Our blog poet reflects on the meaning of the latest international test scores (PISA).
That’s a Moron
When the test hits your eye
Like an old PISA pie
That’s a moron
When the scores make you drool just like a pasta fazool
You’re a moron
When you dance down the street with a test as your beat
You’re insane
When you walk in a dream but you know you’re not dreaming signore
Scuzza me, but you see, back in old Napoli
You’re a moron
A moron, that’s a moron
Peter Greene writes regularly for Forbes, where this article appeared.
He explains for the umpteenth time (as I have done repeatedly) that the U.S. has never led the world on international tests, whether it was PISA, TIMSS, IEA, or any other.
He writes:
The top scores this year come from the usual batch of test takers,including the Chinese, who give the test to students from wealthy provinces.. PISA day is also the one day that some folks hear about Estonia, the tiny nation that somehow has not conquered the world even though their students do well on the PISA.
PISA coverage tends to overlook one major question—why should anyone care about these scores? Where is the research showing a connection between PISA scores and a nation’s economic, political, or global success? What is the conclusion to the statement, “Because they get high PISA scores, the citizens of [insert nation here] enjoy exceptionally good______” ?
Did US companies outsource work to India and China because of their citizens’ PISA scores, or because of low wages and loose regulation? Do we have the world’s most expensive health care system because of mediocre PISA scores? Which politicians have ridden to success on the PISA score platform pony? Are any geopolitical conflicts solved by whipping out the contending countries’ PISA scores for comparison? And is there a shred of evidence that raising PISA scores would improve life for US citizens (spoiler alert: no)?…
There will be discussions of what the PISA scores do or do not prove. Some of that is fair; Common Core and other ed reforms pushed by billionaires and thinky tanks and politicians and a variety of other non-educators were going to turn this all around. They haven’t. This comes as zero surprise to actual educators. It’s just one more data point showing that all the reform heaped on education since A Nation At Risk is not producing the promised results.
Remember when Arne Duncan promoted the “Race to the Top”? Remember when David Coleman and Bill Gates pledged that Common Core would close achievement gaps and raise the lowest-performing students closer to the top-performers? There comes a time when people must be held accountable for their promises.
This article about charter real estate dealings was written by Professors Preston Green III, Bruce Baker, and Derek W. Black.
They argue that lax state laws allow charter operators to reap profits while maintaining an ostensibly “nonprofit” status.
While critics charge that charter schools are siphoning money away from public schools, a more fundamental issue frequently flies under the radar: the questionable business practices that allow people who own and run charter schools to make large profits.
Charter school supporters are reluctant to acknowledge, much less stop, these practices.
Given that charter schools are growing rapidly – from 1 million students in 2006 to more than 3.1 million students attending approximately 7,000 charter schoolsnow – shining a light on these practices can’t come too soon. The first challenge, however, is simply understanding the complex space in which charters operate – somewhere between public and private.
Charters were founded on the theory that market forces and competition would benefit public education. But policy reports and local government studiesincreasingly reveal that the charter school industry is engaging in the type of business practices that have led to the downfall of other huge industries and companies.
Charter schools regularly sign contracts with little oversight, shuffle money between subsidiaries and cut corners that would never fly in the real world of business or traditional public schools – at least not if the business wanted to stay out of bankruptcy and school officials out of jail. The problem has gotten so bad that a nationwide assessment by the U.S. Department of Education warned in a 2016 audit report that the charter school operations pose a serious “risk of waste, fraud and abuse” and lack “accountability.”
The biggest problem in charter school operations involves facility leases and land purchases. Like any other business, charters need to pay for space. But unlike other businesses, charters too often pay unreasonably high rates – rates that no one else in the community would pay.
One of the latest examples can be found in a January 2019 report from the Ohio auditor-general, which revealed that in 2016 a Cincinnati charter school paid $867,000 to lease its facilities. This was far more than the going rate for comparable facilities in the area. The year before, a Cleveland charter was paying half a million above market rate, according to the same report.
Why would a charter school do this? Most states require charter schools to be nonprofit. To make money, some of them have simply entered into contracts with separate for-profit companies that they also own. These companies do make money off students.
In other words, some “nonprofit” charter schools take public money and pay their owners with it. When this happens, it creates an enormous incentive to overpay for facilities and supplies and underpay for things like teachers and student services.
Many millions of dollars of public funds that were intended to educate children are squandered, they say.
It is called “legal graft.”
SLAYING GOLIATH will be published on January 21. Please consider giving a pre-order for Xmas to your friends.
On that date, I will appear in conversation with Carol Burris to discuss the book and the issues it raises. That event will be sponsored by the Community Bookstore at Congregation Beth Elohim at 274 Garfield Place (Eighth Avenue) in Park Slope, Brooklyn at 6:30 pm on January 21. The bookstore or synagogue charges a $10 admission fee.
SAVE THE DATE!
All are welcome.
This review in Library Journal goes out to libraries across the nation. It is a starred review, which is a kudo.
In this incisive, meticulously researched book, Ravitch (education, New York Univ.; The Death and Life of the Great American School) argues persuasively that the U.S. school privatization movement has resulted in poor test scores, the closure of public schools, and attacks on the teaching profession. Ravitch blames the so-called school reformers, whom she renames the disruptors, such as Bill Gates, Alice Walton, Michelle Rhee, Mark Zuckerberg, and Eli Broad, who spend millions to replace public schools with charter schools and private institutions that are run like businesses. Though disruptors view themselves as opposing the status quo, Ravitch contends that they are doing everything they can to maintain it. She devotes most of her book to the resisters, or the teachers, parents, and union leaders who have taken on the disruptors and are working to keep their local public schools open. Through this lens, Ravitch discusses the Common Core teaching standards, standardized testing, the Obama administration’s Race to the Top grant program, and Teach for America.
Fred Klonsky writes with amazement that Mayor Pete Buttigieg just realized that there are segregated schools in his hometown of South Bend.
He acknowledges that he was slow to come to this realization.
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg told Reverend William Barber that he didn’t notice South Bend’s public schools were segregated.
Buttigieg is the mayor of South Bend.
“I have to confess that I was slow to realize — I worked for years under the illusion that our schools in my city were integrated… But what I slowly realized… if you looked at the county, almost all of the diversity of our youths was in a single school district,” Buttigieg said in an interview with Rev. William Barber III.
Yes. “All the diversity of our youths was in a single school district,” is a weird formulation.
But that he didn’t realize that integration was an illusion in his city?
Buttigieg is either a liar or suffers from too common a white blindspot.
In Indiana, more than 70 percent of black students attend a non-white majority school,
In 2015, several South Bend schools showed concentrated black enrollment, inconsistent with county racial realities.
The problem of racial segregation is a statewide problem in Indiana. There is much that is wrong in the Hoosier state, and the legislature doesn’t care.
Indiana doesn’t have a plan to combat segregation but it has a robust school choice program of charters and vouchers.
Yong Zhao, the brilliant education analyst, writes here about the great PISA illusion. If you have not read any of Zhao’s books, do so now. If you have not heard him speak, google him or invite him to your next big conference. He is insightful, provocative, thoughtful, absolutely delightful! He is a master at making people think and debunking hoaxes. Please read the entire post to learn how we and the rest of the world have been hoaxed by promoters of fake ideas.
He writes:
PISA is a masterful magician. It has successfully created an illusion of education quality and marketed it to the world. In 2018, 79 countries took part in this magic show out of the belief that this triennial test accurately measures the quality of their education systems, the effectiveness of their teachers, the ability of their students, and the future prosperity of their society.
PISA’s magical power in the education universe stems from its bold claims and successful marketing. It starts by tapping into the universal anxiety about the future. Humans are naturally concerned about the future and have a strong desire to know if tomorrow is better than, or at least as good as, today. Parents want to know if their children will have a good life; politicians want to know if their nations have the people to build a more prosperous economy; the public wants to know if the young will become successful and contributing members of the society.
PISA brilliantly exploits the anxiety and desire of parents, politicians, and the public with three questions (OECD, 1999, p. 7):
These words begin the document that introduced PISA to the world in 1999 and have been repeated in virtually all PISA reports ever since. The document then states the obvious: “Parents, students, the public and those who run education systems need to know” (OECD, 1999, p. 7). And as can be expected, PISA offers itself as the fortuneteller by claiming that:
PISA assesses the extent to which 15-year-old students, near the end of their compulsory education, have acquired key knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies. … The assessment does not just ascertain whether students can reproduce knowledge; it also examines how well students can extrapolate from what they have learned and can apply that knowledge in unfamiliar settings, both in and outside of school. This approach reflects the fact that modern economies reward individuals not for what they know, but for what they can do with what they know. (OECD, 2016, p. 25).
This claim not only offers PISA as a tool to sooth anxiety but also, and perhaps more importantly, makes it the tool for such purpose because it helps to knock out its competitors. As an international education assessment, PISA came late. Prior to PISA, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) had already been operating international assessments since the 1960s, offering influential programs such as TIMSS and PIRLS. For a start-up to beat the establishment, it must offer something different and better. That’s exactly what PISA promised: a different and better assessment…
However, the claim, the foundation upon which PISA has built its success, has been seriously challenged. First, there is no evidence to justify, let alone prove, the claim that PISA indeed measures skills that are essential for life in modern economies. Second, the claim is an imposition of a monolithic and West-centric view of societies on the rest of the world. Third, the claim distorts the purpose of education.
Made-up Claim
The claim that PISA measures knowledge and skills essential for the modern society or the future world is not based on any empirical evidence. Professor Stefan Hopmann of the University of Vienna writes:
There is no research available that proves this assertion beyond the point that knowing something is always good and knowing more is better. There is not even research showing that PISA covers enough to be representative of the school subjects involved or the general knowledge-base. PISA items are based on the practical reasoning of its researchers and on pre-tests of what works in most or all settings — and not on systematic research on current or future knowledge structures and needs. (Hopmann, 2008, p. 438).
In other words, the claim was just a fantasy, an illusion, entirely made up by the PISA team. But PISA keeps repeating its assertion that measures skills needed for the future. The strategy worked. PISA successfully convinced people through repetition…
Although PISA claims that it does not assess according to national curricula or school knowledge, its results have been interpreted as a valid measure of the quality of educational systems. But the view of education promoted by PISA is a distorted and extremely narrow one (Berliner, 2011; Sjøberg, 2015; Uljens, 2007). PISA treats economic growth and competitiveness as the sole purpose of education. Thus it only assesses subjects — reading, math, science, financial literacy, and problem solving — that are generally viewed as important for boosting competitiveness in the global economy driven by science and technology. PISA shows little interest in other subjects that have occupied the curricula of many countries such as the humanities, arts and music, physical education, social sciences, world languages, history, and geography (Sjøberg, 2015).
While preparing children for economic participation is certainly part of the responsibility of educational institutions, it cannot and should not be the only responsibility (Labaree, 1997; Sjøberg, 2015; Zhao, 2014, 2016). The purpose of education in many countries includes a lot more than preparing economic beings. Citizenship, solidarity, equity, curiosity and engagement, compassion, empathy, curiosity, cultural values, physical and mental health, and many others are some of the frequently mentioned purposes in national education goal states. But these aspects of purpose of education “are often forgotten or ignored when discussions about the quality of the school is based on PISA scores and rankings” (Sjøberg, 2015, p. 113).
Zhao presents a devastating critique of the validity of PISA. It is a must read.
Politico Morning Education reports:
U.S. SCORES IN READING, MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE LITERACY REMAINED ESSENTIALLY FLAT FROM 2015 in the latest Program for International Student Assessment results, but U.S. rankings improved because other education systems worsened.
— The 2018 PISA results showed U.S. average scores in reading and science literacy were higher than the average of about three dozen mostly industrialized countries making up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which develops and coordinates the assessment. But U.S. average math scores were lower than the OECD average.
— PISA, an international assessment administered every three years, measures 15-year-old students’ literacy in the three disciplines and is designed to provide a global view of U.S. students’ performance compared to their peers in nearly 80 education systems.
— “If I communicated nothing, I hope I communicated that we are struggling in math in comparison to our competitors around the world,” Peggy G. Carr, the associate commissioner of assessments for the National Center for Education Statistics, told reporters in a call before the results were released. Nicole Gaudiano has more.
Teresa Hanafin wrote this morning in Fast Foreard for the Boston Hlobe.
“Just spotted this disturbing story: Another major US company caved to the demands of an autocrat in the name of profit. Apple changed its map and weather apps for users in Russia, redrawing the borders of Crimea to show it as part of Russia instead of Ukraine, capitulating to Russian President Vladimir Putin. As you know, Russia annexed Crimea five years ago after a popular uprising in Ukraine deposed the pro-Russian president. It’s not the first time: Both Apple and Google have caved to China’s demands related to lending legitimacy to Hong Kong’s and Taiwan’s efforts at independence.”
Chris Whittle is the Uber entrepreneur of for-profit education. Back in the 1990s, he launched the Edison Project, assuming that George H.W. Bush would be re-elected and would get a voucher plan through Congress. That didn’t happen, so Edison sought contracts to run low-performing schools. Lots of push back from districts and parents. The share price plummeted. To learn th3 story of Edison, read Samuel Abrams’ excellent book, Education and the Commercial Mindset.
After the failure of the Edison Project, Whittle raised many millions to start a for-profit private school called avenues that was to have locations around the world. He hired educators with long experience in elite private schools and had splashy openings in Manhattan and in China. tuition was over $50,000 a year. In 2015, he and the board had differences, and he moved on.
Now Whittle is opening a new international for-profit chain, and openings are planned in multiple locations, including the District of Columbia, Brooklyn, and international locations. As the roll out of the new chain proceeds, with glitz and glamour, the board of Avenues is suing Whittle for $5.8 million that he allegedly owes them.
Leslie Brody of the Wall Street Journal wrote:
As he wooed hundreds of guests with cocktails, mini lobster rolls and goat cheese bonbons at a reception in Brooklyn, entrepreneur Chris Whittle made an audacious claim: There are no world-class K-12 schools, anywhere.
And he intends to change that.
“Our mission is to actually create the first modern school,” Mr. Whittle told a crowd last week at the launch of a downtown site of Whittle School & Studios. His new for-profit enterprise aims to create one school with 36 campuses world-wide in a decade, with a shared curriculum and “a collective intelligence,” according to its stylish 118-page brochure.
At 72 years old, Mr. Whittle is known for marketing prowess, bold visions and major setbacks in his quest to build educational empires. He says he has raised more than $1 billion for Whittle School, including funds from investors and real-estate expenses borne by firms that construct and own its campuses. Its first sites started operating this fall in Washington, D.C., and Shenzhen, China. The Brooklyn venue, to open next fall, will be the third.
“It’s an ambitious, risky venture,” said Thomas Toch, director of FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University. “It’s classic Chris Whittle, to throw a long pass and attempt to run under it for a touchdown.”
Mr. Whittle, a former publisher of Esquire magazine, co-founded Edison Schools, a company that aimed to bring private-sector efficiencies to managing taxpayer-funded schools in the 1990s. The company helped usher in the charter school movement, but ran into financial problems.
In 2002, Edison Schools was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which said it inaccurately described aspects of its business in SEC filings. The company settled, saying it would add an internal audit function, without admitting or denying the SEC findings. It was taken private and renamed, and Mr. Whittle left.
Mr. Whittle’s first attempt at launching a global school in New York fizzled in the 2008 financial crisis. Then he co-founded Avenues: The World School, a for-profit institution in Manhattan, in 2012 with a pitch of 15 campuses world-wide by 2021. But he left Avenues in 2015. So far, the school has only three sites, including São Paulo and Shenzhen, China, plus a new online program with 20 students…
Whittle School plans capacity for 90,000 students in 15 countries, with much of its leadership from China, India and the U.S. “We were building from scratch an organization that was very intentionally bi- and tri-cultural,” Mr. Whittle said. “It’s been very challenging.”
His team includes such high-profile educators as Benno Schmidt, the former Yale president who worked with him at Edison Schools and Avenues; Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley; and Jim Hawkins, former head of the elite Harrow School in London. Designing the schools is Renzo Piano, architect of the Whitney Museum.
Such big-ticket staff and glossy marketing are expensive, said Jonathan Knee, a Columbia Business School professor who called Whittle the “Wizard of Ed” in his book “Class Clowns: How the Smartest Investors Lost Billions in Education.” Mr. Knee questioned whether the school will be sustainable, given Mr. Whittle’s lavish spending.
“This is a startup that is going to be losing money for a long time,” Mr. Knee said. “It’s sort of breathtaking, given the track record, that he could get away with using his name as the brand.”
Mr. Whittle says his investors take the long view: “This is what I would call patient and long-term capital.”
Thomas Franco, an early investor, said he was drawn by Mr. Whittle’s expertise and deep networks in education. “Chris is a catalyst for constructive change in an industry that is very ripe for disruption,” he said. “The obvious challenges are the execution risks but so far the team has demonstrated an ability to manage these.”
Mr. Whittle puts the price of launching the Brooklyn site at more than $300 million, including the developers’ costs. It involves renovating 10 floors of the old Macy’sbuilding on Livingston Street, with a roof terrace, theater, boarding facilities and 16-foot ceilings to inspire creativity.
It advertises hands-on, personalized learning and Mandarin lessons from age 3 to help children compete in a fast-changing global economy. In an echo of Avenues, it promises students will be able to hop among campuses to study abroad. New York already has several established for-profit schools with sister sites in other countries.
With its first open house for parents on Thursday, Whittle School is soliciting applications for preschool and kindergarten next fall. Tuition and fees cost $49,500. Mr. Whittle says the bill for older grades, to start in fall 2021, will reflect the city’s other independent schools, which can top $56,000 yearly.
Some parents are leery of the model. Samuel Abrams, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, cautions that seeking profit from tuition doesn’t fit with an educational mission, or putting as much money as possible into instruction.
“There is a lot of opacity” in the business operations, Mr. Abrams said. “You have to trust, in the case of a complex service, that the provider is going to do what was promised.”
Mr. Whittle says parents care about innovation far more than nonprofit status. “There is no way we could assemble these resources philanthropically,” he said.
The new head of the Brooklyn site, Larry Weiss, has led two nonprofit private schools, Brooklyn Friends and Saint Ann’s. He says Whittle School’s resources will liberate him from the onerous job of raising donations. “It’s an enormous relief for parents, who end up besieged by fundraising” at nonprofits, Mr. Weiss said. “People get angry with each other. People get disappointed.”
Joyce Szuflita, admissions consultant at NYC School Help, says she will watch how the school fares before recommending it. Parents “occasionally grumble that a for-profit school will be less choosy because they have to fill seats,” she said. “Any new school, for profit or not-for-profit, will have this problem.”
Another consultant, Victoria Goldman, says she is happy a new school is coming to Brooklyn, which lacks enough options. “This may not be for everybody,” she said, “but it will be on everybody’s list” to check out.
Some parents are curious. Ari Goldstein, a real-estate executive with a baby and a 3-year-old in Brooklyn Heights, wants to explore public schools nearby as well as Whittle School. He says he likes that it has “the capacity to step back and think about what is the best educational environment, and create something from scratch.”
In a follow up article, Brody of the Wall Street Journal described the legal battle between Whittle’s previous venture, Avenues, and Whittle. The board is prepared to force Whittle to sell his lavish East Hampton estate on Long Island, valued at more than $100 million, to settle his debt.
Chris Whittle, the education entrepreneur who is launching a new for-profit global school in New York City, has been mired in a legal battle over his multimillion-dollar personal debt to his previous local startup, Avenues.
Legal filings by the school’s company, Avenues Global Holdings, say it lent its co-founder, Mr. Whittle, a sum in 2013 that grew to more than $13 million in 2017. He didn’t repay it on time, and the dispute landed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan in 2018.
Officials at Avenues and Mr. Whittle agreed this month that he still owed it roughly $5.8 million, records show. Avenues is one of the city’s biggest independent schools, with annual tuition topping $56,000.
Avenues officials said Wednesday that Mr. Whittle still hadn’t paid the debt and that they are seeking to force a sale of his estate in Long Island’s East Hampton, which they say was appraised at more than $100 million. It sits near the Atlantic Ocean with a view of Georgica Pond.
“Chris has failed to meet his commitments to Avenues,” said Jeff Clark, president of Avenues: The World School, by email. “Despite giving him many chances and time to cure this, we are now pursuing other remedies because of his track record of unkept promises.”
A representative for Mr. Whittle said Wednesday that “Chris anticipates paying the final $5.8 million due over the next couple of weeks.”
Mr. Whittle is known for his bold visions and major setbacks in a series of educational projects. His new business is Whittle School & Studios, which he says will become a single private school with 36 campuses world-wide in a decade. One site is scheduled to open in Brooklyn next autumn.
In a 2017 arbitration filing, Avenues Global Holdings said it lent him about $10.8 million in 2013 “to ameliorate his dire personal financial situation so he could focus on his work for Avenues.” The filing was included as an exhibit in Avenues’ 2018 legal action against Mr. Whittle. He resigned in 2015 because of disagreements with the company’s leadership, and his outstanding loan grew to more than $13 million in 2017, the arbitration filing said.
In his separation agreement, he promised he wouldn’t engage in school operations in New York City and other major cities until November 2018, according to the arbitration filing. Avenues accused him of violating that noncompete clause and his confidentiality agreement by working on the Whittle School before the clause allowed. Some Chinese officials mistook Whittle School representatives for those of Avenues, the arbitration filing said.
Whittle School’s business plan reflects Mr. Whittle’s “effort to copy wholesale the Avenues model in direct violation of his covenants,” the arbitration filing said.
Mr. Whittle vehemently denied violating the noncompete and confidentiality clauses, his representative said Wednesday, noting that the settlement agreement required that he pay only the loan amount due, and no additional damages. The representative said the allegation that Chinese officials mistook anyone from Whittle School as being part of Avenues was never substantiated.
Mr. Whittle has said he has raised more than $1 billion for Whittle School, including funds from investors and real-estate expenses borne by firms that construct and own its campuses.
Mr. Whittle is a former publisher of Esquire magazine and co-founded Edison Schools, a company that helped usher in the charter-school movement in the 1990s but ran into financial problems.
He went on to help start Avenues, which opened in the city’s Chelsea neighborhood in 2012.
Benson Lu, a Whittle School board member, said he was aware of Mr. Whittle’s dispute with his former company. “I don’t think this will be important to parents,” Mr. Lu said. “Parents care more about the quality of education and faculty members.”
New Hampshire has divided government. The governor is a Republican, who chooses the State Commissioner. But in the last election in 2018, Democrats won control of the legislature.
The State Commissioner is a home-schooling parent who is hostile to public schools. He comes from the Betsy DeVos mold.
Speaking of DeVos, she gave New Hampshire $46 million from the federal Charter Schools Program, which is her own $440 million slush fund to promote charters.
If spent, this money would double the number of charters in the state, a dramatic expansion.
But the Legislature used its powers to hold up the grant. They want answers to their questions about how the state’s public schools would be affected, and how the charter expansion would affect the state’s finances.
The pending charter expansion grant – the largest earmarked for any state – aims to double the number of charter schools in New Hampshire over the next five years. It is currently on hold, after Democrats on the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee cited concerns that building more charter schools would lead to unanticipated costs for the state and harm existing, non-charter public schools.
Governor Chris Sununu criticized the hold, calling the money a “game-changing grant [that] would have cost New Hampshire taxpayers nothing.”
But an analysis by the public education non-profit Reaching Higher estimated that, because charter schools are typically funded by the state rather than local districts, the state’s plan to expand charters with this grant money could cost the state over $100 million in the next ten years.
Is this a pig in a poke?
