Matthew Di Carlo dissects the latest effort by Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst to sell the idea that evaluating teachers by test scores is accurate, unbiased, and necessary.
Di Carlo analyzes the “myths” and discovers that some of them are facts.
This is embarrassing. Rhee really needs to hire a competent research department.
Gerald J. Conti’s eloquent, passionate letter of resignation ignited public discussion in Syracuse about the toxic, malicious changes now imposed on our public schools by federal and state policy. Private schools treasure dedicated, experienced teachers like Mr. Conti. But reformers insist on taking all autonomy out of their hands; standardizing their work; giving them a script; making sure they are doing precisely what all other teachers in the same classes are doing. He thinks of himself as a professional, and he can no longer bear to work in an environment that demeans and diminishes his professionalism.
New York State cannot afford to lose teachers like Mr. Conti. Let us hope that the tide will turn before we lose more.
Help his letter go viral. Post it on Facebook. Tweet it. Send it to your superintendent. Send it to the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and your local newspapers. Send it to your legislators.
Tell them to support our experienced educators. Tell them that teachers should be respected as professionals Tell them to support public education.
Jersey Jazzman never sleeps. I get that. He is so outraged by the constant torrent of nonsense in the media that he has to deconstruct it.
In this post, he throws up some clay pigeons and knocks them all down, one by one.
The big one is the stuff put out by Margaret Spellings to put down New Jersey.
Since New Jersey is one of the nation’s top performing states, JJ doesn’t take kindly to the former Secretary’s misreading of NAEP data, nor the praise for Newark’s charters.
The Daily Howler notes that most of the mainstream media completely ignored the Atlanta events or barely mentioned them.
Only Chris Hayes had a panel on the subject, and two of the three panelists were a waste of air time.
One was a clueless parent, and the other was a paid mouthpiece for the hedge fund billionaires of New Jersey.
FairTest has been a watchdog for the testing industry for many years.
The latest news is that the SAT will be overhauled (again), this time to align it with the Common Core standards.
No big surprise, since the head of the College Board, David Coleman, was the lead player in developing the Common Core standards.
Fairtest reports that more than 800 colleges and universities no longer require the SAT for admission.
A test coaching industry has grown up to prep students for the SAT.
Thus, one’s SAT scores have become, more than ever, an indicator of a family’s ability to pay for test prep.
The FairTest newsletter reports:
“Responding to the College Board’s ongoing failure to address the exam’s flaws, the number of schools dropping the SAT has surged. Since 2005, nearly 90 colleges and universities have eliminated testing requirements for all or many applicants. That brings the total to more than 800. The test-optional list now includes 140 institutions ranked in the top tier of their respective categories by U.S. News & World Report.”
Anthony Cody read Bill Gates’ article in the Washington Post, in which he said it is time to reduce the emphasis on high-stakes testing.
Anthony wondered if Gates means it.
Anthony writes:
“No one in America has done more to promote the raising of stakes for test scores in education than Bill Gates….You can read his words…, but his actions have spoken so much more loudly, that I cannot even make sense out of what he is attempting to say now. So let’s focus first on what Bill Gates has wrought.”
Anthony documents the destructive programs that Gates has funded (read the list, and it is only the tip of the iceberg), and he concludes:
“This amounts to an attempt to distance the Gates Foundation from the asinine consequences of the policies they have sponsored, while accepting no responsibility for them whatsoever.
“This is a non-starter, as far as I am concerned.”
The Atlanta cheating scandal has caused some reflection on the system that incentivizes unethical behavior.
It is important to say again and again that cheating is wrong. Those who cheat should be punished.
But who will correct the system that cheats children of education?
This reflection by TeacherKen on a column by Eugene Robinson raises important questions about the misdirection of education by the unrelenting demand for ever higher scores.
The Tennessee legislation to cut welfare benefits for families if kids don’t raise their test scores was passed by the committee and now goes to the House Government Operations Committee. It is scheduled for a vote in the State Senate on April 4.
If adopted, Tennessee will let the starving begin.
Will President Obama denounce this dreadful legislation? Will Secretary Duncan? Will DFER? Will Bill Gates?
Where are the reformers who put students first?
LG, a longtime reader, wrote a letter to Senator Stacey Campfield (R) in Tennessee, who sponsored the legislation to cut the welfare benefits of poor families by as much as 30% if their children don’t raise their test scores. The legislation is inherently discriminatory, she writes, because it singles out poor families for punishment.
This raises interesting questions. How about increasing taxes on wealthy families whose children don’t raise their test scores? Senator Campfield would get way more letters from them! And people would begin asking who made the tests so important. And whether they should be used to mete out punishments and rewards. That would be a boon for the anti-testing movement.
LG writes:
Dear Senator Campfield,
Thank you for your reply.
This is a radical solution for a very important issue. How can anyone reconcile this same targeting strategy for middle and higher income families whose children are in the same academic position?
What is proposed in this bill is discriminatory in that it does not solve academic performance issues by making some rules for some of the people to follow while leaving the others to continually fail in schools. Where is the incentive for middle or upper level income families?
A large concern is for the children at lower income levels who have not yet been identified as having learning disabilities. As you said, no system is 100% perfect, including child study services. Some children may not be identified as learning disabled for years–should their families be punished by this?
I would think a better bill would target the inequality in our economic infrastructure. Apply more oversight to the assistance programs to help people get out of situations of poverty. Provide opportunities for employment, and offer health care for families who struggle. Stop discriminating against the poor and provide solutions to aid in their upward mobility.
If this is about holding parents accountable, why hasn’t this bill been piggy-backed with parental accountability for all income levels? To make any solution about money on all levels is also flawed because people with access to money may try to “buy” results or intimidate those reporting grades. The poor do not have the luxury of “buying” their way out of anything. What your bill proposes is segregating the population into haves and have-nots and then creating different rules for the have-nots. This solves nothing in the way of making positive changes in academic progress.
Instead, hold parents accountable for communicating with schools or attending parent sessions by other means. If a parent is abusive toward a child, there are laws protecting the child. It is difficult to prove if a parent is uninterested in the academic well-being of a child, but perhaps there could be requirements for ALL parents of academically-struggling children by law that do not involve financial burdens.
This bill is anti-American, and should not be pursued. As a public servant, it is your responsibility to find another way to reach these students. Singling out low income families is discrimination, no matter how good the intentions behind the act.
Just received this:
“Dear Department of Education,
You should be proud of your Administrators and your principals. They are acting in full support of your harmful programs. They are choking out the words “these tests are very useful to your children”, and they “will not be able to determine the academic needs of your child” without them, while giving up countless hours of sleep for acting against their conscience. They sign their names to memos that state little white lies, perversions of the truth, and sometimes flat out falsities, while their stomachs turn and their palms sweat. They are even changing entire school policies that have worked well for years, just so that you can believe they are in full compliance. You should be proud of them. They are acting like good little soldiers and going against their own best interests and the best interests of the students. They are willing to turn on the very parents that are trying to save them and their schools. You should be very,very proud.”
“Jeanette Brunelle Deutermann”
