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John Thompson Reviews John Merrow’s “Addicted to Reform,” and Loves It!

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2017 //
17

John Thompson, historian and teacher in Oklahoma, Reviews John Merrow’s ADDICTED TO REFORM:


In “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education”, John Merrow lets it all out. Merrow, the winner of the George Polk Award and two George Foster Peabody Awards, leads us down “Memory Lane,” republishing his astonishing journalism that predates “A Nation at Risk,” and its warning against “a rising tide of mediocrity.” He also recalls successful innovators such as James Comer, E.D. Hirsch, Deborah Meier, and Henry Levin.
ADDICTED TO REFORM by John Merrow | Kirkus Reviews
But Merrow shows how high stakes testing dramatically increased our output of mediocre and even worse lessons for our kids. He tells us how the bubble-in reform “mania” got to a point where a principal told his teachers to “motor down,” to stop teaching 11th grade material to high-performing freshmen in order to prepare for the 9th grade test. Even more despicable was cancelling an annual kindergarten play so five-year-olds could spend more time becoming “college and career ready.”

The veteran reporter, with four decades of experience at NPR and PBS, reviews the way that test and punish “went into high gear during [the] Bush and Obama” administrations, when “‘regurgitation education’ became the order of the day.” Accountability-driven, competition-driven reformers turned schools into dreary places for “parroting back answers, while devaluing intellectual curiosity, cooperative learning, projects, field trips, the arts, physical education and citizenship.”

Merrow recalls the legacies of “blindly worshipping test scores.” Under Arne Duncan, Joel Klein, and Michelle Rhee, et. al and with funding by the “Billionaires Boys Club,” test scores became more than “the holy grail.” Merrow concludes, “Test scores are their addiction, the equivalent of crack cocaine, oxycodone, or crystal meth.”

Given Merrow’s influential coverage of corporate reform abuse in Washington D.C., it is no surprise that his discussion of Rhee is especially important. High stakes testing like the DC-CAS is always a bad idea, Merrow concludes, but in D.C. “it was an open invitation to disaster.” It was a part of a mentality where, for instance, D.C.’s director of professional development said that 80% of the district’s teachers lacked the skills or motivation to be successful in the classroom.

This narrow viewpoint, which was brought nationwide by “Waiting for Superman,” “The 74,” and other corporate-funded public relations assaults on public education, has “poisoned learning by turning it into a ‘gotcha game.’” But, Merrow concludes that our schools won’t “be out of the woods” until we “stop belittling and sometimes humiliating” teachers.

Merrow dissects the “heroic teacher” meme that set educators up to fail in their single-handed fight against the legacies of poverty. He cites teachers’ accounts of how “the testing mania has caused people to lose their minds.” Teachers explain how they “are becoming more like McDonald’s workers.” And, as another teacher explains, “I’m still in the classroom, but I miss teaching. It’s all about testing.”

The result of the lavishly-funded, data-driven mandates to transform “teacher quality” is that only prison guards, child care workers, and secretaries have higher attrition rates. A seemingly conservative estimate is that 81% of teachers believe that schools have too much testing and, that helps explain why about 60% of teachers say they are losing enthusiasm for the job, with nearly half saying they would quit if they could find a higher-paying job.

Merrow offers a 12-Step plan to reverse the harm inflicted by corporate school reform. In doing so, he often reminds us that it wasn’t just a misguided ideology and hubris that led sincere reformers astray. He notes the profit motives that undoubtedly influenced edu-philanthropists and charter providers, motivating them to ignore the overwhelming evidence of the unintended harm they were dumping on children.

For instance, Merrow speculates that if Jesse James would come back, today he’d become a charter operator in North Carolina. Similarly, huge administrative costs richly reward charter operators. The New York City Schools Chancellor is compensated at a rate of 40 cents per student, but charter leader Eva Moskowitz earns $51.35 per student, and Deborah Kenny is compensated at a rate of $375 per student.

The part of Addicted to Reform that taught me the most was Merrow’s account of Big Pharma’s influence on special education practices. I had no idea that it was once claimed that some ADD treatments were “safer than aspirin.” But the lessons that I most needed to learn are included in Merrow’s account of the “Buy Now, Pay Later” economics of Ed Tech. His bottom line isn’t surprising, “harnessing technology, … to raise test scores, makes education worse, not better.”

On one hand, the solutions in the 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education are modest. However, their strengths are rooted in what our democracy already knows how to do. We don’t need a new Common Core, Merrow says, to teach us how to respect the science that calls for high-quality early education, or to bring exploratory learning back into classrooms. By now, there is a widely held understanding that due to reform, “Students have been the losers, sentenced to mind-numbing schooling. Teachers who care about their craft have also lost out.”

The big winners have been the testing companies. But the grassroots Opt Out movement has led the counterattack. The refusal to take these punitive tests has empowered students and patrons, while revealing some of the darkest sides of the reform addiction. For instance, when 90% of students opted out in a Connecticut school, the administration forced opt outers to attend classes where there would be “no new learning” allowed.

And that brings us back to why Merrow was right to use the word “addiction” to diagnose the failure of reform. Merrow shows how corporate reform began as a fundamentally anti-intellectual movement (by admittedly smart people who knew little of the institution they sought to transform) and ended up defending policies that are sometimes irrational and/or cruel. Somehow, they couldn’t see the damage done by shaming poor children of color into increasing their “outputs.” These social engineers imposed the stress of testing to overcome the stress of poverty, and consciously contributed to increased segregation in order to reverse the legacies of segregation.

And many reformers are still convincing themselves that they haven’t created a disaster. It would be hard to explain such a continuing debacle without using Merrow’s language of addiction, as well has his guide to following their money.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Testing

John Merrow Reviews Laurene P. Jobs’ Timid TV Bash of Our High Schools

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2017 //
7

John Merrow watched the show funded by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs and presented, monopoly-style, on four major channels simultaneously (NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX). Why no CNN? Why no MSNBC? Why no QVC? Why no cooking channels? Just asking.

Merrow concluded that the show was lacking any reference to history, e perience, or knowledge (other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?)

An excerpt of what might have been:

“As I see it, the program wanted to look bold without criticizing the ‘school reform’ crowd that still controls most of what happens in schools. It could have been bold. It could–and should–have said “Most high schools treat kids like numbers, their scores on standardized tests. That has to change…and here’s how it can happen, how it is happening.” But in order to do that, the narrative would have had to renounce and reject not just Republican education policies of “No Child Left Behind” but also those of the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top,” widely supported by Democrats for Education Reform and other traditional ‘school reformers.’ Given that Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan now works for Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, that wasn’t going to happen.

“Last night’s program was high energy and cute without being daring. For example, it had a clever ‘red carpet’ segment but with teachers as the stars. Lots of cheering, but that was it. That’s sadly timid. Imagine if Melissa Rivers, the host on the red carpet, had asked teachers the question she always asks the Hollywood stars: “You look marvelous. What are you wearing tonight?’

“And picture a male teacher responding: “These old things? I bought these khakis 12 or 13 years ago. I was going to buy a new pair for tonight, but I just spent $380 on basic supplies for my classroom. Oh, and would it be rude of me to ask how much your outfit cost?”

“Imagine a female teacher responding, “What am I wearing? Actually, I’d rather talk about tomorrow’s field trip….I’m taking my kids to the Getty Museum, where they will….. see provocative art and meet contemporary artists. And the next day my students will be on Skype, talking with students in a high school in Paris about climate change. We’ve been measuring the air quality here and sharing the data with them for purposes of comparison and analysis. But I have to charge the kids for the bus to the Museum and I had to ask some wealthy parents to pay for the scientific equipment because the school district has been cutting our instructional budget.”

“And another teacher could have said, “To be honest, I’m happy for this attention, but I can’t help but thinking about the fact that you make 17 or 18 times more money per year than I do.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Media, Privatization, Propaganda, Testing

Erika Christakis: The War on Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
33

Writing in The Atlantic, Erika Christakis describes “the war on public schools” that readers of this blog know well, but that has been sold to the public as “reform.”

She writes:

“Few people care more about individual students than public-school teachers do, but what’s really missing in this dystopian narrative is a hearty helping of reality: 21st-century public schools, with their record numbers of graduates and expanded missions, are nothing close to the cesspools portrayed by political hyperbole. This hyperbole was not invented by Trump or DeVos, but their words and proposals have brought to a boil something that’s been simmering for a while—the denigration of our public schools, and a growing neglect of their role as an incubator of citizens.

“Americans have in recent decades come to talk about education less as a public good, like a strong military or a noncorrupt judiciary, than as a private consumable. In an address to the Brookings Institution, DeVos described school choice as “a fundamental right.” That sounds appealing. Who wouldn’t want to deploy their tax dollars with greater specificity? Imagine purchasing a gym membership with funds normally allocated to the upkeep of a park.

“My point here is not to debate the effect of school choice on individual outcomes: The evidence is mixed, and subject to cherry-picking on all sides. I am more concerned with how the current discussion has ignored public schools’ victories, while also detracting from their civic role. Our public-education system is about much more than personal achievement; it is about preparing people to work together to advance not just themselves but society. Unfortunately, the current debate’s focus on individual rights and choices has distracted many politicians and policy makers from a key stakeholder: our nation as a whole. As a result, a cynicism has taken root that suggests there is no hope for public education. This is demonstrably false. It’s also dangerous.”

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

Jamaal A. Bowman: A Letter to Black and Latino Public School Parents

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2017 //
10

Jamaal A. Bowman is the principal of the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action in New York City.

This is his Open Letter to the Parents of Black and Latino Children in Public Schools.

Back to School 2017: An Open Letter to Black and Latino Public School Parents

Dear Parents,

I hope this letter finds you and your loved ones in good health and good spirits. I write to you as a Black man in America, and educator of almost 20 years. I grew up lower middle class to a single mom in the upper east side/east Harlem section of New York City. I have worked my entire career with Black and Latino students in K-12 settings throughout the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan in New York City. I have experience working in both district and charter schools, and I attended public schools throughout my entire life.

I humbly write this letter to you as a call to action. There is a crisis in public education that mirrors the crisis in our country. The actions of the white supremacists in Charlottesville Virginia, are not unique to protesting the removal of a confederate leader’s statue. The thinking that drives the actions of these racists and bigots exist covertly throughout our public schools – as it does throughout American society.

Our schools are financially starved. If you are a Black or Latino child in this country, you are more likely to attend a “Title I” school. Title I schools receive additional federal funding to offset the impact of poverty in downtrodden communities. At present, Donald Trump and Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos are looking to reduce federal funding by $9 billion, which directly devastates Black and Latino children. Despite the additional Title I funding poor schools have received since 1965, schools in wealthy districts with high property taxes are able to outspend Title I schools by roughly two to one. This is one example of how racism exists within our current education policy.

Because of this financial oppression, parents throughout the country have been fighting back. In 1993, New York parents led by Robert Jackson, began a 13-year legal battle against the state of New York. The judge ruled that the state’s awful education spending was preventing a “sound and basic education” for our most vulnerable children. The parents won the lawsuit! However, as we are 11 years removed from the court’s decision, the majority of the money has yet to be paid to our mostly Black and Latino children. As a result, our children continue to underperform, drop-out, and receive school suspensions at rates much higher than white and Asian children. In this way, governments throughout the country remain complicit in keeping the school to prison pipeline amongst Black and Latino children thriving, while the racial economic and opportunity gaps continue to persist.

Further, Black and Latino history and culture is almost completely absent from public school policy and curriculum. As a result, America’s children learn almost nothing about the contributions of Black and Latino culture to civilization. This fact contributes to the ongoing misunderstanding, disrespect, and xenophobia that exist toward Black and Latino youth. While children of European descent continue to be recognized and celebrated in our public schools, Black and Latino history remains nonexistent. Unless implemented secretly at the school level, students are not taught about Kush, Timbuktu and Kemit, or the modern contributions of Black and Latino authors, mathematicians, and scholars. If Black and Latino children learned of their contributions to the cradle of civilization, one could only imagine the growth in their self-esteem, self-confidence, and contribution to the advancement of present day society.

Discussing Latino students specifically, and particularly English language learners, the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) calls for the tracking of how well English language learners perform on English standardized tests. Of course, it is important for Latinos to learn English. However, the unintended consequences of a policy like this involves the nonuse of the Spanish language among Latino Americans; while also suppressing other aspects of Latino culture. Bilingual education and dual language programs have suffered as a result. Under contemporary education policy, Latino lives don’t matter. The belief of many policymakers and corporate education reformers is one of English supremacy. If you are in America you should “speak American”. What’s implied here is the inferiority of Latino culture. Instead of celebrating the diversity of Latino citizens, Latinos are marginalized and forced to abandon parts of their culture. This creates enduring conflict and contributes to the social and political strife we see today. Latino students, particularly English language learners, suffer greatly in our public school system.

To save our children, we need a paradigm shift toward a more holistic education system. Holistic education includes more than just a single school. It involves the school working as part of a community based structure that incorporates, healthcare, higher education, local businesses, and a variety of community based organizations. A holistic education nurtures the whole mind, whole child, whole family, and whole community; while embracing America’s dynamic cultural diversity as an invaluable resource.

Black and Latino families must demand a holistic education for all children, in every school district in America.

From an “academic” perspective, public school policy dictates that if a child is “proficient” on an English and math state test, that child is considered in good academic standing. Many would argue that this is based on a limited view of intelligence. Researchers for decades have identified multiple intelligences as necessary for a holistic curriculum. The ability to build and sustain healthy relationships, the ability to self-reflect, perform musically, engage with nature, dance and play sports, all represent talents that are mostly ignored in our school system. Why aren’t we nurturing these talents in all schools? I fear that continuing to overlook the multiple intelligences in our children, will deprive generations to come of artists like Celia Cruz, and Duke Ellington, entrepreneurs like Nasir Jones, and technicians like Carlos Santillan.

Private schools, on the other hand, tend to implement a vast and deep curriculum. Private school children work on authentic projects, in the creative arts, and engage in humanistic learning methodologies like Paideia, Reggio Emilio and Maria Montessori. While private school children are nurtured to reach their full potential as leaders, public school children are trained in subordinate thinking. This structure of inequality maintains the vast economic and cultural divide that has existed throughout America history.

By continuing to implement a basic, so-called “rigorous” curriculum, public schools facilitate racist policies and communicate low expectations for our children. In public schools, our goal is simply to make Black and Latino students the best English and math test-takers they can be; not to build creative critical thinkers and real-world problem solvers. Black and Latino families should be wary of the overuse of words like accountability, and of policymakers that advocate only annual standardized testing in English and math. Most of these policymakers send their children to the private schools described above. This is not an accident, and this will not change unless Black and Latino parents come together, organize, speak up, and speak out against both the overt and implicit racism that plagues the children in our schools.

It is time for us to demand more from teachers, principals, school boards, elected officials and policymakers. We are in the middle of an education revolution, and I am calling for ALL Black and Latino families to be involved.
Consider how the opt-out movement demanded change as one voice by refusing state standardized tests. This forced a stoppage to certain education policies in New York State. This movement, organized by the New York State Allies for Public Education, continues to impact education policy in New York State and across the country.

We can also learn a lot from the great work that the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE), the Coalition for Education Justice (CEJ), and Journey for Justice (J4J) have done for Black and Latino families in particular. AQE, CEJ, and J4J fight everyday against the privatization of public schools and the closing of neighborhood schools. Their fight also includes a push for culturally relevant curriculum and equitable education funding. Because of these outstanding grassroots organizations, elected officials are much more responsive to parent and community demands. But we need more voices in the fight. What might we collectively accomplish if we demanded the resources that nurture the strengths and diversity of our children? What if policymakers heard from Black and Latino parents and students daily, and we used our political leverage to have those that ignore us removed from office?

Our children are suffering daily as their voices, ideas, and cultures are suppressed. Even the children that get good grades are graduating high school less engaged than ever. Public education policy, both directly and indirectly teach Black and Latino children that their lives only matter insofar as they can serve the needs of the system that oppresses them. There are many Black and Latino students who graduate high school and refuse to attend college because they are emotionally debilitated. School has made them numb. Many who attend college do not finish because they do not see a bigger purpose in higher education. Because America continues to neglect our highest need communities and families, millions of kids never reach basic proficiency, nor do they get close to reaching their full potential.

Black and Latino parents must also act upon the unjust fact that the schools and districts that are celebrated for their work with Black and Latino children, invest substantially more resources than the average school district. Unfortunately, most Black and Latino public school districts continue to be starved and underserved. That will change as soon as WE ALL come together, demand equitable funding, resist the privatization of our schools, demand a culturally relevant curriculum, and build a holistic community based school system.

Categories Education Reform, Opt Out, Parents, Privatization, Race, Racism, Testing

Alan Singer: Do Test Scores Really Measure Success?

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2017 //
19

Alan Singer is not impressed with the sensational test scores posted by Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy.

“On its website, Success Academy reported “For the ninth consecutive year, Success Academy Charter Schools have scored among the highest-performing schools in New York State,” claiming that “students with disabilities and English Language Learners at Success Academy schools not only surpassed their peers statewide, but also outperformed students without disabilities and native English speakers, respectively, across New York.”

