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Wendy Lecker: New York Times Endorses Academic Rigor for PRE-Kindergarten, Not Play

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2017 //
43

Wendy Lecker, civil rights attorney, writes here about the New York Times editorial endorsing academic rigor for kindergarten children, because a study said it would produce higher test scores someday. I guess the Times’ editorial board doesn’t read this blog. Too bad for them. They would have learned more by reading Froebel than by reading the latest study of how to raise test scores.

Last week, The New York Times unwittingly provided an example of how bad education policy is made. A front-page article trumpeted “Free play or flashcards? A new study nods to more rigorous preschools.”

The study the article featured purportedly proved that frequent, direct instruction of “academic” content in preschool yielded more “cognitive gains” than play-based preschool. The study even contended that preschools that do not engage in enough direct academic instruction “may be doing their young charges a disservice.” The study’s author, Bruce Fuller, denigrated play, declaring that “(s)imply dressing up like a firefighter or building an exquisite Lego edifice may not be enough…”

Does this obvious observation prove that “academic” preschool helps children learn better? No — as the authors themselves admit. They state that they did not follow children in this study past kindergarten, even though they acknowledge that previous preschool studies find that many effects fade by fifth grade.

To the contrary, decades of research demonstrate that an emphasis on play in the early years provides long-lasting academic and social benefits.

Young children’s brains are not ready for the abstract thinking that direct instruction of “academic” content requires. Children use play to establish the foundation for abstract learning. For example, socio-dramatic play enables children to understand sequencing essential to math and reading. Building with blocks enables children to understand that objects can represent other objects, so later they can comprehend that lines represent letters and words represent ideas. Contrary to the claims in The New York Times article, play is learning for young children.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Testing

Leonie Haimson: Why New York’s ESSA Plan is a Nightmare for the Neediest Students

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
12

Please read Leonie Haimson’s description of student testimony against New York state’s ESSA plan.

Commissioner of Elia represents the old discredited model of NCLB, RTTT, and Test-based accountability. Isn’t 17 years of failure enough?

Categories Accountability, New York, Students, Testing

New York: NYSAPE Blasts State ESSA Plan

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
10

New York State Allies for Public Education represents more than 50 parent and teacher organizations. It has led the Opt Out movement, in which 20% of the eligible children have refused the state tests year after year, including 50% on Long Island. Their members regularly attend legislative hearings in Albany and meet with legislators. They attend meetings of the Board of Regents. They follow the actions of the New York State Department of Education with care.

Every state should have its own version of NYSAPE.

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JUNE 6, 2017
Contact: Kemala Karmen 917-807-9969 | kemala@nycpublic.org

“Another Squandered Opportunity”:
Parents, Students, and Educators Slam NY State Education Department’s
Flawed ESSA Proposal & Process

Brooklyn, NY—Frustrated public school students, parents, activists, and educators gathered in front of the Prospect Heights Education Complex this evening to protest the New York State Education Department’s new schools accountability proposal and the sham process that supposedly generated it. Inside the building, department officials were setting up for one of several hearings scheduled across the state in order to gain feedback on the proposal, which was created to comply with recent federal legislation.

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the successor legislation to the Bush-era No Child Left Behind (NCLB) bill. While ESSA preserves much of NCLB, including an onerous and misguided annual testing requirement for all children in grades 3-8, it also gives states more latitude in defining their school accountability systems than did NCLB, primarily through the inclusion of an additional “school quality indicator.”

For this reason, New York’s families and educators were looking forward to the state creating an accountability system that incentivized schools to provide children with a high quality, well-rounded education. ESSA also includes a statement that explicitly recognizes a parent’s right to opt their child out of testing without consequences for the school or district, a point that is crucial in a state where hundreds of thousands of parents have boycotted the tests as developmentally inappropriate and deleterious to their children’s educations.

Instead of benefiting from the flexibility of the legislation, New York State Education Department, under Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, let down New York’s children, parents, educators, and schools, by submitting an accountability proposal for Board of Regents approval that squanders the opportunities that ESSA confers. Its proposed accountability system doubles down on testing, counts opt out students as having failed the exams for the purpose of school accountability, and guarantees the continuation of narrowed test-prep curriculum that has spurred the nation’s largest test refusal movement.

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters and a member of the NYSED ESSA Think Tank’s Accountability work group, said, “Even though the largest number of people who responded to the NYSED survey wanted an Accountability system that would include elements of a well-rounded, holistic education providing the Opportunity to Learn, including small classes, and sufficient instruction in art, music, science and physical education, their input was ignored. Many schools in New York City and elsewhere have already narrowed the curriculum because of the over-emphasis on state exams. Instead, NYSED proposes to add only a very few high-stakes indicators, such as student attendance and, in high school, access to advanced coursework. This may have the unwanted effect of making schools offer even less art and music in favor of more AP courses. It is time that the State took account of what matters in providing children with a quality education. This is their chance to do so by incorporating an Opportunity to Learning index in their formula.”

