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Michael Hynes: Our Insane Obsession with Testing

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2017 //
7

Dr. Michael Hynes, superintendent of the schools in Patchogue-Medford on Long Island (New York) really knows what “whole child education” is. I wish he were advising Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, who throw the term around, as in “whole child personalized learning.” Hynes could set them straight.

They could start by reading this article, which appeared in Newsday.

Hynes recommends this startling documentary about “hypernormalization.” Unlike Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, he knows what “whole child education” means.

He writes:

The hypernormalization of public education has been creeping into our schools, becoming the official party line with a federal mandate of testing our children to death with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This legislation required that students in grades three through eight be tested every year in English Language Arts and mathematics. The later incarnations of the law have only upped the testing ante by making high test scores such a priority that a school’s existence might well depend on making the mark.

This means that what most of us consider “normal” is no longer normal. School days filled with reading, writing, math, science, social studies, playing outside, working out problems with friends, art, music and taking an occasional trip are no longer normal. If we compared our public school experience from 25 years ago with the “new normal,” we witness children losing the ability to play in the classroom (when true learning takes place), the significant decline of recess and the loss of social and emotional experiences that benefit all children. This new normal is teach less and test more. And because of the high stakes attached to the tests, schools are forced to focus on academic outcomes at the expense of a child’s social and emotional growth. Under this hypernormalized model, teachers now rank and sort children based on a proficiency model instead of how much growth each individual child might show…

I recognize that the obstacles in achieving a new healthy normal are huge, as our politicians at the state and federal levels, along with so-called reformers and business opportunists who have reaped financial profits from this system, continue to praise and fund a high-stakes, test-driven school model.

But make no mistake: This new normal, as research has shown, is taking an unacceptable toll on our children. Focusing on the whole child, regardless of scores, is what desperately needs to become our newer normal.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Testing

SomeDAM Poet: “The Midnight Blog of Diane Ravitch”

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2017 //
18

Thank you, dear Poet. I blush. And I laughed out loud.

“The Midnight Blog of Diane Ravitch” (apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Hear ye, my teachers, of techy wares
The “teaching” inventions of billionaires
Of testing and Cores
Political whores
And a blogger with passion who really cares

She said to her friends, “If the billionaires roll
By software or hard, from your towns tonight
Hang a lantern aloft from the tall flag-pole
At the public school, as a signal light —
One if by Gates and two if by Broad
And I, on the opposite side of the road,
Ready to blog and spread the alarm
Through every American village and farm
For the parents and kids to march arm in arm

Then she said “good night” and with a blogger’s adieu
Warned to “Be watchful of ‘privatize’ clue’”
Just as the wealthy were meeting with pols
And paying the think-tanks and internet trolls
For “proof” that their methods were “tried and true” —
The Common Core and the testing too —
That only THEY know what to do
A propaganda that was magnified
By billions of dollars, far and wide

Meanwhile, her friends, through blogging and tweet
Wander and watch with eagle eyes
Till they read of the program to “personalize”
The learning, by students with tech, for sure
The smell of a hardware and software cheat
By usual folks, with their usual lies
Peddling wares at the techy store

They hoisted the lanterns up the poles
At the public schools, throughout the land
To the top of the masts, hand over hand
Unbeknownst to the blogger trolls
On the internet sites (paid as planned
By billionaires, who worshipped Rand)
Up the flag-pole, so steep and tall
The highest flagpole of them all
They raised the lanterns above the trees
Where Diane Ravitch saw with ease
And moved to action from the call

A flurry of blogs and a trumpet of tweet
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark
And beneath from her fingers, in passing a spark
Struck out by a blogger both fearless and fleet
That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light
The fate of a Nation was riding that night
And the spark stuck by the blogger in flight
Kindled the Land into flame with it’s heat

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the brutish billionaires tired and fled–
How the parents gave them piece of mind
(And not of the peaceful restful kind)
Chasing the billionaires down the lane
Then crossing the field to emerge again
Under the trees at the edge of the school
To banish forever the billionaire rule

So through the night, she persevered
And so through the night went her cry of alarm
Through every American village and farm
A cry of defiance and not of fear
A voice in the darkness a knock at the door
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For borne on the night wind of the Past
Through all our history to the last
In the hour of darkness and peril and need
The people will waken and listen to hear
Of the ominous danger of billionaire greed
Threat to democracy that we hold dear

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

Portland, Oregon: Corporate Reformers Launch Vicious Attack on School Board Member

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2017 //
5

Portland, Oregon, is in big trouble. Despite massive spending by the fake reform Stand on Children–err, Stand for Children–the corporate reformers lost in the school board election. Now, as local activist Deb Mayer reports, they are trying to bully a school board member into resigning.

Why the attacks on a man who won his seat and supports public schools? The board has been unable to pick a new superintendent. So the composition of the board is crucial, and the privatizers need another seat. They want Paul Anthony’s seat so they can win by bullying what they could not win at the polls.

Citizens of Portland must be informed. Stand for Children represents Bill Gates and the rest of the zbillionaire Boys Club that funds SFC. They are not working on behalf of the children and families of Portland.

Don’t be fooled.

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

Lesson from Virginia: Real Democrats Support Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2017 //
50

Rachel Levy, a mother and public school activist in Virginia, explains here the lesson of the recent Democratic campaign for governor: Real Democrats support public schools.

http://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/as-democrats-struggle-to-find-their-footing-in-the-trump-era/

Dr. Ralph Northam, Lt. Governor, was a strong supporter of public schools. He won the support of the Virginia Education Association and public school allies across the state.

Tom Perriello had the support of veterans of the Obama administration, Elizabeth Earren, and Bernie Sanders. He also had ties in the past with DFER.

Northam won handily.

Will the national Democratic Party get the message?

Real Democrats support public schools, teachers, and unions. Real Democrats do not support charter schools, high-stakes testing, VAM, or privatization of public schools by charter.

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

Jay Mathews: I Goofed on My High School Rankings!

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2017 //
35

Jay Mathews invented a high school ranking program that relies on certain criteria, especially the number of students who take AP and IB tests. The data are self-reported by the schools.

Carol Burris warned Jay that some of his rankings were highly improbable, especially those reported by the IDEA charter chain. She was right. Carol thinks that the temptation to “juke the stats” is too powerful. Jay thinks that there was an honest error.

Jay writes:

“When I started what The Washington Post now calls the America’s Most Challenging High Schools list, I was told not to trust data from schools and school districts. They’re sloppy and sometimes dishonest, people said. It won’t work.

“That was 19 years ago. The doubters were wrong. The educators I deal with have proved to be unfailingly honest. Mistakes are rare. But the biggest so far just happened. The IDEA Public Schools charter network in Texas told me it provided incorrect numbers of Advanced Placement tests at six of its schools for the 2017 list published in May.

“As a result, the five IDEA schools that were in the top 10 have dropped several places on the corrected list. “We messed up,” said IDEA founder and chief executive Tom Torkelson.”

Actually, IDEA has a documented history of overstating its success. Ed Fuller, a professor at Penn State formerly at the University of Texas, debunked the IDEA claim that 100% of its graduates were accepted into four-year colleges.

Ed Fuller wrote on his blog:

“IDEA Charter School markets itself as a college preparatory education organization with goals of enrolling 100% of graduates in four-year universities and have 100% persistence and graduation rates in college.[1] Indeed, in the introduction of the most recent annual report, Dr. Tom Torkelson, CEO of IDEA Public Schools, makes the following statement:

“IDEA puts students on path to succeed in an increasingly competitive global marketplace by providing a rigorous college preparatory education and preparing our low-income, Hispanic and minority students in under-served communities across Texas to apply, matriculate and succeed in a the four year college or university of their choice. To date, 100% of IDEA graduates have been accepted to a four-year college or university and our student (sic) are demonstrating remarkable staying power: 92% are either still in college or have graduated.[2]

“Further, on page six of the report, the claim is made that, “ . . . for the fifth year in a row, 100% of IDEA graduates enrolled in four-year colleges and universities, fulfilling IDEA’s mission of College For All Children.”[3]

“Yet, these claims are demonstrably false, the report fails to cite any data sources or studies that substantiate the claims, and the report fails to report publicly available data on the performance of students in four-year universities. The remainder of this short report substantiates my claims made about statements included in the IDEA annual report and provides data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board about the Performance of IDEA Public School graduates in Texas four-year universities.”

Fuller goes on to show that 100% of IDEA graduates did not enroll in four-year colleges, and many of these students performed very poorly in college.

Given IDEA’s history of boasts and overstatements, why should Jay Mathews accept its self-reported data?

How many other self-reported errors are hidden in those rankings? Carol wonders if Jay is rewarding charters that push kids out who can’t or won’t take the AP courses. She thinks he should create two separate lists: one for charters, which have the power to choose and exclude their students; another for public schools that accept all students. I would suggest a third category: selective public schools. How can anyone fairly compare a comprehensive high school that accepts all who apply, with a selective high school that admits only those who pass an examination? How can anyone fairly compare charter schools with high attrition rates–weeding out low performers– to those public schools that enroll students with disabilities and students who are learning English, as well as children who are homeless.

I don’t see the purpose of ranking selective high schools and non-selective high schools. I’m having trouble understanding the value of the rankings no matter how they are reported.

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

Mark Naison: How the Democratic Party Fatally Damaged Itself by Attacking Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2017 //
81

Mark Naison and I agree. When the Democratic Party joined the campaign to impose high-stakes testing, accountability, and privatization, it attacked a key element of its own base. He says it began with Bill Clinton’s advocacy for standards, testing, and accountability. Then, the Democrats threw their support behind George W. Bush’s disastrous No Child Left Behind. Then Obama brought in Arne Duncan to bribe the states with $5 billion for the disastrous Race to the Top program, which demoralized teachers, made them scapegoats, and closed thousands of schools in impoverished communities while favoring privately managed charter schools. I argued in The New Republic that the Democratic Party paved the way for Betsy DeVos and her crusade to replace public schools with anything other than public schools. Charters under private management are the gateway drug leading to vouchers to replace public schools.

Mark wrote that Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

He writes:

Ever since the Clinton Presidency, the Democratic Party has been an advocate of top-down school reforms whose goal has been to make the nation more economically competitive and reduce inequality. Not only have these policies failed to achieve their stated objectives, they have destabilized communities where Democrats have traditionally found support, created widespread distress among teachers and parents, and given credence to the conservative critique of the DP as the province of technocratic elites who impose policies on people without really listening to them

Every Democratic politician who has promoted the following education policies, I would argue, has been complicit in the Party’s decline

1. Promotion of national testing and test based accountability standards for public schools.

2. Closing of schools which are deemed “failing” and removal of their teachers and administrators.

3. Preference for charter schools over public schools, especially in high poverty areas.

4. Support for programs like Teach for America which de-professionalize the teaching profession.
These four principles have been pillars of the Democratic Party’s education policies on a national level, pushed by President Obama and supported by virtually every major Democratic politician in the nation including figures on the left of the Democratic Party such as Elizabeth Warren, Patti Murray and Al Franken.

What have been the results of these policies?:

1. They have inspired a national parents revolt against excessive testing

2. They have produced a sharp decline in teacher morale and inspired the creation of teacher activist groups like Save Our Schools, BATS, and the Network for Public Education

3. They have promoted an mass exodus of the most talented veteran teachers and led to a sharp decline in the percentage of Black teachers in cities like Chicago, New Orleans, Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where teacher temps from programs like Teach for America have become the predominant labor force in the newly created charter schools.

4. They have accelerated the gentrification of the nation’s major cities and diluted the political power of working class people, immigrants and people of color.

5, The have accelerated the shrinking of the Black and Latino middle class, and the weakening of the nation’s unions.

If you are looking for an explanation of why the power of the Democratic Party has declined sharply in a state and local level during the past eight years, the promotion of these disastrous education policies has to be part of the explanation.

No better example can be found of the Party’s adherence to the voice of billionaire contributors and technocrats over its traditional constituency into working class and middle class Americans than its disastrous foray into School Reform.

And unfortunately, the current leadership of the Democratic Party shows no willingness or ability to change course on these issues

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing

Florida: The Legislature’s Plan to Destroy Public Schools and Enrich Their Cronies

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2017 //
17

Kathleen Oropeza of the parent group Fund Education Now has prepared an analysis of the destructive law passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Governor Rick Scott. To read the links, go to the post here.


HB 7069: Florida’s K-12 nightmare foreshadows the nation’s future

The Florida legislature set a dangerous precedent this year. One that will no doubt be repeated in GOP-controlled states across the nation.

Speaker Richard Corcoran and Senate President Joe Negron under scrutiny from Gov. Scott negotiated every major public education policy into HB 7069 and designed the K-12 budget under a transactional cloak of darkness – locking out everyone but themselves. Each man had his own rigid demands heavily supported by outside influence. Senators and Representatives were rendered so insignificant they should have stayed home.

Secret deals

Scott wanted funding restored to Visit Florida ($86M) and Enterprise Florida ($75M), a corporate incentive slush fund. Negron wanted funding and changes to higher Education and a reservoir near Lake Okeechobee. Corcoran wanted to enact a sweeping assault on public schools setting up Florida to be the poster child for the privatizing “choice expansion” soon to be rolled out by U.S. ED Secretary DeVos. To coerce passage, they included mandated recess and the Gardiner ESE voucher expansion, both bills that would have passed on their own. Politicians have used Florida’s public school children either as collateral or an “acceptable loss” for far too long.

As a result, HB 7069 emerged eligible only for a single up/down vote. No debate.

Derivative of 55 other bills, the only supporters of HB 7069 were the Koch Bros, Jeb’s Foundations and the charter industry lobby. Without exception, legitimate parent groups, who sent over 150,000 letters, joined stakeholders ranging from teachers to districts and superintendents in opposition of this bill.

Florida has been in the throes of a devastating public K-12 “reform” policy experiment for twenty years. Jeb Bush weaponized the Florida “A-F Accountability System” with high stakes tests, mandatory retention, school grades that mostly reflect zip codes and a profound disrespect for professional educators.

Thanks to HB 7069, even highly effective teachers are no longer sure of a job the following year. Florida politicians consistently talk about placing the best teachers in Title 1 schools where they may no longer be ranked “highly effective.” The Best & Brightest Bonus expansion in HB 7069 effectively punishes these teachers. As a result, politics are stifling the ability of teachers to serve at risk students by denying even the smallest gesture of job security.

Universally opposed by advocates

Every public education advocate in the nation should be concerned about what Florida is doing. The state’s longstanding 3:1 ratio of GOP to Democrats makes political balance impossible. This session, Speaker Corocran made no attempt to hide his contempt for public education. He began by calling teachers “downright evil, crazy, disgusting and repugnant.” HB 7069 disrespects the authority of duly elected school boards by forcing them to share their only capital outlay money with corporate charter chains. In addition, the state gives charters up to $100M per year from Public Education Capital Outlay funding derived from a telecommunications tax. Districts never see a dime!

Of course, Corcoran accuses them of whining, “It’s their bloat, inefficiency and gross over-spending. Their problem is their mismanagement…They just want to build Taj Mahals.” This deception ignores the fact that the Florida legislature has refused to invest any additional funds in K-12 education since 2008. Gov. Scott is proud that the 2017 budget includes a paltry $100 extra per student for just one year. Thanks to HB 7069 that money is already spent on new students, making up for lost capital funding and attempting to rescue programs that will be cut due to the shift in Title 1 expenditures.

Hostile to public education

Perhaps the worst policy found in HB 7069 is the $140 million dollar “Schools of Hope” which forces districts to either immediately close “D” and “F” schools or permanently hand them over to for-profit charter chains with zero history of successfully mitigating the impact of generational poverty. There’s no guarantee that these struggling students will actually attend a “school of hope.” This program is designed to escalate the takeover of district schools by a corporate charter chain.

Further, legislators purposely ignore proven public school successes such as the Evans Community School in Orlando.

People are angry about HB 7069. All indications are that it will be an issue in the 2018 mid-term elections. Sen. Gary Farmer is mulling over a lawsuit concerning the legality of using legislation to strip constitutionally granted authority from school boards.

Voucher mission creep

Gov. Scott chose to sign HB 7069 at an ESE Catholic School knowing that DeVos intends to kill the separation of church and state and pursue publicly funded vouchers for religious schools. Knowing that intent might not be well received, Scott used the expansion of the Gardiner ESE voucher as a beard to avoid praising the divisive contents of the bill. The Gardiner ESE voucher is another corporate tax credit that forces recipients to leave the state K-12 school system, giving parents the ability to choose an education for their child devoid of standards or any accountability. Make no mistake this program encourages mission creep toward Jeb and Betsy’s dream of universal vouchers. And some form of ESE voucher will be coming to your state, if it hasn’t already.

Jeb, along with the Milton Friedman Foundation and a formidable slew of “Return on Investment” billionaire philanthropists ranging from Bill Gates to Betsy DeVos share a singular view. Instead of truly wanting every child to get an excellent education, they are obsessed with liquidating our greatest public asset for the sake of profit and “choice” ideology.

Profit over people

Florida’s history of unmitigated charter growth is a tale of wasted tax dollars, scandal, closed schools and abandoned students The latest charter school fraud involves Newpoint Charters, racketeering charges and $57 million up in smoke.

Study the contents of HB 7069 carefully. This bill was born of secrecy, power-hoarding and deceit. It’s a blatant strategy to pass hostile pieces of legislation that could never be voted up alone. It’s a clear-eyed warning that the profiteers coming to dismantle Florida public schools will not be contained to a single state.

What’s in Florida’s HB 7069?

Title 1 Funds

• Redirects and dilutes Title I funds currently used by districts to provide a variety of district-wide programs that benefit some of the most vulnerable students.
• Eliminates district-wide programs currently funded with a portion of Title I money such as, AVID, mentorship programs, and some services offered by school transformation offices.

School Districts must give Charters a portion of locally levied capital outlay funding

• Requires school districts to share locally derived capital outlay funds with charters leaving a huge deficit in the sole funding source used by school boards to build, maintain and improve schools. Ex: Palm Beach County district expects to lose at least $230 million over 10 years; Broward County will lose at least $300 million over 10 years.
• Districts must prove need, charters do not.
• Once this capital outlay funding is shared, private corporations are free to keep the money to invest in buildings and improve property that the public will never own.
• No language to prevent taxpayer funds for capital projects from enriching for-profit corporate charters

Schools of Hope/High Impact Corporate Charter welfare (line 184)

• Creates the “Schools of Hope” program, funded with $140 million by the legislature for out of state charters to take over the education of the most vulnerable students in Florida with zero proof that there is any record of success in turning around schools
• Redirects further funding from traditional public schools and provides a corporate welfare program for charters.
• Does not require the charters to service the students in the schools that they are taking over.
• Increases the number of schools subject to charter take over because it requires school districts to prepare emergency plans if any school in the district earns a “D” or “F”
• Language from HB 7101, including the mandate that school districts use a standard contract and any amendments to the contract are deemed to violate charter schools flexibility per statute
• Allows charters to use district facilities at a deeply discounted rate that my not reflect the fair market value of properties.
• Allows just 25 schools from districts to compete for Schools of Hope funding – If Florida invested in struggling schools, Schools of Hope would be redundant

Charters get to grade District public schools

• Permits charter schools to “grade” school districts on their performance
• Does not allow for school districts to do the same to charters

Charter School Land Use

• Allows charter schools to bypass any land use or zoning requirements of local jurisdictions
• Preempts the authority of local jurisdictions and doesn’t permit local community participation on land use or zoning decisions that potentially affect their property uses and values
• Doesn’t allow for local governments or local citizens to evaluate the impacts on their communities caused by charter schools on issues such as traffic capacity and consistency with approved uses already in place
• School districts are not given the same flexibility as corporate charter chains.

Charter access to public facilities

• Allows charters to use district facilities at a deeply discounted rate that my not reflect the fair market value of properties.
• Requires districts to report to DOE if any facility or portion of a facility is vacant, underused, or surplus.
• Expands the current requirement of reporting surplus properties.
• Could result in a charter school operating simultaneously as an operating public school, affecting the ability of a district to properly plan for future growth.
• Grants charter schools sovereign immunity equal to what public entities currently have under state law.

Charters can hire non-certified teachers

• Allows “Schools of Hope” to hire non-certified teachers and administrators.
• These teachers and administrators are servicing some of the most vulnerable students in Florida.
• Why would the standards for these teachers and administrators be lowered?

Exempts corporate charter chains from paying for District services

• Caps the administration fees a school district may charge a charter for educational services.
• Exempts Charters from paying for additional services outside the agreed administrative fee, causing Districts to subsidize the cost of these extra services
• Impedes a district’s ability to provide adequate educational services for students enrolled in its district.

Charters Usurp Superintendent Authority/Schools of Excellence

• Mandates that a school of excellence be a part of the principal autonomy program which attempts to usurp superintendent powers under the constitution.
• Caps the administration fees a school district may charge a charter for educational services.
• If a district provides additional services to a charter outside what is contemplated with the administrative fee, it would result in school districts having to subsidize charter school programs and potentially affect a district’s ability to provide adequate educational services for students enrolled in its district.
Charters Usurp locally elected school boards
• Grants charter school systems governing board a designation as an local educational agency
• Allows charters to bypass local control and allowing them to remain largely unaccountable to the public despite receiving a significant amount of taxpayer funding.

School Grade Manipulation

• Requires the educational data from a student that transfers to a private school or comes from a private school to be factored into a school’s grade, despite the fact that the school is not providing educational services to the student.

Teachers

• Removes teacher bonus caps for IB, AP, and CAPE without funding.
• Teacher Contracts: Contains a provision limiting the employment contracts that school districts may award to teachers to one year.
• Makes VAM teacher evaluation system optional for districts

Best & Brightest Teacher Bonus

• Reduces bonus for teenage SAT/ACT scores and highly effective rank from $10K to $6K for the next three years
• Adds a principal bonus of $4K, uses qualifications that have no proven correlation to teacher or principal performance.
• $1,200/year before taxes to “highly effective” teachers
• Up to $800/year before taxes to “effective” teachers
• Does not provide much-needed permanent teacher raises

Gardiner ESE Voucher

• Adds an additional $30 million to the existing program which offers $10K vouchers to parents of ESE students
• In exchange, parents give up child’s right to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE).
• Funding is generated by allowing corporations to divert what would be Florida general revenue taxes to Step up for Students, the designated “Scholarship Funding Organization” who earns a management fee off of the gross

Recess

• Mandates 100 minutes of recess per week for all K-5 students in District public schools
• Exempts charter schools from this mandate – granting a carve-out from any expenses incurred by the recess mandate

Kathleen Oropeza is co –founder of FundEducationNow.org, a non-partisan public education advocacy group working to bring voters into a thoughtful discussion about school reforms and the threat of privatization. She also writes The EdVocate Blog and is the mother of two public school children. Reach Kathleen at: Kathleen@fundeducationnow.org

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, Privatization, Testing

New Mexico: TFA Alum Takes the Reins as State Chief

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2017 //
7

Many teachers in New Mexico were relieved when Hanna Skandera resigned as Commissioner of the Public Education Department. Skandera never met the minimum legal requirement to hold the post; she had never been a teacher. She was a protege of Jeb Bush and wanted to bring the Florida model of high-stakes testing, accountability, and privatization to New Mexico. She subscribed to her mentor’s radical anti-public school, anti-teacher policies and even served as chair of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change, a far-right group.

The American Federation of Teachers and the Albuquerque Federation of Teachers filed suit against Skandera’s value-added teacher evaluation program, which counted student test scores as 50% of each teacher’s evaluation. Teachers hated this flawed and inaccurate method. See here. The New Mexico courts have enjoined the state from applying penalties based on its VAM. The New Mexico method is the toughest in the nation; it finds about 30% of teachers to be ineffective. New Mexico has a growing teacher shortage, due to low teacher pay and poor working conditions. Skandera did nothing to support teachers, nor has Governor Martinez.

Although Skandera has left, help is not on the way. Governor Susanna Martinez has appointed Christopher Ruszkowski, a deputy of Skandera, to take Skandera’s place.

“Ruszkowski arrived in New Mexico in April 2016 to oversee the Public Education Department’s research agenda, policies and academic priorities, including PARCC testing, school grades and pre-kindergarten….

“Born in Chicago, Ruszkowski spent three years teaching in Miami and Boston schools through Teach for America, then received a master’s degree in education policy from Stanford University. He most recently worked for the Delaware Department of Education, earning accolades from the state’s Democratic governor.

“Ruszkowski told the Journal on Wednesday that he is excited to lead New Mexico’s PED and maintain its “strong foundation.”

“(Teachers) are saying, ‘Let’s have some stability for once. Let’s have some continuity for once. Let’s not have another pendulum swing,’ ” Ruszkowski said. ” It’s very rare for a state to have the opportunity to have some degree of stability and continuity in its core systems over the course of a decade. New Mexico is getting there.”

In other words, the new chief thinks that teachers want to maintain and deepen Skandera’s hated policies.

Ruszkowski went out of his way to praise the Gates-funded Teachers Plus organization and to lob criticism at the NEA and AFT.

“Ruszkowski said he has yet to meet with Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Raquel Reedy, who oversees the state’s largest district, with more than 80, 000 students, and who often disagreed with Skandera’s reform efforts.

“Ruszkowski said districts in cities including San Antonio, Denver and Phoenix are making strides, while APS continues to struggle. Districts must adopt innovative approaches to education if they want to improve outcomes, Ruszkowski said.”

This last comment was an outright smear. None of those districts participate in NAEP, and there is no objective basis for comparing them, other than to note that those districts are in the forefront of privatization, which has shown no gains, except for schools that cherrypick their students and exclude those with disabilities.

It is time for New Mexico to elect a new Governor, one who wants to improve public schools, not destroy them.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Mexico, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Denver: I’m With Tay for the Denver School Board!

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2017 //
9

Denver has a seven-member school board that is completely controlled by corporate reformers from Democrats for Education Reform and others with no stake in the schools other than to push more testing and more privatization. Every single member was elected by corporate reform money. Not one single member represents the students and families of Denver.

That can change in this election.

A remarkable young man who recently graduated from the Denver Public Schools is running for the school board seat in District 4. His name is Tay Anderson. Tay is an exemplary young man whose life was in a downward spiral. He went from foster home to foster home. Then he realized he could take control of his life, and he did. He took and AP classes in calculus and literature. He was elected president of the student body three years in a row. He was on the honor roll. He is chairman of the Colorado High School Democrats. He was active in JROTC and was sergeant major of the Manual High School color guard.

He is a young man with a vision of hope and justice and action.

He is exactly what the Denver School Board needs. Imagine how all the folks whose seats were purchased by DFER and dark money will respond when they have this great young man of integrity, experience, and knowledge in their midst?

If you live in District 4, please vote for Tay. Ring doorbells for Tay. Tay Anderson represents hope for the future. He will be a voice for students and public schools.

Join #TeamTay.

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

Nancy Flanagan: The War on the Teaching Profession Is No Longer Covert

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2017 //
66

In 2010, the corporate reform movement emerged as a national phenomenon. “Waiting for Superman” was the rage that fall, aided by a massive Gates-funded PR program, asserting that bad schools were caused by lazy, greedy teachers. Suddenly, the push for privately managed charter schools and attacks on teachers merged as a coherent “reform movement,” helped along by $5 billion in Race to the Top federal funding and Arne Duncan’s persistent snide comments about “bad” teachers, low standards, the promise of charter schools, and the necessity to judge teachers by the test scores of their students.

Conservative Stanford economist Eric Hanushek was at the center of the fray, pointing out in 2010 that conservatives and liberals now agreed that teachers were the biggest problem in schools. Hanushek had a featured role in “Superman,” where he reinforced the importance of choice and data as levers of change to raise test scores. In the fall of 2010, he wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal asserting that “There is No War on Teachers.” The article was sufficiently popular that Hanushek rewrote it and published it a few more times, first in the Hoover Institution publication in 2011 as “The ‘War on Teachers’ is a Myth,” and again in defense of the Vergara lawsuit in California, which sought to throw out teacher tenure (he said that the teachers’ unions would surely trot out “tired rhetoric” about “the war on teachers” to defend tenure.) No, no, he insisted there was no war on teachers, just a bipartisan effort to hold teachers accountable for student test scores.

But now, Nancy Flanagan writes on her blog at Education Week that the war against teachers and the teaching profession has gone into high gear. The mask is off. Betsy DeVos is leading the charge.

She writes:

“Several years ago, when the concept of a “war on teachers” was first entering the national conversation, I used the phrase in a blog. I got a solicitous message from a casual ed-friend, a man with more degrees (and from more prestigious universities) than I have. He politely told me that using “purple prose” weakened any carefully supported argument I could make.

“Besides, he didn’t believe there was, or ever had been, a concerted, organized effort to demean public school teachers–only disconnected bits of evidence that not everyone thought teachers were universally beneficent and professional. Nothing new. Nothing substantive. Just the same old grumbling about bossy, arrogant teachers, the bottom tier of the academic barrel.

“I was probably more worried about what people thought of my writing back then, because I haven’t used “war on teachers” language since. Until I read this: Parent Unions inviting stakeholders in multiple California districts to weigh on survey questions.

“Sample question: Over the last 10 classes you have taken. How many teachers would you characterize as idle, incompetent, rude, or lacks teaching ability?

“Another question: Unfortunately, the educational system has some bad apples who’s [sic] actions not only affect other teachers, but also the lives of students. Help us identify some of those infected [sic] in order to preserve your educational experience, as well as the experience of the next generation.

“Are there any teachers that are abusing their authority in or outside of the classroom?

“The teacher (#1) I have listed below should be fired:___________________________________

“Sample question: Over the last 10 classes you have taken. How many teachers would you characterize as idle, incompetent, rude, or lacks teaching ability?

“Another question: Unfortunately, the educational system has some bad apples who’s [sic] actions not only affect other teachers, but also the lives of students. Help us identify some of those infected [sic] in order to preserve your educational experience, as well as the experience of the next generation.

“Are there any teachers that are abusing their authority in or outside of the classroom?

“The teacher (#1) I have listed below should be fired:___________________________________

“You get to choose three teachers to be fired. And–to be fair and balanced–you get to choose three who should get a raise. The “survey,” offered to parents and students (and social media trolls, of course) goes on in a similar vein, with small editorial bits about horrible teachers and their horrible unions, urging survey-takers to name names and get those incompetent offenders out of our classrooms, so that children can be better prepared for their future.

“Is this a war on teachers? Organized by corporate-funded “parent unions?”

“Or is it just same-old griping about teachers by resentful adults, including those who were never properly instructed on the difference between “who’s” and “whose”?

“I would argue that we have genuinely reached a tipping point, one where we’re struggling to get young people to go into teaching as professional career (as opposed to two-year adventure before law school). Our state legislators are openly declaring that teaching is now a short-term technical job, not a career, and thus public school educators don’t really need a stable state pension.

“That’s not only a war on individual teachers, but a war on teaching itself.

“In the spring of 2011, the planning team for the Save Our Schools March of July 2011 struggled to clarify our aims. We knew it was important to have a set of lucid, defensible goals. We couldn’t speak to media or explain the purpose of rallying in Washington, D.C., without simple, easily understood objectives…

“It seemed to me then–and still does–that what we were fighting for, in the end, was more basic: the preservation of public education. There were people on the planning team (who had more degrees than I, and from more prestigious universities) arguing that the existence of public education was not endangered. We wanted better support for public education, certainly, and improvements in public schools, changes in policy and practice. We were fending off threats, for sure. But public education itself would survive….

“Last night, I went to my local Indivisible group meeting. I gave a two-minute report on education in my county. I said: There’s a war on teachers and we are facing the end of public education. It’s time to do something. And people applauded. What are you doing, in your county or district, to make these statements out loud?”

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