FEATURED STORY
As the test cheating scandals heat up around the country, media attention is now increasingly focused on the issue. Viewpoints vary–from the uninformed and superficial to those that offer a deeper scrutiny on the root causes of cheating. In other words, from the stupid to the sublime. Take your pick. We are compiling a running list on recent ErasureGate articles. Please feel free [...]
WHERE IS RHEE?
ACADEMIC REPORTS
- False Choices: the economic argument against market-driven education reform
- Benefits of Bargaining: How Public Worker Negotiations Improve Ohio Communities
- Partnerships in Education: How Labor-Management Collaboration is Transforming Public Schools
- Collaborating on School Reform: Creating Union-Management Partnerships to Improve Public Schools
- Review of the Gateways to the Principaliship
- What studies say about teacher effectiveness
- Tests, cheating, and educational corruption
- Center for Education Polic: Keeping informed about School Vouchers
- National Academies: Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education
- NRC on Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education
- Six Dangerous Myths about Pay
- Teacher Pay for Performance: Experimental Evidence
- Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from New York Public Schools
- Paying Teachers for Student Test Scores Damages Schools and Undermines Learning
- NCEE Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program
- Rhee's DC Record: She did no better than previous school leaders
- Do layoffs really disproportionately hurt poorer schools?
- Rhee's "Baltimore Miracle", the original USMBC study
- Rhee's Resume: The Baltimore Miracle, by cohort (Brandenburg)
NEW POSTS
Video: Students and parents from New York to Seattle are fighting corporate education reform agenda
“Michelle Rhee calls her organization StudentsFirst, a common affectation among corporate-style education reformers, who often like to claim that the tens of millions of dollars they pour into remaking education policy are spent on behalf of students and parents. But in fact, the policies they push—promoting testing, making it easier to fire teachers, opening charter schools, and bringing profit motives into education in a dozen more ways—are not only empirically flawed and anti-teacher, but are often opposed by actual students and parents, who are increasingly pushing back.”
John Merrow: A Trifecta Of Sins–Test cheating, lying and stealing
Documentarian John Merrow seeks whistleblower information on the test cheating on Rhee’s watch. But believes the fallout is much worse.
“The cheating scandal is next to nothing; that is a product of the testing obsession as a whole, something that Michelle Rhee certainly fed, but it is far from the worst part of her tenure. Those test scores mean nothing about how prepared our children are for their futures–whether or not there was cheating.”
…we’re cheating kids on their tests and stealing essential courses like art and music from them! Add to that, we are lying — because when kids get phony scores telling them they are proficient when they need help, that’s an out-and-out lie.
At what point does this trifecta — lying, cheating and stealing — become a felony? Seriously!
In the face of this disheartening news, one has to ask, “who benefits?” I’m stumped. Certainly not children, parents and teachers.”
A DC teacher speaks out on test cheating, Rhee’s successor declines
“NPR, CLAUDIO SANCHEZ: Frazier O’Leary has taught high school English for most of his 42 years in Washington, D.C. He says administrators and teachers may have altered test scores because they feared for their jobs.
O’LEARY: You know, the pressure was put on principals, the pressure was put on teachers that the test scores had to be raised. But it had nothing to do with educating students.
SANCHEZ: In Washington, D.C., test scores account for 50 percent of a teacher’s performance, more than in any other urban school district in the country. It’s the policy Michelle Rhee devised and Chancellor Henderson has continued. Now, this is where you’d expect and want to hear Henderson’s views, not just about the cheating but about everything else on her plate. After repeated requests though, Henderson declined to speak to NPR. An email from her office read: We felt that the scope of the story did not need the chancellor’s voice in it. Henderson has called the cheating allegations unfounded, but local and federal investigations are under way and the school system’s credibility is on the line. “
Rhee’s DC record: highest per pupil spending ever but poorest student achievement gains among all cities tested
Under her watch, Rhee resorted to smoke and mirrors toclaim budgetary constraints. Attorney Mary Levy, fiscal analyst of education budgets and frequent expert witness in DC Council hearings, sent the following fiscal table showing DCPS 07-11 funding and spending.
Levy writes: “Per student spending from all funding sources rose by $3,744 in the four years from 2007 to 2011, a total of 27%, compared to local inflation of 10%. A cause for concern is that much of the $80 million increase was funded by increases in special Congressional earmarks ($27 million) big foundation grants ($20 million) and federal entitlement grants ($6 million). Federal stimulus funding increased by $22 million. Cutbacks in any of these sources could create a big impact on DCPS.”
In other words, Rhee ran DCPS with more money than previous superintendents. This massive funding was unsustainably sourced from one-offs and private grants, and had nothing to show for it--not statistically significant gains in student achievement. And the widest black-white 8th grade achievement gap among all cities tested.
Rhee et al. forms yet another group to wage more war against teachers
“’If these 1-percenters want to mount an AstroTurf campaign with their deep pockets, they’ve done this before,’ [union president Mulgrew] said. ‘But let’s be clear: the public school parents have not bought into the Bloomberg education reform movement.’
…Ms. Rhee and Mr. Klein have a confrontational history with teachers’ unions. But some charter school leaders and other advocates have spoken of the need to lower the temperature of the debate and have turned their focus inward on improving their own schools.
‘Folks are genuinely looking for opportunities to make peace and not war,’ Mr. Canada said. ‘And I think that’s terrific. But someone has to make war.’”