Seattle Schools Community Forum: Let's Talk SBAC Scores - Part Two

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Let's Talk SBAC Scores - Part Two:

Let's Talk SBAC Scores - Part Two

Let's Talk SBAC Scores - Part Two

I watched Superintendent Randy Dorn's press conference last Monday where he reviewed the state's SBAC scores.

I found his remarks somewhat scattered as if he were trying to remember all his talking points.  (The contrast with his unflappable Deputy Superintendent of K-12 Education, Gil Mendoza,was interesting.)

As I mentioned in Part One of this series on the 2014-2105 SBAC scores for Washington State, the big takeway is that people who support SBAC are very happy (or putting on that happy face) on the announcement of these scores.  (Ready Washington - a coalition group of the OSPI, Stand for Children, Washington STEM, Washington PTA, LEV, DFER etc., a lot of people except for teachers - could not tweet out the results hard enough.)

The scores were in the low-high 50s (but naturally, breakdown differently across different groups).

Highlights from the press conference:


- Dorn tried to explain "how we got here" (meaning creation of Common Core and SBAC).  I personally thought that was a bad move because many people don't like HOW Common Core and SBAC got here.

He tried to be very folksy on this point about how "two groups of people got together" and wondered if it wouldn't make sense if 4th graders in "different places" learned the same things.
He said "it was a great idea that worked really well" but then got politicized.

Wait, what? Weren't the CC standards being created by two groups representing two different groups of elected officials also political?

- He said that the "kids" had far exceeded the field test results which has been in the 20s and 30s and had "far exceeded expectations."  That "far exceeded expectations" was a very repeated phrase.  He said they were "grateful" that the scores were not as bad as the field test scores.

- He said the assessment system is "a check of where kids are" and gives more info to teachers, parents and students as to "where do you line up on the spectrum for college/career readiness." 

 - He said using computers for taking the tests is better because of all the Seattle Schools Community Forum: Let's Talk SBAC Scores - Part Two:

The Source and Schoology

Here's the district's info on the new link to The Source.

The online student gradebook The Source and other student tools will now be one click away.
Beginning Sept. 9, the link to The Source will be replaced with “Student Portal” on the top right side of your school and the district webpages to access The Source and Schoology. See  yellow circle in the image to the left to see where to look for the link.

The Source is used by middle school and high school students, parents, and guardians to see student schedules, assessment scores, attendance, library information, and grades. 

Schoology is new for the 2015-16 year and offers teachers the opportunity to communicate with students, parents and guardians, about day-to-day coursework, such as due dates, assignments, and homework.

Here are some user reviews of Schoology from the website, Graphite:

Pros
From assigning to assessing to collaborating, tons of options to extend classrooms outside of school.  

Any content area teacher can use Schoology to push engagement and learning outside the class.

Overall, this is a great LMS option for either classroom or school-wide use and one which I recommend.
Cons 
There's so much herehttp://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-source-and-schoology.html

Poll: Americans Want Less Standardized Testing and More School Funding - NEA Today

Poll: Americans Want Less Standardized Testing and More School Funding - NEA Today:

Poll: Americans Want Less Standardized Testing and More School Funding

Whether it’s used as a tool to measure student progress or evaluate teachers, standardized testing continues to fall out of favor with the majority of the American public. According to the 2015 PDK/Gallup Survey of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, 64 percent of Americans (and 67 percent of public school parents) say there is “too much emphasis on testing.”  Only 14 percent rated standardized testing as a “very important ” factor in measuring school effectiveness, and 55 percent (66 percent of parents) oppose test scores being used to evaluate teacher performance.

The results reflect the growing momentum in communities across the nation as parents and educators have joined forces to demand less testing and more time to learn. And lawmakers at every level of government are finally getting the message.

“The high stakes obsession of test and punish has only served to widen the gap between the schools in the wealthiest districts and those in the poorest,” says NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “We must reduce the emphasis on standardized tests that have corrupted the quality of the education children receive. The pressure placed on students and educators is enormous.”

“When you send your child to school, your expectation is that the school is going to teach the whole child,” Chiquikta Fountain, a public school parent in Cleveland, MS. told PDK International. “But there’s so much funding attached to testing. if we don’t do well on testing, then we’re going to lose funding, which means we’re going to lose teachers. So teachers are being pressured to teach the children to pass the test. Everything has just spiraled out of control.”

One of the biggest education stories of 2015 has been the burgeoning “Opt-Out” movement of parents who want the right to pull their children out of state mandated standardized testing. It was recently reported, for example,  that 200,000 grade 3-8 students in New York state refused to take statewide tests in Reading and Math for the 2014-15 school year. According to the PDK/Gallup survey, however, the public is split on this issue. Forty-one percent said parents should be allowed to excuse their child from standardized testing, while 44 percent said they should not be allowed. (Fifty-nine percent of Americans said they would not excuse their own child.)

“NEA fully supports parents and supports our affiliates who take a stand against tests that serve no educational purpose,” says García. “But making it easier for parents to opt out is not the end game. The end game is designing a system where parents and educators don’t even consider opting out of assessments because they trust that assessments make sense, guide instruction, and help children advance in learning.”

The public named lack of financial support as the biggest problem facing local public schools and rated school funding as “somewhat” or “very” important Poll: Americans Want Less Standardized Testing and More School Funding - NEA Today:

Poll: Most Americans oppose key tenets of modern school reform - The Washington Post

Poll: Most Americans oppose key tenets of modern school reform - The Washington Post:

Poll: Most Americans oppose key tenets of modern school reform

What do Americans think of key aspects of modern school reform? Not much, according to the findings of a respected annual poll.

Not only do most Americans think kids are subjected to too many standardized tests, but a majority reject holding teachers, students and schools accountable based in part on test scores, the survey found. And there’s this: The No. 1 problem Americans said their local schools are facing isn’t bad teachers or unions but insufficient funding, a finding that has remained consistent for the past 10 years.

The findings of the 47th annual PDK-Gallup poll, the longest continuously running survey of American attitudes toward public education, were released Sunday. PDK International is a global association of education professionals and is headed by Joshua Starr, a former superintendent of the Montgomery County Public School District. PDK has conducted this poll with Gallup every year since 1969. Some of the survey was conducted by phone, and some, for the first time, by Web. Results from both are said be nationally representative of Americans as a whole and subgroups, such as public school parents. The poll is being published by PDK’s Kappan magazine.

The 2015 poll (with this as its main headline: “Testing Doesn’t Measure Up for Americans”) finds that a majority of Americans, as well as a majority of American public school parents, object to some of the key tenets of modern school reform. For example, 64 percent say there is too much emphasis on standardized testing (7 percent say there isn’t enough).

And most Americans have an issue with evaluating teachers with student Poll: Most Americans oppose key tenets of modern school reform - The Washington Post:

Quote Of The Day: Sacramento Bee Realizes “Teaching Bashing” Affects Shortage | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

Quote Of The Day: Sacramento Bee Realizes “Teaching Bashing” Affects Shortage | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…:

Quote Of The Day: Sacramento Bee Realizes “Teaching Bashing” Affects Shortage

 The Sacramento Bee, which has editorially supported the teacher-bashing efforts of Kevin Johnson and Michelle Rhee in the past, appears to have had a change of heart.

A teacher pipeline in need of repair is the title of their editorial appearing this morning focusing on our state’s teacher shortage.

Here’s how it ends:

I’m adding it to The Best Articles & Posts About The “Teacher Shortage.”

Quote Of The Day: Sacramento Bee Realizes “Teaching Bashing” Affects Shortage | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…:

The Blackout (Why #BlackLivesMatter Owes Nothing To You) | The Jose Vilson

The Blackout (Why #BlackLivesMatter Owes Nothing To You) | The Jose Vilson:

The Blackout (Why #BlackLivesMatter Owes Nothing To You)

“If I woulda known what I knew in the past, I woulda been blacked out on your a …” – Kanye West, “Black Skinhead“

At any given moment, any given rally, for any presidential candidate, a set of protestors under the Black Lives Matter umbrella could bumrush the stage and lay out a list of names, stymieing the rah-rahs of the onlookers and bystanders in the crowd. The focus on Senator Bernie Sanders and former Senator Hillary Clinton have been particularly poignant because, for decades, the Democratic Party has taken the vote from people of color for granted, as if abstaining from the political process isn’t an option. Yet, as Kelly Wickham is quick to remind us, the BLM movement doesn’t actually have to do the bidding of any particular party. The means and ends are justified because the end is equity in survival.

So when my name was invoked in a discussion around the intersections of #BlackLivesMatter and public school advocates, I laughed because the education space has a similar set of leaders vying for the front of the discussion. I’ve seen a crowd of so-called white progressives converge on my blog the last time I pleaded with them to decentralize their narrow concerns and fight for equity by putting race, class, and gender in the center of the struggle for educational equity. For what it’s worth, it’s the same group that will have a visceral reaction to hearing that the New York State opt-out movement was mostly suburban and white, but did nothing to highlight the cases across America where students of color opted out.

In a few blogs I’ve read this year, the authors of certain posts (I’m not giving them views) thought it The Blackout (Why #BlackLivesMatter Owes Nothing To You) | The Jose Vilson:

Talented urban teacher says new national education laws won’t work - The Washington Post

Talented urban teacher says new national education laws won’t work - The Washington Post:

Talented urban teacher says new national education laws won’t work

John Thompson’s teaching methods wouldn’t work for everyone.

One day in a hallway at Marshall High School in Oklahoma City, he grabbed a student with a criminal record whom he had taught at a summer camp, pushed him against a wall and told him to go pee in a cup. This got the laugh from the boy and his friends that Thompson had anticipated, since they knew of the unusual teacher-student bond and saw the joke.

Such were the advantages of getting to know students well, accepting their problems and backgrounds and finding ways they could succeed and perhaps even enjoy school.

Thompson spends much of his riveting, revealing book — “A Teacher’s Tale: Learning, Loving and Listening to Our Kids” — illustrating why the current educational fashion of focusing on such students’ weaknesses doesn’t work, and why the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act being negotiatedby Congress is unlikely to be any better than the No Child Left Behind law it will replace.

[Senate passes No Child Left Behind rewrite, would shrink federal role]

Thompson witnessed at his urban school “this accountability-driven reform . . . imposed, unfortunately, by advocates of disruptive change who typically had little knowledge of high-poverty K-12 schools,” he said. “Inner city schools need more disruption like we need another gang war.”

It doesn’t matter which bright-eyed bureaucrats and consultants are setting policy, Thompson said. The next federal education law’s effort to give state governments more control over public schools will not help. For four Talented urban teacher says new national education laws won’t work - The Washington Post:

A Teacher\'s Tale
A Teacher's Tale: Learning, Loving and Listening to Our Kids
by John Thompson

" A Teacher's Tale is a case study of national and local significance. It explains how test-driven school reform turned John Thompson's run-of-the-mill inner-city school into the type of brutal urban school that defies improvement. "

Privatizing student teaching and Pearson making student teachers jump through hoops. | Fred Klonsky

Privatizing student teaching and Pearson making student teachers jump through hoops. | Fred Klonsky:

Privatizing student teaching and Pearson making student teachers jump through hoops.

When I heard from my retired colleague Sandy Deines about how Illinois and other states were mandating Pearson’s edTPA as the official teacher certification process I immediately posted her article.

I had not heard about this.

It has been a long time since I was a student teacher. I remember the process as both a time of anxiety and excitement.

I was finally getting in front of a class, teaching lessons I had created and was being mentored by a veteran cooperating teacher as well as a university supervisor.

The system was not without its faults.

It always seemed a little odd to me that I had to wait four years of classwork before I started actually teaching. I believe firmly in the concept of learning by doing, whether it is my students I am talking about, or about myself learning to become a teacher.

Whatever the problems in the current system, not one problem will be solved by handing over the process to a private corporation like Pearson.

The response to my edTPA posts have been overwhelming.

The original article has received over 12,000 page views since I posted it late Friday.

On the one hand I have heard from some who have defended the new system. Their defense seems to rest on endorsements- one telling me it since it was developed by professors at Stanford and “people like Linda Darling-Hammond” it must be good.

I don’t know what that even means.

But a defense needs to rest on more than an endorsement, otherwise lets ask Privatizing student teaching and Pearson making student teachers jump through hoops. | Fred Klonsky:

How struggling families try to help Newark–only to be punished by state school “reform.” | Bob Braun's Ledger

How struggling families try to help Newark–only to be punished by state school “reform.” | Bob Braun's Ledger:

How struggling families try to help Newark–only to be punished by state school “reform.”

Lela Barrow, 6, kisses her little brother Richard, 3, and helps him with his backpack. Because of “One Newark,” they can’t walk to school together with their grandmother

Richard Barrow is only three, but he is excited about starting school. So excited  he often puts on his backpack  and parades through the house, telling his father and grandmother and sister he is getting ready to walk up the street to his school.  To walk with them to their school. His father’s school. His sister’s school. The school where his grandmother has taught for years. But, now, because of people who live far away and don’t understand  this is  Richard Barrow’s school–his family’s school–the little boy now must be told he can’t go to that school.

Freda Barrow on her front steps–just steps away from the school where she can no longer work and her grandson cannot attend.

Because it isn’t the Barrow family’s school anymore.

The Barrows illustrate both the hope and despair of living in Newark–of believing in Newark, of staying in Newark. What has happened to them also illustrates the arrogance and  indifference of people–people who don’t live in Newark–who say they favor school “reform” and “turnaround.”

“This is my home, this is my community,” says Freda Barrow. “They have taken it away from me and my family. Sometimes, I think I think I should leave–but someone has to stay here and fight.”

Freda Barrow is known to many as the woman brings a camera into the midst of the disruption caused by the insensitive and inept policies of Gov. Chris Christie, a Mendham resident whose family fled Newark in the 1950s.  Policies he entrusted first to Cami Anderson of New York and then Christopher Cerf of Montclair, people who have shredded the fabric of life in New Jersey’s largest city because they How struggling families try to help Newark–only to be punished by state school “reform.” | Bob Braun's Ledger:

State High School Graduation Rates By Race, Ethnicity

State High School Graduation Rates By Race, Ethnicity:

State High School Graduation Rates By Race, Ethnicity

U.S. public high schools recorded a four-year graduation rate of 80 percent for the 2011-12 school year, an all-time high.

Graduation rates vary greatly by state and race. Nationwide, black students graduated at a rate of 69 percent; Hispanics graduated at 73 percent; whites graduated at a rate of 86 percent.

The following table lists 2011-2012 four-year adjusted cohort state graduation rates for public high schools by student race and ethnicity. Please note that state graduation rate data was not reported for Idaho, Kentucky and Oklahoma.

State	Total	White	Hispanic	Black	Asian / Pacific Islander

Iowa	89	91	77	74	89
Nebraska	88	91	78	74	83
Texas	88	93	84	84	94
Vermont	88	88	86	72	94
Wisconsin	88	92	74	64	89
North Dakota	87	90	73	76	86
Tennessee	87	91	80	79	91
Indiana	86	89	80	73	89
Missouri	86	89	80	73	90
New Hampshire	86	87	74	76	86
New Jersey	86	93	77	75	95
Connecticut	85	91	69	73	92
Kansas	85	88	77	75	86
Maine	85	86	80	72	89
Massachusetts	85	90	66	73	89
Arkansas	84	87	78	78	84
Maryland	84	90	73	77	93
Montana	84	87	79	79	92
Pennsylvania	84	89	68	68	89
South Dakota	83	89	67	67	84
Virginia	83	88	73	75	90
Hawaii	82	79	76	76	84
Illinois	82	89	76	68	93
Ohio	81	86	68	61	90
Delaware	80	83	74	74	93
North Carolina	80	85	73	75	87
Utah	80	83	66	64	78
West Virginia	79	80	79	74	94
Wyoming	79	82	67	66	86
California	78	86	73	66	90
Minnesota	78	84	53	51	74
New York	77	87	63	63	86
Rhode Island	77	82	67	67	79
Washington	77	80	67	67	82
Arizona	76	84	70	71	84
Michigan	76	82	64	60	87
Alabama	75	81	69	67	85
Colorado	75	82	62	66	82
Florida	75	80	73	64	89
Mississippi	75	82	79	69	90
South Carolina	75	78	69	71	85
Louisiana	72	78	70	65	85
Alaska	70	76	70	61	76
Georgia	70	78	60	62	82
New Mexico	70	77	68	69	84
Oregon	68	71	60	53	79
Nevada	63	72	54	48	74
District of Columbia	59	86	54	58	74

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data State Dropout and Graduation Rate Data

Review 2010-2011 graduation rates here.

State High School Graduation Rates By Race, Ethnicity:

You can’t swing a dead cat these days without hitting a Bill Gates non-profit | Lady Liberty 1885

You can’t swing a dead cat these days without hitting a Bill Gates non-profit | Lady Liberty 1885:

You can’t swing a dead cat these days without hitting a Bill Gates non-profit

…Or a former NC Department of Public Instruction (DPI) employee working for a Bill Gates  backed non-profit.

Case in point, Tabitha Grossman of Hope Street Group.

Who is Hope Street Group?

In case you missed my previous articles on Hope Street Group, they are, in a nutshell, a Bill Gates backed non-profit using a ‘Teacher Voice Network’ to continue pushing Common core. They are a resident of what I call the Common Core Potemkin Village.

North Carolina’s Superintendent is quite cozy with Hope Street and has entered NC into a partnership with them in March of this year.

More on that partnership in a separate article. Back to Tabitha Grossman.

Ms. Grossman has been the “National Director for Education Policy and Partnerships” for Hope Street Group since June of 2013. Here is where she was and what she did prior to that, via her LinkedIn resume:

Program Director National Governors Association June 2011 – November 2012 (1 year 6 months)

Senior Policy Analyst National Governors Association September 2008 – June 2011 (2 years 10 months)

Director, Learn and Earn Early College High Schools North Carolina Department of Public Instruction September 2007 – September 2008 (1 year 1 month)Raleigh, NC

Gee, a former NC DPI employee. Grossman’s next step was the National Governor’s Association (NGA) right at about the time Common Core was being created.

According to her NGA bio, she was in the thick of it with Common Core and ‘human capital’:

“she is currently working with governors and their key policy staff to help them assess and address the impact of the Common Core State Standards on human capital policy.”

While at the NGA, Grossman was tasked with training informing Governors about Common Core by providing them talking points, action plans in a report that “was made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.”

Fun footnote: If you read page 24 of that NGA report Grossman was a part of, you’ll see it also mentions the ‘Shared Learning Collaborative. That collaborative was renamed You can’t swing a dead cat these days without hitting a Bill Gates non-profit | Lady Liberty 1885: