CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: No Teacher Shortage Edition (9/8)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: No Teacher Shortage Edition (9/8)

ICYMI: No Teacher Shortage Edition (9/8)

So about forty-eight hours ago I put up a post at Forbes.com that has been blowing up. It's an interesting study in the vagaries of the interwebz-- the post (why it's important to recognize that there's not a teacher shortage) makes some points that I have made before many times, and several other bloggers have made before, but somehow this time, it found an audience. It's a reminder to keep plugging at the point you want to make (even if you feel like you're repeating yourself). And for our purposes here, it's a reminder of how important readers are to the whole process. I didn't really do anything in this post that I haven't done before; what made the difference was not me, but the readers.

So when I ask you every week to pass along the posts that speak to you, I really mean it. That's what gets these pieces out into the world.

How Charter Schools Won D.C. Politics 

Rachel Cohen is at City Paper, laying out the ugly, infuriating story of how lobbyists are spending our tax dollars to keep charters happy and unregulated.

Come As You Are   

Jose Vilson with some important start-of-year thoughts.

Almost No Education Research Is Replicated 

Inside Higher Ed reports on one more reason to remain unexcited about what education researchers report.

Enemy of Public Schools

Infuriating. One guy is traveling around the country running anti-bond campaigns because he's sure God hates public education. Really.

How Big A Mess Is the PA Charter Sector?

Big. Carol Burris at Washington Post breaks down the details of my home state's miserable charter situation.

School District Secession Deepens Segregation

Look at a Penn State study that shows the problems behind school district secessions.

Why Don't We Have Enough Teachers  

Tim Slekar is on Wisconsin Public Radio explaining why there is no teacher shortage.  I told you I'm not the only person beating this drum. If you'd rather read than listen, try this one.

The Parable of the Teacher and the Experts

Rick Hess often gets it wrong, but this EdWeek piece is pretty fun and painfully familiar for any teacher.

Why 2020 Dems Should Target Nonprofit Charters

When a charter destroys a beloved local landmark. Sarah Lahm with a story at Common Dreams, showing how there's big money for charter nonprofit operators-- and big losses for communities.

ALEC Legislator Retires As Charter Millionaire  

Lawmaker plus charter guy equals big bucks. From the indispensable Mercedes Schneider.

No, We Cannot Look Everything Up  

From eLearning, a reminder of the reasons that the internet doesn't excuse us from actually know stuff.

Who Gets To Use A Single Classroom 

Charter versus public school for space-- and it gets ugly.

For Teachers, the Money Keeps Getting Worse

At the Atlantic (with their shiny new paywall limiting you to only five free articles per month), a very depressing look at teacher pay.

The Walton Plan for the Little Rock School District 

More infuriating news, this time from the Arkansas Times, in which we learn that the Walton forces have all sorts of bad ideas in mind.

Schools In Arizona Crippled By Ransomware 

Not everything is about ed reform. The problem of hackers holding district IT systems hostage is growing, and now it's shutting down school districts. From The Hill.

Excess Teacher Responsibilities Are Stealing Bonding Time With Students 

From Bored Teachers, talking about all that extra piddly baloney that gets in the way of the better parts of the job.

How To Practice Best Practices

McSweeney's comes through again with the absurdly recognizable. And for more fun, check out McSweeney's First Faculty Meeting of the Year Bingo.



CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: No Teacher Shortage Edition (9/8)

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

AND DON'T FORGET PETER GREENE ON FORBES CLICK HERE 

The College And Career Ready Scam Continues

400+by Peter Greene / 19h

ESSA requires schools to pick another measure of success, and many have gone with some version of gauging college and/or career readiness, but the results, as described by EdWeek, are a "hodge podge." But here come the folks at Achieve , the same folks who brought us all the beloved Common Core, with a state by state hodge-podgy guide to just how states are measuring the Common Core compliance col

SEP 06

What Should Be Our Hot Topics For The New Year?

by Peter Greene / 2d

It's the beginning of a new school year, and a good moment to take stock of the major policy issues, controversies and problems that we can expect to be (or ought to be) wrestling with in the coming year. Which issues are on the rise, which have lost a little steam and which should we be addressing? Common Core For years, the Common Core Standards were the hot button issue. Widespread pushback, f

SEP 05

Harry Potter and Vouchers

100+by Peter Greene / 3d

The Harry Potter books were back in the news for the six zillionth instance of a ban placed on the Rowling classic novels. The books have been repeatedly banned since they were published , usually because conservative religious folks think the books will normalize wizards and warlocks and witchcraft, but Reverend Dan Reehil, a pastor at St. Edward Catholic School, cites that classic argument, but

SEP 03

What I Know About The Reading Wars

200+by Peter Greene / 4d

Lord save us from the unending arguments about reading instruction. I started a Twitter thread just after Christmas and that thing was still flopping around six months later. Emily Hanford has somehow milked one not-very-new observation ("Use phonics") into a series of widely shared articles, which in turn has stirred up all the articles that people wrote the last time phonics was being praised as

Please, No Learning Engineers

49by Peter Greene / 4d

If Ben Johnson is as good as his word, right now, out in Utah, a bunch of teachers are having to put up with being called "learning engineers. " Johnson is the executive director at Treeside Charter School (K-6) in Provo, Utah. This is actually Year 2 in that job; previously, he's been a world languages department chair in Tyler, the president of his own consulting group, a principal, a learning c

SEP 02

Life Sized Teaching

400+by Peter Greene / 5d

Like many teachers, I mostly hate movies and tv shows about teaching. There are too many about hero teachers, larger than life pedagogues who singlehandedly change the world and dramatically shift the course of entire lives (though they generally only teach one prep a day-- seriously, did Mr. Kotter or Mr. Feeney ever teach any other students?) It's enough to make ordinary mortals feel inadequate.

SEP 01

Third Grade Reading Retention Does Not Work (Example #6,288,347)

500+by Peter Greene / 6d

The idea of retaining third graders who can't pass a standardized reading test has its roots in two things: 1) a bunch of research of varying degrees of trustworthiness and usefulness (see here , here , here and here for examples across the scale) and 2) dopey policy makers who don't know the difference between correlation and causation. What the more reliable research appears to show is that thi

ICYMI: Here's September Edition (9/1)

55by Peter Greene / 7d

Here we go-- it's an actual new month after August (which always seems about 5 days long). Here are some things to read from this week. Share! A College Reading List for the Post-Truth Era From Forbes, an interesting batch of books 

CURMUDGUCATION - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/

DIANE ON A ROLL TODAY - Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

DIANE ON A ROLL TODAY 

Shani Robinson Speaks About Her Trial in Atlanta

by dianeravitch / 24min

Shani Robinson is one of the teachers who was convicted of cheating in the infamous Atlanta case. In her absorbing book None the Above: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed, and the Criminalization of Educators , Robinson makes a convincing case that she was railroaded by an over-zealous, unscrupulous and racist prosecution. In this brief video , she ex

District of Columbia: Rachel Cohen Explains How Taxpayers Fund an Army of Charter School Lobbyists

by dianeravitch / 1h

In an insightful article in the Washington City Paper, Rachel Cohen describes how the charter industry in the District of Columbia has organized campaigns to prevent any accountability , and has arranged that taxpayers fund their lobbying efforts, with the help of a few billionaires. It takes money to persuade politicians to vote your way, and the charter industry has figured out how to get the p

Wall Street Journal: Schools Invest Zillions in Technology, Parents Push Back

23by dianeravitch / 2h

Technology in the classroom has become so ubiquitous that the use of papers and pencils or pens seems innovative. The Wall Street Journal published a front-page story about the high-powered push to buy technology and the growing disillusionment of some parents and teachers. When Baltimore County, Md., public schools began going digital five years ago, textbooks disappeared from classrooms and pap

New Yorker: Did Jeffrey Epstein, Sexual Predator, Persuade Bill Gates to Donate $2 Million to MIT Media Lab?

by dianeravitch / 3h

The New Yorker magazine published an expose of Jeffrey Epstein’s connection to the MIT Media Lab and its efforts to conceal the connection. After the story appeared, the director of the Lab resigned. The article: The M.I.T. Media Lab, which has been embroiled in a scandal over accepting donations from the 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

New Yorker: Did Jeffrey Epstein, Sexual Predator, Persuade Bill Gates to Donate $2 Million to MIT Media Lab? | Diane Ravitch's blog

New Yorker: Did Jeffrey Epstein, Sexual Predator, Persuade Bill Gates to Donate $2 Million to MIT Media Lab? | Diane Ravitch's blog

New Yorker: Did Jeffrey Epstein, Sexual Predator, Persuade Bill Gates to Donate $2 Million to MIT Media Lab?

The New Yorker magazine published an expose of Jeffrey Epstein’s connection to the MIT Media Laband its efforts to conceal the connection. After the story appeared, the director of the Lab resigned.

The article:

The M.I.T. Media Lab, which has been embroiled in a scandal over accepting donations from the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, had a deeper fund-raising relationship with Epstein than it has previously acknowledged, and it attempted to conceal the extent of its contacts with him. Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although Epstein was listed as “disqualified” in M.I.T.’s official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors, soliciting millions of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations, including the technologist and philanthropist Bill Gates and the investor Leon Black. According to the records obtained by The New Yorker and accounts from current and former faculty and staff of the media lab, Epstein was credited with securing at least $7.5 million in donations for the lab, including two million dollars from Gates and $5.5 million from Black, gifts the e-mails describe as “directed” by Epstein or made at his behest. The effort to conceal the lab’s contact with Epstein was so widely known that some staff in the office of the lab’s director, Joi Ito, referred to Epstein as Voldemort or “he who must not be named.”

The financial entanglement revealed in the documents goes well beyond what has been described in public statements by M.I.T. and by Ito. The University has said that it received eight hundred thousand dollars from CONTINUE READING: New Yorker: Did Jeffrey Epstein, Sexual Predator, Persuade Bill Gates to Donate $2 Million to MIT Media Lab? | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYC Educator: IO Classroom Sucks

NYC Educator: IO Classroom Sucks

IO Classroom Sucks

I used to write that Skedula sucks, but it became the first thing you saw when you googled Skedula. I'm not sure whether or not that's why they changed their name, but they still suck. One of the reasons they suck is they are totally unresponsive. They actually sent someone to my school a few years back, and asked us what we wanted to see improved. Of course, no improvements followed.

This year IO Classroom sucks, but it's not 100% their fault. It's also the fault of the execrable Part 154, enacted by the geniuses in Albany to make sure that English Language Learners (ELLs) don't fritter away valuable classroom time learning English. Instead, we prep them for the English Regents exam. I'd argue the English Regents exam is the second worst test I've ever seen. The worst, of course, is the NYSESLAT, which theoretically measures English ability, but actually places students very poorly (and also rates teachers very poorly).

A particularly insightful idea the geniuses in Albany had was to group ELLs by grade rather than language level. Consequently, they decreed that students may be no more than one grade apart. That might make sense with very young children. For example, 1st and 4th graders may be at very different places developmentally. The Regents applied this across the board though, and couldn't be bothered noting that 9th and 12th graders may not have that issue. In fact, as someone who's taught them for decades, I can assure you they don't.

However, because of the directive by the Regents, I now find myself teaching as many as four classes in one room. (By "room," of course, I mean room, half-room, or trailer, all of CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: IO Classroom Sucks

DIANE RAVITCH: The Walton Family plot to privatize the public schools of Arkansas | Salon.com

The Walton Family plot to privatize the public schools of Arkansas | Salon.com

The Walton Family plot to privatize the public schools of Arkansas
Have they no shame?

The headquarters of the Walton/Walmart billionaires is in Bentonville, Arkansas, so it is not surprising that the Walton Family Foundation and the members of the family (net worth: $100 billion) have decided to privatize the public schools of Arkansas.

Arkansas is a poor state. It doesn’t have an abundance of private schools that are as good as its underfunded public schools but the Waltons want every child to have a voucher or a charter school to attend.

Legislators are easy to buy in a poor state. The Waltons own quite a few.

The Alabama Education Association did the research and described the empire that the Waltons have constructed in service to their goal of owning and privatizing the public schools of Arkansas. In the Walton plan, there will be no “public schools,” only privately managed charter schools and vouchers for religious schools.

The AEA report lays out the Walton Empire of Privatization in detail, with their bought and paid for think tanks and academics:

Although this report includes a lot of names, it is just one slice of the nationwide effort to plunder our public schools. These organizations have a vast infrastructure and deep pockets that can seem daunting, but our students are counting on us to stand up and speak out.

While they may have more cash, we have the power of numbers and common sense. Arkansas’s taxpayers and students would be better served by investing our scarce resources to improve our neighborhood public schools and helping all of the students who attend them.

Our public schools are the anchor of our communities, and the best way to expand opportunity for all. This idea does not require twisted statistics, or market tested language to trick people into supporting CONTINUE READING: The Walton Family plot to privatize the public schools of Arkansas | Salon.com

Are Teachers Trusted? - Teacher Habits

Are Teachers Trusted? - Teacher Habits

Are Teachers Trusted?

For about half the days of the last 20 years, I have been trusted with other people’s children. I knew I would be when I decided to become a teacher. It’s an awesome responsibility and scary enough that I spend most of my time at work actively not thinking about it. I have taken large groups of children on field trips, where I am responsible for their safety. I’ve taught countless students who have allergies that could kill them. Every year, I am trained in how to administer a life-saving dose of epinephrine. I am the sole first responder should a student have a seizure in my room, which happened once. I am responsible for getting students onto the correct buses or to the pick-up area at the end of every day when parents call at the last minute with a change in transportation. Fail at this, and an eight-year-old can be dropped off at an empty house or I can create parental panic over a missing child.

I am also responsible for the future of the republic, or so I’ve been told. Economist Eric Hanushek believes that lackluster teaching in America’s schools is responsible for a “permanent recession” and that our low achievement on international tests prevents students from accessing good, high-paying jobs after graduation. If students haven’t learned to read by the time they leave my third-grade classroom, they are consigned to a future of unemployment, substance abuse, and CONTINUE READING: Are Teachers Trusted? - Teacher Habits

Time to End the Charter School Distraction | radical eyes for equity

Time to End the Charter School Distraction | radical eyes for equity

Time to End the Charter School Distraction

The 21st century charter school movement in the U.S. has been at least a deeply flawed solution for a misunderstood problem. But charter advocacy has also suffered from a serious contradictory pair of arguments aimed simultaneously at traditional public schools (TPS) and charter schools.

As stringent high-stakes accountability gradually ramped up for TPS from the early 1980s and through both the George W. Bush No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era and the even more intense (and volatile) Obama administration, charter school advocacy increased, and those schools expanded across the U.S. driven by the argument that charter schools flourish because of their independence from bureaucratic mandates.

TPS suffered a series of ever-new standards and high-stakes tests, persistent narratives that they were “failing,” and a recalcitrant public and political leadership that refused to acknowledge the nearly crippling impact of social inequity on any school’s ability to effectively teach children.

Yet, at the same time, charter schools were routinely hailed falsely as “miracles” and neither the public nor political leadership seemed to care that research repeatedly revealed that charter schools simply did not outperform TPS (just as private schools do not outperform TPS). In short, charter schools have continued to float on advocacy and magical thinking even when we can clearly show that school type has nearly no impact on student outcomes—since those outcomes are far more significantly driven by out-of-school factors (home and community economic status, parental education levels, home security, access to food, medical care access, etc.).

Just as the Bush/Paige Texas “miracle” that spurred NCLB was soundly CONTINUE READING: Time to End the Charter School Distraction | radical eyes for equity

College Board Cancels Seattle SAT for Second Time in Two Weeks | deutsch29

College Board Cancels Seattle SAT for Second Time in Two Weeks | deutsch29

College Board Cancels Seattle SAT for Second Time in Two Weeks

The College Board is a bumbling operation.

According to the College Board’s “SAT Test Closings” web page, the August 24, 2019, SAT administration was canceled at Franklin High School in Seattle and was supposed to be “made up” on Saturday, September 07, 2019.

On the same page, the College Board states, “Test center closings for the SAT and SAT Subject Tests are listed below a few days before each test date.”

However, I am writing this post on the night of September 07, 2019, and there was no SAT administered in Seattle today and no update to the SAT test closing web page. Instead, test takers were met with a sign on the test center door stating the test had been canceled, as Seattle principal Gerrit Kischner posted on Twitter:

Gerrit Kischner@PrincipalKisch

#SAT cancelled with no notice in SE Seattle for the 2nd time in 2 weeks by @CollegeBoard , an unaccountable monopoly, affecting scores* of first gen college students, many of whom took time off work today, again, for this opportunity. Really?

27

8:34 AM - Sep 7, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

24 people are talking about this

There you have it, Seattle students:

*Please contact College Board,* the organization that failed to follow its own policy about telling you of this second cancellation of a high-stakes test that CONTINUE READING: College Board Cancels Seattle SAT for Second Time in Two Weeks | deutsch29

Every Charter School Must Be Closed Down – Every. Single. One. | gadflyonthewallblog

Every Charter School Must Be Closed Down – Every. Single. One. | gadflyonthewallblog

Every Charter School Must Be Closed Down – Every. Single. One.

The problem with charter schools isn’t that they have been implemented badly.

Nor is it that some are for-profit and others are not.

The problem is the concept, itself.

Put simply: charter schools are a bad idea. They always were a bad idea. And it is high time we put an end to them.

I am overjoyed that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are starting to hear the criticisms leveled against the charter school industry in the face of the naked greed and bias of the Trump administration and its high priestess of privatization, Betsy DeVos. However, I am also disappointed in the lack of courage displayed by many of these same lawmakers when proposing solutions.

Charter schools enroll only 6 percent of students nationwide yet they gobble up billions of dollars in funding. In my home state of Pennsylvania, they cost Commonwealth taxpayers more than $1.8 billion a year and take more than 25 percent of the state’s basic education funding. That’s for merely 180 schools with CONTINUE READING: Every Charter School Must Be Closed Down – Every. Single. One. | gadflyonthewallblog

CURMUDGUCATION: The College And Career Ready Scam Continues

CURMUDGUCATION: The College And Career Ready Scam Continues

The College And Career Ready Scam Continues

ESSA requires schools to pick another measure of success, and many have gone with some version of gauging college and/or career readiness, but the results, as described by EdWeek, are a "hodge podge." But here come the folks at Achieve, the same folks who brought us all the beloved Common Core, with a state by state hodge-podgy guide to just how states are measuring the Common Core compliance college and career readiness. It highlights beautifully why the whole CCR business is a scam, a snare and a delusion, a room full of smoke and mirrors, and a web of moonbeams and unicorn farts.

We're ready for what, now?

The table version really does provide a useful state-by-state compendium of who is doing what (mostly-- some states are a big ole blank). But the real fun is in the Data Explorer, a collection of hyperlinked graphics that take you to all the various measures. I'm honestly not sure who, exactly, this is for, though EdWeek Marketplace did a piece about it which suggests somebody thinks there's money to be made here.

The Data Explorer starts by laying out the challenge:

Though all states collect data on student outcomes, the measures they track differ from state to state—differences like which students are included in each indicator, which assessments are used, whether data on student subgroups are reported, and how indicators are constructed. Furthermore, the data states report are often found across a number of websites, and some states publicly report more information than others. Each of these factors makes it hard to know how well-prepared students are for their next steps after high school.

There is, of course, a big whacky assumption there, which is that knowing how well students are CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The College And Career Ready Scam Continues

Badass Teachers Association Blog: Blaming Schools for Student Absences is Like Denouncing Doctors for Disease by Steven Singer

Badass Teachers Association Blog: Blaming Schools for Student Absences is Like Denouncing Doctors for Disease by Steven Singer

Blaming Schools for Student Absences is Like Denouncing Doctors for Disease by Steven Singer

Originally posted at: https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/2019/08/25/blaming-schools-for-student-absences-is-like-denouncing-doctors-for-disease/?fbclid=IwAR1LVoEzc5LkC_ZB_BduvzyaPe_IlOwzIBMBzfk6sT7CG4jhcUUCZVgsKi4

If something is wrong with children, it must be the school’s fault.

Right?

If kids can’t read, write and do ‘rithmetic, the teachers must not have taught ’em right.

It couldn’t have anything to do with home life, generational poverty, economic inequality and systemic racism.

Except that it almost always does.

Inextricably.

The fact is children who don’t live in safe, loving homes have much greater difficulty concentrating and caring about academics. Kids with impoverished parents are much more likely to go to underfunded schools and sit in classrooms that are racially segregated.

None of that is under the control of teachers or schools, but a focus on high stakes standardized testing, school privatization and dangerously unregulated ed tech hides the problem

It’s not that teachers don’t teach. Inequality, prejudice and CONTINUE READING: Badass Teachers Association Blog: Blaming Schools for Student Absences is Like Denouncing Doctors for Disease by Steven Singer