NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs
from The Network for Public Education
Write Your Senator to Stop Charter Favoritism Bill Passed by House | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Led by conservative Republican leader Eric Cantor, the House of Representatives passed a bill that grants new funding and exemption from federal laws to charter schools. The bill passed 360-45. Wrote the D.C. Paper, “The Hill,” “Republicans have touted the issue of school choice and access to charter schools as a way of limiting the ...read more
Data Security Fail: John White and LDOE up to their old irresponsible data tricks again | Crazy Crawfish’s Blog
John White recently testified multiple times in front of the Louisiana House Education Committee that he has a firm commitment to student privacy and takes his responsibilities toward ensuring the department only collects data that is absolutely necessary and does so responsibly. He made the argument that without detail student level data, the Department would ...read more
Parent: Why I Refused the Tests for My Children | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This New York parent decided the state tests were useless and worthless. She went to hearings and rallies and realized that state officials made only minor changes but that her children would continue to sit for 500 minutes of state testing in grades 3-8. She thought it made no sense. So she opted her children ...read more
Duncan Blinks!!! Waivers Crumbling! | CURMUDGUCATION
According to Alyson Klein at Politics K-12, the US Department of Education told states that it would consider NCLB waiver extension without requiring compliance on the matter of teacher evaluation (this apparently in an email from Deborah Delisle, assistant secretary of saying things Arne Duncan doesn’t want to say). The new plan calls for states’ ...read more
Diane Ravitch Backs Louis C.K., Dissects “Ignorant” Newsweek Article on Common Core | Alternet
I received a tweet from Alexander Nazaryan, the author of the Newsweek piece rebuking Louis C.K. and defending the Common Core standards, asking me for a substantive critique of his article. OK, here goes. He begins by saying that Louis C.K. has a professional habit of being angry, which I suppose is meant to scoff ...read more
Charter School Growth Fund Creating New Breed Of Super CMOs | Mother Crusader
You may have noticed, dear reader, a theme running through a few news stories about the NJDOE’s recently announced charter closures. Small, independent charters are being given the boot, somewhat unceremoniously and precipitously, to make way for what are essentially big box, prefab, chain Charter Management Organizations (CMOs). Phill Dunn from the Courier Post wrote ...read more
MAY 08
House Debates Legislation to Help Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Under the leadership of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the conservative-dominated House of Representatives is debating a bill today that would reauthorize federal support for the charter school industry and provide $300 million, some of which is for facilities. The members of the House will ignore, of course, the report issued this week showing ...read more
The Opt-Out Update: The AFT finally pushes back, “Rigor” in Portland, WA State, Alabama and New York fight back | Seattle Education
It looks like teachers and the teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have FINALLY smelled the coffee and decided to push back. The American Federation of Teachers, New York State United Teachers and the Alliance for Quality Education got together and put up a website titled Democrats, in name only, for Education Reform. ...read more
The people buying Newark for Jeffries | Bob Braun’s Ledger
Want to know who is buying Newark for Shavar Jeffries? These are the people who run Education Reform Now, the organization that gave Newark First nearly a million dollars that, in turn, Newark First used to buy attack ads against Ras Baraka in a last-ditch effort to steal the election from the front-runner. And to steal Newark from ...read more
Report Decries Unregulated Charters: Arne Duncan Should Crack Down | janresseger
by janresseger Earlier this week Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse was released jointly by the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education. In an age when charter schools are regulated in state law, we are likely to read stories in our local papers about fraud or academic malpractice at a charter ...read more
Testing Does Not Improve Instruction | CURMUDGUCATION
In an ongoing cultural debate, it is always interesting to watch the shift and change of talking points. The battle for public education is no different. Many talking points are retired voluntarily. Common Core supporters have shifted from “all CCSS opposition comes from the tin hat tea party wing” to “it’s those damn teachers and ...read more
Sign This Open Letter to Andreas Schleicher of OECD Against Too Much Testing! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Nearly 100 educators from around the world signed a letter warning that the over-emphasis on testing inspired by PISA was killing the joy of learning. This unelected, unaccountable organization is driving international competition and bad education policies. It is time for parents, educators, students, and researchers to join together and say “Enough is Enough.” Focus ...read more
John Kuhn’s Eloquent Embrace of Public Education | @ THE CHALK FACE
BY JOHN THOMPSON Texas superintendent, John Kuhn, spoke to the Network for Public Education (NPE) about how “The public school system reveals the American heart.” He reminded us that “There isn’t a square inch of America that doesn’t fall inside some school district or another. There isn’t a pupil who can’t walk into their local ...read more
The Incredible But True Story of the Plan to Destroy Public Education in Bridgeport, Connecticut | Diane Ravitch’s blog
onathan Pelto tells the astonishing story of a calculated effort by Connecticut Governor Malloy and Bridgeport Mayor Finch to destroy public education in Bridgeport. First, starve the public schools of resources that they needed and to which they were entitled by state law; then declare the schools were failing and beyond help; finally, turn over ...read more
NEPC: Charter School “Wait Lists” Are Overstated, Possibly Meaningless | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A new report from the National Education Policy Center reviews the “wait lists” that charter advocacy groups regularly publicize and finds them to be vastly inflated. Charter advocacy groups claim that nearly one million students are wait-listed for admission, but they acknowledge themselves that the actual number may be about 400,000. NEPC authors Kevin Welner ...read more
Report: Right-wing extremists use Common Core attacks to undermine public education | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 8 at 11:01 am A year ago I wrote about how extreme right-wing rhetoric against the Common Core State Standards was clouding a substantive debate about the Common Core State Standards initiative. Now a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center details how right-wing extremists are using Core opposition are using ...read more
MAY 07
Breaking News: Chicago Teachers Union Opposes Common Core | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The Chicago Teachers Union adopted a resolution opposing the Common Core. This is big news because the parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers, accepted millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation to support and promote the Common Core. Fred Klonsky posted the following account of the CTU action: Chicago Teachers Union adopts resolution opposing ...read more
My kids used to love school …Now it’s half a year consumed in drudgery of test prep | NYC Public School Parents
Last week, Louis CK tweeted about the low quality Common Core worksheets assigned to his daughters for test prep. A parent on Facebook identified them as iReady workbooks, produced by Curriculum Associates, widely used in NYC public schools. Curriculum Associates is an educational company in which none of their top executives have had any ...read more
AIR Files Lawsuit Against Pearson Multi-Billion $$$ Contract to Score PARCC | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Now begins the struggle for billions of dollars for Common Core testing. Bear in mind that this is public money that should be spent on reducing class sizes, providing arts programs, hiring librarians and counselors, and supplying other necessary services to students and schools. The next time you hear some politician or pundit complain about ...read more
Duncan Flunks the “State led” Test with His Indiana NCLB Waiver Warning | deutsch29
Corporate reformers love tests. It seems that now, the test is on them. Is the federal government usurping state authority over public education? Consider the protestations that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are not a federal mandate, as noted on the corestandards.org website: Fact: The Common Core is a state‐led effort that is not part ...read more
DFER Trying To Steal Election From Ras Baraka | Mother Crusader
The Newark mayoral race is heating up with less than a week to go, and there has been plenty of discussion about an influx of cash to the Jeffries campaign and questions as to where the money is coming from. Newark First, an independent group of Jeffries’ supporters, launched an advertising campaign Wednesday attacking Baraka’s record of ...read more
U.S. judge: It’s ridiculous to judge teachers by test scores of students they don’t have, but it’s legal in Florida | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 7 at 4:00 am “Justice? You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.” ― William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own A federal judge in Florida said that it is wildly unfair that the state evaluates many teachers on the standardized test scores of ...read more
Is Cami leaving? Or just hiding? | Bob Braun’s Ledger
Cami Anderson, the controversial state-appointed superintendent of Newark schools, has disappeared from the city for the last few weeks, fueling rumors she is planning on leaving. Her absence comes just as the mayoral race—in which she is issue number one—tightens up and her champion, Shavar Jeffries , receives huge amounts of campaign funds from pro-privatization ...read more
The Gathering Resistance to Standardized Tests | Alternet
Standardized tests are built to maintain inequality, not serve as an antidote to educational disparities. Now, there’s a coordinated effort to fight them. May 7, 2014 | U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan touched off a torrent of criticism last November when he told a group of state school superintendents that opposition to the Common ...read more
PISA Brainwashing: Measure, Rank, Repeat | the becoming radical
When Mary Catherine Bradshaw, a teacher since 1984 in Nashville, TN, announced her retirement from public schools, Bradshaw pointed her finger at one major reason, standardized testing: [S]he says standardized testing is the reason…. Testing, she said, has taken away from instructional time and taken the joy out of learning. Much has changed, she said, since ...read more
A rather unusual ‘thank you’ to teachers | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 7 at 10:31 am Here’s a rather unusual appreciation of teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week, an annual event started back in 1984 by the Parent Teachers Association. The PTA offers a number of suggestions about how to appreciate teachers, including writing letters of thanks to them and tweeting at #ThankATeacher, though a ...read more
Duncan Proves That Common Core Is a Federal Mandate by Threatening to Punish Indiana for Backing Out | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Over the past few years, as almost every state adopted the Common Core standards, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan insisted they did so voluntarily. He insisted that the creation of the standards was “state-led” and that the federal government had nothing to do with it. No part of these statements was true. The states adopted ...read more
MAY 06
Test Prep Kills Learning, but Standardized Testing Is Big Money — Guess How This One Turns Out | Ian Reifowitz
What is the single most important thing that elementary schools need to instill in their students? Think about it. What one thing will help our kids grow up to succeed in school and set them on their way to succeed in life? It’s not something in math, or in reading, or science, but it provides ...read more
What Powerful and Greedy Elites Are Hiding When They Scapegoat the Schools | Common Dreams
Our economy is changing in ways that are alarming. Income inequality and wealth inequality are at their highest point in many decades; some say we are back to the age of the robber barons. Most of the gains in the economy since the great recession of 2008 have benefited the 1 percent, or even the ...read more
Amrein-Beardsley: Why the Houston Lawsuit Could Demolish VAM | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Audrey Amrein-Beardsley has been consulting with the seven Houston teachers who filed a lawsuit in federal court against the use of value-added metrics in their evaluations. She has conducted extensive VAM research in Houston and concluded it was arbitrary and inaccurate. “Houston, the 7th largest urban district in the country, is widely recognized for its ...read more
Six Charter School Myths; my testimony before the City Council today | NYC Public School Parents
Testimony before the NYC Council Education Committee Leonie Haimson, Executive Director, Class Size Matters May 6, 2014 Thank you, Chair Dromm and members of the City Council Education Committee, for the opportunity to provide testimony on charter schools today. Class Size Matters is a citywide advocacy and research organization, devoted to providing information on the ...read more
New report cites $100 million-plus in waste, fraud in charter school industry | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 6 at 1:30 pm A new report (see below) by two groups that oppose reforms that are privatizing public education finds fraud and waste totaling more than $100 million of taxpayer funds in 15 of the 42 states that operate charter schools. The report, titled “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, & ...read more
It’s Call Your Legislator Day | Yinzercation
Today’s the day! We are joining Education Voters PA for a state-wide call-your-legislator day. Over the past three years, our children have suffered enough: they’ve lost thousands of their teachers, art, music, tutoring, library, nurses, counselors, athletics, and so much more. When will it end? Our legislators are debating the state budget right now and ...read more
Lewis: ”We don’t have a pension crisis, we have pension shortfall and a crisis in leadership’ | Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog
CTU Pres. Karen Lewis’ speech Monday, at the City Club Our members don’t want to wind up in poverty because somebody who just rode into town wants to take away their livelihoods. It’s as if the 1% isn’t satisfied with having most of it. It seems they want it all… [They] manage by chaos and ...read more
Forcing the Fit Using Alternative “Student Growth” Measures | VAMboozled
As discussed on this blog prior, when we are talking about teacher effectiveness as defined by the output derived via VAMs, we are talking about the VAMs that still, to date, only impact 30%-40% of all America’s public school teachers. These are the teachers who typically teach mathematics and/or reading/language arts in grades 3-8. The ...read more
Florida: Republicans Sneak Voucher Law Through at Last Minute | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Florida Republicans, aided by three rogue Democrats, rammed through voucher legislation in the closing day of the legislative session. The vouchers are supposedly for the benefit of children with special needs. The Republican legislators’ alleged concern for children with special needs is especially hypocritical in view of their failure to act on the Ethan Rediske ...read more
A history of Pearson’s testing problems worldwide | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 6 at 12:04 pm Now that Pearson, the worldwide education company, has won a huge contract with PARCC, one of the two multi-state consortia designing new Common Core-aligned tests with federal funds, it seems like a good time to review problems Pearson has had with previous projects. I’ve run one of ...read more
Anthony Cody Interviews Ras Baraka about Newark | Diane Ravitch’s blog
In this post, Anthony Cody interviews Newark mayoral candidate Ras Baraka. Newark has been under state control for nearly 20 years. During that time, democracy has been suspended. Ras is running for the restoration of democracy in Newark. He is a high school principal and City Councilman. He is running against Cami Anderson’s plan to ...read more
MAY 05
Steel parents win decisive vote to keep school public | Parents United for Public Education
On May 1, 176 parents at Steel Elementary School – the last public school in Nicetown – voted on whether to remain a District public school or be turned over to the city’s largest charter operator, Mastery Charter Network. More than 70 percent of parents – 121 vs. 55 – voted to keep the school ...read more
Politico: DFER Meets “Pickets in the Pines” at Camp Phalos | Diane Ravitch’s blog
On Politico this morning: “OF PHILOSOPHERS AND PICKETS: Democrats for Education Reform planned a nice quiet retreat this week at the luxurious Whiteface Lodge in Lake Placid, N.Y. where top strategists of the education reform movement could map out their next moves at seminars such as “Living to Tell the Tale: Changing Third-Rail Teacher Policies” ...read more
New Brunswick High School Students Protest for Teachers | Teacher Under Construction
“You’re not present in our classrooms, nor do you sit in our seats, who are you to decide who can and cannot teach?” On Thursday, May 1st, I learned that teachers were being laid off at New Brunswick High School in New Jersey. I came across a photo of this flyer: Students shared ...read more
The 2008 Common Core Sales Job: Part Two | deutsch29
In 2008, the National Governors Association (NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and Achieve, Inc., released a report, Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-class Education. The report promotes a now all-too-familiar spectrum of so-called “reforms,” including establishing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), CCSS-aligned curriculum and assessment
Failing Schools: Conflicts over How to Write, Talk, and Make Films about Them | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
I have been a social studies teacher for 14 years in schools that were black and poor. Even before test scores determined whether a school was failing, the three urban schools I taught in were viewed as ____ (choose your favorite word: losers, basket cases, lousy, failures) because of the neighborhood in which the school ...read more
Pearson, of course, wins huge Common Core testing contract | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 5 at 6:00 am (bigstock) I noted recently that two years ago the nonprofit group FairTest predicted that despite promises by policymakers that competition and innovation would result from school reform, it would be the same old education firms that would wind up with the big Common Core-related contracts. FairTest got that ...read more
New York City’s New Teachers’ Contract Matters—To All of Us | janresseger
Posted on May 5, 2014 by janresseger The Rev. John Thomas, former General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, is now a professor and administrator at Chicago Theological Seminary, where he writes a blog. Last Thursday, the 1st of May, the Rev. Thomas posted the following: “May Day commemorates the Haymarket uprising ...read more
Obama Selects Robert Gordon, Early Proponent of VAM, for Top Policy Post in Department of Education | Diane Ravitch’s blog
President Obama chose Robert Gordon, who served in key roles in the first Obama administration, as assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development in the U.S. Department of Education. This is a very important position in the Education Department; he will be the person in charge of the agency that basically decides what is working, ...read more
Why Has the Federal Government Stopped Enforcing Court Orders to Integrate America’s Schools? | Alternet
The number of students who attend racially segregated school is on the rise, and the government is doing little to stop it. For decades, federal desegregation orders were the potent tool that broke the back of Jim Crow education in the South, helping transform the region’s educational systems into the most integrated in the ...read more
‘Honorary chair’ Cuomo won’t attend pro-charter retreat | Capital New York
ALBANY—Governor Andrew Cuomo won’t attend a pro-charter school education conference in Lake Placid this week, even though he is billed as the event’s “honorary chair.” An administration official said Cuomo agreed to headline “Camp Philos,” a retreat being hosted by Education Reform Now from Sunday through Tuesday, but he was not able to attend and ...read more
Piketty in the Pines | EduShyster
Going camping with the 1% Reader: even upon today’s comically overpopulated education reform landscape, the men of Democrats for Education Reform or DFER (say it with me; Dee Furr) stand alone. That’s because, with thier unapologetic ties to all things hedge fundy, DFER man’s net worth towers above even his well-off reform-minded peers. Also, that ...read more
Virginia’s SOL exams: what students need to know to pass (and graduate on time) | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS Today is the day when Virginia students will start running what teacher Mary Tedrow calls the state’s ” testing gauntlet” which seems to test endurance at least as much as knowledge. In this post, Tedrow looks at the sample questions of Standards of Learning tests and explains what students need to know ...read more
Wait, Wait. Don’t Mislead Me! Nine Reasons to Be Skeptical About Charter Waitlist Numbers | National Education Policy Center
In this Policy Memo, Kevin Welner and Gary Miron outline nine reasons that policy makers, reporters and others should be skeptical about reports that purport to show that large numbers of students are on charter school “waitlists”. Undoubtedly many students who wish to enroll in popular charter schools and are unable to do so; however, ...read more
MAY 04
Teachers United Against TFA | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The resistance to teach for America continues to grow. Here is another organization bringing together teachers against TFA. Here is their Facebook page. The leading group of college students organized to resist TFA and to foght for professional teachers is SUPE: Students United for Public Educatuon. SUPE has a mission: “Students United for Public Education ...read more
Actually, Louis C.K. was right about Common Core — Ravitch | The Answer Sheet
Louis C.K., the multi-talented entertainer, has suddenly found himself in the news for an unlikely reason. It has nothing to do with any of his projects but, rather, his comments on Twitter and the “Late Show With David Letterman” about how standardized testing and the Common Core State Standards are affecting his daughters, who attend ...read more
My Visit to Louisville and the Grawemeyer Award | Diane Ravitch’s blog
I was thrilled to learn last winter that I had been chosen to receive the Grawemeyer Award in Education for 2014. To me, the Grawemeyer Award is the most important recognition of work in the five fields it honors: education, music, religion, world order, and psychology. I was especially honored because the award had previously ...read more
MAY 03
Teaching is harder than working in high tech — by a teacher who worked in high tech | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS After spending 25 years in high-tech — primarily in the wireless and Global Positioning System (GPS) industries – Dave Reid became a high school mathematics teacher and is now in his third year of teaching. It didn’t take him long to realize just how hard teaching really is — and how much harder it ...read more
Pearson Eats PARCC | CURMUDGUCATION
Relax and stop resisting. You will be assimilated. Yesterday PARCC, one of the two giant consortia of high stakes standardized testing, announced that they will become part of the giant corporate beast that is Pearson. PARCC’s negotiator described the contract as having “unprecedented scale.” Pearson has promised a price cut ($24 per student, marked down ...read more
Malloy’s Teacher evaluation system is fundamentally and fatally flawed | Wait What?
In her latest MUST READ commentary piece, fellow public education advocate, Wendy Lecker, lays out the facts about Governor Malloy’s unfair, inappropriate and fatally flawed teacher evaluation system. Like the junk bonds that helped take down Wall Street, Connecticut’s teacher evaluation system is based on junk science and false assumptions. The question is not whether ...read more
Teach for America: Is the Magic Gone? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This article in The Hechinger Report looks at the current turmoil surrounding Teach for America. It is sending young people to take jobs away from experienced teachers. There is a growing movement to resist TFA on college campuses, started by young people who aim for a career in teaching, not a bullet point on their ...read more