Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Long Island News - Diane Ravitch to Speak on “Accountability in Great American School System” | Long Island Exchange

Long Island News - Diane Ravitch to Speak on “Accountability in Great American School System” | Long Island Exchange:

Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch to Speak on “Accountability in Great American School System”

Research professor of education at New York University the Thomas Dixon Lovely Ballroom in Ruth S. Harley University Center
(Garden City, NY) Adelphi University is proud to announce that Diane Ravitch will be speaking on “Accountability in the Great American School System” for the Ruth S. Ammon endowed lecture. Having lectured around the world from Poland to Nicaragua, Ravitch is a seasoned speaker whose keynotes on democracy and civic education have been translated by the United States Information Agency (USIA) into several languages, including Polish, Spanish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian. The event will take place on April 3, 2012, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the Thomas Dixon Lovely Ballroom in the Ruth S. Harley University Center, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY.
Diane Ravitch is a research professor of education at New York University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Ravitch is internationally acclaimed for her expertise on past and present education, and has published more than 500 articles and reviews for scholarly and popular publications on the subject. In her most recent publication, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Diane Ravitch critiques today’s most popular ideas for restructuring schools, including privatization, standardized testing, punitive accountability, and the multiplication of charter schools, and offers a clear prescription for improving American public schools.
Beyond academia, Ravitch has made a name for herself in politics as well. As Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander from 1991 to 1993, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. Appointed a member of the National Assessment Governing Board in 1997 and reappointed in 2001, she oversaw the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program.
In 2004, Diane Ravitch received the Leadership Award from the New York City Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. In 2005, she received the John Dewey Award from the United Federation of Teachers of New York City; the Gaudium Award of the Breukelein Institute; and the Uncommon Book Award from the Hoover Institution. In 2006, the Kenneth J. Bialkin/Citigroup Public Service Award was conferred on her. In 2010, the National Education Association selected her as its “Friend of Education” for the year.
The Ruth S. Ammon School of Education prepares students to enter the professional education community with pride. Its range of undergraduate and graduate programs offers concentrations in many specialized areas of teaching and leadership. Through courses and fieldwork, students learn how to combine educational theories and techniques to improve classroom learning. At a time when many schools of education have eliminated these disciplines, The Ruth S. Ammon School of Education remains steadfast in encouraging students to explore the arts, and engaging students in dialogue about the economic, social, political, gender, and ethnic inequalities that exist in today’s society.
To learn about the Ruth S. Ammon School of Education, visit http://education.adelphi.edu/.
About Adelphi University:
Adelphi is a world-class, modern university with excellent and highly relevant programs where students prepare for lives of active citizenship and professional careers. Through its schools and programs—The College of Arts and Sciences, Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Honors College, Robert B. Willumstad School of Business, Ruth S. Ammon School of Education, University College, and the Schools of Nursing and Social Work—the coeducational university offers undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as professional and educational programs for adults. Adelphi University currently enrolls nearly 8,000 students from 43 states and 45 foreign countries. With its main campus in Garden City and its centers in Manhattan, Hauppauge, and Poughkeepsie, the University, chartered in 1896, maintains a commitment to liberal studies, in tandem with rigorous professional preparation and active citizenship.

MORNING UPDATE: LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 3-6-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

A Parent Reflects on the LA Election

by dianerav

This parent was not opposed to charters. She didn’t pay much attention to battles over school issues, although her own children attend a public school in Los Angeles.
But when she realized that millions of dollars were flowing into the school board race, many from out of state, she began to realize that something big was going on.
She realized that the big money was interested in something other than its stated aims. She realized that the rhetoric of “reform” was a cover for privatization of public goods:
“This election, with its shockingly outsized spending has revealed a hidden agenda, as old as the hills. With massive institutions and systems is embedded the opportunity for equally massive personal gain. Prerequisite is private control, wrenched from what was formerly public, democratic governance. Couching this banality of greed in educational ideology has been an effective strategy, but tonight’s results suggest a whisper of increasing

How Corporate Reformers Explain Big Loss in Los Angeles

by dianerav

While we were celebrating Steve Zimmer’s thrilling win over Kate Anderson in the Los Angeles school board race, the corporate reform crowd had to figure out how to spin this embarrassing defeat.
Here it is, fresh from Twitter: Deasey kept his school board majority! Monica Garcia was re-elected! Big money saves Deasey!
Inconvenient facts: The billionaires put together about $5 million to beat Steve Zimmer, who is a member of the school board in his first term. Steve is an independent thinker who dared to propose oversight for charters and a moratorium on new charters until the board had established some means of holding them accountable. Steve is also a TFA alum who remained as a public school teacher for 17 years. To the billionaires who own the charter

Chain Store Charter School To Open in Memphis

by dianerav

Aspire Charter Schools will open in Memphis, its first venture outside of California.
It comes with a big wad of money to guarantee success. The perks are munificent, since the chain has set aside $100,000 for marketing before the school opens this fall under private management.
Philanthropists–eager to prove that privatization works better than public schools–have pledged $28 million to help Aspire take over ten public schools in Memphis over a five-year period. The federal government–eager to support Secretary Duncan’s belief that private management is always superior to public control–has awarded Aspire a tidy $800,000.
You do have to wonder how long that kind of money will be available as new charters open and multiply, or is this

If Only Mayor Bloomberg Understood Proficiency Rates…

by dianerav

Matt Di Carlo noticed an odd sentence in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “State of the City” address. The mayor, as is now customary, was applauding his administration for the amazing progress of the schools under his stewardship, and he said the following, in anticipation of the new Common Core assessments:
“But no matter where the definition of proficiency is arbitrarily set on the new tests, I expect that our students’ progress will continue outpacing the rest of the State’s[,] the only meaningful measurement of progress we have.”
Di Carlo skillfully takes apart that sentence to show that the mayor has no idea what he is talking about. If the

How Georgia Politicians Violate State Constitution

by dianerav

As Anthony Cody explains, the Georgia state constitution is clear:
“No money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly, or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult, or religious denomination or of any sectarian institution.”
What part of that is ambiguous. Even the phase “directly or indirectly” says NO.
Yet Georgia has enacted a tax credit plan to divert money from the public treasury to send children to sectarian,

L.A. Upset!

by dianerav

According to the results posted in the Los Angeles Times, with 100% of the vote counted but not certified, Steve Zimmer won by 52-48%!
Assuming that no one discovers a precinct with thousands of uncounted votes, this is a stunning upset!
Zimmer faced the combined opposition of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, billionaire Eli Broad, billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, Michelle Rhee’s teacher-bashing StudentsFirst, the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times, and an assortment of Hollywood elite executives.
Millions of dollars were amassed to knock Zimmer off the school board.

LA Election: Early Returns (Gasp!)

by dianerav

The latest bulletin from Los Angeles: Monica Garcia, with the billionaires’ bundle, easily beat four opponents who had no money, including the fearless Robert Skeels.
But–wow!–the main target of the billionaires, Steve Zimmer, was running ahead of his opponent.
What an upset that would be!
Nearly $5 million was raised by the mayor of Los Angeles and billionaire Eli Broad to knock Steve Zimmer off the school board. Mayor Michael Bloomberg added his $1 million to the anti-Zimmer fund. The maligned and vilified UTLA, which has had the nerve to defend teachers, put about $700,000 into Zimmer’s campaign.
Zimmer is no tool of the UTLA. He is independent, principled, and moderate. His only sin: he offended the

Teachers in Grand Rapids Say They Qualify for Food Stamps

by dianerav

Want to know why teachers are demoralized? Read this story from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Michigan has been a national leader in attacking public education, increasing charters, and diminishing teachers’ pay and benefits. Governor Rick Snyder must take pride in crushing his state’s public school teachers.
Oh, did you know that more than 80% of the charters in Michigan are for-profit?

Why Do Conservatives Want to Kill Small-Town America?

by dianerav

This is one of the best newspaper articles I have read about the damaging impact of vouchers and tax credits on small-town and rural America.
The big question is why so many conservatives want to destroy one of our nation’s most enduring and central institutions: our public schools. There is little or no evidence that “school choice” produces better academic results. It does, however, privatize education.
Since when do conservatives go around blowing up traditional institutions?
The tax credit program in Georgia isn’t supposed to help “poor kids in failing schools.” It is designed to provide

NY Post: “Obama Blesses Walmart”

by dianerav

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post ran an editorial pointing out the irony of Obama selecting the director of the Walmart Foundation to run OMB, the agency that makes decisions about the nation’s spending.
During his 2008 campaign, Obama criticized a hillary Clinton for sitting on the board of Walmart, and he blasted the corporation’s hostility to labor unions and the environment. Norm he praises Walmart for saving consumers’

Diane in the Evening 3-5-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 5 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Viva Eastside Memorial High School! by dianerav On other posts, I have told the story of Eastside Memorial High School in Austin, Texas. The school board and superintendent (Broad-trained) decided to give the school to a charter chain called IDEA. This was not popular with the community. Many families in the neighborhood pulled their children out of the IDEA charter in protest and sent them elsewhere. In the November election, the community elected a school board member opposed to the charter takeover, and the ... more »

UPDATE: Aim for balance behind shift to local control + State Board poised to lower standards for middle school math | EdSource Today

State Board poised to lower standards for middle school math | EdSource Today:

Brown’s former adviser: Aim for balance behind shift to local control - by John Fensterwald

by John Fensterwald

Sue Burr has seen and done a lot in 40-plus years of playing key roles in California education – advising legislators and governors, administering the finances of a large school district, running the state county superintendents’ organization and, for the past two years, serving as executive director of the State Board of Education.

Burr retired at the end of last year, only to be nominated two weeks later by Gov. Jerry Brown to return to the State Board of Education – this time as a member setting policy, not as an administrator carrying it out.

Kathy Baron and I caught up with her in Sacramento and asked her to reflect back on her years in education and to look forward to the

State Board poised to lower standards for middle school math - by Doug McRae

by Doug McRae

Doug McRae, a retired testing publisher, from Monterey.

At its meeting next week, the California State Board of Education will consider eliminating the incentive for schools to offer a full Algebra 1 course to students ready to take Algebra by 8^th grade. But removing this incentive would result in a de facto lowering of expectations for mathematics programs in middle schools, and lead to a significant reduction in the number of middle school students becoming proficient in Algebra. Do we really want to do this?

Perhaps it is best to view this issue from the perspective of a middle school mom who asked in an email several weeks ago: “With state board action adopting Common Core grade 8 math standards in January, will middle schools be able to offer Algebra?” She continued, “My son’s school will be offering the new 8^th grade Common Core class next year but not Algebra. I’d like my son (who is a high performing math student) to take Algebra 1 in 8^thgrade. The middle school principal, high school principal, and high school math teacher have all said this is a better pathway for college prep.”

My email reply was: “Middle schools will have the option to offer Algebra. The State Board’s action

Oregon Save Our Schools: How Did This Happen? The History of Oregon's Corporate-Driven Education Policy Model

Oregon Save Our Schools: How Did This Happen? The History of Oregon's Corporate-Driven Education Policy Model:

How Did This Happen? The History of Oregon's Corporate-Driven Education Policy Model

by Oregon SOS

How Did This Happen? The History of Oregon's Corporate-Driven Education Policy Model

In January, Tom Olson, of Oregon Save Our Schools, put his research together to explain and summarize how Oregon's corporate education reform model came into being. The education reform plan was created swiftly with hand-picked voices and strategists, and the public's concerns and input were ignored. Hopefully, from reading this, Oregonians will realize that we are on the wrong path and demand changes to turn this around into a different and improved model that not only supports a well-rounded and quality-funded education plan but also includes the voices of teachers, parents, students, and community members.

Philadelphia School Closings: The Struggle To Make High School Work Pits Sentiment vs. Data | toteachornototeach

Philadelphia School Closings: The Struggle To Make High School Work Pits Sentiment vs. Data | toteachornototeach:

Philadelphia School Closings: The Struggle To Make High School Work Pits Sentiment vs. Data

by aristotlethewise

Philadelphia School Closings: The Struggle To
Make High School Work Pits Sentiment vs. Data

For almost an hour, Frank Thorne stood in line, waiting to denounce Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite. It was early January. Nearly a thousand angry people were packed into a school auditorium. Along one wall, looking unhappy, stood a handful of North Philadelphia politicians, including Darrell Clarke, the president of City Council.
A first grader, then a teacher, then a parade of parents and activists blasted Hite’s unprecedented plan to close 37 city schools, including Strawberry Mansion, their neighborhood high school. By the time Thorne got to the microphone, he could barely contain his anger.
He graduated from Mansion in 1994. He still lives less than a mile away.
“Strawberry Mansion is a community,” said Thorne. “Why are you closing a school that’s been around since

UPDATE: Sometimes words are simply insufficient Daily Kos: Maureen Dowd takes apart Dick Cheney

Daily Kos: Maureen Dowd takes apart Dick Cheney:

Sometimes words are simply insufficient

by [email protected] (teacherken)

to express the horror and shame one can feel.
That does not even come close to describe what i felt when a friend passed on a link, i opened it, and read From El Salvador to Iraq: Washington's man behind brutal police squads in The Guardian. The subtitle on the web page does not give you the full impact, but will point you at what to expect:

In 2004, with the war in Iraq going from bad to worse, the US drafted in a veteran of Central America's dirty wars to help set up a new force to fight the insurgency. The result: secret detention centres, torture and a spiral into sectarian carnage

If one believes what the article offers - and given the track record of the paper for accuracy in reporting I do - what we did, with the apparent blessing of important figures including the likes of David Petraeus, is a national shame.I am not by nature a vindictive person, as those who read me here regularly know, yet I found myself, after

Maureen Dowd takes apart Dick Cheney

by [email protected] (teacherken)

in a column titled Repent, Dick Cheney, in today's New York Times, Dowd examines a forthcoming documentary on Showtime titled “The World According to Dick Cheney,” produced by R. J. Cutler, she says of the man she calls "America’s most powerful and destructive vice president" that he

woos history by growling yet again that he was right and everyone else was wrong.

This is not Dowd in her usual snarky mode, although there are lines of snark, but rather the sharp-witted Dowd determined to portray Cheney accurately, as he in effect presents himself in the documentary.She lets Cheney, who was a raised in a Democratic family in Wyoming, explain that it was the anti-war protests against Vietnam he saw in Madison Wisconsin while doing doctoral studies that turned him conservative, and then frames it in an inescapable fashion by writing

Maybe if he’d paid more attention to the actual war, conducted with a phony casus belli in a country where we did not understand the culture, he wouldn’t have propelled America into two more Vietnams.

Please keep reading.

UPDATE: Voters send mixed signals to school reformers in L.A. + How closing schools hurts neighborhoods

How closing schools hurts neighborhoods:

Voters send mixed signals to school reformers in L.A.

Posted by Valerie Strauss on March 6, 2013 at 3:05 pm

Voters keep sending signals that they have very mixed feelings about corporate-based school reform. The latest signs come from Los Angeles, where Tuesday’s races for three Board of Education seats resulted in one defeat, one win, and one runoff for supporters of school reform.

The reason it matters is that Los Angeles is the second largest public school district in the country, and people around the country were watching the elections as a kind of bellwether of public support for controversial reforms.

The biggest news was that Steve Zimmer, the school board member in Los Angeles who has proposed halting the opening of new charter schools and evaluating teachers with student test scores, beat a challenger who had backing from big reformers outside California, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Los Angeles Times said Zimmer won 52.1 percent of the vote in District 4 in a close race against Kate Anderson, who garnered 47.9 percent of the vote.

The Zimmer-Anderson race was the most expensive and publicized of three races for the Board of Education in the Los Angeles Unified School District in Tuesday’s elections. Anderson was backed by a coalition of donors, which was put together by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and included Bloomberg, who gave $1 million, and Michelle Rhee, whose StudentsFirst organization gave $250,000.

Another race for the school board was won by the exceptionally well-funded incumbent

How closing schools hurts neighborhoods

Posted by Valerie Strauss on March 6, 2013 at 6:00 am

Comments

(thenotebook.org)

On Thursday, the Philadelphia school district’s governing board, the School Reform Commission, will be voting on the most massive one-time downsizing of the system ever proposed. The district’s recently revised plan, which has encountered widespread community and teacher opposition, calls for closing 29 out of 239 district schools next fall – a step down from the original proposal to shutter 37 schools. The system is grappling with a budget gap of $1.1 billion over five years and has seen enrollment decline as more than 80 charter schools have been created since the late 1990s.

Here’s a piece on what the school closing really mean to neighborhoods, by Elaine Simon, co-director of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She has studied and written about Philadelphia school reform for almost three decades and for the last six years taught a project-based learning course, “Schools and Community Development,” in collaboration with teachers in West Philadelphia high schools. This appeared on the

Why the ‘learning pyramid’ is wrong

by Valerie Strauss

A lot of people believe that the “learning pyramid” that lists learning scenarios and average student retention rates is reliable. Here’s cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham to explain why it isn’t. Willingham is professor and director of graduate studies in psychology … Continue reading →

Advanced Placement Courses Need More Than a Makeover (Jack Schneider) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Advanced Placement Courses Need More Than a Makeover (Jack Schneider) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Advanced Placement Courses Need More Than a Makeover (Jack Schneider)

by larrycuban

Jack Schneider is an assistant professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Mass., and the author of Excellence for All: How a New Breed of Reformers Is Transforming America’s Public Schools (Vanderbilt University Press, 2011).
To the many in the world of education reform, the latest AP Report to the Nation—released recently by the College Board—is cause for celebration on two fronts. The first achievement has to do with equity. During the program’s early history in the 1960s, Advanced Placement courses were generally populated by white students. Even as recently as the mid-1990s, 80 percent of AP exams were taken by whites or Asians. Today, however, roughly a third of students participating in the program are non-Asian students of color. And that number is growing every year.
The second achievement has to do with teaching and learning. By the twenty-first century, AP was being assailed by its critics for failing to evolve. While college professors increasingly guided students through closer

Per-student spending on public higher ed drops to 25-year low | Hechinger Report

Per-student spending on public higher ed drops to 25-year low | Hechinger Report:

Per-student spending on public higher ed drops to 25-year low

by Jon Marcus

The amount being spent per student by public colleges and universities has fallen to its lowest level in at least 25 years, a result of state budget cuts a new report warns are rapidly eroding the nation’s educational edge over its international competitors. The report, by the Boulder, Colorado-based State Higher Education Executive Officers, or SHEEO, shows that state and local financial support for public universities and colleges fell 7 percent last year, on top of a 9 percent drop the year before. And while enrollment also fell slightly—a result, the organization’s president said, not of lower demand, but of higher tuition—it’s still higher than in 2008, when the steep budget cuts began. The result is that the amount being spent, per student, is $5,896, the lowest level in the 25 years since it’s been tracked by SHEEO. And a much higher proportion of that is being charged to families in the form of tuition than is being

Kindergarteners: Get Ready to “Confront the New Economy” – @ the chalk face

Kindergarteners: Get Ready to “Confront the New Economy” – @ the chalk face:

Kindergarteners: Get Ready to “Confront the New Economy”

by Kris Nielsen

Earlier today, I had a short Twitter conversation with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. It went something like this:

Randi: not the implementation or roll out, but the [Common] core is key to helping kids confront new economy

Me: It will help them face the new economy. Not in a good way. Read this:http://atthechalkface.com/2013/03/05/the-school-to-workforce-pipeline-at-least-it-isnt-prison/

Randi: teaching problem solving and critical thinking?

Me: so, teachers haven’t done that in the past? CCSS is not designed for those skills

Me, again: No evidence of CCSS boosting problem solving or critical thinking. So far, evidence shows opposite

Randi: thats why the rollout is so flawed- I have seen some of the good common core work

Me: so have i. Doesn’t change the fact that they narrow learning and kids personal goals.

Me, again: Common Core for common kids.

Why do leaders who supposedly support teachers keep sticking up for the Core, but damning its

NYC Educator: The Disappearing Bookcase

NYC Educator: The Disappearing Bookcase:

The Disappearing Bookcase

by NYC Educator

Sandy hit us very hard. We had to pull out the floors and walls of our living room, dining room and kitchen. Just for the heck of it, we tore out a lot of the ceilings as well. A lot of our furniture went into the trash. Some survived. For example, I have an ancient oak bookcase that I inherited from my grandfather. Sadly, it's pretty small. For the bulk of my book collection I had two huge bookcases I'd bought at Costco years ago. They were sort of a hybrid--a chipboard back with what appeared to be real wood shelves. Alas, they didn't make it.

My wife was not nearly as upset as I that the bottom two shelves of my books were garbage. She'd been urging me to shed my collection for years, but I couldn't bear it. For about three months, we've had huge boxes of books cluttering up our dining room, and I had no place to put them.

I really looked for a half-decent bookcase, but all I could find were small things of dubious quality in the $3-400

One Teacher's Perspective: DNR School Vouchers

One Teacher's Perspective: DNR School Vouchers:

DNR School Vouchers

by Imagine Wisconsin

For the betterment of Wisconsin, Gov. Walker should adhere to the do not resuscitate (DNR) order and let the state's voucher experiment die peacefully. Instead, this past week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker began administering CPR to his flatlining school voucher plan.

In an attempt to rescue the Koch Brothers-promoted plan, Gov. Walker has reversed his position and now supports voucher schools being subjected to the same accountability standards of Wisconsin’s public schools. The falsehood of Gov. Walker’s sudden compromise plan is exposed by the laissez-faire think tanks trying to pump artificial life into this dying plan.

The death bell tolls on the voucher proposal as school leaders, communities, and, surprisingly,

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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

How Did This Happen? The History of Oregon's Corporate-Driven Education Policy Model