How to prevent your school data — including your Social Security number — from getting wrapped up in a lawsuit | 89.3 KPCC

How to prevent your school data — including your Social Security number — from getting wrapped up in a lawsuit | 89.3 KPCC:

How to prevent your school data — including your Social Security number — from getting wrapped up in a lawsuit

If you were a student in a California public school at any point since 2008, data about you could soon be released to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state's education department.

Though the records won't be released to the public, the plaintiffs will have access to records that include information on roughly 10 million current and former students, including their state test scores, home addresses and — for some students — Social Security numbers.

Don't want your data released? You have until April 1 to mail this objection form to a federal judge in Sacramento.

U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly J. Mueller ordered the release of student data going back to 2008 as part of a lawsuit against California Department of Education in which a collection of parent groups, including the California Concerned Parents Association (CCPA), claims the state has failed to provide adequate special education services. The department denies that allegation.

CCPA vice president Christine English said the plaintiffs need the full dataset from the state to determine whether California schools are providing special education services to all students who need them. But English said her group isn't interested in the sensitive, personally-identifying information.

In a statement from the Department of Education, state superintendent Tom Torlakson said the judge will only release the information to plaintiffs if they can store it securely and all data will be returned to the department or destroyed after the lawsuit concludes.

“We have fought vigorously to protect students’ privacy rights and will continue that fight,” he said.

To maintain the security of the records, plaintiffs say the court has appointed a special master, who created a plan for transferring and storing the information securely, which specifies the data would only be transmitted on "fully encrypted external hard drives."

English says her group has also been active in informing parents about the release, not only posting a link to the court's objection form on its website, but also informing parents that they are not required to disclose their child's Social Security number to a school.

Among the information the disclosure might include, according to the judge:

• "behavior and discipline information,
• "progress reports,
• "special education assessment plans,
• "special education assessments/evaluations,
• "Individualized Education Programs (IEPs),
• "records pertaining to health, mental health and medical information…
• "attendance statistics,
• "information on suspensions and expulsions."

Department officials said they had already provided the plaintiffs copies of a more limited set of records. That database included information on all special education students and kids being tested for special needs, but only after personally identifying information had been scrubbed from it.

But English said that data wasn't enough to answer her group's question. The plaintiffs suspect certain students are being excluded from special education services, and they would need to analyze data from the state's entire student population in order to determine whether that's true.

"The judge felt that it was important enough and [there was] enough information to know that, yes, it's highly likely the California Department of Education is out of compliance and it is important to allow a very small number of people access to this information," English said.

English said the plaintiffs' legal team had offered alternatives to disclosing the full dataset, including having the plaintiffs' statistician go to the department's offices and use the department's computers to run his analyses. English added her team requested state officials scrub personally identifying information from the full dataset, but the state said that was not an option.

Anyone who attended California schools at any point after Jan. 1, 2008, could have records that are part of this release. Anyone who wants to prevent those records from being part of the disclosure needs to send a letter or this form to the judge's office at this address:

The Honorable Kimberly J. Mueller
c/o Clerk of the Court
U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of California
501 I Street, Room 4-200
Sacramento, CA 95814
Attn: DOCUMENT FILED UNDER SEAL

How to prevent your school data — including your Social Security number — from getting wrapped up in a lawsuit | 89.3 KPCC:

 

CT legislature’s nomination committee votes 10 to 4 today to confirm Erik Clemons to State Board of Education. - Wait What?

CT legislature’s nomination committee votes 10 to 4 today to confirm Erik Clemons to State Board of Education. - Wait What?:

CT legislature’s nomination committee votes 10 to 4 today to confirm Erik Clemons to State Board of Education.

 On a party-line vote, with Democrats backing Governor Malloy and Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman’s nominee for the State Board of Education, the General Assembly’s Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee approved by a margin of 10 to 4 to confirm Erik Clemons for a position on the State Board of Education.  Clemons is the individual whose company is collecting in excess of $500,000 thanks to a no-bid contract that was mandated by the State Board of Education and funded through the State Department of Education.

See:

It’s a CONFLICT OF INTEREST to serve on the State Board of Education while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars a year via the State Department of Education

Company run by Malloy appointee to the State Board of Education collects $517,128 in funds allocated by the State Board of Education.

There is no word, at this point, as to why the Democrats felt there was no conflict of interest for a member of the State Board of Education and his company to collect money that is allocated and managed by the State Board of Education and its Board.

Erik Clemons is also a major supporter of the charter school industry, having served on the Board of Directors of the Achievement First, Inc. Elm City charter school and as a founding member of new Elm City Montessori Charter School Board of Directors.

The State Board of Education is responsible for funding and regulating Connecticut’s charter schools.

If the General Assembly follows the committee’s lead, Connecticut’s charter schools will CT legislature’s nomination committee votes 10 to 4 today to confirm Erik Clemons to State Board of Education. - Wait What?:

Survey: 70 Percent Of Educators Say State Assessments Not Developmentally Appropriate - NEA Today

Survey: 70 Percent Of Educators Say State Assessments Not Developmentally Appropriate - NEA Today:
Survey: 70 Percent Of Educators Say State Assessments Not Developmentally Appropriate

 Results from a 2015 survey of more than 1500 NEA members teaching the grades and subjects required to be tested under No Child Left Behind (grades 3-8 and 10-12 in ELA and math) indicate that a vast majority of these educators – 70 percent – do not believe their primary state assessment is developmentally appropriate for their students. Only 13 percent agreed that the NCLB-required state standardized test their students took met that standard.

Teachers learn during their training and through experience that each child’s readiness to learn new skills and concepts varies by many factors in addition to age. They also know that each child’s ability to learn something new depends on both the individual child’s prior experiences and skills and on the particular concept being taught. While one child may be developmentally ready to learn multiplication, another child of the same age may not. However, the child who is not ready for multiplication may be ready to learn to play a musical instrument while the other child may not. New learning requires that a child has the background and prior skills to learn.

Unfortunately, standardized tests based on a narrowly prescribed curriculum and linked to specific grade levels are not a good way to judge student or teacher success.

The survey also found that while a majority of teachers did not think any of the state tests (i.e. PARCC, SBAC, and state-specific tests) were developmentally appropriate, there were statistically significant differences among the tests. Specifically, PARCC was seen as the least developmentally appropriate with Smarter Balanced and other state tests somewhat less so.

Educators working at different school levels also viewed the appropriateness of state tests differently. Teachers in elementary and middle schools were more likely to say the tests were not appropriate (77 and 75 percent, respectively) while a smaller majority (58 percent) of high school teachers said they were not.

Developmental appropriateness, according to the NEA survey, is just one of many requirements a standardized test must meet to be “most useful.” Such assessments should also assess content that students have had the opportunity to learn, provide feedback to students that helps them learn, and assist educators in setting learning goals.

The survey also revealed that school demographics resulted in no significant differences in how teachers viewed the tests. A school’s percentage of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch, a school’s student-teacher ratio, and the Survey: 70 Percent Of Educators Say State Assessments Not Developmentally Appropriate - NEA Today:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Jay Travis: Yesterday was a good day

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Jay Travis: Yesterday was a good day:

Jay Travis: Yesterday was a good day

Jay Travis is the progressive hope, running for State Rep in the 26th Dist. against corporate reformer and pension grabber, Christian Mitchell.

JT reports from Springfield:

House Bill 557, calling for an elected representative school board for the people of Chicago, was passed out of committee by a vote of 15-9. That same morning, Chicago public school students, parents, community residents and teachers staged 'walk-ins' at more than a hundred neighborhood schools across the city to bring critical attention to the need to invest public dollars in our neighborhood schools instead of giveaways to wealthy, politically connected elites.

More on Mitchell...Chicago Reporter's Curtis Black, writes:

Indeed, Mitchell has been one of the top recipients of funds both statewide and nationally from Stand For Children, a group brought to Illinois by Rauner in an effort to undercut union influence and bargaining rights; it’s backed by a bevy of billionaires including Republican Ken Griffin.

But particularly on education policy, Mitchell does seem to have Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Jay Travis: Yesterday was a good day:

Does the Every Student Succeeds Act MASK No Child Left Behind?

Does the Every Student Succeeds Act MASK No Child Left Behind?:

Does the Every Student Succeeds Act MASK No Child Left Behind?

The ESSA has been difficult for most of us to interpret—although it is clear the U.S. Department of Education will now back out of a lot of school business. Still, in reading how the states will now be almost completely in charge, one wonders how NCLB will change.

How many of us have states that will drop the draconian school reforms started under NCLB?

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Diane Ravitch, the well-known educational historian, recently got together to help us understand the meaning of the new Act. I provide the link to their discussion at the end of my post.

Testing

Their description under testing tells of the troubles surrounding NCLB. Like in Fort Myers which gave 160 tests in one year preparing for the NCLB testing. While states now have flexibility to be different, and do their own thing, I am concerned that most of Does the Every Student Succeeds Act MASK No Child Left Behind?:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Does Anyone at OSPI Care about Appearances?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Does Anyone at OSPI Care about Appearances?:

Does Anyone at OSPI Care about Appearances?

Apparently not, at least when it comes to charter schools.  My second batch of public disclosure e-mails raises more troubling questions.

In my first batch, I explained how a couple of other districts' lawyers were worried about running afoul of state law in signing interlocal documents to allow students within their district borders to have an ALE with Mary Walker School District.

This batch reveals more concerns from other people. Among them was the overarching role of Washington State Charter Schools Association.

Who are they?

WSCSA is a non-profit that supports and provides services to Washington state charter schools who are members. Their funders are the Gates Foundation and others but they don’t reveal that at their website. Members of their Board include two people from LEV, one from DFER, one from Washington Roundtable and Jim Spady who actually started the whole charter school movement in Washington State.

Under Policy and Advocacy

Providing guidance to the Washington State Charter School Commission, the Washington State Board of Education, and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction

Based on what? Not one person on that board seems to be a charter expert (at least hands-on.)  Why would the Charter Commission, the BOE or OSPI turn to them for “guidance?”  They are basically a charter cheerleader group that has data on its members.

The Charter Commission hired the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools for guidance and at least that group seems to have experts.  But again, they, too, are a non-profit that sprang up to support charters and among their funders are the Broad Foundation, Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation.  (At least they have the grace Seattle Schools Community Forum: Does Anyone at OSPI Care about Appearances?:

Random Thoughts. Teacher unions aren’t all white. | Fred Klonsky

Random Thoughts. Teacher unions aren’t all white. | Fred Klonsky:

Random Thoughts. Teacher unions aren’t all white.

 A couple of years ago Lily Eskelson Garcia was running for president of the National Education Association and I was an Illinois IEA Retired delegate to the national Representative Assembly. Lily came and spoke to our Retired Conference that precedes the RA.

During the Q&A that followed Lily’s talk I asked her about the decline in the number of public school teachers of color and what our union was going to do about it.

Garcia never gave an action response, although she agreed that the decline in teachers of color was a scandal.

In Chicago the number of African American teachers in CPS has gone from nearly 70% of the teaching staff to under 20% over the past decade or so.

That doesn’t mean that public school teachers are now all white.

I posted yesterday about the few faces of teachers of color among those selected as excellent by the NEA Foundation. We have over three million members in the NEA. They are not all white.

Excellent teachers are not just the Random Thoughts. Teacher unions aren’t all white. | Fred Klonsky:

Should Teachers Have Strong Opinions? | gadflyonthewallblog

Should Teachers Have Strong Opinions? | gadflyonthewallblog:

Should Teachers Have Strong Opinions?

I am an opinionated person. I am also a public school teacher.



Those two things should not be mutually exclusive.



You should not have to give up the one to be able to do the other.



Teachers should not have to relinquish their judgment in order to run an effective classroom. In fact, you might expect good judgment to be a prerequisite to doing the job well.



Yet it seems many people disagree. They like their teachers tame, docile and opinion-free.



That’s just not me.



Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying teachers should instruct their students to think just like them. I’m not saying they should indoctrinate or unduly influence the young people in their care.Should Teachers Have Strong Opinions? | gadflyonthewallblog:

Schools Matter: ESSA Questions? Ask Diane Ravitch to Ask Lamar Alexander

Schools Matter: ESSA Questions? Ask Diane Ravitch to Ask Lamar Alexander:

ESSA Questions? Ask Diane Ravitch to Ask Lamar Alexander

“I still wonder why we, over time, don’t make every public school a charter school.” He continued, “You couldn’t do it all overnight, but you could do it over 20, 25 years. - See more at: http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/kahlenberg_potter#sthash.y5Y6mha1.dpuf

“I still wonder why we, over time, don’t make every public school a charter school.” He continued, “You couldn’t do it all overnight, but you could do it over 20, 25 years. - See more at: http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/kahlenberg_potter#sthash.y5Y6mha1.dpuf

“I still wonder why we, over time, don’t make every public school a charter school.” He continued, “You couldn’t do it all overnight, but you could do it over 20, 25 years. - See more at: http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/kahlenberg_potter#sthash.y5Y6mha1.dpuf

“I still wonder why we, over time, don’t make every public school a charter school.” He continued, “You couldn’t do it all overnight, but you could do it over 20, 25 years. - See more at: http://www.aft.org/ae/winter2014-2015/kahlenberg_potter#sthash.y5Y6mha1.dpuf

I don't know why we, over time, don't make every public school a charter school....You could not do it overnight, but you could do it over 20, 25 years."--Lamar Alexander, 2013

Lamar Alexander has spent the last thirty years working in one capacity or another to realize the Reagan dream of privatizing public schools.  

First as governor of Tennessee in the 1980s, he poured millions of scarce education dollars into an unwieldy and unfair performance pay scheme that gave recognition and pay raises principally to teachers in well-funded leafy suburbs.  

In the early 1990s, Alexander used his leverage as U. S. Secretary of Education to attempt toreward his former business associate, Chris Whittle, with federal contracts to fund hundreds of Whittle's corporate Edison Schools. 

As Secretary, Alexander also worked closely with Diane Ravitch to promote the creation of national curriculum standards, and he worked closely with Bill Clinton to raise the conjoined policymaking influence of the National Governors Association and the Business Roundtable.  As a result, the NGA would come to have tremendous influence in shaping the carpet bombing testing strategy used in the NCLB war on public schools.

After 2002 when Alexander was elected to the U. S. Senate, he worked to solidify the testing accountability influence of NCLB, and just in time for the final push for the reauthorization of ESEA, he was named Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

With the help of his old friend, Diane Ravitch, who helped to quell any fears of and to tamp down any resistance to the new states rights version of ESEA, Alexander was able to push through a bill that now has the best chance ever to attain his goal of complete privatization of all public schools, via corporate charter.  

So if you have any questions about how ESSA will help children or parents or teachers or public schools, NPE wants you to ask Diane to ask Lamar.  What a nice couple they would make!

. . . .I think it is important to stop looking for purity among our allies. We don’t want to be a tiny band of zealots. We want—I want, maybe not “we”–everyone who shares a commitment to children, to the teaching profession, and to public schools, to join together to change the climate of opinion. We can’t do that by demonizing those who approach the issues differently but share our goals. Progressive social movements die when they spend as much energy criticizing their allies as they do with their adversaries.--Diane Ravitch comment below this post.
Schools Matter: ESSA Questions? Ask Diane Ravitch to Ask Lamar Alexander:

Mass media deception on charter school test scores | Seattle Education

Mass media deception on charter school test scores | Seattle Education:

Mass media deception on charter school test scores

 It’s interesting how much charter schools really do not want to be public schools beholden to public scrutiny.

Case in point, 74, a slick media rag brought to you by the Walton’s and Bloomberg, and the News Tribune both came out with the same story about students in charter schools making great progress after being in their schools a mere five months. Amazing.

The author of the Tribune article wrote she had met with folks from Summit charter school and they shared with her how well their students were doing.

In the article she wrote  that the charter school was (illegally) receiving public funding through the Mary Walker School District, but apparently that was a minor detail for the writer and overlooked.

What was also overlooked was any request by the author for this source of information.

I reached out to the author of the article and asked if she had a source on the test scores. I have not received an answer yet and its been two days. Maybe she’s still looking.

After seeing articles at both news sites, I got curious.

I asked around, where was this information? If a public school made such an announcement, there would be a webpage with dis-aggregated scores and all the information on the type of test given, when it was given, the number of students who took the test and the location of the schools to get a sense of the demographics.

No one seemed to know where all this information was so I asked one of our school board directors, Sue Peters, if she had any idea in terms of the source of this rather Mass media deception on charter school test scores | Seattle Education:

Senate committee schedules confirmation hearing for John King as education secretary - The Washington Post

Senate committee schedules confirmation hearing for John King as education secretary - The Washington Post:
Senate committee schedules confirmation hearing for John King as education secretary

The Senate education committee plans to consider President Obama’s nominee for education secretary at a confirmation hearing at 2 p.m. on Feb. 25.

John King Jr. has been serving as acting secretary of education since his predecessor, Arne Duncan, stepped down at the end of 2015.

It had initially appeared that Obama would not formally nominate King, forgoing the confirmation process. But White House officials said they were encouraged by the bipartisan support that King has received so far.

[Obama announces intent to formally nominate John King]

The administration also wants to have King in the official role as Congress considers higher education legislation, according to officials who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the education committee, said last week that he was pleased that the administration had nominated a secretary and promised a “prompt and fair hearing.”

“For proper accountability, especially as we work with the administration on implementing the new law governing elementary and secondary education, it is important to have in charge of the department a member of the president’s cabinet confirmed by the United States Senate,” Alexander said in a statement.

Emma Brown writes about national education and about people with a stake in schools, including teachers, parents and kids.Senate committee schedules confirmation hearing for John King as education secretary - The Washington Post:

Pressure-cooker meetings have come with school districts’ budgeting freedom | The Modesto Bee

Pressure-cooker meetings have come with school districts’ budgeting freedom | The Modesto Bee:

Pressure-cooker meetings have come with school districts’ budgeting freedom

For decades, schools in California had their spending basically laid out for them by the state. A makeover in school funding has freed district spending from those controls, and those fail-safes. Local control counts on communities tuning in and speaking up.

Money for classroom teachers, janitors and district office administrators came in the biggest pot. Another little wallet held money for textbooks – just for textbooks. Money for school buses went into another pocket, just for transportation. Legislators wanted children to have music lessons, so another envelope full of money came just for arts instruction and instruments.

There were 57 separate wallets for state set-asides, from gang-risk intervention to readers for blind teachers. Predetermined spending took up 40 percent of the budget.

You see the thinking here. Everything legislators wanted to be sure happened, they set aside in a special, restricted purse that could not get lost in the big pot of employee salaries and overhead. Bargaining came down to a question of lower class sizes (more teachers) or higher pay, more aides or more administrators.

Creating the budget each year mostly happened in the business office, using a massive accounting program that tracked every dime in up to 233 separate fields for state and federal funding programs. When the state passed its budget, agile fingers flew in the finance department, cranking out a budget that in large part was a done deal.

School boards made decisions within the categories, such as which textbooks to buy and which grades would have bands or singing lessons. They had final say on the balancing act in salaries and class size. But for the most part, there was no budging the budget numbers. The system got more cumbersome and carved up every year, until the Great Recession forced talk of reform.

Then, with the punch of a ballot in 2012, Proposition 30 ushered in an era of local control. Gone were almost all of the categories. Gone was the loose change rattling around in not-Pressure-cooker meetings have come with school districts’ budgeting freedom | The Modesto Bee:

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/news/local/education/nan-austin/article60717521.html#storylink=cpy

Peggy Robertson | BustED Pencils

Peggy Robertson | BustED Pencils:

The Kenneth S. Goodman “In Defense of Good Teaching” Award Winner

In his letter of nomination for Peggy Robertson, Ian Altman writes: “For as long as Peggy has worked with students and teachers, she has been a tireless and compassionate advocate for both.” Peggy has been a literacy coach and literacy interventionist at Jewell Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado. In this role, she has developed inquiry processes for students to pursue more self-directed learning. In addition, she has provided professional development for teachers including dialogue about reflective practices. Were this not enough, Peggy created the United Opt Out organization (www.unitedoptout.com) and, along with colleagues, built it into a national movement that has had demonstrable and newsworthy effects, leading to massive standardized test refusals in New York and many other states. In 2012, Peggy helped to lead a protest in Washington D.C. called “Occupy the DOE,” which called out politicians of both major parties Peggy Robertson | BustED Pencils:

Gates: Funding Reform for Longer Than You Think – Save Maine Schools

Gates: Funding Reform for Longer Than You Think – Save Maine Schools:

Gates: Funding Reform for Longer Than You Think

In “How Bill Gates Funded the Swift Common Core Revolution,” journalist Lyndsey Layton tells the story of how David Coleman, CEO of College Board, and Gene Wilhoit, Executive Director of the Council for Chief State School Officers, approached Bill Gates with a “new approach to transform every school in America.”

The “new approach,” of course, was the Common Core State Standards.

“The duo needed money,” writes Layton,“[and] a champion who could overcome the politics that had thwarted every previous attempt to institute national standards.”

According to the article, Gates deliberated for weeks before at last coming back with his answer: he was in.

What followed was the swift Gates takeover of our public schools.

Would that it were so simple!

The truth is that Gates has been funding a much broader effort to fundamentally remake our public education system for far longer Gates: Funding Reform for Longer Than You Think – Save Maine Schools:

2/18/2016 – What School Walk-Ins Teach Us:

What School Walk-Ins Teach Us

February 18, 2016, 2016 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: Doing Pre-K Wrong … Viral Video Stokes Democratic Party Division … Segregation Produces Criminals … How Basics Improve Schools … New Crackdown On For-Profits

TOP STORY

What School Walk-Ins Teach Us

By Jeff Bryant

“This week, thousands of teachers, parents, students, and community supporters of public education demonstrated nothing could be further from the truth in a series of “walk-in” protests in over 30 cities involving 900 schools … What’s important … is to hear why the walk-ins are happening and what protestors are saying.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

We’re Doing Preschool All Wrong, Says New Book

Huffington Post

“A childhood development specialist at Yale University … argues that preschools are no longer giving children enough room to play, leading them to become less inquisitive, curious thinkers … One culprit is the accountability movement in K-12 education … Preschool has become more focused on academics, but not necessarily more effective in nurturing a child’s cognitive development.”
Read more …

This Viral Video Of A Teacher Berating A Student Is A Window On The Charter School Debate

Vox

Education reporter Libby Nelson writes, “A secretly recorded video of a teacher at a well-known New York charter school berating a first-grader … is getting a lot of attention … But the fight over charter schools is also bigger than New York – it’s part of a broader division within the Democratic Party on education.”
Read more …

How Segregated Schools Turn Kids Into Criminals

The Washington Post

“Resegregation caused the test score gap … to widen between white kids and black kids, as well as between poor kids and rich kids. Now, an even more troubling lesson has emerged. It turns out that segregated schools can become potent incubators of crime.”
Read more …

Learning From London About School Improvement

The News And Observer

Former New York Times education editor Edward Fiske and Duke University professor Helen Ladd write, ” Since the late 1990s, the academic performance of elementary and secondary school students in London has risen dramatically … due largely to significant gains in the 13 boroughs … that have the greatest concentrations of low-income and ethnic-minority students … English educators … rather than experimenting with governance or structural changes … focused their attention on time-honored fundamentals.”
Read more …

Education Department Takes Aim At Errant For-Profits

US News & World Report

“The Department of Education is creating a Student Aid Enforcement Unit to respond more quickly to allegations of illegal actions by higher education institutions … The announcement of the enforcement unit is the latest in a series of steps taken by the Obama administration over the last seven years aimed at more tightly regulating the for-profit college industry.”
Read more …

 2/18/2016 – What School Walk-Ins Teach Us:

Why Most State Education Report Cards are Like Cookies Without the Sugar – Cloaking Inequity

Why Most State Education Report Cards are Like Cookies Without the Sugar – Cloaking Inequity:

Why Most State Education Report Cards are Like Cookies Without the Sugar

Once when I was in high school, a friend handed me a plate of chocolate chip cookies. They looked delicious! But just as I was about to eat one, she snatched them back. They looked great on the outside, she told me, but they tasted terrible.  She had left out a key ingredient—sugar.

This story is exactly how I think about the numerous state education report cards making the rounds.  Instead of  filling you with great, inspiring information, most of these glossy, colorful reports are misleading and ideological. They are basically not worth consuming.

One of the mechanisms so-called education “reformers” have used to promote their top-down, privatization agenda for public education is the state-by-state education report card. Organizations such as Students First, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Education Next have recently released report cards for each of the fifty states.

What’s wrong with these state report cards? Most state-by-state ratings focus primarily on outcomes, such as state standardized test scores, and basically ignore educational inputs—the ingredients—that make public education successful. These report cards are obsessed with accountability systems that look like bold education “reform,” but that favor top-down, private control of public schools, with dubious results for kids.

Take just two examples.

Students First, an organization started by the controversial District of Columbia education reformer Michelle Rhee, issued report cards giving positive ratings to states if they allowed for parent trigger. Parent trigger is a policy that allows parents (in any given year) to vote to turn over a school and all of its public property to a corporation with a simple majority vote. The Students First report also gave states favorable ratings for prioritizing states’ and mayor’s’ ability to take over school districts. Top-down hostile takeovers of schools by states and mayors have a long and documented history of underwhelming performance and failure.

The state education reports issued by ALEC, a prominent corporate lobbying group that promotes neoliberal model legislation across public Why Most State Education Report Cards are Like Cookies Without the Sugar – Cloaking Inequity: