Archives for category: Texas
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Good Grief! Look at #2 in Texas Education Agency

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2012 //
1

While there was a fair amount of attention paid to Governor Rick Perry’s choice to be Commission of the Texas Education Agency, almost unnoticed was his selection of the second in command. She is Lizzette Gonzalez-Reynolds.

She worked as a legislative associate for then-Governor George W. Bush and after he became President, she was rewarded with an  appointment as the U.S. Department of Education’s regional representative in Texas (that is a political, not an educational, appointment). In 2007, she gained minor notoriety when she worked in an advisory capacity for the Texas Education Agency; she called for the director of the science curriculum to resign because of an email she distributed.

This is the description of the controversy on the wikipedia site:

In October 2007, Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, sent an email to a list of addressees including Christine Comer, then Director of Science in the curriculum division of the Texas Education Agency. It announced a talk in Austin by one of the Center’s directors, Barbara Forrest. Forrest was a key expert witness for the plaintiffs in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, who argued successfully that the concept of Intelligent Design is not scientific, but is a trojan horse for religious teaching in public schools. Comer received the email on October 26, 2007, and forwarded it to some acquaintances, adding only the text “FYI”.

Reynolds received a copy of the email and forwarded it to Comer’s bosses less than two hours after Comer sent it. Reynolds cover text is quoted in part: “This is highly inappropriate. I believe this is an offense that calls for termination or, at the very least, reassignment of responsibilities. This is something that the State Board, the Governor’s Office and members of the Legislature would be extremely upset to see because it assumes this is a subject that the agency supports.”[8][9] Comer was subsequently asked to resign her employment.

What is most amazing is that Texas does include evolution in its science curriculum. But apparently Ms. Gonzalez-Reynolds thought it was inappropriate to call attention to that fact.

And now she is the second-in-command at the TEA, serving a man known for his advocacy of vouchers and charters.

Fasten your seat belts, fellow Texans, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Categories Curriculum, Texas

Rick Perry Appoints New Texas Commissioner of Education

By dianeravitch
August 27, 2012 //
19

Governor Rick Perry has appointed Michael Williams to be the new state Commissioner of Education in Texas.

Mr. Williams is a former general counsel to the Republican Party.

Most recently he served on the commission that regulates the oil and gas industry.

He was born in Midland, Texas, the same town as George W. Bush.

Mr. Williams doesn’t believe in climate change.

He believes in vouchers and charters.

He has no education experience. None.

Another education reformer.

This may be an indication of Governor Perry’s intent to push hard for the privatization of public education in Texas.

Or, more likely, an expression of his contempt for public school educators.

Not long ago, the Texas GOP adopted a policy platform in which the party agreed that it is opposed to critical thinking.

Governor Perry no doubt supports that plank with vigor.

I am looking forward to addressing the annual conference of the Texas Association of School Administrators in Austin on September 30. Y’all come.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Texas, Vouchers

What Parents Need to Know about “Reform”

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2012 //
3

Carol Burris has written an article addressed to parents, explaining what tests are good for and how they are being misused.

Send this to your friends, especially if they are public school parents.

She identifies three “reforms” that parents should be concerned about, involving the misuse of testing.

This is the “reform” that you should keep your eye on:

The amassing of individual student scores in national and state databases.

State and national databases are being created in order to analyze and house students’ test scores. No parental permission is required. I wonder why not. Students who take the SAT must sign off before we send their scores to colleges. Before my high school’s students could participate in the National Educational Longitudinal Study, they needed written permission from their parents. Yet, in New York, massive amounts of student data are now being collected and sent beyond the school without parental permission —end of year course grades, test scores, attendance, ethnicity, disabilities and the kinds of modifications that students receive. This data will be used to evaluate teachers, schools, schools of education and perhaps for other purposes yet unknown. Schools are no longer reporting collective data; we are now sending individual student data. Although the name remains in the district, what assurances do parents truly have that future databases will not be connected and used for other purposes? The more data that is sent, the easier it will be to identify the individual student.

Eleven states have agreed to give confidential teacher and student data for free to a shared learning collaborative funded by Bill Gates and run byMurdoch’s Wireless Corp. Wireless received $44 million for the project. With Common Core State Standards testing, such databases are expected to expand. Funding for data warehousing siphons taxpayer dollars from the classroom to corporations like Wireless and Pearson. Because Common Core testing will be computer-based, the purchase of hardware, software and upgrades will consume school budgets, while providing profits for the testing and computer industries.

Although all of the above is in motion, it can be modified or stopped. Parents should speak to their local PTAs and School Boards, as well as their legislators. They should ask questions regarding what data is being collected and to whom it is sent.

Burris recommends that:

It is time to get Back to Basics. Let’s make sure that every test a student takes is used to measure and enhance her learning, not for adult, high-stakes purposes. Basic commonsense tells us that student test results belong to families, not databases. Remind politicians that the relationship between student and teacher, not student and test helps our young people get through life’s challenges. Finally, let’s return to the basic purpose of public schooling — to promote the academic, social and emotional growth of our children. It is the role of schools to develop healthy and productive citizens, not master test takers.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Parents, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Texas

Why Charters and Public Schools Are “Apples and Oranges”

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2012 //
20

The Texas Business and Education Council commissioned a major review of high-performing charter schools by Dr. Ed Fuller.

The question addressed by Fuller is whether the charters are enrolling the same kinds of students who enroll in nearby public schools.

The final conclusions included this summary:

 This study is a preliminary examination of high-profile/high-performing charter management organizations in Texas. Specifically, the study examined the characteristics of students entering the schools, retention/attrition rates; and,the impact of attrition/retention rates on the distribution of students.

Contrary to the profile often portrayed in the media, by some policymakers, and by some charter school proponents (including some charter CEOs), the high-profile/high-enrollment CMOs in Texas enrolled groups of students that would arguably be easier to teach and would be more likely to exhibit high levels of achievement and greater growth on state achievement tests. Indeed, the above analyses showed that, relative to comparison schools, CMOs had:

  • Entering students with greater prior TAKS scores in both mathematics and reading;
  • Entering economically disadvantaged students with substantially greater prior TAKS scores in both mathematics and reading;
  • Lower percentages of incoming students designated as ELL;
  • Lower percentages of incoming students identified as special needs; and,
  • Only slightly greater percentages of incoming students identified as economically disadvantaged.

In other words, rather than serving more disadvantaged students, the findings of this study suggest that the high-profile/high-enrollment CMOs actually served a more advantaged clientele relative to comparison schools—especially as compared to schools in the same zip code as the CMO schools. This is often referred to as the “skimming” of more advantaged students from other schools. While CMOs may not intentionally skim, the skimming of students may simply be an artifact of the policies and procedures surrounding entrance into these CMOs.

Thus, the comparisons that have been made between these CMOs and traditional public schools—especially traditional public schools in the same neighborhoods as the CMO schools—have been “apples-to-oranges” comparisons rather than “apples-to-apples” comparisons. The public and policymakers need to look past the percentages of economically disadvantaged students and disabuse themselves of the notion that enrolling a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students is the same as having a large percentage of lower-performing students. In fact, despite a large majority of students entering the CMOs identified as economically disadvantaged, students at the selected CMOs tended to have average or above average TAKS achievement and certainly greater achievement levels than comparison schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Texas

Texas Parents Plan Rally for Chicago Teachers

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2012 //
3

Just in:

Here in Austin, Texas on Saturday, August 25th 7:00-9:00 pm we’ll be having a rally to support the Chicago teachers. Parents supporting teachers. Solidarity!
TexasParentsOptOutStateTests@yahoo.com
Categories Chicago, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Parents, Texas

Where Is the Grass Greener? Texas or NJ?

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2012 //
5

Sara Stevenson explained how NCLB is still ruining public schools in Texas.

This reader in New Jersey says that getting the waiver has given unprecedented power to the state, which is now intervening in districts across the state to impose Governor Christie’s will on everyone. Bear in mind that on national tests, New Jersey is typically #2 in the nation (behind Massachusetts) and the governor is acting as if the entire system were a disaster.

Wouldn’t it be great if the politicians stuck to what they know?

I still cannot figure out which is worse. I hear nightmares of the impact of NCLB in states that did not apply for the waiver, but here in NJ the waiver is being used to intervene in massive ways by the state in local school districts, threatening them with take overs, instituting Regional Achievement Centers (RACs) which are really ‘the state is here to tell you how to run your district centers’ funded by Broad money (so read, ‘dismantle your public school system’), focus and priority schools are being made to jump through hoops for crazy reasons, and ‘failing’ charter schools are being doled out to CMOs. Is this better? Maybe the grass is always greener, but right now it is looking brown all over.
Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), New Jersey, Texas

NCLB Still Ruining Schools in Texas

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2012 //
8

Texas did not apply for a waiver because it did not want to accept federal intervention into its schools.

So Texas is still subject the the punitive sanctions of the idiotic law that got its start in Texas, a gift to America’s schools thanks to Sandy Kress, Margaret Spellings, Rod Paige and George W. Bush (with a bow to Senator Ted Kennedy, Rep George Miller, and Rep. John Boehner, among its lead sponsors).

I got this note from Sara Stevenson, the dauntless librarian at the O. Henry Middle School in Austin, Texas:

Last week AYP was announced. Our middle school is one of
only five in eighteen that met AYP in our district. Therefore, last
week forty-five students transferred, even though we are officially
closed to transfers. Now we’ll have 1070 kids, instead of the 1025
we’d planned for, and my principal has to hire two new teachers at the
last minute. In addition, the “failing” schools are losing some of
their best students and involved parents. How will this help them to
make improvements? The law is just so senseless. I also looked at the
targets for next year. If this year we had been judged by next year’s
standards, we would have failed in every subgroup. We will all fail
next year, no matter how hard we try. This is just a terrible way to
start a new school year.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Texas

When Will Public Schools in Texas Close Down?

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2012 //
3

The new AYP figures are just out in Texas, and only 44% of the schools in the state made adequate yearly progress.

Next year it will be a lot worse.

By the rules set out in the NCLB law, the schools that can’t make it in a five-year frame will have to do something dramatic:

They can turn into a charter school.

They can fire all or most of the staff.

They can be taken over by a private management firm.

They can be taken over by the State Department of Education.

Or, they can do some other kind of major restructuring.

Well, folks, sorry to say that public education in Texas is heading for a cliff.

Remember that it was the “Texas miracle” that put the whole nation on the magic school bus to privatization.

Please, Texas school boards, keep passing those resolutions against high-stakes testing.

And here’s an idea: If nothing changes (and it won’t), just don’t give the tests next year.

If you want to keep public education, don’t give the tests.

Unless, that is, you want to give your public schools to some private company to run.

Categories Accountability, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Texas

This Texas Teacher Wishes They Would Let Her Teach

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2012 //
17

Being a Texan, though long removed from my native soil, I always react with a start and with more than a bit of pleasure when I hear the authentic voice of a fellow Texan. We Texans don’t like to be pushed around. We like to express ourselves with vigor. Some of us care a lot about learning. Here is a Texas teacher who is fed up with the bullies who want to fence her in:

The exact same thing is happening in Texas. The scripted lesson plans actually cause me anxiety. Teaching is an ART! How dare they try to tell me to throw away all my lessons that facilitate my kids’ learning, so I can follow their “teacher” proofed script. Never!! Nev-uh!! I shut my door, and when they walk in, I fake it if I have to. My kids are so sweet; they just play along. Once the devils leave, I teach REAL reading and writing–no multiple choice for my kids! Never!!The full parking lots at schools every Saturday is just sickening. What is that? We sent men to the MOON, and we never took these horrible low-level tests! All this tutoring is ridiculous. Our kids are simply bored and tested to death! They do just enough to make it through the day!Instead of attacking the real educational issues that stop instruction, the issues that de-motivate students, education prescribes the same old thing, tutoring and scouring “data.” You’d think they’d realize it isn’t working. It’s not about the kids!It’s not about the kids. A colleague has been telling me, “It’s not about the kids!” I am finally starting to believe her. I just could not wrap my head around it, but it must be true.

Not to mention, I’ve literally heard and seen the extreme bullying of many teachers by these ex-three year teachers turned administrators. It is shocking. I understand we all need our jobs, but to take abuse. I just don’t get it. To take abuse from ex-teachers who did all they could to RUN out of the classroom as soon as they fulfilled their “in-class” requirement. Disgusting. Those that SHOULD be principals can’t bear to leave the kids behind. How ironic.

If I were some of these administrators, I would be afraid. How can they treat people so abysmally and feel safe. Dress code for the kids? I’m more worried about a teacher going Koo Koo for Cocoa Puffs. Goodness forbid, but these fool administrators consciously and unconsciously make many of our schools an UNSAFE environment.

Women need to stand up; we have the power to change the world; this field is abdicating its responsibility.

At times, anger is useless, a wasted emotion. But when it comes to education, ANGER is desperately needed, anger that fuels a change.

 I teach MY way. I have been looking too, but I RESENT being pushed out of a job I absolutely LOVE!!Yes, I plan, but I am an artist, I sketch out my plan (sometimes I am inspired by NPR on the drive in, and my sketch is in my head…and that is OK!!!). But really, do you think I actually write those lesson plan NOVELS. Do you think they they are “legit.” Laugh out LOUD as they SAY: NOPE. ALL FAKE! I print them out and pop them on the WALL. They walk in, it makes them happy (incompetence!). Basically, I shut my door, and I teach. Many times I don’t shut my door, and I TEACH.Hence, my Title I “low” performing students can write better than most American college students! Guaranteed! They probably write better than President Bush’s grandkids and President Obama’s little girls! I TEACH! I WILL NEVER FOLLOW A SCRIPT. I will never become a slave to a system that is hurting our kids in the name of PROFIT! Let them pull their bullying on me (they dare not), and I will make a SCENE!!

Our kids can read and write well enough to be inspired, and once inspired, they take OFF. And yes, on test day, they remember the teacher that did NOT torture them with worksheets, and they will pass that piece of crap for us if not for themselves. They know. Like us, they are just trying to make it through, and we should not let fear stop us. We need to get them reading and writing and speaking.

TIP: You know what I do as far as grades for my HIGH performing students at my “low” performing school….So I can give them feedback on their papers, I AUTO FILL GRADES!! YEP…tweak them a bit to cue me in to what they individually need help with, and we simply get to learning!! I ask them, “Is it all about the grade?” And they smile and they say, “Nooo, it’s about the learning!!” ha ha… adorable.

Once we show kids how to create what we expect them to know, they never forget it. Once we show kids how to create, they can apply, and they will remember it.

I tell them: “I did not come in to teaching to teach you how to bubble.” In return, they just smile and shake their heads in agreement.

As you know. Multiple choice=meaningless.

–Talk to the kids; they know.
–Walk down the hallways; you can “FEEL” good teaching. You don’t even have to
come into the room. All of us that work in schools, all of the students in our schools,
know who the FEW teachers in need of serious development are…
–Administrators need to get out of their offices. Stop spending hours documenting
dress code violations, documenting student not wearing belts! Get INTO the
classrooms. Teach some lessons!
–Evaluate students (we have our degrees) on PRODUCT not worksheets.
–Evaluate students through portfolios, through their CREATIONS, not their ability to bubble. Students will continue to suffer, and the testing and textbook gurus will become wealthier if we keep blaming teachers. Teachers are a SCAPEGOAT. I’ve seen it, and it sickens me.My country, this country, sent men to the MOON without weeks of testing torture, without daily torture of teachers. How did we do it? How did we become a world leader, a superpower without weeks of testing and benchmarking? How did we ever make it without multiple choice tests?

Let’s put the “training” focus back on the kids: Teachers have degrees. Teachers actually enjoy productive professional development that is NOT held on Saturdays by bully administrators (I DON’T go when I am being bullied).

I recommend a moratorium, an executive ORDER, on TESTING and a moratorium on teacher evaluations. Those of you who think all is the fault of the teacher, you have been BAMBOOZLED. Ask yourself, who MAKES THE MONEY by blaming the passive teacher? Follow the money folks, and you will find the answer.

Let’s put our money towards paying independent evaluators to peruse student portfolios. This will immediately stop all the teaching to a test. Out of fear, many teachers are teaching to a test. I have heard countless teachers say they DON’T teach writing because they are tested in READING. What the heck? How can leave out writing. Reading is invisible. Unless a kid writes or speaks, the OUTPUT, how do you know they GET it!? You don’t! And you never will with a multiple choice TEST!!! It’s about CREATION America! When you do, you remember. When you create, you use imagination. When you use imagination, you are thinking. There is no thinking or creating going on with a multiple choice TEST and being all consumed with a teacher’s evaluation!

It’s a double edged sword–teacher performance is being based on kids’ test scores. How dare you place a test score on my teaching for some of my students who only come to school ONCE a week! How DARE the SYSTEM do that!

If teachers were FREE to teach on the foundation of a LITERATE society (it’s all about the reading and the writing folks!), you would kick yourselves for being so worried about all the “HORRIBLE” teachers who come into this field to hurt children and take abuse and have to listen to the rants of administrators who ran out of the classroom at the first opportunity.

Leave us alone! Evaluate administrators on their leadership, on their ability to retain teachers, on their ability to coach, on their ability keep their teachers happy. Hello? If teachers are happy, then the kids will get the best of us. Help administrators who are afraid of the “hard” conversations. They are so weak; we get mass emails over the silliest things because they don’t want to confront the “few” below mediocre teachers.

I don’t have time to proofread, but I have never been more disgusted in my life, and I don’t have TIME…school is about to start… But, all of you who are NOT teachers…all of you who are teachers that have been lucky enough (I was for three years) to have a good administrator…all of you who have never taught, just give it a try before you delude yourself into thinking you have a clue.

Oh, and by the way. Just because YOUR KID CAN PASS a multiple choice test, JUST BECAUSE YOUR school district has “TOP” performing schools, your kids and your district and your school are simply MEDIOCRE.

It’s called dumbing down the curriculum!! The curriculum is too shallow! Instead of depth, our kids will not be the orcas of the ocean, will not be the sharks…we are a becoming a nation of guppies, hanging out in the shallow end.

ALL OF YOUR KIDS ARE BEING UNDER-SERVED, regardless of economic level. I know several brave teachers that SHUT THEIR doors and SIT on all the curriculum BS, teachers who draft bogus lesson plans and continue to sketch out their lessons, differentiating instruction instead of following a SCRIPT, but you can’t blame those wonderful, amazing teachers who are afraid. They want to make sure their kids can pass that TEST or their EVALUATION will be TRASHED.

Woo hoo, your community has a 100% pass RATE on a multiple choice test (I’m so angry, I am laughing out loud, scaring my poodle)!!!!

I am afraid for my country, a country that sent men to the moon with NO standardized testing!!!

SHAME on all of you who have fallen for the HYPE.
Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, Texas

The Inside Scoop on the Texas Miracle

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2012 //
9

Hey, I’m a historian and it’s my job to have a long memory, but I know that many people don’t remember how the whole nation got stuck with this crazy No Child Left Behind law.

Back in 2000, when George W. Bush was running for president, he talked about the Texas miracle. There was a secret formula, he said, and it was really simple: Test every child every year. If scores go up, the school gets honored, maybe even a bonus. And if the scores drop or go flat, the school is humiliated.

How easy. Testing! Accountability! And look what happened, or so he said: The test scores went up, the dropout rate went down, and the achievement gap was closing.

That sounded so totally wonderful (and almost cost-free except for buying lots more tests) that Congress decided everyone should do it and they passed NCLB. The law ended up on President Bush’s desk in January 2002, and he proudly signed it, with Democrats and Republicans together behind him.

True bipartisanship.

Now we look around at the wreckage and we see that lots of children are still left behind.

What happened? Here is a good place to find out. There was no Texas miracle.

When I was growing up in Houston, we used to read a funny little book called “Texas Brags,” which contained all the crazy boasts that Texans made, not expecting anyone to believe them. You know, we’re the biggest and the best and we have the most and the largest of everything. And you better believe it!

Hey, folks, here’s the inside scoop. We were not serious! It was a tall tale.

Categories Accountability, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing, Texas
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