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Tom Loveless: Why Campbell Brown, StudentsFirst, and Achieve Are Wrong about NAEP Proficient

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2016 //
10

Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution has studied student achievement for many years. He has written several reports on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Before earning his doctorate, he taught sixth grade in California.

In this post, he explains why “reformers” who confuse NAEP’s “proficient level” with “grade level” are wrong.

This claim has been asserted by pundits like Campbell Brown of The 74, Michelle Rhee, and organizations such as Achieve. They want the public to believe that our public schools are failing miserably, and our kids are woefully dumb. But Loveless shows why they are wrong.

He writes:

Equating NAEP proficiency with grade level is bogus. Indeed, the validity of the achievement levels themselves is questionable. They immediately came under fire in reviews by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Education.[1] The National Academy of Sciences report was particularly scathing, labeling NAEP’s achievement levels as “fundamentally flawed.”

Despite warnings of NAEP authorities and critical reviews from scholars, some commentators, typically from advocacy groups, continue to confound NAEP proficient with grade level. Organizations that support school reform, such as Achieve Inc. and Students First, prominently misuse the term on their websites. Achieve presses states to adopt cut points aligned with NAEP proficient as part of new Common Core-based accountability systems. Achieve argues that this will inform parents whether children “can do grade level work.” No, it will not. That claim is misleading.

The expectation that all students might one day reach 100% proficiency on the NAEP is completely unrealistic. It has not happened in any other country, including the highest performing. Not even our very top students taught by our very best teachers haven’t reached 100% proficiency. This is a myth that should be discarded.

Loveless goes even farther and insists that NAEP achievement levels should not be the benchmark for student progress.

He warns:

Confounding NAEP proficient with grade-level is uninformed. Designating NAEP proficient as the achievement benchmark for accountability systems is certainly not cautious use. If high school students are required to meet NAEP proficient to graduate from high school, large numbers will fail. If middle and elementary school students are forced to repeat grades because they fall short of a standard anchored to NAEP proficient, vast numbers will repeat grades.

Anyone who claims that NAEP proficient is the same as grade level should not be taken seriously. Loveless doesn’t point out that the designers of the Common Core tests decided to align their “passing mark” with NAEP proficient, which explains why 70% of students typically fails the PARCC and the SBAC tests. Bear in mind that the passing mark (the cut score) can be arbitrarily set anywhere–so that all the students “pass,” no students pass, or some set percentage will pass. That’s because the questions have been pre-tested, and test developers know their level of difficulty. And that is why U.S. Secretary of Education John King, when he was New York Commissioner of Education, predicted that only 30% of the students who took the state tests would “pass.” He was uncannily accurate because he already knew that the test was designed to “fail” 70%.

He concludes:

NAEP proficient is not synonymous with grade level. NAEP officials urge that proficient not be interpreted as reflecting grade level work. It is a standard set much higher than that. Scholarly panels have reviewed the NAEP achievement standards and found them flawed. The highest scoring nations of the world would appear to be mediocre or poor performers if judged by the NAEP proficient standard. Even large numbers of U.S. calculus students fall short.

As states consider building benchmarks for student performance into accountability systems, they should not use NAEP proficient—or any standard aligned with NAEP proficient—as a benchmark. It is an unreasonable expectation, one that ill serves America’s students, parents, and teachers–and the effort to improve America’s schools.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Hoax, NAEP, Testing

Paul Thomas: Closing Schools, Opening Schools: Why Not Look at the Evidence?

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2016 //
6

Paul Thomas reacts to an editorial in the Charleston (S.C.) “Post and Courier,” which recommended closing a high-poverty school with low test scores and turning it over to private operators.

Thomas asks a few questions:

So there are actually some very important questions that the editors at the P&C are failing to ask:

Why have some students been allowed ever to languish in school conditions that are subpar when compared to vibrant schools and opportunities for other students in the same city? Burns Elementary with a poverty index of 96 is but one school that represents a long history in SC of how negligent we have been as a state in terms of providing anything close to equity in the opportunities poor and racial minority children are afforded.

Why does any public school board need a private partnership to do what is needed to offer these students the sort of school all children deserve? If what is needed is so obvious, and so easy to do (which is a subtext of the editorial), the truth is that the school board simply does not have the political will to do what is right for some children.