Johanna Garcia, NYC parent of public school students, contended that the proposal’s use of chronic absenteeism as the sole additional indicator for elementary and middle schools, along with test scores and ESL proficiency, meant that the accountability system would disproportionately punish high-poverty and high-immigrant school populations, while doing little to level the playing field among schools. “It is disheartening to see NYSED once again fail to take the opportunity to finally do right by students who have been ignored, penalized, and re-victimized by the very institution entrusted to lift them out of poverty. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that schools with high chronic absenteeism are suffering from concentrated numbers of homelessness, children in foster care, undocumented immigrant status, economic instability and special health and developmental needs. The proposed policies will further the inequities in our children’s education, while giving credence to the misconception that students from low income neighborhoods are less competent. This disconnect continues to be inexcusable and can no longer be accepted as the status quo.”

Kelley Wolcott, a teacher at South Brooklyn Community High School, a transfer school that serves over-aged, under-credited students–at least a dozen of whom spoke movingly during the hearing about the lifesaving role the school played–agreed. “The proposed accountability measures would devastate our ability to serve the needs of diverse learners. For true accountability, the state needs to focus on and incentivize supplying the resources necessary for students to thrive, including small class sizes, less emphasis on high-stakes testing, fair funding, and a vastly reduced student-to-counselor ratio for students with a history of trauma. Very few schools in NYC still have nurses, let alone a real school-based support team. Without these things–and with the change in graduation requirements mandated by ESSA–we’ll see the destruction of the safety net provided by transfer schools for students who are pushed out of charter schools or drop out of large underfunded public schools where they are no more than an OSIS number.”

Kemala Karmen, the parent of children who attend a 6-12 school in New York City, served on the Standards and Assessments work group of the Think Tank. “NYSED seemed intent on perpetuating the narrow strictures of NCLB. The nonpunitive plan (i.e., ask districts to analyze participation to ensure that students had not been systematically excluded, as per the intent of the law) that the majority of my work group proposed to address ESSA’s 95% testing participation mandate was rejected by the NYSED group leader who said it wouldn’t align with the Commissioner’s expectations. This decision to reject the plan was not reflected in the official notes sent later. Leadership insisted that parents just needed to be ‘educated’ about the assessments, rather than acknowledging that the test refusal movement grew out of legitimate concerns with how testing is reshaping classrooms. Moreover, I couldn’t believe that research-based evidence was never shared or apparently considered during our deliberations.”

Jeanette Deutermann, Nassau county parent and founder of Long Island Opt Out, expressed particular consternation for the way that opt-out students will be figured into the accountability system. “It is clear that the option exists to leave opt out students out of the test score accountability formula. To choose instead, and arbitrarily, to count these students as having received low scores, solely for the purpose of rating schools, would make the entire accountability system invalid. While we understand SED’s temptation to discourage test refusals, accountability regulations will not change a parent’s decision to protect their child from an unfair and unreliable testing regime.”

Eileen Graham, Rochester City School District parent advocate and founder of Black Student Leadership, sent a statement to be read: “Accountability needs to flow not only from the school to the state, but from the state to the schools. In order to succeed, the students of Rochester need the state to deliver well-resourced school facilities, prepared professional educators, and opportunities for teacher-created relevant curriculum. They should be ensuring that parents’ voices are heeded and that capable leadership is at the helm. Regrettably, Commissioner Elia’s current ESSA proposal is just a continuation of the test-based accountability that we’ve had for decades and that has done little to lift Rochester City School District out of a state of educational emergency.”

Lisa Rudley, Ossining public school parent and founding member of NYSAPE, said, “As long as Commissioner Elia is steering the ship, the winds of discredited former Chancellor Tisch and NY Education Commissioner John King will remain. If real significant and meaningful change is going to occur, the Board of Regents needs to replace Elia with someone who represents what’s in the best interest of the children. Otherwise, New York’s education policies will remain punitive and harmful to children and schools.”

nysapelogo.jpegClass-Size-Matters-Logo-Transparent.png

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Reform, Parents, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Alan Singer: Pearson and the Neo-Liberal Global Assault on Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
4

Alan Singer writes here about the global ambitions and activities of Pearson, the giant British corporation that seeks to dominate education.

He writes:

“Powerful forces are at work shaping global education in both the North Atlantic core capitalist nations and regions historically referred to as the Third World. Neoliberal business philosophies and practices promoted by corporations and their partner foundations, supported by international organizations, financiers, and bankers, and welcomed, or at least tolerated by compliant governments, are trying to transform education from a government responsibility and social right into investment opportunities. They defend their actions as reforms designed to increase educational equity and achieve higher standards; where possible they seek out local community support. But the underlying motivation behind corporate educational reform is extending the reach of free market globalization and business profits.

“An early twentieth century political cartoon from Puck magazine portrayed the Standard Oil Company as a giant octopus with tentacles encircling and corrupting national and state governments. The image can easily be applied to the British-based publishing company Pearson Education, a leader in the neo-liberal privatization movement. Pearson has tentacles all over the world shaping and corrupting education in efforts, not always successful, to enhance its profitability. Its corporate slogan is “Pearson: Always Learning,” however critics rewrite it as “Pearson: Always Earning.”

“Pearson’s business strategy is to turn education from a social good and essential public service into a marketable for-profit commodity.”

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

New Jersey: Over-Testing is Hurting the Children It is Supposed to Help

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2017 //
20

From a teacher in New Jersey:

Testing Frenzy Steals Learning Time from Students

The public school testing frenzy is at an all-time high, and it is robbing our students of time to learn. Take it from me, an elementary school teacher from New Jersey with more than 30 years of experience. In an effort to be ready for the state-mandated PARCC tests, we are hurting the very students we most wish to help. School administrators and teachers are tasked with ensuring that state-mandated tests are properly administered. But the time it takes to plan and administer these tests takes away precious instructional time.

In the last several years, I have witnessed egregious misuses of student learning time. First, months of test prep are done in all the grades. In addition, test prep packets are sent home with students night after night. Then, PARCC testing itself lasts approximately 3½ to four weeks. After that, there are at least one if not two weeks of makeup tests.

Beginning one or two weeks before testing, support staff such as librarians and Basic Skills Instructors for reading and math are reassigned for days at a time to check equipment and do paperwork. Because these test-support teachers also monitor the tests, their classes are effectively cancelled for a month or more. Speech and occupational therapists are pulled out every morning during testing to monitor hallways.

English language learners (ELLs) have even more required testing. There’s a lengthy ELL test, ACCESS, which drags on for four to six weeks. After that, they must take the PARCC tests. As I write this in late April, ELL classes have been cancelled 49 times since the start of the school year, not including teachers’ absences. In my district we have a 185 teaching days in our school year. Do the math on lost instructional days, and remember this is time for learning that our students are legally entitled to.

And there’s more! My district has math and language arts benchmark tests at the beginning and end of the year. There are prep materials and computer-based practice tests given for a month or so prior to the state-mandated tests in grades 3-6, for about one and a half hours a day. In addition, the district has purchased a computer-based assessment for K-8 that they will begin using next year. (We have not settled our contract, but they have money for this.) I assume this will be used throughout the year to gauge progress. So still more test prep. Testing and data-driven numbers have become the single focus for districts.

The pity is that test-support teachers don’t take students when they are not monitoring the tests. What a waste of taxpayer money, not to mention students’ lost learning. Where are the administrators? Do they not know what is going on in their own schools and districts?

Knowing that most teachers are hard-working, caring individuals, I was so angered by students’ lost instructional time, I emailed the state of New Jersey. I wanted to know the minimum time requirement for support programs before they are deemed ineffective for student learning. After weeks and several follow-up emails, the state education department replied.

What I learned from the reply was that, technically, the state requires classes to continue even during testing cycles. But many principals do not enforce this, and classes are sometimes canceled by teachers. However, if the state did not require so much testing and follow-up paperwork, perhaps teachers and administrators would prioritize students’ instructional time. Nor, to my knowledge, does the state enforce its requirement.

Needless to say, other teachers are also frustrated by time lost to testing, but many are just starting their careers or otherwise do not want to speak out for fear of being be targeted by administrators. No one blames test-support teachers for doing what they are told during testing periods, but I do blame administrators for looking the other way when instruction can be given, for not abiding by the state’s recommendations, and for not providing substitutes for children in the classes that end up being canceled.

I am nearing the end of my career, so I will not hesitate to right a wrong when I see it. If we are afraid to speak out about what’s happening in our schools, how will parents ever know what their children have missed and how unlevel the playing field has become for so many students. We need noble, fair and decisive administrators to oversee well-run schools and districts, and, of course, less testing and more authentic learning.

Lisa Rodriguez

Categories Accountability, New Jersey, Testing

Mercedes Schneider on 50CAN

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2017 //
10

Mercedes Schneider wrote a post about 50CAN, which exists to spread the gospel of charter schools, state-run “Achievement school districts,” and high-stakes grading systems (unclear whether the high-stakes are only for public schools, as most states haven’t done much to identify or close failing charter schools).

Their agenda is a match with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Betsy DeVos (who supports accountability for public schools only).

As Schneider points out, there is a lot of chatter on the website about “citizen advocates,” but it is clear from the membership on the board that 50CAN is run by the same wealthy magnates that finance other corporate reform, privatizing organizations. On the board, for example, is the Connecticut billionaire Jonathan Sackler, whose family became among the richest in America producing the highly addictive opioids OxyContin.

When you see the size of the staff, you realize that this is a very well funded organization with a multi-million dollar budget.

You will notice frequency of the phrase, “evidence-based,” but don’t be fooled. In almost every state, public schools outperform charter schools. And the only full-fledged Achievement School District is in Tennessee. It has been a dismal failure.

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

D.C. Teacher: “We Are Graduating Students We Have Failed to Educate”

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2017 //
46

Rob Barnett teaches mathematics in a D.C. public high school.

He is faced every year with a dilemma. Does he pass or fail the student who is not ready, who has not mastered the course?

He notes that D.C.’s graduation rate has soared, yet its NAEP scores are virtually unchanged since 2005. Its PARCC scores are even worse.

NCLB and Race to the Top pressured teachers like him to get the graduation rate, at any cost. If you can’t succeed, give the appearance of success.

He has an idea for a very different way to design schooling: Mastery learning.

Why should a student have to retake and pass an entire year when there are parts of the course he understood and parts he did not?

What do you think?

Categories Accountability, District of Columbia, Education Reform, High School Graduation, Testing

Who is Behind the Assault on Public Education?

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2017 //
23

Howard Ryan, writing in Monthly Review, analyzes the sources of support for corporate reform and privatization.

Ryan writes:

Over the past three decades, public schools have been the target of a systematic assault and takeover by corporations and private foundations. The endeavor is called “school reform” by its advocates, while critics call it corporate school reform. Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg has given it the vivid acronym GERM—the global education reform movement. Its basic features are familiar: high-stakes testing; standardized curricula; privatization; and deskilled, high-turnover faculty. In the United States, public schools have become increasingly segregated, destabilized, and defunded, with the hardest hit in low-income communities of color.

Nevertheless, while the political conflicts and social ramifications of the school reform phenomenon are well known, basic questions about the movement remain underexamined. Who really leads it? What are their aims and motives? After briefly taking up the statements of the reformers themselves, I will turn to the views of their progressive opponents, and offer a critique of three influential interpretations of the school reform movement. Finally, I will present my own theory about this movement, its drivers, and its underlying aims…

A large body of research, however, challenges the merits of high-stakes testing and other elements of the corporate school reform package. It is also at least questionable whether the reformers really believe their own statements.

The reformers’ interest in school improvement appears, in a number of ways, to be less than genuine, to mask a different agenda. They prescribe models for mass education that they do not consider suitable for their own children. They sponsor think tanks to produce “junk research” praising their models, while ignoring studies that contradict their models. They insist that full resourcing of schools is unimportant or unrealistic, and that “great teachers” will succeed regardless of school conditions, class size, or professional training.”

You will find it interesting to see how he weaves together the various strands of the corporate reform movement.

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

Alan Singer: Who Is Grading Those High-Stakes Tests?

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2017 //
18

Alan Singer pulls back the curtain to reveal the dirty little secret behind the high-stakes exams that determine the fate of teachers, students, administrators, and schools.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5922bf13e4b0b28a33f62dcd

Pearson hires minimally qualified people and pays them by the hour to determine whether you will be humiliated, fired, lose a promotion, or your school will be closed.

If you are a professional, your failure profits Pearson.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Testing

Peter Greene: What William Sanders Learned About Teachers by Studying Radioactive Cows

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2017 //
31

We now know that William Sanders, the creator of Value-Added Measurement, which measures teacher quality with the methods of an agricultural statistician, is revered in the think tank world of D.C.

But Peter Greene, who teaches in a Pennsylvania high school, doesn’t think much of VAM.

He recounts how Sanders was inspired to think about measuring teachers based on his studies of radioactivity in cows that were downwind from a nuclear explosion (really!).

To which Sanders writes:

Oh, let’s tell the truth. VAM systems have also been limited by the fact that they’re junk, taking bad data from test scores, massaging them through an opaque and improbable mathematical model to arrive at conclusions that are volatile and inconsistent and which a myriad educators have looked at and responded, “Well, this can’t possible be right.”

You’ll never find me arguing against any accountability; taxpayers (and I am one) have the right to know how their money is spent. But Sander’s work ultimately wasted a lot of time and money and produced a system about as effective as checking toad warts under a full moon– worse, because it looked all number and sciencey and so lots of suckers believed in it. Carey can be the apologist crafting it all into a charming and earnest tale, but the bottom line is that VAM has done plenty of damage, and we’d all be better off if Sanders had stuck to his radioactive cows.

Categories Accountability, Data, Hoax, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, VAM
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