For Reformers: An Important Paper on Worker Compensation and Incentives | Paul Bruno

For Reformers: An Important Paper on Worker Compensation and Incentives | Paul Bruno:

For Reformers: An Important Paper on Worker Compensation and Incentives

By PAUL BRUNO | Published: MARCH 19, 2014

I’ve written before that education reformers often have an unfortunate lack of perspective about the way the world works outside of education. This means that reformers often unjustifiably assume – implicitly or explicitly – that their proposed changes would make education more like other sectors. This assumption, in turn, makes reformers’ proposals seem more intuitive and leads reformers to underestimate their potential disadvantages.

As a result, if I had to pick one study that I think all would-be education reformers should read, it would be a paper that I once found via Bryan Caplan. It’s an old paper – from 1988 – and it’s not even about education. Rather, it’s an examination of why most companies don’t use the sorts of compensation and incentive schemes that a simplistic understanding of economics might imply they do or should. Here’s the abstract:

A thorough understanding of internal incentive structures is critical to developing a viable theory of the firm, since these incentives determine to a large extent how individuals inside an 

KILROY WAS HERE AND RETRIBUTION WASN'T FAR BEHIND - Perdaily.com

KILROY WAS HERE AND RETRIBUTION WASN'T FAR BEHIND - Perdaily.com:



KILROY WAS HERE AND RETRIBUTION WASN'T FAR BEHIND

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

How do you pick a title for a story that's so preposterous?  You might
call this one , The Curious Story of Lorcan Kilroy or The Truth Won't
Set You Free. But, alas, it's all true. As it now stands, Kilroy, who
was an art teacher at Van Nuys High School, finds himself excluded
from his classroom, and in a letter (Link A (1).pdf) dated Feb 28,
2014, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing has revoked his credential.
Kilroy claims they listed  "significant publicity"  in connection with
his harsh letter to parents featured on  NBC and his interview on  "The Morning Answer"
KRLA a few months ago. Click here to view the NBC spot.
Kilroy states he sent the harsh letter on Jan 17 2012 because LAUSD
School deans would not respond to his referral of his student for a slur- the student called him a "faggot," because they were retaliating against him for a civil rights complaint he already filed. That civil rights complaint was about his special education students not letting to choose their electives.

A pertinent feature of these actions is that the CTC only requires a ten
day suspension in order to revoke a teacher's credential. It "seems" that
district deemed the letter to be too harsh but Kilroy has reported to
the Department of Justice that he is being retaliated against by CTC,
Gov. Brown's office, and Superintendent Deasy for being a whistleblower and
attempting to expose  Deasy and top LAUSD administrators for "covering
up" the non-consequence of a secreted  abuse incident LINK E.pdf.
Kilroy claims the incident happened  at  Van Nuys High school around
the time of the Miramonte scandal. Kilroy filed a federal lawsuit on

UPDATE Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Ames Middle School Victory despite Marines at polling places + Guzzardi wins in a rout

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Guzzardi wins in a rout:

Jay Travis: 'It would be an injustice to concede before every vote is counted'

I just spoke with Jay Travis who was on her way out of the Board of Elections. She's there today asking for a full accounting of every vote taken in the 26th District. As of now she is said to be trailing the incumbent Christian Mitchell by only a few hundred votes.Says Jay, Many were not given a proper ballot in over 15 precincts. In many precincts, including mine, voters were improperly turned a

by Mike Klonsky / 10min

Ames Middle School Victory despite Marines at polling places

D. McCoy photoWhile pro-Russian troops were surrounding the Crimean naval base, uniformed U.S. Marines were outside of  polling places on Chicago's northwest side where voting on whether or not to turn Ames Middle School into a Marine military academy. According to reports, the Marines were trying to persuade voters towards the militarization of Ames.But voters weren't intimidated. Two out of thre

by Mike Klonsky / 15min 

Guzzardi wins in a rout

-- M. Klonsky photo

State House - District 39 - Dem Primary

March 18, 2014 - 11:04PM CT

Illinois - 91 of 91 Precincts Reporting - 100%

Name Votes Vote %

Guzzardi, Will 5,245 61%

Berrios, Toni (i) 3,402 39%

All you had to do was walk into the Logan Square Auditorium on Kedzie last night and take a look around to see why Will Guzzardi won big. The room was packed, not only with a diverse, raucous crowd of celebratory election night supporters, but also with a cadre of skilled campaigners, strategists, media, supporting politicians and field organizers young and old, who knew how to win an election and did.

-- M.Klonsky photo

In the end, despite the usual last-minute polling place shenanigans,  it wasn't even close. Toni Berriosconceded early, a little after 9 p.m. In an election that was watched closely statewide and even nationally, Guzzardi won in a 22-point rout over the machine's ncumbent, Berrios, the daughter of Cook County Democratic Party Chairman Joe"Big Daddy" 

3-18-14 Wait What? The Malloy Administration’s Big Lie: Parents Can’t Opt Out. - Wait What?

The Malloy Administration’s Big Lie: Parents Can’t Opt Out. - Wait What?:

The Malloy Administration’s Big Lie: Parents Can’t Opt Out.

Governor Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor and his band of corporate education industry reforms continue their crusade to persuade Connecticut parents that they don’t have the right to opt out their children from the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Field Test. Pryor claims that federal and state laws trump parental rights. He is lying… […]The post The Malloy Administration’s

by jonpelto / 20min 

 

3-17-14 Wait What?

Wait What?: Testimony on the Common Core Bill at last week’s hearingDespite the best efforts of the Malloy administration and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly, the Education Committee conducted a hearing on legislation impacting the he Common Core on March 12, 2014. Connecticut residents provided and submitted incredibly powerful testimony.  Here are just a few of the best examples.  Mor

by mike simpson / 8h 

The Education of Mr. Gates | Truth in American Education

The Education of Mr. Gates | Truth in American Education:

The Education of Mr. Gates

Filed in Common Core State Standards by Ze'ev Wurman on March 19, 2014 • 0 Comments

I read the advice Bill Gates offered at AEI couple of days back, and I thought Mr. Gates can benefit from some education.  My response is bold and italicized.

———————
OK. So what is the Common Core? It’s a very simple thing. It’s a written explanation of what knowledge kids should achieve at very various milestones in their educational career. So it’s writing down in sixth grade which math things should you know, in ninth grade which math things should you know, in twelfth grade which math things should you know.

That, indeed, is what content standards are supposed to be.

And you might be surprised to learn how poor those I’ll call those standards, but to be clear, it’s not curriculum. It’s not a textbook. It’s not a way of teaching. It’s just writing down should you know this part of algebra? Should you know trigonometric functions? Should you know be able to 

 

Rick Santorum Joins Fight Against Common Core

Former U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum joined the fight against Common Core.  Yesterday through his 501(c)4 organization, Patriot Voices, he sent the following email:It is clear that our country’s education system is not working. Even those who created Common Core agree that our public education system is flawed, but the problem is that Common Core advocates decided the answe

by Shane Vander Hart / 2h 

Privacy Legislation: How to protect your children and negotiate from a position of strength (Data opt-out) | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Privacy Legislation: How to protect your children and negotiate from a position of strength (Data opt-out) | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Zesty Louisiana Education Politics

Privacy Legislation: How to protect your children and negotiate from a position of strength (Data opt-out)

Posted on March 18, 2014

2

Tomorrow the Louisiana House Education Committee is poised to hear testimony on several bills related to protecting the rights of parents and students in regards to privacy. (I plan to stop by around lunchtime to meet with folks and compare notes, msg me if you want to try to meet up. . .) From what I have been hearing there are forces and plans already set in motion to confound any attempts at producing meaningful legislation. I’ve learned that LDOE will be calling in supporters of Big Data to scare legislators with the implications of scaling back our data collections. This is strategy that has been working well in other States and of course this should be entirely expected.

The Louisiana Department of Education needs your children’s data to justify its existence.

They need your data to have something to sell to inBloom and Big Data aggregators and merchants like them.

They need your data to produce their SPS scores which enable them to take over your local schools and turn them into shadowy RSD and charter schools that operate beyond any meaningful oversight.

They need your detailed data to calculate their VAM scores to make a case for firing experienced teachers. LDOE needs your data to make it easy for Course Choice providers to peddle their pseudo-educational wares to our children and stick us tax-payers with the bill.

LDOE needs data to identify students that are eligible for their “voucher” program which they 

Research Study: VAM-Based Bias |:

Research Study: VAM-Based Bias

 Researchers from Indiana and Michigan State University, in a study released in the fall of 2012 but that recently came through my email again (thanks to Diane Ravitch), deserves a special post here as it relates to not only VAMs but also the extent to which all VAM models yield biased results.

In this study (albeit still not peer reviewed, so please interpret accordingly), researchers “investigate whether commonly used value-added estimation strategies produce accurate estimates of teacher effects under a variety of…student grouping and teacher assignment scenarios.” Researchers find that no VAM “accurately captures true teacher effects in all scenarios, and the potential for misclassifying teachers as high- or low-performing can be substantial [emphasis added].”

While these researchers suggest different statistical controls to yield less biased results (i.e., a dynamic ordinary least square [DOLS] estimator), the bottom line is that VAMs cannot “effectively isolate the ‘true’ contribution of teachers and schools to achievement growth” over time. Whether this will ever be possible given mainly the extraneous variables that are outside of the control of teachers and schools, but that continue to confound and complicate VAM-based estimates deeming them (still) unreliable and invalid, particularly for the high-stakes decision-making purposes for which VAMs are increasingly being tasked, is highly suspect.

The only way we might reach truer/more valid and less biased results is to randomly assign students and teachers to classrooms, which as evidenced in a recent article one of my doctoral students and I recently had published in the highly esteemed American 

Big pushback against Christie, Cami | Bob Braun's Ledger

Big pushback against Christie, Cami | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Big pushback against Christie, Cami

A protester holds an anti-Anderson sign at Broad and Market.

Several hundred protesters yesterday shut down  Newark’s central business district in a rush-hour demonstration aimed at showing the growing strength of the organized opposition to the Christie Administration’s “One Newark”  plan that would close neighborhood public schools, expand charter school enrollment, and lay off experienced city teachers despite seniority.

Branden Rippy discusses protest plans with Lt. Robert Sarappa

“We are building our movement,” said Branden Rippey, the head of the Newark Teachers Union’s New Caucus and a lead organizer of the protest march that twice closed down Broad Street, the busiest business 

Hashtag Mayor Joe Petty | Worcester MagWorcester Mag #sayno2joe

Hashtag Mayor Joe Petty | Worcester MagWorcester Mag:

Hashtag Mayor Joe Petty

1  

Written by Walter Bird Jr.  ·  03/17/2014  ·  10:56 am

Posted By Walter Bird Jr.

A minor local Twitter firestorm has erupted over Mayor Joe Petty's move to have the School Committee reconsider votes it took more than a week ago related to a controversial new test for students.

The hash tag #sayno2joe has been created on Twitter and attached to a number of Tweets angrily denouncing Petty's call for reconsideration of several March 6 motions related to the controversial Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exam that will be given to hundreds of students in Worcester in less than two weeks.There has been a push by some critics to allow children to opt out of the test, an element of the educational standard Common Core, despite a legal opinion from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) that no such provision is available.

The committee at its last meeting took a voice-only vote on two motions, according to committee member Tracy O'Connell-Novick. One was her motion of sharing the protocol of how opting students out of the exam with parents, teachers and administrators. Novick also asked to have the protocol included as backup on the agenda for the next committee meeting, Thursday, March 20. A second motion included a number of requests, including one to send a letter to the state modeled after one sent by the Norfolk School District, which is allowing its students to opt out of the test.

In his motion for reconsideration, Petty has included several other items, but Novick says those were not voted on at the previous meeting. The committee also did not take a roll call vote, despite being afforded the opportunity to do so by the mayor.

"We're still going  to allow kids to opt out," says Petty. "You just send the wrong message [by sending a letter to the state]. People still can opt out of the exam if their child doesn't want to take the test."

While it is not unusual for elected bodies to reconsider items - the City Council regularly employs this practice - it is typically done at the same meeting.

Petty's move has spurred a Twitter movement of sorts and has given birth to #sayno2joe. One Tweet says: "@MayorPetty parents have right to refuse their kids useless tests!" Another asks: "Can the ppl of Worcester, MA do a re-vote for @mayorpetty's position?" A separate Tweet says: "Mayors promise to uphold dem! Parents refusing tests not used to help kids democracy." And another Tweet states: Hey @MayorPetty standing in way of parent right w refuse tests isn't very democratic!"

Waters accuses LA County of discriminating against minority-run Head Start centers | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC

Waters accuses LA County of discriminating against minority-run Head Start centers | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC:

Waters accuses LA County of discriminating against minority-run Head Start centers

Deepa Fernandes with KPCC staff | March 18th, 2014, 5:21pm

Deepa Fernandes

Congresswoman Maxine Waters surrounded by irate parents and their toddlers at the Los Angeles County Office of Education's Office in Downey

Surrounded by dozens of irate parents and their preschoolers, Congresswoman Maxine Waters held a press conference Tuesday accusing the Los Angeles County Office of Education of discriminating against Head Start programs run by Latinos and African Americans. She’s asking the federal Department of Health and Human Services to investigate.

“Why are they doing this to minorities?” she asked at a press conference outside the agency’s office in Downey.

Waters accused county officials strong-arming the CEO of Kedren Community Health Centers to relinquish its head start contract in January after violations were found. She claims this violates federal Head Start rules, which require notice to parents and a vote by the agency’s board. She said it wasn’t the only instance.

“The other Head Start centers serving the Los Angeles area, Urban League, Delta Sigma Theta, and Federation of Preschool and Early Education Center, were accused of violations, some of which were not substantiated, and given no opportunity by LACOE to appeal," she said in a letter to Daniel Levinson, Inspector General for HHS.

Kendren serves about 2,200 children at 31 sites – about a third of them in South Los Angeles communities like Watts and Cypress Park.

Officials with the L.A. County Office of Education said they will cooperate with any 

School Vouchers, Workman, Dwarf Tossing, Extremist Muslim Cleric: Connections | Reclaim Reform

School Vouchers, Workman, Dwarf Tossing, Extremist Muslim Cleric: Connections | Reclaim Reform:

School Vouchers, Workman, Dwarf Tossing, Extremist Muslim Cleric: Connections

Posted on March 18, 2014by Ken Previti

How could school vouchers, Workman, dwarf tossing, and an extremist Muslim cleric be connected?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

When greed and corruption, even legalized corruption, take precedent over the public good, the propaganda surrounding the greed/corruption hides the web of financial connections.

In Florida recently my state representative, Rich “Ritch” Workman, attempted to legalize the cruelty of dwarf tossing as a game in bars throughout the state. Why? Job creation. As a “quest to seek and destroy unnecessary burdens on the freedom and liberties of people.” Read HERE.

Today, Rep. Workman and other legislators are attempting to pass HB 7099 which will allow corporations to create a voucher plan called the Tax Credit Scholarship Program. For every dollar the corporation gives to the program, the state awards the corporation a dollar in tax credits. (Yes, read that one again.) The state takes money from the education fund and hands it to the corporation as a “credit” for the dollar the corporation gave the voucher program. Hmm… isn’t that how money laundering is done? Read the Palm Beach Post for the vast amounts