“But a closer look at a successful Success school shows how selective recruitment and pressure to leave “cooks the books.” According to the website Inside Schools, Success Cobble Hill of “got to go” fame, with 469 students grades K-5, has 10% of its students with registered disabilities and 5% who are English Language Learners, compared to 16% of students citywide with registered disabilities and 14% who are ELL. Students with disabilities and ELL are also very broad categories. For teaching and testing, there is a big difference between a middle-class student who has a 504 designation for mild attention deficit syndrome and needs additional time to complete tests and assignments, and a disruptive student with severe emotional issues or a student with serious learning difficulties. ELL students range through four categories from new arrivals who speak no English and may never have attended school in their home country to children who are very literate in their first language and are rapidly mastering English. An accurate comparison of schools requires knowing who the students are that attend the schools.”

The real damage done by Success Academy is that it “succeeds” by playing a game that many educators believe is inherently meaningless and harmful to real learning.

As Singer writes:

“It may just be that success at Success demonstrates the illegitimacy of the entire national high-stakes testing regime. Before celebrating Success Academy test scores and granting the network waivers to hire uncertified teachers, New York State education officials should investigate how the schools operate. If they do magic, they deserve credit. If it is a smoke and mirrors show that produces test scores through selective recruitment and the intimidation of children and families, it should be shut down.”

I would put a different spin on the conclusion.

Whether or not the scores are valid misses the point. Education cannot be measured by standardized tests. Standardized tests corrupt education. Getting the right answer is less important than asking the right question. What matters more than scores? The four C’s. Character. Citizenship. Creativity. Compassion.

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

Fred Smith: How De Blasio Juked the Stats to Overstate Test Score Gains

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2017 //
38

Fred Smith is a testing expert who knows how test scores can be manipulated and statistics can be twisted into data pretzels.

In this post, he calls out Mayor de Blasio for hyping the numbers to make the gains far larger than they were. Leave aside for the moment that test scores are a ridiculous way to measure the quality of education. Leave aside the fact that using them as measures of progress feeds into the privatizers’ narrative. Smith caught the Mayor juking the stats for Political gain.

He writes:

Ignore that tall man behind the curtain as he cranks up the volume.

Bearing a strong resemblance to Mayor de Blasio, he is there to proclaim that, “Since 2013, English proficiency has increased by 54 percent and math proficiency has increased by 27 percent.” But the noise machine can’t hide the fact that there is little substance in all the thunder.

CityViews are readers’ opinions, not ours. Send us your op-ed today!
So, the mayor’s Tuesday press release leads with huge gains in reading and math scores—the major, if-you-don’t-remember-anything-else point he wants us to take away as he seeks re-election.

But the percentage gains are statistical smoke that befogs the mayor’s already clouded efforts in education. And, frankly, they raise questions about the incumbent’s honesty.

Three tricks prop up the testing headline:

1. The DOE press release emphasizes percentage gains, which are current results minus previous results divided by previous results. Evidently, the increase in English scores of 14.2 percent (26.4 percent to 40.6 percent) from 2013 to 2017 wasn’t good enough news. Nor was the 8.1 percent gain (29.6 percent to 37.8 percent) in math. So, the press office reaches into its bag of tricks and insists there has been a 54 percent gain in English proficiency under de Blasio—14.2 divided by 26.4 and a 27 percent boost in math—8.1 over 29.6.

Now, can you imagine the mayor doing this if there had been an increase in the murder rate. Let’s say homicides were up from 6 to 7 killings per 100,000 New Yorkers. Would de Blasio say that murders rose by one percent or by 16.7 percent? You know he would minimize the negative outcome.

2. – De Blasio’s spinners also present 2013 as their baseline year. But Mayor Bloomberg owned the 2013 results and most of 2014’s, as well. De Blasio didn’t arrive at City Hall until January 1, 2014. The English test was given on April 1, 2014.

Why would they go back to 2013? It allows de Blasio to start his story the year the ELA and math results tanked–creating a fictional narrative of tremendous achievement. For 2013 was the year the Common Core-aligned tests descended on the schools and rained rigor down on 440,000 New York City students. De Blasio wants to embrace Bloomberg’s bottomed-out, third-term school years as his starting point, because things could only improve after that.

Had the Mayor begun his account with the 2015 results, he would still have a 10.2 percent increase to boast about in English proficiency (from 30.4 percent to 40 percent6 percent), but only a 2.6 percent gain to show in math (35.2 percent to 37.8 percent) under his control of the schools. That would be nothing to brag about.

Ironically, as he notes, Joel Klein too tried to claim credit for test score increases that occurred before he took office.

Sad that test scores are now a political talking point. Just proves how meaningless they are.

Categories Accountability, Bill de Blasio, Data, Klein, Joel, New York City, Testing

Peter Greene: Get Your Barf Bag Ready for September 8, When Mrs. Jobs Reveals How to Fix Education

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2017 //
40

Peter Greene has a timely warning for us. Laurene Powell Jobs has lined up multiple TV channels and a star-studded cast to tell the world how she is fixing education. Her group is called the Emerson Collective. She hired Arne Duncan to advise her, despite the fact that he wasted $5 billion of federal funds (taxpayer money) on a failed effort to “reform” public schools by privatizing them, closing them, firing teachers and principals, and making standardized tests the purpose of education.

Peter notes that no working educator helped Mrs. Jobs formulate her plans. What do teachers know about education?

He writes:

“Brace yourselves. It’s time for a star-studded ed erformstravaganza.

“Another wave of PR dropped yesterday, touting a four-network, celebrity-packed, media event, proudly trumpeted everywhere from Variety to USA Today. On September 8, a huge line-up (including Tom Hanks, Yo-Yo Ma, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Hudson and (sorry) Common) will present “an hour-long live television special about reinventing American high schools….

“The XQ Institute is an offspring of the Emerson Collective, a Palo Alto-based do-gooding group founded by Laurene Powell Jobs. The organization is dedicated to removing barriers to opportunity so people can live to their full potential in order to develop and execute innovative solutions that will spur change and promote equality. They were one of the first groups to hire Arne Duncan after his Ed Secretary stint (do not miss his hardcore street pic here). Oh, and they just bought controlling interest in the Atlantic which, for reasons we’ll get to, is kind of a bummer.

“Jobs was always a philanthropic power player, and she’s logged time in the ed reform biz with NewSchools Venture Fund (We raise contributions from donors and use it to find, fund and support teams of educators and education entrepreneurs who are reimagining public education), but as the widow of Apple Empresario Steve Jobs, she has a huge mountain of money to work with. She is, in fact, the fourth richest woman in the world. And she has decided she would like to fix education.

“Jobs has said, “We want to make high schools back into the great equalizers they were meant to be.”

“To do that, she launched XQ Institute, which launched a big competition– XQ: The Super School Project.

“The Super School Project is an open call to reimagine and design the next American high school. In towns and cities far and wide, teams will unite and take on this important work of our time: rethinking and building schools that deeply prepare our students for the rigorous challenges of college, jobs, and life…

“Jobs doesn’t use many of the dog whistles or talking points of reformsters, except for one that she really loves:

“Jobs told the NYT, “The system was created for the work force we needed 100 years ago. Things are not working the way we want it to be working.”

“In USA Today: The XQ Institute aims to “rethink” American public high schools, which, it maintains, have remained virtually unchanged for a century while the world has transformed dramatically.

“Schools haven’t changed in 100 years” is the dead horse Jobs rides in on, a criticism that only makes sense if you don’t know what schools were actually like in 1917, and if you haven’t actually visited one in the last century….

“I also note that in all the publicity for the event that I’ve now read, there is no mention of other sponsors, so while I don’t have proof, I’m pushed to conclude that Laurene Powell Jobs just busted out her checkbook and bought a full hour of Friday night primetime television on four networks.

“What can we expect. Well, music and comedy and documentaries are billed. And we’re talking about a SuperSchool live, so presumably we won’t bother with any coverage of those dopey Clark Kent schlubby schools where the rest of us slog away. This special will just focus on Jobs’ own created reality.”

Don’t you wish that billionaire dilettantes would fix health care or save national parks or find some other pet hobby? When do they get tired of failing? Again and again and again…

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Nicholas Tampio Slams ESSA As Common Core in Disguise

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2017 //
11

At a meeting at Fordham University, Professor Nicholas Tampio slammed ESSA as the same old Common Core, with lipstick. If Nick sends me his speech, I will post it in full.

https://news.fordham.edu/politics-and-society/professor-slams-essa-common-core-another-name/

Here is the university press release:

Nicholas Tampio, Ph.D., associate professor of political science, made an impassioned plea for New York State to reject participation in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), saying it does little or nothing to stem the growing takeover of education by the federal government.

Speaking at Fordham Law School as part of the Education Law Collaborative’s first education law conference, Tampio made the case that, despite ESSA provisions that allow states to opt out of Common Core, as a practical matter it is no different.

“ESSA requires states to remain within the standards, testing, and accountability paradigm . . . if they want Title I funds.”
That means that if a state wants to follow a more original model of educating, such as the John Dewey model, they forfeit federal funding. “John Dewey said standardized tests can only be useful to help us figure out how to help a particular child, but they shouldn’t be used to rank children, because children have all sorts of special gifts, talents, and interests.”

In his talk, “ESSA and the Myth of Return to Local Control,” Tampio traced the evolution of education reform in the United States, including the programs Nation at Risk (1983), Improving America’s Schools Act (1994), No Child Left Behind (2001), and Race to the Top (2009). ESSA, which was signed by President Obama in 2015, ostensibly reversed the trend toward federalizing education, but Tampio said it has not been effective.

That’s important, he said, because. A top-down approach squelches local control, and students should feel like their voices and opinions are valuable.

“Part of a democratic education is to get kids to learn about the world, and feel empowered that they have a voice in it,” he said.

Local control also benefits low income and minority communities, he said. He cited examples from Kitty Kelly Epstein’s A Different View of Urban Schools: Civil Rights, Critical Race Theory, and Unexplored Realities (Counterpoints, 2012).

“All the research confirms that when parents are involved, students do better. And yet, if they don’t have a voice other than what color cupcakes to bring to the PTA, they’re not going to be active in [local]school boards,” he said.

In New York, the Department of Education has renamed Common Core the “Next Generation Learning Standards,” but on issues of standards and accountability, Tampio said, they’re largely the same. Seventy-sevent percent of the existing Common Core standards will have no change whatsoever, and “clarifications” have been issued for just 15.9 percent of them. In order to receive $1.6 billion in federal funds, the state must comply with the changes and submit them to the federal government next month.

ESSA states that there is “no requirement, direction, or mandate to adopt Common Core standards,” but Tampio says that does not help states rid themselves of Common Core standards already in place. ESSA’s language on standards requires states to maintain “challenging academic content standards.”

“When ESSA was signed in 2015, most states already adopted Common Core. The question [should be]what is the federal government going to do to help facilitate states trying to exit the Common Core?” he said.

“[It] is an incredible burden for any state to choose an alternative, and I don’t think we’re going to see any.

“I’d be delighted if they did, because it would be a road map for every other state on how to do it,” he said.

Tampio, an education activist, claims that Common Core standards, with its test-based model, do little to develop creativity and independent thinking in developing children.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Testing

A Message to Education Deans: Resist!

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2017 //
18

More than 200 deans of education at scores of colleges and universities have organized to resist the corporate reformers’ efforts to deprofessionalize teaching and destroy public education. They call themselves Education Deans for Justice and Equity. They work in partnership with the National Education Policy Center. If you are a faculty member, please ask your dean to sign on. If you belong to an education organization, please consider adding its support.

“Dear Education Deans:

“As the start to a new academic year unfolds, so do increasing attacks on public education. Building on the “Declaration of Principles” that was released in January of this year and signed by 235 education deans, many of us feel compelled to continue to speak out collectively, publicly, and forcefully.

“Towards this end, we have prepared a new statement from education deans, “Our Children Deserve Better,” that counters the harmful rhetoric and actions currently coming from Washington with alternatives that are grounded in an ethical foundation, sound research, and a commitment to democratic values. The statement is a project of Education Deans for Justice and Equity, in partnership with the National Education Policy Center.

“Invited to sign are all current and former deans of colleges and schools of education in the United States (or comparable positions such as chairs, directors, and associate deans in institutions where there is no separate dean of education or school of education). We urge signing by August 30, because we are planning for the public release and distribution of the statement in early September.

“Please consider signing, and please consider committing to encouraging at least several other education-dean colleagues to sign so that we reach our goal of hundreds of signatories. The statement and the form for you to sign on is here:
https://goo.gl/forms/JXR2s1LZUcd6DaNh2.

“In solidarity,

“Kevin Kumashiro, on behalf of EDJE and NEPC”

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Resistance, Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

California: Testing Incoherence Continues

By dianeravitch
August 27, 2017 //
16

California can’t release its Common Core test scores yet, as promised, due to an unspecified “data issue.”

Categories Accountability, California, Testing
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