NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs
from The Network for Public Education
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
YESTERDAY
Mobile, Baldwin school officials will accommodate students who don’t want to take standardized tests | AL.com
School officials in Mobile and Baldwin counties said they haven’t had many inquiries from parents who want to opt out from standardized testing, but have plans in place to accommodate those students. The issue came to the fore when State Superintendent of Education Tommy Bice and Gov. Robert Bentley seemed to disagree on whether or ...read more
My Reply to Alexander Nazaryan of Newsweek | Diane Ravitch’s blog
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
The 2008 Common Core Sales Job: Part One | 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 Gates and GE foundations funded the report. The content of this report begs for careful examination. Thus, I plan to examine it closely in ...read more
6 reasons to reject Common Core K-3 standards — and 6 rules to guide policy | The Answer Sheet
The Common Core State Standards for students in kindergarten through Grade 3 have come under severe criticism by early childhood education experts who say that they are not developmentally appropriate. Even some supporters of the Core initiative, including American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, have called for a revamping of these early education standards. ...read more
Reflections of Canceled Kindergarten Music Programs | EduSanity
JASON ENDACOTT If you look at the curricular history of the United States you will see that our nation’s educational focus has been greatly affected by the tenor of the times. In the early 20th century we sought efficiency in learning while the nation was industrializing. We were inspired by the Great Depression of the ...read more
Audrey Amrein-Beardsley’s New Book on VAM Is Available | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Audrey Amrein-Beardsley has just published a new book that explains value-added measurement (VAM). It is now available for pre-order. Having been a classroom teacher and now a university scholar, Beardsley takes a highly critical view of simplistic approaches to teacher evaluation. Here are her chapter headings. “Paperback: 256 pages; Chapters: 8 and titled as follows: ...read more
Another Plutocrat for USDOE | CURMUDGUCATION
Alyson Klein at EdWeek reports that Robert Gordon has been chosen to serve as assistant secretary for planning, evaluation and policy development at the US DOE. Gordon’s previous work credits include the Office of Management and Budget, where he seems to have been a man behind the scenes for the various Fiscal Cliff negotiations. More ...read more
NYC Scraps 3rd Grade Guarantee As Ohio Adopts It–Based on ALEC Model Law | janresseger
Ohio’s acting state superintendent of public instruction, Michael Sawyers claims that Ohio’s new 3rd Grade Guarantee will help Ohio’s children. After all, Governor John Kasich has consistently alleged that children behind in reading by third grade are more likely to drop out of school than stronger readers. Sawyers extolls the 3rd Grade Guarantee as a ...read more
Bruce Baker: Meet Arne Duncan’s Latest Nutty Idea | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Bruce Baker can’t believe that Arne Duncan admires the Relay “Graduate” School of Education, where charter teachers grant masters’ degrees to their colleagues. This demeans the very concept of professionalism and graduate study. But it reveals Duncan’s essential contempt for education. What if Duncan were in charge of medical education (heaven forbid). Here is the ...read more
NYS Assessment blues and statement from NYSAPE on latest exam fiasco & call for John King & Tisch to resign | NYC Public School Parents
Thanks to Howie Ratem for the below video and song; and NY State Allies for Public Education for their statement below on the latest fiasco from NY State Education Department: an unknown number of 3rd graders received Pearson math exams yesterday, with pages and questions missing — calling into question the validity or the results. ...read more
Louis C.K. Takes Aim at Common Core — And We’re All Smarter for It | Diane Ravitch in HuffPost
There is a battle royal being waged across the nation about a set of national academic standards called the Common Core. On one side, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has warned that the future of the nation depends on these standards. Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for ...read more
Biggest laugh of the day — Vallas fundraising letter | Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog
Biggest laugh yesterday came from opening the mail and finding a campaign fundraising letter from Paul Vallas. He wants me to send a check to his campaign for IL lieutenant governor (he must not read my blog). V says he wants the money to head off Republican billionaire Bruce Rauner’s run for governor. As someone ...read more
MAY 01
Teachers Are Protecting American Classrooms From Corporate Takeover | BillMoyers.com
by Amy Dean This post first appeared in Yes! Magazine. In this April 10, 2014 file photo, student teacher Franchesca Moreno, 21, reads to Andreanna Thomas, 6, right, and Alana Cawthon, upper left, at Bennett Park Montessori School in Buffalo, NY. (AP Photo) Teachers have always held a cherished role in our society — recognized ...read more
Louis C.K. Against the Common Core | The New Yorker
POSTED BY REBECCA MEAD On Thursday morning, thousands of children who attend public school in New York City will be sitting down for the second of three days of standardized math tests. Among them will be the offspring of Louis C.K., the comedian. Earlier this week, he took to social media to express his frustration ...read more
What Do Education Policy Makers Need? A Good Dose of Parental Advice | Alternet
For most children, their first teacher is a parent or primary caregiver. And most teachers will tell you that parent behaviors in the home affect student learning in schools. So it would make sense to make sure education policy isn’t strongly at odds with what we know about good parenting. However, a recent spate of ...read more
Sorry, Newsweek, But You’re wrong About Louis C. K. | CURMUDGUCATION
My first thought when I read Alexander Nazaryan’s response to Louis C. K.’s Common Core tirade was, “Wow! What an ass!” This is not an insult. Readers of this blog know that the what-an-ass writing style is one of my favorites, and I have been an ass frequently. I don’t have the luxury of being ...read more
Is It Worth Being a Teacher? (Dave Reid) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
Dave Reid is a high school mathematics teacher in his third year of teaching. He received his MA in Education and credential in secondary mathematics and physics from Stanford University in 2011. Dave spent a quarter of a century in high-tech primarily in the wireless and Global Positioning System (GPS) industries. He earned a BS ...read more
Houston teachers sue over controversial teacher evaluation method | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS Andrew Dewey is an award-winning history teacher at Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston. In 2011-12, he earned the top merit pay award that his school district gives out and had “most effective” teacher status through a controversial evaluation system that uses student standardized test scores. The next year, after teaching similar ...read more
In Portland, Student Union Plays Key Role in Faculty Union Win | Alternet
May 1, 2014 | Over the last few months, it appeared that the faculty of Portland State University would be going on strike for the first time in the school’s history as negotiations over a new contract with PSU administration stalled. The strike date was set for April 16. Just days before, it was averted ...read more
Who Do We Ally With? | Deborah Meier – Bridging Differences
By Deborah Meier Deborah Meier’s conversation with Mike Klonsky continues today. Dear Mike, You’re right. I’m wrong. Blogs should be short and sweet (or nasty). I see I’ve corrupted your style with mine. (This refers, readers, to a phone conversation Mike and I had about the proper form of blogging, which I have a hard ...read more
Test Prep Endures in New York Schools, Despite Calls to Ease It | NYTimes.com
For several weeks, Reanna Bhola and her sixth-grade classmates at Intermediate School 126 in Astoria, Queens, spent part of nearly every day focused on test preparation. First it was reading, with sample passages, questions and review sheets mirroring the actual tests. Then came math. They did work sheets full of word problems from previous tests, ...read more
Resistance to the Common Core Mounts | Education Week
By Andrew Ujifusa Critics span the political spectrum, from tea partyers to union leaders After more than a year of high-profile and contentious debate over the Common Core State Standards in Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence signed legislation last month to formally reverse the state’s adoption of the standards. The legislation set the state on course ...read more
Why the Tech Industry Loves Common Core | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A teacher sent the following comment in reference to the requirement that all Common Core testing must be done online. Schools will lay off teachers and cut programs and services to pay for technology for testing: “My campus has 1200 students and 32 computers in the lab. You do the math. We have to buy ...read more
Teacher Merit Badges | CURMUDGUCATION
Earlier this week, Metro Nashville Public Schools unveiled a new virtual merit badge system to reward teachers who take on extras. The idea was facing resistance about fifteen seconds after it was introduced. Kelly Henderson, the districts executive director of instruction, compared the system to Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Jill Speering of the school ...read more
State-Appointed Superintendent of Camden: I Represent the People of Camden | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Professor Stephen Danley of Rutgers has been attending the school board meetings in Camden. Camden has been under state control for many years. Its new, young, inexperienced Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard wants to turn Camden’s public schools into charter schools. There is no evidence that the people of Camden want him to give their children and ...read more
Paul Horton: A Teacher Writes to Arne Duncan | Anthony Cody – Living in Dialogue
By Anthony Cody Guest post by Paul Horton. Dear Mr. Duncan, I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know what sane teachers are doing these days. I attended a rally last night at Union Square Fieldhouse that brought together concerned teachers, parents, and students to discuss standardized testing in Illinois. We ...read more
APR 30
Parents protest charter scheme | philly.com
PARENTS at two traditional public schools that could be converted to charters joined together yesterday to voice opposition to the process – including news that a decision on one school’s fate has been postponed. The School District of Philadelphia announced earlier this month that Edward T. Steel Elementary and Luis Munoz-Marin Elementary were chosen as ...read more
The Liberal Education Reform Revolt | Jacobin
By Lois Weiner An eloquent call to “reclaim the conversation” challenges leading liberal educators to repudiate their involvement in what’s being called “corporate school reform.” We finally see liberal activists opposing the bipartisan education project that has subjected school and teachers to “free market” policies. Liberals are starting to contest privatization, testing, and attacks on ...read
ALEC Education “Academy” Launches on Island Resort | PR Watch
Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an “island” resort on the coast of Florida to a unique “education academy” sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind ...read more
The Green Berets of Excellence | EduShyster
By Johnny Bravo My story starts some years back, on my first day on the job as a public school teacher. (After twenty years of private industry work and collegiate teaching experience, I shifted gears relatively recently and became a teacher). Having expected to encounter a balanced mix of experienced-to-new teachers, I was surprised at ...read more
Today’s Florida Voucher Expansion Vote Will Forever Define Senate Republicans | Scathing Purple Musings
A 2013 report from Charity Navigator gives Step Up for Students high marks as administrator of Florida’s voucher system, the misleading named the Florida Tax Credit Program. The report in PR Web quotes CEO Doug Tuthill: We’re doing important work and we’re obsessed with doing this work well,” said Tuthill. “Since we began more than ...read more
Teacher: I Will NOT Resign! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A letter from a teacher. He echoes my sentiments exactly. Stay and fight. Resist. Don’t let the teacher-bashers win. Not only are teachers “in the trenches,” but now teachers are engaging in trench warfare, holding on to their professional ethics and fighting for their students against powerful forces. Be there when the whole phony “ed ...read more
Is There No Common Ground? Well….. | CURMUDGUCATION
I sympathize with Peter DeWitt, the former K-5 principal who has morphed into a pundit/trainer. In his blog at EdWeek he can often be found trying to chart a course between the Scylla of the CCSS-based Reformsters and the Charybdis of rabid opposition to any changey things in school while sailing under the Pigpen’s Black ...read more
America’s best teachers got a B on this quiz | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 30 at 8:45 am The Martin Luther King memorial is visible through cherry blossoms at peak bloom around the Tidal Basin in April 2014. (Photo by Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) The 62-year-old National Teacher of the Year Program is the oldest national honors program that focuses on teaching excellence, and this week, ...read more
HS Teachers Will Boycott NYC Test May 1 | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This just in: FOR PLANNING PURPOSES: April 29, 2014 CONTACT: Emily Giles, e.giles@ihsph.org, (917) 575-2936 Emily Wendlake, emilywendlake@gmail.com, (413) 657-7255 Rosie Frascella, r.frascella@ihsph.org, (917) 767-1001 Anita Feingold-Shaw, afeingoldshaw@gmail.com, (510) 872-1712 ############ **Media Advisory** ############ 26 Teachers and Staff of International High School at Prospect Heights refu
How Charter School Managers Succeed Fabulously in Busine$$ | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A few years ago, I was alerted to the phenomenal success of an entrepreneur-lawyer in Pennsylvania named Vahan Gureghian. With a bit of googling, I learned that he had opened a charter school in Chester County, Pennsylvania, that enrolled 2,600 students, half the district’s children. Consequently, the district was plunged into bankruptcy, unable to make ...read more
APR 29
Another charter school moves toward unionization | catalyst-chicago.org
Employees at a fourth Chicago International Charter School (CICS) campus have moved closer to forming a union. Most teachers and staff at ChicagoQuest, a CICS middle and high school that opened in 2011, voted in favor of union representation during an informal election held in December. But after months of meetings with the school’s management ...read more
HISD teachers to sue over job evaluation system | Chron.com
By Ericka Mellon Seven HISD teachers and the Houston Federation of Teachers union plan to file a federal lawsuit this week over the district’s teacher evaluation system, one of the first nationwide to grade teachers based on students’ test scores. “This has been a long time coming because we have very miserable members,” said Houston Federation ...read more
Student Power in Providence! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
There are two groups that can’t be attacked by corporate reformers as greedy and self-interested: parents and students. The fake reformers automatically dismiss the voices if educators, but they can’t dismiss parents and students. No, wait, Arne Duncan ridiculed parents in Néw York as “white suburban moms” who were disappointed to find out their children ...read more
Bush Ally Condemns High-Stakes Testing to Justify Different Tests for Florida Vouchers | Scathing Purple Musings
The James Madison Institute, long a reliable parrot for any Jeb Bush education initiative, has trotted out one of its scholars to defend Florida’s voucher program. And resident fellow, William Mattox, comes up with the most convoluted arguments to date. Combined with another tortured “tax credits are private money” argument that doesn’t sway anyone, Mattox provides ...read more
Why is Greenwich Lying to Its Parents? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Sarah Darer Littman is a journalist in Connecticut who writes frequently about education. She is a public school parent. She wrote this post in response to an email sent to all public school parents by the superintendent of schools in Greenwich: “When I was growing up, my parents had Dorothy Law Nolte’s poem Children Learn ...read more
Joanne Barkan’s Three Types of Criticism of Edu-Philanthropy | @ THE CHALK FACE
BY JOHN THOMPSON LEAVE A COMMENT Diane Ravitch recently praised Joanne Barkan’s “How to Criticize ‘Big Philanthropy’ Effectively.” Barkan’s excellent analysis was first presented at the March 2014 Network for Public Education (NEP) Conference in Austin, Texas. It is now published in Dissent Magazine. Barkan began with the oft-repeated question, “You’re going after Bill Gates?” ...read more
The scary way Common Core test ‘cut scores’ are selected | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 29 at 9:30 am You may have given no thought to the “cut scores” that are set for various tests, but they make all the difference in who passes and who fails. What exactly are cut scores? The Educational Testing Service describes them this way: Cut scores are selected points on ...read more
On “Dropout Factories” & (Fraudulent) Graduation Rates in NJ | School Finance 101
This NJ Star Ledger piece the other day reminded me of an issue I’ve been wanting to check out for some time now. I’m skeptical of graduation rates as a measure of student outcomes to begin with, because, of course, graduation can be strongly influenced by local norms and practices. As such, it’s really hard ...read more
Walmart Has Ruined our Towns: Will We Let the Walton Foundation Destroy our Schools? | janresseger
Motoko Rich’s recent blockbuster article in the NY Times explores the vast reach of the Walton Foundation to promote and support the privatization of public education. What has happened in Washington, D.C., writes Rich, is a microcosm of Walton’s investments in the promotion of an education revolution across the country: “In effect, Walton has subsidized ...read more
Who Wrote the Common Core Standards. part 2 | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Mercedes Schneider continues in her task to determine who wrote the Common Core State Standards. The first work group had 24 members; the second had 101. Very few in either group were teachers. The standards were produced in remarkably short order. Typically, it takes years to write state standards when major stakeholders are part of ...read more
Comedian Louis C.K. Slams State’s Standardized Tests on Twitter | DNAinfo.com
Comedian Louis C.K. became the darling of the anti-high-stakes testing movement after he went on a Twitter tear against the Common Core standardized tests Monday. “My kids used to love math,” the Manhattan-based television and stand-up star wrote in his first of a dozen tweets about the subject to his more than 3 million followers. ...read more
APR 28
Computer troubles mar standardized testing in multiple states | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS If you are wondering how the high-stakes standardized testing season is going around the country — including field testing of new Common Core-aligned standardized exams — here’s the answer: Not so great. Since millions of kids began taking standardized tests online in March, computer problems have been reported in California, Florida, Indiana, ...read more
What Parents Need To Know About Big Data And Student Privacy : All Tech Considered | NPR
My first brush with professional journalism — and with violations of student privacy — came when I was a sophomore at Yale. It was 1999, and George W. Bush, a Yale alumnus, was running for president. A writer for The New Yorker cold-called my dorm room looking for students who might have access to Bush’s ...read more
Chicago Pursuing School Privatization at Any Cost | Alternet
The Chicago Board of Education’s vote on Wednesday to convert three public elementary schools into “turnaround schools” run by the non-profit Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) was no surprise to most parents and teachers. The board has consistently voted to close schools or turn them over to private management — laying off most of the staff ...read more
Teachers plan protest at Lake Placid educational ‘retreat’ | Poughkeepsie Journal
Critics of the state’s education policies are focusing their ire on a $1,000-a-ticket education retreat this weekend in Lake Placid, which is being run by hedge-fund managers who support charter schools and features Gov. Andrew Cuomo as “honorary chairman.” NYSUT is hoping to draw hundreds of teachers to the Adirondacks for a picket outside the ...read more
Influential National Hispanic Civil Rights Organization Opposed to Voucher Expansion | Scathing Purple Musings
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) are emphasizing their opposition to school vouchers in their education platform: LULAC strongly opposes vouchers and any other funding method that will limit public education resources. All Latinos should have access to safe, quality and desegregated public education. Public schools should be improved and rehabilitated, and be ...read more
Mercedes Schneider: Who Are the 24 People Who Wrote the Common Core Standards? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A few days ago, I posted the names of the members of the “work groups” that wrote the Common Core standards. There was one work group for English language arts and another for mathematics. There were some members who served on both work groups. Altogether, 24 people wrote the Common Core standards. None identified ...read more
Jeff Bryant in Salon: Why Common Core Is in Deep Trouble | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Jeff Bryant is a marketing and communications expert, and he understands why Common Core is in deep trouble. The “education reform movement” is not really a movement. It has no mass base. It is a public relations campaign created by a very small number of people with deep pockets. They thought they could pull a ...read more
Will Jonathan Pelto Run for Governor of Connecticut? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
On issues related to education, Connecticut’s Governor Dannell Malloy is one of the worst governors in the nation. Jonathan Pelto, who served in the state legislature, is considering a run against Malloy. Pelto knows that Malloy has repeatedly let down students, parents, teachers, and communities. Malloy has followed the money–the hedge fund money–which supports charter ...read more
The Gates Wants Higher Ed To Take a Stand | CURMUDGUCATION
Over at Inside Higher Ed, Dan Greenstein and Vicki Phillips are making yet another pitch for the Core on behalf of the Gates Foundation (Greenstein is director of postsecondary success and Pillips is director of education). I would love to tell you that they have shiny new talking points to offer, but no– it’s the ...read more
Politico: Rightwing Authors Warn: Watch Out for Teachers, They Are Obstacles to Our Reforms | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Politico reports this morning: “WATCH OUT FOR TEACHERS: Harvard professor Paul E. Peterson is out with a new book urging Americans not to be lulled into thinking of teachers as regular folk. On the contrary, he writes in “Teachers versus the Public,” they’re part of a large and powerful special interest group — and their ...read more
APR 27
The Great Big Lovin’ Walheart | EduShyster
When we last paid a call on our good friends the Waltons, we found them in a fine, beneficent fettle indeed. Armed with Walmart profits equivalent to the wealth of the bottom 42% of American families combined, the Waltons felt moved to wrap their arms around the nation’s burgeoning population of low-income children and hug ...read more
My Book Is Published! | Mercedes Schneider
April 27, 2014 To all who have been asking and waiting: I am pleased to report that my book, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education, is now available on Amazon.com! At the moment, Amazon.com has the paperback version, listed at $23.35. I hear that the e-book takes about 30 days until ...read more
Video: Bill Gates “Explains” Common Core | deutsch29
n the following six-minute video at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in March 2014, Bill Gates demonstrates his privileged view of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Gates has contributed over $4.3 million to AEI, with over $1 million in 2012 for “exploring the challenges of Common Core,” among other issues, so it is only fitting that AEI ...read more
Product Placement on Pearson Exams: Coincidental? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Lace to the Top, an activist group of educators and parents in New York opposed to high-stakes testing, became curious about the appearance of certain commercial products on the state’s mandated exams. Edith Balthazar, a New York City public school parent and freelance editor, thought the product placements were too blatant to be an accident. ...read more
Florida Senate Voucher Sponsor Earmarked $2.3 Million for Voucher Eligible Sports Academy | Scathing Purple Musings
From Matt Dixon in the Tampa Tribune: TALLAHASSEE _ Powerful state Sen. Bill Galvano says he had nothing to do with a client of his private law firm securing millions during the 2013 legislative session, but a state budget document that Galvano disputes shows he requested the money. IMG Academies, a Bradenton-based private sports and ...read more
Does Anyone Still Believe in VAM? The “Center for American Progress” Does. | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Despite the fact that major scholarly organizations have debunked value-added measurement as a way of identifying and quantifying teacher quality, there are still a few lonely defenders of VAM. There is the U.S. Department of Education, which bet nearly $5 billion on VAM. There is the Gates Foundation, which has bet hundreds of millions on ...read more
APR 26
How the Creation of Social Justice Caucuses in Unions Is Revitalizing an Aging Labor Movement | Alternet
Earlier this month at the Labor Notes Conference, rank and file labor leaders announced for the first time the creation of the Network for Social Justice Unionism (NSJU), a new infrastructure that unionists concerned with advancing social justice beyond the workplace hope to use to organize for a shift in the way the labor movement ...read more
Jersey Jazzman: Corporate Education Reform Buys Public Broadcasting – Again
A couple of months ago, David Sirota broke the story of how PBS took money from plutocrat John Arnold to push a story touting a non-existent pension crisis. I’ll admit that since then my radar has been more finely tuned to corporate-friendly frameworks when watching PBS or listening to NPR. So, as I was sitting ...read more
Will Camp Philos Exclude Public School Parents and Teachers? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Three public school teachers and parents signed up for “Camp Philos,” the meeting in the Adirondacks where Governor Cuomo plans to meet next week with other politicians committed to privatizing our nation’s public schools. The three say they were turned away. By limiting attendance at this event to those with deep pockets and to political ...read more
Florida Republican Lawmakers Moving Toward “Unequal Treatment” of State Schools | Scathing Purple Musings
Florida republican lawmakers were scolded this week by the Tampa Bay Times for voting “twice to lessen accountability for private-run charter schools and sidestep calls for more accountability for private schools that accept tuition vouchers.” So much for local control. The Republican-led House on Tuesday approved a bill, HB 7083, that would standardize charter school ...read more
Cami Anderson’s Rusty Knife | Jersey Jazzman
Newark’s state-appointed superintendent, Cami Anderson, is so hard at work fighting against “adult interests” that she doesn’t have time to attend public meetings of her elected school board. She doesn’t even have time to explain herself to the NJ Legislature. But she apparently does have time to hobnob with a bunch of edupreneurs for a ...read more
Pelto 2014? Pundits weigh impact | Wait What?
The race for governor is about electing someone who will support Connecticut’s students, parents, teachers, school administrators and public schools, instead of privatizing schools and imposing unrealistic, unproven standards and tests; all at the behest of billionaire hedge fund donors. To have a governor who will reverse the historic cuts to our public colleges and ...read more
Schneider Corrects Ezra Klein about PARCC | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Ezra Klein has set up a new website, vox.com, wherein he praises the federally-funded test Common Core test called PARCC—which is now being field-tested–and declares that it is “working.” Mercedes Schneider begs to differ. She says the main way it is working is to make millions for Pearson and ETS and to bleed public schools ...read more
US DOE Revives Truly Terrible Proposal | CURMUDGUCATION
President Obama has brushed the mothballs off one of the worst, dumbest proposals in Arne Duncan’s USDOE toolbox (and that is not an easy bar to clear). As reported by Reuters, Duncan is poised to revive the plan for test-based evaluation of college teacher prep programs. There are already many dumb plans in place, from ...read more
Introducing the Reader Spotlight: A Teacher’s View of Common Core | NYTimes.com
By MARGARET SULLIVAN As I’ve noted, I get mail. Fairly often, a reader’s view, sent to me, stands quite well on its own and deserves a wider audience. Toward that end, I’ll occasionally feature here a letter – possibly lightly trimmed or edited for style – that fits that description. This one, from Heidi Reich, ...read more
Kindergarten show canceled so kids can keep working to become ‘college and career ready.’ Really. | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS An annual year-end kindergarten show has been canceled at a New York school because the kids have to keep working so they will be “college and career” ready. Really. That’s what it says in a letter (see below) sent to parents by Ellen Best-Laimit, the interim principal of Harley Avenue Primary School ...read more
APR 25
Obama and Duncan Plan to Control Teacher Institutions with Their Failed Ideas | Diane Ravitch’s blog
With the Obama administration’s latest policy pronouncement, the federal grip on American education grows tighter and stupider every day. The latest: the administration plans to reward the best teacher-training institutions and drive the “worst” ones out of business. This is like Race to the Top for teacher preparation programs. What are their measures? Of course, ...read more
Arne-Ology & the Bad Incentives of Evaluating Teacher Prep with Student Outcome Data | School Finance 101
As I understand it, USDOE is going to go ahead with the push to have teacher preparation programs rated in part based on the student growth outcomes of children taught by individuals receiving credentials from those programs. Now, the layers of problems associated with this method are many and I’ve addressed them previously here and ...read more
North Carolina May Drop Common Core | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The North Carolina legislature is deciding whether to back out of the Common Core standards. As a critic of the Common Core, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I would be pleased to see a state that won Race to the Top funding telling Arne Duncan “No, thanks,” we don’t take orders ...read more
Cutting Through the Hype: Principals as Instructional Leaders | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
Jane David and I wrote a book called Cutting through the Hype: (Harvard Education Press, 2010). This is one chapter on principals. I have updated some references and language. Effective manager? Savvy politician? Heroic leader? School CEO? Reformers press for principals who can not only play these roles but also raise test scores and do ...read more
AFT asks Pearson to stop ‘gag order’ barring educators from talking about tests | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 25 at 6:00 am American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is sending a letter (see below) to the executives of Pearson, the world’s largest education company, asking them to stop a ”gag order” that is part of their $32 million contract with New York state to design new standardized tests ...read more
Children With Terminal Diseases Have to Take the Test, But Voucher Kids Don’t | Scathing Purple Musings
From St. Augustine Record reporter Marcia Lane: A Senate subcommittee approved an amendment on Tuesday expanding the voucher program, known as the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, adding it to a bill that helps parents of disabled children get additional educational services. Opponents say the plan is going to hurt public schools and the state’s ...read more
Alexandra Miletta: edTPA: Good Thing or Bad Thing? Part 1 | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A few years ago, the Powers-That-Be decided that the biggest problem in American education was the teachers. McKinsey said that other nations attracted the top performing graduates of the most prestigious universities into teaching, while our own sorry teachers came from the bottom of the barrel. In the hunt for perpetrators of what was wrongly ...read more
Nonprofit Charters Turn Taxes into Profits for Board Members | janresseger
Yesterday the Economic Policy Institute published a stunning new report that examines Rocketship Charter Schools and the financial backers tied to the success of the Rocketship chain of schools. The report’s author is political economist Gordon Lafer, who examines Rocketship Charter Schools in the context of Wisconsin, where corporate lobbies such as the Wisconsin Policy ...read more
College Perp | EduShyster
Is harsh discipline really the best way to prepare low-income minority students for college? Quick reader: what is the best way to prepare low-income minority students for college and 21st-century success? If you answered *an obsessive focus on the students’ smallest behaviors (particularly infractions of the uniform variety) paired with plenty of harsh discipline for ...read more
A Hero Superintendent in Oklahoma Defies the State, Exempts Two Students from Tests | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Donna Dudley, superintendent of Moyers public schools in Oklahoma, made a conscious decision to defy the state. It should not have been an extraordinary decision because it was what a decent human being would do. Two of her students suffered a terrible loss the weekend before the state tests. Their parents were killed in a ...read more
Gary Rubinstein: Did Arne Duncan Find a Miracle School in Denver? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Gary Rubinstein is quite the sleuth when anyone makes a claim about educational results that seem too good to be true. A few years ago, he helped me pin down some whoppers when Secretary Arne Duncan, President Obama, and then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed they discovered miracle schools that had a 100% graduation rate, or ...read more