NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs
from The Network for Public Education
An infuriating admission | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 11 at 9:50 am New York State Education Commissioner John King, (Mike Groll/AP File Photo) What’s going on here? Last September, Bill Gates admitted that he doesn’t know if the school reform initiatives that he is massively funding will work. To be precise, he said during an interview at Harvard University: “It ...read more
More than 37 NYC principals say NO! to the Commissioner; the state exams are unfair & flawed & need to undergo public scrutiny | NYC Public School Parents
The day after NY Education Commissioner King in a widely-covered speech claims the state’s Common Core aligned exams were “better tests” and the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praises him, by saying under King’s leadership the state has an opportunity to “help lead the country where we need to go,” more than 37 NYC principals ...read more
The new school reform model: ‘dumping the losers’ | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 11 at 12:00 pm Since 2011, the state-run Philadelphia public school district has adopted what is called the “portfolio model” of school reform as its “theory of change.” The model is a move away from the traditional school district, in which a centralized administration controls a set of public schools, to ...read more
If education is a civil right, who are the good guys? | Behind Frenemy Lines
At the Civil Rights Summit celebrating the Civil Rights Act’s 50th birthday, everyone agreed that equal opportunity to education was a civil right. If that’s true, then who are today’s Freedom Riders and who is standing in the schoolhouse door? Education reformers see themselves as modern-day civil rights heroes, but the real continuation of non-violent ...read more
Peabody (MA) School Committee Calls for Investigation of State Commissioner | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The Peabody School Committee unanimously passed a resolution calling for an investigation of whether State Commissioner Mitchell Chester has a conflict of interest as national chairman of the PARCC governing board. Some people in the Bay State are still angry that school officials dropped the state’s successful standards and assessments in exchange for $75 million ...read more
APR 08
Thousands of Long Island Students Opt-Out of Common Core Testing | Long Island News from the Long Island Press
Speakers opposed to the state’s new public education policies whipped an audience of hundreds into a furor at Comsewogue High School on March 29, 2014 as Opt-Out supporters, preaching from the stage in the auditorium, vowed to “starve the beast”—calling on parents to have their children skip the rigorous standardized tests and deprive the school ...read more
Koch brothers help Kansas lawmakers strip teachers of tenure | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 8 at 7:00 am The Kansas legislature just passed legislation that strips teachers of tenure and the right to due process, a move pushed by conservative lawmakers who were forced by a state Supreme Court ruling to provide more funding to poor school districts and wanted to get something out of ...read more
If Economists Studied Education Research, Would They Still Promote Value-Added Evaluations? – @ THE CHALK FACE
BY JOHN THOMPSON Vergara versus California seeks to strike down the due process rights of that state’s teachers. The case is based on the opinions of the plaintiffs that legal protections for teachers damage the civil rights of poor children of color. The evidence for this extraordinary argument is largely based on the opinions ...read more
Why We Chose to Opt Out | EduSanity
Thousands of children in our state are headed into schools today to take standardized tests mandated by the federal government under No Child Left Behind. Our fourth grade son won’t be one of them. Opting your children out of standardized tests is a very personal decision, and one that has been far more difficult to ...read more
Trumbull postpones Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Testing for juniors | Wait What?
Only 26 of Trumbull High School’s 530 juniors showed up to take last Friday’s Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Test of a test. Earlier in the week, only 47 (less than 10 percent) of the town’s high school juniors participated in that day’s portion of the test. In response, Trumbull has postponed this week’s Common ...read more
Texas Superintendent Asks for Help in Stopping Failed VAM | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This superintendent posted a request for help. I will be posting a summary of research on value-added-measurement later today. I think it is fair to say that while economists like VAM (they measure productivity), education researchers overwhelmingly oppose VAM because they know that most of the factors affecting test scores are beyond the control of ...read more
Charter schools show little difference in school performance | Chicago Sun-Times
Since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office in 2011, Chicago has ordered the closings of dozens of neighborhood public schools while approving a new wave of publicly financed, privately operated charter schools, in a much-touted effort to improve education. Emanuel’s push continues an effort begun under former Mayor Richard M. Daley and supported by U.S. Education ...read more
Principals slam 2014 NY Common Core tests as badly designed | The Answer Sheet
Students in New York have been taking state-mandated Common Core-aligned standard tests in English Language Arts in recent days and, for the second year in a row, educators are saying the tests — designed by the giant education company Pearson — were badly designed for the second straight year. Last year, the tests sparked controversy ...read more
Gresham Elementary principal fights CPS school ‘turnaround’ plan | Chicago Sun-Times
If Gresham Elementary School Principal Diedrus Brown is going to lose her job anyway, she said Monday she’ll go down telling the truth. The school she has led for the past decade is one of three slated for a staff reboot, which Chicago Public Schools calls a “turnaround,” saying that Gresham’s academics arepoor enough to ...read more
VAMboozled: Everything You Want to Know about VAM Research | Diane Ravitch’s blog
I asked Audrey Amrein-Beardsley to compile a list of the most important VAM research. Here are her recommendations for the top 13 research articles about Value-Added Measurement: Amrein-Beardsley, A. (2008). Methodological concerns about the Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS). Educational Researcher, 37(2), 65-75. doi: 10.3102/0013189X08316420. Amrein-Beardsley, A., & Collins,
Why “Reformy”? | CURMUDGUCATION
Part of a series of posts for folks who are just beginning to find there way through the current debates on education. My blog dedicated to that audience is Reclaiming Pubic Education 101. As one wades out into the sea of education blogging, one repeatedly encounters the term “reformy” or “reformy stuff.” There’s a short ...read more
APR 05
A Tale of Two School Systems | With A Brooklyn Accent
The disparity between the amount of testing taking place in the nation’s public schools and between the top private schools where most policy makers and business leaders send their children is simply shocking! Not only do none of these elite schools use Common Core, they never rate their teachers on the basis of student test ...read more
What an anti-test activist can do in a school during testing | @ THE CHALK FACE
BY SHAUN JOHNSON For me, nothing, just stand aside. That’s all I can do, unless I’m prepared to jeopardize my employment and, selfishly, the employment of others in my school. I’m a Kindergarten teacher, so thankfully we are insulated from most of testing’s ill effects. But I can report on how the administration of testing ...read more
David Sirota: Rahm’s Secret Slush Fund Rewards Friends, While He Cries Deficits | Diane Ravitch’s blog
David Sirota, who has become one of our nation’s top investigative reporters, here tells the story about how Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel says there is no money, that public pensions have emptied the city’s coffers, and that he has to close schools because of a huge deficit. But Sirota says that the Mayor has found plenty ...read more
Fishin’ 4 Schools | EduShyster
Have you ever encountered a story so sadly tragic that you were forced to break your own rule regarding pre-noon winebox decanting? I have… Hankies at the ready, reader, for we are *going there.* I’m talking about the super sad true tale of Charter Schools USA founder and CEO Jonathan Hage and his wrenching decision to part with ...read more
What Americans like best about their favorite teachers | The Answer Sheet
What attribute do Americans find most compelling in the teacher they have identified as having the greatest impact on their lives? I learned the answer recently when I was listening to a speech by Brandon H. Busteed, the executive director of Gallup Education, about public education and what polls show about how Americans view their teachers. ...read more
The Thin Line Between Charter Schools USA and Florida Law | Scathing Purple Musings
This week’s hilarious story that Charter Schools USA CEO Jonathan Hage owns a yacht called Fishin’ 4 Schools overshadows what may be some major wrongdoing on the part of Hage. In a column that appeared in the Tampa Bay Times, Hillsborough League of Women Voters president, Shirley Arcuri revealed this little tidbit: Another area where the ...read more
Five Top Duncan Posts | CURMUDGUCATION
When I started blogging, I had no idea I would post so much so fast so often. But now more company is coming over and it turns out that I am “Below Basic” in curating. So my goal is to do some collection posts for folks who think they’d like to see some of the ...read more
Fordham’s Mike Petrilli: Selling Common Core in States with Better Standards | deutsch29
This post is about the for-profit “reform”-promoting think tank, the Fordham Institute. The Fordham Institute likes to grade. Mind you, Fordham doesn’t bother to grade itself. But it does promote the grading of teacher training programs via an entity it birthed in 2001, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), and it also promotes the grading of ...read more
Charter School “Success”: There’s ALWAYS a Catch | Jersey Jazzman
Camden’s public school district is being systematically dismantled to become a “portfolio” district of “choice.” This is, of course, all part of the formerly secret plan that was implemented by Former Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf — a plan paid for by his mentor and patron, California billionaire Eli Broad. What barely gets mentioned in the ...read more
Florida: A Charter Founder Who Has Raised $200 Million in Tax-Exempt Bonds | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Let’s face it. Some people have the Midas touch. Take Jon Hage, the CEO of the for-profit charter chain, Charter Schools USA. He was named Floridian of the Year. He has a yacht named “Fishin’ for Schools.” And he has figured out a cool way to make his charters very profitable. This comes from Coach ...read more