instruction) and are prominently displayed, along with syllabi, on its website. UC-Santa Barbara’s three courses in elementary mathematics education, four courses in the teaching of English learners, and full year of student teaching were also entirely missed, along with its entire secondary credentialing program, all prominently displayed on the website. California State University at Chico was rated poorly for presumably lacking “hands-on” instruction, even though it is well-known in the state for its hands-on learning lab and requires more than 500 hours of clinical training during its full year of graduate level preparation.

It is clear as reports come in from programs that NCTQ staff made serious mistakes in its reviews of nearly every institution. Because they refused to check the data – or even share it – with institutions ahead of time, they published badly flawed information without the fundamental concerns for accuracy that any serious research enterprise would insist upon.

In addition to these shortcomings, NCTQ’s methods are especially out of synch with California’s approach to teacher education in two ways:

• First, while the NCTQ checklist is based largely on the design of undergraduate programs (tallying subject matter courses required during the program), California moved long ago to strengthen teacher education by requiring graduate level programs, which require subject matter competency BEFORE entering preparation. The means by which the state ascertains teachers’ competency — through college majors, approved subject matter programs, and rigorous state-developed tests — are ignored in the NCTQ ratings.

• Second, while NCTQ focuses on paper requirements for inputs, California has moved toward accountability based on stronger evidence of outcomes, including rigorous tests of basic skills, content knowledge, and pedagogy. These include California’s Teacher Performance Assessments, required under SB 2042, that have made the state the first in the nation to judge teachers’ skills and abilities in real K-12 classrooms with real students. At least one of these assessments has been shown to predict teachers’ later effectiveness in raising student achievement. These outcomes are also absent from the NCTQ framework. The candidates who have made their way through all of these assessments constitute only two-thirds of those who initially set out to seek teaching credentials.

Accurate, well-vetted information on course requirements and syllabi, plus extensive data on actual candidate qualifications, evaluations of program quality, employers’ assessments of candidates’ readiness, and graduates’ performance in classrooms are available through state and national accreditation records, as well as in-depth studies conducted by researchers. The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) is a ready source of such data, as is the national accrediting body (the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation). CCTC received no request from NCTQ for this information.

Unfortunately, the answer to the question of what we can learn about teacher education quality from the NCTQ report on Teacher Prep is “not much.” Without reliable data related to what programs and their candidates actually do, the study is not useful for driving improvement.

In contrast to the NCTQ approach, researchers and educators serious about improving preparation are focusing attention on developing accurate and reliable data about program outcomes and useful evidence of program quality. In California, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, like others across the nation, is redesigning licensing and accreditation with these goals in mind. To secure ongoing improvement, teacher educators must pursue comprehensive accountability and increased transparency in data about the outcomes of our programs and the opportunities to learn they provide.

Linda Darling-Hammond is the chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University.

Categories National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Teachers and Teaching

First Grade Teacher: How I Conquered the Testing Monster

By dianeravitch

June 17, 2013 //

In response to the question, “Can You Do the Wrong Thing in the Right Way?,” this teacher responded with a fascinating account of how she conquered the testing monster in her first-grade classroom.

She writes:

I’ve been thinking about testing too. A lot. I teach first grade. My students arrive at the tender age of 5 or 6 and exit at 6 or 7. I give my students 6 benchmark tests a year, 3 in literacy and 3 in math. This past year, 4 more tests were added to the roster – this time on computer. That adds up to 10 – yes 10 -multiple choice tests every year for children who still cry for their moms, pee on the carpet, fall asleep spread eagle on the floor, and poke, prod, tease, and growl at each other. Oh –did I say that the children can’t read, at least for the first third of the year –the first 3 or 4 tests?

I am told the tests are to help inform my instruction. But I know the truth. The tests are there in first grade to get the kids ready for the tests in second grade –the tests that really matter – the tests that will count on the schools’ API and AYP reports. (California tests 2nd grade).

As a pragmatist, I’m efficient, organized, hold traditional values, and like rules and order. I know how to do what is expected of me and how to show results. So I reasoned I could use these structural strengths to get the tests over with, show the expected results, meet the smart goals, so that I could move on to the creative part of teaching –the part that cannot be quantified– the part of teaching where I get to interact with the children I am charged with developing academically, I get to know their passions, fears, ideas, the part of teaching that educates children – where there are no borders between painting and reading and playing basketball and building towers and writing , the part of teaching that is magical, that combines knowledge of standards, expertise, and passion on the part of the teacher with excitement, willingness, surprise, and vision from children.

But that is not what happened. Every breathing space I created for myself and my students by my efficiency got filled up with another expectation. More students – 18 one year, 20 the next, 24 for a few years, then 26; a new policy of all-day, full inclusion of special needs children in the general education classroom; a neighborhood impacted by the housing market decline and its resultant mobile population – causing more to move in and out of my classroom during the year; a school in program improvement – in effect designated as failing, and the resultant punishments – more administrative scrutiny, narrowing of curriculum to math and reading, canceling of arts programs during the school day; flight of families to school with better scores; and noisy classrooms in buildings without connecting walls.

So I got tired. I got beaten down. I got discouraged. And if you think I had it bad, think of the kids. Imagine a teacher for them who is always cross, always serious, harps about the test, never takes the time to ask them how they are doing, is too busy to tie a shoe lace or rub a boo-boo. That is me. I cringe as I write this.

Standardized tests don’t just stop my students from thinking, they teach them not to think. Imagine a 5 year old child who doesn’t read, and may not even speak English. They look at an 8 by 11 inch white paper devoid of all but one or two sketches. They listen as I read the question to them. Then I read the 3 or 4 choices. They pick the choice and fill in the bubble. Imagine the time I spend teaching them how to find the question, scroll with their eyes through the 4 choices, all while listening to me drone on and repeat the question and the choices until all 26 of them have bubbled something in. Imagine that this one test has 8 pages of questions – 15 or 20 questions in all. No wonder I’m cross. No wonder their eyes are glazed and they are growling.

But it gets worse. I am complicit in this next part. Standardized tests actually make students stupid. Yes, stupid. Not only are the kids not thinking, they are losing the ability to think. In my zeal to get administrative scrutiny off me and my students, I mistakenly thought that if I give them the test results they want, then I could do what I know was best for my students. To that end I trained my students to do well in these tests. I taught them to look for loopholes; to eliminate and guess; to find key words; to look for clues; in short, to exchange the process of thinking for the process of manipulation. I capitalized on my knowledge of young children, and the fact that they want to please adults and like to get the answer “right”. I justified my actions by saying that I had no choice, that the consequences of low test scores at my school were too dire to contemplate, and I wasn’t willing to put myself in professional or financial jeopardy. Clearly, testing made me stupid too.

I can’t speak for all my fellow teachers at my school, but I suspect many of them would, at the very least, recognize similar behaviors in their test-teaching practices. So, when despite our best collective efforts at raising test scores failed and my school entered 2nd year program improvement, I surrendered my stupidity and started speaking up, and eventually speaking out. I read research, blogs, government publications, and journals. I read widely from educational, historical, economic, pediatric, and psychological literature. I challenged administrative authority at my school to do the same – read, think, debate, discuss, and much to my surprise, did not get rebuffed. Astonishingly, I got ignored.

At about the same time I woke up out of my testing-induced nightmare , I started to notice the monster I had helped create. My students were only happy when they got the answer right. For many years my collegues and I had noticed a trend in young children – a trend toward passivity in learning. We had theories – all the kids had TV’s in the bedrooms, they had far too much screen time – computer, games, cells, TV’s in cars, lack of adult supervision and interaction, lack of conversational models at home, lack of social models at home, the list went on. But what wasn’t on the list was what I was culpable for – I had become about the right answer. They wanted to please me. They knew that if they waited long enough I would help them find the right answer. And I did.

One day, during small group math rotation, I put up privacy boards during the practice part of a lesson on math reasoning. The story problem went like this: There are 10 buttons on my coat. 6 are red and the rest are blue. How many are blue? We have worked on these kind of problems frequently, and the children have seen them in test format. Using connecting cubes as buttons, the children had to make a model of the problem. Three kids cried that day. The stress of thinking for and by themselves got to them. You see, many of the children had become expert at copying – watching what other children did in the group to get an answer and then providing “their” answer a nanosecond later. The children did not trust themselves enough to even attempt an answer. Their discomfort was palpable, and I was appalled.

Crying notwithstanding, I continued to use privacy boards. I also started to coach the kids about my belief in their abilities. I found that as they worked out a math problem using manipulatives to represent objects, I could lean in and coach them, one to one. Then, when they all had their answers, we pushed down the privacy boards to explore what we had all done. Ever so slowly, over many weeks, they started to regain their confidence.

You might wonder why I had not been doing this kind of teaching all along. I had, 11 years ago, pre-NCLB. Testing, along with the breadth of the standards and the resulting mountain of material to cover, much of it developmentally inappropriate, slowly eroded my professional judgement. Pressure to produce results through collaboration and mind-numbing analysis sapped my energy. A constant barrage of media stories about the ineffectiveness of teachers, some of it supported by leaders at my own school, drowned my spirit. Then I heard you, Diane, speak as a guest of my district and union. I started to read your work and have never looked back.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are truly brave. You inspire me to speak up and speak out. You remind me that knowledge is power –I had forgotten. Now I get my ducks in a row, collect my facts, back up my intuition and experience with research, and speak up without fear or rancor. And in the process of speaking up for myself, I speak up for my students. And ever so slowly I start to rebuild my confidence too.

Categories California, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Teacher: Do What’s Right No Matter What They Tell You

By dianeravitch

June 17, 2013 //

A teacher offers this advice to other teachers:

“Okay, the reality of the situation is a once slow suffocation. The people in power want public education to wither and limp along on life support. This will help further marginalize minorities and low-income families, so the power base has little to no competition politically, economically, or socially. Public education in the USA enabled a post-WWII country to prosper and reach heights that were unimaginable just a decade earlier. If one follows the money trail in public education he or she will find that faltering school systems are locked into contracts with educational corporations that force them to adhere to and use antiquated educational programming that lobbying and politicians signed onto.

“The solution: do what’s right regardless of what the board of ed, the superintendent, or your principal says. As a public educator I have to make this decision on a daily basis. This also means I need to keep my own data on student growth, so I can defend my practices and live the life I believe was intended for me.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teachers and Teaching

An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

By dianeravitch

June 11, 2013 //

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

Seamus McCarville Explains Why He Fights the “Reformers”

By dianeravitch

June 9, 2013 //

Seamus McCarville knows it would be easier for him if he remained silent when faced with attacks on teachers and public schools. But he remembers the advice his teacher gave him in high school he the class bully went after him: Always leave a mark.

No cowering for him.

He fights because he wants to be honest with his students. How can he teach them critical thinking if he runs away?

He fights for his little girl, so she will be proud of him one day.

Seamus, stay strong.

We will win. Bullies fear us.

They rule by intimidation.

Be not afraid.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teachers and Teaching

My Reply to Ben Austin’s Open Letter to Me

By dianeravitch

June 7, 2013 //

174

Earlier today, Ben Austin wrote an open letter to me on Huffington Post. He expressed dismay about my characterization of him and his group Parent Revolution. Read his letter here. Here is my reply.

Dear Ben Austin,

Thank you for your invitation to engage in dialogue in your letter posted on Huffington Post.

You probably know that I have been writing a daily blog for the past fourteen months and during that time, I have written over 4,000 posts. I can’t remember any time when I have lost my temper other than when I wrote about your successful effort to oust an elementary school principal in Los Angeles named Irma Cobian.

I apologize for calling you “loathsome,” though I do think your campaign against a hardworking, dedicated principal working in an inner-city school was indeed loathsome. And it was wrong of me to say that there was a special place in hell reserved for anyone “who administers and funds this revolting organization that destroys schools and fine educators like Irma Cobian.”

As I said, I lost my temper, and I have to explain why.

I don’t like bullies. When I saw this woman targeted by your powerful organization, it looked like bullying. Your organization is funded by many millions of dollars from the Walton Family Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. You have a politically powerful organization, and you used your power to single out this one woman and get her fired.

Your organization sent in paid staff to collect signatures from parents. The teachers in the school were not permitted to express their opinion to parents about your efforts to fire their principal. When you succeeded in getting her fired, 21 of the 22 teachers on staff requested a transfer. That suggests that Cobian has the loyalty of her staff and is a good leader.

Who is this woman that you ousted?

All I know about her is what I read in this article in the Los Angeles Times.

It said: “More than two decades ago, Cobian walked away from a high-powered law firm to teach. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she said she was inspired by a newspaper article about the low high school graduation rates of Latinos and wanted to make a difference.

“Her passion for social justice led her to Watts in 2009.”

Irma Cobain is now in her fourth year as principal of the school, and you decided that her time was up.

What did her teachers say about her?

“Third-grade teacher Kate Lewis said Irma Cobian is the best principal she’s had in nine years at Weigand Avenue Elementary School in Watts.

“Joseph Shamel called Cobian a “godsend” who has used her mastery of special education to show him how to craft effective learning plans for his students.”

“Fourth-grade teacher Hector Hernandez said Cobian is the first principal he’s had who frequently pops into classrooms to model good teaching herself. Recently, he said, she demonstrated how to teach about different literary genres by engaging students in lively exercises using characters from the “Avengers” comic book and film.”

When Cobian arrived at the Weigand Avenue Elementary school four years ago, she found a school with low test scores, low parent involvement, and divisiveness over a dual-language program. “All the students come from low-income families, more than half are not fluent in English and a quarter turn over every year,” the Los Angeles Times story said.

Cobian decided to focus on improving literacy and raising morale. She certainly won over the faculty.

The day after Cobian learned about the vote removing her, she went to a second-grade classroom to give prizes to children who had read 25 books this year. She cheered those who met the goal and encouraged those who were trying. But she could not hide her sadness.

“I need happiness today,” Cobian told the bright-eyed students. “What do I do when I’m sad?”

“Come here!” the students sang out.

For a moment, her sadness gave way to smiles. But later, she said: “I am crushed.”

Ben, how did you feel when you read that? I felt sad. I felt this was a caring and dedicated person who had been singled out unfairly.

Ben, I hope you noticed in the article that Dr. John Deasy, the superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, praised the plan that Cobian and her staff developed for improving the school. He called it a “well-organized program for accelerated student achievement.” He thanked Cobian for her commitment and hard work.” But you decided she should be fired.

Ironically, the parent who worked with you to fire Cobian said she preferred Weigand to her own neighborhood school where she had concerns about bullying. Even stranger, the parents at Cobian’s school voted to endorse her plan. Your parent spokesperson said she did not like the plan because it focused on reading and writing, but she told the reporter from the Los Angeles Times that she actually never read the plan.

I understand from your letter, Ben, that you somehow feel you are a victim because of what I wrote about you. But, Ben, you are not a victim. Irma Cobian is the victim here. She lost her job because of your campaign to get rid of her. She is the one who was humiliated and suffered loss of income and loss of reputation. You didn’t. You still have your organization, your staff, and the millions that the big foundations have given you.

I am sorry you had a tough childhood. We all have our stories about growing up. I am one of eight children. My father was a high-school dropout. My mother immigrated from Bessarabia and was very proud of her high school diploma from the Houston public schools. She was proud that she learned to speak English “like a real American.” My parents were grateful for the free public schools of Houston, where I too graduated from high school. We had our share of problems and setbacks but I won’t go on about myself or my siblings because my story and yours are really beside the point. What troubles me is what you are doing with the millions you raise. You use it to sow dissension, to set parents against parents, parents against teachers, parents against principals. I don’t see this as productive or helpful. Schools function best when there is collaboration among teachers, parents, administrators, and students. Schools have a better chance of success for the children when they have a strong community and culture of respect.

Your “parent trigger” destroys school communities. True to its name, the “trigger” blasts them apart. It causes deep wounds. It decimates the spirit of respect and comity that is necessary to build a strong community. Frankly, after the school shootings of recent years, your use of the metaphor of a “parent trigger” is itself offensive. We need fewer triggers pointed at schools and educators. Please find a different metaphor, one that does not suggest violence and bloodshed.

It must be very frustrating to you and your funders that–three years after passage of the “parent trigger” law– you can’t point to a single success story. I am aware that you persuaded the parents at the Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, California, to turn their public school over to a privately operated charter. I recall that when parents at the school tried to remove their signatures from your petition, your organization went to court and won a ruling that they were not allowed to rescind their signatures. Ultimately only 53 parents in a school of more than 600 children chose the charter operator. Since the charter has not yet opened, it is too soon to call that battle a success for Parent Revolution. Only the year before, the Adelanto Charter Academy lost its charter because the operators were accused of financial self-dealing.

But, Ben, let me assure you that I bear you no personal ill will. I just don’t approve of what you are doing. I think it is wrong to organize parents to seize control of their public school so they can fire the staff or privatize it. If the principal is doing a bad job, it is Dr. Deasy’s job to remove her or him. I assume that veteran principals and teachers get some kind of due process, where charges are filed and there is a hearing. If Cobain was as incompetent as you say, why didn’t Dr. Deasy bring her up on charges and replace her?

I also have a problem with the idea that parents can sign a petition and hand their public school off to a private charter corporation. The school doesn’t belong to the parents whose children are enrolled this year. It belongs to the public whose taxes built it and maintains it. As the L.A. Times story pointed out, one-quarter of the children at Weigand Avenue Elementary School are gone every year. The parents who sign a petition this year may not even be parents in the school next year. Why should they have the power to privatize the school? Should the patrons of a public library have the power to sign a petition and privatize the management? Should the people using a public park have the right to take a vote and turn the park over to private management?

We both care about children. I care passionately about improving education for all children. I assume you do as well. You think that your organized raids on public schools and professionals will lead to improvement. I disagree. Schools need adequate resources to succeed. They also need experienced professionals, a climate of caring, and stability. I don’t see anything in the “trigger” concept that creates the conditions necessary for improvement. Our teachers and principals are already working under too much stress, given that schools have become targets for federal mandates and endless reforms.

I suggest that educators need respect and thanks for their daily work on behalf of children. If they do a bad job, the leadership of the school system is responsible to take action. What educators don’t need is to have a super-rich, super-powerful organization threatening to pull the trigger on their career and their good name.

Ben, thanks for the open letter and the chance to engage in dialogue. If you don’t mind, I want to apologize to Irma Cobain on your behalf. She was doing her best. She built a strong staff that believes in her. She wrote a turnaround plan that Dr. Deasy liked and the parents approved. Ms. Cobain, if you read this, I hope you can forgive Ben. Maybe next time, he will think twice, get better information, and consider the consequences before he decides to take down another principal.

Diane Ravitch

Categories Broad Foundation, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Los Angeles, Parent trigger, Principals, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Walton Foundation