Breaking News: Another School Committee in Massachusetts Allows Parents to Opt Kids Out of PARCC Tests
The school committee of Tantasqua, Massachusetts, voted to permit parents to opt their children out of the PARCC tests. In doing so, Tantasqua joins the school committees of Worcester and Norfolk, which reached the same decision. The state department of education has opposed opting out, but the school committees are not following orders. The Tantasqua vote was close, 8-7, and the deciding vote wa
Breaking News! Texas Democratic Party Condemns Stealth Privatization of Dallas Public Schools
This just in. On Saturday, the Texas Democratic Party passed the following resolution: WHEREAS Houston billionaire John Arnold, a hedge-fund manager and former Enron trader, is bankrolling an effort to transform all of the Dallas Independent School District into a so-called “home-rule charter district” that would not be subject to essential safeguards in state law for students, parents, teachers,
Rochester Teachers Sue State Over Teacher Evaluations
The Rochester Teachers Association is suing the state over its teacher evaluation system, alleging that it does not take into account the impact of poverty on classroom performance. RTA says the evaluations are “junk science.” “ALBANY, N.Y. March 10, 2014 – The Rochester Teachers Association today filed a lawsuit alleging that the Regents and State Education Department failed to adequately accoun
Privatizers Make Bold Move to Take Over Dallas
Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas is working hard to convince the public that the Dallas Independent School District should be turned into a “home rule” district. What this means is that Mayor Rawlings and his rich pals called (ironically) Supporters of Public Schools want to eliminate public education and turn the whole district into an all-charter district. The shadowy group behind the “home rule”
Tennessee Teacher Sues to Invalidate Teacher Evaluation System
In one of what is likely to be a tidal wave of lawsuits, the Tennessee Education Association sued the state because a teacher was denied a bonus based on the state’s flawed evaluation system. “The Tennessee Education Association (TEA) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Knox County teacher who was denied a bonus under that school system’s pay plan after Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVA
Jack Hassard: Why Bill Gates Defends the Common Core
We have long known on this site that Bill Gates’ foundation underwrote every aspect of the Common Core standards. Mercedes Schneider has documented nearly $200 million in grants specifically for the writing, evaluation, review, implementation, and advocacy for the Common Core standards. Jack Hassard, a retired professor of science education, has scoured the Gates search engine and concluded that
Edward Haertel: Why VAM Fails: The Oak Tree Analogy
Audrey Amrein Beardsley invited Stanford Professor Emeritus Edward Haertel to explain why a video called “The Oak Tree Analogy” is flawed. Apparently there are districts that use this video to try to explain teacher evaluations based on growth or decline of test scores. Whether you are talking about oak trees or corn or teachers, VAM is Junk Science. And if you want to know more, read Haertel’s
Titanic, 2014?
A reader, Karen Taylor, sent the following reflections about her life as a teacher today: Titanic, 2014 I am finishing the eighth week of my twenty-seventh year of teaching in public schools. Today I had a startling insight- that somehow I have been given the task of saving the sinking Titanic. Public schools are the Titanic, run aground against icebergs of state-mandated test scores and the fail
On Our Way to a Dual School System?
Word of mouth says that charter schools kick students out before the testing begins. The charters make a big show of holding a lottery, but they choose the students they want and kick out the ones they don’t want. They cherry pick the students that will get the highest scores and shed the ones who don’t. What is the end game? A dual publicly-funded school system. One sector gets to choose its
Burris: Arne Duncan’s Pathetic Lies About Our Students and Our Public Schools
When Arne Duncan visited Boston recently, he lamented the sorry state of public education in Massachusetts–the highest scoring state in the nation on NAEP, a state whose students have been ranked at the top of international tests—and he praised privately managed charter schools for their excellence. For reasons he has never publicly explained, he wants to see more public dollars and students turne
Marc Tucker on Why Punitive Accountability Fails
Marc Tucker has written an excellent post on the failure of punitive accountability. The working theory behind the Bush-Obama “reforms” is that teachers are lazy and need to be motivated by rewards and punishments and the threat of public shaming. This is in fact a theory drawn from the early twentieth century writings of Frederick Winslow Taylor, who studied the efficiency of factory workers. Tuc
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 3-16-14 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Bloggers Propose the Fight of the CenturyThe bloggers at VAM have proposed what they call “the fight of the century” to replace “the fight of the century that wasn’t.” They refer to the debate that never happened between Michelle Rhee and me. They refer to efforts by Lehigh University to set up a debate between us on February 6, wh