Archives for category: Virginia
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

God Bless Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe!

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2017 //
30

As reported earlier today, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed legislation that would have allowed privately managed charters to be authorized without the approval of the local school board. This legislation would have invited into Virginia all the scandals, frauds, scams, and profiteering that have marred the charter industry in other states.

The state’s major newspaper, the Richmond Times-Dispath, blasted Governor McAuliffe’s veto. It claimed that the Governor was stopping innovation, yet it didn’t name a single innovative practice that charter schools engage in. Is it innovative to treat children like convicts in a chain gang, punishing them for the slightest infraction? Punishing them if their shirt is not tucked in? Punishing them if they speak out of turn? Punishing them if they don’t walk in a straight line?

Is it innovative to expect teachers to work sixty or seventy hours a week, so they leave after a year or two, burned out?

The newspaper says Virginia should have charter schools because Florida and North Carolina have charter schools. Does the editorial demonstrate that charter schools in these states have produced better education? No. Does it admit that charter schools in these states are enriching entrepreneurs who profit by leeching taxpayer money from public schools? Does it acknowledge the hundreds of charter schools in Florida that have closed because of financial or academic deficiencies? Does it acknowledge that charters in some states–like Nevada and Ohio–are among the lowest performing schools in the state? No.

The newspaper falsely claims that charter schools are public schools; they are not. Whenever they are hauled into court for violating the rights of students or teachers, they defend themselves by insisting they are NOT state actors, they are private corporations with state contracts. Let’s take their word for it. They are private contractors, not public schools.

The newspaper doesn’t acknowledge that privately managed charter schools are not obliged to accept children with disabilities or English language learners. Leaving them out falsely boosts the scores of charter schools.

The newspaper editorialist might learn from the example of Michigan, which embraced charters at the behest of Betsy DeVos and saw its national rankings plummet from the middle to the bottom 10% on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Governor McAuliffe was absolutely correct to veto this legislation, which would have undermined local control and given free rein to raiders of public funding.

The legislation was probably written by ALEC (the noxious American Legislative Exchange Council, which hates public education and any role for government).

Governor McAuliffe, the Network for Public Education thanks you for standing up for the 90% of children who attend public schools, real public schools under democratic control. Your vote strengthened our democracy and warded off the privatization plans of Betsy DeVos and ALEC.

God Bless Governor McAuliffe!

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Virginia

Virginia: Governor McAuliffe Vetoes Legislation to Expand Charters and Gut Local Control

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2017 //
10

Congratulations, Governor McAuliffe of Virginia for protecting the children and public schools of Virginia from predatory privatizers. For standing up to Trump, DeVos, and the corporate reform movement inside the Democratic Party, I add you to the honor roll of this blog.

Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed legislation intended to remove the authorization of charter schools from local school boards. He also vetoed legislation to permit virtual charter schools.

“Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe Thursday vetoed legislation sponsored in the House of Delegates by Del. Steve Landes that would have allowed the state Board of Education to create regional charter school divisions.

“The Senate version of the charter schools bill was introduced by Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg.

“Also Thursday, the governor vetoed for the second year in a row legislation sponsored by Del. Dickie Bell that would have created a statewide virtual school program that would have provided Virginia students a full-time online education program.

“The charter school legislation would have allowed eligible school divisions to establish regional charter schools governed by a regional board. Landes said the legislation was narrowly drawn and would have included at least one school in the regional division that failed two of the last three years to reach state accreditation. Landes said logically, two neighboring school divisions could partner on a regional charter school at the elementary, middle or high school level.

“Under current Virginia law, the creation of charter schools is left to each individual school board. Only nine charter schools exist in Virginia.

“In announcing his veto, McAuliffe said: “establishing regional governing school boards that remove authority from local school boards and their members, this legislation proposes a governance model that is in conflict with the Constitution of Virginia.”

“The governor said “public charter school arrangements are already available to divisions at the discretion of the local school board, which makes the ultimate decisions about the establishment, renewal and dissolution of charter schools with its division.”

“Obenshain responded to McAuliffe’s veto saying he [Obenshain] has been “a passionate advocate’’ for charter schools. He said the schools offer “a lifeline for escaping a handful of failing school divisions.”

“The senator said the governor’s veto leaves Virginia behind other states. “With charter schools recognized nationwide as a bipartisan educational solution to improve our children’s futures, Virginia remains far behind.”

“Obenshain noted that Virginia has nine charter schools supporting 2,000 students while Florida has 500 charter schools.”

Be it noted that Governor McAuliffe is a close associate of the Clinton family. His vetoes on these bills give a morsel of hope that there might once again be a mainstream in the Democratic Party that recognizes the power and importance of public education.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Honor Roll, Privatization, Virginia

Edd Doerr: The Great School Voucher Fraud

By dianeravitch
December 3, 2016 //
24

Edd Doerr is the president of Americans for Religious Liberty and a strong proponent of separation of church and state. In this paper, he gives a brief overview of the history of this infra, explains why vouchers are a very bad idea, and reviews the 27 state referenda on vouchers or variant on public funds for religious schools.

 

Since his paper was written in 2012, a proposal to amend the Florida state constitution to permit vouchers (called the Religious Freedom Amendment) was defeated in 2012 by 55-45%, despite a vigorous campaign by Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee on its behalf, and despite the deceptive tactic of asking voters whether they support “religious freedom.” This past election, voters in Oklahoma rejected a constitutional amendment that would “have stripped the provision in the state constitution that prevents public money or property from being used to support religion and religious institutions.”

 

Wherever vouchers exist, they have been authorized by state legislatures, never by voters. State legislatures are influenced by political contributions and are easier to manipulate than voters, as Dick and Betsy DeVos learned when their own state voucher proposal in Michigan went down to defeat in 2000.

 

In Doerr’s paper, he shows how voucher advocates ignore the Founding Fathers’ conviction about religious liberty. He cites Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia legislation called “A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.”*

 

Doerr quotes a section of the bill:

 

This Act ended legal compulsion to attend church services and barred tax support for religious institutions. It provide that “no man . . . shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or beliefs, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.”

 

Doerr goes on to write:

 

While the Constitution drafted in 1787 did not grant the federal government power to deal with religion in any way, it proscribed religious tests for public office, and provided for an affirmation instead of an oath of office. The absence of a specific religious freedom guarantee bothered Jefferson and others. Six states ratified the Constitution but insisted on a religious freedom amendment. Rhode Island and North Carolina declined to ratify it until a bill of rights was adopted. Shortly after his election to the House of Representatives Madison introduced a compilation of proposals for a bill of rights to be added. Several versions of a religious liberty provision were considered before the following wording of what is now the First Amendment was adopted: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

 

President Jefferson, in a carefully thought-out 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, declared that these words built a “wall of separation between church and state.” Supporters of church-state separation hold that the “no establishment” clause was noted by the Supreme Court as early as 1878, but was best and most succinctly interpreted by the Supreme Court in the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education ruling. The Court stated:

 

“The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state’.”

 

So bear in mind as Trump and DeVos and others promote vouchers that would divert money from public schools to religious schools, they are at war not only with voters but with the Founding Fathers.

 

*Doerr cites the wrong date for passage of the bill in Virginia, which was 1779, not 1786.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Religion, Separation of church and state, Trump, Virginia, Vouchers

Virginia: Vote NO on Putting Anti-Union Statute in State Constitution

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2016 //
6

At the elections next week, Virginians will be faced with a proposal to write its so-called “right-to-work” laws into the state constitution.

Even conservative newspapers say this is a bad idea.

This is from an editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:


This newspaper has always supported Virginia’s right-to-work law — and we continue to do so. The law, which prohibits making union membership a condition of employment, is good for the commonwealth’s economy and helpful in keeping a proper balance between unions and employers.

But not every good law deserves to be raised to the level of constitutional writ. A speed limit of 25 mph is a good idea. We can think of no more worthy cause than saving children’s lives. But writing that speed limit into the Virginia Constitution would be foolish and wrongheaded.

Constitutions create frameworks for governance. They lay down a set of rules by which all other rules should be established: Bills for appropriating money shall originate in the House of Representatives, the president may veto legislation, Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, the governor shall be elected to one four-year term, and so forth. They are not supposed to be cluttered up with detailed compendiums of what government allows and forbids. That is what the legal code is for.

This is the principal reason Virginians should reject the proposed amendment. There also is a secondary reason.

Virginia law does more than forbid requiring someone to join a union in order to get or hold a job. The Code of Virginia also forbids making employment conditional upon non-membership in a union. In other words, it is against the law for a company either to force you to join a union, or to force you not to.

This is a properly neutral stance. Yet the proposed amendment includes only the former provision from the Code of Virginia, not the latter. In short: While the state code is neutral, the amendment is tilted against union membership.

It is one thing for individuals and companies to take sides in the tug-of-war between workers and employers. The government should not — and it most definitely should not inscribe its partiality in its own foundational documents. That Virginia Republicans have sought to mar the state’s Constitution with what is, at bottom, a political stunt ought to be a mark of enduring shame.

Categories Unions, Virginia

Rachel Levy: A Bernie Voter in Virginia Sizes Up Tim Kaine

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2016 //
38

I invited teacher-blogger Rachel Levy, a Virginia resident, to give her appraisal of Tim Kaine.

Rachel Levy grew up in Washington, DC, about a mile from the Vice President’s residence, but has lived in Virginia for 14 of the past 16 years, and in the Richmond area for the past 7. In that time, she has been a public school teacher, an education writer and blogger at All Things Education, a private preschool teacher, a public school parent, and is currently a PhD student at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Education (go Rams!) studying educational leadership and policy.

She writes:

In light of Hillary Clinton’s recent choice for Vice President, Diane asked me to write something about Tim Kaine and Anne Holton. If you want to read about Senator Kaine’s education policy views and actions, and about his experiences sending his children to public schools, you can go here and here. If you want to read about Secretary Holton’s life and career, you can go here and here. If you want to see what Diane had to say about the pair, go here. Although, all of those things are important to me as a parent, as a public education advocate, and as an apprentice policy scholar, I am going to talk about general insights and impressions here.

I don’t know Tim Kaine or Anne Holton personally. I voted for Tim Kaine when he ran for Governor and I voted for him again when he ran for the U.S. Senate. The way he discussed how he navigated holding the personal views he does versus the requirements of his job as a political leader resonated with me, particularly vis a vis women’s reproductive rights. But otherwise, I didn’t know that much about him. Then, a few years ago, I went to hear him speak at Randolph-Macon College (go Yellow Jackets!) where my husband is a professor of psychology. I went because I am politically active, because I wanted to hear what one of the political leaders in my state had to say, and well, because I live walking distance from RMC. I wasn’t prepared at all to be impressed or inspired. I was prepared to be hear spin and to be marketed to. But afterwards, I was deeply impressed. I had never heard a politician speak so earnestly and so frankly. He told his story. What stood out the most was his emphasis on local politics. He didn’t seem to see local political work as grunt work you have to do to get to next level; he saw it as the most important type of work you can do, serving the public and serving your community. Many liberals have ceded the local political arena, the place where decisions happen that most impact your day-to-day life, to conservatives. Say what you will about the Tea Party but they show up to Board of Supervisors and School Board meetings, they use the democratic process. Too many liberals brush off local politics, as well as the decision-makers themselves, as too boring, too provincial, not glamorous enough. In doing so, they ignore the perspectives of local decision makers, and they fail to assert influence and fail to participate meaningfully in the civic life of their communities. Tim Kaine talked about the importance of local politics, about the importance of understanding the perspectives of constituents and of fellow decision-makers who might have different opinions, and of working with them. He spoke directly to the students, urging them to go into local politics. That was the only thing he was selling. I left his speaking engagement feeling good for once about a politician, proud, even, to have a political leader like him in charge and in my state. I felt hopeful.

As someone who also kept her name when she got married, I would like to point out that Anne Holton kept her name when she got married and that Tim Kaine married a woman who kept her name. I know that seems like a small detail, but it’s symbolic and says something about both of them. Even so, I was skeptical when Tim Kaine’s wife, Anne Holton was appointed Secretary of Education. Oh great, I said, another well-intentioned but clueless non-educator coming in and telling educators what to do. However, the more I read about how she was brought up and about her as a person and a professional, the more impressed I grew with her. And then as I heard her policy ideas, my wariness wore off and I became reassured. Subsequently, this past semester, I was lucky enough to complete an externship with the Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS). I met Secretary Holton once or twice very briefly and certainly she was warm and friendly. But what really impressed me was hearing her address education stakeholders, which I had the pleasure of doing on a number of occasions. It wasn’t her speaking style that impressed me, it was her command of the policies and their implications. She is thoughtful about educational practice and genuinely cares about the success of all children and wants them to have a rich and meaningful learning experience. She listens to stakeholders. One occasion in particular has stayed with me. During the legislative session at the Virginia General Assembly, she and a very conservative state senator were both giving public comment in support of the same bill, and it was a good bill. However, while he referred to “failing schools,” she referred to “challenged schools.” She did not use deficit discourse or make it sound as if the issues were inherent to the people in the schools with lower test scores or the schools themselves. She did not take on the legislator’s language to try to get the bill passed, but she didn’t throw out her office’s support of the bill, either. Also just the fact that she was there was notable. She wasn’t phoning it in. She took her work and her role seriously.

By the way, Anne Holton stepped down after her husband’s selection as Clinton’s running mate, so she can help him.

The biggest criticisms I have heard about Tim Kaine is that he’s “anti-union,” too “pro-Wall Street,” and not enough of an advocate for climate change. If he said he supported Virginia’s Right to Work laws, I don’t know if that makes him “anti-union” or if it means he was supporting existing laws in the state he was elected to govern because it would be political suicide otherwise (and I don’t hear the VEA complaining about his candidacy.) Also, it is worth noting that he has a 96% positive rating from the AFL-CIO.

But maybe he is anti-union, not wary enough of Wall Street, and not concerned enough about climate change. Maybe you don’t agree with him on many things, but if his history as a local and state politician are any indication, he will listen, he will learn, he will roll his sleeves up, and he will try to do right by the public. If he has done it in the case of public education, which he has, I believe he can do it in the case of other public democratic institutions and matters. You can look at Kaine’s candidacy through the lens of the national media and national political organizations or you can look at it through the lens of the Virginians he served, like me, and public servants he served with, all of whom have overwhelming positive things to say. His record on higher education is strong.

Look, I am unabashedly pro-union and pro-labor. I am deeply apprehensive about Wall Street’s power. I am profoundly concerned about climate change (which I see as the defining issue of our time). I voted for Bernie. But Bernie didn’t win. Hillary did and she picked a genuine, smart, hard-working VP. Both Tim Kaine and Anne Holton are thoughtful, caring people—thoughtful about their positions they hold, about the policies they enact or implement, about how those intersect with their personal views. They are not climbers or elitists. They have unapologetically and unwaveringly dedicated their lives to being public servants, to serving their country, state, and local communities. Isn’t that at least in part what Bernie Sanders campaign was all about? We rarely see someone like Tim Kaine in politics and now we have the chance to have him serve as Vice President of our country. It’s time to stop working against him and start envisioning what can be done when he starts working with us.

Categories Politics, Unions, Virginia

John Thompson: Shaming is not Teaching

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2016 //
33

John Thompson, teacher and historian, writes here about two examples of a disturbing trend. In the first one, a teacher writes about her abhorrence of data walls, which publicly shame children. The other is the current flap in Florida, where some districts are punishing children who do not take the state test, even though they are known to be good students whose work in class demonstrates their ability.

 

 

He writes:

 


Have They No Shame?

 

Virginia 3rd grade teacher, Launa Hall, exposes a shocking example of how corporate reform has lost its soul. In doing so, she reminds us of the way that bubble-in accountability started the nation’s schools down this abusive road. Hall writes, “Our ostensible goal in third grade was similar to what you’d hear in elementary schools everywhere: to educate the whole child, introduce them to a love of learning … But the hidden agenda was always prepping kids for the state’s tests.” When educators’ jobs shift from the unlocking of children’s whole potential to increasing test scores, some or many educators will stand and fight against destructive pedagogies, but it is amazing how many otherwise caring human beings will agree to inflict so much pain on children.

 

In Florida, for instance, most schools aren’t punishing 3rd graders for “opting out” of tests. Two districts, however, are warning parents that their children will be retained if they opt out. The Manatee district is “cherry-picking” from the state law in order to hold back a third-grader who “has gotten nothing but rave reviews from teachers.” Another parent opted her son out of the testing because of his test anxiety; “she said her son reads on a fourth-grade level and performs at or above grade level in the classroom.” These school systems are obviously willing to hurt those kids in order to send a message to parents who have the temerity to push back against the testing mania.

A few years ago, I thought I witnessed the ultimate abusive practice designed to shame children into working harder to meet higher quantitative targets. It was bad enough that the New Orleans “No Excuses” charter school I was visiting prohibited talking in the cafeteria during lunch. Even worse, their data wall was prominent in the lunchroom for everyone to see. I had once seen an Oklahoma City data wall, identifying the scores of all students, but it was in a room, inside another room, and it was for faculty eyes only. Teachers and administrators in OKC had long been warned that a NOLA-style breach of confidentially could cost us our teaching licenses, but that had seemed redundant. What sort of human being would publically reveal individual students’ attendance and/or classroom performance data?

And that brings us back to Launa Hall’s story. She notes that posting students’ names in such a way without parental consent may violate privacy laws. But, “At the time, neither I nor my colleagues at the school knew that, and … we were hardly alone.” Hall adds that the U.S. Education Department encourages teachers to not display the numbers for individuals, who are identifiable by name, and that approach would have been more “consistent with the letter, if not the intent, of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. But it would be every bit as dispiriting. My third-graders would have figured out in 30 seconds who was who, coded or not.”

Hall’s focus is not on the legal games adults are playing but on the damage done by this shaming to individual children. She paints us a picture of the pain that was inflicted on “Child X” when she saw her real name followed by “lots of red dots” declaring that she was not meeting official state standards. Of course, Hall “tried to mitigate the shame she felt.” The teacher’s efforts at reconnection may have helped a little, but the student “still had all those red dots for everyone to see.”
Hall then tells us “exactly who is being shamed by data walls.” Janie (her pseudonym for Child X) “is part of an ethnic minority group. She received free breakfast and lunch every school day last year, and some days that’s all she ate. Her family had no fixed address for much of the year, and Janie, age 8, frequently found herself the responsible caretaker of younger siblings.”

The Post story prompted around 400 comments and more discussion on social media. Almost all were opposed to the public posting of children’s data, often decrying the walls as insane and reprehensible. One commented, “Hard to imagine this actually occurring. Why not just put the dots on their foreheads?” Some commenters tried to blame the individual teachers who posted data walls, but others explained how that is often required by under-the-gun school systems.

Even so, the few supporters of such data walls, as well as the venom of some commentators casting blame on individuals, illustrate the tragedy unleashed by corporate reformers appealing to our basest instincts. A few recalled the good old days and complained “today’s little flowers can’t take competition or even comparisons of any kind,” or said that similar things happened 50 years ago, but “if some little snot bragged about getting the highest grade, he/she would get beat up after school.” One personified the market-driven mentality which gave us such brutality, saying that 3rd graders should be separated “into two tracks: one would be the “everyone gets a trophy track,” while “the other track would be the ‘competitive track,’ which would feature these dreaded ‘data walls,'” so we could see who became more successful in life.

Hall is magnanimous in wrapping up this sorry tale of cruel competition and compliance, “when policymakers mandate tests and buy endlessly looping practice exams to go with them, their image of education is from 30,000 feet. They see populations and sweeping strategies. From up there, it seems reasonable …” But, how could they disagree with her admonition? “Teaching the young wasn’t supposed to feel like this.”

I would only add that the ultimate tragedy would be the creation of a new generation of educators and patrons where this sort of shaming feels like teaching.

Categories Accountability, Discipline, Education Reform, Florida, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Virginia

Virginia SGP Wins His Case in Virginia to Release Teachers’ Names and Ratings

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2016 //
109

Our frequent commentator who signs as Virginia SGP (Student Growth Percentiles) repeatedly argued on this blog and elsewhere that teachers’ ratings should be published. He sued in court, and guess what, he won.

 

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, an expert on teacher evaluation who has warned that these ratings are fundamentally flawed, posted about his victory here. In her post, Beardsley explains the differences between SGP and VAM models. She doesn’t think much of either because teacher performance cannot be quantified or measured based on student tests; the scores are affected by many factors outside the teachers’ control. Not only are students put in the position of being able to fire their teachers by not scoring well, they also have the anxiety of knowing that a beloved teacher might be fired because of their test scores. We have yet to see a single district make big improvements because of the publication of teacher ratings. Both Los Angeles and New York City published the ratings, and nothing much has changed.

 

Nonetheless, Virginia (Brian Davison) has relentlessly advocated for the use of SGP and he initiated the court case to make his point. And he won. He posted here so many times that I limited him to no more than four submissions a day.

 

Beardsley writes:

 

In January, a Richmond, Virginia judge ruled in Virginia SGP’s favor, despite the state’s claims that Virginia school districts, despite the state’s investments, had reportedly not been using the SGP data, “calling them flawed and unreliable measures of a teacher’s effectiveness.” And even though this ruling was challenged by state officials and the Virginia Education Association thereafter, Virginia SGP posted via his Facebook page the millions of student records the state released in compliance with the court, with teacher names and other information redacted.

 

This past Tuesday, however, and despite the challenges to the court’s initial ruling, came another win for Virginia SGP, as well as another loss for the state of Virginia. See the article “Judge Sides with Loudoun Parent Seeking Teachers’ Names, Student Test Scores,” published yesterday in a local Loudon, Virginia news outlet.

 

The author of this article, Danielle Nadler, explains more specifically that, “A Richmond Circuit Court judge has ruled that [the] VDOE [Virginia Department of Education] must release Loudoun County Public Schools’ Student Growth Percentile [SGP] scores by school and by teacher…[including] teacher identifying information.” The judge noted that “that VDOE and the Loudoun school system failed to ‘meet the burden of proof to establish an exemption’ under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act [FOIA].” The court also ordered VDOE to pay Davison $35,000 to cover his attorney fees and other costs. This final order was dated April 12, 2016.

 

“Davison said he plans to publish the information on his ‘Virginia SGP’ Facebook page. Students will not be identified, but some of the teachers will. ‘I may mask the names of the worst performers when posting rankings/lists but other members of the public can analyze the data themselves to discover who those teachers are,” Virginia SGP said.

 

Now that this information is publicly available, we can expect parents in Virginia to move to the most affluent districts, like the one Virgina SGP lives in, so they too can sign up for the “best” teachers and see their scores rise. And in two years, Virginia will no doubt outperform Massachusetts on the NAEP, as #1 in the nation.

 

 

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Virginia

Will Virginia Eviscerate Local Control of Schools?

By dianeravitch
February 1, 2016 //
10

The Virginia General Assembly is voting today on an ALEC-inspired bill to give the state board of education the power to go over the local boards of education and place charter schools in communities whether they want them or not. Pseudo-reformers don’t like democracy. They like autocracy. The American Legislative Exchange Council has drafted model legislation for exactly this kind of shift of power from local communities to the state, the better to advance privatization.

 

 

 

Virginian Rachel Levy writes (open her piece for the links):

 

Charter schools may soon be coming to Virginia communities whether those communities want them or not. This is not about whether or not to have charter schools or whether or not charter schools work. This is about power and democracy.

 

In Virginia, what’s known as the “charter school bill,” HB 3 in the Virginia House of Delegates and SB 588 in the Virginia Senate, establishes a resolution (HJ 1 and SJ R6) that will trigger a referendum on a constitutional amendment giving the Virginia State Board of Education the power to go over the heads of local school boards and establish charter schools in local communities. This resolution will be heard in the Virginia House of Delegates TODAY (Monday, February 1st, 2016), so you must contact your Delegate ASAP.

 

This resolution and accompanying legislation is before the General Assembly for the second year in a row. (I wrote about this last year here and before that I wrote about the concept, when it was the Opportunity Educational Institution, here.) Last year, it passed both chambers and, hence, if it passes this year—and as of this writing the House Privileges and Election Committee has sent it on to the House floor on a 10-9 vote—it will go onto the ballot this November. (Or maybe not this November if the Virginia GOP doesn’t think it will pass then, but I digress.)

 

“Work” is not the right way of looking at this, in any case. Like any model, some charter schools are successful and some aren’t. Some charter schools are true institutions of education, created by parents and educators, while some are real estate scams, developed by hucksters and charlatans. But given that all students are not served as they should be in public schools, I agree that conversations about the merits and disadvantages of charter schools are worth having.

 

But it is a conversation worth having among parents, citizens, educators, and educational leaders in the communities where charter schools are potentially to be located. Setting up schools in local communities is not a state matter. While many of its members are knowledgeable and passionate about K-12 education in Virginia and the Virginia State Board of Education may do a good job with the work they are tasked with, this is not their job.

 

Virginia currently has a rigorous, democratic process to establish charter schools, a process with built-in oversight, checks and balances, and accountability. Charter school proposals go before the locally, democratically elected (and in some cases, locally appointed) school boards where the charter schools are to be established. Charter schools in Virginia are overseen by these school boards and the schools are hence accountable to the public like all other public schools. Some local communities in Virginia have decided to set up charter schools. Groups in other communities have tried to set up charter schools but have not made a strong enough case to other members of their communities or to their school boards.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Democracy, Virginia

“Democracy”: The Failure of Leadership in Public Education to Support Sound Education

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2015 //
14

A regular commenter on the blog who calls him/herself “Democracy” posted these insightful thoughts about the state of “leadership” and its willingness to follow the corporate reform script instead of standing up for sound policies and practices that promote good education:

 

 

 

Part 1

 

I’ve been commenting on this blog for a while, lamenting the state of “leadership” in pubic education.

 

The fate of Joshua Starr in Montgomery County, MD is a good example. Starr was actually trying to bring more equity to the system, he wanted to de-emphasize testing, he opposed merit pay, and he was collaborative, generally. A teacher rep said Starr made sure teachers were “included in the decision-making process for most major decisions.” Still, Starr seemed to favor the Common Core, and in an interview with NPR he bragged about the county’s “SAT and AP scores.” Sigh.

 

Starr’s replacement was to have been Andrew Houlihan of Houston, who later withdrew his name from consideration.

 

Houlihan’s dissertation was on the use of data. He has described himself as “a big data person. I love using data to make decisions.” Except, apparently, Houlihan never really understood what the “data” said. He bragged about an Arnold Foundation grant that, he said, was “transforming” the recruitment of teachers. And he bragged about Houston’s merit pay program – ASPIRE – that, he said, rewarded “our most effective educators” for “accelerating student progress.”

 

The Arnold Foundation is a right-wing organization founded by a hedge-funder who resists accountability and transparency in derivatives markets but calls for them in education. Its executive director, Denis Cabrese was former chief of staff to DIck Armey, the Texas conservative who now heads up FreedomWorks, the group that helps to pull the Tea Party strings and gets funding from the billionaire arch-conservative Koch brothers.

 

Fairfax County recently hired Karen Garza, who was also in Houston. Garza led the ASPIRE program, a pay plan that was funded (in part) by the Broad, Gates and Dell foundations, the very same groups that fund corporate-style “reform” and that support the Common Core. And while researchers point out the dangers of value-added models, noting that they “cannot disentangle the many influences on student progress,” Garza said they were “proven methodology” that are both “valid and reliable.”

 

Fairfax and Montgomery, by the way, are considered two of the better school systems, nationally.

 

Part 2

 

Meanwhile, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS) recently concluded its Spring conference, titled “Inspiring Leadership for Innovation.” The conference was focused on “college and career readiness,” “leadership skills essential to changing school cultures,” and “superintendent success stories.” The featured speakers were Jean Claude Brizard and Marc Tucker.

 

Brizard has been a failure as a superintendent in Rochester and Chicago. According to a columnist who followed him closely, Brizard “engaged in gross misrepresentations of data and sometimes outright lied. He made promises he didn’t keep. He did one thing while saying another.” As to his two failed superintendencies, Brizard admits that “there were some mistakes made.”

 

Marc Tucker says that he wants high-stakes tests in grades 4, 8 and 10, and “the last exams would be set at an empirically determined college- and work-ready standard.” Additionally, “every other off year, the state would administer tests in English and mathematics beginning in grade 2, and, starting in middle school, in science too, on a sampling basis. Vulnerable groups would be oversampled to make sure that populations of such students in the schools would be accurately measured.” Tucker wants all schools systems to take PISA, because he thinks that the test scores of 15-year-olds are somehow tied tightly to economic growth and competitiveness. You know, jobs.

 

Sigh. Tucker just keeps regurgitating the same-old song, all over again: college and career “readiness.” To Tucker, that’s why public education exists. He says nary a word about citizenship.

 

And what about those jobs? The Bureau of Labor Statistics points out that most new jobs created in the United States over the next decade will NOT require postsecondary education. These are jobs like personal care aides, retail clerks, nursing assistants, janitors and maids, construction laborers, freight and stock movers, secretaries, carpenters, and fast food preparers.

 

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/most-new-jobs.htm

 

In addition to its Spring fling, VASS selected its 2016 superintendent of the year. While the award comes from VASS, a VASS-selected panel –– comprised of the state superintendent of instruction, and the heads of the Virginia Education Association, state PTA and state school boards association, the state ASCD, and the directors of the state associations of secondary and elementary school principals –– picked the winner. In other words, the top education “leaders” in the state –– those who should be familiar with research and evidence –– were responsible for choosing the state’s “best” superintendent.

 

A few years back, this recently-named “superintendent of the year” forced a test-score-tracking software program called SchoolNet on teachers. She was advised against it because of its problems, but she went ahead anyway. It ended up being a $2 million-plus failure. SchoolNet was later bought by Pearson. The superintendent is still withholding 268 SchoolNet-related emails from public scrutiny, claiming they are “exempt” from the Freedom of Information Act.

