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Gary Rubinstein: Why Don’t Reformers Want to Be Called Reformers Anymore?

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2018 //
38

Gary Rubinstein, once deeply embedded in the world of Teach for America, is a close observer of the world of top-Down, billionaire-funded corporate reform. In the past, he wrote open letters to leading reformers and some responded.

Lately, he has noticed an effort by reformers to rebrand themselves. Now, one of the leading practitioners of “reform” posted an article on the main reform website saying she does not want to be called a Reformer anymore. She rejects the label. But she disparages those who object to “Reform” as “stand patters.”

He writes:

The ‘reformers’ had a pretty good run. From about 2008 until just recently ‘reformers’ had their way. With Race To The Top they got states to invent complicated, though supposedly objective, ways to measure teacher quality by analyzing standardized test scores. Bill Gates funded many studies to show that this was working. But after ten years, it became clear that the ‘reformers’ didn’t really know much about improving education and maybe they didn’t deserve to have the steering wheel anymore.

But people don’t give up power easily. So they changed their strategy. They ditched the toxic Michelle Rhee — last I heard she was working for Miracle-Gro. They set up some propaganda websites, like The74, and got a new leader, Campbell Brown. Then Campbell Brown was out and not really replaced by anyone.

Not all ‘reformers’ agreed on all issues. Some liked vouchers and private schools, some didn’t. But what all ‘reformers’ had in common was the belief that the main obstacle to education improvement in this country is people, including the majority of teachers in this country, who are defenders of the ‘Status Quo’.

But the term ‘reformer’ was still out there and, to teachers especially, it means that someone who knows little to nothing about education who is making top-down decisions that will result in students learning less. So some ‘reformers,’ realizing that they had a tainted brand, began abandoning the term.

It seems the term “Reformer” has become toxic. But the money backing “reform” is so huge that it just keeps stumbling forward, certain about what other people should do, loaded with money and power, but without any examples of success.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

Jeb Bush’s Ed Reform Summit: Where School Choice Reigns

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2018 //
14

Jeb Bush, the puppet-master of corporate reform, is convening his annual “summit” of people who support his love of charters and vouchers. The queen of school choice is the superstar of the event: Eva Moskowitz.

Peruse the agenda to see who supports Jeb Bush’s efforts to privatize public education.

The registration fee is $649, enough to keep out the riffraff.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Testing, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

Paymon Rouhanifard: I Was Wrong About Standardized Testing and Accountability

By dianeravitch
November 26, 2018 //
104

Payman Rouhanifard was in charge of Joel Klein’s “Office of Portfolio Management” in New York City. He was appointed as superintendent of schools in Camden, New Jersey, by Chris Christie. He arrived in Camden as a “devout believer” in testing, data-based decision making, and accountability. Before he stepped down last June he had a change of mind. He began to see that the schools had turned testing into both means and end, and that testing had crowded out the arts, science, foreign languages, and Global Studies. His reflections are fascinating, as he shows the capacity to examine his beliefs and change them.

Here is the speech he delivered at MIT a few weeks ago.

I urge you to read it.

He is a reformed reformer. I question his view that we need to have standardized tests for chemistry, physics, and the arts. He thinks that may be the only way to balance the curriculum and restore what has been sacrificed to the gods of testing, but I don’t agree.

There is much good sense here. I admire anyone who is willing to do the hard work of rethinking their views. It is not easy. Unlike me, he doesn’t seem to have alienated his friends in the Reform movement. Many of them are also beginning to be disenchanted with standardized testing.

I certainly applaud his conclusion that any reform should be gauged by the measure of “would I do this to my own children?”

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, New Jersey, Standardized Testing, Testing

A Washington Post Discussion about Education

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2018 //
35

I will be in Washington, D.C., on Thursday for a “discussion” about education. I put the scare quotes around discussion because the schedule is jam-packed, and there won’t be enough time for any in-depth discussion of anything. But hope springs eternal.

A few things on the program of interest.

What will Rahm Emanuel say about Chicago? Will he boast about the historic day in 2013 when he closed 50 public schools in a single day, displacing thousands of African-American children?

What will Arne Duncan tell us about how federal policy can reform the schools, after seven years of trying?

I understand this two-hour event will be live-streamed and available online.

WASHINGTON POST LIVE
Education in America
November 29, 2018
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Washington Post Live Center

4:00 p.m.
Opening Remarks

Kris Coratti,
Vice President
of Communications and Events, The Washington Post

4:05 p.m.
Educating in America’s Urban Cores: A View from Chicago
A case-study of the opportunities and challenges facing the city of Chicago’s public school system — from funding to demographics to violence in schools.

Rahm Emanuel,
Mayor, Chicago
@ChicagosMayor

Janice K. Jackson, EdD,
CEO, Chicago Public Schools @janicejackson

Moderated by
Jonathan Capehart,
Opinion Writer,
The Washington Post @CapehartJ

4:30 p.m.
The View from the
Ground: Tackling the Challenges of K-12 Schools
Educators and prominent
activists on the front lines of America’s K-12 classrooms offer perspectives on the social, academic, safety and resource challenges facing students and teachers, including the aftermath of this year’s nationwide teacher strikes. Speakers will also discuss
how access to technology affects student learning.

Lori Alhadeff,
Member, School
Board of Broward County, Florida @lorialhadeff

Geoffrey Canada,
President, Harlem
Children’s Zone

Mandy Manning,
2018 National Teacher of the Year, Joel E. Ferris High School, Spokane, Washington @MandyRheaWrites

Randi Weingarten,
President, American
Federation of Teachers @rweingarten

Moderated by
Nick Anderson,
National Education
Policy Reporter, The Washington Post @wpnick

4:55 p.m.
The Case for Social and Emotional Learning
The majority of students and young adults report that their schools are not excelling at developing their social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. This session will highlight the importance of SEL, direct from the viewpoints of today’s youth.

John Bridgeland,
Founder and CEO, Civic Enterprises

Interviewed
by Victoria Dinges,
Senior Vice President, Allstate Insurance Company

Content
by Allstate Insurance Company

5:10 p.m.
Education 360:
Defining the Debates
National education leaders debate the most pressing issues facing the U.S. education system, including school choice, standardized testing and federal, state and local funding for public schools. These experts will also discuss how well K-12 institutions are preparing students for higher
education and the jobs of the future.

Bridget Terry Long,
PhD, Dean, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University @bterrylong

Robert Pondiscio,
Senior Fellow and
Vice President for External Affairs, Thomas B. Fordham Institute @rpondiscio

Diane Ravitch, PhD,
Professor, New
York University and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education (1991-1993) @DianeRavitch

Moderated by
Valerie Strauss,
Education Reporter,
The Washington Post
@valeriestrauss

5:35 p.m.
The National Landscape:
Evaluating Federal and State Education Reform Efforts
Where do Washington and
the states go from here on education reform? Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former Michigan Gov. John Engler discuss the role of the federal and state governments in crafting education policy and look ahead to what’s next on the agenda
for the nation.

Arne Duncan,
Managing Partner, Emerson Collective and Former U.S. Secretary of Education (2009-2015) @arneduncan

John Engler,
President,
Michigan State
University and Former Republican Governor of Michigan (1991-2003) @MSUPresEngler

Moderated by
Christine Emba,
Opinion Columnist
and Editor, The Washington Post @ChristineEmba

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Emanuel, Rahm, Every Student Succeeds Act, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing

Peter Goodman: Is the Ed Reform “Movement” Moving into the Dustbin of History?

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2018 //
17

Peter Goodman, who blogs as “Ed in the Apple,” usually writes knowledgeably about education politics in New York City and State.

In this interesting post, he asks the Question of the Day/Hour/Month/Year: Is Ed Reform dying?

Reformers are turning against testing; parents are catching on to the Charter School Hustle.

What next? Can Reformers save a dying brand?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

Michael Hynes and William Doyle: What American Schools Can Learn from Finland

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2018 //
48

Michael Hynes, the progressive superintendent of the Patchogue-Medford school district on Long Island in New York, and William Doyle, an author who has lived in Finland, recently returned from a trip to that nation’s schools and wrote this article.

They offer a twelve-step program for American schools, based on what they learned in Finland.

Here are three of the steps they recommend. To learn about the other nine, open the link.

They write:

We were stunned by what we observed: A society that selects and respects teachers like elite professionals; a world-class network of vocational and technical schools; a school system that reveres and protects childhood and encourages children to experience joy in learning — where teachers shower children with warmth and attention; where children are given numerous free-play breaks; where special-education students are supported; and where children thrive.

In Finland, we heard none of the clichés common in U.S. education reform circles, like “rigor,” “standards-based accountability,” “data-driven instruction,” “teacher evaluation through value-added measurement” or getting children “college- and career-ready” starting in kindergarten.

Instead, Finnish educators and officials constantly stressed to us their missions of helping every child reach his or her full potential and supporting all children’s well-being. “School should be a child’s favorite place,” said Heikki Happonen, an education professor at the University of Eastern Finland and an authority on creating warm, child-centered learning environments. His colleague Janne Pietarinen explained, “Well-being and learning are intertwined. You can’t have one without the other.”

In short, we glimpsed an inspiring vision of an alternative future for American education, a future that we believe that all of our children deserve right now.

How can the United States improve its schools? We can start by piloting and implementing these 12 global education best practices, many of which are working extremely well for Finland:

1) Emphasize well-being. Make child and teacher well-being a top priority in all schools, as engines of learning and system efficiency.

2) Upgrade testing and other assessments. Explaining why he doesn’t need standardized tests to evaluate his students, one Finnish teacher said: “I am assessing my students every second.” Stop the standardized testing of children in grades 3-8, and “opt-up” to higher-quality assessments by classroom teachers. Eliminate the ranking and sorting of children based on standardized testing. Train students in self-assessment, and require only one comprehensive testing period to graduate from high school.

3) Invest resources fairly. Fund schools equitably on the basis of need. Provide small class sizes.

Categories Class size, Education Reform, Innovation, International, Play, Testing

Why Are Reformers Turning Against Standardized Tests?

By dianeravitch
November 14, 2018 //
71

Matt Barnum reports on a conference sponsored by the Center for Reinventing Public Education, one of the leaders in promoting charters and portfolio districts, where he noted a new consensus against standardized testing. The only dissident voice was Sandy Kress, architect of No Child Left Behind, who may be the last person on earth who still believes in the value of test-and-punish regimes.

https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/11/13/education-reformers-shift-their-rhetoric-turning-on-testing/

Some reformers said that they prefer to put their energy into “personalized learning,” which is a synonym for putting kids in fromt of a computer for hours every day.

Others may be disappointed that their beloved charter schools have failed to produce the test scores they expected, so they are looking for a different measure.

The reformers seem to be in alignment with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who turned against test scores when she realized that school choice does not produce higher test scores.

“Such rumblings of discontent with testing are not entirely new among the education reform crowd. Free-market-oriented advocates like Betsy DeVos, for example, have downplayed test scores, suggesting the more important issue is whether parents are satisfied with a given school.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Testing

José Espinosa: The Truth About Charter Schools That Boast About a 100% College Acceptance Rate

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2018 //
12

José Espinosa is the Superintendent of the Socorro Independent School District In Texas. This article appeared in the El Paso Times.

Superintendent Espinosa thinks the public should know the truth about charter schoools that claim to have a 100% college acceptance rate. They are lying. Rightwingers in Texas and charter promoters are planning on a big expansion of charters in the state, peddling their wares with unverified claims about their “success.”

He writes:

When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Dating back to 1954, the Better Business Bureau used this catchphrase to alert the public of shady business practices.

In the new era of school choice, this catchphrase can be used to alert the public of misleading business practices by charter schools in order to protect our most prized possessions — our children.

Every year, certain charters tout a 100 percent college acceptance rate as their major marketing pitch to lure parents away from traditional public schools.

The reality is the public isn’t told acceptance to a four-year university is actually a graduation requirement at some charter schools.

It specifically states in certain charters’ student/family handbooks that a student may graduate and receive a diploma ONLY if the student is accepted into a four-year university and has completed 125 hours of community service.

Reading lengthy student/family handbooks carefully before considering charters is just as important as reading the fine print before signing contracts.

We must also ask, “Why is Corporate America bashing our traditional public schools, yet it doesn’t demand transparency or accountability from charter schools?”

While 100 percent of charter seniors get accepted to college as required, the public has a right to know the percentage of charter students who didn’t make it to their senior year.

Ed Fuller, Pennsylvania State University professor, found in one of his studies of a particular charter network that when considering the number of students starting in the ninth grade as a cohort, the percentage of charter cohort students who graduated and went on to college was at best 65 percent.

In other words, 35 percent of ninth-graders at a charter network didn’t make it to their graduation….

Just like the BBB, it is our duty to alert the public.

If charters insist on boasting about 100 percent college acceptance rates, then traditional public schools must insist that our communities be fully informed.

Charters’ news release could read: “Since we require students to get accepted to a four-year university in order to graduate, our seniors have a 100 percent college acceptance rate. However, more than 30 percent of our cohort students in the ninth grade didn’t graduate from our charters. Therefore, we had less than 70 percent of our cohort students graduate and get accepted to college…”

Lauding charters who lack transparency and discount students while bashing El Paso’s public schools disparages the hard work, relentless dedication and success of Team SISD.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Graduation rates, Hoax, Lies, Privatization, Testing

Laura Chapman on Ohio’s Nonsensical and Destructive Report Cards for Schools

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2018 //
15

The idea of giving A-F grades to schools was a Jeb Bush invention. It is an almost perfect mirror of the poverty or affluence of the students in the school. Schools with high poverty levels will get low grades. This sets them up to be stigmatized as failures and to become juicy targets for tskeover and privatization. The privatizers keep the students they want and toss away those they don’t want. Meanwhile, the public money flows to private hands.

Laura Chapman here examines Ohio’s school report cards, which contain “multiple measures” to end up with the same result as a report card based only on test scores, which themselves measure family income and education.

She wrote this comment:

“The key components of the 2018 Ohio School Report Cards.

The six components are:

Achievement,
Gap Closing,
Improving At-Risk K-3 Readers,
Progress,
Graduation Rate,
Prepared for Success.

Districts and schools receive A-F grades on each of the six components and most of the individual measures for each component (e.g.a letter grade is assigned to Ohio’s EVASS metrics based on test scores. EVASS is a version of totally discredited VALUE-ADDED Metrics).

For the first time, districts and schools will be assigned overall letter grades. (e.g., Your school is D. Your school is an F.)

Here is the pitch for this ridicule-worthy scheme.

“Report cards are designed to give parents, communities, educators and policymakers information about the performance of districts and schools – to celebrate success and identify areas for improvement. This information identifies schools to receive intensive supports, drives local conversations on continuous improvement and provides transparent reporting on student performance. The goal is to ensure equitable outcomes and high expectations for all of Ohio’s students.”

One of these days I may count how many data points Ohio has shoved into the convoluted report card. Some are hardwired by the fools elected to the state house. Others are there in part from federal regulations. The rest are the product of a belief system that says, in effect measurement is an objective and infallible substitute for good judgment. Of course, the Report card grades track the relative affluence of the districts in Ohio and they are meaningless for Charter Schools. A recent conversation with a state school board member, running for re-election revealed total ignorance of problems with the value-added metric or the cost of the SAS contract for that misleading exercise.

reportcard.education.ohio.gov

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ohio, Privatization, Testing

Mercedes Schneider: ACT Scores Drop, ACT Executives Doing Fine

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2018 //
12

We are still awaiting the miraculous results of the Common Core. ACT scores declined.

Mercedes Schneider takes a deep dive into the scores and then reviews the payday for ACT executives.

“Feeding from the testing trough is paying off quite well for ACT. According to its 2015-16 tax form, ACT garnered $340M in revenue.

“One board member serving 2 hours per week was paid $40.5K– what is for many teachers an annual salary. Board members working 3 hours per week earned between $47.5K and $61.5K. Even “former” board members are still on the payroll for between $15K and $51.8K for 3 hours a week.

“Chief measurement officer, Richard Patz, received $786K in total compensation, and the former CFO, John Whitmore, and former president, Jon Erickson, remain on the payroll at $767K and $747K, respectively.

“Testing. Test prep. And retesting:

“A sweet deal for current and former ACT officers and board members.

“For the American classroom, not so much.”

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Testing
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