Politics is about many things—power, money, authority, values, ideas…
It also is about language. In current school reform debates, the phrase “failing school” and its plural form “failing schools” are used very often.
Below are two Google Ngram charts that depict the rise in the frequency of this term in books appearance between 1900 and 2008. The results are rather eye-popping—use of the terms took off after 1990. (Click on the figures to get a much larger view of them.)
Chart 1. Term: “Failing School”
By Katy Murphy
Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 7:00 am in college, high schools, students.
A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.
Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled
I was driving home today and listening to WBEZ, the Chicago public radio station.
They were reporting on the sellout agreement between the teachers unions and the anti-union Stand for Children and the corporate Advance Illinois. The agreement, which is now fast tracking its way through the Illinois General Assembly, restricts teacher strikes, making the threat of a strike almost useless as a bargaining tool, and ending Last In, First Out as a policy during reduction in force (RIF) when there are enrollment declines or budget restrictions.
The WBEZ reporter quoted IEA President Ken Swanson as saying that any opposition to this agreement from teachers inside the IEA came from traditional teachers.
Traditional teacher.
That would be me.
I think experience matters.
I think fairness matters.
I think a collegial relationship among
Paul Ryan says his budget plan will cut $4.4 trillion over ten years. The President says his new plan will cut $4 trillion over twelve years.
Let’s get real. Ten or twelve-year budgets are baloney. It’s hard enough to forecast budgets a year or two into the future. Between now and 2022 or 2024 the economy will probably have gone through a recovery (I’ll explain later why I fear it will be anemic at best) and another downturn. America will also have been through a bunch of elections – at least five congressional and three presidential.
The practical question is how to get out of the ongoing gravitational pull of this awful recession without cow-towing to extremists on the right who think the U.S. government is their mortal enemy. For President Obama, it’s also about how to get reelected.
On Monday the New York Times' published a story about the immense and growing debt burden on college graduates. In 2003, two-thirds of bachelor's degree receipients had college debt, and their average individual debt load was a whopping $24,000.
As the piece, by Tamar Lewin, notes, most economists still consider student debt "good debt" because a college degree raises a worker's lifetime earnings. But what about those young Americans who take out loans to pursue higher education, yet drop out before receiving any kind of degree? Afterall, just 53 percent of students who enter four-year colleges graduate within six years. At two-year community colleges, half of all students drop-
Since the year 2000, the New York City Department of Education has closed 21 high schools serving 33,000 students. A recent report by the Urban Youth Collaborative demonstrated the destructive impact that these closings has had on graduation and dropout rates of students in those schools. These statistics represent actual students, who have experienced these shocks first-hand, but all too often their voices have not been heard. Below are the voices of three students speaking about how being in a phase-out school has affected them and their school.
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Wilvin Lopez, Samuel Gompers High School
I attend Samuel Gompers High School and I’m a leader at Sistas and Brothas United. The schools currently being targeted on the closing and PLA list (Persistently Lowest-Achieving schools) have high percentages of Black and Latino students, low-income students, English Language Learners, students with special needs, overage students and students who entered high school below grade level. New York State Education Department reviews of 17 PLA schools report that in 14 PLA schools, the DOE has not provided the assistance and support necessary for improvement.
In my opinion, the DOE doesn’t really give us the opportunity to show them what we have. They just close our schools down based on what they want to see. They don
’t want to pay attention to all those students who are constantly fighting and working hard to keep their schools
Three months after Tea Party governor, Rick Scott, was sworn into office andthings aren’t looking very good for the billionaire-turned-politician. According to a new Suffolk University poll, 54% of Florida voters said the state was headed in the wrong direction. Scott’s disapproval rating is nearly twice his approval rating – 48% to 28%. Unsurprisingly, unions give Scott an even poorer review.
Perhaps this has something to do with Scott’s efforts to slash public educationby over $1.75 billion, and to place a further financial burden on local school districts (and tax payers) of close to $2 billion to implement a strict testing system in order to find ways to rate teachers and schools, as well as ending
Paul Vallas
Paul Vallas, who has done stints as the leader of several major school districts, including Chicago and Philadelphia, is stepping down on May 1st as the superintendent of the Recovery School District in New Orleans. During his tenure there, he transformed the city’s school system, turning it into the first place in the country where a majority of schools are independently run, public charter schools. He recently spoke with The Hechinger Report at the annual conference of the Education Writers Association, held this year in New Orleans, about
Over at This Week in Education, Alexander Russo has a critical post about my new feature, "The Test Generation." Alexander is correct to point out that just because some school districts--like the one I profile in the piece, Harrison District 2 in Colorado Springs--are pursuing value-added evaluation of teachers through way more high-pressure standardized testing of kids, it doesn't mean all districts will do so. I acknowledge so much in the piece. But it's important to note that when districts do pursue this strategy, they are doing so partly in response to federal incentives. We need to see how these federal guidelines are playing out on-the-ground in classrooms, because otherwise, we won't know how to guard against the possible unintended consequences of well-intentioned programs like Race to the Top.
I want to address a few other issues Alexander raises in his post:
Did I interivew "too many teachers who wanted to talk to [me], a common mistake in education reporting?" Alexander suggests I somehow sought out teachers with an axe to grind against testing and merit pay. This accusation is simply false. I reported this article with the full cooperation of the Harrision District 2 administration, and I want to commend them for working with me openly and honestly. The vast majority of the
“The changes to Illinois’ education system agreed to by all parties will make Illinois a national model, and set a standard for other states to follow,” said Jonah Edelman, CEO of Stand for Children.“Everything is agreed to,” said Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood), who oversaw five months of negotiations between teachers unions, business and reform groups and school boards.
“Feel like I was hit by a truck with members of my own family driving.” --Comment on Brother Fred's blog
Less than a week ago, thousands of union teachers were marching and rallying in solidarity with their brothers
Michelle Rhee continues to try to salvage her shaky reputation, while more and more stories emerge to challenge her myth, and the style of school reform she champions. Here is a great video, from teachers and people familiar with Hart Middle School in DCPS. I’ll write more about this soon.
I have urged my legislators to vote NO on HB 1443. It has become an unwieldy Frankensausage of a bill, larded with controversial and discredited corporate ed reform practices, many of which usurp local authority and labor union rights and do harm to teaching and learning. It would not make good law.
HB 1443 contains language that reinforces the controversial and flawed practice of tying teacher evaluations to standardized student test scores. It potentially enables school closures, weakens teachers unions, enables less qualified
