NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs
from The Network for Public Education
Firestorm erupts over teacher’s angry e-mail to legislators about low pay | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 23 at 2:28 pm An angry e-mail written by a teacher to North Carolina legislators with a subject line that said, “I am embarrassed to confess: I am a teacher,” might have been seen only by recipients if it were not for state Sen. David Curtis. The Republican legislator fired back ...read more
Teacher in Palm Beach County: How I Am Evaluated | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Thanks to Arne Duncan, almost every state now has an elaborate teacher evaluation plan. There is no evidence that the pans identify teachers correctly, but they are widespread because Duncan believes and he is Secretary of Education, with more certainty than any of his predecessors. What hath Arne wrought? Here is an account I hope ...read more
Texas superintendent tells parents: Your children’s standardized test scores don’t mean much | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 22 at 4:00 pm Paul Jones, superintendent of the Paris Independent School District in Texas, posted a rather unusual letter to parents on the district’s website. Jones informed parents that they would soon receive their children’s scores on state-mandated standardized tests and that they shouldn’t put very much stock into them. ...read more
This Is Not a Test – The interview with the José Vilson| EduShyster
EduShyster: Your new book, This is Not a Test, has as its subtitle *a new narrative on race, class and education.* I inhaled the book over the course of a weekend, but I couldn’t figure out what the new narrative was. And then it finally dawned on me that you, José Luis Vilson, are the ...read more
Agassi Charter Firm Plans to Raise $1 Billion for New Charters | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The firm created by Andre Agassi with investors plans to an additional $1 billion to build new charters in urban districts. Investors say the offer is appealing because of the returns. Agassi formed a new investment partnership with capital investor Bobby Turner called Turner-Agassi. It has already built 39 charters. “Among the Turner-Agassi fund’s investors ...read more
Michelle Obama: The Arts Raise Test Scores (!) | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A reader sent me this story with this comment: “Bizarro world.” First Lady Michelle Obama promotes arts education because the arts raise test scores. The administration said 35 schools would get federal turnaround funding for the arts because early evidence shows that the arts lead to higher math and reading scores. Time to stop and ...read more
How Vouchers Killed Education Accountability for Florida Taxpayers | Scathing Purple Musings
Writes Scott Maxwell in the Orlando Sentinel: “The Return of the Living Dead” was a hoot. “Shaun of the Dead” and “Zombieland” perfected the concept of Zom-Coms. And “Warm Bodies” — with its love story between a brain-eater and non-brain-eater — gave us the first truly effective Rom-Zom-Com. Still, despite all the blood, gore and ...read more
The Cami cover-up | Bob Braun’s Ledger
The chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Schools has asked the state education commissioner, the state attorney general, and the state comptroller to coordinate an investigation into the state’s operation of the Newark school district. He asked many of these questions before–and, so far, the Christie Administration and its legislative allies, including Democrats, have ...read mo
John White’s “Statewide Trends” of LEAP Supposed to be Publicized on May 27 | @ THE CHALK FACE
When Louisiana State Superintendent John White withheld the Louisiana Education Assessment Program (LEAP) scores on Friday, May 16, 2014– the day that these scores were supposed to be released, he chose to wait until midday to contact the schools. White offered no reason for the delay. However, by now, it is no secret that scores for White’s pet project, predominately-charter Recovery ...read more
Did President Obama Ruin CCSS? | CURMUDGUCATION
It’s Obama’s fault. The state-led initiative was chugging right along, moving forward without any interference from the feds, when somehow, they decided to leap in. Or as Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday recently put it, things were fine “until the President and secretary of education took credit for the Common Core.”This is part of the ...read more
MAY 22
Tennessee Commissioner Huffman’s Accountability Immunity | VAMboozled
Following up on my most recent post, about the video capturing Tennessee’s Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman’s “Inspiring” TEDxNashville Talk, a VAMboozled! follower sent me a follow-up article linked here, “about the nightmare schools here in Tennessee have had with big testing/data [over] the past two days.” Here’s the summary of the situation, although as captured ...read more
Test Score Gate – for John White, Failure was not an option | Crazy Crawfish’s Blog
I first learned about the Test Score Gate Friday May 16th while I was investigating some LODE payroll fraud, textbook kickback, using grants to reward allies and as bribes, and additional irresponsible data collection stories. I’m still pursuing those leads but this story has leapt to the fore in the collective consciousness in the meantime. ...read more
Superintendents push back against STAAR before latest results | Dallas Morning News
Several superintendents have taken an unusually public stance against the state’s school accountability system in advance of this week’s release of STAAR results. One letter by the head of Paris ISD drew attention from East Texas to Bangkok. Paris ISD Superintendent Paul Jones posted his letter to parents on Friday, de-emphasizing the importance of the ...read more
First-grader at Jackson School in South Phila. dies after becoming ill at school
A 7-year-old student died suddenly after becoming ill at a city public school on Wednesday. The child, a first grader at Jackson School in South Philadelphia, experienced a medical emergency and appeared to stop breathing. Classroom staff administered CPR and called 911, and the child was taken to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was ...read more
Segregation not about Proximity, but Equity | the becoming radical
For several years, I have been showing Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later in both my introductory education course and an interim educational documentaries course at the selective private university where I teach. Two scenes address the contemporary realities of lingering segregation within the walls of historic Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas: the school principal announcing ...read more
How Free-Market Education Reformers Captured the Civil Rights Narrative — And the Movement to Take it Back | Alternet
When Brian Jones took the microphone at the Taking Back Our Schools rally this weekend at New York City Hall, he told the crowd of hundreds an unfamiliar story with a familiar ending. It was the story of Barbara Rose Johns, who, “in her segregated high school in Virginia, decided that the conditions were unworkable,” ...read more
“Rethinking Schools” Magazine: Standardized Tests Disguise Privilege as Merit | janresseger
by janresseger Our federal testing law, No Child Left Behind, passed under President Bush, and the programs of the Obama Administration that have amplified its dire consequences in poor communities of color—Race to the Top, School Improvement Grants, No Child Left Behind waivers, and college and career-ready standards and accompanying tests (that are taking the ...read more
Alan Singer: We Don’t Need EdTPA | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Pearson administers a new teacher certification program called edTPA. The acronym stands for Teacher Performance Assessment. Student teachers must pay $300 to be evaluated and tested. In this article, Alan Singer explains why education faculty and their students reject edTPA. Although some states are delaying implementation, Arne Duncan is forging ahead to make this process ...read more
MAY 21
Super Star U | EduShyster
TFA’s partnership with the University of Minnesota sets Gopher state hearts aflutter By Sarah Lahm, EduShyster Academy Big news from the Gopher state: the University of Minnesota and Teach for America are one step closer to sealing the deal on their new partnership! It won’t be long before young TFAers can be found strolling the ...read more
Portrait of an underfunded school district | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 21 at 11:00 am What does it really mean to kids when school districts are underfunded? Here is a portrait of one such district, from the Education Law Center in New Jersey, which advocates for equal educational opportunity and education justice in the United States. Profiled is the Freehold Borough School ...read more
Even Conservative Texans Know that K12 is a Hoax | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Donna Garner is a retire teacher in Texas. She is conservative, politically and pedagogically. She is furious that the State Education Department is expanding the virtual charter school K12. Her commentary below shows what a hoax K12 is. Imagine getting credit for two years of Spanish in only eight weeks, and credit for one year ...read more
The Return to Separate but Equal 60 Years Post Brown | emPower magazine
As we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling Brown vs. Board of Education, which put an end to segregation of public schools, many have argued that the goals of that case have not been met as many black and brown students remain in schools that are highly segregated from their white ...read more
Diane Ravitch’s speech in absentia at the May 17 Take Back our Schools Rally | NYC Public School Parents
There was a great rally at City Hall Park on May 17, organized by SOS Our Schools, with numerous wonderful speakers from the Tri-state area. But the biggest thrill for me was getting to read Diane Ravitch’s speech, who could not attend because she is in rehab after knee surgery. Here is her speech. Thank ...read more
This State Pays a Company $2.3 Million to Rank Teachers by an Algorithmic Formula? | History News Network
It was only a matter of time. For years, we have classified our sons and daughters through standardized testing and now we are labeling our teachers by linking them to those very same results. Branding teachers with the composite results of high stakes testing is nothing new. Various states have used such measures to bludgeon ...read more
Paul Ryan’s dropout delusion: Here’s the real reason kids don’t graduate | Salon.com
When Rep. Paul Ryan sparked controversy earlier this year by claiming poverty in America’s “inner cities” was a product of “a tailspin of culture,” he might’ve had the stereotypical high school dropout in mind. Indeed, there are few groups more derided and dismissed than dropouts, kids who supposedly don’t take their own futures seriously enough ...read more
Bill Moyers Explains Why Hedge Fund Managers Love Charters | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Hedge fund managers supply the millions that enable charters to thrive. They are big givers to charters, and they are big givers to political candidates who support charters. The hedge funders’ political arm is called “Democrats for Education Reform,” even though their agenda looks like the traditional GOP agenda of privatization, choice, and competition. Bill ...read more
Unequal Opportunity the Norm: Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey | janresseger
by janresseger In my favorite passage from Linda Darling-Hammond’s book, The Flat World and Education, she wonders, “what we might accomplish as a nation if we could finally set aside what appears to be our de facto commitment to inequality, so profoundly at odds with our rhetoric of equity, and put the millions of dollars ...read more
John Kuhn Explains How Budget Cuts Devastate Rural Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog
John Kuhn is the superintendent of the small Perrin-Whitt Independent School District in rural Texas. He is an eloquent speaker and supporter of public education. He has spoken at national events and recently published two new books. He knows that the schoolssuffernot only fro budget cuts but from Washington’s wildly unrealistic expectations. He knows it ...read more
Georgia: Valarie Wilson Leads for State Superintendent | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Yesterday Georgians voted for state superintendent of schools. The Network for Public Education endosed Valarie Wilson, a former school board member from Decatur. After surveying all the candidates, NPE concluded that Wilson would be a strong leader for public schools and children. In a crowded field, Wilson finished first with 32%, and will be in ...read more
Jonathan Pelto Looks to Shake Up the Race For Governor | WNPR News
Former state legislator Jonathan Pelto has been a vocal critic of Governor Dannel Malloy since day one. His frustration with the current administration may push him to run for governor as a liberal third-party candidate. Pelto joins us in-studio to talk about why he’s considering a challenge from the left. What questions do you have ...read more
CTU Reports on School Closings In Chicago, One Year Later | Diane Ravitch’s blog
New CTU report analyzes massive public school closings on one-year anniversary “Twelve Months Later: The Impact of School Closings in Chicago” examines myriad of CPS’s Broken Promises CHICAGO—The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) released today a report on the state of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) one year after the Board of Education (BOE) voted to close ...read more
Cami wanted disruption–and, last night, she got it | Bob Braun’s Ledger
Newark’s school superintendent belongs to that tribe of self-proclaimed and irresponsible school reformers who contend public schools must be “disrupted” before they can be improved–and she has done so much disrupting that scores of clergy have warned of “catastrophic” consequences. Last night, she faced disruption aimed at her, a group of high school students who stopped a board meeting ...read
Chicago principal publicly slams Mayor Emanuel and says he is ‘insulting’ educators | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 21 at 4:00 am Principal Troy LaRaviere (blainecps.com) A scathing letter (see below) by a Chicago school principal charging Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his administration with ignoring and disrespecting teachers and principals has sparked a discussion in the city about school reform and how it is being implemented. The principal is Troy A. ...read more
MAY 20
At downtown rally, critics of Newark school plan present alternative | NJ.com
NEWARK — Parents, students and union and community leaders will rally at the Newark Public School offices Tuesday afternoon to present an alternative plan to Superintendent Cami Anderson’s controversial One Newark reorganization. Emboldened by their successful effort to elect Ras Baraka as Newark’s Mayor, the activists will deliver their new plan to the district offices ...read more
A dozen problems with charter schools | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 20 at 2:30 pm Pennsylvania state Rep. James Roebuck (www.pahouse.com/roe School reformers keep talking about charter schools as if they were the answer to public education’s problems, when there is a great deal of evidence that shows big problems with the charter sector. For example, a report on Pennsylvania’s charter schools ...read more
North Carolina Teacher Takes Senator Curtis to Task | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This letter came from Stuart Egan, one of North Carolina’s National Board Certified Teachers. The state has more NBCTs than any other, and almost the lowest salaries of any state. Egan responded to Senator David Curtis’s letter brushing off science tea her Sarah Wiles. Stuart Egan writes: I am a high school teacher from Winston-Salem ...read more
Chicago Principal Speaks Out: Emanuel Administration Demonstrates ‘Complete Incompetence’ | Alternet
A few days ago, I posted a letter by Troy LaRaviere, a principal in a Chicago elementary school, protesting the administration’s indifference to the views of the system’s professionals. He wrote boldly about efforts to stifle criticism and enforce a compliant attitude. Happily he is not alone. Another principal Adam Parrott-Scheffer, principal of Peterson Elementary ...read more
60 Years After Brown v. BOE, Mostly White Reformers Try To Fix ‘The Civil Rights Issue Of Our Generation’ | The Huffington Post
Sixty years ago, the plight of Linda Brown, a third-grader who had to travel a mile by bus to her segregated black school even though there was a neighborhood school seven blocks from her home, became the symbol of America’s racist underbelly. Now, the very language that activists called upon to right that wrong is ...read more
Hundreds of Scholars Criticize PISA; Schleicher Defends It | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A letter written by State University of Albany’s Heinz Dieter Meyer and educator Katie Zahedi protested the negative effects of PISA on education goals because of its emphasis on standardized tests and international competition. The letter has been translated into many languages and collected hundreds of signatures from scholars and educators around the world. The ...read more
Just How Meaningful Are Those Value-Added Ratings? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The studies of value-added measurement keep on coming, and the findings usually show what an utterly absurd idea it to think that teacher quality can be judged by student test scores. In a just world, Arne Duncan would be held accountable for the stupid and harmful theories he has imposed on the nation’s public schools. ...read more
La. Superintendent John White Requires Districts to Embargo LEAP Summary Public Reports | deutsch29
When it comes to the 2014 Louisiana Education Assessment Program (LEAP) scores he was supposed to release on Friday, May 16, 2014, Louisiana State Superintendent John White has apparently found himself in an unfamiliar fix regarding his characteristic “water muddying.” It seems that in this instance, his Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) underlings have refused to airbrush ...read more
MAY 19
Jeb Bush bashes traditional public schools (again) | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS May 19 at 3:38 pm You can say this about Jeb Bush: When it comes to promoting charter schools and vouchers at the expense of traditional public schools, the former Florida governor and possible 2016 presidential candidate has long been consistent. He just did it again. Let’s look at what he said — ...read more
Rally held against ‘One Newark’ plan proposed by Superintendent Cami Anderson to consolidate schools – News 12 New Jersey
NEWARK – Students, teachers and teacher’s union officials called for Newark School Superintendent Cami Anderson to resign during a rally at Lincoln Park Saturday. Critics of Anderson say they were left out of the conversation when she pitched her “One Newark” plan, which restructures and consolidates the school district. They pitched their own plan during ...read more
Rigorizing Eight Year Olds | CURMUDGUCATION
One of the most odious policies to emerge from the Reformster swamp is the mandatory retention of all third graders who don’t pass the Big Test in reading. And now Mary Laura Bragg, the director of Florida’s program, has popped up to help us all understand just how anti-child this policy is. She has popped ...read more
Another Principal in Chicago Speaks Out Against Political Interference | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A few days ago, I posted a letter by Troy LaRavalierre, a principal in a Chicago elementary school, protesting the administration’s indifference to the views of the system’s professionals. He wrote boldly about efforts to stifle criticism and enforce a compliant attitude. Happily he is not alone. Another principal Adam Parrott-Scheffer, principal of Peterson Elementary ...read more
Peter Goodman: Only Way Obama Can Avoid Defeat in November is to Fire Arne | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Peter Goodman, a political analyst who is close to the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, concludes that the November elections are looking increasingly bleak for President Obama and the Democrats. It is beginning to look like Democrats could lose control of the Senate, which would leave Obama with little more than veto ...read more
MAY 18
Racial Segregation Returns to US Schools, 60 Years After the Supreme Court Banned It | Alternet
As the United States approaches the 60th anniversary of the landmark 1954 Brown vs the Board of Education Supreme Court judgement that helped outlaw racial segregation in American schools, the mainstream media has begun to confront the fact that segregated schools are not just remnants of history. In 1957, when the governor of Arkansas refused ...read more
Are Common Core Standards Actually Data Tags? | Peter Greene
Don’t think of them as standards. Think of them as tags. Think of them as the pedagogical equivalent of people’s names on Facebook, the tags you attach to each and every photo that you upload. We know from our friends at Knewton what the Grand Design is — a system in which student progress is ...read more
Another Day, Another “Miracle” Charter School Debunked | Jersey Jazzman
Some of you who read this blog might think I’ve got something against charter schools. I really don’t; I started my career in a charter. There are some good charters out there, and a few really excellent ones. We can even have a discussion about the similarities between urban families who enroll their children in ...read more
Michigan Democrats call for probe into EAA spending | The Detroit News
OEL KURTH THE DETROIT NEWS Detroit— Michigan Democrats are calling for an investigation into credit card spending at the Education Achievement Authority uncovered by The Detroit News. House Democrats called for the probe — and elimination of the EAA — hours after The News published a story Monday that detailed nearly $240,000 in charges on ...read more
How Much Money Was Spent on the Newark Race and Who Spent it? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The recent victory of Ras Baraka in the mayoral race in Newark was truly a people’s victory. The central issue was the future of Newark’s schools, which have been under state control since 1995. Baraka was opposed by a charter school supporter named Shavar Jeffries, who was bankrolled by out-of-state hedge fund managers, Democrats for ...read more
Charter Schools: The Education Equivalent of Subprime Mortgages | With A Brooklyn Accent
Charter Schools are looking more and more like the educational equivalent of subprime mortgages—a short cut to greater equity and opportunity that becomes the basis of a huge unregulated industry, which gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to make quick profits, and the very wealthy tax breaks and opportunities for investment.What makes both the charter school and subprime ...read more
A Reader Explains the Purpose of Charter School Waiting Lists and Lotteries | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A reader left this comment: ************************** I worked in the front office of a charter school for two years. We marketed heavily in the neighborhood and would get hundreds of applications for a school that had anywhere from 30-40 seats available in Kindergarten and 0-2 seats per class available in grades 1 and ...read more
Hey, Ras–you’re not going to rock the boat, are you? | Bob Braun’s Ledger
The hedge-fund managers, the mainstream media, Cami Anderson’s friends in Montclair and Glen Ridge–during the election, they all tried to depict Ras Baraka as a revolutionary, as a radical, as a dangerous man with “fiery” and “incendiary” ideas and close ties to gangs. This was racist libel, of course, and it didn’t work but Newark’s ...read more
The Day Mark Naison Caught the Attention of TFA | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Mark Naison, a co-founder of the Badass Teachers Association (BATS), is America’s Education Gadfly par excellence (that is, assuming that a BAT can also be a gadfly). NAISON, a professor of African-American studies at Fordham University, knows how to get under the skin of the powerful. He recently released a sharp video from his very ...read more
Arne Duncan’s reaction to new research slamming teacher evaluation method he favors | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSSMay 18 at 12:57 pmEducation Secretary Arne Duncan has been a proponent of using students’ scores on standardized tests to evaluate teachers, even as a growing mountain of evidence has shown that the method now used in most states, known as “value-added measures,” is not reliable. With two recent reports released on VAM ...read more
MAY 17
Protest at Harvard over commencement speaker at education school | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS Colorado state Sen. Michael Johnston (www.leg.state.co.us/) Dozens of student and alumni at the Harvard Graduate School of Education issued a statement (see below) protesting the selection of Colorado state Sen. Michael Johnston (D) as the school’s 2014 commencement speaker because, they say, he “embraces a vision of education reform that relies heavily ...read more
How to help students of color, 60 years after historic Brown v. Board ruling | The Answer Sheet
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws establishing separate schools for black and white students were unconstitutional in the historic case Brown vs. Board of Education. I’ve published a few pieces on the legacy of the decision, here and here. Following is a new piece on where the United States ...read more
60 Years After Brown v. Board, Will Congress Revive a Dual School System? | Diane Ravitch
Congress is considering new charter legislation, awarding more money to the charter sector, which will operate with minimal accountability or transparency. The bill has already passed the House of Representatives with a bipartisan majority and now moves to the Senate. Make no mistake: on the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision, Congress is ...read more