1.5 million current and former student SSNs at risk says MO Auditor » Missouri Education Watchdog

1.5 million current and former student SSNs at risk says MO Auditor » Missouri Education Watchdog:

1.5 million current and former student SSNs at risk says MO Auditor

A recently released cyber audit of DESE’s student data system (MOSIS) revealed several weaknesses that MO State Auditor Galloway said placed 1.5 million current and former students’ personal information, such as social security numbers, at cyber risk.

The report noted that the state has “no business reason” for collecting social security numbers.  Galloway takes a strong position on data security. In a statement to KCUR she said, “We need to be proactive to be sure to limit the collection of that data if it’s not necessary and then be proactive in protecting it to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.” This is exactly what SB530 (Onder – Dist 2), filed but never passed out of the Senate Education Committee last year, attempted to do.

Other Auditor findings include:

• DESE management has not fully established and documented user account management policies and procedures. User account management includes requesting, establishing, issuing, suspending, modifying, closing, and periodically reviewing user accounts and related user privileges. Multiple DESE users are allowed access to the MOSIS system via shared accounts; however, DESE management does not regularly monitor these accounts to ensure actions taken by account holders are appropriate.
• DESE management has not established a comprehensive data breach response policy, as recommended by the U.S. Department of Education. Without a comprehensive data breach response policy, management may not be sufficiently equipped to respond quickly and effectively in the event of a breach, increasing the risk of potential harm to affected individuals

Galloway cited these deficiencies, despite fact that the State Board did pass the rule 5 CSR 20-700.100 Statewide Longitudinal Data System on March 2nd this year requiring:

2) Data Access and Management Policies.
(A) The department adheres to the confidentiality requirements of both federal and state laws including, but not limited to, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), and the National School Lunch Act. These policies include:

1. Defining privacy, confidentiality, personally identifiable information, disclosure, access, and confidential data; and1.5 million current and former student SSNs at risk says MO Auditor » Missouri Education Watchdog:

How “all kids” is the current LAUSD? | Opinion | Jewish Journal

How “all kids” is the current LAUSD? | Opinion | Jewish Journal:

How “all kids” is the current LAUSD?

Steve Zimmer. Photo by Carla Acevedo-Blumenkrantz

In decrying the recently leaked memo outlining a plan to create more high-quality public charter schools in our city, LAUSD School Board President Steve Zimmer said: “This is not an all-kids plan or an all-kids strategy…it’s very explicitly a some-kids strategy, a strategy that some kids will have a better education at a publicly-funded school…[t]he conversation should be better public education options and quality public schools for all kids, not some kids.”

I agree with that last part. And yet I have a hard time seeing how LAUSD itself has engaged in an “all-kids” strategy. I’m confused as to how policies that have led to only twenty-six percent of high school students being on track to graduate can possibly be called part of an “all-kids” strategy. It seems to me that this is a “quarter-of-kids” strategy. That’s not to say that Zimmer and others don’t believe that all kids should succeed; on the contrary, I believe that they do. But by denouncing various school innovation plans as a “some kids” strategy and touting the district’s as an “all kids” one, Zimmer is not only unnecessarily incendiary, but he also invites scrutiny of how “all kids” this district has been of late.

Although local media criticism of LAUSD is not unusual, it’s not every day that someone with the stature of Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez is compelled to say of this district: “You’ve got to be kidding me.” And yet that’s exactly what he said earlier this week when writing about the district’s asinine decision to rehire an attorney who, only months prior, had not only argued in court that a “13-year-old student was partly to blame for her 28-year-old math teacher’s sexual abuse of her,” but also said on the radio that it was more dangerous for her to cross a street than to have sex with a teacher. Only when that comment came to light did the district apologize. It was bad enough that this argument was used in court (which it can no longer be, thanks to a law passed in response to LAUSD’s tactics), but then to rehire the lawyer? I highly doubt that the student tragically implicated in this situation believes that this is part of an all kids strategy.

Sadly, it’s not the district’s response to these cases, but the fact that they exist in the first place that’s the most difficult to stomach. The year before I started teaching at Markham Middle School in Watts, an assistant principal was arrested and charged with five counts of forcible lewd acts on a child. That’s horrible enough, but here’s the kicker: he was moved to Markham “even though police had alerted the district that they suspected [he] had had sex with a minor.” To echo Lopez: “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Have things improved since his arrest in 2008? Unfortunately not. Last year, the district paid over $139 million to settle the case of an educator who was convicted of committing 23 counts of lewd conduct upon a child. What is appalling about these cases is not only that they happened, but that they could have been prevented. In the case of the assistant principal at Markham, the district had been alerted to his actions; in the more recent case, the conduct had been occurring since at least 1996. Regrettably, the students affected were not part of an all kids strategy.

Horrific incidents like these unfortunately detract from the work of the district’s incredibly caring and hard-working teachers who labor day in and day out on behalf of the district’s nearly 700,000 students. So what is the district doing to ensure that all kids in LA have access to high-quality teachers and that all teachers in LA are adequately supported in their work? Instead of standing with California students who brought a landmark civil rights case aimed at reforming anachronistic, regressive policies that actually prevented all kids from having effective teachers (the judge went so far as to say the evidence “shocks the conscience”), some district leaders condemned the case and even attempted to vilify these kids. Kids who, it is worth noting, How “all kids” is the current LAUSD? | Opinion | Jewish Journal:

Luke Bronin hauls in Lobbyist cash, generates multiple violations of CT Campaign Finance Law - Wait What?

Luke Bronin hauls in Lobbyist cash, generates multiple violations of CT Campaign Finance Law - Wait What?:

Luke Bronin hauls in Lobbyist cash, generates multiple violations of CT Campaign Finance Law

Having spent in excess of $1 million on his initial run for public office, political newcomer and Greenwich native Luke Bronin is expecting the voters of Hartford to make him their next mayor on Election Day – Tuesday, November 3, 2015.

But as Bronin’s campaign finance reports indicate, in addition to running the most expensive mayoral campaign in Connecticut history, Bronin “wins the award” for collecting more money from state lobbyists than any other mayoral candidate in Connecticut.

In a truly unprecedented maneuver, as of nearly a month ago, Governor Malloy protégée Luke Bronin had already collected more than $25,000 from a total of about 80 registered state lobbyists.

Bronin’s list of lobbyist fans include John Rowland’s former chief of staff, Rowland’s former campaign manager and a so-called “social justice” lobbyist who has become one of Dannel Malloy’s biggest apologists.  As of the last campaign finance report, almost every major lobbyist had donated to Bronin with a number of them donating more than once.

Bronin’s strategy of collecting campaign donations from those who are paid to influence public policy will come with a price.

Connecticut State Law requires all political candidates to identify any contributor who is a lobbyist, lobbyist spouse or dependent child of a lobbyist on their campaign finance reports.  However, of the nearly 80 donations Bronin has received from lobbyists or their families, only 17 (or about 20 percent) are properly identified.

The utter failure to identify contributions received from lobbyists will undoubtedly generate Luke Bronin hauls in Lobbyist cash, generates multiple violations of CT Campaign Finance Law - Wait What?:

Obama’s stunning reversal on standardized testing: Why his latest comments could spell doom for “reformers” - Salon.com

Obama’s stunning reversal on standardized testing: Why his latest comments could spell doom for “reformers” - Salon.com:

Obama’s stunning reversal on standardized testing: Why his latest comments could spell doom for “reformers”

The president came out last weekend against the overemphasis on testing, breaking with 20 years of precedent

The activist/performance art group The Yes Men’s signature technique is to impersonate corporations or governmental agencies. They’ve posed as representatives from Dow Chemical, offering to liquidate their company and distribute funds to victims of the Bhopal disaster, or as officials from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, announcing the reopening of public housing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Through these hoaxes, the Yes Men publicize destructive policies and picture a world where they can be reversed.

That’s what I had in mind when I read that the Obama Administration called for a cap on standardized testing of no more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time, acknowledging their own role in endorsing a culture of constant test-taking. I simply assumed that The Yes Men had struck again, spoofing the Administration and calling attention to their education reform policies.

But that wasn’t an impersonator but President Obama himself saying that “learning is about so much more than filling in the right bubble,” and that it “takes the joy out of teaching and learning.”

Rigorous testing was so fundamental to the Obama Administration’s education reform agenda that this repudiation resembles shutting down Obamacare or the EPA’s carbon pollution regulations. Leveraged by Education Department policies like Race to the Top, which trickled out conditional funding, more states evaluated its teachers by factoring in test scores, and incorporated additional tests through the new Common Core standards.

As a result, teachers spent more and more of their school days preparing their classes to fill out Scan-Tron sheets, and less time on more rewarding pursuits like teaching critical thinking or triggering long-lasting interests. According to a survey of 66 districts by the Council on the Great City Schools, students now take an average of 112 required standardized tests between kindergarten and 12th grade, or over eight and a half every year.

Many of these tests fulfill federal mandates, from Race to the Top to the No Child Left Behind to Common Core. Eighth-grade students exceeded the Administration’s proposed limit of 2 percent of instruction time per year just on testing, to say nothing of the time spent teaching to the tests.

Most important, none of this testing appears to achieve the goal of creating more knowledgeable students. The Council on the Great City Schools study found no relationship between testing and reading and math scores on the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) between fourth and eighth grade. The tests do more to help administrators’ claim that they are demanding “strong standards” than they do to actually instruct children.

What’s the other byproduct of excessive testing? Financial windfalls for the four private companies who create and administer the tests: Pearson, Educational Testing Service, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill. These four firms have spentover $20 million lobbying the government between 2009 and 2014, insisting on more testing to boost their profits, according to the Center for Media and Democracy think tank. The testing sector generates $2 billion in annual revenue, so the return on investment is excellent.

Companies like Pearson work the states for lucrative testing contracts as well, but the tone at the top – mandating multiple overlapping assessments to determine student instruction levels and weed out bad teachers – provided a boost to their bottom lines. The testing trend was in part a money grab.

The Obama Administration finally admitting that their zeal for testing went too far breaks with 20 years of precedent, including nearly seven years’ worth of their own actions. Part of this is the backlash to Common Core from both the left and the right. Parents initiated the growing “opt-out movement,” where students choose not to Obama’s stunning reversal on standardized testing: Why his latest comments could spell doom for “reformers” - Salon.com:

These are the states that really have the best schools in the US - Vox

These are the states that really have the best schools in the US - Vox:

These are the states that really have the best schools in the US

Texas and Florida, not usually renowned for quality education, turn out to be educational powerhouses once you adjust for student demographics.

A new report from the Urban Institute looked at how students from each state compare with similar students in other states on fourth- and eighth-grade tests in reading and math. The researcher, senior fellow Matt Chingos, adjusted states' scores based on a variety of factors, including race, ethnicity, the share of students still learning English, and the share of students living in poverty.

Plenty of factors other than a state's school system affect how students perform on standardized tests. Students in Massachusetts test better than students in Mississippi, but Mississippi also has more students of color and more students living in poverty.

Using Chingos's adjusted scores, Massachusetts still looks very good. Texas and Florida look much better. And Utah, which is about average based on test scores alone, slides nearly to the bottom when adjusted for demographics:

(Urban Institute)

Good news: American schools really are getting better

Test scores have climbed only slightly on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the standardized test known as the NAEP or the "nation's report card," since 2003. But that's actually very good news.

There are more nonwhite students and more poor students in public schools than there were 12 years ago. If everything else had remained constant, test scores should have fallen based on the demographic changes.

Instead, nearly every state improved more than would have been expected, adjusted for demographics. And once you make those adjustments, some states have taken dramaticThese are the states that really have the best schools in the US - Vox: 

Head of LAUSD search says community wants pro-public education superintendent | 89.3 KPCC

Q&A: Inside the search for the next LAUSD superintendent | 89.3 KPCC:

 Head of LAUSD search says community wants pro-public education superintendent

The man who heads the hunt for the next Los Angeles Unified superintendent says the size of the 650,000-student school district and its high-profile search are adding to the challenge of finding a new leader. 

Hank Gmitro, president of Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, sat down with KPCC to talk about his search firm's quest to find qualified candidates who can manage a school district seen as among the most difficult to run in the country. 

The questions and answers have been edited for clarity and space.

Q: How many superintendent searches have you conducted and how does L.A. Unified differ from those previous searches?

A: I’ve been involved with 40 over the last six to seven years. Our company has done over a thousand over the last 20-plus years.

This is similar in terms of engagement and the activities that have been planned to other large system searches with community forums and the sessions that are scheduled. But I will share that the scale of L.A. is different than any place, just due to its sheer size.

Q: How differently are you and your colleagues approaching the LAUSD superintendent search compared to the others?

A: The difference is the scale and the public nature of it. Everyone knows that L.A. Unified is looking for a new superintendent. So…the advertisement to potential candidates isn’t really the need as in some other places when you’re trying to get the word out that the position is open.

I’ve worked on several other large system searches of a couple hundred students and we have probably at least quadrupled our effort in the amount of time that we’re devoting to leadership profiling activities here and the number of sessions being offered.

Q: What’s prepared you for this job?

A: I was a superintendent, so I know the role. I wasn’t a superintendent in a really large system, it was a smaller suburban system. But I’ve done this kind of work for the last, almost 10 years. I did a few searches when I was a superintendent locally for the firm. One of the things that we try to do when we recruit associates is to have people who understand the process and the national perspective when it’s a national search, but also understand the local dynamics and the state dynamics. We try to have people on the team who understand California, understand Los Angeles as well as a couple of people on the team who understand our national process and outreach.

At this point in time, I have probably done six or seven searches of school districts of the hundred largest school districts across the country. I feel like I have some experience in knowing what those dynamics are in large systems and how do you reach out to massive audiences.

Q: Next month, when you start making calls to potential candidates, how do you go about telling them there’s a job opening here?

A: That’s yet to be determined, because part of that is based on the criteria that the board develops. So before you get too far into the recruitment effort, you really want to know what the community is looking for and what the board is looking for.

Some of the themes I’ve heard so far, across the board from students, parents, staff members, board members is [they want] somebody who really understands the educational system, has had some experience with education or at least significant leadership roles in the delivery of public service, human services. A common comment has been [they want] someone who really puts the needs of kids first.

Q: Are you going to talk to current superintendents and former superintendents?

A: That will certainly be one pool of candidates, but I’m also waiting to hear a little bit further as to whether there are other categories of people who should be approached. Some people have suggested internal candidates. At each of our sessions, we always ask for recommendations in terms of people we should approach. Some people have made some suggestions.

Some people have said, someone who really understands the Los Angeles area, the politics of the community, understands LAUSD in terms of the history of the organization, [and knows] some of the things we have been through in this community, some of the efforts we have tried, some of the challenges we have faced. Could an internal candidate do that or somebody who’s worked in the system at some point in time and maybe moved on to another position?

Q: Doesn’t that mean that there’s a short list of the heads of the largest school districts or the top administrators within LAUSD?

A: I don’t think there’s a short list, but there’s a possible list. If you’re looking at just superintendents who have had experience of 100,000 students or more, there’s only 26 districts in this country that are that size. So are you looking for someone Q&A: Inside the search for the next LAUSD superintendent | 89.3 KPCC:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The flip side of testing madness. 'You will test only 2% of the time'

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The flip side of testing madness. 'You will test only 2% of the time':

The flip side of testing madness. 'You will test only 2% of the time'

Duncan and Casserly making the media rounds... Last night on the PBS News Hour, no matter what Gwen Ifill asked about the administration's supposed shift on testing. Duncan responded with his stock answers. Michael Casserly, Director-For-Life, it seems, of the Council of Great City Schools, came off like the ultimate bureaucrat. He sounds reluctant, but willing to go along with the charade. "It's complicated" he says. Let's have lots more departmental and cross-state discussions and meetings. He's been 40 years atop the organization that could be funded to facilitate just such meetings and conferences.

Casserly

Was it just me or did they both sound like they were defending rather than reassessing current testing policies? It seemed like they're already warning us against the impending perils of "too little testing."

Duncan actually claimed that he had been on this track all along and that the new line on testing was an affirmation of his own long-standing views.

He tells Ifill:

Well, I think we have embraced this idea for a while. What’s different now is we actually have data. And I have been talking about this, as Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The flip side of testing madness. 'You will test only 2% of the time':

Gates Undercover | Save Maine Schools

Gates Undercover | Save Maine Schools:

Gates Undercover

Several months ago, while conducting some much overdue research into the back-story of Common Core, I stumbled across a document from the Gates Foundation that painted such a frighteningly clear picture of next-gen ed-reform that I actually wondered for a time if perhaps I was hallucinating.

I wasn’t, and within a very short time, it became unmistakably obvious that the Common Core Standards, our new Smarter Balanced test, and Maine’s one of a kind (but not for long if they have their way, so watch out!) proficiency-based diploma mandate were all linked like pieces of a puzzle to a corporate-driven agenda to transform our schools into “personalized” (digital!) learning environments. (If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, see here for more.)

Quite literally sick to my stomach, I emailed a union rep to ask if he knew anything about the paper I had found.

“It’s ghastly,” he replied, “but in Maine, it has been the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and the Great Schools Partnership that has been behind these policies.”

Okay.  So maybe I was mistaken. Nellie Mae sounded friendly enough. So did Great Schools. (Who doesn’t like great schools?)

Just to be sure, I went to the “Awarded Grants” section of the Gates Foundation website, and typed in the words “Nellie Mae.”

Then I typed in Great Schools Partnership.

And then I did this:

Then, I went to the Nellie Mae page, typed in the word “Maine,” and sure enough, there on their website was page after page of grants awarded to organizations in our state.

Now thoroughly alarmed, I emailed a state education official, asking what he knew about our proficiency-based mandate. Where had it come from and why?

“That was passed in 2012 to strengthen our high school diplomas. Who could argue with it?  Look, here are all the people who support it,” he wrote back, Gates Undercover | Save Maine Schools:

L.A. school board will consider appointing outside superintendent search committee - LA Times

L.A. school board will consider appointing outside superintendent search committee - LA Times:

L.A. school board will consider appointing outside superintendent search committee

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday is expected to consider appointing an outside committee to guide its search for the next superintendent of schools.

A group of civic leaders has pressed the school board repeatedly on the issue.

“I don’t know why you would not want some people around a table giving input,” said Elise Buik, chief executive of United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

L.A. Unified hopes to choose a new leader by the end of the year, when current Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who is 83, said he would like to step down. Cortines agreed to serve a year ago, when Supt. John Deasy resigned under pressure.

Buik has been among the most consistent voices urging the Board of Education to call on other leaders who could provide perspective and expertise in various areas.

If the district allows a hiring committee to screen for finalists, “my belief is that we’re going to make a better decision,” Buik said. “It will unify the community around a decision. And I think candidates will be encouraged to apply when they see the diversity of people involved in the decision.”

Buik said the hiring process itself could remain confidential — to ensure the best pool of applicants.

She and others, part of the Civic Alliance group, made similar arguments at an Aug. 19 lunch with school board president Steve Zimmer. Then, earlier this month, a separate but overlapping group of local organizations reiterated the request in a letter to the board.

Zimmer did not commit to the idea, but brought it before his colleagues in an earlier closed session, during which the board decided against an outside committee.

Several board members have noted in public that one of their fundamental duties as elected officials is to choose a superintendent -- and that they intend to handle the process themselves. Privately, some said they were concerned that an outside committee might try to co-opt the process, leaving board members unable to determine whom they most wanted.

Still, the board will discuss the matter once more in closed session this week, sources confirmed.

An executive search firm, meanwhile, already is accepting applications and recruiting candidates. And the same consulting team also is collecting public input through a series of community meetings that will conclude this week.

The United Way and other allied groups have not yet met with the consultants, Buik said.

District officials said they encourage all groups to submit input through the public process or in private meetings. The consultants expect to submit a report on community feedback by Nov. 10.

Other groups have different ideas on the search process. The teachers union, for example, has called for making the identity of the finalists public.

Board member Monica Ratliff supports that idea, even though some candidates might prefer to apply confidentially.

“It should not be a secret that one wants to try to help hundreds of thousands of students L.A. school board will consider appointing outside superintendent search committee - LA Times:

Ohio school district asks state to reimburse $5 million given to charter schools - The Washington Post

Ohio school district asks state to reimburse $5 million given to charter schools - The Washington Post:

Ohio school district asks state to reimburse $5 million given to charter schools

Last March, the Board of Education of the Woodridge Local Schools district in Ohio passed a resolution calling on policymakers to take steps to clean up its  scandal-ridden $1 billion charter school sector. Now it is seeking more than $5 million from the state — money that was sent over the last 15 years to charters instead of traditional public schools.

Superintendent Walter Davis of Woodridge Local Schools — who brought the March resolution to the board — says he doesn’t actually expect the state to hand over the money. But he said the board is requesting the money from the state to underscore the frustration that educators have over the millions of dollars the state keeps giving to charter schools, money that then isn’t available for traditional public schools. In Ohio, charter schools are called “community schools.”

“What we are dealing with in Ohio is a system of charter schools that are failing, and the state continues to transfer local public funding from traditional public schools to support them,” Davis said in an interview.”We aren’t expecting a check, but we are doing it to call attention to how, year-in and year-out, money is being taken away from us to support these schools that traditionally have much lower academic achievement rates than we do.”

From the 2010-11 school year to 2014-15, Ohio’s funding for traditional public schools dropped by $515 million, he said.

How troubled is the Ohio charter sector? A June 2015 story by the Akron Beacon Journal said it found that Ohio charter schools appeared to have misspent public money “nearly four times more often than any other type of taxpayer-funded agency.” It said that “since 2001, state auditors have uncovered $27.3 million improperly spent by charter schools, many run by for-profit companies, enrolling thousands of children and producing academic results that rival the worst in the nation.”

Some $6,890 is transferred from the school district for each student who attends a charter school, said Deanna Levenger, chief financial officer for the school district. But the state only provides about $680 per child in basic education funding, with the rest coming from local revenues. That means that local money is being used to fund charters around the state, she said. Furthermore, Davis noted, the state pays brick-and-mortar charter schools the same amount per student as online charters even though online schools don’t have the same cost structure.

A few weeks ago, after repeated attempts, the Ohio legislature finally passed legislation that attempts to clean up the charter sector by placing more mandates on charter operators. But Davis said the measure does nothing to change the funding problems.

Here’s the invoice, showing how much money has been sent from the Woodridge district to charter schools from 2000-2015.Ohio school district asks state to reimburse $5 million given to charter schools - The Washington Post:

'The diplomacy is over': Protesters blast Cerf, derail Newark meeting | NJ.com

'The diplomacy is over': Protesters blast Cerf, derail Newark meeting | NJ.com:

'The diplomacy is over': Protesters blast Cerf, derail Newark meeting

NEWARK – Just three months after his appointment, it appears the welcome wagon for Superintendent of Schools Christopher Cerf has worn thin.

A meeting of the city's School Advisory Board was derailed after members of the Newark Student Union and other activists staged a protest of Cerf, new charter school expansion and subpar conditions in traditional schools.

Armed with a megaphone and a large banner reading "Full Local Control", the group of more than a dozen students marched to the front of the auditorium at University High School during a presentation on how the district plans to raise its scores on the annual state-administered QSAC evaluation.

Their chants of ""Save Our Schools" and "Whose City? Our City?" were met with a chorus of applause from much of the more than 200 people gathered at University High School, many of whom groaned and shouted angrily at Cerf and other administrators throughout the lengthy meeting.

The meeting marked the end of roughly three months of relative civility toward Cerf and a shift back toward the consistent animosity that characterized meetings under his predecessor, Cami Anderson – sparked largely by news that the KIPP network of charter schools plans to greatly expand its reach in Newark.

"We wanted to give him time to show to the community what kind of person he is, try to be diplomatic, but today I think the message our community is sending is the diplomacy is over," Jose Leonardo, the student union's president, said in an interview.

"Nothing's changed and we're tired of it. He's a kinder face, but it's the same mechanics, the same machine at work."

---

MORE: In interview, ex-Newark school chief laments 'well-orchestrated drama' around reforms

---

Cerf, who remained silent and in his seat throughout the demonstration even as board members left the school stage and attempted to restore order, has deep ties to charter schools and the education reform movement. He served as commissioner of the state Department of Education when it appointed Anderson, whose support for charter growth and other shakeups stoked widespread public anger leading to her exit from the district in late June.

While much of the anger toward Anderson was focused on her controversial "One Newark" universal enrollment system and the logistical issues that accompanied its rollout last year, the newest wave of protest comes amid anger over the proposed expansion of charters and poor conditions in traditional public schools.

Veronica Branch was among a number of parents, students and other residents to voice those concerns Tuesday night.

"Where do you think these kids are going to go to?" she said. "Everybody don't want charter. We still have substitutes at Hawthorne Avenue....everybody's tired of it."

Responding to a barrage of criticisms, Cerf submitted that public schools do face challenges that charters do not, which he attributed to regulations and other compliance problems imposed by a bloated bureaucracy. However, he cautioned that the answer to the inequity was not to draw lines in the proverbial sand.

"That lack of equality, that lack of equal opportunity, does not involve pitting one kind of school against the other. It involves righting the wrong of not allowing every child, as you say, a thorough and efficient education that allows them to move forward in life successfully," he said.

Many protestors and speakers also expressed anger over the Central Planning Board's decision last week to approve a new K-12 NorthStar Academy charter school on a former Star-Ledger property. The building would not constitute expansion for the chain of schools run by New York-based Uncommon Schools, but rather move students from its many of 11 existing facilities in Newark into asix-story building at the corner of Court Street and Washington Street.

Other charter school networks are also pursuing expansion or new construction in the city. BRICK Academy is awaiting word on an application to officially certify its operations at the former Avon Avenue and Peshine Avenue schools into charters, and Great Oaks Charter School has scheduled a Wednesday ribbon-'The diplomacy is over': Protesters blast Cerf, derail Newark meeting | NJ.com:

Obama's School Testing Talk Is Meaningless - US News

Obama's School Testing Talk Is Meaningless - US News:

Obama's Empty Testing Talk

The president's pledge to reduce school tests is meaningless.

Over the weekend, President Barack Obama received high praise from parents and teachers foracknowledging that testing is taking too much time away from teaching, learning and fostering creativity in schools, and recommending that standardized tests take no more than 2 percent of total school instructional time. Frankly, this is arrant nonsense. Here's why.

RELATED

What's Wrong With Obama's Testing Proposal?

From time to time, I'm asked to give a talk about education. If I look at how I spend my time over the course of a year, giving presentations and speeches is a very small part of my job – less than 2 percent. However, if my effectiveness were to be judged on the audience response to those handful of talks I give each year, I'd spend a lot more time writing and practicing speeches. I'd fret endlessly over my PowerPoint slides and leave-behinds. I'd sprinkle in more jokes to be entertaining; I'd probably say whatever I thought would get audiences to like me more, rather than challenging my listeners. I'd definitely spend a lot more on suits and dry cleaning than I do now.

But most critically, I'd spend far less time on all the other things I do – writing, reading, teaching and learning, visiting schools to stay current – that might make any talk I give worth listening to in the first place. In short, if this minor part of my job, however useful, were to become the alpha and omega of how my effectiveness is measured, it would quickly change nearly everything else about my work. And not necessarily for the better.

It's the same with testing. First of all, reports that Obama "plans to limit standardized testing to no more than 2% of class time," are simply wrong. The federal government has virtually no say about how much time schools spend testing. The vast majority of tests that our children take are driven by states and school districts, as well individual schools and teachers, not by Washington. The best the president can do is use the bully pulpit to encourage less testing and even then there's reason to be skeptical.

The amount of time kids spend on testing is not the issue. It's what the tests are used for that matters. Like my speech example, when you use standardized tests to make high-stakes judgments about schools and teachers, they are no longer a mere diagnostic. The testing tail wags the schooling dog.

"I still have no question that we need to check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track or identify areas where they need support," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, thereby demonstrating that the administration doesn't understand or thinks it can elide the effect of testing on schools. If there are stakes attached to those tests for schools or teachers, then there will be little or no change in current classroom practice.

RELATED

Education Department Recommends Less Testing

To be clear, I am not anti-testing. Far from it. The data from tests are the life-blood that courses through the arteries of much that matters to me in education and efforts to improve it. Test data have created the demand for school choice and charter schools. They supply the proof point demonstrating how poorly we've historically served low-income children of color. The field of education simply cannot advance without testing, which provides one of the few empirical bits of data we have to give insight into the effectiveness of changes in any number of school-based inputs, from curriculum and teacher preparation to education technology and standards.

But one would have to be cynical or naive not to understand that the moment you use tests, which are designed to measure student performance, to trigger various corrective actions and interventions effecting teachers and schools, you are fundamentally shifting tests from providing evidence of student performance to something closer to the very purpose of schooling. This is precisely what has been occurring in our schools for the last decade or more. When parents complain, rightfully so, about over-testing, what they are almost certainly responding to is not the tests themselves, which take up a vanishingly small amount of class time, but the effects of test-and-prep culture, which has fundamentally changed the experience of schooling for our children, and not always for the better.

The Obama talk on testing seeks to curry favor with parents and teachers (and their unions) while doing nearly nothing to change the fundamental role of testing and its effect on schooling. It's all well and good to "encourage" states, districts and schools to limit testing, but as long as test-driven accountability measures, which are driven substantially by federal law, are used not to provide Obama's School Testing Talk Is Meaningless - US News: