NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs
from The Network for Public Education
More protests after thousands opt out of New York Common Core testing | 7online.com
NEW YORK (WABC) — A new round of protests are underway Friday one day after elementary school students completed the latest Common Core testing. The biggest complaint from teachers is that they were not given sufficient material or guidance to teach the new standards. Many parents decided to opt their children out of the testing, ...read more
R.I. Senate bill reflects concerns over NECAP test for high school students | The Providence Journal
BY LINDA BORG Journal Staff Writer lborg@providencejournal.com PROVIDENCE — The Senate Health, Education and Welfare Committee passed a bill Thursday that would prevent schools from using a standardized test to determine a student’s eligibility to graduate from high school. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Harold Metts, D-Providence, is one of several before the General Assembly ...read more
Web site of anti-testing group is hacked | The Answer Sheet
Why would anyone do this? The Web site of United Opt Out National, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to eliminating the use of high-stakes standardized tests, has been hacked. The site posted this message: United Opt Out The Movement to end Corporate Education Reform Our site has been maliciously hacked and destroyed in ...read more
Julian Vasquez Heilig: Why Not Tell the Truth about Charters? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
San Antonio is set for a major expansion of privately managed charter schools. Several national chains will open there, welcomed by the mayor and the business community. The San Antonio Express News published an opinion column by an advocate for the corporate charter chains, but refused to print Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig’s succinct rebuttal. Despite ...read more
Student privacy activists win a big one | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 4 at 4:00 am In a win for student privacy activists, New York state is ending its relationship with a controversial $100 million student data collection project funded by the Gates Foundation and operated by a nonprofit called inBloom. It appears that from the nine original state partners, none are now ...read more
Five Ways the USDOE Is Full of Baloney | CURMUDGUCATION
The US Dept of Education blog, Homeroom, recently published a piece by Sara Gast (Director of Strategic Communications at USDOE) entitled “Five Ways Race to the Top Supports Teachers and Students.” I keep checking posts like this to see how the administration’s level of connection to Planet Earth is doing these days. Let’s just see. ...read more
Newark Students Union Stage Mass Walkout
11 reasons why they are walking out: Budget Cuts: Newark Public Schools faced a 57 million dollar budget cut just last year. That’s 57 million dollars taken away from your after-school programs, your extracurricular activities, your education. Public school funding continues to decline, while the money that is entitled to us is going to Charter ...read more
NYC Parent Urges Farina and King to Cancel Upcoming Math Exam | Ed Notes Online
There was no rigor applied to the development of these tests, nor does the practice of high-stakes testing in general stand up to critical analysis….I was offended by your remarks earlier this week to the effect that while parents’ opinions should be respected, children should come to school prepared to meet challenges like the state ...read more
Ken Mitchell: Beware! VAM Lawsuits Ahead! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Kenneth Mitchell, a school superintendent in the Lower Hudson Valley of New York, has been concerned about the costs imposed on school districts by Race to the Top. He previously estimated that six districts in his region would spend $11 million to comply with the mandates of Race to the Top, which paid these districts ...read more
Governor Cuomo Orchestrated Charter School Deal at Behest of Campaign Supporters | janresseger
Posted on April 4, 2014 by janresseger In New York last month there appeared to be a welling up of concern by parents because the new mayor, Bill de Blasio, had threatened to change course. He planned to turn away from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s overwhelming support for the charter schools that serve 6 percent of ...read more
Teachers refuse to administer standardized tests | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 4 at 9:37 am Three teachers from P.S. 364 Earth School in New York have informed their administration and Chancellor Carmen Fariña that they will not proctor Common Core state standardized tests this year — or ever — saying in a letter (see below) that they “can no longer implement policies ...read more
Opt out movement grows amid Common Core testing disasters – Wait What?
Commissioner Stefan Pryor’s PR operation says the implementation of the Common Core Smarter Balanced Testing Assessment Test of a Test is going well. When Governor Malloy’s State Board of Education met this week they had time to adopt a resolution re-committing Connecticut to “immediately implementing” the Common Core but didn’t even bother to discuss the ...read more
Bush, FEE, The Chamber & How Not To Tweet | CURMUDGUCATION
Have corporations learned how to make social media work for them yet? Well…… Last week we noted that Jeb Bush’s FEE (Foundation for Excellence in Education) and the Higher States Standards Partnership (a group funded by the US Chamber of Commerce and a few others well explained here by Erin Osborne) were launching a shiny ...read more
Walton family spends big on school vouchers in North Carolina | The Progressive Pulse
The Walton Family Foundation, known for supporting vouchers, charters, and other school privatization initiatives across the country, paid $710,000 to NC-based school voucher advocacy group Parents for Educational Freedom NC (PEFNC) in 2013, an increase of more than $100,000 over its 2012 contribution to the group. Parents for Educational Freedom NC has received large contributions ...read more
UC Berkeley’s Jesse Rothstein at Vergara v. California |
To read a decent and fair summary of the Vergara v. California trial, please see this piece posted by The Pew Charitable Trust. Also covered on VAMboozled! was a summary, but also the summarized testimonies of Linda Darling-Hammond and David Berliner. It seems Jesse Rothstein, an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California ...read more
Overhaul of schools is the wrong diagnosis | The Boston Globe
By Andy Hargreaves, Dennis Shirley and Pasi Sahlberg | MARCH 27, 2014 Monday’s hot-off-the-press report on “The New Opportunity to Lead: A Vision for Education in Massachusetts in the Next 20 Years,” commissioned by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, presents an erroneous diagnosis of the state of education in the Commonwealth and proposes ...read more
Pearson Wants You! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This confirms what Todd Farley wrote in his book about the testing industry, “Making the Grades,” and what Dan DiMaggio wrote in “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Test Scorer”: A reader in Austin sent this ad on Craig’s List: Posted: 25 days ago Seeking Talented And Qualified Individuals To Score Essays! (Austin, Texas) compensation: $12.00 ...read more
Testingtalk.org Website Gets 150,000 Hits in a Couple of Days | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The new website where teachers and parents can comment on the new tests has registered 150,000 hits in the 2 or 3 days since it was launched, according to Susan Ochshorn of ECE Policy Matters. A great place to hear from teachers. via Testingtalk.org Website Gets 150,000 Hits in a Couple of Days | Diane ...read more
Don’t look now, but ‘Education Spring’ is arriving | News-Sun
“Education Spring” — the rise of public education advocates against the business-backed privatization movement — is spreading across the country and has finally reached Washington. But if you’re wondering why standardized testing is causing such a stink these days (after all didn’t we manage OK with the SAT, ACT and other tests?) all you have ...read more
APR 02
Former Teacher Joins House Education Panel; Bipartisan Research Bill Out Today | Politics K-12
By Alyson Klein on April 2, 2014 8:25 AM Rep. Mark Takano, a former teacher from Riverside, Calif., has been tapped to serve on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the minority leader, announced last night. If Takano’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he was one of the original sponsors, ...read more
Bubble Answers for an Essay World | CURMUDGUCATION
I have had the same conversation multiple times in the last week. I have had it with elementary teachers, secondary teachers, someone who works with young teachers, someone who works with college students. The crux of the conversation is something like this: I do not know what to do with these [persons]. They do not ...read more
Parent power wins! NY severs its relationship with inBloom, which has no known clients left; but the threat to student privacy remains | NYC Public School Parents
This morning, Stephanie Simon of Politico Pro reports that indeed, after a long battle, the NY State Education Department has finally agreed to sever its relationship with inBloom and will ask them to delete all the student data already stored on its cloud. This was the clear intent of the state budget bill approved on ...read more
Slay the testing beast | Greg Taranto – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Standardized tests are out of control; let’s stand together to fight them off I am the principal of an award-winning middle school in Canonsburg. We have been designated as one of 350 “schools to watch” nationwide, not for our test scores, which are very good, but instead for the ways in which we engage the ...read more
APR 01
John Thompson: Legal Woes Growing for VAM-Based Teacher Evaluations | Living in Dialogue
Guest post by John Thompson. I used to be a legal historian. That did not mean I could practice law without a license, but I could be a pretty fair consumer of legal analyses. It also made me aware of how attorneys and judges think. When the idea of incorporating value-added into teacher evaluations was ...read more
The state tests started today; how did it go? Did your kids opt out? Any pineapples on the exams? | NYC Public School Parents
Today is the first day of the state ELA exams for grades 3-8. We have heard that many thousands of students are refusing the tests, especially on Long Island, where there are more than 11,000 reported as opting out so far. The last two years we have featured reports on our blog from parents and ...read more
Bronx charter school company sees goldmine in Connecticut | Wait What?
When the State Board of Education meets tomorrow to approve Commissioner Stefan Pryor’s plan to open new charter schools in Connecticut one of the most incredible proposals is the one submitted by the Bronx Charter School for Excellence. About a week ago, fellow pro-public education advocate columnist Wendy Lecker laid out the facts about Bronx Charter School ...read more
Case study: How politicians ignore parents on school reform | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 1 at 8:00 am New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (AP Photo/Mike Groll) If you read this blog regularly, you will be familiar with Carol Burris, an award-winning principal from New York. She has done a remarkable job for well over a year detailing the botched school reform efforts in her state. ...read more
Whiteface Rulez | EduShyster
Will you help me realize my dream of attending Camp Reform-a-Lot? Whiteface Lodge – look how nice it looks! Reader: it’s a well known fact that nothing thrills me more than the prospect of attending an elite gathering of education reform elites. Which is why when I learned about this all-star camping trip of elite ...read more
New Common Core exams will test whether a robo-grader is as accurate as a human | Hechinger Report
By Jill Barshay Millions of elementary, middle and high school students in 14 states and Washington, D.C. may have their essays graded by computers next year if initial tests of robo-grading prove to be accurate. A multi-state consortium known as PARCC that is developing the tests said it hoped to use essay-grading software as soon ...read more
More than 70% of Parents at 3 Brooklyn Schools Opt Out | Diane Ravitch’s blog
What happens when parents say “No, not with my child”? They protect their child against state-sanctioned harm. PRESS RELEASE EMBARGOED UNTIL 9:15 AM APRIL 1, 2014 BROOKLYN, NY Contact 1: Elizabeth Elsass, 917-605-3640, rinelsass1@gmail.com Contact 2: Dani Liebling, 347-218-3107, daniliebling@yahoo.com GROUNDSWELL OF BROOKLYN PARENTS FROM BROWNSVILLE TO CARROLL GARDENS REFUSE STATE TESTS A grassroo
MAR 31
Share Your Story about the Common Core Tests | Diane Ravitch’s blog
An invitation to join a new website and share your stories about the Commin Core tests. Hello friends, I am writing with exciting news about testingtalk.org, a national website created to gather on-the-ground feedback about the new Common Core tests being piloted this spring. Your help in spreading the word about testingtalk.org is critical. With ...read more
Momentum building to reclaim our public schools from faux reformers | News-Sentinel.com
On March 1 and 2, a group of education activists from Indiana attended the Network for Public Education national conference in Austin, Texas. The Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin buzzed with energy as people from all over the United States gathered, united by a single purpose ...read more
Understanding the Propaganda Campaign Against Public Education | BillMoyers.com
A few years ago, when I was blogging at Education Week with Deborah Meier, a reader introduced the term FUD. I had never heard of it. It is a marketing technique used in business and politics to harm your competition. FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. The reader said that those who were trying ...read more
Video: iRefuse Rally in Long Island, NY (March 29, 2014) | @ THE CHALK FACE
My thanks to Mert Melfa for posting the complete iRefuse video (3 1/2 hours) to youtube. Thanks also to Michael Bohr for sending it my way. And thanks to Yvonne Gasperino and others for indulging me as I “condensed” 30 minutes into 40. I begin speaking at 2:09:40. I open with the story of my ...read more
4 Arguments That Scream “Save Public Education!” | Alternet
The education privatizers are trying to convince us that parental ‘choice’ will solve all the problems in our schools. But the choice they have in mind is to dismantle a once-proud system of education that was nurtured and funded by a society of Americans willing to work together. The wealthiest among us seem to have ...read more
Education Reform: Building Houses of Sand in Swamps | Crazy Crawfish’s Blog
One of first sermons I heard when I was younger that really “sunk in”, came from the book of Matthew. The Sermon was based on Matthew 7:26 from a section known as the House on the Rock. 26“Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish ...read more
‘If only American teachers were smarter…’ | The Answer Sheet
Teachers. In this school reform era, they have been targeted as “the” problem for failing schools. Are they? In this post, Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross, looks at the teaching corps and what is true about America’s teachers, what isn’t, and where to go next. Schneider is the author ...read more
Sacrificing Social Workers, Psychologists, Counselors, the Arts, and Athletics for Test Prep | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Kathleen M. Cashin and Bruce S. Cooper are on the faculty of Fordham University. Dr. Cashin, an experienced educator, is also a member of the New York State Board of Regents. She is regularly in the minority on votes that increase the pressure for high-stakes testing. Dr. Cooper is a scholar who has written about ...read more
Opt Your Child Out of State Testing: Don’t Feed the Machine | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This week begins the make-or-break, do-or-die standardized testing that will label your child a success or a failure. I urge you not to let your child take the state test. Opt out. The best test for students is the test made by their teacher. Teachers know what they taught; they test what the students were ...read more
MAR 30
You Are Invited to Join the Leaders of the Privatization Movement at a Special Event! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Wow! How cool is this? You, me, and all of us are invited to join today’s thought leaders of education “reform” (aka, privatization and segregation) at a philophers” retreat. I wish I were a thought leader in education, but apparently my thoughts don’t lead in the right direction (e.g., handing public money over to privately ...read more
Parent Fights Principal Who Uses Common Core To Deny A Teacher’s Request For A Holocaust Speaker | Mother Crusader
Below is a guest blog from a dear college friend of mine. I’ve known for quite some time that she is passionate about Holocaust education, both speaking to students herself and also arranging to bring Holocaust survivors into schools. And I’ve always known that she is one tough cookie. I was shocked when a little ...read more
A Hero Superintendent in Massachusetts Speaks Out Against the Madness | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Todd Gazda, superintendent of schools in Ludlow, Massachusetts, posted a blog that expresses the outrage that so many educators feel today as a result of federal and state meddling in the work best left to educators. Gazda writes: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! For his courage and wisdom, I am naming him to the honor roll ...read more
Step Up For Students Finds That Waiting List After All | Scathing Purple Musings
Two hours after Scathing Purple Musings pointed out that the administrative agent for Florida’s voucher system, Step Up for Students, did not really have a waiting list that Rep. Erik Fresen has been telling everybody about, SUFS CEO Doug Tuthill produced one. Sort of: For new families who apply and get shut out, or who ...read more
GUEST BLOG: No TFA for me | Bob Braun’s Ledger
By Melissa Katz My name is Melissa Katz and I am 18 years old. I am a freshman at The College of New Jersey studying urban education. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been asked, “Why do you want to go into education? Why do you want to be a teacher? Don’t you ...read more
What does the state budget bill do in regards inBloom and student privacy? Not much. | NYC Public School Parents
The budget bill, due to be voted on Monday, deals with student privacy in an inept and confusing way; the privacy provisions read as though they were written by a 3rd year law student at 1 AM in the morning, who understands nothing about the issue. We saw the language late last week, and provided ...read more
Common Core backer: For public schools, it’s great. For my private school, not so much. | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS March 30 at 11:56 am One of the big disconnects in Common Core advocacy is that a lot of the people who think the standards are vital to the future of America and want to see them implemented in public schools everywhere send their children to private schools that have not adopted ...read more
Brooklyn Parents Opting Out of State Testing | Diane Ravitch’s blog
PRESS ALERT Contact 1: Elizabeth Elsass, 917-605-3640, rinelsass1@gmail.com Contact 2: Dani Liebling, 347-218-3107, daniliebling@yahoo.com GROUNDSWELL OF BROOKLYN PARENTS FROM BROWNSVILLE TO CARROLL GARDENS REFUSE STATE TESTS WHAT: To mark the first day of State-mandated standardized tests, Brooklyn parents from schools with unprecedented rates of test refusal will hold a playground press conferen
Money Matters | EduShyster
Teach for America alum Ben Spielberg talks Vergara vs. California, teachers unions and why education reform without social justice isn’t possible. TFA alum Ben Spielberg is now a leader of the San Jose Teachers Association. EduShyster: Vergara vs. California, the landmark case that seeks to eliminate tenure for teachers, wrapped up this week. Do you think ...read more
MAR 29
Bill de Blasio vs. Charter Schools — A Pointless Battle | Steve Nelson in Huffington Post
The “war” between charter schools and Mayor Bill de Blasio has certainly tarnished the new mayor’s early months. Along with daily news stories, television ads funded by “Families for Excellent Schools” fill the airways with heart- tugging appeals from parents and families, who characterize the Mayor as the Grinch who stole their schools. He finally ...read more
The Koch brothers’ influence on college campus is spreading | The Answer Sheet
There’s been a flurry of recent stories (here, here and here, for example) about the role the billionaire Koch brothers are playing in politics by backing conservative political candidates through a number of organizations that they fund. My Post colleague Matea Gold wrote in this story: The political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and ...read more
We All Stand Together! Statewide Advocates Turn Out To Support Newark Public Schools | Mother Crusader
It was a great honor to participate in yesterday’s NJ Ed March, which brought together education advocates from all over the state, a fact the Star-Ledger failed to mention, instead choosing only to report that “(s)everal hundred Newark parents, teachers, students and community activists rallied in Trenton.” The event was intended to highlight the resistance to the haphazard One ...read more
Why Voucher Expansion Really Died in the Florida Senate | Scathing Purple Musings
The following is Bob Sikes’ Context Florida piece that was published on March 24. Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, explained away the withdrawal of his Senate version of voucher expansion with “there just wasn’t enough time to develop accountability provisions that everybody could agree on.” Sure. Galvano had no such qualms in voting through SB 1642, ...read more
New York Schools: The Roar of the Charters by Diane Ravitch | The New York Review of Books
In his speech at Riverside Church last Sunday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to end weeks of attacks on his schools policies by striking a conciliatory tone toward the city’s privately managed charter schools. He used the charter sector’s own rhetoric of “crisis” and “failure” to describe the school system that he inherited ...read more
Resistance to Teach for America, Inc. Continues | Seattle Education
From Popular Resistance: Students Tour To Kick Teach For America Off Campuses United Students Against Sweatshops, a national college student organizing group, wants Teach for America off college campuses. In a “TFA Truth Tour” launched this week, student activists, Teach For America alumni and local teachers are visiting college campuses and speaking up about the ...read more
NC: How to Waste Taxpayer Dollars on a Useless Bonus Plan | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Governor McCrory has had a new idea. Given the terrible morale of teachers in his state and the exodus of veteran teachers, it is important for the state to act quickly to support its teachers. But that is not his idea. He wants to use Race to the Top dollars to pay $10,000 each to ...read more
An Open Letter to Parents from a Connecticut Parent | Wait What?
An open letter to parents, Over the next few weeks, children will spend countless hours taking new tests that have no meaning. As a parent, I’ve decided that my sixth grade daughter will not be one of them. The new test, called the SBAC in some states and PARCC in others, goes hand-in-hand with the ...read more
Rep. Grijalva, first to support NPE’s call for congressional hearings on testing misuse | Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog
Arizona Democrat-Rep. Raúl Grijalva became the first to support the Network for Public Education’s call for congressional hearings into the “misuse and abuse of standardized tests.” Grijalva, a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, says: “The need for an impartial and transparent hearing on mandatory testing and privatization efforts directed at public education, ...read m
Long ‘waiting list’ for Florida vouchers doesn’t actually exist | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS March 29 at 1:00 pm This belongs in the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff category. The short version: Florida’s lawmakers are considering expanding a voucher-like tax credit program because, legislators keep saying, there is a huge waiting list of families who want to participate. It turns out that there is no waiting list. The long version: ...read more
New York Legislature: Billionaire-funded Charter Schools Will Not Have to Pay Rent for Public Space | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The following just in as the New York State Legislature responds to the pressure of a $5 million advertising campaign demanding free space for privately-managed charters. Also, the billionaires behind this ad campaign have given handsome sums to Governor Cuomo and other key politicians. Cuomo has received at least $800,000 from the charter advocates. Under ...read more