And this is very important: What third party, not invested in the Meeting Street Academy, has examined the claims of academic success in the so-called “successful” schools that are being promised as fixes for Burns? I cannot find any data on test scores (setting aside that test scores aren’t even that good for making these claims), but I have analyzed claims of “miracle” charter schools in SC—finding that these claims are always false. Always. I do not trust that Meeting Street is going to prove to be the first actual miracle school in a long line of those that have been unmasked before.

He notes that politicians are easily bamboozled and follow the crowd, without asking where they are going.

SC political leaders have pushed for school choice, charter schools, VAM evaluations of teachers, ever-new standards and high-stakes testing, exit exams, third-grade retention, and now takeover policies for so-called “failing schools”—yet all of these have no basis for policy in the body of research refuting the effectiveness of each one.

For the editors of the P&C, as well as our political leaders and the public, the real questions are why do we persist in ignoring the stark realities of our inequitable society, why do we then continue to play politics with our schools that are just as inequitable as our society, and then why do we refuse to consider the evidence about addressing social and educational inequity directly in our policies?

Why do politicians continue to push for policies that have failed elsewhere, again and again? Because they don’t care. Because they are happy to maintain the status quo. Their eager embrace of “school choice” and other failed policies is a smokescreen. They know such policies will change nothing.

Closing schools, renaming schools, shuffling students—these are the practices of those who are invested in the status quo regardless of the consequences for “other people’s children.”

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, South Carolina, Testing

Angie Sullivan: Read-By-Third Grade Begins the Destruction of Young Children in Nevada

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2016 //
20

Angie Sullivan teaches elementary school in Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas). Most of her children are poor and ELL. She writes often about the disastrous policies imposed on the schools by the legislature.

Angie writes:


Read-by-Three is upon us. Ready to damage disenfranchised kids because as Assemblyman Elliot Anderson stated: They need “tough love”.

I will note here poor children need a lot of things – “tough love” isn’t one of the things.

Basically read-by-three requires students to read on grade level by third grade or they are not promoted to the next grade.

Do you see the fatal flaws?

1. Not research based or proven effective – academically or politically

2. Money diverted so it does not reach the kids who need it the most.

3. Money spent on people who are not directly teaching kids.

4. Language learners and IEP students in double jeopardy without access or support

Let me explain:

A century of education research proving retention does NOT work should be enough.

Simply: Whole group learning did not work the first time so the remedy should not be another year of whole group learning. Repetition of a grade level, without a significant change in the method of instruction does not work. Real remedies would include smaller class-size, differentiated instruction, language learning scaffolding if necessary, or individualized support like tutoring in small groups. The worst possible remedy is blanket retention for large masses of at-risk studennts.

States like Florida which have used this destructive program – are now regretting it. Data shows it failed badly. Academically and politically.

Florida may promote 3rd graders who fail standardized tests

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2012/08/16-student-retention-west

Besides the complete failure of this education policy – Nevada presses forward intent on replication of bad policies of other states.

To add insult to injury, the program is grant based. The Northern school districts applied and received most of the funding. Now Clark County which has 80% of the at-risk primary students will only receive 47% of the money to support kids so they are not retained. While 20% of the children in rural Nevada will receive the bulk of the money and possibly avoid the punitive result.

With the inequitable funding Clark County receives, CCSD is hiring many “read-by-three” strategists. Again – this does not change the method of instructional delivery. Another teacher who is not working with directly with students? This has been very ineffective and tried many times by the district. Teachers who are not assigned students often are assigned lunchroom tasks, playground duty, and paperwork by adminstrators. Very few specialists are effective because they do not work with kids.

Supposedly language learners and students with IEPs will be “exempt”.

Which shows a further flaw, since parents who often do not have an e-mail address must navigate the enrollment system in Infinite Campus accurately identifying their child as LEP. Parents who do not speak English or regularly use the Internet get limited support to go through this process. Accuracy of data in the system is questionable and I have seen many young children enrolling themselves in school because they are the person in the family who uses a computer regularly. Identification is complex and inaccurate.

Also if certain students are “exempt” will they be ignored? Is it better to not mark accurately so a child may receive instruction? Even if this means jeopardy? This is an unintentional result of placing pressure on students and kids. Schools will focus on kids to avoid retention while not focusing on others. Especially when working in a system which is not appropriately funded. Limited resources and too many at-risk kids means tough choices which are unfortunate need to be made.

This is a big civil rights and access problem. Along with being seriously flawed legislation.

It will cost millions of tax payer dollars.

Listening to teachers could have prevented this destruction.

Now teachers will have to make do – while “tough love” lawmakers brag about putting needed information in spam. I hope the campaign donation from reformers was worth it for the assembly democrats.

Reformers enjoy disruption. Disruption is teaching zero kids. It is just destructive.

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Nevada, Testing

Kids Do Worse on Computers When Taking Tests

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2016 //
24

A growing number of studies conclude that students perform worse on tests when they take them online than when the questions are on paper.

A study published by MIT and conducted at the U.S. Military Academy found that the students who did not use computers scored significantly higher than those who did.

The researchers suggested that removing laptops and iPads from classes was the equivalent of improving the quality of teaching.

The study divided 726 undergraduates randomly into three groups in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years. The control group’s classrooms were “technology-free,” meaning students were not allowed to use laptops or tablets at their desk. Another group was allowed to use computers and other devices, and the third group had restricted access to tablets.

“The results from our randomised experiment suggest that computer devices have a substantial negative effect on academic performance,” the researchers concluded, suggesting that the distraction of an electronic device complete with internet access outweighed their use for note-taking or research during lessons.

The research had an unusual twist: the students involved were studying at the West Point academy in the US, where cadets are ruthlessly ranked by exam results, meaning they were motivated to perform well and may have been more disciplined than typical undergraduates.

But even for the cream of the US army’s future crop, the lure of the digital world appears to have been too much, and exam performance after a full course of studying economics was lower among those in classes allowed to use devices.


“Our results indicate that students perform worse when personal computing technology is available. It is quite possible that these harmful effects could be magnified in settings outside of West Point,” the researchers concluded.

The Hechinger Report reported that writing online essays may contribute to a widening of the achievement gap.

The U.S. Department of Education launched a study of fourth graders using computers for writing compared to fourth graders using paper and pencil.

High-performing students did substantially better on the computer than with pencil and paper. But the opposite was true for average and low-performing students. They crafted better sentences using pencil and paper than they did using the computer. Low-income and black and Hispanic students tended to be in this latter category.

“(T)he use of the computer may have widened the writing achievement gap,” concluded the working paper, “Performance of fourth-grade students in the 2012 NAEP computer-based writing pilot assessment.” If so, that has big implications as test makers, with the support of the Department of Education, move forward with their goal of moving almost all students to computerized assessments, which are more efficient and cheaper to grade.
In the study, high-performing students — the top 20 percent of the test takers — produced an average of 179 words per assignment on the computer, three times the number of words that the bottom 20 percent produced. They also used spellcheck, backspace and other editing tools far more often. The researchers found that these high-performing students were more likely to have access to a computer and the Internet at home.

But these high achievers were in the minority. More than two-thirds of fourth-graders’ responses received scores in the bottom half of a 6-point scoring scale that rated grammar and writing quality. Overall, the average fourth-grader typed a total of 110 words per assignment, far less than the 159-word average on the 2010 paper test.

In looking for explanations for the disparity in performance, it seems likely that the high-performing students are more familiar with computers than low-performing students or even those in the middle.

But it is also likely, at least to me, that it is easier to read and re-read a passage when it is on paper than to read it online. Some young children may have difficulty scrolling up and down the page.

And there may be a difference in recall associated with the medium. That requires further study.

Let me confess that I have tried and failed to read books on a Kindle or similar device. It is easy to lose your place; it is hard to find it again. Maybe the difficulty is age-related; after all, I have only been using a computer for 32 years and began using it as an adult. Children who grow up in the digital age may not have the same visual problem that I have in reading large blocs of text. But it will take more studies to figure out when it is beneficial to use the computer and when it is not. Unfortunately policymakers have rushed into online instruction and online assessments on the assumption (untested) that there are no downsides. They do this, as the Hechinger Report says, because the computer makes it easier and cheaper to grade tests. Standardization has some benefits. But it also has drawbacks. We should be aware of both.

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, Online Education, Online Learning, Standardized Testing, Testing

Peter Greene on the SAT Whistle Blower

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
3

Peter Greene contacted the SAT whistle blower, Manuel Alfaro, and learned that he was a college classmate of Jason Zimba, who wrote the Common Core math standards.

Peter writes:

The short form of Alfaro’s story– the College Board has knowingly lied about using best practices in developing the “revamped” SAT, and in the process of selling the SAT as a state-wide and/or graduation exam, will be lying some more. And it would appear that even this stripped down, cut corners approach isn’t letting the College Board get tests written fast enough, for as Schneider found poking around Reddit, the same form of the SAT was given in March and in June.

Alfaro is still out there and still writing. He says that the story has “more plot twists than the Da Vinci Code.” It seems certain that those plot twists are not good news for the College Board. Go read some more about the full extent of Coleman’s fraud. Stay tuned, and pass the word.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Testing

HOAX: AIR Loses All Exams for Florida

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2016 //
1

Reader Akedemos writes:

“Breaking: AIR Loses All Exams for the State of Florida; Officials Walk Into Ocean in Support of Common Core

“Update: Revealed as Hoax; Subversive Ad Gimmick for Upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean Movie”

Categories Common Core, Florida, Humor, Testing

Fred Smith Assesses Pearson’s Data Dump in New York

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2016 //
19

Testing expert Fred Smith worked for the New York City Board of Education for more than a decade. Now retired, he assists parent groups understand what the testing corporations are doing.

In this post, he reviews the items released by Pearson (via Questar) to New York. 75% of the test items on the ELA were released. He wonders, why not all of them? We the taxpayers bought them, why not release them to see what we paid for?

He goes through specific test items to show their flaws.

This is a useful review of what the testing corporations are doing.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, New York, Pearson, Testing

Laura Chapman: Beware the Reform Networks

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2016 //
25

Our reader and amazing researcher draws a map of the covert networks that promote school choice, privatization, high-stakes testing, and the rest of the corporate reform agenda.

Chapman writes:

Third Wave is a new marketing package for ideas forged at the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), aided by charter friendly Bellwether, field tested in Boston, New Orleans, and coming to other “Education Cities.” Third Wave is a planed tsunami intended to eliminate local school boards. Private foundations—the billionaire donor class—provides the impetus for the Third Wave. Themes in the pitch for donor-controlled education “seats” for kids, and nothing less than “great” schools.

Some remote links to this Third Wave brand can be traced to Alvin Toffler’s book with the same title, also “disruptive” narratives of many kinds in academe, with one example about “educational choice” in Great Britain: The ‘Third Wave’: Education and the Ideology of Parentocracy. Phillip Brown;Source: British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1990), pp. 65-85 Volume Information. (1990). British Journal of Sociology of Education, 11(1), 1-2. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1392908

A key feature of the Third Wave brand is getting “cross-sector universal student enrollment” installed as a new norm for thinking about education, with an ever diminishing role for elected school boards in policy making.

Here is a Gates foundation launch in Massachusetts: Grant to Boston Private Industry Council Inc. Date: September 2014, Purpose: to support the design and launch of a cross-sector universal student enrollment system for the city of Boston, Amount: $100,000 Term: 34 months.

That is one small grant. But the big push for Third Wave comes from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE). This organization is really a multi-state policy/advocacy group funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, US Department of Education, Walton Family Foundation, and Anonymous. (Yes, USDE is a funder!).

The POLICY PARTNERS for the Center for Reinventing Pubic education are:

1. National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools funded by the Oak Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, Newark Charter School Fund, and Charter School Growth Fund.

2. Education Cities (100 of the largest cities, implicated in a rating scheme funded by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and connected to the GreatSchools rating and marketing website), and the

3. Policy Innovation Network (PIE). Let’s look at the connection of PIE to CRPE to Third Wave.

The PIE Network connects 48 “education reform groups” in 31 states and the District of Columbia. In addition to feeding information to these groups, PIE asks the groups to commit to policies formulated by its “policy partners” and work with “advocacy partners” including many national organizations “often active in state capitols, working in collaboration with network members or providing strategic advice and assistance as invited by network members.” Think Superpac.

Here are the MEMBERS of PIE by state: ALABAMA, A+ Education Partnership; ARIZONA, Expect More Arizona, Stand for Children Arizona; CALIFORNIA, The Education Trust- West, EdVoice; COLORADO, Colorado Succeeds, Stand for Children Colorado; CONNECTICUT, ConnCAN, Connecticut Council for Education Reform; DELAWARE, Rodel Foundation of Delaware; DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, DC School Reform Now; FLORIDA, Foundation for Florida’s Future, GEORGIA, Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education; IDAHO, Idaho Business for Education; ILLINOIS, Advance Illinois, Stand for Children Illinois; INDIANA, Stand for Children Indiana; KENTUCKY, Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence; LOUISIANA, Stand for Children Louisiana; MARYLAND, MarylandCAN; MASSACHUSETTS, Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, Stand for Children Massachusetts; MICHIGAN, The Education Trust- Midwest; MINNESOTA, MinnCAN; MISSISSIPPI, Mississippi First; MISSOURI, Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri (CEAM); NEVADA, Nevada Succeeds; NEW JERSEY, JerseyCAN; NEW YORK, NYCAN, StudentsFirstNY; NORTH CAROLINA, BEST-NC, North Carolina Public School Forum; OHIO, KidsOhio!, Thomas B. Fordham Institute of Ohio; OKLAHOMA, Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition, Stand for Children Oklahoma; OREGON, Chalkboard Project, Stand for Children Oregon; PENNSYLVANIA, PennCAN; RHODE ISLAND, RI-CAN; TENNESSEE, State Collaborative on Reforming Education, Stand for Children Tennessee; TEXAS, Educate Texas, Stand for Children Texas, Texas Institute for Education Reform; WASHINGTON, League of Education Voters, Partnership for Learning, Stand for Children Washington. Surce: http://www.pie-network.org/who/network-members.

Then there are the POLICY PARTNERS for PIE—which is connected to CPRE— which is connected to Third Wave— with generous funding by with the mega-billionaire donor class behind the so-called Third Wave.

“Evidence and expertise play an essential role in forging public policy solutions to formidable institutional challenges; therefore, PIE Network partners with six leading national policy organizations that fuel reform on a national level, disseminate critical research, and offer guidance to network members.” These POLICY PARTNERS are: Center for American Progress, Center on Reinventing Public Education, Data Quality Campaign, Education Resource Strategies, National Council on Teacher Quality, and Thomas B. Fordham Institute. All are famous (infamous) for plots and policies and their obligations to the billionaire donor class. All are intent on eliminating elected school boards and pouring tax dollars into the coffers of private and religious schools.

Look again. Here are PIE’s ADVOCACY PARTNERS and what they do—The ”growing number of national reform organizations are also working at the state level to advance part of the network’s policy commitments. These organizations, which we recognize as advocacy partners, are often active in state capitols working in collaboration with network members or providing strategic advise and assistance as invited by network members. The current ADVOCACY PARTNERS include: 50CAN – national office, America Succeeds, Black Alliance for Educational Options, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Trust, Educators 4 Excellence, Families for Excellent Schools, Foundation for Excellence in Education, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Parent Revolution, StudentsFirst, Students for Education Reform – national office, Stand for Children – national office. You can learn more at

Click to access csa_ceo_jd-final.pdf

Now there is a bit more detail (if you can stand it) in how Bellwether aids and abets the Third Wave’s efforts to discredit and demolish elected school boards, silece teachers, parents, and citizens.

I live in Cincinnati. Local foundations with projects in education have been part of a STRIVE collaborative with the Cincinnati Public Schools, Some members in this group have become part of a foundation-led “Accelerator” with a recently hired CEO and a target of $48 million for eliminating every good school that is not a “great school.” The Accelerator is a pitch for cross-sector universal student enrollment for the metro area, and with a specific inclusion of Catholic schools.

Charter-friendly Bellwether handled the CEO recruitment. The Bellwether job description begins with the Gates mantra of college and career readiness for every child. It is filled with “business and charter speak”—the need for a talent pipeline to “create a total of 14,500 new high-performing seats in the city.”

Our local “Accelerator” is “committed to a three-part philosophy: 1. To focus on each school’s performance, not its operator; 2. To embrace and support all successful schools whether they’re District, public charter, or Catholic, and 3. To focus on the development and expansion of schools and school models that deliver outstanding results.”

Among other qualifications, the CEO of this Accelerator was to have: “political savvy, and instincts sharp enough to navigate and establish productive relationships across the Cincinnati educational, philanthropic and political landscape;” and the “ability to identify new sources of funding from foundations, corporations, investors, and/or individual donors, and the skills required to secure these resources through relationship-building.”

REPORTING STRUCTURE. This initiative “was founded with significant engagement and support from the local philanthropic community. Members of this community will play a key role on the Board of Directors.” Over the next three years, the Accelerator will build out the Board, including a focus on adding perspectives from one or more national funders and one or more local community leaders. The Board will not likely exceed nine members, will meet at least quarterly, and will focus specifically on providing strategic and financial guidance.“ See more at this ink, and note the long reach of CRPE. http://www.crpe.org/sites/default/files/csa_ceo_jd-final.pdf

The CEO of our Accelerator is Patrick Herrel. He seems to have held three prior jobs: a government and economics teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina; Teach for America manager of recruiters across the Midwest; and Vice President of The Mind Trust in Indianapolis, where he helped launch “autonomous schools,” and “in-district, empowered schools.” I guess he had the needed fast track tsunami stuff. In 2012, Herrel was named one of Forbes Magazine’s “30 under 30” in education.

I am not alone in questioning the Accelerator and presumptions of our local donor class, most of them speaking as if experts in education based on their great wealth accumulated from holding executive positions in corporations. They believe that the end—metrics for high performance” justify whatever means are necessary to get the intended outcomes. Operators of schools do not matter. What citizens and elected officials think is of no great importance. They think they can buy the “seats” for poor students in high performing schools and that will do the job. Sounds all too familiar.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/05/05/business-education-leaders-launch-accelerator-project/26942393/

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

John Thompson on the Reformers’ Debate about Black Lives Matter: Reformers Now Attack Reformers with the Same Venom They Used on Teachers

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2016 //
16

The previous post referred to a debate among reformers about the role of the Black Lives Matter movement within the current education “reform” (testing and privatization) movement.

John Thompson, historian and teacher in Oklahoma, here responds to the debate with trenchant insights.

He writes:

I’ve communicated with enough reformers to know that their coalition is fraying. They’ve pushed an edu-politics of destruction based on the punitive use of test results in order to keep score in their competition-driven movement. Now, it is obvious that value-added teacher evaluations and their one-size-fits-all micromanaging have failed. Many or most, however, are still committed to high-stakes testing in order to speed up their rushed effort to close schools in mass.

Other corporate reformers seem to believe they can use their (admittedly brilliant) high-dollar public relations campaigns to drive the expansion of charters. They’ve finally realized that parents are preoccupied with what’s best for their own children, not education policy. They are marketing to parents who can’t stop the damage that the extreme proliferation of choice does to children left behind in weakened neighborhood schools, but who ignore test scores and seek safe and orderly schools for their own kids.

He asks inconvenient questions about why reformers vilify teachers and want to bust unions.

What I can’t grasp, however, is liberals who assail other liberals because we won’t use the stress of high stakes testing to overcome the stress produced by generational poverty. I still can’t understand civil rights advocates who condemn other civil rights advocates because we oppose school segregation as a means of reversing the legacies of segregation.

Had the technocrats spent more time in the inner city classroom, and in the homes, hospital rooms, the streets and, yes, the funerals of our kids, they’d have known we needed more “disruptive” innovation like we need another gang war. Had they shared the joy of teaching and learning for mastery that builds on the strengths of our kids, they would not have dumped reductionist behaviorism on children. But, because teachers saw things differently, we were condemned as the “status quo,” which accepted “Excuses!,” and renounced “High Expectations!”

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

Reformers Debate the Black Lives Matter Movement

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2016 //
22

If you wonder what reformers are thinking about in private, here is a peek behind the curtain.

Elizabeth Green, founder of Chalkbeat, writes about the debate among reformers about the Black Lives Matter movement.

African American reformers questioned why there are so few people of color in leadership roles in the education reform movement, and whether it can even be called a movement because it is led by people who are white and privileged. Those are questions about power and control, which are important.

Among the questions that were not raised:

Why do reformers think that black children benefit by taking standardized tests that label most of them as failures beginning in grade 3?

Why do reformers express so little concern about class size, budget cuts, funding, and segregation?

Do reformers believe that black children benefit by being in classrooms filled with exploration and joy, rather than test pressure?

Why are reformers eager to open charter schools with no-excuses discipline, where black children are treated like robots and trained to obey?

Do reformers worry that the expansion of charters harms the remaining public schools, which enroll far greater numbers of black children than charters?

Do reformers worry about directing so many inexperienced, first-year teachers to the schools that enroll black children?

Are reformers at all concerned that charter schools are more segregated than the public schools in the same district?

Why do reformers think that giving black children a voucher to enroll in a church school with uncertified teachers will prepare them to thrive in the 21st century?

Why aren’t the leaders of reform fighting for schools that black children attend that look like the schools their own children attend?

Are reformers worried about the disparate impact that “reform” policies have had on black teachers?

Do reformers think twice about union-busting and supplying scabs for non-union schools?

Do reformers understand the role that unions have played in building a middle class?

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