Sunday, June 12, 2016

Paul Tough Grapples with Real Challenges Faced by Low Income Students - Living in Dialogue

Paul Tough Grapples with Real Challenges Faced by Low Income Students - Living in Dialogue:

Paul Tough Grapples with Real Challenges Faced by Low Income Students

By John Thompson.

I can’t wait to read and reread Paul Tough’s new book, Helping Children Succeed: What works and Why. Tough’s Atlantic Magazine preview mostly prompted unadulterated joy from reading such an excellent synthesis of scientific research. But it also serves as a reminder that I should not repeat my mistake with his previous masterpiece, How Children Succeed, and get my hopes up and assume that corporate reformers will really listen to Tough and his sources.

In fact, I suspect that many accountability-driven reformers will respond as they have long been doing with Tough’s and others’ indictments of data-driven, competition-driven reform; they will quote Tough and continue – or even step up – the policies that Tough argues against. My first post, however, will focus on the ways that Tough explains what reformers have done wrong since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and how science points the way toward a new era of respectful and humane school improvement.

Tough’s Atlantic article doesn’t mince words, and it immediately repudiates the cornerstone of the contemporary reform movement. Tough says, “The truth, as many American teachers know firsthand, is that low-income children can be harder to educate than children from more-comfortable backgrounds.” Had output-driven reformers understood that, I doubt we would have gone down their test-driven, competition-driven path. New opportunities have arisen, however, since “the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Act, which dominated federal education policy for the past decade and a half, was finally euthanized.”

First, we now know what most education researchers anticipated would be the likely result of data-driven accountability. The reformers’ quest for metrics to drive their reward and punish schemes would fail to produce reliable estimates of the effect of individual teachers on student performance, even when it was Paul Tough Grapples with Real Challenges Faced by Low Income Students - Living in Dialogue:

Research and Complacency | The Patiently Impatient Teacher

Research and Complacency | The Patiently Impatient Teacher:

Research and Complacency

So a lot of recent conversation in the education blogosphere has been about research, specifically whether or not it used or used wisely (here and here). These are timely and important conversations to have as I find a lot of truth to them.

An excellent example of the role of research in the education reform conversation can be seen in this blog. I don’t know the author of this blog, and it is certainly no better or no worse that many others, it is simply one that came across my social media feeds and caught my attention as a topic that I have read a lot of research on. So my apologies to the author in advance for being singled out.

The blog discusses the fact that improvement of schooling at the high school level has been particularly difficult. The author mentions a series of articles from EdWeek that are located behind a pay wall, so I am unable to determine what, if any, research or examples are cited in the material. The only other citation of “research” is from a policy paper from a philanthropic organization. The author concludes that the reason that it is so hard to reform high school is that most communities are complacent about the quality of their high school as simply “good enough” and that they reject the idea of changing the system as something that only those poor, inner city schools with Research and Complacency | The Patiently Impatient Teacher:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: "Are You Legal or Illegal?"

Seattle Schools Community Forum: "Are You Legal or Illegal?":

"Are You Legal or Illegal?"

Sigh.

Yes, State Superintendent Randy Dorn, visiting Raisbeck Aviation High School this week, said to a student, "Now I'll ask you under my breath, are you legal or illegal?" after the student said he had gone to school in Mexico for part of his schooling.

Superintendent Dorn is not a bad guy and, according to the Times article, Ricardo Sanchez, a member of the Washington State Commission on Hispanic affairs, says Dorn has worked to help get financial aid for undocumented students seeking higher education.

But really, kind of tone-deaf (and it came out worse because he chuckled as he said it.) Dorn has sought out the student to apologize.

There was another interesting story this week regarding undocumented students and high school graduation. From the New York Times, "2 Valedictorians in Texas Declare Undocumented Status, and Outrage Ensues."

When Mayte Lara Ibarra, the valedictorian of her high school’s graduating class, revealed her plans to attend the University of Texas at Austin on a scholarship, she did what any graduate would do: She shared her excitement on social media.

Ms. Ibarra also declared, proudly, that she is undocumented.

“Valedictorian, 4.5GPA, full tuition paid for at UT, 13 cords/medals, nice legs, oh and I’m undocumented,” Ms. Ibarrawrote in a tweet posted last week, hours after she gave her valedictory speech to fellow graduates at David Crockett High School in Austin.

Texas, not exactly known for great public education, has this on its side:

Gary Susswein, a spokesman for the University of Texas, said that federal law prevented him from discussing the cases of individual students, but he offered a statement that said that the university grants two-semester tuition waivers to all valedictorians of Texas public high schools regardless of their residency status.

“State law also does not distinguish between documented and undocumented graduates of Texas high schools in admissions Seattle Schools Community Forum: "Are You Legal or Illegal?":

Harold Meyerson: The Challenge for Progressives in California to Clean Up Our Politics | Diane Ravitch's blog

Harold Meyerson: The Challenge for Progressives in California to Clean Up Our Politics | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Harold Meyerson: The Challenge for Progressives in California to Clean Up Our Politics

Harold Meyerson, editor of The American Prospect, writes in the Los Angeles Times that progressives in California should stay involved in state politics and join to defeat the power of big money.

As he shows, the big money interests have combined to elect conservative Democrats and defeat progressive Democrats. Because of the state’s “top-two” primaries, regardless of party, the big-money guys are picking malleable conservative Democrats and pouring millions into their campaigns to pick off progressive campaigns.

Bernie Sanders’ keystone issue was to limit the role of money in politics. In California, the moneyed interests are saturating legislative races with donations that their opponents can’t match.

Over the past two years, oil companies and “education reform” billionaires have been funding campaigns for obliging Democratic candidates running against their more progressive co-partisans under the state’s “top-two” election process. In this week’s primary, independent committees spent at least $24 million, with most of that money flowing to Democrats who opposed Gov. Jerry Brown’s effort to halve motorists’ use of fossil fuels by 2030, and a substantial sum going to Democrats who support expanding charter schools.

Six years ago, according to the Associated Press, just one legislative primary race had more than $1 million in outside spending, and four had more than $500,000. This year, eight races saw more than $1 million in such spending, and 15 more than $500,000.

In a heavily Democratic district outside Sacramento, a November state Senate runoff will pit Democratic Assemblyman Bill Dodd, who opposed Brown’s legislation, against former Democratic Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada. Dodd has already benefited from one independent campaign funded by Chevron and other energy companies to the tune of more than $270,000, and from an education reform campaign funded by charter school proponents such as billionaire Eli Broad in the amount of $1.68 million.

Since progressives can’t match their millions, they should do their best to expose them and their surrogates as the puppets they are.

Public education in California is a plum for the billionaires. They want to privatize it. Who are the biggest spenders in the self-named “education reform movement”? Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings, and Alice Walton. None is a parent in public schools. None has children in public schools. Two do not even live in California.

This is NOT what democracy looks like.Harold Meyerson: The Challenge for Progressives in California to Clean Up Our Politics | Diane Ravitch's blog:

What’s happening to two undocumented Texas valedictorians says it all about the immigration debate - The Washington Post

What’s happening to two undocumented Texas valedictorians says it all about the immigration debate - The Washington Post:

What’s happening to two undocumented Texas valedictorians says it all about the immigration debate

A pair of high school valedictorians in Texas have become the targets of social media attacks.

Plenty of people are subject to abuse online. But those who dare to be anything other than white, straight or male had better learn to practice deep breathing. This is especially true if one is also an undocumented immigrant who graduated high school at the top of one's class.

This can be stated as simple fact because, when it became public knowledge that the two girls had not only topped their high school classes but were respectively headed to Yale University and the University of Texas at Austin, the Internet went wild.

The content of online insults, rebukes and complaints shared about the two girls seems to rotate around a theme. The essence: these girls — and they are girls — have gamed the system and are proud of it it. And now, they are preparing to do it again, "taking" some other students' places at Yale and UT. One mother of another child who graduated alongside one of the girls added that she never thought she would favor deporting a child who attended high school in the United States and never thought she would be a Trump supporter, but this situation had made her both.

In truth, a pretty straight line can be drawn between the public reaction to these students and the current state of American immigration politics. The overlap in the sentiments expressed by so many of those who launched an online war against the students and voters convinced that their economic prospects would improve if the country only had a border wall really should not be missed. What's happened to the two young women in Texas doesn't just speak volumes about the uncivil state of affairs online; it reveals a lot about the way that many Americans view immigration and immigrants overall.

After leading her Austin, Tex., graduating class in the Pledge of Allegiance and delivering the valedictory address, Mayte Lara Ibarra sparked a rabid Twitter controversy with a single tweet. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

"People tend to view the economy as a fixed pie where there is only so many jobs," said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. He says people think there is "only so much opportunity, and that is simply not true. People create jobs, What’s happening to two undocumented Texas valedictorians says it all about the immigration debate - The Washington Post:

Racism in Boston’s schools was focus of gathering at Dorchester church - The Boston Globe

Racism in Boston’s schools was focus of gathering at Dorchester church - The Boston Globe:

Racism in Boston’s schools focus of Dorchester gathering

A white student at East Boston High School told a story about a history teacher who said white privilege doesn’t exist.

A Boston Latin Academy freshman who is biracial talked about a white student who reacted to the hashtag used for stories about racism at the prestigious Boston Latin School by threatening to become a Nazi.

Those stories were among the experiences shared Saturday in the basement of Greater Love Tabernacle in Dorchester, where about 100 students, parents, teachers, ministers, and community leaders discussed the racial climate in Boston public schools and ways to improve it.

“It’s been the elephant in the room and nobody wants to talk about it, but yet it impacts every single thing that we do,” said Barbara Fields, a former BPS equity officer. “I would challenge anyone in this room to come up with an issue that we’re dealing with and show how race has nothing to do with it.”

Complaints of racism and segregation have a long history in Boston’s public school system, which was ordered by a judge to desegregate through a busing system in 1974.

The latest discussion about racism in the schools was brought to the fore anew on Martin Luther King Jr. Day when two Latin School seniors, Meggie Noel and Kylie Webster-Cazeau, posted a video to YouTube in which they denounced the racial climate at the exam school. They complained that some classmates used racial slurs inside the school and on social media, but did not face discipline.

Both participated in Saturday’s gathering, called a Town Hall Action Meeting.

Their video and social media campaign prompted school department officials to launch an investigation in which they found administrators properly handled six race-based incidents reported over a 16-month period but mishandled a seventh.

Latin School headmaster Lynne Mooney Teta later apologized for not responding more quickly to racial tensions, but the local branch of the NAACP and US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz both launched investigations of racism at the school.

The gathering in the church basement Saturday was among a series of events organized by community leaders since Noel and Webster-Cazeau posted their video.

The assembly also observed a moment of silence in honor of Raekwon Brown, a 17-year-old junior gunned down Wednesday outside Jeremiah E. Burke High School.

“We need to get the activists unified so that we could come up with a single set of strategies and recommendations in order to help them change the Boston public school system,” said the Rev. Racism in Boston’s schools was focus of gathering at Dorchester church - The Boston Globe:

Lansing's schools plan imperils Detroit's resurrection

Lansing's schools plan imperils Detroit's resurrection:

Lansing's schools plan imperils Detroit's resurrection

Steven Rhodes wore the wistful expression of a man who wished he had stayed retired.

Instead here he was, no longer a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge but still in Detroit, trying to convince a roomful of skeptical journalists that Michigan's largest school system would survive Lansing's latest attempt to cut off its life support.

Just 18 months ago, Rhodes was proudly presiding over the nearly miraculous resolution of Detroit's Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Surveying the crowd of antagonistic stakeholders who'd grudgingly submitted to the grand bargain brokered by Rhodes and chief mediator Gerald Rosen, the outgoing judge was confident he'd provided Detroit with a plausible path to recovery

Now, Rhodes has reason to worry that the same governor who offered the city a new lease on life three summers ago is poised to sign its death warrant. The instrument of execution: a cynically mislabeled "rescue package" for Detroit schools, adopted by Republican state legislators who want nothing more than to euthanize DPS once and for all.

If you think this is hyperbole, you don't understand what's in the legislation.

Rhodes does, and he knows Lansing's prescription for DPS jeopardizes everything he and Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr accomplished when they shepherded the city through its Chapter 9 ordeal.

Mission unaccomplished

Always a precise man, Rhodes has become downright circumspect since Snyder named him the latest in a long procession of emergency managers to oversee Detroit's struggling school system. (Rhodes prefers the title "transition manager," which emphasizes his determination to be DPS's last such state-appointed usurper.) So when he visited the Free Press Thursday just hours after lawmakers gutted the DPS legislation he and other stakeholders had patiently shepherded through the state Senate, Rhodes politely declined the opportunity to condemn the inferior substitute or its legislative authors.

But Rhodes is also a realist; he has neither the patience nor the aptitude for putting lipstick on a pig. So instead of characterizing the DPS legislation as "a new beginning" or "a good start," he methodically outlined what the bills do (acknowledged the state's responsibility for the school district's multibillion-dollar debt, accumulated mostly on the watch of Rhodes' Lansing-appointed predecessors) and what they don't do (provide sufficient working capital to make DPS classrooms habitable and keep the school district solvent after the term-limited governor and the incumbent state Legislature are gone).

The survival of DPS is in jeopardy, Rhodes conceded, unless Snyder makes good on his pledge to find at least another $50 million to supplement the $617 million GOP lawmakers grudgingly appropriated in a straight party-line vote Thursday morning.

If you've been listening to the disingenuous rhetoric Republican leaders like House Speaker Kevin Cotter have deployed to defend his party's rescue plan, you may be puzzled by my assertion that Cotter and his colleagues have it in for DPS.

The cheapest way out

But make no mistake: Cotter and his caucus — and the coalition of for-profit charter operators and right-wing ideologues who have bankrolled their ascendancy — are determined to put the state's largest school district out of business once and for all. In their eyes, Detroiters have forfeited the right to exercise sovereignty over their children's education, and Republicans are determined to transfer it to a charter movement that has minimal accountability to any government body.

Wait, you say. If GOP lawmakers are really out to bankrupt DPS, why did they just hand the district a $617-million bailout?

And if Detroit parents really want to exercise control over their children's education, isn't an unregulated education marketplace in which traditional public schools and charters compete for students (and the taxpayer support tied to them) the ideal venue in which to exercise their consumer discretion?

The answer to the first question is simple. As eager as Republicans are to put DPS out of business for good, they know Michigan can't afford a Chapter 9 bankruptcy that would put state taxpayers on the hook for as much as $3 billion. The $617 million the Legislature appropriated is the minimum necessary to avoid such a reckoning Lansing's schools plan imperils Detroit's resurrection:

Racist Nightmare Principal Allegedly Terrorizes Black Teachers in NYC, Sparks DOJ Lawsuit

Racist Nightmare Principal Allegedly Terrorizes Black Teachers in NYC, Sparks DOJ Lawsuit:

Racist Nightmare Principal Allegedly Terrorizes Black Teachers in NYC, Sparks DOJ Lawsuit

Being a teacher is hard. Being a black teacher is really hard. Being a black teacher with a racist, white principal who ridicules you for having "big lips," refers to you as a "gorilla in a sweater" and routinely conspires to get you fired is arguably the hardest of all.

Meet Minerva Zanca, the former principal of Pan American International High School in Queens, New York. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was suing the New York City Department of Education over a "pattern" of racial discrimination stemming from Zanca's alleged behavior.

During the 2012-2013 school year, the DOJ claims, Zanca targeted two of her school's three black teachers, John Flanagan and Heather Hightower, for unsatisfactory lesson ratings — before she even saw their lessons.

When Assistant Principal Anthony Riccardo later refused to give Hightower an unsatisfactory grade at Zanca's behest, Zanca allegedly yelled at him, accused him of "sabotaging her plan" and had security remove him from the school grounds, according to the DOJ.

Zanca also allegedly told Riccardo that Hightower "looked like a gorilla in a sweater." Zanca asked Riccardo if he heard Mr. Flanagan's "big lips quivering" during a meeting once and told him that she could "never" deal with having "fucking nappy hair" like Hightower's, the reportadded.

A third black teacher, Lisa-Erika James, ran a successful theater program at the school. The DOJ says Zanca repeatedly tried to cut the program, canceling student shows at her whim and refusing to fund production costs despite the school having plenty of money to do so. When James managed to raise money by other means, Zanca allegedly claimed the school didn't have funds to pay her overtime wages for extra rehearsals.

This would all be bad enough had the NYC Department of Education not also refused to do anything about it. Allegations about Zanca's racially motivated conduct were brought to the attention of Juan Mendez, the superintendent of schools in Queens borough, but the DOE did nothing to stop or reprimand her.

Zanca retired in 2015. According to WNYC, Pan American International High School serves mostly new immigrant students who have not yet mastered English, most of whom are Hispanic.

When asked for comment about the DOJ's lawsuit by the New York Times, Zanca reportedly Racist Nightmare Principal Allegedly Terrorizes Black Teachers in NYC, Sparks DOJ Lawsuit:

Parenting as a Teacher, Teaching as a Parent - Capturing the Spark: Energizing Teaching and Schools - Education Week Teacher

Parenting as a Teacher, Teaching as a Parent - Capturing the Spark: Energizing Teaching and Schools - Education Week Teacher:

Parenting as a Teacher, Teaching as a Parent

Not even two weeks past the end of the prior school year, I'm giving plenty of thought to next year. One particular change on my mind is that my oldest child will now be the same age as my students. It's been 15 years in the making, this convergence in my life, with sophomores in my classroom and a sophomore at home. As a result, I've been thinking about what I've learned as a teacher that helps me as the parent of teenagers, and what I've learned as a parent that has helped me teach.

My teaching experience has helped me take the long view with my children. I started teaching in the mid-1990s, and have had the pleasure of keeping in touch with former students now well into their adulthood, into careers (including teaching) and parenthood. I've developed some sense of how many different paths there are, and I'm comfortable with the uncertainty and ambiguity at this point, confident that young people tend to find their way, with or without parental help, or approval. I've seen many former students go directly to college and then graduate schools or work, what many of us consider the typical or expected route. Some former students have gone in different directions, following their own vision and ambition to other productive and rewarding experiences. Some of these young adults get lost for a while, some deal with illnesses and addictions. Don't get me wrong: there are reasons to be scared. There are also reasons to be excited. And there's no way of being certain what's coming. I'm going to continue giving advice and support, sharing my values and expectations, but I'm under no illusion that I can choose a path for my children, solve their problems, or protect them from the world.

My teaching experience has also helped me put my children in charge of their education as much as possible. When they need to work something out with their teachers, I expect Parenting as a Teacher, Teaching as a Parent - Capturing the Spark: Energizing Teaching and Schools - Education Week Teacher:

In North Carolina, New Schools Charter School Chain FAILING | News & Observer

In North Carolina, what happened to New Schools? | News & Observer:

After New Schools’ collapse, questions emerge about finances, spending

NC New Schools, a champion of specialty and early-college high schools, was a rock star in the world of education.

The group landed several grants exceeding $10 million. It got federal grants and money from Bill and Melinda Gates and several of North Carolina’s biggest businesses. It made North Carolina the nation’s leader in special high schools, which provide college-level classes for high school students. Last year, the organization spread its work to four other states.

Then in April, New Schools abruptly shut down, giving its 80 employees less than 24 hours notice that their jobs had evaporated. It filed for bankruptcy, showing debts of $1.5 million more than its assets.

The sudden collapse shocked many in the world of education. Tony Habit, the executive director since the group’s founding in 2003, attributed the financial failure to the organization’s expansion.

“Our growth exceeded the capability of our finance office,” Habit said in an interview. “By the time we discovered the gap, it was insurmountable.”

Habit said the financial problem became clear to him in January.

Internal emails and spreadsheets obtained by The News & Observer show that Habit knew at least as early as June 2015 that New Schools could face a $2.1 million deficit, a huge problem for an organization with a $10.5 million budget. The board chairman said he did not see records of this possible deficit until after the agency closed.

Despite the looming shortfall, Habit moved NC New Schools to a new, more expensive office in Research Triangle Park and outfitted the space with $600,000 worth of new furniture, computers and audiovisual equipment, bankruptcy records show. New Schools continued to pay rent on the office it vacated near Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh. Bankruptcy records show that New Schools paid 50 percent more each month for the RTP office, which was significantly larger.

A look at NC New Schools debts

Sam Houston, director of the N.C. Science, Technology and Math Education Center, was instrumental in the founding of New Schools. He said he attended a conference at New Schools’ new RTP office days before the organization closed.

Houston heard that Habit was busy trying to raise money from donors, but he said the tone of the meeting was upbeat.

“All of a sudden, the bottom fell out,” Houston said. “How you go from an optimistic, pro-growth, proactive position into bankruptcy in such a short time is puzzling.”

School systems stiffed

The North Carolina New Schools Project started in 2003 with a five-year, $11 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to restructure secondary education by creating smaller high schools. The Gates funding ended, but New Schools won at least two federal grants totaling $35 million and millions more in grants from foundations connected to Duke Energy, GlaxoSmithKline and other corporations.

The organization supported early-college high schools, regional specialty high schools and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) schools. Much of the money was spent on staff and consultants who trained teachers and administrators.

Early-college high schools target students who will be the first in their family to attend college and offer students the chance to graduate with up to two years of college credit or an associate’s degree. Those schools are standouts for their high graduation rates.

The organization began offering its services for hire in recent years, charging school districts upfront for training teachers or coaching principals over the course of the school year.

Last year, New Schools added Breakthrough Learning to its name and began working in South Carolina, Mississippi, Illinois and Indiana.

The bankruptcy filing shows that New Schools owes more than $950,000 to school districts and schools across the state, most of them rural and poor. Some of the owed money is for training the schools never received and some of it is to reimburse schools for positions that were paid for in advance.

New Schools, for example, owes $261,780.02 to Duplin County Schools. Dawn Craft, a spokeswoman for the school system, said Duplin County Schools paid in advance for fourIn North Carolina, what happened to New Schools? | News & Observer:

NC disabilities group files civil rights complaint against NC education board | News & Observer

NC disabilities group files civil rights complaint against NC education board | News & Observer:

NC disabilities group files civil rights complaint against NC education board

RALEIGH

A North Carolina learning disabilities association has filed a civil rights complaint with the federal government accusing the state Board of Education of discriminating against minority students with disabilities in low-performing schools.

The complaint, filed on June 1 by JoAnna Barnes, president of the Learning Disabilities Association of North Carolina, says a February change to statewide policy by the board will leave many students without the special education they need. She has asked the federal government to withhold education money from North Carolina until the board changes its policy.

“The result of this new North Carolina standard will be that different academic achievement standards are applied depending on which cultural group a student belongs,” Barnes said in her letter to Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary in the federal Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. “There will be one academic achievement standard for an Hispanic student, another for a white student, and yet another for an African-American student. In the end, no child in a low performing school will ever be determined to have a specific learning disability.”

At issue is a policy change that shifts how students are evaluated and selected for special education services.

The new state policy allows for children to be compared with culturally and linguistically similar peers, as well as with others in their classrooms.

Barnes and the Learning Disability Association worry that such comparisons will “have a disproportionate impact on nonwhite students with disabilities because in North Carolina nonwhite students disproportionately are enrolled in the state’s 50 lowest performing schools.” Eighty-five percent of students enrolled in the 50 lowest performing schools in North Carolina are nonwhite, compared with 45 percent of the total student enrollment.

For example, Barnes wrote, at Y.E. Smith Elementary School in Durham about half the students are black, and only 5.7 percent pass both the state reading and math tests. Under the education board’s new policy, a black student at Smith being reviewed for special education services would be compared with the 94.3 percent who did not pass the reading and math tests.

Efforts to reach counsel for the state Board of Education were unsuccessful on Saturday.

Redefining disabilities

The board’s changes to the special education services policy come amid an effort to redefine learning disabilities as schools grapple with funding cuts, understaffing and increasedNC disabilities group files civil rights complaint against NC education board | News & Observer:

New Study Says Common Core Is Not Keeping Up With The Demands Of College Instructors

New Study Says Common Core Is Not Keeping Up With The Demands Of College Instructors:

New Study Says Common Core Is Not Keeping Up With The Demands Of College Instructors

The Common Core educational initiative may need to have its focus readjusted when it comes to college preparedness.

A study released Thursday by ACT, a testing organization and original supporter of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, showed an increasing disconnect between the curriculum standards and students' abilities to take on college work from the start of their first year, according to professors.

“Although 40 percent of high school teachers report that the Common Core State Standards reflect postsecondary expectations about college readiness, and 40 percent of college instructors concur, far too few college instructors — a substantially lower percentage than in past surveys — report that their incoming students are well prepared for college-level work,” the study said.

And while familiarity with Common Core has remained fairly constant, the support from college professors who think it prepares students well for higher education has deteriorated over the last four years.

“In 2009 and 2012, the two previous surveys in which we asked this question, 26 percent of college instructors reported, on a four-point scale, that their students’ level of preparation was in the top half of the scale,” the study said. “This year, the percentage was only 16 percent.”

For the first time, the study included feedback from employees and supervisors. ACT asked teachers at all levels, as well as employees and supervisors, to rank 10 skill sets by the importance of avoiding deficiencies to ensure success at that level. Both employees and supervisors valued technology and speaking and listening much more highly than educators across the board, and critical thinking much less. In accordance with that, the study also pointed out the need to improve the use of technology in the classroom.

“Evidence is growing that some students may underperform on computer-based tests not because they lack the knowledge or skill being tested, but because they lack familiarity with the technology itself,” the study said. “While computer-based testing is certainly not always available for classroom assessments, states and districts should allot resources that will enable teachers to expose their students to computers and technology as much as possible.”New Study Says Common Core Is Not Keeping Up With The Demands Of College Instructors:

Saturday, June 11, 2016

TFA Spies on you. | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

TFA Spies on you. | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

TFA Spies on you.

From the TFA website:

YOUR INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT TFA DOES WITH YOUR INFORMATION:

https://www.teachforamerica.org/privacy-policy

“In order to access certain features and benefits on our Website, you may need to submit “Personally Identifiable Information” (i.e., information that can be traced back to you). Personally Identifiable Information can include information such as your name, home address, telephone number, and email address. You are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Personally Identifiable Information you submit to Teach For America. Inaccurate information may affect your ability to use the Website, the information you receive when using the Website, and our ability to contact you.

When users come to our Website, we may track, collect, and aggregate Non-Personal Information indicating, among other things, which pages of our Website were visited, the order in which they were visited, and which hyperlinks were “clicked.” Collecting such information may involve logging the IP address, operating system, and browser software used by each user of the TFA Spies on you. | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: New Face for Old Pearson Scam

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: New Face for Old Pearson Scam:

PA: New Face for Old Pearson Scam

Online Public Schools Are a Disaster, Admits Billionaire, Charter School-Promoter Walton Family Foundation - http://go.shr.lc/28sCTkU

If you are in Pennsylvania, you may have been seeing advertising for Commonwealth Charter Academy. CCA avoids calling itself a cyber-anything, but it is in fact one more cyber charter littering the Pennsylvania landscape. As with many schools pushing the tech solution to education issues, it leans heavily on "personalized learning" and markets itself as a family approach. That seems to be aimed at the idea of cyber-school as a source of family togetherness and not the time-honored practice of having parents complete their children's cyber-homework.

CCA may not be a familiar name because it is a new name. It previously marketed itself as Commonwealth Connections Academy. And while its press release about the name change says that the charter is "a fully independent public cyber charter school governed by a Pennsylvania-based board of directors," that's not quite right. Connections Academy is the cyber school chain owned by Pearson.

The ~~superintendent~~ CEO of CCA is Dr. Maurice Flurie. Flurie has a nice solid PA background, holding degrees from Duquesne, Lock Haven, Shippensburg and-- well, okay-- his original Bachelor's Degree was from the Tennessee Technological University, and it was in Health/Physical Education. He was an Asst to the Superintendent in Lower Dauphin before moving over to Connections. And he is still (since 2000) an adjunct professor at Wilkes University, a PA university that does big business in on-line classes. The "Dr." comes from his Ed. D in Educational Leadership.

Flurie has been among the cyber-school voices whining about Governor Tom Wolf's proposals to end CURMUDGUCATION: PA: New Face for Old Pearson Scam:

Pat Kelly & Thought Leadering

Thanks to reader Robert D. Skeels. This is just too fun not to pass along.

1 by Peter Greene / 5h hi

Thought Leader Duncan Has Another New Job

Arne Duncan continues to build that resume. He was already signed on with Emerson Collective, the philanthropic mish-mash of Steve Jobs widow; in that position, he is poised to work on the youth unemployment problems of Chicago.Now comes word that Duncan has joined the board of directors for Pluralsign.If you aren't a tech professional, you may not recognize Pluralsign's name, but they've been in

37 by Peter Greene / 20h

Common Core Standards (Still) Don't Cut It

Every few years the ACT folks unleash a big ole survey to find out what's actually going on Out There in the world of school stuff. This year's survey drew at least 2,000 respondents each from elementary and secondary schools, as well as college and workplace respondents. The whole package is eighty-eight pages, and I've read it, and while you don't have to, you might still want to. There are seve

46 by Peter Greene / 1d hide // save

Chester Finn's Charter Market Worries

Chester Finn, honcho emeritus of the right-tilted Fordham Institute, was back on the Fordham blog this week to continue his charter school series with a look at what he thinks are three "market malfunctions in the charter sector." Man, I just love the word "sector"- it sounds so clean and neat, not like marketplace or business. Honey, I'm going to get a tub of popcorn in the sn

13 by Peter Greene / 1d

The SAT-- Worse Than You Think

Folks have been questioning the accuracy, validity and usefulness of the SAT for decades, and the chorus of criticism only increased when College Board, the test manufacturing company responsible for the SAT, brought in Common Core architect David Coleman to take over. Coleman's fast and ugly rewrite of the venerable test was intended to bring it in line with the K-12 standards of Common Core. Col

100+ by Peter Greene / 1d

Latest News and Comment from Education