 

 

Part 3

 

This VASS-award-winner’s school division sent out what it called a “leadership” survey several years back. It was a skewed-question survey designed to produce pre-determined results. But it did allow for comments. And they were instructive. They included comments such as “..this is the worst leadership the county has ever had,” and “Honesty, integrity and fairness are lacking,” and “…teachers have very little voice, and “…the system does not care about me or most other employees as individuals, and “county schools leaders seem to be increasingly inept and far-removed from the day-to-day realities of public education.” Again and again and again, commenters said these things about the top “leadership:”

 

“does not listen to teachers…”
“does not ask what people think before it accepts major policies…”
* “…teachers are not listened to…our opinions have been requested and ignored…”
* “…when I offer my opinion, i has been dismissed.”
* “l..leaders seek input, but then usually, disregard the opinions of those not in agreement with the administration…decisions are made top-down before input is received.”
* “decision making is so top-down — stakeholders are seldom consulted…”
* “…decisions have already been made…”
* “…teachers feel that their professional judgment is not valued…”
* “most administrator are arrogant…and remove themselves with any type of collaborative dialogue with teachers.”
* “…they do not want to hear complaints, or you are labeled as a troublemaker…”
* “the county asks its employees for input but these requests are superficial…the decision have already been made by the people ‘downtown’…”
* “you ask people to think critically but we must toe the party line…”
* “We are not asked what we think…it is common knowledge here that you are not allowed to address concerns that may be negative…”
“I see few examples of teachers being involved in decision making.”

 

A blue ribbon resources utilization committee recommended a climate survey of the schools years earlier, noting that one had been done repeatedly in county government. Teachers asked for a climate survey in the schools too, and even offered to help write one. A climate survey still hasn’t been offered.

 

This “superintendent of the year” forced STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) “academies” on all of the county high schools. The original claim was that research showed a STEM “crisis” in America, and that this move was “visionary.” Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin – which has laid of thousands of STEM workers – was invited to the schools to make his STEM spiel. When asked for the “research,” the superintendent couldn’t produce any. There’s a reason for that. The research shows there is no “crisis,” no “shortage.” In fact, there’s a glut.

For example, Beryl Lieff Benderly wrote this stunning statement recently in the Columbia Journalism Review (see: http://www.cjr.org/reports/what_scientist_shortage.php?page=all ):

“Leading experts on the STEM workforce, have said for years that the US produces ample numbers of excellent science students. In fact, according to the National Science Board’s authoritative publication Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, the country turns out three times as many STEM degrees as the economy can absorb into jobs related to their majors.”

 

When VASS selected this “superintendent of the year” for 2016, it noted certain “indicators of success.” What were they? It cited an increase in the “number of students enrolled in AP courses” and SAT scores that were higher than the state average. Never mind that the SAT is not tied to the school curriculum and that this school division is one of the most affluent in the state. There is no better predictor of SAT score than family income.

 

The research on SAT – and ACT – and AP courses finds that they are mostly hype. The SAT and ACT just don’t do a good job of predicting success in college or life. Moreover, research finds that when demographic characteristics are controlled for, the oft-made claims made for AP disappear. In the ‘ToolBox Revisited’ (2006), a statistical analysis of the factors contributing to the earning of a bachelor’s degree, Adelman found that Advanced Placement did not reach the “threshold level of significance.” Other research finds that while “students see AP courses on their transcripts as the ticket ensuring entry into the college of their choice…there is a shortage of evidence about the efficacy, cost, and value of these programs.”

 

This is the current state of public education’s “leadership.”

 

Unlike the Allstate commercial, I don’t think we’re in ‘good hands.’

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Data and Data Mining, Houston, Virginia

Virginia Governor Signs Bill to Repeal A-F Letter Grades for Schools

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2015 //
8

Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic governor of Virginia, signed a law repealing the A-F letter grades for schools. As Lindsay Wagner of NC Policy Watch reports, this action takes place at the same time that North Carolina learned that the letter grades are highly correlated with the proportion of disadvantaged students in the school. Thus, the report card serves to stigmatize schools with high poverty levels, making it harder for them to recruit teachers and setting them up for takeover and privatization.

 

The A-F letter grades are Jeb Bush’s idea. As State Superintendent Tony Bennett showed in Indiana, the formula for the letter grades can be manipulated to protect campaign donors who own charter schools. Mainly they stigmatize schools that serve the neediest children.

Categories Accountability, North Carolina, Virginia
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »