NEA President: NAEP Results Signal What Needs to Change to Better Serve Students - NEA Today

NEA President: NAEP Results Signal What Needs to Change to Better Serve Students - NEA Today:

NEA President: NAEP Results Signal What Needs to Change to Better Serve Students

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—known as The Nation’s Report Card—was released on Wednesday and the results caused a stir in the education community. Overall, students’ math and reading scores dropped or remained stagnant. The results, said National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García, should compel policymakers at every level of government to make the necessary changes to better serve students now and in the future.

The NAEP results revealed that between 2013 and 2015, math scores for fourth and eighth grade students declined. This year’s average fourth grade score in math was 240, a two-point drop compared to two years ago. The eight grade math score fell from 285 to 282.

In reading, the eighth grade scores dropped by three points, from 288 to 265, while the fourth grade reading score remained virtually unchanged.

Student performance was also measured by achievement in three categories: basic, proficient, and advanced. Students reaching proficiency demonstrate mastery over a subject area. In math, there was a two-point decline in the percentage of fourth and eighth graders scoring at or above proficient. In reading, the percentage of fourth grade students scoring at or above proficient didn’t change significantly, and the percentage of eighth graders scoring at or above proficient declined by two points.

“The recent release of the NAEP scores once again demonstrates what educators have said all along. The effectiveness of a system cannot be judged by a single test score. Scores should be viewed in context, over time and, just because a single test scores goes down (or up) it does not represent the complexity of the system or mean good things are not happening,” García said.

García cited several examples of the good news in education.  “High school graduation rates have increased, the drop-out rate for Hispanic students has decreased and the number of minority students going to college has been rising. We are more focused than ever on closing the opportunity gaps. The opportunity to learn is the foundation of everything. The NAEP scores are just another piece of the puzzle that provides information we need to ensure all students succeed.”

A main piece to this “puzzle” includes the effect of poverty, with more than half of the nation’s public school children living in poverty. García underscored that the NEA President: NAEP Results Signal What Needs to Change to Better Serve Students - NEA Today:

Democracy 'Experiments': Alternatives to Traditional Schools - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Democracy 'Experiments': Alternatives to Traditional Schools - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

Democracy 'Experiments': Alternatives to Traditional Schools 

Deborah Meier continues her conversation with Harry Boyte. To read their full exchange, please visit here.

Dear Harry and friends,

Democracy does, indeed, become an empty word in the absence of any real experience with it—lived experience. One place we might provide such experience is in schools dependent on precisely such a "democratic public." It's a place that families, students, and staff have the opportunity to test out their own and the institution's power to learn about how democracy might work in the "real world." We not only waste that opportunity but we do precisely the opposite. We do some fake exercises in trivializing democracy—meaningless voting for our favorite color, mascot, et al. for kids, and not much more for adults, except behind closed doors.  And then too often the adults exercise their power only over younger and less powerful "children," not with peers, and not with the authorities who make the decisions they must live by. Kids watch and learn—over 12 to 14 years of impressionable youth. Most also note that their families—especially if they are poor or nonwhite—have little power. Growing up is not liberating but more of the same.

Yes, the word "commonwealth"—both words imbedded in it—is a nice way of viewing what's public: what belongs to us all. I have perhaps less scorn for political parties and ideologies than you do. Perhaps that's the "difference" I hope I can bridge—or really better understand—between us.

When people ask me, what would you recommend as an alternative to our current public education system—can your "kind of" work be spread to scale? I feel obliged to come up with suggestions both short- and long-term.

For instance, in the early 1990s we invented a possible answer that, alas, we were never able to test out. Some 100 plus K-12 schools in NYC proposed a large-scale experiment, serving about 50,000 students and representative of the city as a whole. Our aim: to demonstrate the value of greater school/community-based autonomy including show-casing alternative systems of accountability. Annenberg offered us 50 million dollars to try it out. The mayor, NYC chancellor, NYC board of education, the state superintendent of schools, and the American Federation of Teachers local chapter signed on. Two local universities agreed to study our work over five years both statistically and ethnographically. If we hadn't been stopped by a new chancellor and a new state superintendent we'd have learned a lot.

Boston's Pilot schools, a smaller similar effort begun 20 years ago in a much smaller city, was studied with less rigor, but seemed generally successful. But those in power seemed remarkably uninterested in this public solution, and preferred to put their money into charter chains or vouchers.

Similarly, 39 NYC high schools have pioneered for more than 20 years a state-approved alternative system of assessment—the Consortium of schools has been studied and found successful. Again with relatively little attention. Amazing.

So I'm "desperate" to find ways to make these alternatives better understood and explored because they were deliberate attempts to explore what democratic reforms might look like: to persuade, not to mandate. Some of the young admirers of these efforts feel stymied and turn to opening "mom and pop" small charters with more autonomy but where accountability consists primarily in test scores.  

How can we break through the silence by making these public alternatives more visible before they die off as their autonomies are chipped away?

Deb

Democracy 'Experiments': Alternatives to Traditional Schools - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have ‘Got to Go’ - The New York Times

At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have ‘Got to Go’ - The New York Times:

At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have ‘Got to Go’

From the time Folake Ogundiran’s daughter started kindergarten at aSuccess Academy charter school in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the girl struggled to adjust to its strict rules.

She racked up demerits for not following directions or not keeping her hands folded in her lap. Sometimes, after being chastised, she threw tantrums. She was repeatedly suspended for screaming, throwing pencils, running away from school staff members or refusing to go to another classroom for a timeout.

One day last December, the school’s principal, Candido Brown, called Ms. Ogundiran and said her daughter, then 6, was having a bad day. Mr. Brown warned that if she continued to do things that were defiant and unsafe — including, he said, pushing or kicking, moving chairs or tables, or refusing to go to another classroom — he would have to call 911, Ms. Ogundiran recalled. Already feeling that her daughter was treated unfairly, she went to the school and withdrew her on the spot.

Success Academy, the high-performing charter school network in New York City, has long been dogged by accusations that its remarkable accomplishments are due, in part, to a practice of weeding out weak or difficult students. The network has always denied it. But documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with 10 current and former Success employees at five schools suggest that some administrators in the network have singled out children they would like to see leave.

At Success Academy Fort Greene, the same day that Ms. Ogundiran heard from the principal, her daughter’s name was one of 16 placed on a list drawn up at his direction and shared by school leaders.

The heading on the list was “Got to Go.”

Nine of the students on the list later withdrew from the school. Some of their parents said in interviews that while their children attended Success, their lives were upended by repeated suspensions and frequent demands that they pick up their children early or meet with school or network staff members. Four of the parents said that school or network employees told them explicitly that the school, whose oldest students are now in the third grade, was not right for their children and that they should go elsewhere.

The current and former employees said they had observed similar practices at other Success schools. According to those employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs or their relationships with people still at the network, school leaders and network staff members explicitly talked about suspending students or calling parents into frequent meetings as ways to force parents to fall in line or prompt them to withdraw their children.

Last year, for instance, the principal of Success Academy Harlem 2 Upper, Lavinia Mackall, told teachers not to automatically send annual re-enrollment forms home to certain students, because the school did not want those students to come back, two former members of the school’s staff said. Ms. Mackall said that her comments had been misinterpreted and that she was trying to encourage parents to take the school’s requirements seriously, but that she also did not believe the school was right for all students.

In another example, a current employee said, a network lawyer in a conversation with colleagues described a particularly unruly student’s withdrawal as “a big win” for the school.

In a written response to questions, Success Academy’s spokeswoman, Ann Powell, said that the “Got to Go” list was a mistake and that the network quickly got wind of it and reprimanded Mr. Brown, the principal.

Ms. Powell said that Success schools did not push children out, and that At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have ‘Got to Go’ - The New York Times:

Connecticut BEWARE of Governor Malloy’s most fiscally irresponsible proposal yet. - Wait What?

Connecticut BEWARE of Governor Malloy’s most fiscally irresponsible proposal yet. - Wait What?:

Connecticut BEWARE of Governor Malloy’s most fiscally irresponsible proposal yet.

“Gov. Dannel P. Malloy outlined Wednesday a sweeping plan to overhaul state government’s pension system.”  – CT Mirror 10-29-2015

Governor Dannel Malloy’s state budget, that took effect last July 1, is already a quarter of a billion dollars in deficit and the problem is actually far worse.

Next year’s state budget is even more out of balance and after the next election, when legislators reconvene in January 2017, Connecticut will be facing a two-year General Fund Budget Deficit of $1.6 Billion … YES, A DEFICIT OF $1.6 BILLION … [A deficit of at least $927 million in FY 2018 and $831 million in FY 2019.]

In order to address that problem, Governor Dannel Malloy is proposing to dramatically change the way Connecticut funds its state employee pension system.

The maneuver is intended to reduce the amount of money the State of Connecticut puts into its pension fund in the short-term – thereby reducing the hole in Malloy’s state budget.

However, by failing to make the required pension payments in the years to come, Malloy’s plan would shift as much as $10 billion dollars onto the backs of our children.

If Malloy’s plan is adopted, the additional spending would start in 2033.  While it seems years away, the fact is that a child born today will turn 17 in 2033.  Connecticut, like the United States, already taken on too much debt.  Making the required pension payments as we go forward will not be easy, but shifting the burden to our children and their future is even worse.

Malloy’s proposal is complex and thus will get limited media coverage, or worse, no Connecticut BEWARE of Governor Malloy’s most fiscally irresponsible proposal yet. - Wait What?:

Demand Better Schools, Not Fewer Tests - Bloomberg View

Demand Better Schools, Not Fewer Tests - Bloomberg View:
Demand Better Schools, Not Fewer Tests

President Barack Obama is in danger of squandering one of his most important legacies -- better public education policies -- and doing real harm to our poorest students and America’s future.

Over the weekend, the president and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called for limiting the amount of time that students spend taking tests. It’s an unfortunate and tragically oversimplified response to the challenges facing our schools -- challenges made plain by U.S. test results released Wednesday, which show that students have lost ground in math for the first time since 1990.

Common Core

To improve education, parents and teachers need to know how well our students -- of all ethnic and racial backgrounds -- are learning. That’s especially true in communities where schools are the best hope for escaping poverty. Parents deserve to know how schools compare with one another so that they can demand improvements where they are needed and hold schools accountable for delivering results. The same is true for principals and elected officials, to say nothing of taxpayers. That’s why accurate information on student learning is so crucial -- and like it or not, high-quality testing is an essential element of that.

Until last weekend, the Obama administration had rightly emphasized the importance of using student-performance data to ensure accountability and drive school improvement. It has also supported governors and school superintendents who are raising the bar for student achievement, especially by creating and adopting Common Core standards that are tied to college and career readiness. Yet now that results from tests aligned to these standards are showing just how many students are not on track for college, the public backlash against the tests seems to have given Obama and Duncan a case of cold feet. That’s deeply regrettable.

U.S. students once led the world in college graduation, but no longer, and our public-school students are in the middle of the pack, at the precise moment when people around the world are becoming ever more educated. The National Assessment of Educational Progress -- also known as “the nation’s report card” -- has long made clear just how poorly American schools serve children. The latest report was released Wednesday, and it shows that in reading and math, only one-third of eighth-grade students are meeting the national standard.

Today, the biggest threat to American might is not any one country or terrorist group. It is our collective unwillingness to confront mediocrity in our schools. In the ultracompetitive global economy, the U.S. is facing a terrible mismatch between high-skill jobs and our labor pool. This problem will grow worse over time unless we expect more of ourselves and our students -- and hold everyone, including teachers and school leaders, accountable for success. Caving to pressure from union leaders and a vocal subset of parents who want to end testing and accountability will make it harder to achieve that success.

It’s true that some states and districts need to do a better job of coordinating tests, to prevent redundancy, and using them effectively. But that does not require an act of Congress. And the argument that teachers spend too much time “teaching to the test” misses the crucial point: When curriculum and instruction are aligned with high-quality tests, as they often are in Advanced Placement classes, classroom work will prepare students for success.

What’s more, students will face tests throughout their life. They must learn to cope with the emotional stress that comes with the experience, particularly because many companies (including mine) use tests in hiring. I understand: Test-taking is no one’s idea of fun, but it is part of life and shielding students from it does them a great disservice.

Using testing to examine a teacher’s impact on student learning is also important. Studies show that the single best reform we can implement is to put an excellent teacher in every class. Leaving the lowest-performing teachers in front of students sets them back and hurts their career trajectory. Parents deserve transparent and objective data to assess teachers and schools. Just ask yourself: Would you want your child in a classroom with a teacher who helps students exceed expectations -- or one whose students consistently fall below expectations?

Sadly, more often than not, poor children end up with teachers whom middle- and upper-income parents would refuse to accept for their children. One of the best ways to help identify such teachers is via regular data on student performance.

If we want to give all our children the skills they need to succeed, there’s no getting around testing -- and as bad as a federal limit would be, Congress has an even worse idea. Republican-sponsored legislation would require changes to state accountability systems that would give schools incentive to keep kids out of testing -- an odd and disgraceful instance of conservatives making common cause with the teachers union to impose a federal mandate on states.

The Common Core and other tough new standards adopted by states, along with the tests aligned to them, are exposing just how far our schools need to go. We ought to embrace that challenge, and make it a national mission to meet it in the near future. The president and the secretary of education have made a grave mistake by reflexively seeking to limit testing. If Congress embraces their politically driven proposal, it will come at the expense of our most at-risk children -- making economic growth, along with social justice and racial progress, harder to achieve.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net

Demand Better Schools, Not Fewer Tests - Bloomberg View:

California students score near bottom in math and reading

California students score near bottom in math and reading:

California students score near bottom in math and reading

California students' test scores are among the worst in the nation.

The state that some call the "world's 8th largest economy" is producing students that score among the lowest in the United States in reading and math, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, gathered test scores from American students in the fourth and eighth grades to provide a picture of educational achievement at different levels.

Fourth graders in California performed worse than students in every state except a few: Nevada, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Eighth graders in California fared better but were still roughly in the bottom 15 states.

Separately, U.S. News & World Report reported Wednesday that scores for reading and math among fourth and eighth graders across the United States dropped from 2013 to 2015.

Data compiled by Pew Research put the United States somewhere in the middle of the pack in math and science education globally, ahead of countries such as Israel, Brazil and Indonesia, but behind countries such as the Ireland, Taiwan and Russia.

Read the full article in the San Jose Mercury News. California students score near bottom in math and reading:

Data: Majority of Nevadans seeking school vouchers live in upscale suburbs - Las Vegas Sun News

Data: Majority of Nevadans seeking school vouchers live in upscale suburbs - Las Vegas Sun News:

Data: Majority of Nevadans seeking school vouchers live in upscale suburbs

This week, the Nevada State Treasurer’s Office released a trove of data regarding applications for Nevada’s education savings accounts.

It’s the first peek into who is applying for Nevada’s voucher-like program, the most sweeping of its kind in the entire country. The data dump included a breakdown of 3,067 applications by categories like the age of the student and economic status.

Some of the highlights: A majority of the applications come from Clark County, most were filed on behalf of kids ages 5 through 8, 650 applicants claimed to be within 185 percent of the federal poverty line and 207 involve a student with a disability, according to the treasurer’s office.

But the most interesting data came in the form of a breakdown of all the applications by ZIP code. And that data tells an interesting story:

A majority of applications come from the wealthier suburbs of Las Vegas

This shouldn’t come as a big surprise to many opponents of the quasi-voucher program, who tend to criticize the system as catering to wealthy families who want to get out of the public school system. Of the 10 ZIP codes with the most ESA applications, seven are in communities located outside of the 215 Beltway. The ZIP code with the most applications is 89052 in Henderson, which encompasses Henderson Executive Airport and the Anthem master-planned community. Of those same 10 ZIP codes, the least wealthy is 89117 — covering parts of the west valley including Peccole Ranch and the Lakes — with a median household income of around $54,000, which is still well above the state average. The top 10 ZIP codes account for a full third of all applications submitted for the ESA program.

Very few applications are coming from the inner city

Perhaps the most striking piece of data is the relatively low number of applications coming from the inner city of Las Vegas, the home of many low-income, minority and English-language learning Data: Majority of Nevadans seeking school vouchers live in upscale suburbs - Las Vegas Sun News:

So what if teachers hate No Child Left Behind? - The Washington Post

So what if teachers hate No Child Left Behind? - The Washington Post:

So what if teachers hate No Child Left Behind?

On a warm September evening along coastal Georgia, Lily Eskelsen García, the face of 3 million teachers, paused to balance another plate of fried chicken and shake another hand. It was early evening and she was standing in a room at the Savannah Arts Academy, surrounded by parents, teachers and students.

For 12 hours, García, president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, had been visiting schools, taking photos with teachers and chatting up students. Now it was time to give The Speech, the one about how standardized testing has ruined public education.

“No Child Left Untested is an unmitigated disaster that has hurt kids for 13 years,” she said, referring to the Bush-era law that relied on test scores to measure progress at disadvantaged schools and to evaluate teachers. “It’s reduced what teachers are supposed to do to what will fit on a standardized test, and I don’t know one kid in the world who comes that way. Shame on us if we can’t find a better solution.”

The Speech was virtually the same at the other stops. She never used notes. She looked at ease, smiled and made eye contact. Before and after The Speech, she always asked students: What do you love about your school?

Her two-week back-to-school Opportunity for All Tour was a listening tour, photo op and pep rally blended together. Last year, she did her first tour in California. She said she chose to head south this year because “this is where so many inequities still exist.”

In 19 stops in four Southern states, and in various town halls and television interviews, what García kept digging at was: What makes a school a community hub where teachers and students can thrive?

She asked what kids loved about their schools to show how absurd it was to believe test scores could ever fully capture a school’s strengths and challenges.

García visits a classroom. At every stop, she asks students what they love about their school as a way of showing some of the things test scores fail to capture about a school’s challenges and strengths. (Kevin Lock)

The answers usually ran along the lines of “I love my teacher.” She tweeted one student’s response that his instructor’s teaching “makes us feel like we are in paradise.”

That may sound corny, but pumping up teachers is part of García’s job, just as much as fighting back against their critics, although she is often more consumed by the latter.

García is the face of the union’s year-old campaign against “toxic testing.” Teachers nationwide say the imperatives of high-stakes testing have robbed So what if teachers hate No Child Left Behind? - The Washington Post:

Unions Are Basically Dead and That's Really Bad - The Atlantic

Unions Are Basically Dead and That's Really Bad - The Atlantic:
Farewell to America's Middle Class: Unions Are Basically Dead

The U.S. is one of the only rich countries that has reached the (incorrect) conclusion that organizing workers is counterproductive.

For a group of presidential candidates who claim to be interested in the plight of the American worker, it was surprising that the five Democrats onstage for their first debate two weeks ago didn’t once say the word “union.” Well, technically, that’s not correct—Bernie Sanders did mention the watchdog group Citizens Union—but the point remains.

A raft of research—some new, some old—suggests that it’s a shame that unions were absent in Democrats’ most publicized recent conversation. Some of that research is coming from unlikely places; the International Monetary Fund, for instance, recommended reviving unions as a way for democracies to grow their economies and boost productivity.

In the U.S., where less than 9 percent of private-sector workers are organized, they could use a revival. The U.S. has one of the lowest unionization rates in the world, far behind Germany and Canada, and closer to Mexico and South Korea.

The U.S.’s low unionization rates come with consequences for its workers. It leads rich nations in low-wage jobs—more than 20 percent of jobs pay less than two-thirds of the median wage. And the U.S. ranks in the bottom third of countries in terms of its work-life balance. Americans work about 1,790 hours per year on average, but workers in most wealthier nations work less than 1,600. 11.8 percent of American adults work long hours; less than 1 percent of Dutch workers put in more than 50 hours a week.

Reviving unions could be a way to counter these trends. The IMF concluded that countries with higher rates of union coverage enjoy lower rates of inequality and lower rates of poverty. Its researchers reasoned that because globalization and technology affect just about every nation, differences in unionization rates and labor regulations are more likely to explain differences in inequality across nations. The White House and the American Sociological Review, a mainstream academic journal, both came to similar conclusions about the links between declining unions and rising inequality.

In all this research, the causal link identified was pretty much the same: Unions reduce inequality by bringing up the wages of middle-income and the lowest-paid workers. And workers in unions aren’t just getting better wages—they’re also getting better compensation in general. Unionized workers are 28 percent more likely to be covered by employer-provided health insurance and 54 percent more likely to have a pension.

Who covers these raises? Managers’ and executives’ wages tend to be slightly lower at businesses with unionized workforces. Sometimes, though, no one’s taking pay cuts—unions have also been shown to boost workers’ productivity, bringing in more money for the firm overall. Unions appear to raise productivity for an interesting reason: Employers of unionized workers tend to spend more on updating their machines and computers and training their workers. They’re more incentivized to do so when an hour of work is relatively more expensive, and this raises productivity overall. This boost also goes toward explaining why unions have no discernible detrimental effect on unemployment.

And that’s only what happens at a single company. When unions represent their workers, they often push for things—higher taxes on the wealthiest, Social-Security benefits increases, and better public education, to name a few—that benefit even non-unionized workers. It’s been shown that poorer kids have a better chance of being upwardly mobile if their parents are in unions or they live in areas with high union-membership rates. So it’s no wonder that in the relative absence of unions, there is more income inequality.

If unions are so good, then why aren’t workers flocking to them? Many employers resist anything that would give workers more leverage, and they construct barriers (some of them illegal). The Atlantic has reported on stories of workers at Unions Are Basically Dead and That's Really Bad - The Atlantic:

Unions form national coalition to ward off attack by right wing | United Federation of Teachers

Unions form national coalition to ward off attack by right wing | United Federation of Teachers:

Unions form national coalition to ward off attack by right wing

The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have joined together with other publicsector unions to combat the right’s attempt to use a case before the U.S. Supreme Court to hamstring them financially by abolishing agency fees for public-sector workers, UFT President Michael Mulgrew reported to the Delegate Assembly on Oct. 14.

Mulgrew said a loss in the case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which he described as a “Hail Mary pass by the people who hate us,” would drastically diminish organized labor’s ability to support its members and to defend the middle class and public services including education.

Friedrichs is another attempt by “a small group of people who are determined to destroy the middle class in this country because they know that they can collect more wealth for themselves,” he said.

That small group, Mulgrew noted, includes the hedge fund-backed “education reformers” with whom teachers unions have battled for years.

“People understand that the education reformers’ ideas have failed,” Mulgrew told the delegates. “But it was never about their ideas. It was always about destabilizing the unions.”

Labor unions are a target of the education reformers, he said, because “it’s just organized labor that has been able to stand up to them.”

Mulgrew also exposed what he called the lie at the heart of their anti-union argument. “They will tell people that you must be part of the union,” he said. “It is absolutely not true.”

As Mulgrew explained, teachers and other workers in unionized jobs can sign a card to become a dues-paying union member or can choose not to join the union and instead pay an agency fee to cover the cost of union-provided services they receive, such as subsidized workshops, the ability to file grievances; negotiations on their behalf; and all the other rights safeguarded in the collective-bargaining agreement.

The other two unions in the national coalition are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union.Unions form national coalition to ward off attack by right wing | United Federation of Teachers:

Kaya Henderson’s Calendar: Fundraising, Fundraising, and More Fundraising - Loose Lips

Kaya Henderson’s Calendar: Fundraising, Fundraising, and More Fundraising - Loose Lips:

Kaya Henderson’s Calendar: Fundraising, Fundraising, and More Fundraising

On a given day in the course of running the 47,000-student D.C. Public Schools system, Chancellor Kaya Henderson could be handing out iPads, reading to elementary school kids, or haggling with a councilmember.

But running one of the country’s most-watched public school systems means something else, too: hitting up a group of well-heeled donors for cash and ideas. Like her controversial predecessor, Michelle Rhee, Henderson has found her way onto the circuit of private groups hoping to influence the District’s public schools.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, LL obtained Henderson’s calendar between January 2013 and August 2015 to see who’s working with the chancellor behind the scenes. It turns out that while Henderson has avoided becoming a Rhee-style lightning rod in the education wars, she shares with her predecessor many of the same backers in the world of school reform.

Unlike Rhee, Henderson doesn’t have a documentary like Waiting for Superman to make her a star amongst education wonks. Still, she has kept up Rhee’s jet-setting schedule.

Like any good local District political figure, Henderson uses the Old Ebbitt Grill like a second office, but she’s just as likely to be headed to Croatia or China. Henderson has made it to big-deal conferences like the Allen & Co. Sun Valley confab, where she talked schools with bigwigs whom one attendee described as “100 percent of the one percent.”

Henderson hasn’t shrunk from the public profile established by her predecessor. In 2013, according to her calendar, she received media training help from Vince Gray’s 2010 campaign adviser Mo Elleithee. She meets with celebrities like politico Donna Brazile and basketball star Magic Johnson.

Henderson has also been talking to Catharine Bellinger, now the head of the Democrats for Education Reform D.C. political action committee aimed at pushing reform-minded candidates in the District. DFER has been staunchly pro-charter and anti-teachers union.

Another carry-over from the previous administration: Rhee herself, who occasionally schedules phone calls with Henderson. Ex-mayor and Rhee patron Adrian Fenty made his own meeting with Henderson back in 2013, on behalf of an education technology company he was working for.

Despite trips to conferences as far away as Turkey, Henderson doesn’t have to leave the District to call up wealthy donors with big ideas about DCPS. Kaya Henderson’s Calendar: Fundraising, Fundraising, and More Fundraising - Loose Lips:

Um, Kentucky — and other reactions to the national drop in NAEP scores - The Washington Post

Um, Kentucky — and other reactions to the national drop in NAEP scores - The Washington Post:

Um, Kentucky — and other reactions to the national drop in NAEP scores

The 2015 numbers for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are out, and scores are down. In fact, as my Post colleague Emma Brown reports, math scores for fourth-graders and eighth-graders across the United States dropped this year, for the first time since the federal government began administering the exams in 1990. Eighth-grade scores dropped while fourth-grade performance was stagnant compared with 2013, the last time the test was administered.

[U.S. performance slips on national test]

[What the national decline in NAEP test scores really means]

Here’s reaction to the NAEP scores from various corners of the education world:

Diane Ravitch, president of the Network for Public Education

The decline in NAEP scores is a wake-up call to the nation. It is a clear indication that No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have failed to improve our children’s education. Educators have warned for years that the strategy of test-and-punish was a grave error. President George W. Bush launched these so-called reforms, and President Obama built on Bush’s flawed foundation by using test scores to fire teachers and principals and close thousands of public schools. It is past time to abandon the failed Bush-Obama “reforms.”

Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute

This morning the latest scores from the 4th and 8th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress – the so-called Nation’s Report Card – came out, and the story isn’t very good, at least upon first examination. Average scores in 4th and 8th grade math, and in 8th grade reading, were down from 2013, and essentially 

Um, Kentucky — and other reactions to the national drop in NAEP scores - The Washington Post:

Cuomo names Common Core critic to key education post | Long Island Business News

Cuomo names Common Core critic to key education post | Long Island Business News:

Cuomo names Common Core critic to key education post

Governor Andrew Cuomo today announced that Jere Hochman, a school superintendent and former English teacher who has been a vocal critic of the Common Core, was named deputy secretary for education.

Hochman since 2008 has been the superintendent of the Bedford Central School District in New York. He also served as a teacher, principal and superintendent in school districts in St. Louis and Amherst, Mass.

He in 1990 obtained a doctorate in education from Teachers College of Columbia University, after obtaining a bachelors and master’s degree from the University of Missouri in St. Louis.

“We are certain that our state and all our schoolchildren will be well-served by Jere Hochman’s efforts in his new position,” New York State Council of School Superintendents Executive Director Robert Reidy, Jr. said

While his experience in education itself might make him a timely choice, Hochman also has been outspoken about his concerns regarding the Common Core and its implementation.

“The whole accountability, ‘gotcha’ culture is so out of control that we need a fresh start,” Hochman told Lohud.com when he was president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents. “The standards are OK, but every problem is connected to the Common Core. New York needs to take a bold stance so we can focus on educating kids.”

Cuomo said Hochman “has spent his career working to strengthen learning environments and make schools a better place for all. But he also has been critical of many actions.

Diane Ravitch, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education who now teaches at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, called the appointment the “best thing Andrew Cuomo has done in education.”

Hochman in a response to a column by Tom Friedman in The New York Times criticized a long list of measures by the federal government that, he said, have failed to work.

“They put in annual high-stakes testing – that didn’t work. They labeled districts – that didn’t work. They tried small high schools – that didn’t work. They diverted funds to charters – that’s not working,” Hochman wrote. “They beat up on teachers – that didn’t work. They’ve prescribed curriculum, scripts, and more testing – that’s not working. So – why not blame parents until that doesn’t work?”

Hochman brings 40 years of public education experience, including 20 years as a superintendent in

Read more: http://libn.com/2015/10/28/cuomo-names-common-core-critic-to-key-education-post/#ixzz3pxzjFIA4