NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs
from The Network for Public Education
Orange teacher donates $800 bonus to group that lobbies against testing | Orlando Sentinel
Lauren Roth, Sentinel School Zone 10:30 am, March 27, 2014 Orange County high school teacher Kevin Strang is donating a bonus he got for teaching at an A school as a protest against testing. “I’ve been so frustrated with the whole standardized testing thing,” said Strang, a music teacher at Boone High School. “I’ve been trying ...read more
Good News! Helen Gym To Be Honored by White House | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Helen Gym, one of our heroes of public education, will be honored by the White House as a “champion of change.” “Gym has been named a Chesar Chavez Champion of Change – one of 10 community leaders nationally who have “committed themselves to improving the lives of others in their communities and across the country,” ...read more
MAR 26
Trickle of Texas parents choosing to opt children out of state testing | Dallas Morning News
Next week starts STAAR season for Texas public school students. For a few parents across the state, that’s the deadline for them to decide whether to opt out — to refuse to let their children take the state-required exams. Earlier this week, a Waco couple took their decision unusually public. They sent an opt-out letter ...read more
Republican governors wrestle with unpopular Common Core education standards | PBS NewsHour
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — More than five years after U.S. governors began a bipartisan effort to set new standards in American schools, the Common Core initiative has morphed into a political tempest fueling division among Republicans. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce leads establishment voices — such as possible presidential contender Jeb Bush — who hail the ...read more
World Classy | EduShyster
Is there anything Massachusetts can do to STEM the rising tide of mediocrity? Once upon a time there was a little state with big dreams. We’ll call her Massachusetts as that is her name and, since 1993, she has been the standard bearer for educational standards. But the times they are a changin’ and the ...read more
Arne Duncan heads to New Zealand, Hawaii with gaggle of staffers | The Answer Sheet
My Post colleague Lyndsey Layton asked the Education Department about Secretary Arne Duncan’s trip this week to New Zealand and Hawaii — which will round out his visits to all 50 states during his tenure. Here’s what she learned: On Tuesday, Duncan jetted off to Wellington, New Zealand, to participate in the International Summit on ...read more
Kevin Welner: Why Legislators Adopt VAM Formulas They Don’t Understand | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center, wrote this commentary in response to the complaints of teachers who are evaluated by the scores of students they never taught. Few people can understand the complex algorithms underlying VAM scores, and the people who wrote these formulae can’t explain them in pain English. Yet teachers ...read more
MAR 25
Are We (Finally) Ready to Face Teacher Education’s Race Problem? | the becoming radical
The teacher quality and teacher education debates have been absent a fundamental acknowledgement of race in the same way that school quality and education reform have mostly ignored race. Some are taking the recent Office of Civil Rights reports on inequitable discipline policies and access to quality teachers and courses as evidence that education reform ...read more
On NYS Testing: What John King Isn’t Telling Superintendents | Critical Classrooms, Critical Kids
On March 24, 2014 New York State Education Commissioner, John King, published a memo to NYS superintendents regarding the administration of this year’s Common Core state tests. In true Race to the Top fashion, King opens by claiming that New York is leading the country “…toward a more rigorous and challenging system of public education ...read more
Big Data and Education | WSJ.com
With the shift to computerized testing, tablets in the classroom and digitized personal records, schools are collecting more data than ever on how children are doing. Now, some educators believe, it’s time to put that data to use. Every answer on a quiz can be analyzed to give teachers a precise picture of what their ...read more
The new extremists in education debate | The Answer Sheet
A member of the Ohio House of Representatives, Republican Rep. Andrew Brenner, wrote a post on his blog under this headline: “Public education in America is socialism, what is the solution?” He wrote in part: Parents send their children to public schools throughout the United States, to school districts funded by taxation. Most of the ...read more
How much time and money can Malloy and Pryor Waste on the Common Core Test of a Test – Wait What?
Maybe they really don’t understand how public schools function or maybe they really don’t understand the impact inadequate state funding has on Connecticut’s public schools. Or maybe they just don’t care… When you see one of state’s elected officials you might want to give them a big “thank you” for putting Connecticut’s public education system ...read more
Your Tax Dollars Fund Creationism In Schools | Alternet
American tax dollars are funding the teaching of creationism in schools. An in-depth report by Politico’s Stephanie Simon reveals that taxpayers in 14 states are spending $1 billion to fund tuition for private schools, including hundreds of institutions that teach that God created the Earth and that biology and geology are full of lies. While ...read more
Your Child Is Now a Data Point. Thanks, Pearson and Arne! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
If you have been wondering why data mining matters so much, you will want to see this video. Please note that the U.S. Department of Education’s logo is on this video. In it, an entrepreneur named Jose Ferreira, CEO of Knewton, shares his vision for a future in which education of every individual child is completely determined by data. Education today happens ...read more
MAR 24
About Those Teachers in Jeb Bush’s TV Spots | Scathing Purple Musings
StateImpact’s John O’Connor reported on the start of a new TV advertising campaign from one of Jeb Bush’s foundations to promote Common Core Standards: The education foundation founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has launched a new web site and advertising campaign to support the Common Core math and language arts standards facing criticism in ...read more
Revolt Against the Testing Tyrants | RealClearPolitics
Have you had enough of the testing tyranny? Join the club. To be clear: I’m not against all standardized academic tests. My kids excel on tests. The problem is that there are too damned many of these top-down assessments, measuring who knows what, using our children as guinea pigs and cash cows. College-bound students in ...read more
The Fatal Flaw of the Common Core Standards | Diane Ravitch in Huffington Post
Across the nation, parents and educators are raising objections to the Common Core standards, and many states are reconsidering whether to abandon them and the federally-funded tests that accompany them. Arne Duncan, Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable vocally support them, yet the unease continues and pushback remains ...read more
New Extremists In The Education Debate | Jeff Bryant
For people who like to think of themselves as being “exceptional,” Americans can sometimes abandon the very principles their exceptionality is founded on. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current debate of education policy. A feature that has long made America’s public school system exceptional for sure is its governance through democratically elected ...read more
With VAM: All Teachers of the Gifted Are “Bad” Teachers | Diane Ravitch’s blog
In this age of value-added measurement, when teachers are judged by the rise or fall of their students’ test scores, it is very dangerous to teach gifted classes. Their scores are already at the top, and they have nowhere to go, so the teacher will get a low rating. It is also dangerous to teach ...read more
The brainy questions on Finland’s only high-stakes standardized test | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS Much has been written in recent years about Finland’s vaunted education system, which has consistently scored at or close to the top in international test scores and has the distinction of operating under policies very different from those that drive U.S. corporate-based education reform. In Finland, teachers are respected and students don’t ...read more
SAT, ACT Sued for Selling Student Data | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A lawsuit was filed against the SAT and ACT for selling confidential data of students to colleges. Some states mandate that all students must take one of these tests, whether they are college bound or not. Students assume that their names and scores will be shared with colleges to which they apply, but it turns out that far more is disclosed ...read more
Students, teachers grapple with Read to Achieve law | NC Policy Watch
It’s Friday, and Carla Tavares, a third grade teacher at Millbrook Elementary School in Wake County, is tired of testing her students. And Tavares’ students are tired of taking tests. “Which test is this?” a sullen third grader asked Tavares, holding a packet in his hand that contained a four-page reading passage and several questions ...read more
MAR 23
How Does PISA Put the World at Risk (Part 3): Creating Illusory Models of Excellence | Yong Zhao
Few numbers command as much power as PISA scores, not even the number of Olympic medals or Nobel Prize winners in the world today. It is utterly shocking and embarrassing to see some otherwise rational and well-educated people (or at least they should be) in powerful positions believe that three test scores show the quality ...read more
Relentless | EduShyster
Education Reform, Inc. vs. democracy—now playing on a screen near you When Netflix bazillionaire Reed Hastings proclaimed recently that, by their sheer relentlessness, charter school warriors will succeed in eliminating the scourge of elected school boards from the earth, the reaction from critics was swift and furious. “Like a shiny red apple that’s rotten to ...read more
Sen. Grassley seeking to defund Common Core in Congress | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS March 23 at 1:56 pm Having tried unsuccessfully last year to persuade his colleagues in Congress to defund the Common Core program, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) is at it again. Grassley is circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter asking legislators to sign on to a separate missive that will be sent early ...read more
Fallacies Or Conspiracies?: NAEP, PISA & ACT/SAT Tests | Geaux Teacher!
This was written in response to concerns by some legislators who are working with their constituencies (finally) to sponsor bills for this Louisiana legislative session that will remove our state from the flawed policies associated with the adoption of Common Core Standards. Of primary concern is the argument that comparisons of NAEP (national), PISA (international) ...read more
Florida Teacher Evaluated on Scores of Students She Never Taught: Junk Science Alert! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Value-added-measurement (VAM) produce ratings that are inaccurate and unstable. In Florida, about half of teachers don’t teach tested subjects, so they are assigned scores based on the scores of their school, meaning they are rated in relation to the scores of students they never taught and subjects they never taught. This Florida teacher explains why she was rated a 23.6583 out ...read more
With A Brooklyn Accent: Is High Stakes Testing the Best Way to Improve Educational Performance Among Students of Color and Students Living in Poverty?
Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, there has been a concerted effort to reduce gaps in educational performance by race and class by promoting regular testing in all grades and subjects and rating schools and teachers on the basis those tests. As a consequence of such policies, thousands of public schools in low ...read more
From One Teacher to Another: VAM is Junk Science | Diane Ravitch’s blog
After Kafkateach stated that his/her VAM scores were poor because he/she is a teacher of gifted students and have no way to go higher, this response came from Chris in Florida: We’re in this together here in Florida, kafkateach. I am National Board certified, have 2 masters degrees (only 1 is in education), 20+ years ...read more
What Education Reformers Can’t Do (And What They Should) | Russ on Reading
The corporate education reformers love to tell teachers what they need to do, what they have failed to do and where they need to place their focus. One of their favorite pieces of advice to teachers is that since teachers can’t fix the problems outside of school (such as poverty), they should focus on what ...read more
The Coming Teacher Shortage | CURMUDGUCATION
The Coming Teacher Shortage Friday I sat down for coffee with the president of a local university (in my other incarnation as a local newspaper columnists, I get the occasional request to chat). Among other things, she confirmed what I have been hearing for a while– enrollment in state school teacher programs is plummeting, down ...read more
Legislative Leaders’ failure to act leaves many parents in limbo on Common Core Testing | Wait What?
For weeks the Malloy administration has been engaged in an outrageous public relations campaign to mislead parents of Connecticut’s public school students into believing that they did not have the right to opt their children out of this year’s Common Core Smarter Balanced Field Test of the test. Rather than stand up for the rights ...read more
MAR 22
A ‘Dear John’ letter to Florida — from 2010 state Teacher of the Year | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS March 22 at 11:50 am Megan Allen is a veteran English teacher who was the 2010 Florida Teacher of the Year and a finalist for National Teacher of the Year. She is also a National Board Certified Teacher. But she left Florida with her morale extremely low because of a series of reforms ...read more
When Bill Gates Told State Legislators What to Do and They Did It | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Mercedes Schneider came across a speech that Bill Gates gave to state legislators in 2009. It lays out the blueprint for everything that has happened in education since then. Forget what you learned in civics class. Gates gave legislators their marching orders. Duncan already had his marching orders. Gates laid out $3.2 billion to create and promote the Common Core standards. ...read more
MAR 21
Your Common Core Marketing Overlords | National Review Online
By Michelle Malkin \They’re everywhere. Turn on Fox News, local news, Animal Planet, HGTV, the Family Channel, or talk radio. Pro–Common Core commercials have been airing ad nauseam in a desperate attempt to persuade American families to support the beleaguered federal education standards/testing/technology racket. Who is funding these public-relations pushes? D.C. lobbyists, entrenched politician
Fred Smith: Parents Should Say NO to Field Tests | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Fred Smith is a testing expert in New York City who has been advising parent organizations about their rights and explaining the technicalities of the tests to laymen. He writes here: “There are many reasons to refuse to participate in the field tests. They are summarized here–concerning New York State’s stealthy field testing practices, but ...read more
What’s Wrong with Teacher Education? | the becoming radical
I belong to two communities that are central to my life—educators and cyclists. So when a cyclist and friend sent me an article on the importance of how cyclists conduct themselves as groups on the roads, I was struck by the opening quote included by the writer, Richard Fries: “We have met the enemy and ...read more
TALLAHASSEE: School voucher bill suffers serious setback | MiamiHerald.com
KMCGRORY@MIAMIHERALD.COM TALLAHASSEE — The Senate sponsor of the school voucher bill withdrew his proposal Thursday, making it unlikely that the measure will pass this year. Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said he pulled the bill because there wasn’t enough time to develop a testing requirement that everybody could agree on. “I thought it would be better ...read more
“Social Welfare Agencies” Spending Millions to Push Privatization of Education | janresseger
While states continue to spend less money on public education than they did in 2007 prior to the Great Recession, lots of people are spending lavishly to promote what is frequently called the corporate school reform movement that features various forms of privatization. It is virtually impossible to follow and master all the details of ...read more
Good News! TEA Sues Governor, Commissioner re Junk Science VAM | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The Tennessee Education Association filed a second lawsuit against the use if value-added assessment (called TVAAS in Tennessee), this time including extremist Governor Haslam and ex-TFA state commissioner Huffman in their suit. The teachers rightly say that the evaluations are unfair, a point on which most reputable researchers are in their corner. “TEA’s lawsuit was ...read more
Parents livid over CPS investigators questioning kids over ISAT boycott | Chicago Sun-Times
Furious Bucktown elementary school parents said CPS investigators yanked their children out of classrooms Thursday for individual interviews about this month’s ISAT boycott — without parental permission. “I was absolutely furious and I really still am,” said a parent who asked not to be named whose daughter was interrogated. “It’s really scary now that I ...read more