For the Record: You Ain’t Done a Thing | Recovery School District | The New Orleans Tribune

For the Record: You Ain’t Done a Thing | A Tribune Editorial | The New Orleans Tribune:

FOR THE RECORD: YOU AIN’T DONE A THING | A TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

It’s been a tough several months on the local public education front: Let’s count the ways:
First, Act 543, which captures local sales and property tax dollars for the use of the Recovery School District and charter school boards that do not answer to the voters and tax payers of New Orleans, passed easily late last year with the help of our local elected officials and leaders.

Then, advocates, community members, alumni and friends of John McDonogh High School were dealt a death blow when the historic school site was recently given to Bricolage Academy, a charter school that has close ties with a number of the key players and organizations in the reform movement and that has received significant financial backing from the Walton Foundation and New Schools for New Orleans.

With our offices across the street from John McDonogh, we have watched in disgust as workers have been sent in recent weeks to clean and clear the school. We assume that it is in preparation of Bricolage’s eventual move to the facility. Perhaps they will get that $35 million renovation John White promised John McDonogh students and staff more than four years ago when he announced that the only way their school could get renovated was if they were taken over by a charter and then reneged on the promise

Next, state Rep. Joe Bouie’s HB 166, which would have returned improved schools to local elected governance (consistent with the intent of the original law) failed 31-60.

If that were not enough, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of wrongfully fired Orleans Parish public school employees, including more than 7,000 mostly Black, veteran teachers who were the backbone of the city’s middle class.

FOR THE RECORD

We could go on with the list of setbacks as it relates to the farce that is being tossed around as education reform. It seems the more we and others aligned against this fake reform—people like veteran educators Raynard Sanders and Lee Barrios, parent advocate Karran Harper Royal, community advocates Brenda Square and teacher and coach Frank Buckley, researchers Barbara Ferguson and Charles Hatfield, education bloggers Mercedes Schneider and Diane Ravitch, and organizations like Justice and Beyond—fight, the more the ground so-called reformers gain.

The truth is, we’ve been feeling like conceding lately.

Why do we persist?

How’s it going to help?

What’s going to change?

This thing appears to be a run-a-way train.

And we can’t stop it.

We have said all of this and more in the past several weeks and months. Yet, here we are again—devoting an entire issue to sharing the truth about the post-Katrina education reform that is hurting local students, marginalizing parents and disenfranchising voters and taxpayers and that will hurt us for generations to come.

Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Surely, we could find other uses for our newsprint and ink.

Well, we do not ever want it to be said that The New Orleans Tribune sat in silence and said nothing while this travesty took place. That’s not what we do or who we are. You expect more from us. We demand more of ourselves. So we would find no joy in saying “we told you so.” We would rather say “so glad we stopped that from happening.” And we hope that every time we raise our voice, others will take heed and join us in a battle we know is righteous. As such, we will go on record now and every chance we get. We will call out the calamity for what it is. We cannot allow defeat to silence our voice. We will not concede—not with the future of our children at stake. The education of children, especially traditionally under-served African-American children, should be no one’s experiment—or meal ticket.

We’re doing it for the record. See, maybe in 20 years, one of the architects of this so-called reform will finally have a crisis of conscience and admit that they were wrong. Maybe it will be John White or Paul Pastorek. Maybe Leslie Jacobs will see the error of her ways. Maybe.

It would be a move reminiscent of President Bill Clinton’s recent acknowledgment of the fact that it was his criminal justice policies that caused and contributed to the mass incarceration problem. Maybe, just maybe in 20 years, President Obama and his education chief Arne Duncan will apologize and admit that the policies they set in motion were deleterious, that the Race to the Top was nothing more than running in place or worse—running backwards

But as it was with Clinton’s mea culpa, even if President Obama and Secretary Duncan apologized in two decades, it would be 20 years too late.

FOR THE RECORD: ISN’T’ IT IRONIC

On the same day that scores of local residents boarded a pair of buses headed to Baton Rouge to support HB 166 as it was taken up by the state House of Representatives, the American Federation for Children was in town for a two-day policy conference. They were here, touting the success of charter schools, talking up the need for reform in education and talking about the parents and children—especially urban parents and children (code for Black, brown and poor) who benefit the most from all of this so-called progress.
We couldn’t help but notice the irony of it all.

We looked at the faces of the people at the AFC summit there to glean talking points to shape and share the education reform narrative in ways that could change policy and minds; and we noted the lack of brown and Black folk. It was striking. Of course, there were a handful, just a handful and likely hand-picked.

So where were all those urban parents and children who benefit so greatly from all of the choice and success that charter schools offer? The AFC has a policy summit in New Orleans—the home of the nation’s only all-charter school district; and not one local parent was in the room when a panel about “transforming” New Orleans was being held. We are told that some had actually been turned away.

We had just left a bunch of urban, Black folk concerned about public education in New Orleans. Of course this group had not been invited to the AFC conference. They were boarding buses at Christian Unity Baptist Church to go to Baton Rouge to support HB 166, the bill authored by state Rep. Joe Bouie.

FOR THE RECORD: ABOUT HB 166

HB 166 would have done one thing and one thing only—return successful schools (their buildings and fiscal resources) from the Recovery School District to local, elected governance. To be sure, not one of those schools would have had to convert from a charter to a direct-run school had Rep. Bouie’s bill passed. The only thing that would have changed was that instead of being under the umbrella of the Recovery School District, schools no longer deemed “failing” would return to the Orleans Parish School Board. That’s it.

As such, the disheartening failure of the state House to pass HB 166, to us, proves yet again that the so-called reform that has taken place here has had little to do with improving academic performance or increasing choice and academic opportunity for the children and families that need it most. Instead, it has everything to do with money and power. And HB 166, simply put, threatened to diminish the control of the power brokers and education reform architects.

For the record, the organizations and individuals that so arrogantly seized our schools and empowered themselves to drive the education “reform” agenda do not take us by surprise. We expect as much from Leslie Jacobs and Sarah Usdin, from Paul Pastorek and John White. However, we have been astonished and saddened to watch as institutions and individuals trusted by our community are all too happy to sign on to this sham. They have done so for their own reasons we suppose. Some of them are our friends, and we know they are smart enough to know what’s really taking place. We can agree to disagree; still, we wonder about their motivations. Don’t they know they are just pawns in a game? Don’t they know the reformers have a play book and it tells them to turn to “trusted community organizations” so that they can “play a critical role in effective community engagement.”

Take a look in a mirror, friends, and ask yourself if you are the “trusted community organization” picked by the reformers to carry the Kool-Aid to your community.

If some schools have recovered, then why keep them under the control of the Recovery School District? There is not a single charter school operating in New Orleans that could not operate under the elected Orleans Parish School Board, which currently oversees 12 charters and six direct-run schools. In fact, why is the RSD still in New Orleans?

Well, we have answered that very question more times than we can count, right here on the pages of this publication. We’ve grown tired. We are aggravated. Actually, these days we are downright incensed. But we will answer once again.

FOR THE RECORD: THEY DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT US

The people, entities, organizations and institutions driving the education reform movement, especially here in New Orleans, don’t care whether our children receive a quality public education. Neither they nor their children attend or have attended public school in New Orleans. It is not about choice or change or charters. If it were really about choice for parents and children, why is a computer program matching students with schools? Sounds more like school chance and happenstance than school choice to us.

Still, they are happy to use that “choice” mantra so long as it means billions of dollars will continue to flow through their non-profit organizations and their new-fangled foundations. They will continue to use that mantra so long as it means contracts for consulting or school construction or Common Core-aligned text books and testing services for their big corporate buddies. They will continue to use that mantra so long as they can hand out cushy jobs to cronies and allies. And the cronies and allies are happy to go along as long as they are taken care of.

For the record, we are not against change or charters. We do not oppose education reform. There are successful models where traditional public schools co-exist with charters to offer students and their parents quality educational opportunities. In fact, the so-called reformers are right. Katrina was the biggest opportunity. It wiped the slate clean. It offered us the rare chance to get it right. We could have built first-rate facilities in neighborhoods across this city. We could have staffed them with top-notch education administrators, veteran teachers and new ones, too, trained and prepared to contribute to the field. We could have had real change. It’s just that what has happened in New Orleans in the 10 years since Katrina has not been about any of those things.

Instead, education reform, pseudo school choice, and the proliferation of charter schools have merely been one of the vehicles co-opted to perform an entirely different agenda—gain control of an entire city and every system that operates within its jurisdiction. Those who fled New Orleans decades ago on the heels of integration want the neighborhoods back. So they tore down public housing. They want seats of political power back; and they are gaining. The schools—or rather control of schools—are a major piece of that puzzle. This so-called reform is a spoke in a wheel that has been turning now for decades. Katrina was the catalyst that allowed these social engineers and profiteers to hasten their plans. If they have to pretend like they care about where our children learn to gain access to and control of money, land, facilities and dominance, it is a small price to pay. If their gain is on the backs of students, parents and taxpayers, so be it. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that there is money—big money—tied up in this reform movement. And if they can control that as well, all the better. Some of the biggest players in this game are about as concerned about the education of poor Black children in New Orleans as they are about a swarming fly.

Come on, let’s get real. The hypocrisy of it all is actually unsettling. One of the biggest national players in this reform folly is the Walton Foundation. The Walton Foundation has funneled nearly $180 million in grant money in three years (2011, 2012, and 2013) to national and local organizations in the name of education reform. In 2014, alone, the Walton Foundation directed more than $2.6 million to local groups, such as New Schools for New Orleans, the Louisiana affiliate of Stand for Children, the Urban League of Greater New Orleans, Orleans Public Education Network, 4.0 Schools and the Black Alliance for Educational Options.

Now, it’s the Walton family’s money; and they are free to donate it as they please. But just for a second let’s consider that research clearly shows a correlation between family income and a child’s academic achievement and that the widening achievement gap is in great measure associated the widening wealth gap. Given those points, one would think that if the Waltons were so concerned with transforming educational outcomes for America’s children they would not have to be shamed into giving their own low-wage earning employees a pay raise. The wages earned by many Wal-Mart employees are so low that their workers often rely on food stamps, Section 8 housing assistance, and state-funded healthcare programs.

FOR THE RECORD: MYTHS AND LIES OF THE TRANSFORMATION

Truth is that we would be okay with it all—with the foundations for education for this . . . and the new schools for that . . . if public education in New Orleans was actually improving.

But for the record: The myth that this new system of education is more accountable and successful than before is just that—a MYTH. Better still, it is a pack of lies. Don’t be fooled when the reform advocates tout the successes of schools like Lusher and Ben Franklin. First of all, these are not RSD campuses. They were not taken over by the state. These schools, though they have now been chartered, are OPSB schools. More importantly, they were the crown jewels, the top performers in local public education long before the storm. There was no transformation at these campuses. They have been the consistent successes. They were the schools parents and education advocates pointed to years ago and asked “hey, wait…why can’t you make all of our schools like them.”

So now that we have that straight, here’s the reality of the mythical miracle. Fifty-seven (57) RSD-New Orleans schools have school performance scores and letter grades for the 2013-2014 school year. And they don’t look soFor the Record: You Ain’t Done a Thing | A Tribune Editorial | The New Orleans Tribune:

Big Education Ape: From New Orleans: Washing Machine-Style Education Reform | The Progressive http://bit.ly/1ExUpTE

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Big Education Ape: Geaux Teacher!: The Perils of using Disaster as a Catalyst for Change in Louisiana - Part 1 http://bit.ly/1ExUIxR

Big Education Ape: New Orleans Schools, 10 Years After Katrina: Beacon Or Warning? : NPR Ed : NPR http://bit.ly/1IS4lv9

Big Education Ape: CURMUDGUCATION: Neighborhood Failure Factories http://bit.ly/1hD6CkU

WA Court Fines Legislature $100,000 a Day for Failure to Remedy School Funding | janresseger

WA Court Fines Legislature $100,000 a Day for Failure to Remedy School Funding | janresseger:

WA Court Fines Legislature $100,000 a Day for Failure to Remedy School Funding

Despite the intrusive role of the federal government in public education imposed by the 2002, No Child Left Behind Act, “All 50 state constitutions require their state to establish and fund education for its children.  These provisions are in the constitutions because education is so fundamental to preservation of democracy and a republican form of government,” explains Molly Hunter, Direction of Education Justice at the Education Law Center.  Hunter continues: “Yet, too many states across the country are failing to provide fair funding for the essential resources necessary to offer genuine learning  opportunities to their students.  In some of those states, including Washington, plaintiffs have traveled the long journey through the courts to prove shocking resource deficits and harm to schoolchildren.  After court rulings ordering states to bring their funding systems into compliance with their state constitutions, some states enact thorough and effective remedies.  But a few legislatures and governors resist, in Kansas and Arizona, for example.”  (Last week this blog covered the deplorably inadequate and inequitable school finance in Kansas, the result of tax slashing and austerity measures imposed by Governor Sam Brownback and a far-right legislature.),

The action of Washington’s state supreme court last week is an encouraging contrast to the ongoing school funding catastrophe in Kansas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and a number of other states.  The NY Times reports that: “Washington State’s highest court, which has threatened, cajoled and pleaded with the state Legislature and governor for years to close the gap in spending between rich and poor schools, said on Thursday that it had finally lost its patience.  In a unanimous decision, the nine-member Supreme Court imposed a fine of $100,000 a day on the state until a plan to reduce the gap was accepted, and in a written order ‘encouraged’ Gov. Jay Inslee to call the Legislature into a special session.  The financial sanctions, which started on Thursday with the filing of the order, will be owed every 24 hours, seven days a week with the money going into an education fund.”

Randy Dorn, the state’s superintendent of public instruction is reported by the NY Times to have, “applauded the court’s decision and said that the fines might achieve what previous orders by the court had not.  Washington, he said, is near the bottom of the national rankings in class size and in per-pupil K-12 funding.  An over-reliance on local taxes—which is at the heart  of the case underlying Thursday’s order—has created, he said, a patchwork of rich districts and poor ones.  That makes the question not just one of books and teacher salaries, Mr. Dorn said, but civil rights.”

The Seattle Times traces the history of the McCleary lawsuit, filed in January of 2007.  The case made its way to the state’s supreme court, which ordered the state to raise spending and required progress reports after each legislative session.  The court imposed the fines last week at the end of the 2015 session, while it acknowledged that significant progress has been made in transportation funding, and support for other operating costs, materials and supplies.  The state has also made some progress toward providing full day kindergarten for all children and reducing class size in the primary grades, but, according to the court, has fallen short in WA Court Fines Legislature $100,000 a Day for Failure to Remedy School Funding | janresseger:

Luke Bronin breaking the law with illegal corporate in-kind contributions - Wait What?

Luke Bronin breaking the law with illegal corporate in-kind contributions - Wait What?:

Luke Bronin breaking the law with illegal corporate in-kind contributions

If elected Hartford Connecticut’s s next mayor, Greenwich native Luke Bronin says he’ll successfully plow the streets, solve the city’s crime problems and provide jobs for the residents of Connecticut’s poorest city.

In order to persuade the voters of Hartford to dump the only big city Puerto Rican mayor in the 50 States, Bronin has raised a record breaking amount of money.  Nearly a third of his campaign funds come from out-of-state donors and an additional $55,000 plus are from residents of his hometown of Greenwich.

But his 5 to 1 cash-on-hand advantage isn’t enough for the golden boy.

Among a series of questionable campaign finance issues that show up in his campaign finance reports is the fact that Bronin is breaking Connecticut law by accepting a massive in-kind contribution from Stu Loeser & Company, a New York based public relations firm.

Andrew Doba works as Bronin’s spokesperson and public relations flack.  He is also an employee of Stu Loeser & Company.  Bronin’s press releases are sent using Doba’s work email, andrew@stuloeser.com. It is the same email address found for Doba on the Stu Loeser & Company website and the same email address Doba uses to communicate with reporters about his other clients.

After working as Governor Dannel Malloy’s spokesperson for past two years, Doba left state employment earlier this year to join Stu Loeser & Company.

On his corporate website, Stu Loeser, who was New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s press’s secretary, describes himself by stating,

“Stu now puts these skills to use for some of the most prominent technology companies, Fortune 100 corporations, thriving start-ups and high net-worth individuals around the world.

[…]

Stu has been profiled as the “city’s foremost practitioner of the dark art known as opposition research” … Earlier in his career, he served as U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer’s Communications Director and worked on the Clinton/Gore and Gore/Lieberman presidential campaigns.

As for Doba, Loeser.com writes;

Andrew is a veteran communications operative with nearly a decade of experience in city and state government.

As the chief spokesman for Governor Malloy in Connecticut, Andrew was the architect of earned media campaigns advancing the Governor’s economic and public policy priorities…

He directly managed or had oversight of nearly 100 people in 30 state agencies, quasi-public entities and other cabinet level positions.

As an aside, who knew the Governor’s press secretary had management and oversight responsibility for 100 people in 30 agencies.

But back on the issue of  breaking state law, not only are Bronin’s press releases sent out by Doba, and Doba is by Bronin’s side at almost every public event, but Bronin’s Twitter account is dedicated to helping Bronin and Doba’s other corporate clients including the corporate funded charter school advocacy group “Save our Schools” and the UBER corporation.

Although Doba has been working for Bronin for months, Bronin’s campaign has failed to make and report appropriate expenditures to Stu Loeser & Company for Doba’s work, meaning Bronin is accepting an illegal campaign contribution from a corporate entity, a major violation of Connecticut law that would undoubtedly lead to a fine and other potential penalties if investigated by the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

Why would Luke Bronin think he is above the law?

Perhaps is it is because he spent the last two years working as Governor Dannel Malloy whose 2014  campaign intentionally and flagrantly violated Connecticut’s campaign finance laws and continues to try and derail an investigation in Malloy’s political fundraising violations.

The following are just a few examples of Andrew Doba’s use of his Twitter page to promote his corporate clients, including Luke Bronin for Mayor.

Andrew Doba ‏@AndrewDoba  Outrageous that @segarra2015 needs a hand delivered invite to talk with #Hartford residents about gun violencehttp://cour.at/1IQNKpA 

Andrew Doba ‏@AndrewDoba  .@segarra2015 my job would be easier if you told the truth.

Andrew Doba ‏@AndrewDoba  With strong push from @GovMalloyOffice, Leg. made the right call in meeting its financial commitment to charter schools

Andrew Doba ‏@AndrewDoba  Thank you to our state leaders who showed a strong commitment to ensuring access to great school #ForEveryChild.

Andrew Doba ‏@AndrewDoba  Awesome video from the #SaveOurSchools rally#ForEveryChildCT http://bit.ly/1Fqu9gr 

Andrew Doba ‏@AndrewDoba  FYI – @Uber hearing being moved to 2E because so many Uber driver partners came out to show their support

Andrew Doba ‏@AndrewDoba   Thanks! RT@StamfordiCenter: We welcome our newest coworker, @AndrewDoba of Stu Loeser & Co. http://ow.ly/Ino0Q 

Andrew Doba ‏@AndrewDoba  New website (http://stuloeser.com ) AND new flack? Congrats to @AndrewDoba + thanks @mikeallen for nod in Playbook:http://www.politico.com/playbook/0115/playbook16920.html …

For more about the Bronin Campaign’s attempt to buy Hartford see;Luke Bronin breaking the law with illegal corporate in-kind contributions - Wait What?:

What Presidential Candidates Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce » Missouri Education Watchdog

What Presidential Candidates Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce » Missouri Education Watchdog:

What Presidential Candidates Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce

The Presidential campaign is proving that Common Core is an issue that is not going to go away. Every candidate, in all political parties, is going to be asked, at some point, where they stand on Common Core. They should know that at least one segment of the public will then do all sorts of investigating of their own to vet their responses. Woe to those who try to cloak their true position with double speak, platitudes or outright lies.

The candidates will hopefully give their reasons for objecting to Common Core, but somewhere in this process it should be put down for the historical record why Americans are opposing the Common Core standards. We know there is a prohibition against national standards in the General Education Protection Act. We know that previous congresses failed to pass national standards even for one subject (history 1993 99:1 fail in the Senate). What we don’t have is a good record of is why these concepts have not met with broad public approval before. This would be a good sign post for the next time someone or some group tries to push for a single set of national standards.

If you ask a cross section of Americans their reasons for  opposing Common Core, you will get a variety of answers. For some it’s the quality. For others it’s the one size fits all approach. For others it’s the associated testing or data collection. Still others object to the re-purposing of education in general or the businessification of the local school house. The reasons don’t fit neatly into a single political framework so folks are finding themselves in bed with very strange bedfellows for the first time when it comes to opposing Common Core. These differences make it very difficult for candidates to state their opposition to Common Core in a way that can gather broad support.

That education is being turned wholesale into a business that requires quarterly statistics, economies of scale and worker accountability is clear. That it is being redirected towards workforce planning is also clear. Given that new focus, and the business support for the standards that is nudging candidates away from rejecting them outright, it is hard to understand why better business principles were not applied to the development of Common Core. Though the ELA CCSSI Work Group had a marketing expert on it, she was not able to see the problem with Common Core standards in the first place. Any marketing of the standards, and there was a ton, ended up being grossly misdirected at trying to presell the education delivery system on their worth, as defined by the base that was pushing them. The problem was that base was not the ones who would end up using them day to day. There was a serious disconnect from the very beginning.

Policy experts should perhaps have approached psychophycisit Howard Moskowitz when they were in the planning phases of Common Core. They might have noticed this glaring marketing flaw from the beginning and saved us all a lot of time.

Moskowitz’s work was ground breaking and changed the world of spaghettis sauce (and mustard and pickles) forever. You can listen here to Malcom Gladwell talk about Moskowitz’s work for the makers of Prego spaghetti sauce.

The short version of the story is that the spaghetti sauce industry had a model sauce that was thin and watery with various spices, based on a sauce made in Italy. What they had might have been authentic Italian, but it had limited appeal. The manufacturer wanted to expand their market and hired Moskowitz to tell them which way to go.  But instead of assuming that people liked their sauce this way and only tweaking it with different spices, Moskowitz decided to try all kinds of sauce differences including some that no one had ever thought of before, like sauces that were chunky. In taste tests it turned out that people liked chunky sauce, even though they didn’t know that when they first got on the What Presidential Candidates Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce » Missouri Education Watchdog:

You’re Fired! | EduShyster

You’re Fired! | EduShyster:

You’re Fired!

Teachers at Chicago’s Urban Prep Academies voted to form a union—then a whole bunch of them got fired…

It’s back to school season, reader. Which means that all over the land teachers are returning to their classrooms, armed with the $513 worth of school supplies they purchased with their own money. Well, not all over the land. Sixteen Chicago-land teachers at Urban Prep Academies won’t be returning to the charter network this fall because they weresuddenly let go at the end of the school year  Note: the firings had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that almost all of the no-longer-working at Urban Prep teachers were involved in a successful effort to form a union.

Picture yourself…looking for a new job
Regular readers will recall that we first encountered the teachers-turned-union organizers at Urban Prep last spring. As they explained hereand here, the teachers decided to form a union to redress what they saw as a serious problem: Urban Prep administrators’ lack of accountability to, well, anyone. So on June 3rd, a majority of teachers voted *yes* to having a union in a secret-ballot election. But instead of our story ending here, this is the point at which we stumble onto the treacherous shoals of labor law. You see, it took the Labor Board weeks to certify the results of the election due to large number of ballots that school administrators were contesting. And during this *grey area* period when the new union wasn’t yet officially official, Urban Prep fired sixteen teachers. Hows come? Well, because they could. Administrators are arguing that until the exact moment that the union becomes official, they are allowed to do whatever it is they feel like doing. Which would seem to be an example of exactly the kind of asshole-ish behavior that prompted teachers at the charter network to form a union in the first place.

You’re fired! And so are you…
So who were the teachers who were shown the door on the very last day of 

school? Well, almost all of them can be found on pro-union flier above. Several were among the most senior teachers at Urban Prep; 80% were African American, in a network where teachers are overwhelmingly white. Some teachers were given no reason for their sudden termination. Then there is Mathias Muschal, chair of the English Department, who helped to found Urban Prep’s newest campus in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. He was fired for holding a pizza party for the track and field team he coaches. *The official reason was insubordination. I was told that the party was indicative of my disdain for leadership and an act of aggression because I failed You’re Fired! | EduShyster:

Teachers claim unfair evaluations in Lawrence - The Boston Globe

Teachers claim unfair evaluations in Lawrence - The Boston Globe:

Dismissed Lawrence teachers fault evaluations

Several say feedback was inadequate, not given quickly enough

A number of teachers who lost their jobs in Lawrence public schools this year say they were unfairly evaluated, asserting that administrators failed to provide adequate and timely feedback.

The Lawrence school system, taken over by the state in 2011, has dismissed 57 nontenured teachers and staff this year after deeming they were not a good fit for the district.

Amy Berard, a former middle school English teacher, said she was evaluated March 31, but did not receive feedback until May 18. That delay, she said, gave her little time to improve or implement an administrator’s suggestions.

Comments on the evaluation, which was provided to the Globe, include “rigor of the class is low,” “urgency lacking,” and “routines for group work were not clear.”

“It was a critical review of my performance,” said Berard. “Yet it was not critical enough to notify me right away to make the recommended adjustments to better serve the students.”

59 teachers dismissed in Lawrence

School administration and union leaders disagree about the necessity of dismissing 59 teachers in the Lawrence school system.

•  Lawrence schools make progress

Berard is now running for a seat on the Lawrence School Committee.

Christine Longo’s evaluation was also delayed. Her formative review started on May 5, 2015, but she did not receive the evaluation until June 3, she said. The next day, on June 4, she was told she would be dismissed, leaving her no time to react to her evaluation.

‘We are still in state receivership and will continue to put the interests and needs of our students first.’

Jeffrey Riley, state-appointed receiver of Lawrence schools 

Jeffrey C. Riley, the state-appointed receiver who oversees the school system, said he is “fully confident” the process was fair and offered to review the case of anyone who disagrees. Further, he said, not renewing teachers’ contracts is a routine practice that allows Massachusetts school districts to determine the best situation for their classrooms.

Under state law, nonprofessional status teachers — typically those in the first three years of teaching — can be dismissed, Riley said. Teachers’ contracts are not renewed for a variety of reasons, he said, ranging from their performance to factors outside of their control such as a decline in student enrollment.

“At the end of the day, despite the large improvements in graduation rate, test scores, and other measures that LPS has seen over the last few years, we are still in state receivership and will continue to put the interests and needs of our students first,” Riley said.

Efforts to turn around the school district, which had been plagued by instability and poor student performance, are showing signs of success. Since 2011, the percentage of students scoring proficient on the math portion of the MCAS jumped from 28 percent to 41 percent in 2014. The graduation rate increased by 15 percentage points.

As receiver, Riley wields the powers of both the superintendent and the school committee. He can also amend or suspend aspects of the collective-bargaining agreement with teachers.

In the past three years, the district has opted against renewing the contracts of 160 teachers and other nonprofessional staff, though 11 teachers originally not renewed this year have been recalled to positions in the district and more may be added, according to Lawrence school officials. Lawrence has more than 1,000 teachers, according to the state’s website.

Frank McLaughlin, president of the Lawrence Teachers Union, said that he is working with Riley to create a more comprehensive evaluation procedure for next year, in addition to reviewing evaluations from this year, and rehiring some teachers who were not renewed.

The evaluation process may be a dark spot in an otherwise bright story of education reform, said state Senator Barbara L’Italien, an Andover Democrat whose district includes Lawrence. L’Italien said she met with Teachers claim unfair evaluations in Lawrence - The Boston Globe:

Academic expectations around the country, in two maps - The Hechinger Report

Academic expectations around the country, in two maps - The Hechinger Report:

Academic expectations around the country, in two maps

Many education experts, and lay people alike, argue that you must set high academic standards in order for students to excel at school. All too often you hear the lament that low-income minority students often perform poorly because schools don’t expect much of them. Naturally, data geeks want to quantify abstract notions like “expectations,” and see exactly what they are. One way to do this is to look at where each state sets the passing score, or proficiency mark, on the exams it gives each year.

A branch of the U.S. federal government has actually gone through this exercise five times since 2003, and consistently finds that both math and reading expectations vary wildly throughout the country. As one analyst said recently, the eighth-grade proficiency level in one state might be equivalent to the fourth- or fifth-grade proficiency level in another state.

But these federal analyses are almost impenetrable to non-statisticians. The differences are measured in “NAEP points” and “standard deviations.” And you’re left wondering if these differences are significant, or merely interesting to academics who analyze measurement errors.

So I thought I would take the most recent report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), called “Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto NAEP Scales: Results from the 2013 NAEP Reading and Mathematics Assessments,” and released July 9, 2015, and convert it into something both my mother and my daughter can understand: grade levels, as in the difference between sixth and seventh grade. I found that 26 states set expectations that were three or more grade levels behind the eighth-grade standards of New York State, the state that had set the highest expectations back in 2013, as an early adopter of Common Core.

Eighth-grade reading expectations, as set by each state’s annual test, can be several grade levels apart.

Zoom in and click on any state to see what each state’s proficiency mark on its 8th-grade reading test is equivalent to on the national NAEP exam, and how many grade levels that is below New York, the top state. (Interactive map created by Jill Barshay of The Hechinger Report. Source data: NAEP mapping report, 2013 NAEP scores, Jill Barshay’s calculations.)

Eighth-grade math expectations, as set by each state, also vary wildly.

Zoom in and click on any state to see what each state’s proficiency mark on its 8th-grade math test is equivalent to on the national NAEP exam, and how many grade levels that is below New York, the top state. California and Virginia didn’t assess general mathematics in 8th grade in 2013. (Interactive map created by Jill Barshay of The Hechinger Report. Source data: NAEP mapping report, 2013 NAEP scores, Jill Barshay’s calculations.)

This number-crunching exercise was inspired by comments fromGary Phillips, a former NCES acting commissioner, and now a vice president at the American Institutes for Research. In an online press briefing just prior to the release of the July report, Phillips said that “states are setting wildly different standards and most states are setting very low standards.” To make it more vivid, Phillips explained that differences between the states with highest expectations and those with the lowest were equivalent to “three or four grade levels.”

It’s worth emphasizing that these are not measurements of how kids Academic expectations around the country, in two maps - The Hechinger Report:

Jeb Bush Is Trying Really Hard To Sound Like He Doesn’t Support Common Core | ThinkProgress

Jeb Bush Is Trying Really Hard To Sound Like He Doesn’t Support Common Core | ThinkProgress:

Jeb Bush Is Trying Really Hard To Sound Like He Doesn’t Support Common Core

Former Florida governor and GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush had an awkward conversation about Common Core education standards this week, calling the initiative’s name “poisonous” while attempting to appeal to conservatives who oppose the program — even though he supports it.

While speaking at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Friday, former Florida governor Bush tried to talk his way around a question about the Common Core Standards Initiative, an education policy initiated by the National Governors Association that tries to bring education standards into alignment nationwide.

“The term ‘Common Core’ is so darn poisonous, I don’t even know what it means,” Bush said. “[But] I’m for higher standards — state-created, locally implemented — where the federal government has no role in the creation of standards, content or curriculum.”

The evasive answer appears to be an attempt to sidestep widespread Republican opposition to the policy, which is rooted in the misconception that it amounts to a “federal takeover” of the education system — even though the standards were created by state governors, not the federal government, and developed at the state level.

The term ‘Common Core’ is so darn poisonous, I don’t even know what it means.

But Bush seemed far more confident about what Common Core “means” in May, when he repeated his longstanding support for the policy at an event in Tennessee.

“Because people have a different view of what Common Core is, am I supposed to back away from something that I know works?” Bush told attendees at the event, which occurred before he announced his candidacy for president.

Bush’s ardent support for Common Core made sense back then, given that he actively encouraged the governor of Tennessee to embrace the higher standards in 2014. But the Volunteer State ultimately abandoned it earlier this year, following the lead of a handful of other states that have ditched the program. This includes New Jersey, where another GOP candidate — Gov. Chris Christie — agreed to adopt the standards in 2010, only to reverse course and pull the plug onselect parts of the policy in May of this year.

Politically speaking, Bush’s endorsement of education reform puts him at odds with the conservative base. A February survey found that most Republican voters in early primary states such as South Carolina and New Hampshire would not consider a candidate who supports Common Core “acceptable,” and an August 2014 poll reported that Republican primary voters writ large overwhelmingly disapprove of the policy, with 76 percent saying they oppose the higher education standards. The best hope a GOP candidate who approves of Common Core to be in Iowa, where 57 percent of Republicans say they would vote for a candidate who backs higher education standards.

Bush also has a family legacy to contend with: His brother — former president George W. Bush — signed No Child Left Behind into law, which instituted federal test score standards on federally-funded schools with lower-income students.

Yet Bush’s bobbing and weaving over the issue contrasts starkly with Ohio governor and fellow GOP presidential candidate John Kasich, who has been open about his support for Common Corefor some time. When pressed about the issue in an interview with Fox News in January, Kasich refused to back down, pointing out that Common Core isn’t the federally-mandated school curriculum that some conservatives make it out to be.

“The Common Core was written by state education superintendents and local principals,” Kasich said. “In my state of Ohio, we want higher standards for our children, and those standards are set and the curriculum is set by local school boards … Barack Obama doesn’t set it, the state of Ohio doesn’t set it. It is local school boards driving better education, higher standards, created by local school boards.”

This article appeared under several headlines, including “Jeb Bush Calls Common Core ‘Poisonous,’ Forgets He Actually Supports It.” It has been restored to its original published headline, “Jeb Bush Is Trying Really Hard To Sound Like He Doesn’t Support Common Core,” to emphasize Bush’s stance.Jeb Bush Is Trying Really Hard To Sound Like He Doesn’t Support Common Core | ThinkProgress: