Alvarez & Marsal to the Rescue
I learned yesterday that the Colorado Department of Education has hired the ubiquitous firm Alvarez & Marsal to investigate a cheating scandal in Denver (http://www.ednewscolorado.org/2012/05/15/38261-state-investigating-two-denver-schools). Alvarez & Marsal has no experience in investigating cheating scandals. The firm is a business consulting firm in New York City. It was hired a few weeks ago to investigate [...]
Who Is Reading My New Blog?
For the past couple of years I thought about having my own blog, but I didn’t know how to do it. Then I read someone’s blog on WordPress.com, and there was a button saying something like “press here and start your own blog.” And I did it a few weeks ago, and thousands of people [...]
To My Critics
I enjoy give and take with people who disagree. I have always believed in freedom to speak, freedom to disagree, freedom to teach and freedom to learn. I block three kinds of things on Twitter: 1) porn 2) ads 3) insults I believe it is possible to have a discussion without insulting the other person. [...]
How Does Rhee Sleep at Night?
The latest report on Michelle Rhee shows her collecting millions of dollars from Wall Street financiers, assorted billionaires, and mega-foundations, all to redesign American education as she sees fit. www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-education-rheebre84e1oa-20120515,0,7834441.story She has become a convenient vessel for the most rightwing governors who want to dismantle public education and reduce the teaching profession to at-will employees. How [...]
Is Memphis Next to Go?
I just got a great comment on an earlier post this morning. It is a great comment because it proves to me that the corporate reform movement is on the move and must be stopped before it wipes out public education. Here we see the nefarious hand of Boston Consulting, already at work dismantling public [...]
The Worst 8th Grade Math Teacher in NYC?
Aaron Pallas is one of the most insightful commentators on education in the nation. He teaches at Teachers College and if I were a student there, I would want to study with him. Not only is he smart, he is fearless. His regular columns in the Hechinger Report are “must” reading. His latest is about [...]
Charters Stopped Here
This year, a strong push for charter legislation was turned back in Alabama, Mississippi, Washington, and Kentucky. It was interesting to read the bold claims made by charter advocates, promising that charters would solve the education problems of the state. No doubt the proponents will be back next time, especially in states with conservative Republican [...]
Anti-Testing Movement Gains Momentum
The movement to slow down or stop or reverse high-stakes testing is moving forward at a rapid pace. This past week, the Houston Independent School Board endorsed a resolution opposing the overuse and misuse of standardized tests (http://blog.chron.com/k12zone/2012/05/hisd-joins-anti-testing-movement/). The resolution has now been endorsed by about 450 school boards in Texas, representing nearly half the [...]
The Most Idiotic Reform of the Week
Can you believe this? A story in the Washington Post reports that kindergarten students in Georgia will be asked to evaluate their teacher’s performance. The five-year-olds’ judgments will help to determine whether their teachers get a bonus or get fired http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/student-surveys-may-help-rate-teachers/2012/05/11/gIQAN78uMU_story.html. Have we lost our minds in this country? At long last, are we totally [...]
How to Get Rich Quick in Education
Most people who go into education don’t expect to make a lot of money. If they had that expectation, they would be demented, since teaching is not known as a profession that is high-paying. But yes, there is a way to get rich in education, and it is not by becoming a teacher. Become a [...]
The Failure of Corporate Reform (2)
It turns about that Houston has been awarding test-based bonuses for years. It turns about that tying test scores to scores has not been good for teachers or students. It turns out that the ratings jump around from year to year. They are inaccurate, unreliable, and unstable. Value-added assessment, as everyone recognizes, creates massive pressure [...]
The Failure of Corporate Reform (continued)
The current era of school reform has nothing to do with improving education or helping kids and everything to do with imposing business values on schools, specifically, (1) subjecting schools to measurements that distort their goals and (2) privatizing public schools so as to disable the public responsibility for public education. This project has many [...]
Will Public Education in Philadelphia Die?
I hope you read my Education Week blog “Bridging Differences” today. It’s here: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2012/05/privatizing_public_education_i.html. The Philadelphia plan is the lastest manifestation of the idea that the best way to educate kids is to hand them over to private entrepreneurs. It is au courant and wrong. The drive for privatization is driven by multiple ideologies. One is [...]
Scarsdale Superintendent Blasts Cuomo Plan
Governor Andrew Cuomo once boasted that he was the lobbyist for the children of New York state. One of his signal claims is the new evaluation system for educators. Many educators think it is a very bad system because it relies heavily on standardized test scores. More than 1/3 of the principals of New York [...]
Release the Tests
A parent recently wrote an article in the New York Times explaining why he planned to file a Freedom of Information Act suit to demand the release of all test questions. He is right. Now that the tests have assumed so much importance, the public has a right to know what they were asked. Now [...]
Bad News for TFA
Federal Court reaffirms ruling that alternate route teachers are not “highly qualified” and that it is wrong to concentrate them in districts with high-needs students. Diane Home › News & Comment › News › Press Releases & Kits NINTH CIRCUIT REAFFIRMS RULING THAT TRAINEE TEACHERS NOT INTENDED AS “HIGHLY QUALIFIED” UNDER NCLB Project: Renee v. [...]
Charter School Rent Gouging in NYC
Yoav Gonen of the New York Post discovered a stunning allocation of public funds in Brooklyn. Gonen reported recently that for-profit National Heritage Academies was leasing buildings and then subletting them at a mark-up of 1,000%, charged to the taxpayers. NHA is leasing a school from the Brooklyn Diocese for $246,000, but charges the city [...]
Charter School Boasting in Florida
Frank Biden, who just so happens to be Vice-President Joe Biden’s brother (he told me twice when I met him briefly at Lynn University in Palm Beach County almost two years ago), is selling charter schools. He represents a for-profit chain called Mavericks. The chain makes some big claims. The results are not so impressive. [...]
60 Minutes on the Gulen Charters
I was curious to see how Lesley Stahl and 60 Minutes would deal with the Gulen Charter schools in their program last night. The Gulen charters are the largest charter chain in the United States, with something like 135-140 charters. Few people realize that the Gulen charter chain is far larger than the KIPP chain. [...]