Live Long and Prosper...

PRIVATIZATION: PUSH-BACK IN TEXAS

Voucher opposition article of faith for pastor

A small group of Texas pastors has come to the aid of public school students focusing on fighting vouchers, and the separation of church and state. The Pastors for Texas Children (PTC) have grown to become a force in the Lone Star State and lead a coalition of public education advocates to push back against the forces of privatization.

Other states have copied the PTC model, In Oklahoma, the Pastors for Oklahoma Kids has started advocating for public education.

Numbers of pastors and educators have started similar groups in other states, including Indiana.

We can't afford multiple, parallel, state funded, systems of education in Indiana. The state should fund the public schools. Period.

“I am a Baptist Christian. I have certain convictions that have shaped my experience of God, faith, church and – frankly – I don't want my tax dollars supporting religious programs that I don't agree with, any more than my friends of other faith traditions don't want their tax dollars supporting religious programs that might adhere to my own beliefs,” he said.

...The powerful case offered by Johnson and Pastors for Texas Children, however, could have many rethinking the blurring line between government and Indiana's church-based schools.

PRIVATIZATION: PURDUE

Keep Purdue Public: Tell the HLC to Vote NO on Purdue-Kaplan Deal

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has organized a petition campaign in opposition to Purdue's acquisition of Kaplan University, a for-profit company. This new aspect of Purdue's university system will be named Purdue University Global.

The problem according to the AAUP is that, under a move by Governor Holcomb, all this would be exempt from public open records laws. This, says AAUP, does what most privatization schemes does...it favors shareholders over students.

Senators Sherrod Brown and Dick Durbin are concerned about the predatory history of for-profit colleges and urge transparency.

According to AAUP,

The Purdue-Kaplan deal puts Kaplan shareholders over Purdue students.

• Pays 12.5% of revenue to Kaplan after operating costs are met

• Pays Kaplan an “efficiency payment” of 20% of any cuts in operating cost

The Purdue-Kaplan deal takes resources from a public university and gives them to a private corporation.

• Gives tax revenues and Indiana's scholarship money, like the 21st Century Scholars Program, to a private corporation

• Establishes a "public-benefit corporation" operated by and for the profit of Kaplan

PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS

#Anotherdayanothercharterscandal

...IN PENNSYLVANIA

How a loophole let charter schools 'buy' buildings and still collect rent from state

A charter school buys its building, then rents it to itself. The rent, of course, is reimbursed by the state. The school's CEO calls it "a great perk."

Like many charter schools, Executive Education Academy spends a good chunk of its budget on rent, some of which is later reimbursed by the state. That’s allowed, as long as the school doesn’t own its building, which Executive Academy doesn’t — technically.

The school at 555 Union Blvd., Allentown, is owned by the Executive Education Academy Charter School Foundation, a nonprofit set up solely to support the school. The school used to pay about $2.2 million a year in rent to a private landlord and get $100,000 back from the state.

Now the school will pay $2.3 million a year in rent to its foundation, which bought the building last summer, and still be able to apply for reimbursements from the state.

“That’s not the reason why we would do this, but that’s a great perk for a charter school,” said Robert Lysek, the school’s CEO. “I hate to say ‘it is what it is,’ but it kind of is.”

...IN ARIZONA

Sudden closure of charter school renews calls for stricter oversight

Read this story about how charter schools enrich their executives and end up closing in the middle of the school year, leaving parents and students scrambling for a new school (Note: Naturally, they often end up back at the stable, traditional, and open to all, public schools).

The lack of public oversight often leaves parents and children with few options. Whose choice?

The issue of charter schools funneling payments through entities owned by executives is not unique to Discovery Creemos.

A study by GCI last year found 77 percent of charter schools engage in business transactions involving their owners, board members or their families, a practice known as “self-dealing” or “related-party transactions.”

...IN NEW YORK

New York education officials move to block rules allowing some charter schools to certify their own teachers

The bottom line for corporate owned, privatized schools, is profit, not children. In-house training would allow those schools to hire cheaper, and therefore, more profitable, teachers...oh, and they wouldn't have to worry about that pesky teachers union, either.

The regulations allow SUNY-authorized charter schools to certify teachers who complete the equivalent of a month of classroom instruction and practice teaching for 40 hours — compared to at least 100 hours under the state’s certification route, according to the lawsuit. And unlike teachers on a traditional certification route, they are not required to earn a master’s degree or take all of the state’s certification exams.

...IN CALIFORNIA

Teachers Say They had No Idea Sacramento Charter School was Shutting Down

When my local school district decided to close four elementary schools (three of which I had worked in!) due to funding shortfalls and declining enrollment, local members of the school board held town meetings all across the district to hear from citizens and explain why they wanted to do what they were going to do. The process took an entire year...and many voters were against the plan. If they chose to, those voters were able to exercise their displeasure with the plan during the following school board election.

Unfortunately, parents who patronize charter schools, and teachers who work in such schools, have no such electoral protection. Parents, students, and teachers, have no "choice" when a charter school closes. The money is gone. The students' educational year is disrupted. Teachers are out of a job.

Parents began looking for transcripts and were trying to get their kids transferred to new schools. Teachers were waiting for stipends and belongings from their classrooms.

While reading a prepared statement, Contreras-Douglas got emotional. She insisted staff was aware of the school's low enrollment and financial troubles before shutting down Wednesday.

"Several meetings with teaching staff were conducted to specifically address this issue throughout the school year," Contreras-Douglas said.

But teachers say they didn't have any idea the school was closing until it happened.

...IN UTAH

Tribune Editorial: Charter schools need state board's oversight

Public schools have locally elected and locally based school boards. The schools are subject to the financial oversight of both the local school board and the state department of education.

Charter schools ought to have the same public oversight.

This legislation speaks to the bigger issue of what we want charters to be. When they first came into being, the intent of charters was to be laboratories where alternative approaches could be tested without the interference of public-school bureaucracies. Many have succeeded doing exactly that.

But some ideologues are trying to use charters as the leading edge of an educational disruption movement with the intent of dismantling the public school system and the teachers union, replacing it with a marketplace where every parent goes shopping for schools. In that view, the state school board represents market suppression.

PRIVATIZATION: PUSH-BACK AGAINST "CHOICE" IN IOWA

Iowa public school advocates fight for funding amid cries for 'choice'

Thousands of Iowans are pushing back against "school-choice" in Iowa.

A grassroots group made up of Iowa public school parents and activists is fighting what organizers say is an onslaught from lawmakers intent on eroding the state's public education system.

Iowans for Public Education was formed online in November 2016 after Republicans won majorities in both the Iowa House and Senate. It has since grown to more than 12,500 followers.

The group organized a Teachers Rally last February that brought thousands to the Iowa Capitol grounds to oppose changes to Iowa's collective bargaining law. It has launched petitions and letter-writing campaigns.

RETENTION: PUNISHING CHILDREN FOR ADULT FAILURE

If you are the state of Michigan, you damage the ability of children to learn by poisoning them with lead-tainted water which causes

• decreased bone and muscle growth
• poor muscle coordination
• damage to the nervous system, kidneys, and/or hearing
• speech and language problems
• developmental delay
• seizures and unconsciousness (in cases of extremely high lead levels)

Then you punish them for not being able to "pass the test."

It's not just Michigan, of course, although Flint, Michigan is the poster city for lead poisoning in children. Lead poisoning is still a serious problem for America's children.

In addition, many more states besides Michigan require retaining students in third grade because of their failure to pass a test.

But Michigan is just the latest. Governor Snyder, who allowed the city of Flint to be poisoned by lead through mismanagement and not-so-benign neglect, just signed into law a bill which would require third grade students to pass a test, or be punished with in-grade retention.

Calling this sort of behavior "child abuse" isn't nearly strong enough. When will policy makers and politicians take responsibility for their impact on student achievement?

Michigan to Retain Children with Lead Poisoning

Michigan has a lead problem with its children in Flint, and a governor who failed badly his own accountability test. Many wonder why he is still governor. Some wonder why he isn’t in jail. But yesterday he signed off on a bill to fail third graders. How many children in Flint will wind up failing third grade due to the leaded water they drank? I’m guessing many.

So children fail, through no fault of their own, while the governor gets a pass. Fancy that.

I know there are exemptions to failing in Michigan, but that doesn’t excuse a rotten bill that highlights retention as something good.

We know that the fear of failing a grade for a child is on the same level as losing a parent. Once a child is humiliated by this action, they will have a difficult time ever fully recovering.

And children who fail third grade don’t do any better than those who are socially promoted, especially if those promoted get extra help.

So children who the State of Michigan failed by not protecting them—permitting the poisoning of their water—will now get a double whammy and get blamed for their school problems.

Let’s not forget children who don’t have lead poisoning, but, who, also through no fault of their own, have dyslexia or other learning disabilities.

Retention is punishment to children and it doesn’t work. We can’t forget that.

Florida Update: Also see FL: Oh, Come On Now!


PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS

U.S. Dept. of Education’s Own Inspector Again Condemns DOE’s Oversight of Charter School Grants

We need leaders who will stop the drain of public funds to corporate pockets. Elect state and local candidates who will direct public funds to public schools. Elect federal candidates not purchased by lobbyists for charter schools.

Letting the "marketplace rule" is inappropriate for public schools. When schools struggle – usually through insufficient resources – we need to help them improve, not close them.

• “(W)e found that 22 of the 33 charter schools in our review had 36 examples of internal control weaknesses related to the charter schools’ relationships with their CMOs (concerning conflicts of interest, related-party transactions, and insufficient segregation of duties).”
• (T)hese… internal control weaknesses represent the following significant risks to Department program objectives: (1) financial risk, which is the risk of waste, fraud, and abuse; (2) lack of accountability over Federal funds, which is the risk that, as a result of charter school boards ceding fiscal authority to CMOs, charter school stakeholders… may not have accountability over Federal funds sufficient to ensure compliance with Federal requirements; and (3) performance risk….”
• “Further, the Department did not implement adequate monitoring procedures that would provide sufficient assurance that it could identify and mitigate the risks specific to charter school relationships with CMOs.”

How Charter Schools Bust Unions

“The initial idea of charter schools was that teachers and communities would have a say in how our schools function so we could better meet the needs of our students. They were supposed to be teacher-led and teacher-driven. But until we have a contract holding them accountable to their promises, they will not be held accountable.”

READING: SSR

Sustained Silent Reading: The effects are substantial, it works, and it leads to more reading. A response to Shanahan (2016).

Allowing students to choose what they read and giving them time to read every day really works.

...fourth grade children in Taiwan and Hong Kong who reported doing more independent reading in their first language in school scored higher on the PIRLS 2006 reading test, controlling for students' reading attitude, parents' reading attitude, home education resources, the amount of outside school informational reading done, and the amount of in-class reading aloud done by students.

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW...ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH

School board president in Texas defends students who refuse to stand during the national anthem

Here's a principal who understands the first amendment. The constitutional protections of free speech allow us to say and do things that others disagree with. It also allows those who disagree with us to respond.

During an on air interview with WFFA, Carl Sherman, Jr., president of DeSoto Independent School District’s board, defended members of the girls volleyball team and cheerleading squad, who refused to stand during the national anthem at games in protest over recent shootings of African-American men by the police. “Yes there are possibly greater ways to get that message across, however, we are sitting here in 2016 and the messages that were brought forth in the 60’s were somehow lost in translation,” explained Sherman. “Yeah, we can criticize the method but we have to listen to the message.”

TEACHER SHORTAGE

The educator exodus: Indiana struggles to keep teachers in-state

Since 2005 the governors and legislators of Indiana have done everything they could to damage the reputation of teachers, remove incentives to become a teacher in Indiana, and make the profession of teaching less attractive.

“The stress that has come about due to high-stakes standardized testing is taking a toll on the retention rate of teachers in the state,” Tyner said. “The Indiana Department of Education needs to continue to work to find a solution to this problem.”

TEXTBOOK ADOPTIONS

Some Guy In Texas May Be Influencing The Content Of Public School Textbooks In Your State

In one review, which drove me nuts, ERA criticized a book for “political correctness (e.g., anti-white, anti-male, anti-Christian bias).” What do they mean by that? Well, they complain about books that supposedly highlight “Meanness Of Whites To People Of Color.”

Under that heading, they list "The People Could Fly,” an acclaimed short story that some Texas 8th graders read from a textbook titled Elements of Literature. ERA’s beef is that this story has an anti-white bias because it’s a “Folk tale about oppressive whites, mistreated slaves in Old South.”

So, this group was offended that this story was being “mean” by misrepresenting white slave owners! According to ERA, it’s “mean” to accurately portray history through literature. Can you imagine? People being “mean” to others because of the color of their skin? Slave owners knew nothing about that, right?

This is merely one example, but there are hundreds of awful reviews on that site that hold up conservative Christians, whites and men as superiors.

POLITICS

At This Point, if You're Still a Donald Trump Supporter, Here's What You Really Are

What would Republicans say if Hillary Clinton had been caught on video saying, "...when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Whatever you want. Grab them by the balls."


When did it become ok for candidates for the Presidency of the U.S. to act like this?

At this point, there’s not even a shred of sane or rational logic anyone can use to defend Donald Trump. While I don’t feel sorry for those who continue to do so, I do pity the fact that there are millions of people who are so deplorable that, even after Friday’s stunning story where he more or less said he believes he has the right to sexually assault women, they still think he should be president.

If these comments don’t drive away a good chunk of his support (which time will tell if it will), then almost nothing is going to.

As Trump said a few months ago, most of his supporters really are mindless sheep who’ll support him no matter what.

However, at this point, if you’re still a supporter of Donald Trump, here’s what you really are: You’re someone who’s cemented your place in history as an individual who we’re all going to look back upon with disgust and shame because you were ignorant enough to support one of the worst presidential candidates in United States history.

This is a man who’s:

• Mocked a man with disabilities.
• Attacked the parents of a fallen American hero.
• Belittled POWs and the war record of Sen. John McCain.
• Lied about how much money he raised for veterans.
• Called a former Miss Universe “disgusting” and fat, telling his Twitter followers to find her non-existent sex tape.
• Accused an American-born federal judge of being unfit to do his job because of his Mexican heritage...
• ...Re-tweeted anti-African American propaganda created by a white supremacy group.
• Played dumb about knowing who former Grand Wizard of the KKK David Duke was...
• ...Feels he has the right to sexually assault women.

NO EXPERTS ALLOWED

In 1964, Richard Hofstadter won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life in which he traced intellect in American Life. Fifty years later we're still are surprised when "anti-intellectualism" rears its ugly head and negatively impacts public education.

The Texas State Board of Education has been fighting "experts" for years. In 2009, board chair Don McLeroy, infamously exclaimed, "Somebody's gotta stand up to experts..." because those same "experts" disagreed with his religious beliefs.

Texas Board of Education rejects plan to have academics fact-check their textbooks

Recently, the same school board voted down a proposal which called for a panel of actual content area experts to review textbooks for errors.

The push for more experts to be involved came after more than a year of controversy over board-sanctioned books' coverage of global warming, descriptions of Islamic history and terrorism and handling of the Civil War and the importance of Moses and the Ten Commandments to the Founding Fathers.

Texas SBOE: Experts? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Experts.

Ed Brayton, a blogger who favors fact over myth and anti-intellectualism, reacted with this.

The way we govern our schools in this country is absolutely asinine. No one in their right mind would suggest that textbooks for medical school be written or approved by anyone other than medical professionals, yet we somehow think that decisions on school curricula should be made by whatever random yahoos can get elected by a few hundred local yokels who don’t know [blank] about [blank]. I would be willing to bet that if you had school boards across the country take the final exams in almost any of the courses offered in the schools they govern, a very small percentage could even pass them, much less demonstrate a solid understanding of the subjects.

History curricula and textbooks should be determined by historians, chemistry by chemists, math by mathematicians, and so forth. It boggles my mind that anyone could possibly disagree with that.

IGNORING THE REAL EXPERTS

I saw this meme on Facebook the other day...


It occurred to me that education "reformers" have been doing that sort of thing for years. For the most part they have confused their experiences as students with K-12 teachers' experience and education degrees. For example, the following politicians and/or billionaires, while influential in American education policy for K-12 schools, have no education training other than what they learned as students. In other words, the last time they set foot in a K-12 public school – other than for a photo-op – was when they were students (NOTE: Arne Duncan never attended public schools. Ever).

• Michael Bloomberg – former mayor of New York City. (Johns Hopkins, Electrical Engineering: Harvard, MBA)
• Eli Broad – Philanthropist, Billionaire. (Michigan State Univ., Accounting: CPA)
• George W. Bush – 43rd President of the United States. (Yale, History: Harvard, MBA)
• Arne Duncan – Secretary of Education during the Obama Administration. (Harvard, Sociology)
• Bill Gates – Philanthropist, Billionaire. (no post-secondary degree)
• Joel Klein – Former Chancellor of New York City Schools. (Columbia B.A.: Harvard, JD)
• Wendy Kopp – Founder and CEO, Teach For America. (Princeton, Public Policy)
• Barack Obama – 44th President of the United States. (Columbia, Political Science: Harvard, JD)
• Margaret Spellings – Secretary of Education during the second term of the George W. Bush administration. (Univ. of Houston, Political Science)

These so-called experts likely ask only trained medical professionals for medical advice or call trained legal experts when they need legal advice. And I imagine they only ask licensed plumbers for advice when they have a leak or backed up drains. Yet they had/have no trouble giving advice, proposing projects, and working for laws which have damaged the nation's public education through obsessive testing and privatization.

Add in other non-education professionals such as

• TFA alums who, after 5 weeks of training and 2 years of teaching call themselves experts in education.
• Thousands of legislators and other politicians at all levels of government who introduce and pass laws to privatize public education
• Pundits and lobbyists who pontificate on public education without any experience other than their own childhood school years.

The Texas State Board of Education has just taken Anti-Intellectualism one step further. They have decided that they are the only ones who understand and will have input into the content areas which are taught to their constituents' children. Since textbooks written for Texas are also sold all over the country, the Texas State Board of Education has made content decisions for other, non-Texas students as well.

FEDERAL INTERVENTION

No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top took public education out of local hands.

Yearly testing, closing "failing" schools (aka high-poverty schools), opening charters, evaluating teachers and schools with student test scores...are just a few of the worst aspects of the federal laws and policies which have been responsible for the increasing chaos in America's public education system. None of those things have improved teaching and learning.

Closing schools doesn't help children learn. Charter schools don't perform better than public schools. Teacher evaluations using student test scores are invalid and unreliable. Grading schools based on student test scores does nothing but cause damage to schools and communities.

The Common Core State Standards – not to be confused with actual standards written by states with the input of actual working educators – are, in some cases, developmentally inappropriate, have never been field tested, and are set in stone – unchangeable.

SELLING PUBLIC EDUCATION

Teacher training is the next target. For example, Pearson has now become the "gatekeeper" for student teachers. "edTPA" is a standardized assessment for teachers working for certification. Certification is dependent on the successful completion of "edTPA."

Pearson to become the gate-keeper for student teachers in Illinois.

As the fall semester begins, all student teachers in the state will be required to pay an extra $300 (on top of the tuition they are already paying) [for edTPA] and arrange for videotaping so that they can submit a lengthy narrative that covers the planning, execution and evaluation of a series of lessons with one of their classes as well as a ten-minute video of themselves carrying out their lesson with a class.

Student teachers are required to get parent permission for their children to be video-taped.

Pearson owns the video.

Once submitted to Pearson, an “evaluator” will apply rubrics and 2-3 hours of their time to decide whether or not the student teacher “passes” and can be licensed to teach by the State of Illinois.

It's not just Illinois. California, New York, Wisconsin, Georgia, Oregon, and others are edTPA states. In addition, at least one teacher training institute in many other states also require edTPA – Indiana, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania. At $300 a pop Pearson is raking it in and getting their foot in the door of teacher training.

Imagine the future of the US public education system as a subsidiary of Pearson; They train the teachers at Pearson/edTPA College, provide the curriculum, and provide the tests. Local school boards will be unnecessary. Decisions will be made in Pearson board room in London, UK.

WHERE ARE EDUCATORS VOICES?

Where are actual educators in all of this? In the same way that Texas has denied input from academic experts for textbook adoptions, politicians and policy makers have denied input from education experts for testing, curriculum, standards, and education in general. The real education experts are the millions of teachers who teach in public schools across the country, not Bill Gates...not Arne Duncan...and not Wendy Kopp.

For the most part, over the last several decades of so-called "reform," teachers voices haven't been heard or acknowledged. School closings, changes in evaluations, and testing...have all taken place without input from the real experts in education – teachers. Instead of listening to teachers, policy makers increased high stakes testing. Instead of listening to teachers, policy makers didn't fix schools with high levels of poverty: They closed them. Instead of listening to teachers, policy makers instituted punitive evaluation procedures which hurt those who teach our hardest to teach students the most.

However, the new education bill before congress, the Every Student Succeeds Act, supposedly includes provisions for listening to actual educators. The NEA released this today.

NEA president supports the Every Student Succeeds Act

“In particular, the bill includes student and school supports in state accountability plans to create an opportunity ‘dashboard’; reduces the amount of standardized testing in schools and decouples high-stakes decision making and statewide standardized tests; and ensures that educators’ voices are part of decision making at the federal, state and local levels. [emphasis added]

After reading some analysis of the new law, it seems that it will be left up to the states to decide.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA): Some Eleventh-Hour Observations

The document continues the trend of NCLB test-heaviness. ESSA is not as punitive as NCLB, but its worn-out test-centrism will accomplish little as it prompts states to seek creative ways to retain Title I money in the face of an increasing public resistance to the very testing on which corporate reform depends.

Why many high-stakes testing foes see ‘modest’ progress in No Child Left Behind rewrite

From an assessment reform perspective, FairTest is convinced that the “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA) now before the House and Senate, though far from perfect, improves on current testing policy. The bill significantly reduces federal accountability mandates and opens the door for states to overhaul their own assessment systems.

Will actual teachers have any input? We shall see...

WHY TEACHERS QUIT

Jennifer Higgins: I Am Not a “Developing” Teacher

Diane Ravitch posted yet another letter from a teacher who has decided to quit rather than punish herself for not being able to overcome the pain and cognitive dissonance of "education reform." Ravitch's comments before she reproduced the letter opened up a mild fire-storm in the comments section. Should you quit if you "can't take it any more" or does that mean that "the reformers have won?" Diane said the latter, although I think she meant her words to be encouraging people to stay...rather than disparagement of those who choose to leave.

There's a very interesting, sometimes heated, discussion in the comments which follow...

I have gotten to a point where I hate posting statements by teachers who are giving up because of stupid mandates and idiotic “reforms.” I don’t want anyone to quit. I want teachers to stay and fight for themselves, their students, their profession. At the same time, I understand that sometimes people reach a breaking point, and they can’t take it anymore.

The only good thing about these statements is that they tell the world about the damage done by ill-informed, misguided, punitive “reforms.” We can’t afford to drive good teachers away, yet that’s what current metrics are doing.

Here is a statement by Jennifer Higgins. She knows she’s a terrific teacher, but the data say she’s not. I hope she fights back. Don’t let the reformers win. If you quit, they win.

TEACHER EVALUATIONS

A Reanalysis of the Effects of Teacher Replacement Using Value-Added Modeling

VAM, or Value-Added Modeling, has been shown to be unreliable and invalid, yet states around the nation, at the insistence of the US DOE, have been using VAM variations to evaluate teachers.

Conclusion: VAM is not reliable or valid, and VAM-based polices are not cost-effective for the purpose of raising student achievement and increasing earnings by terminating large numbers of low-performing teachers.

TEACHERS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM

Teachers in the United States are not the Problem

American teachers are regularly blamed for our "failing" schools. The obsession with "getting rid of bad teachers" has taken the attention away from the real problem which is the high rate of childhood poverty in the US.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), sends out the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) every few years. The most recent one was done in 2013 and the results are now available. The survey covers how teachers feel about their jobs.

Some things I noticed...

• Teachers ought to get higher pay.
• We need to quit bashing (blaming) teachers.
• Collaboration, not competition, increases achievement.

Here are some of the findings...

• 64% of middle school and junior high teachers feel that American teachers are not valued by society.

• Only 67% of American teachers had a permanent contract. (The average internationally is 83%)

• 64% of American teachers work in schools where more than 30% of their students come from economically disadvantaged homes. (This is the highest rate in 34 TALIS countries. The global average is 19.6%)

• In the U.S. teachers have longer working hours (45 per week) and more instructional hours (27 per week). This is 20% more working hours and 40% more time instructional hours than their international counterparts.

• American teachers have fewer Professional Learning Opportunities than their global counterparts. They do not team teach, plan activities with other teachers across grade levels and rarely have the time to observe other teachers and discuss techniques.

• No other country surveyed tests students using external standardized tests at every grade level. Nor are their teachers evaluated with value added scores from any testing that is done.

• Globally teachers receive more feedback from their peers than do American teachers.

As you can see U.S. teachers spend more time at their job compared to teachers in other countries. More importantly OECD found several important differences that affect student outcomes.

OECD found the following in higher performing countries:

• Countries that value teachers, pay them more relative to other college educated workers.

• Students achieve at higher levels in countries where teachers are valued.

• There is a focus on creating a culture of collaboration in their schools resulting in innovative practices.

• Higher performing countries find it easier to recruit and retain teachers.

POVERTY

Effects of Inequality and Poverty vs. Teachers and Schooling on America’s Youth

Inequality hurts everyone...those who ignore it for short term gain will lose in the long run...

I think everyone in the USA, of any political party, understands that poverty hurts families and affects student performance at the schools their children attend. But the bigger problem for our political leaders and citizens to recognize is that inequality hurts everyone in society, the wealthy and the poor alike. History teaches us that when income inequalities are large, they are tolerated by the poor for only so long. Then there is an eruption, and it is often bloody! Both logic and research suggest that economic policies that reduce income inequality throughout the United States are quite likely to improve education a lot, but even more than that, such policies might once again establish this nation as a beacon on a hill, and not merely a light that shines for some, but not for all of our citizens.

TESTING

SBAC results from Washington State confirm test designed to fail vast majority of children

Failure is a feature of standardized tests. Cut scores have become political tools.

The Common Core SBAC test results from Washington State confirm the worst fears that the Common Core SBAC test is designed to fail the vast majority of public schools students.

From the initial post of 2015, Wait, What? has been sounding the alarm about the unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory nature of the SBAC testing scheme.

Pa. says 2015 standardized test scores dropped precipitously because of added rigor

Make tests harder...raise cut scores in order to ensure greater failure...blame the teachers and public schools...enter privatization.

The Pennsylvania State Educators Association, the state's largest teachers union, said that will undoubtedly feed misperception.

"You are going to see huge outcry, and I can certainly envision a scenario where teachers are very unjustly attacked for this process," said Chris Clayton, assistant director for education services at PSEA. "You have essentially moved the target for teachers to get their students to, and then you raised the bar with these cut scores, all in combination with funding cuts."

A bill that would tie teacher furloughs to the new teacher evaluation system has passed the state House of Representatives.

Another bill that would push back the state's standardized-test graduation requirement until 2019 has passed the Senate.

In concert, if advanced, these bills would give students less motivation to perform well on tests while holding teachers more accountable for student results.

"It's almost like a perfect recipe to attack teachers in many ways," said Clayton.

Iowa reform pushes students to read earlier - or else

Iowa joins the ranks of those states which punish third graders who struggle with reading.

Retention laws are seen as a way to stop students from advancing a grade level without merit, a practice known as social promotion. Since the late 1990s, there's been a focus across the nation on ensuring high school diplomas have validity and meaning.

But experts and educators have voiced concerns about the social and emotional effect of holding back students. A 2005 study found that repeating a grade for sixth-graders is as traumatic as losing a parent or going blind.

However, proponents point to a key part of Iowa's legislation: allowing students to progress to fourth grade if they attend a summer reading program, which is expected to incorporate teaching strategies that use some of the latest literacy research.

"My hope is that zero kids actually get retained," Iowa Department of Education Director Brad Buck said.

States such as Florida have stricter remediation laws, allowing students to progress only if they can demonstrate through a test or portfolio that they're not behind.

Iowa also allows "good cause" exemptions, such as if students have less than two years of instruction in English-as-a-second-language programs, do not take state exams because of a disability or demonstrate in another way that they are reading at grade level, such as through a portfolio.

PRIVATIZATION

Education: the Next Corporate Frontier

Privatization exists in different forms, including vouchers, public private partnerships, low-fee private schools, and charter schools. Whatever it’s called, it amounts to the same thing: private corporations gaining control of and profiting from an essential public function. In every country, the identical argument is used: public schools are failing, reform is needed and big business will do it best, providing choice and efficiency. If the statistics don’t match the argument, they are concealed or doctored to fit.

TEXAS TEXTBOOKS

TFN President Talks Texas Textbooks with MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry

The "Confederate Battle Flag" issue in South Carolina (and elsewhere) is not the only indication that we're still fighting the Civil War.

The Texas version of history could rewrite the story for all American school children...

We have moved away from listening to teachers and listening to experts from our colleges and universities about what kids need when they graduate...what do they need to be successful in colleges and jobs. That's where the emphasis needs to be.

And when it comes to history I think that the emphasis on facts and figures and certainly the politicized emphasis in Texas means that students aren't understanding why we study history which is about understanding ourselves today as much as it is understanding 150 years ago...

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

FLORIDA EXPORTS 'REFORM'

Jeb Bush’s “Florida formula” of education privatization in North Carolina

Does this look familiar to Indiana readers? This article describes how Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education used "ALEC-like" methods to export the "Florida Formula" to other states. One way was through the "Chiefs for Change" group, a group of state education commissioners, including Indiana's (and later Florida's) Tony Bennett.

Since its creation, the foundation has been largely devoted to exporting the “Florida formula,” an overhaul of public education [Jeb] Bush oversaw as governor between 1999 and 2007.

That agenda includes ideas typically supported by conservatives and opposed by teachers unions: issuing A-to-F report cards for schools, using taxpayer vouchers for tuition at private schools, expanding charter schools, requiring third-graders to pass a reading test, and encouraging online learning and virtual charter schools.

WHO WILL BE TOMORROW'S TEACHERS?

Why half of the nation’s new teachers can’t leave the profession fast enough.

One of the goals of the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) is the destruction of the teaching profession. The lack of professional educators means lower overhead...lower pay, no pensions, no unions, no professionals to get in the way of for-profit "choices."

Around the nation teachers' job benefits are disappearing, pensions are being blamed for the economic difficulties caused by the banking crisis, and qualifications for becoming a teacher are watered down to the point that completely untrained college graduates can walk into a classroom and start teaching.

The "reform" movement is being directed by billionaires with no training in education, politicians with no training in education, and the media with no training in education. Soon public education will be delivered by people with no training in education.

….teachers quit because we have all the responsibility and little or no authority in the classroom. Administrators don’t support teachers and often don’t trust our judgment as professionals. It’s very hard to stay at a job where you are not supported, appreciated or trusted. Add disrespectful students and parents, and it becomes a daily battle to go to work.” A daily battle to go to work sounds like reason enough for anyone to leave the profession. She went on, “My stepdaughter has been teaching for three years and she’s done. It’s sad because she’s a teacher at heart – this is her calling. But she says no way. Her main reason: lack of support from administration and parents. She said she is held responsible for things she can’t possibly control.”

Virginia Teacher of the Year Tells Why He Resigned

Another intelligent, award winning, high quality teacher resigns.

I’ve seen teachers cry over Standards of Learning scores. I’ve seen students cry over SOL scores. I’ve seen newspaper and TV reports sensationalize SOL scores. These are all indications of an unhealthy obsession with flawed standardized tests.

SOL tests are inherently unfair, but we continue to invest countless hours and resources in our quest for our school to score well. This leads me to the following questions:

• Do we care more about student progress or our appearance?
• Why can’t we start a movement to walk away from these tests?
• Why can’t we shift our focus to critical thinking and relevant educational experiences?

It’s tough to acknowledge that people in Washington, D.C., and Richmond (and sometimes decision makers in Waynesboro) develop systems and policies that affect my students and me negatively. But as they retire and sail off into the sunset, we’re the ones left with the consequences of ineffective measurements and strategies.

Our new teacher evaluations focus heavily on test scores. But while teachers are continually under pressure to be held accountable, there seems to be very little accountability for parents, the community, or district offices.

It’s only going to get worse, and it seems that we have no intention of taking a stand or advocating against flawed assessments. Instead, we have submitted ourselves to these tools that misrepresent student growth. It is a game, and it is a game I no longer wish to play.

Indiana education dean: Teacher measures aren’t fair

VAM isn't reliable. Why do we continue to use student standardized tests for the wrong purposes? Is it because testing companies don't care what their tests are used for as long as they're being paid (with the public dollars)? Is it because the politicians making education policy don't know anything about educational testing? Is it because the policy makers are getting campaign contributions from said test makers?

The answer is probably "yes" to all three questions.

Holding teacher training programs accountable for measures such as how many graduates get jobs within a year of graduating, how well teachers perform on evaluations during their first few years of work or how much student test scores grow isn’t fair because the science behind those measures can’t be trusted, said Gerardo Gonzalez, Indiana University’s education dean.

...“We want to blame teachers, hold them accountable, pay them less than just about every other profession and then we worry why they are leaving within five years?” Gonzalez said.

NEED CAMPAIGN FINANCES? SUPPORT PRIVATIZATION

Will the Media Help Destroy Public Education?

The most important fact in American politics today is the Citizens United decision. With this, the hand of the Democratic Party was forced: in order to win major elections the party must accept major campaign funding from the Silicon Valley right libertarians, neoliberals and their financiers on Wall Street. For neoliberal Democrats who are forced to lick the Nikes of their major funders, the privatization of education has become the price they pay to get the dollars needed to win elections.

COURAGEOUS TEACHERS STAND UP

Teachers of Conscience

Read the position paper...a strong statement against corporate "reform."

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

IGNORANCE IN THE TEXAS SBOE

Texas Freedom Network: Live-Blogging the Texas Social Studies Textbook Vote

The Founding Fathers: Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams, James Madison...and Moses?

According to the Texas State Board of Education, Moses (yes, that Moses) was a major influence in  the formation of the nation's founding documents, aka the U.S. Constitution.

During a months-long process, publishers made a number of improvements to their textbooks. Those improvements included removing inaccurate information promoting climate change denialism; deleting offensive cartoons comparing beneficiaries of affirmative action to space aliens; making clearer that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War; and revising passages that had promoted unfair negative stereotypes of Muslims. Scholars and the general public had ample opportunity to review and comment on those revisions.

However, the new textbooks also include passages that suggest Moses influenced the writing of the Constitution and that the roots of democracy can be found in the Old Testament. Scholars from across the country have said such claims are inaccurate and mislead students about the historical record.

EMOTIONAL GROWTH

Why Emotional Learning May Be As Important As The ABCs

A growing body of research suggests that teaching really young kids how to recognize and express their feelings can help them into their adult lives...and save society time, money, and social stress in the long run.

...common sense — along with a growing body of research — shows that mastering social skills early on can help people stay out of trouble all the way into their adult lives.

ADHD

ADHD And Creativity: New Research Says ADHD Is Being Mistreated In Schools

Research now shows what many people who have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder — or those who parent someone who does — have long since believed there is a huge link between ADHD and creativity, often referred to as the “upside of ADHD.” And according to an extensive report by Salon, in focusing solely on the difficulties those with ADHD have — such as poor attention and impulse control — kids with ADHD are falling through the cracks, educationally speaking...

...recent studies in the field of cognitive neuroscience draws a strong connection between ADHD and creativity, as well, showing that both creative thinkers and people with ADHD have trouble “suppressing brain activity coming from the ‘Imagination Network.'”

All of this creativity — and with it, the inability to control those creative thoughts — can be seen as either positive or negative. Creativity is a valuable asset, but so is being able to control one’s thoughts and impulses, and obviously, a creative mind that is always spontaneously generating new ideas or constantly daydreaming interferes greatly with the ability to pay attention in the classroom.

For parents, teachers, and significant others...

10 Things You Should Never Tell Your Child

Most parents, teachers, and significant others don't say things to others to hurt their feelings on purpose, but sometimes, when living, or working with an ADHD child or adult we become frustrated and the hurtful words slip out.  Unfortunately, hurtful words stay with people, causing humiliation and embarrassment which can last into adulthood and negatively impact relationships and one's ability to hold on to a job.

Here's an incomplete list of hurtful phrases ADHD folks have grown up and lived with.

People say some pretty insensitive things. ADHD myths and misinformation don't help. People blame us or our kids for behaviors controlled by the condition, and we know it's wrong. But sometimes frustrating behaviors can push even the most loving parents to say things we quickly regret.

I would add a few more to this list:

• "Why didn't you think!?"
• "...if you'd only try harder..."
• "...if you weren't so lazy."

My advice to those living (or working) with people with ADHD..."Think before you speak."

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

ISTEP OBSESSION

Indiana's big education news this week has been the release of the 2014 ISTEP scores. No surprises here...

Carmel-Clay and Zionsville public school corporations (Free and Reduced lunch populations under 10% and LEP under 5%) scored the highest.

Indianapolis Public Schools (Free and Reduced over 80% and LEP over 10%) and Gary (Free and Reduced over 80%) didn't fare so well.

The articles below (and most of the others I've seen) focus on the test scores, old standards, new standards, higher scores, lower scores, charter school scores, private school scores, and all are written with the underlining assumption that standardized tests are adequate measures of student achievement. They equate learning with test scores.

The insane focus on standardized test scores in the U.S. hasn't changed a bit since President Bush II signed No Child Left Behind into law surrounded by smiling suits filled with both Democrats and Republicans -- but no teachers.

In 2002 Alfie Kohn wrote about the mind-numbing, child-punishing testing regimen which permeates American education...

Standardized Testing: Separating Wheat Children from Chaff Children

Of all the chasms that separate one world from another, none is greater than the gap between the people who make policy and the people who suffer the consequences. There are those who reside comfortably on Mount Olympus, issuing edicts and rhetoric, and then there are those down on the ground who come to know the concrete reality behind the words...it’s the difference between important grown-ups who piously exhort us to hold our educational system “accountable” and a nine-year-old who has come to detest school because the days are now full of practice tests in place of projects and puzzles. Up there: people pounding the pulpits about the need for World-Class Standards. Down here: little kids weeping, big kids denied diplomas on the basis of a single exam score, wonderful teachers reduced to poring over the want ads...

And once you realize that the tests are unreliable indicators of quality, then what possible reason would there be to subject kids – usually African American and Latino kids -- to those mind-numbing, spirit-killing, regimented instructional programs that were designed principally to raise test scores? If your only argument in favor of such a program is that it improves results on deeply flawed tests, you haven’t offered any real argument at all. Knock out the artificial supports propping up “Success for All,” “Open Court,” “Reading Mastery,” and other prefabricated exercises in drilling kids to produce right answers (often without any understanding), and these programs will then collapse of their own dead weight.

ISTEP scores released, final year for old test

Carmel-Clay Schools once again scored the highest among school corporations...

Indianapolis Public Schools...51.6% of students passed both portions of the test

State releases ISTEP-Plus scores

The scores at EdisonLearning's Gary Roosevelt continue to falter. EdisonLearning is a private management company appointed by the state to operate the high school. The Indiana Department of Education graded the school an F in 2013.

IDOE releases 2013-14 ISTEP results

ISTEPs bring 'mixed bag' for Ind. charter schools

Carmel, Zionsville top Indiana's ISTEP scores

Middle schools at center of IPS testing woes


PRIVATIZATION

Privatization Watch is a great blog to watch. Public education isn't the only target of privatizers.

Here are some items from the last few weeks of Privatization Watch...

Fixing something that isn't working right makes sense. If public schools are "broken" (an assumption which I don't believe is true to the extent that privatizers do), then they should be fixed...not closed or sold to private corporations.

Rather than privatize, fix public schools

The solution should not be to outsource our children's education to institutions that care more about the bottom line or resist accountability. The solution should be to address and fix our problems, many of which were created by individuals and politicians who seek to privatize our schools and profit off our children.

Defend public schools.

The Public School Counterinsurgency Field Manual

A public school defender's tactics should certainly include conventional weapons, such as union organizing, protests, civil disobedience, legislative, electoral and judicial processes. But conventional weaponry alone cannot beat back an insurgency. School-based educators especially must focus on non-combative, ally-building approaches: tactics that foster personal connections between the local populous and their public schools.

Hedge fund managers, corporate shills, ALEC, and other private sources don't want the public to know that they are fostering the destruction of America's public education. "Corporations are people, too, my friends" is making it easy for billionaires and tax-freeloading corporations to buy up America's infrastructure.

Campbell Brown Won’t Say Who Is Funding Her School Privatizing Group

Using Brown’s logic no political contributions should be made public for fear that people will be criticized for funding candidates and initiatives others find objectionable. The rich and powerful should be able to buy elections and candidates freely – that’s none of the public’s business.

Rarely is the backwardness and venality of the movement to privatize public education made so obvious.

Private companies running charter schools is wrong. The idea behind public schools and public school boards is that public accountability is important. Luckily this group is being investigated.

FBI raided local charter school

FBI agents raided a Bond Hill charter school in June as part of an ongoing federal investigation into whether Horizon Science Academy Cincinnati, its sister schools in Ohio and two other states, and its management company outside Chicago had improper relationships with several technology vendors.

TEXAS TEXTBOOKS c. 2002

Textbook publishers don't publish different books for every state. Instead, they focus on the states with the largest markets and publish books that will sell there. Texas is one of the nation's biggest markets and the right wing faction of the state school board always makes it difficult for the rest of us.

In 2002, these folks decided that a free, public education is an entitlement, and is therefore unacceptable. One wonders if these folks want to start charging admission to public parks or libraries. The rabid anti-taxers don't believe that government has any purpose whatsoever...It's a selfish, anti-community attitude. According to them we're not "all in this together." Instead, it's "every man for himself." The social studies text books are up for revision this year. I don't doubt that the same sort of lunacy will prevail (Think I'm wrong? Take a gander at the Texas GOP platform for this year).

Ten Outrageous Changes Publishers Agreed to Make to Texas Social Studies Textbooks in 2002

A publisher agreed to delete “In the United States, everyone has a right to free public education” from a textbook after a critic argued that the sentence suggested education is an entitlement.

TIME TO DREAM AGAIN

Neil deGrasse Tyson...

Do You Know The Silly Reason Why America Put A Man On The Moon? Do You Know Why We Stopped Going?

"The NASA budget is four-tenths of one penny on a tax dollar." If I held up the tax dollar and I cut - horizontally into it - four tenths of one percent of it's width, it doesn't even get you into the ink. So I will not accept a statement that says, "we can't afford it."

Do you realize that the $850 billion dollar bank bailout - that sum of money is greater than the entire 50 year running budget of NASA? And so, when someone says, "We don't have enough money for this space probe." I'm asking, "No. It's not that you don't have enough money." It's that the distribution of money that you're spending is warped in some way that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.

The home of tomorrow. The city of tomorrow. The transportation of tomorrow. All that ended in the 1970's. After we stopped going to the Moon, it all ended - We stopped dreaming.

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

VOUCHERS

Expanded Vouchers in Indiana Pass House Committee

The Fort Wayne News Sentinel is beside itself with glee since the expanded voucher program supported by Governor Pence passed the House Education Committee yesterday (along party lines). The goal is now obvious...support for private schools over public schools. The fact that this hurts public schools, according the the Sentinel, is a plus. Their suggestion to public schools? Work harder...without any reference to the fact that vouchers suck money away from the public schools. The plan is simple. Blame public schools for the failure of children in poverty. Divert money from the public schools to private and parochial schools, leaving the hardest to educate children in the public schools.

Here's what they said in their editorial.

The best argument for the changes is that the voucher system would be big enough to encourage more private schools in Indiana...vouchers likely hurt public schools or at least give them more stress than they would ordinarily have. And if the current system hurts, the expanded one would hurt more.

Indiana residents' tax money is now going to support religious institutions...whether they want it to or not. Choice? Not really.

This is not about “choice.” It’s about funding religious and other private schools with taxpayer dollars and ultimately destroying the public school system.

If you think the Heritage Foundation, the Koch Brothers and Betsy DeVos are in this just to help to some poor kid in the inner city, they’ve got a privatized bridge in Brooklyn they want to sell you.

See the section on POVERTY, below.

STOP CALLING IT "REFORM!"

Is school reform making America less competitive?

The so-called "reformers" are bent on privatizing America's public education system. The goal is control and money...not student achievement.

And the results of obsessing on standardized tests are hurting kids in suburban districts, just like it is in urban schools. Why? Because they fall short in imparting 21st century skills, most especially critical thinking skills.

...High-stakes standardized tests are pushing functional schools in the wrong direction. These schools need to change by catering to diverse learning styles, scrapping the lectures and emphasizing interactive projects, building critical thinking skills, and allowing kids, over time, to specialize in subjects that most interest them. Judging these schools and their teachers on how they do on standardized tests only locks them into ineffective and outmoded educational practices.

CHARTERS*

Charter Schools That Start Bad Stay Bad, Stanford Report Says

Charters are not the magic bullet...not the one size fits all solution. There are good charters and bad charters just like there are good traditional public schools and bad ones. We need to keep public money with public schools...not give it to corporate charters.

The report, "Charter School Growth and Replications," found that, with some exceptions, charter schools that start strong are likely to stay that way, just as low-performing schools usually remain at the bottom. The study ranked charter schools within five levels based on performance, and found that 80 percent of schools in the bottom level during their first year remained there for five years. Similarly, 94 percent of schools that started at the top remained there. The only schools that changed levels were elementary schools and those in the second-lowest group, with half becoming worse and half becoming better.

"Substantial improvement over time is largely absent from middle schools, multi-level schools and high schools," the authors wrote. "Only elementary schools showed an upward pattern of growth" if they started out in the bottom two levels.

TEXAS

Texas Schools Inadequately Funded, Court Rules
Things are changing in Texas...

First, a state district judge ruled that the public schools are being short-changed by the state.

In a decision certain to be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, state district Judge John Dietz ruled Monday in favor of more than 600 school districts on all of their major claims against the state's school finance system. With a swift ruling issued from the bench shortly after the state finished its closing arguments, Dietz said that the state does not adequately or efficiently fund public schools -- and that it has created an unconstitutional de-facto property tax in shifting the burden of paying for them to the local level.

Second, Texas is the birthplace of No Child Left Behind...and the testing insanity that's been forced on the nation. Now, the legislature is pulling back on the tests.

Senate, House committee move to roll back high-stakes testing in Texas schools

The Senate launched its effort to roll back high-stakes testing in Texas schools on Wednesday, passing a bill to scrap the current rule that new high school end-of-course exams count as 15 percent of the grade in each subject tested.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the House Public Education Committee introduced legislation that would sharply reduce the number of state end-of-course tests that high school students would have to pass to graduate — from the current 15 down to five.

Action in both chambers follows months of complaints about high-stakes testing from school superintendents, parents and students across the state. It also virtually guaranteed that testing requirements in Texas will be less rigorous in the future than they are today.

PRIVATIZATION

Why America's Prep Schools Aren't Following Arne Duncan's Public School Education Reforms

Would [insert wealthy person's name here, for example, Rahm Emanuel] send his/her children to [insert expensive private school name here, for example, University of Chicago Lab School] if they spent weeks and weeks of the school year on test prep and testing? Of course not. What if the school had non-certified teachers? TFA and test prep are not for the rich. As Diane Ravitch said, "In schools for the rich, children get taught. In schools for the poor, children get tested."

The problem is the public is force-fed these ideas of standardized curriculum, teaching, and assessment as the best tactics education science has to offer. They tell us that this is how we must educate our children. Wait, whose children are we talking about? Not the kids at Trinity School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side—41 percent are in that Ivy/MIT/Stanford pipeline—or Philips Exeter in New Hampshire, which educated Mark Zuckerberg. As someone with more experience in education than those whose voices are most prominent, I can also assure you that mainstream reform ideologies are not the best anyone has to offer. In fact, they are the cheapest and easiest to control. That's it.

N.M. Schools Chief Overrules Panel, Clears Path for Virtual School

All over the country people who are charged with the support and success of America's public schools are selling out to the privatizers. Money is fueling this short sighted move which is slowly but surely destroying our public schools.

New Mexico state schools chief Hanna Skandera has overruled her state's public education commission and approved a new statewide online provider, arguing that the panel's rejection of the virtual program relied on faulty logic and a misreading of the law.

The online provider, Connections Academy, seeks to operate a full time, virtual charter school in New Mexico.

The state's public education commission, an elected body, in September rejected the academy's application by a 6-3 vote, after raising doubts about whether New Mexico state law allowed the panel to approve the online program. The commission questioned whether full-time online education could be used a substitute for in-person, student-to-teacher interaction, without approval from local boards of education.

TESTING

Heard the One About Old Teachers Resisting Tests?

Veteran teachers know enough to object to being evaluated using student test scores.

Newer teachers accept and embrace evaluation by test scores. Veteran teachers are skeptical, resistant. Dividing line? Eleven years of experience or more.

The views point up sort of a generational split among teachers nationally when it comes to sweeping changes in teacher evaluations, according to an online survey by Teach Plus, which says it promotes quality teachers in urban areas. In general, teachers with 10 or fewer years in the classroom embrace the changes, including reviews that link the growth of student achievement to teacher performance, and ultimately whether they keep their job, according to the group.

Teach Plus, in addition to their focus on urban schools--where there are lots and lots of eager newbie teachers--was behind a campaign to eliminate seniority-based layoffs in Indiana. They are Gates-funded, and they recruit and train early-career teachers as "policy fellows." Other foci? Retaining effective teachers in staff reductions. Assessments teachers can believe in. Reforming teacher evaluation. Sense a pattern?

POVERTY

Poverty and the “achievement gap”: Some new data

The politicians, pundits and policy makers find it much easier to blame schools, school teachers and teachers unions for low achievement than to take their share of the responsibility for the level of poverty in the US.

A larger percentage of students in the US live in poverty, as compared to the top-scoring countries, and poverty level is consistently associated with school performance. Carnoy and Rothstein attempted to control for this.

They calculated that if the US had the same social class distribution as the average of the top three countries, the average US reading score on the PISA would be 518...Social class (poverty) thus accounts for about half the reading gap, as measured by the PISA. Carnoy and Rothstein also concluded that social class accounts for a about a third or more of the math gap table 1B, p. 14).

...This data suggests that dealing with poverty, at least protecting children from some of the effects of poverty, will have a strong impact on achievement.

Here's a link to the report...

What do international tests really show about U.S. student performance?

Because social class inequality is greater in the United States than in any of the countries with which we can reasonably be compared, the relative performance of U.S. adolescents is better than it appears when countries’ national average performance is conventionally compared.

• Because in every country, students at the bottom of the social class distribution perform worse than students higher in that distribution, U.S. average performance appears to be relatively low partly because we have so many more test takers from the bottom of the social class distribution.
• A sampling error in the U.S. administration of the most recent international (PISA) test resulted in students from the most disadvantaged schools being over-represented in the overall U.S. test-taker sample. This error further depressed the reported average U.S. test score.
• If U.S. adolescents had a social class distribution that was similar to the distribution in countries to which the United States is frequently compared, average reading scores in the United States would be higher than average reading scores in the similar post-industrial countries we examined (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), and average math scores in the United States would be about the same as average math scores in similar post-industrial countries.
• A re-estimated U.S. average PISA score that adjusted for a student population in the United States that is more disadvantaged than populations in otherwise similar post-industrial countries, and for the over-sampling of students from the most-disadvantaged schools in a recent U.S. international assessment sample, finds that the U.S. average score in both reading and mathematics would be higher than official reports indicate (in the case of mathematics, substantially higher).
• This re-estimate would also improve the U.S. place in the international ranking of all OECD countries, bringing the U.S. average score to sixth in reading and 13th in math. Conventional ranking reports based on PISA, which make no adjustments for social class composition or for sampling errors, and which rank countries irrespective of whether score differences are large enough to be meaningful, report that the U.S. average score is 14th in reading and 25th in math.
• Disadvantaged and lower-middle-class U.S. students perform better (and in most cases, substantially better) than comparable students in similar post-industrial countries in reading. In math, disadvantaged and lower-middle-class U.S. students perform about the same as comparable students in similar post-industrial countries.
• At all points in the social class distribution, U.S. students perform worse, and in many cases substantially worse, than students in a group of top-scoring countries (Canada, Finland, and Korea). Although controlling for social class distribution would narrow the difference in average scores between these countries and the United States, it would not eliminate it.
• U.S. students from disadvantaged social class backgrounds perform better relative to their social class peers in the three similar post-industrial countries than advantaged U.S. students perform relative to their social class peers. But U.S. students from advantaged social class backgrounds perform better relative to their social class peers in the top-scoring countries of Finland and Canada than disadvantaged U.S. students perform relative to their social class peers.
• On average, and for almost every social class group, U.S. students do relatively better in reading than in math, compared to students in both the top-scoring and the similar post-industrial countries.

Because not only educational effectiveness but also countries’ social class composition changes over time, comparisons of test score trends over time by social class group provide more useful information to policymakers than comparisons of total average test scores at one point in time or even of changes in total average test scores over time.

• The performance of the lowest social class U.S. students has been improving over time, while the performance of such students in both top-scoring and similar post-industrial countries has been falling.
• Over time, in some middle and advantaged social class groups where U.S. performance has not improved, comparable social class groups in some top-scoring and similar post-industrial countries have had declines in performance.

*References to charters generally imply corporate, for-profit charter schools. Quotes from other writers reflect their opinions only. See It's Important to Look in a Mirror Now and Then.