Archives for category: Tennessee
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Chris Barbic Resigning from “Achievement School District”

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2015 //
18

While several states, including Georgia and North Carolina, plan to copy Tennessee’s Achievement School District, the founding director of the ASD has announced his resignation. Chris Barbic will leave in December.

Barbic had pledged to take the bottom 5% of schools–mostly in Memphis–and move them to the top 25%. Faced with community resistance, the ASD faltered. Several charter chains–including Yes Prep, the chain founded by Chris Barbic–pulled out.

Meanwhile the ASD is nearing the five-year mark and none if its schools are in the top 25%.

Lesson: it is easier to start a new charter and select motivated students than to take over neighborhood schools with an existing population.

Categories Charter Schools, Tennessee, Turnaround Schools

Gary Rubinstein on “The Three Stooges” of Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2015 //
14

Gary Rubinstein watched a panel discussion on the reform movement’s three allegedly successful turnaround districts. He reports on the discussion here. The discussion was sponsored by the Fordham Institute, which is in the forefront of the privatization movement. This is an impressive debunking of “reformer” boasts. It is especially important because so many in the media take those false claims at face value, and several states say they intend to copy one of these failed models.

 

Rubinstein points out that none of these highly touted examples of “reform” success are successful. New Orleans is a swamp of conflicting data, but the bottom line is that it continues to be one of the lowest performing districts in one of the lowest performing states in the nation. The Tennessee “Achievement School District” is based on a bold and wholly unrealistic pledge by Chris Barbic that he could take the lowest performing schools in the state and lift them into the state’s highest 25% in only five years. That has not happened, and it may never happen. The third speaker is from Michigan’s woeful Education Achievement Authority, which has produced numerous scandals but not much academic progress for the students.

 

Rubinstein uses his keen mathematical intelligence to dissect each of the reformers’ claims. In the case of the Achievement School District, he points to the slippery use of data (a common trait among all the “reform” projects):

 

In a very revealing moment, Barbic explains that he’s the one who came up with the bottom 5% to top 25% in five years. He could have just said bottom 5% to bottom 10% and he wouldn’t be taking such heat now, but having such an ambitious goal had a positive side effect since “It created a momentum and an urgency that we needed to create to get this off the ground” and allowed them to recruit ‘partners’ and leaders and teachers. In other words, it was a lie, but it was a worthwhile one since it tricked people into giving us their money.

 

Barbic makes some bizarre claims about the success so far of the ASD like that the bottom 5% ‘priority schools’ are growing ‘four times faster than the rest of the state.’ To put this in context, the rest of the state of Tennessee has had flat math scores and declining reading scores. So if the state went up, on average, of .25%, then ‘four times’ that is just 1%.

 

Rubinstein notes:

 

Watching these three turnaround gurus quote misleading statistics, give vague abstract answers, and really offer nothing in terms of concrete ideas from what they’ve learned in trying (unsuccessfully) to turnaround their respective districts, made me think that rather than call these ASDs, it would be more accurate to call them BSDs.

 

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Michigan, New Orleans, Tennessee, Turnaround Schools

Corporate Reformers Descend on Detroit to Pick Over the Ruins

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2015 //
20

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse for Detroit, here come the stars of the corporate reform movement with advice to do more of what Detroit has been doing without success.

 

More than half the students are in charter schools, but Detroit doesn’t have enough, it seems. The lowest-performing schools were dumped into the woebegone “Education Achievement Authority,” under an emergency manager with dictatorial powers, but that didn’t go anywhere.

 

If Detroit can’t get its school problems solved, it won’t be for lack of quality advice from national education experts.

 

As city and state leaders seek to figure out how best to salvage Detroit Public Schools and improve performance across a complex network of school choices, top school reformers from around the country want a piece of the action, too.

 

Last week, Michael Petrilli, CEO of the D.C.-based Fordham Institute, and Eric Chan, a partner at the Charter School Growth Fund, were a few of the latest to drop in on Detroit. Excellent Schools Detroit, which is helping lead the conversation locally about improving all city schools, invited them to town to discuss how best to create the right environment for quality charter school growth.

 

The more insights, the merrier. Other cities have undergone major school turnarounds, and there are consistent guidelines for success. When asked what Detroit needs to do to start showing results for kids, Petrilli and Chan echoed similar ideas.

 

“Deal with low-performing schools, and encourage high-performers,” says Petrilli, whose organization works to raise the quality of U.S. schools. “There are concrete things we can do.”

 

The examples of success offered by Petrilli and Chan: New Orleans, the District of Columbia, and Memphis. Privatization is the answer. Neither Petrilli nor Chan has an idea about how to improve public education. Just privatize it. Get rid of it. Bring in high-quality “seats.”

 

Readers of this blog have read again and again that most charter schools in New Orleans are rated D or F schools by the state of Louisiana; D.C. continues to be one of the lowest performing districts in the nation, as judged by the NAEP; and Memphis is home to the all-charter Achievement School District, whose founder Chris Barbic promised would produce a dramatic turnaround in only five years. That turnaround has not happened. Not in  New Orleans, D.C., or Memphis.

 

Surely there must be better examples of success for corporate reform. Or are there?

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, New Orleans, Privatization, Tennessee

Knox County, Tennessee, Rejects Broad Foundation Grant

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2015 //
12

Knox County, Tennessee, has a superintendent, Jim McIntyre, who is a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Superintendent’s Academy. McIntyre accepted a grant from Broad to hire another Broadie as director of planning and improvement. McIntyre didn’t seek approval from either the Knox County Board of Education or County Commission for the grant, which was partially underwritten by the Broad Foundation.

On Monday, the Knox County Commission rejected the grant, which has already been spent. perhaps Superintendent McIntyre should replace the taxpayer funds expended on this illegal hire. Was it patronage to his benefactor?

As we have seen in many districts, Broadies tend to hire other Broadies (and TFA). This is a rate rebuke to the Broad Foundation, which is a strong supporter of top-down management, high-stakes testing, charter schools, and school closings (to make way for charter schools.)

Thanks to reader Ellen Lubic for bringing this story to my attention.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Broad Foundation, Tennessee

Shocker: ECS Will Honor a Pioneer of VAM

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2015 //
22

The Education Cpmmission of the States will present its James Bryant Conant award to Willism Sanders. Sanders is a pioneer of VAM (also known as value-added measurement or modeling).

 

VAM is probably the single worst feature of corporate reform, the one that is most likely to demoralize teachers, lead to early retirements, and to the decline in new recruits to teaching. Sanders promotes the idea that teachers can be evaluated by the test scores of their students. He pioneered VAM in Tennessee in the late 1980s and today it is a widely used methodology, even though Sanders has copyrighted his methods; it is proprietary and other researchers are not allowed to understand how it works.

 

Although Sanders’ team markets his product with grandiose claims, one need only look at Tennessee to see that it is not near the top of NAEP. After 30 years of VAM, what does Tennessee have to show for its reliance on high-stakes testing? Who would call Temnessee today a national model?

 

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley describes Sanders:

 

“VAMs were first adopted in education in the late 1980s, when an agricultural statistician/adjunct professor [emphasis added, as an adjunct professor is substantively different than a tenured/tenure-track professor] at the University of Knoxville, Tennessee – William Sanders – thought that educators struggling with student achievement in the state should “simply” use more advanced statistics, similar to those used when modeling genetic and reproductive trends among cattle, to measure growth, hold teachers accountable for that growth, and solve the educational measurement woes facing the state at the time by doing so. It was to be as simple as that….”

 

Chalkbeat, which covers education issues in Tennessee, recognizes that VAM is very controversial:

 

“As per the article: “Hailed by many who seek greater accountability in education, [Sanders’s] TVAAS continues to be a topic of robust discussion in the education community in Tennessee and across the nation. It has been the source of numerous federal lawsuits filed by teachers who charge that the evaluation system—which has been tied to teacher pay and tenure—is unfair and doesn’t take into account student socio-economic variables such as growing up in poverty. Sanders maintains that teacher effectiveness dwarfs all other factors as a predictor of student academic growth.”

 

Amrein-Beardsley is stunned that ECS is giving this honor to a man who tried to turn teacher evaluation into a “science” comparable to producing crops. She wonders whether angry teachers might picket the ECS meeting in Denver in late June.

Categories Teachers, Tennessee, VAM (value-added modeling)

Is the Tennessee “Miracle” Unraveling?

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2015 //
21

States across the nation are talking about, planning, or implementing Tennessee’s Achievement School District. The director of the ASD, Chris Barbic, pledged to take the state’s lowest-performing schools (inthe bottom 5%) and move them into the top 25% of schools in five years. All the schools in ASD are charter schools. The spin and hype about the ASD have been so intense that few people asked for evidence that it was working. The promise was enough evidence.

But this tweet appeared tonight:

Commercial Appeal (@memphisnews)
6/4/15, 8:02 PM
Memphis Achievement School District superintendent says he’s not sure 5-year turnaround goal is possible. memne.ws/1GacI5o

Categories Charter Schools, Tennessee

Gary Rubinstein Grades Kevin Huffman in Tennessee

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2015 //
2

Gary Rubinstein knows reformers better than most people. He started his career in Teach for America in Houston in the early 1990s and eventually became a career math teacher in New York City. He is one of the most perceptive critics of reform, having started in the early days of the movement.

In this post, he deconstructs the boasts of Kevin Huffman about the Achievement School District in Tennessee. Huffman is now trying to export this model to other states, despite its failure thus far to achieve its goals. Rubinsteinreviews the record of the ASD and finds it mixed at best:

“Just by the numbers, the results are truly mixed. Of the original 6 ASD schools that are currently in their third year under the ASD, two schools have improved, two have stayed about the same, and two have gotten worse.” Some success.

“ASD tries to put all the positive spin they can on their results, but the thing that they try not to mention is that in this past year the ASD got the lowest possible score on their ‘growth’ metric, a 1 out of 5. In Tennessee they take their ‘growth’ scores very seriously. They have been experimenting with this kind of metric for over twenty years and they base school closing decisions on it and also teacher evaluations. So it is hypocritical, though not surprising, that Huffman fails to mention that the ASD, on average, got the lowest possible score on this last year, and instead they focus on the two schools that have shown test score improvements.”

Rubinstein writes:

“There is absolutely no reason why Kevin Huffman should be given the opportunity to pitch his ideas to the Pennsylvania senate or in the media over there. It is like a state trying to improve their economy and asking for guidance from a man who got rich by winning the lottery. Huffman is a person who knows very little about education, but who has been very lucky to get to where he is. He taught first grade for two years, spent a bunch of years working for Teach For America, got appointed as Tennessee education commissioner mainly because of his famous ex-wife, and only managed to keep his job for three years before basically getting run out of town. He has gotten credit for the 4th and 8th grade NAEP gains between 2011 and 2013, but has taken none of the blame for the lack of progress for 12 graders or for the recent drops in the Tennessee State reading test scores. This is a new kind of phenomenon, the edu-celebrity who rises to power, leaves after a few years having accomplished very little, and then making a living as a consultant. Some gig.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Pennsylvania, Standardized Testing, Teach for America, Tennessee

Peter Greene: Kevin Huffman Sells Tennessee Snake Oil in Pennsylvania

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2015 //
16

Kevin Huffman, former state education leader in Tennessee, came to Pennslvania to sell the glories of corporate reform as practiced in Tennessee. Peter Greene recounts his claims here.

Huffman wanted particularly to sell the virtues of the Tennessee Achievement School District, which gathers the state’s lowest performing schools into a group, eliminates local control, and converts them to privately managed charters.

As Greene shows, the ASD in Tennessee has been a bust so far.

“So first, strip local school boards and voters of authority over their own schools. Second, allow a mixture of innovation and stripping teachers of job security and pay. The stated plan in Tennessee was that the bottom 5% of schools would move into the top 25% within five years. Doesn’t that all sound great? But hey– how is it working out in Tennessee?

“That depends (surprise) on who is crunching which numbers, but even the state’s own numbers gave the Tennessee ASD the lowest possible score for growth.

“In fact, Huffman forgot to mention the newest “technique” proposed to make ASD schools successful– allow them to recruit students from outside the school’s geographical home base. This is the only turnaround model that really has been successful across the nation– in order to turn a school around, you need to fill it with different students.”

Greene read Huffman’s op-Ed with advice to Pennsylvania

Huffman wrote:

“When I spoke with Pennsylvania state senators last week about school turnaround work, one senator asked me directly, “When you created the Achievement School District, were you worried that it was too risky?” I responded, “The greatest risk would be to do nothing.”

Greene comments:

“Pretending that any senator actually answered that question, the answer is still dumb. Your child is lying on the sidewalk, bleeding and broken after being struck by a car. A guy in a t-shirt runs up with an axe and makes like he’s about to try to lop off your child’s legs. “What the hell are you doing?” you holler, and t-shirt guy replies, “Well, the greatest risk would be to do nothing.”

“Doing Nothing is rarely as great a risk as Doing Something Stupid.

“Achievement School Districts are dumb ideas that offer no educational benefits and run contrary to the foundational principles of democracy in this country. They are literally taxation without representation. Huffman should move on along to his next gig and leave Pennsylvania alone.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Pennsylvania, Tennessee

Tennessee Legislature Seeks to Reduce Test Scores’ Role in Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2015 //
8

The House members of the Tennessee legislature voted unanimously to reduce the role of test scores in teacher evaluations, at least temporarily. Controversy continues about whether teachers and other school staff should be evaluated by the scores of students they don’t teach. (Note: readers, please tell Andrew Cuomo that other states are reducing the role of test scores, not increasing them.)

 

A bill that temporarily would alter the amount that student test score growth impacts teacher evaluations in Tennessee passed unanimously in the House Thursday. But first, lawmakers debated the merits of a system that grades teachers based on scores in subjects they don’t teach.
The proposal, brought to the legislature by Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
The bill proposes to phase in the weight of test scores as the state transitions to its new assessment, called TNReady, which will be rolled out during the 2015-2016 school year. Under the proposal, scores from the new test would account only for 10 percent of the teacher evaluation score in 2015-16 and 25 percent in 2016-17, before returning to the current 35 percent in the 2017-2018 school year.
The policy also addresses concerns that teachers of non-tested subjects — such as art and physical education, as well as school counselors — can be penalized for test scores they don’t directly impact. The bill proposes that student growth for those positions count for 10 percent in 2015-16, down from 25 percent, and move to 15 percent in subsequent school years.
Some legislators said that provision is inadequate, however. House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley) offered an amendment that would prohibit test scores from impacting evaluations of non-testing teachers at all. He said allowing educators to be graded based on the scores of other teachers is akin to grading students based on the scores of their peers.
“Parents would be outraged,” Fitzhugh said.
Rep. Mark White maintained the bill is fair without the amendment, however, because no teacher works in isolation. “Does the librarian not have an effect on student reading?” he asked. “Can a guidance counselor not play a role in affecting student performance?”

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Tennessee, Testing

Poll: Tennessee Does Not Want More School Choice

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2015 //
6

As the state legislature considers vouchers for religious schools, a new poll of voters in Tennessee shows that they don’t want more school choice. They want charters to be reformed, meaning more transparency and accountability and stronger protections against financial fraud.

Voters ranked school choice dead last among their concerns.

“Metropolitan Nashville Education Association (MNEA) Leaders say a recent survey of local voters shows that Tennesseans overwhelmingly favor reforms for local charter schools to protect students and taxpayers.
Voters overwhelmingly rejected charter expansion as a priority, the survey found. Instead, voters favored charter reforms to strengthen:

• Transparency and accountability

• Teacher training and qualifications

• Anti-fraud measures

• Equity policies for high-need students

“It’s clear our communities support quality public schools, not an expansion of charter schools,” said MNEA President Stephen Henry. “We need to make sure ALL Nashville schools are held to the same accountability and transparency standards that taxpayers expect.”
The survey also found voters rated the need for more parental involvement and the reduction of excessive student testing as bigger priorities than expanding charters.

“Specifically, voters favored by greater than 80% approval reforms that would:

*provide rigorous, independent audits of charter school finances

*require charter schools to publish how they spend taxpayer dollars, including all budgets and contracts

*ensure that teachers in any publicly-funded school meet the same training and qualification requirements”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Tennessee, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers
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