Archives for category: U.S. Department of Education
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Oregon Educator: When Did the Federal Role Change from Equity and Integration to Control?

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2014 //
12

Oregon Educator, a high school principal in that state, poses some hard questions about the federal role in education.

The federal government puts up about 12% of the cost of public education but has grown increasingly assertive about exercising maximal control over state and local decision-making.

She writes:

“In 1965, President Johnson’s landmark education bill was designed to equalize schooling as part of his War on
Poverty. It went a long way to accomplishing that. Unfortunately, now fifty years later, the federal dollars constitute less help and more control, resulting in testing regimens and a hyper-concentration on the tested skills that undermine programs in the arts and sciences as well as experiential learning that has been shown effective. We are now down the rabbit hole of tightly managed programs with single metrics (tests) that lead to ever more restrictive programs. Schools in poor neighborhoods are scapegoated while other poverty factors are ignored. And because we can now blame public schools for their alleged poor performance, more and more of public education dollars are skimmed off by charter schools, many of them run by highly profitable corporations.”

Is the transfer of power to Washington, D.C., irreversible. No, it is not. As the public becomes aware that all of the Bush-Obama initiatives have failed and that state and local control has been replaced by corporate control, there will be a demand to reverse the power-hungry federal control of public education. Federal control was not the intent of Congress in 1965 when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed. Nor was it the intent of Congress when the Department of Education was created in 1979. No child Left Behind was and is a failed aw. Obama’s Race to the Top is NCLB on steroids. The two in tandem are imposing failed ideas and doing serious harm to public education. The only question is whether our schools can survive nearly three more years of Arne Duncan’s destructive “leadership.”

Categories Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Special Education, U.S. Department of Education

New Post: Duncan Says Racial Segregation Has Worsened, But No one Is Accountable

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2014 //
157

I posted this on my trip home from the hospital earlier today. I made a mistake and hit “publish” before I wrote the post. Here is the post that was supposed to accompany the title!

In a speech to the Education Writers Association, Arne Duncan said that racial isolation has gotten worse in the past two decades, including (one assumes) during his own tenure in office.

An article in Education Daily by Frank Wolfe (sorry, don’t have the link) says:

“While the Education Department has promoted a number of programs and measures to improve the achievement of disadvantaged students, the singularly thorny problem of racially isolated schools has remained and has worsened, Education Secretary Arne Duncan acknowledged on Tuesday.
“While [Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 107 LRP 36247 (1954)] struck down de jure segregation as unconstitutional, de facto school seg- regation has worsened in many respects in the last two decades,” Duncan told the Education Writers Association national seminar in Nashville. “Since 1991, all regions of the nation have experienced an increase in the percentage of black students who attend highly segregated schools, where 90 percent or more of students are students of color. Here in the South, more than a third of black students attend such racially isolated schools. In the Northeast, more than 50 percent do.”

What? Who should be held accountable for this backsliding on our nation’s commitment to equality of educational opportunity (not separate but equal)?

The US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has powerful enforcement powers. What are they doing about this retrograde trend? Are they demanding that charter schools reach out and seek integrated enrollments? What have they done in Chicago and Néw York City, both highly segregated urban school districts. What have they done about the proliferation of all-black vouchers? Why has Duncan been so forceful in advocating on behalf of racially segregated charter schools? When will he be held accountable for his failure to do anything to promote racial integration? How has he used the considerable powers of his office to make a difference?

The Department of Education responded to questions by Education Daily, defending its record.

“Six decades after Brown, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is vigorously working to steer America away from racial isolation,” ED said in a statement in response to questions from Education Daily®. “When we find examples of race segregation and discrimination, we put a stop to it. We negotiate settlements with districts to bring them into compliance with our civil rights laws. We carry a huge hammer. Any district that refuses to work with us faces the prospect of our withholding federal funds. Once those agreements have been signed, we closely monitor their implementation — sometimes for years. We issue guidance to schools on their responsibilities to ensure racial equality. We provide grass roots technical assistance at our regional OCR offices around the country. The goal that drives our work is simple — to promote excellence in education that’s colorblind and equal for all.”

Here is an example of empty bureaucratic blather. The US Department of Education has not played a forceful or effective role. If it had, segregation would not be worsening. Why don’t they just apologize and say, “We have really fallen down on the job. Our boss wants more charter schools, even though they are more segregated than the surrounding district. He likes to go to all-black schools and celebrate their success. Actually we have been sitting on our hands where racial integration is concerned, just like the last Bush administration. Frankly, racial integration is not on our radar screen these days. We can’t afford to offend the charter lobby. Sorry, our hands are tied.”

Categories Duncan, Arne, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, U.S. Department of Education

Duncan: Racial Isolation Has Worsened

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2014 //
20
Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Duncan, Arne, New York City, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, U.S. Department of Education

John Kuhn Explains How Budget Cuts Devastate Rural Schools

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2014 //
7

John Kuhn is the superintendent of the small Perrin-Whitt Independent School District in rural Texas. He is an eloquent speaker and supporter of public education. He has spoken at national events and recently published two new books. He knows that the schoolssuffernot only fro budget cuts but from Washington’s wildly unrealistic expectations. He knows it would be nice if every student were bound for college but he knows it is unrealistic and turns success into failure.

This is a wonderful interview with the Texas Tribune. You will enjoy reading it.

This is the last Q&A:

“Trib+Edu: How has your life been different since 2011?

Kuhn: Not a whole lot different in terms of my day-to-day life. I still basically do what I’ve always done for a living and that is work in a rural public school and try to serve my community to the very best of my ability. I’ve been invited to give some speeches here and there and I’ve written a couple of books … I think speaking out like I did put me in a situation to where I’ve been educated in the political reality that affects local schools.

Previously, I just kind of accepted whatever rolled down from Washington, D.C., and whatever rolled down from Austin. I kind of thought the role of a teacher and educator was just to live with dumb policies. And I don’t think that anymore. I think now that I have a moral obligation to speak up and say, “Hey, this policy is dumb. It doesn’t work and this is what we’re seeing on the frontlines.”

I’m a fan of public education. I grew up in a little, rural Texas town where the public school was the center of what we did in town. There was no mayor’s office. It’s an unincorporated town and the school was the heart of the community. And I think, politically, we’ve kind of forgotten how important public schooling is in Texas.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Supporting public schools, Teacher Evaluations, Texas, U.S. Department of Education, US Education

Ted Mitchell, Leader in Privatization Movement, Confirmed as Undersecretary of Education

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2014 //
44

One of the nation’s leaders of the privatization movement, Ted Mitchell, has been confirmed by the. u.S. Senate as Undersecretary of Education, the second most powerful job in the U.S. Department of Education.

Mitchell most recently was CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund, which collects millions from philanthropies and venture funds and invests the money in creating charter chains and for-profit ventures.

Among his many other accomplishments, Mitchell served as chairman of the State Board of Education for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegegger, a time of unprecedented expansion of charter schools and deep budget cuts for both K-12 piblic schools and public higher education.

Lee Fang

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Jersey Jazzman: Did NPR Sell Out to the Walton Family Foundation?

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2014 //
10

Jersey Jazzman heard NPR describe the reason that Washington State refused to bow to Arne Duncan’s demand that the sate use test scores to evaluate teacher quality.

It wasn’t because the methodology has no evidence behind it.

It wasn’t because the method has been questioned by theNational Academy of Education, the American Educational Research Association, the American Statistical Association, and leading scholars.

No, Washington State said no to our omnipotent, omniscient Secretary of Education because of those terrible unions who are afraid of being evaluated.

Or could this explain NPR’s rationale:

“So, as I was sitting at the kitchen table this evening, my ears perked up at the 5:30 break for WNYC, the NPR outlet here in the greater New York area. The announcer let us know that All Things Considered was proudly sponsored by the Walton Family Foundation, which was supporting (I’m paraphrasing here) educational “choice” for families.”

– See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/04/corporate-education-reform-buys-public.html#sthash.DkIcHS3q.dpuf

Categories Teacher Evaluations, U.S. Department of Education, Unions, Walton Foundation, Washington State

BREAKING NEWS: Duncan Withdraws NCLB Waiver from Washington State

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2014 //
91

 

Subject: POLITICO Breaking News

The Education Department is pulling Washington state’s No Child Left Behind waiver because the state has not met the department’s timeline for tying teacher evaluations to student performance metrics.

Washington is the first state to lose its waiver. The loss will give local districts less flexibility in using federal funds. For instance, they may now be required to spend millions on private tutoring services for at-risk students. The waiver revocation could also result in nearly every school across the state being labeled as failing under NCLB.

Washington had pledged in its waiver application to make student growth a significant factor in teacher and principal evaluations by the 2014-15 school year. But the state Legislature refused to pass a bill mandating that student performance on statewide assessments be included in teacher evaluations. The department placed the state on “high-risk” status in August. Arizona, Kansas and Oregon are also at risk of losing their waivers.

For more information… http://www.politico.com

 

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan handed out numerous waivers to states to avoid the 2014 deadline in the No Child Left Behind law.

Under the law, every state must assure that every single child in grades 3-8 is proficient on state tests of reading and mathematics.

No state met the deadline. If the law remains in effect (it was supposed to be reauthorized in 2007, but gets extended year after year), every state would be declared a failed state, and virtually every public school in the United States would be closed or privatized or suffer some other sanction for failing to meet an impossible goal. It bears pointing out that no nation in the world can claim that 100% of its students are proficient in reading and math.

But Duncan didn’t hand out waivers wholesale. Instead, he made the waiver conditional on the state agreeing to accept his conditions, which were similar to the conditions in Race to the Top. In effect, states are now following Race to the Top requirements but without the prize money.

One of the central conditions of the waiver, like Race to the Top, was that states must agree to evaluate their teachers and principals based to a significant degree on the test scores of their students.

Washington State has failed to create such a system. Today Arne Duncan withdrew Washington State’s NCLB waiver to punish it for failing to do as he demanded.

Perhaps legislators in Washington State noticed that this method of evaluating teachers and principals has failed wherever it was tried.

Perhaps they read the joint report of the National Academy of Education and the American Educational Research Association, which cautioned that “value-added measurement” was inaccurate and unstable, and that it measures who is in the classroom rather than teacher quality. The legislators probably did not have a chance to read the recent report of the American Statistical Association, which also cautioned on the use of VAM, because of its imprecision and its unintended effects. But they may have read Stanford Professor Edward Haertel’s advice that states should not set numerical percentages for the use of test scores to evaluate teachers. All of these reports reach the same conclusion: that Duncan’s favorite solution to raising teacher quality does not have evidence to support it.

Let’s hope that Washington State says no to the illegitimate demands of the Secretary of Education. Duncan is overreaching. He is not the nation’s superintendent of schools. He should learn about federalism and about the limited role of the federal government in the area of education.

Meanwhile, I hope that the state of Washington sues the Secretary of Education and helps him learn about federalism and about the importance of evidence in policymaking.

Here is Duncan’s official letter to Washington State, notifying them that they are being punished for defying his orders.

Here is Peter Greene’s deconstruction of Arne Duncan’s letter to Washington State: read here.

Categories Education Reform, Federal Waiver, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, U.S. Department of Education, Washington State

Carol Burris: Please DON’T Stay the Course

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2014 //
17

Award-winning high school principal Carol Burris reports here on Arne Duncan’s latest foray into New York, where he highly praised the state’s controversial Commissioner of Education John King, disparaged disgruntled educators and parents as a mere distraction, and urged the state to “stay the course.”

Burris, a leader in the effort to expose and reverse some of the worst aspects of Race to the Top, explains why it is important not to stay the course, when the course is leading in the wrong direction.

She writes:

” There is no empirical evidence that rigorous state or national standards will result in higher student achievement or greater college readiness.

“Those who created the Common Core assumed that if we established rigorous standards, student achievement and economic competitiveness would increase. Duncan said, in his remarks at New York University, that it is common sense. Prior to the 15th century, common sense said the world was flat, but that did not make it true.”

She cites research to demonstrate that rigorous standards and high-stakes tests o not produce better education:

“This is not an argument for low standards or no standards—it is an argument that standards reform is not an effective driver of school improvement. Keep in mind that all state standards had high-stakes state tests associated with them. The more rigorous the standards, the more difficult the tests are. As high-stakes tests become more difficult, the curriculum becomes narrower and narrower. The tests soon drive teaching and learning.

“When I hear “I am for the Common Core standards, I am just not for the tests”, I cringe. While thoughtful educators look at the standards through their prism of good practice, test makers look at the standards as the basis for creating “items” that discriminate the learning of one child from another. In the end, the test maker calls the shots. It is no coincidence that the Common Core Standards, PARCC and Smarter Balanced were all born at the same time. In his remarks, Duncan referred to PARCC and Smarter Balanced as the “national tests.”

“The destination of school reform—ensuring that all students have the skills, content and habits needed for college and career success—is the right destination. The challenge is choosing the pathway that gets us there. Good intentions are not enough. If we continue to put our tax dollars and our efforts into “standards reform” because Mr. Duncan and his followers believe it is common sense, we will waste time and treasure.”

Bottom line: Race to the Top is no better than No Child Left Behind. It has no research to support its premises and will come to an ignominious end like its predecessor. Burris hopes that Duncan will change course but his bad ideas seem impervious to evidence.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Race to the Top, Research, Testing, U.S. Department of Education

Laura H. Chapman: The Desperate Search for a Science of Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2014 //
14

Laura H. Chapman left the following comment. The word “desperate” to describe this quest for a scientific, data-based means of judging teachers is mine. Something about it smacks of anti-intellectualism, the kind of busywork exercise that an engineer would design, especially if he had never taught K-12. This is the sort of made-up activity that steals time from teaching and ultimately consumes a lot of time with minimal rewards.

Chapman writes:

Please give at least equal attention to the 70% of teachers who have job assignments without VAMs (no state-wide tests). For this majority, USDE promotes Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) or Student Growth Objectives (SGOs), a version of 1950s management-by-objectives on steroids.

Teachers who have job-alike assignments fill in a template to describe an extended unit or course they will teach. A trained evaluator rates the SLO/SGO (e.g. “high quality” to “unacceptable” or “incomplete”).

The template requires the teacher to meet about 25 criteria, including a prediction of the pre-test to post-test gains in test scores of their students on an approved district-wide test. Districts may specify a minimum threshold for these gains.

Teachers use the same template to enter the pre-and post-test scores. An algorithm determines if the gain meets the district threshold for expectations, then stack ranks teachers as average, above or below average, or exceeding expectations.

1. The Denver SLO/SGO template is used in many states. This example is for art teachers—-Denver Public Schools. (2013). Welcome to student growth objectives: New rubrics with ratings. http://sgoinfo.dpsk12.org/
2. One of the first attempts to justify the use of SLOs/SGOs for RttT—-Southwest Comprehensive Center at WestEd (n.d.). Measuring student growth in non-tested grades and subjects: A primer. Phoenix, AZ: Author. http://nassauboces.org/cms/lib5/NY18000988/Centricity/Domain/156/NTS__PRIMER_FINAL.pdf

3. This USDE review shows that SLOs/SGOs have no solid research to support their use—-Gill, B., Bruch, J., & Booker, K. (2013). Using alternative student growth measures for evaluating teacher performance: What the literature says. (REL 2013–002). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic. http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs.

4. The USDE marketing program on behalf of SLOs/SGOs—-Reform Support Network. (2012, December). A quality control toolkit for student learning objectives. http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/slo-toolkit.pd

5. The USDE marketing campaign for RttT teacher evaluation and need for district “communication SWAT teams” (p. 9) —- Reform Support Network. (2012, December). Engaging educators, Toward a New grammar and framework for educator engagement. Author. http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/engaging-educators.pdf

6. Current uses of SLOs/SGOs by state—-Lacireno-Paquet, N., Morgan, C., & Mello, D. (2014). How states use student learning objectives in teacher evaluation systems: a review of state websites. Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/northeast/pdf/REL_2014013.pdf

7. Flaws in the concepts of “grade-level expectation” and “a year’s worth of growth” —-Ligon, G. D. (2009). The optimal reference guide: Performing on grade level and making a year’s growth: Muddled definitions and expectations, growth model series, Part III. Austin, TX: ESP Solutions http://www.espsolutionsgroup.com/espweb/assets/files/ESP_Performing_on_Grade_Level_ORG.pdf

Categories Research, Teacher Evaluations, U.S. Department of Education

Eleven Million Page Views in Less than Two Years!

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2014 //
24

Dear Friends,

Today this blog reached the unbelievable number of eleven million page views!

I had no idea this would happen when I wrote the first post on April 26, 2012.

Thank you for reading. More than that, thank you for participating.

Many of you contribute regularly to what must be the liveliest discussion about education on the Internet. I read your comments and pick out some that are the most interesting, the most thoughtful, the most informative, and the most provocative and post them. It may be the same day or weeks later. The important thing is that I have tried to make this blog a place where the voices of parents, students, teachers, principals, and superintendents are heard, unedited.

The rules of the blog are limited and simple. Be civil. Avoid certain four-letter words which I will not print. Do not insult your host. There are plenty of other forums for all of the above. Just not here.

As you know, the blog has a point of view, because I have a point of view. I care passionately about improving the education of all children. I care passionately about showing respect for the dedicated men and women who work hard every day to educate children and help them grow to be healthy, happy human beings with good character and a love of learning. I care passionately about restoring real education and rescuing it from those who have dumbed it down into preparation for the next standardized test. I care passionately about restoring to all children their right to engage in the arts, to play, to dream, to create, to have a childhood and a youth unburdened by fear of tests. I care passionately about protecting the public schools from those who seek to monetize them and use them as a source of profit and power.

I am in my end game. I will fight to the last to defend children, teachers, principals, and public education from the billionaires and politicians who have made a hobby of what is deceptively called “reform.” What is now called “reform,” as the readers of this blog know, is a calculated plan to turn public schools over to amateurs and entrepreneurs, while de imaging the teaching profession to cut costs.

The people who promote the privatization and standardization of public education are the StatusQuo. They include the U.S. Department of Education, the nation’s wealthiest hedge fund managers, and the nation’s largest foundations. They include ALEC, Democrats for Education Reform, Stand on Children, ConnCAN, and a bevy of other organizations eager to transfer public dollars to private organizations. Their stale and failed ideas are the Status Quo. Their ideas have been ascendant for a dozen years. They have failed and failed again, but their money and political power keep them insulated from news of the damage they do to Other People’s Children.

We will defeat them. We will outlast them. Who are we? We are the Resistance. We are parents and grandparents, teachers, and principals, school board members, and scholars. We will not go away. They can buy politicians, but they can’t buy us. They can buy “think tanks,” but they can’t buy us. Public schools are not for sale. Nor are our children. Nor are we.

Categories ALEC, Arts Education, Charter Schools, Childhood, Parents, Principals, Privatization, Students, Teachers, U.S. Department of Education
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