Breaking News: D.C. Teacher Evaluation Scores Flawed
Last Friday, officials at the central office of the District of Columbia Public Schools quietly released the news that the teacher ratings on its highly touted IMPACT system contained errors. It was not clear how many teachers were affected. If you want to bury a policy disaster, the best time to announce it is on a Friday before a long holiday, on the assumption it will be ignored and forgotten.
New York Times: Staff Cuts Cause Increased Class Size
Motoko Rich reports on a district in Pennsylvania where budget cuts have led to teacher layoffs and increased class sizes. The story could be repeated in districts across the nation. Class sizes are growing, and schools are eliminating guidance counselors, nurses, classroom aides, librarians, and regular classroom teachers. In Philadelphia earlier this fall, a 12-year-old student died because the
Tony Bennett and the Privatization Money Trail
You remember Tony Bennett? Not the famous singer but the guy who was State Commissioner of education in Florida. The guy who led the effort to privatize public education in Indiana and led the charge for charter schools, vouchers, for-profit charters, virtual charters, high-stakes testing, the A-F grading system, and the elimination of collective bargaining rights for teachers. Remember that he wa
Robert Freeman: How to Destroy Education While Making a Trillion Dollars
We know the formula by now for destroying public education and handing it off to entrepreneurs who can cut costs, package it, extract a profit (or remain nonprofit while paying exorbitant executive salaries): Cry “crisis.” Set impossible targets (100% success on tests normed on a bell curve). Demoralize teachers. Fire the most experienced teachers. Hire low-wage temporary teachers who will leave
Who Will Win the Lysenko Award for 2013?
From Nebraska comes a letter from a retired teacher. He thinks there should be a special award for the person who best exemplifies the failed ideas of Trofim Lysenko. Lysenko was a biologist and agonomist whose ideas about agriculture were wrong but made compulsory. Here is the winner: A challenge to readers of your blog: Find an organization or a department or college of education that would d
Buffalo: A Story of Bad Policy, Bad Mandates, and Administrative Incompetence
A teacher in Buffalo read the New York Times series about the homeless child named Dasani and shared this story of administrative mandates, bad policy, and the harm inflicted on students. Why does Race to the Top assume that a school is “failing” when its students have unaddressed needs? Why does it assume that students who have unaddressed needs will get higher test scores if their teachers and p
Mercedes Schneider Offers Advice to Michigan Legislators and Parents About New Orleans Model: Run the Other Way!
Mercedes Schneider was invited to testify to a Michigan legislative committee about the alleged “New Orleans miracle,” which she explains is a mirage. In addition to presenting her views in a five-minute video, she made a ten-minute video specifically directed to Michigan parents. She explains what is happening in Louisiana, the data manipulation, the political games played with statistics to bols
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 12-22-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Teachers: Common Core in Kindergarten ClassThese comments were posted by a kindergarten teacher in response to a post about the Common Core English language arts standards: I teach kindergarden. The five-year olds have an incredibly tight schedule to keep in our county: an hour of math, hour of science, 2 hours of language arts, ha