Founding Fathers and Floundering Fathers on Public Education

Founding Fathers and Floundering Fathers on  Public Education

Big Education Ape: Student Success Act: Corporate Education Reform on Steroids | Education & the Workforce Committee http://bit.ly/1uFiMzf

Washington to Franklin, Adams and Jefferson, every one offered his ideas about the state of education and the best ways to build an informed citizenry — from the lowliest mechanic's son to the most exalted Harvard grad. Each called at least implicitly for public education.

Big Education Ape: Educators ramp up nationwide campaign and launch “Get it Right” ad blitz http://bit.ly/1DiC28y

Jefferson wrote of his Virginia education plan in a letter to his friend George Wythe, "The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."

George Washington called for a national university in his First Inaugural Address. 

John Adams asked his son in Europe to collect books and ideas for republican schools. He called for public schools as the great equalizer to secure democracy.

James Madison tracked the education efforts in Kentucky and praised innovations and challenging curricula there.

Noah Webster that, "Knowledge, joined with a keen sense of liberty and a watchful Jealousy, will guard our constitutions."

The Northwest Ordinance was written to govern United States territory north of the Ohio River. It read, in part: "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

Below are a few specific quotes – In the terms they understood each was calling for public education – there is no alternative understanding of these ideas. It was commonly held and understood among all:

Benjamin Franklin:

The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country. (roposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, 1749)

John Adams:

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. (Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756)

Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant. (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates... to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them. (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. (Defense of the Constitutions, 1787)

Samuel Adams:
No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. (Letter to James Warren, Nov 4, 1775)


George Washington
The best means of forming a manly, virtuous, and happy people will be found in the right education of youth. Without this foundation, every other means, in my opinion, must fail. (Letter to George Chapman, December 15, 1784)
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness. (First Inaugural Address)

[W]e ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own. (Letter to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, January 28, 1795)

Thomas Jefferson:
Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves. (Letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787)

People generally have more feeling for canals and roads than education. However, I hope we can advance them with equal pace. (Letter to Joel Barlow, December 10, 1807)

No one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in its effect towards supporting free and good government. (Letter to Trustees for the Lottery of East Tennessee College, May 6, 1810)

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day. (Letter to Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816)

If a nation expects to be ignorant - and free - in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. (Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816)

To all of which is added a selection from the elementary schools of subjects of the most promising genius, whose parents are too poor to give them further education, to be carried at the public expense through the college and university. The object is to bring into action that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every country, for want of the means of development, and thus give activity to a mass of mind, which, in proportion to our population, shall be double or treble of what it is in most countries. (Letter to Jose Correa de Serra, November 25, 1817)

To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed. (Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia, August 4, 1818)

All the States but our own are sensible that knowledge is power. (Letter to Joseph C. Cabell, January 22, 1820) Side note: Cabell and his descendents certainly thought he meant public education – The Cabell have used their fortune to support education – two buildings at UVa are named Cabell, the main library at VCU is Cabell Library and similar efforts have been made elsewhere by the family)

The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if systematically arranged. (Letter to Joseph Cabell, November 28, 1820)
The Northwest Ordinance - July 23, 1787

Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

Noah Webster - On Education of Youth in America (1790)
It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.

James Wilson - Of the Study of the Law in the United States (circa 1790)
Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge.

Thomas Paine - Rights of Man, part 2 (1792)
A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.

James Madison 
A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. (Letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822)

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support? (Letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822)

The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing. (Letter to Littleton Dennis Teackle, March 29, 1826)

For more: http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showthread.php?t=22861

Dad Gone Wild | The Charter Conversation takes a page out of Edward Lear

Dad Gone Wild | The Charter Conversation takes a page out of Edward Lear:

THE CHARTER CONVERSATION TAKES A PAGE OUT OF EDWARD LEAR

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve written anything. There has been plenty on my mind, but I’ve got a full time job and parenting is a full time job and my wife would like a little attention as well, so it’s been hard to carve out some time. I need one of those lobbyist jobs or a gig like Andy Smarick over at Bellwether Education Partners has. One where I can read about education, write papers, and pontificate on Twitter all day. Alas, I am stuck in the world I live in, which can sometimes be a little bizarre. This week is a prime example.

Tuesday night was the monthly meeting of the Metro Nashville Public School Board. I had some prepared remarks that I was going to deliver to urge passage of a new communications bill. When I arrived, the room was already full. A brief glance showed it to be a packed room of charter school supporters. A little puzzled, I sat down and looked at the agenda and saw nothing to warrant this level of interest. I shrugged and thought, well, public interest is always good. What a naïve old man I am.

It seems there were plans afoot for this meeting. School Board Chair Sharon Gentry wasn’t in attendance, but she had some prepared remarks that she wished to share with the public and asked fellow member Jo Ann Brannon to read them. Apparently, Gentry’s had enough of the arguing over charter schools and such and deemed it time to put these differences aside and adopt positions agreeable with her. (Well she didn’t say that exactly, but that was the point.) At the conclusion of the speech, the room full of charter folks leapt to their feet in applause. Elissa Kim, who as vice chair was chairing the meeting, did nothing to quell the outburst.

It should be noted that Ms. Kim is the Executive Vice President, Recruitment and Admissions for Teach for America Greater Nashville. I know, you’re probably thinking, isn’t that a conflict of interest? Apparently not because she also works closely with MNPS Human Capital on the recruitment of teachers for the district, and nobody thinks that’s an issue either. Yeah, it all gets a little goofy, but that’s the world I live in.

Sitting at that meeting, it suddenly dawned on me that I was in the middle of yet another charter school publicity stunt. I’ve written previously about what happens when charters get angry and I guess they were angry again because they had astro-turfed yet another meeting. The thing that really opened my eyes with  this incident though, was the number of leadership people present. The folks present were equivalent to the top leadership at MNPS. I can only imagine what would happen if I called up Jay Steele, chief academic officer for MNPS, and asked him to get his office to show up and leap to applaud a letter that I’d written to disavow charter schools. He’d stop taking my calls. Not neccesarily out of Dad Gone Wild | The Charter Conversation takes a page out of Edward Lear:

Have you ever read the actual Common Core “Representations, Warranties and Disclaimers” page? | Reclaim Reform

Have you ever read the actual Common Core “Representations, Warranties and Disclaimers” page? | Reclaim Reform:

Have you ever read the actual Common Core “Representations, Warranties and Disclaimers” page?

Posted on February 16, 2015by Ken Previti

Have you ever read the actual Common Core (CCSSI) “Representations, Warranties and Disclaimers” page from their own site?

Representations, Warranties and Disclaimer

THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS ARE PROVIDED AS-IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND NGA CENTER/CCSSO MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTIBILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NONINFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF ERRORS, WHETHER OR NOT DISCOVERABLE.

What a crock!

Children are stressed out, teachers are fired, schools are closed and more. Why?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

High stakes tests, most of which are Common Core compliant no matter what brand name they hold, are for one purpose only – corporate profit from public taxes marked for public education. “Public-Private Partnerships” are theft of public tax funding that goes to multinational investors and hedge & venture fund managers. Children are the victims, collateral damage, of this pillage.

End the insanity and get schools back to educating your child and teachers back to teaching your child.

What is the sole purpose of education? To meet the needs of your child.

Stressing out children and families with homework that is invalid for life skills, labeling Have you ever read the actual Common Core “Representations, Warranties and Disclaimers” page? | Reclaim Reform:

Educators ramp up nationwide campaign and launch “Get it Right” ad blitz

Important Action in Congress Right Now « Education Votes:

Educators ramp up nationwide campaign and launch “Get it Right” ad blitz

NEA President: A revamped ESEA should promote opportunity, equity, and excellence for all students

WASHINGTON—Today, the National Education Association, tapping the power of its nearly 3 million educators, kicked into high gear efforts to mobilize voters across the country to inject their voices into the reauthorization process of the federal law No Child Left Behind, originally known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). 

“Now is the time to raise educators’ voices and to fight for the opportunity for all students to receive a quality public education, more time for students to learn and more time for teachers to teach,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “Before Congress is a unique opportunity to get ESEA right this time. This means mapping out a new vision for our nation’s public schools, one that promotes opportunity, equity, and excellence for all students regardless of the zip code in which they live.” 

During the nationwide campaign, educators will reach out to parents, community partners, and the general public to raise their voices. They will leaflet parents at schools or in key public places, host community forums, put together letter writing events, place letters to the editor in their local papers, among other proactive actions. The campaign also features a two-week earned and paid media blitz called “Get it Right.”  

“The fight must continue until we have a new federal education bill signed into law that includes the voices of educators,” emphasized Eskelsen García. “The only way to achieve that is to make sure that our members and the public are fully engaged. Unlike when the law was written in 2002, Congress must hear now from those who know best what a revamped ESEA should look like—educators. The stakes are high for our students and their future. That’s why we are launching a national effort aimed at making sure lawmakers hear directly from educators about what hasn’t worked and what needs to happen in order to get the law right this time.”  

Since Congress began in earnest the reauthorization process in January, NEA members have sent more than 30,000 emails to members of Congress. They have visited all 100 Senate offices and more than half of House offices in Washington, D.C. and back home. Similarly, 3 educators have appeared before key Senate and House reauthorizing committees and panels as expert witnesses. NEA’s “Get it Right” ad campaign coincides with the first Congressional recess and will leverages grassroots-level tactics nationwide.

Educators also will meet with their respective members of Congress and their staff during recess. For example, Washington educators will host an education roundtable with Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) on February 18. Similarly, Colorado educators will organize an education listening tour with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). On February 19, Maryland educators will host a statewide virtual town-hall meeting to discuss ESEA and are organizing a letter-writing event to send notes to U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (D) and Barbara Mikulski (D). For a more detailed list of confirmed events and/or actions, please visit www.getESEAright.com. 

The national campaign includes, radio, television, and digital ads. It also features a toll-free number (866-331-7233) where educators and the public can call Congress to tell them to get ESEA right and pass a new bill that provides more opportunities for all students. Opinion pieces such as this one that appeared in the Washington Post by the NEA and PTA presidents also are part of the campaign. 

The U.S. House and Senate are fully underway in the most serious effort to rewrite the federal education law since its passage in 2002. Originally known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA is the federal government’s footprint in K-12 education policy. Both chambers have made public their vision for a revamped law, and as held meetings, briefings and hearings. Similarly, NEA members have testified or appeared before Congressional panels, and the Association has made public its vision.

Click here to see the television ad and to hear the radio ad. The ads are running in select media markets in the following states: Alaska, Colo., Conn., Ga., Ill., Mass., Maine, Md., Minn., N.C., Pa., Tenn., and Wash.

Follow us @NEAMedia 

Follow the conversation: #OpportunityforALL #TimetoLearn

A valuable school and principal — but you wouldn’t know it by the test scores - The Washington Post

A valuable school and principal — but you wouldn’t know it by the test scores - The Washington Post:

A valuable school and principal — but you wouldn’t know it by the test scores

If you’ve never heard of HONY, or the Humans of New York project, this post will introduce you to it, and its relevance to school reform. The author of the post, Barnett Berry, tells the story of a wonderful school (highlighted in a HONY piece) that is embraced by its community but, unfortunately, doesn’t shine when it comes to standardized test scores. Berry is the founder, partner and chief executive officer at the Center for Teaching Quality,  a national nonprofit organization that helps teachers transform their profession.

By Barnett Berry

Blogger and photojournalist Brandon Stanton roams the streets of the Big Apple, drawing out the stories of strangers he encounters. Snapping poignant photos, he invites subjects to reflect on relationships’ ups and downs, the trajectories of their dreams and struggles, or the minutiae of everyday life.

Millions follow Brandon’s daily Humans of New York (HONY) posts on social media, appreciative of his keen recognition of the moving moment or distinguishing detail.

On January 19, Brandon interviewed a young boy in the Brownsville neighborhood:

Brandon: Who’s influenced you the most in your life?

Vidal: My principal, Ms. Lopez.

Brandon: How has she influenced you?

Vidal: When we get in trouble, she doesn’t suspend us. She calls us to her office and explains to us how society was built down around us. And she tells us that each time somebody fails out of school, a new jail cell gets built. And one time she made every student stand up, one at a time, and she told each one of us that we matter.

Vidal’s account of his relationship with his principal garnered thousands of likes, comments, and shares—and quickly. The social media post “took off” A valuable school and principal — but you wouldn’t know it by the test scores - The Washington Post: 

Tell Your Representative: Get ESEA Right for All Students!

Important Action in Congress Right Now « Education Votes:

Important Action in Congress Right Now

 

Tell Your Representative: Get ESEA Right
for All Students!

It has now been 13 years since No Child Left Behind passed, and it’s clear that this law has failed our kids. The focus in education has shifted from student learning towards testing, labeling, and punishing schools—with no significant progress in closing of opportunity gaps.

Right now, Congress is reauthorizing this cornerstone piece of education legislation – and they need to hear the voice of educators and parents across the country!

We can’t afford for Congress to get this wrong again. That’s why we need your help right now!

Tell Congress to pass an education bill that allows students to learn rather than focus on high-stakes standardized tests, and that ensures every child has the resources – like advanced courses, extracurriculars, and access to school counselors – to succeed.

Contact your representatives now — start by entering your ZIP code:Important Action in Congress Right Now « Education Votes:

ESEA Petition for Education Researchers: Sign Now

Open Letter to Congress and the Obama Administration from Educational Researchers Nationwide:

Open Letter to Congress and the Obama Administration from Educational Researchers Nationwide

_______________________________________________________________________________________________Dear Members of Congress and the Obama Administration:

We are researchers and professors in colleges, universities, and other research institutions throughout the United States with scholarly and practical expertise in public education, including education policy, school reform, teaching and learning, assessment, and educational equity. As Congress revises and reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we strongly urge departing from test-focused reforms that not only have been discredited for high-stakes decisions, but also have shown to widen, not close, gaps and inequities. The current reauthorization provides an historic opportunity to leverage federal resources to address the deeper and more systemic problems with strategies that research has compellingly demonstrated to be far more effective in improving the educational opportunities and success of all students, particularly those in highest need. Specifically, we write to endorse the concerns, analyses, and recommendations in the recently released policy memo from the National Education Policy Center, “Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: Time to Move Beyond Test-focused Policies,” which is available online at http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/esea.

[the full memo will appear here in the final letter for distribution]



The following researchers endorse the NEPC memo, as of February 16, 2015. Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only. The signature list on this page will be updated daily. Your name will not appear immediately upon signing on. Total number of signers to date: 1207

Contact Person: Kevin Kumashiro, Dean, University of San Francisco School of Education, kkumashiro@usfca.edu



Open Letter to Congress and the Obama Administration from Educational Researchers Nationwide:

Teacher, You Live in Two Worlds

Teacher, You Live in Two Worlds:

TEACHER, YOU LIVE IN TWO WORLDS
FEBRUARY 15, 2015 BRETT DICKERSON

Teachers, parents, and administrators make an unusual foray into the world of the contest March, 2014 with this huge rally at the Oklahoma State Capitol.

We teachers live in two worlds: One is of collaboration and democracy. The other is of contest and domination.

We’ve done well with that first world, the one of collaboration. It’s that second one of the contest and mental brutality of eliminating the competition that we have a hard time swallowing.

But, if the profession is going to survive the next ten years and beyond, we have to learn to successfully operate in both worlds. We will have to become comfortable transiting between the two. Our lives will be lived in that intersection.

Collaboration

When I first started teaching I believed that teaching was telling and that any interruption to that had to be conquered.  It’s the same approach that corporate charters take now with their hyper-strict behavior rules and students walking lines in the hallway that is not very much different from prisons.

But I changed over time. I learned what those experienced teachers tried to tell me at first: Teaching is collaboration — not just with other teachers, but with your own students.

What experience teaches any teacher that lasts longer than five years is that the more input that students have, the better they do.The more say that they have in how the classroom works the better. It’s an environment that they must inhabit, but may not choose to inhabit if they had the choice.

Teachers who have been teaching for over one year understand thatall students in the building are affected by all of the teachers. The notion of having one or two teachers paid more that the others for some “performance” measure seems ridiculous.

What experienced teachers know is that parents can be great allies and collaborators. But not only that, they are collaborators if their children are successful.

The case of one forlorn student with a horrible home life being rescued by a heroic teacher is very often smoke on the part of Teacher, You Live in Two Worlds:

Sorting the Big Standardized Tests | Peter Greene

Sorting the Big Standardized Tests | Peter Greene:

Sorting the Big Standardized Tests

Since the beginnings of the current wave of test-driven accountability, reformsters have been excited about stack ranking -- the process of sorting out items from the very best to the very worst (and then taking a chainsaw to the very worst).

This has been one of the major supporting points for continued large-scale standardized testing -- if we didn't have test results, how would we compare students to other students, teachers to other teachers, schools to other schools. The devotion to sorting has been foundational, rarely explained but generally presented as an article of faith, a self-evident value -- well, of course, we want to compare and sort schools and teachers and students!

But you know what we still aren't sorting?

The big standardized tests.

Since last summer the rhetoric to pre-empt the assault on testing has focused on "unnecessary" or "redundant" or even "bad" tests, but we have done nothing to find these tests.

Where is our stack ranking for the tests?

We have two major BSTs -- the PARCC and the SBA. In order to better know how my child is doing (isn't that one of our repeated reasons for testing?), I'd like to know which one of these is a better test. There are other state-level BSTs that we're flinging at our students willy-nilly. Which one of these is the best? Which one is the worst?

I mean, we've worked tirelessly to sort and rank teachers in our efforts to root out the bed ones, because apparently "everybody" knows some teachers are bad. Well, apparently everybody knows some tests are bad, so why aren't we tracking them down, sorting them out, and publishing their low test ratings in the local paper?

We've argued relentlessly that I need to be able to compare my student's reading ability with the reading ability of Chris McNoname in Iowa, so why can't I compare the tests that each one is taking?

I realize that coming up with a metric would be really hard, but so what? We use value-added measures to sort out teachers, and those have been debunked by everyone except people who work for the USED. I think we've established that the sorting instrument doesn't have to be good or even valid -- it just has to generate some sort of rating.

So let's get on this. Let's come up with a stack-ranking method for sorting out the SBA and the PARCC and the Keystones and the Indiana Test of Essential Student Swellness and whatever else is out there. If we're going to rate every student and teacher and school, why would we not also rate the raters? And then once we've got the tests rated, we can throw out the bottom ten percent of them. We can offer a "merit bonus" to the company that made the best one (and peanuts to everyone elseSorting the Big Standardized Tests | Peter Greene:

Opinion: Test scoring of schools dismantled in California | The Sacramento Bee The Sacramento Bee

Opinion: Test scoring of schools dismantled in California | The Sacramento Bee The Sacramento Bee:

Opinion: Test scoring of schools dismantled in California

BY DAN WALTERS

DWALTERS@SACBEE.COM

02/15/2015 2:10 PM 

 02/15/2015 10:10 PM

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/dan-walters/article10376744.html#storylink=c

 Slowly, quietly – but unmistakably – California’s education establishment is dismantling or softening state and federal testing-based “accountability” systems that were imposed on public schools more than a decade ago.

Those standards, both the state Academic Performance Index (API) and the federal government’s No Child Left Behind measures, have used testing to gauge how schools were meeting academic achievement standards.

Those that lagged faced financial and managerial sanctions, including, potentially, “parent triggers” to convert failing schools into parent-run charter schools. The accountability measures also fed a drive among some school reformers for grading teachers’ competency.

The education establishment, including administrators, teachers, unions and many district trustees, has never made a secret of its disdain for what’s been termed “punitive accountability,” saying it’s a poor way of encouraging improvement.

The state accountability regime has been suspended, supposedly to be revised and improved. The committee that’s rewriting the API has recommended that it no longer contain a single three-digit number and use “multiple measures” to align it with the new Common Core standards and Gov. Jerry Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).

Policy Analysis for California Education, a school think tank, puts it this way: “The new system is grounded in the concept of reciprocal accountability: that is, every actor in the system – from the Capitol to the classroom – must be responsible for the aspects of educational quality and performance that it controls.”

Meanwhile, for the second straight year, the state is seeking a federal waiver from being graded on results of recently revised academic tests.

Without the precise numbers that both accountability systems generated, however, hard consequences for low achievement also may disappear. The “parent trigger” and other interventions may remain in law, but the data that have driven them could disappear.

Los Angeles Unified at one point flatly proclaimed exemption from parent trigger due to the federal waiver, then reversed itself after a change of superintendents.

Without being explicit, Brown seems to be taking the side of those whoOpinion: Test scoring of schools dismantled in California | The Sacramento Bee The Sacramento Bee:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/dan-walters/article10376744.html#storylink=cpy

Publishing Giant Pearson Hauls in Billions in Education Dollars: But Do Students Benefit? | EduBloggers

Publishing Giant Pearson Hauls in Billions in Education Dollars: But Do Students Benefit? | EduBloggers:

Publishing Giant Pearson Hauls in Billions in Education Dollars: But Do Students Benefit?

jonpelto / 1 hour ago

Professor, activist and education blogger Paul Thomas’ piece first appeared on Alternet –http://www.alternet.org/education/publishing-giant-pearson-hauls-billions-education-dollars-do-students-benefit

Publishing Giant Pearson Hauls in Billions in Education Dollars: But Do Students Benefit?

Leave it to Oscar Wilde to get things right. Writing about late-19th-century British attitudes regarding the poor, the Irish writer and social critic concluded, “Their remedies are part of the disease.”

Oh, how far we have not come.

With an extensive and carefully detailed examination of the British publishing giant Pearson, published by Politico last week, Stephanie Simon has drawn a similar conclusion about the state of American education: “The story of Pearson’s rise,” Simon writes, “is very much a story about America’s obsession with education reform over the past few decades.” In short, our obsession with “accountability” at all costs has given birth to an industry that, while feeding on taxpayer dollars, corrupts the very thing it (erroneously) seeks to measure: learning. As with Wilde’s poor, here, too, it is self-evident: our remedies have become part of our disease.

Pearson has clearly profited from the post-No Child Left Behind era, bolstered by the more recent Common Core movement: “Half its $8 billion in annual global sales comes from its North American education division,” Simon reveals. But what gains have Americans reaped in return? According to Simon, relatively few. “Pearson’s dominance,” she writes, “does not always serve U.S. students or taxpayers well.”

Simon’s disturbing expose of corporate gain on the backs of taxpayer dollars is a most welcome addition to the efforts currently being made to beat back the corporatization of education—many of them led by educational researchers and teachers. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with the current state of education. But its appearance also raises a critical question: Why has it taken so long for the media to take note? Scholars and teachers have been warning of this for years.

Writing in 2007, professors Sharon L. Nichols, University of Texas-San Antonio, and David C. Berliner, Arizona State University, shared a detailed account of the unintended consequences of high-stakes testing, highlighting Campbell’s Law, itself a caution about statistics from 1975:

Campbell’s law stipulates that “the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”…

High-stakes testing is exactly the kind of practice Campbell warned us about….

Our literature search has turned up endless examples showing how high-stakes testing corrupts education.

On AlterNet two years ago, I connected those concerns to Common Core, asking:

Who advocates for CCSS? What claims drive that advocacy? And who stands to benefit from CCSS implementation as well as the connected tests?…

With the poor track record associated with standards-based reform, that raises another important question Publishing Giant Pearson Hauls in Billions in Education Dollars: But Do Students Benefit? | EduBloggers:

Accountability? Testing Disclaimers for ALL! | Reclaim Reform

Accountability? Testing Disclaimers for ALL! | Reclaim Reform:

Accountability? Testing Disclaimers for ALL!

Posted on December 17, 2013by Ken Previti

Student, teacher and school accountability are absurd if the testing corporations are not held accountable.

This is the actual CCSS disclaimer:

“THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS ARE PROVIDED AS-IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND NGA CENTER/CCSSO MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTIBILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NONINFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF ERRORS, WHETHER OR NOT DISCOVERABLE.”

Our children, our schools, and our children’s teachers are rated by high stakes testing companies with these disclosures. View the actual CCSS disclaimer page HERE.

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If this corporation and the corporations of other high stakes testing companies can get away with this and remain in their multi-billion dollar businesses and government contracts, our children should also have legal disclaimers holding them unaccountable. The same goes for teachers and schools. Otherwise, the insanity and greed of the high stakes testing frenzy will continue and destroy any possibility of real educational growth for our children.

Well, declare that this obscene power grab calling itself “education reform” must stop with our children. Our children are not guinea pigs, data feeders, or things. Our children are children who need our protection from the child abuse which is corporate high stakes testing – high stakes testing in all of its brand names.

How can you legally refuse these tests? Read HERE for UnitedOptOut information.

Do you need verification of the Accountability? Testing Disclaimers for ALL! | Reclaim Reform: