Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond at Vergara v. California |:

Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond at Vergara v. California

As you recall from my most recent post, this past Tuesday (March 18, 2014 – “Vergara Trial Day 28“), David C. Berliner, Regents’ Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University (ASU), testified for six hours on behalf of the defense at Vergara v. California. He spoke, primarily, about the out-of-school and in-school peer factors that impact student performance in schools and how this impacts and biases all estimates based on test scores (e.g., VAMs).

Two days later, also on the side of the defense, Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond also took the stand (March 20, 2014 – “Vergara Trial Day 30“). For those of you who are not familiar with Linda Darling-Hammond, or her extensive career as one of the best, brightest, and most influential scholars in the academy of education, she is the nation’s leading expert on issues related to teacher quality, teacher recruitment and retention, teacher preparation, and, related, teacher evaluation (e.g., using value-added measures).

Thanks to a friend of Diane Ravitch, an insider at the trial, Darling-Hammond testified with the following as some of her highlights as they pertain directly to our collective interests on VAMboozled! here.

“On firing the bottom 5% of teachers…My opinion is that there are at least three reasons why firing the bottom 5 percent of teachers, as defined by the bottom 5 percent on an effectiveness continuum created by using the value-added test scores of their students on 

NYC Public School Parents: The Mayor's speech at Riverside Church today; "we will not accept the neighborhood school that fails them"

NYC Public School Parents: The Mayor's speech at Riverside Church today; "we will not accept the neighborhood school that fails them":

The Mayor's speech at Riverside Church today; "we will not accept the neighborhood school that fails them"

Mayor de Blasio spoke today at Riverside Church about the need for systemic education reform, including expanding preK, afterschool programs, retaining teachers, and involving parents; and his refusal to pit children against each other as currently happens with charter co-locations.



It was a very good speech -- despite the fact that it did not mention the critical need for smaller classes.  Below the video is an excerpt, in which he addresses the bitter fight over charter school co-locations.  Meanwhile, the charter lobby has funded non-stop ads, paid for with $3.6 million, attacking him for his decision not to allow Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy to push PS 194 to 134% capacity and displace special needs kids from P 811 in Harlem.

“The answer is not to save a few of our children only.  The answer is not to find an escape route that some can follow and others can’t. The answer is to fix the entire system.  (sustained applause)… so we have to approach systemic change. …Poverty, hunger, the lack of affordable housing…  But even within the education system itself we aren’t approaching root causes and the systemic changes we need to.  We have to work from the assumption that we will save every child, that we will reach every child, that no system is working unless every child has 

The Daily Censored » Zero-tolerance, the school-to-prison-pipeline, charter schools and the war on children

The Daily Censored » Zero-tolerance, the school-to-prison-pipeline, charter schools and the war on children:

Zero-tolerance, the school-to-prison-pipeline, charter schools and the war on children

The featured image is of students expelled under zero-tolerance policies engaging in military training as punishment

It was tougher to sponge it all up after I had talked to ‘Frank’ (we will call him Frank due to the sensitive nature of his family’s situation and the chord of fear that runs through ‘public’ Charter schools these days).  Frank’s story was about as exacting as trying to wrap ones’ head around the dis-occupation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, especially the not so subtle takeover of the New Orleans public school system by venture capitalists and charter school hucksters.  But the sickening patterns were and are the same.

As you will read, Frank’s eleven year old daughter was a victim of the vicious and social Darwinist policies of ‘Zero Tolerance’, as the doublespeak likes to call it.

In the 1990s, as mass school shootings became a reality and a media sensation,zero tolerance policies became a fad, much like torture did under George W. Bush. Unfortunately, zero-tolerance suspensions STAYED popular, owed to the war waged on youth and the low cost of simply turning children over to the US 

Unmeasured Success: What Standardized Testing Doesn’t Assess | Connected Principals

Unmeasured Success: What Standardized Testing Doesn’t Assess | Connected Principals:

Unmeasured Success: What Standardized Testing Doesn’t Assess

by Tom Martellone • March 23, 2014 • 0 Comments

This year, I’ve been working with my school staff to implement strategies that will raise student achievement and be reflected on MCAS, our state standardized assessment.  The staff have been working diligently to support student learning, and I am confident that we’ll see increased scores as one measure of our success.

We’ve also spent the past year revisiting our school mission and vision.  After working on a draft vision statement and letting it “rest” for a period of time, we’ve begun to revisit it and we’re now starting to craft a vision statement that really reflects what we’d like our school to become and to be known for in the community.  The discussion around this has been rich in nature, with staff wanting to make sure that our vision was reflective of our work with students.  At our most recent staff meeting, staff talked about educating “whole children”, making sure that children were not only well developed academically, but also socially-emotionally as well.

Recently, after two meetings at Central Office, I came back to school feeling badly because my meetings ran over and I had to postpone lunch with most, if not all, of our most recent WHOO Card drawees.  Our school recognizes children for meeting expected school wide behaviors and every other week, we draw names and students from each grade level get to bring a friend to lunch with my assistant principal and me.

It turned out that a couple of grade levels learned that my assistant principal and I got back to school and sent down some students for lunch.  While my lunches with students are always extremely rewarding, I had no idea about the lunch which I would have the good fortune to be part of on this Friday.  We were in the assistant 

Marie Corfield: Rally for NJ Public Education Part 3: ‘Bad Teachers’ & ‘Failing Students’ are the WMDs of Ed 'Reform'

Marie Corfield: Rally for NJ Public Education Part 3: ‘Bad Teachers’ & ‘Failing Students’ are the WMDs of Ed 'Reform':

Rally for NJ Public Education Part 3: ‘Bad Teachers’ & ‘Failing Students’ are the WMDs of Ed 'Reform'

Thirteen years ago, after the horrific attacks of 9/11, the Bush/Cheney/Condi triumvirate sold the nation on a war based on a lie: that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was connected to the terror attacks. Even after it was proven they didn’t have WMDs and the terrorists were Saudis—not Iraqis—Bush and Company plowed on, squandering our budget surplus, putting billions on the nation’s credit card in hopes of gaining control of Iraq’s oil reserves, and sacrificing the lives of thousands of brave young men and women in the process.

In 2011 I visited the Washington, DC office of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg—a WWII veteran—to talk to him about education policy. Outside his office was a display called “Faces of the Fallen": 

"... a memorial to the service members who lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. Begun in 2004, the memorial… consists of more than 100 placards, each containing 

UPDATE Geaux Teacher!: Fallacies Or Conspiracies?: NAEP, PISA & ACT/SAT Tests

Geaux Teacher!: Fallacies Or Conspiracies?: NAEP, PISA & ACT/SAT Tests:

Two Louisiana Student Privacy Bills Compete

This is a re-post of a blog by Stephanie Beard comparing two bills introduced in the Louisiana legislative session relative to parental concerns about student data privacy.  It is very thorough and useful for others in presenting testimony or communicating with these committee members. Rep. John Schroder from St. Tammany Parish is the man of the moment for parents having introduced a student priva

by lbarrios / 1h 

Fallacies Or Conspiracies?: NAEP, PISA & ACT/SAT Tests

This was written in response to concerns by some legislators who are working with their constituencies (finally) to sponsor bills for this Louisiana legislative session that will remove our state from the flawed policies associated with the adoption of Common Core Standards.

  Of primary concern is the argument that comparisons of NAEP (national), PISA (international) and ACT (College Readiness) test scores show Louisiana and/or the United States have failing public education systems.  There has been much evidence offered to discount these claims with little success.

  This latest report published by The Brookings Institute is so clear and convincing that I offer it to Louisiana policymakers and legislators along with my personal dialogue and plea for their consideration as they conduct hearings and debate whether or not to withdraw from the Common Core Initiative and return public education policy to our state.

The proposal by new College Boards President David Coleman to "align" ACT/SAT tests to the CCSS should place those tests under the same scrutiny.  The FEAR purposely planted in the minds of policymakers and parents that changes to the ACT and SAT make CCSS adoption imperative are just as baseless as the general contention that ANY single standardized test score is a valid or reliable measure of a student's academic ability or potential.

* * * * *

 PISA has been used to promote Shanghai as a model of equity since 2009.  In hundreds of pages discussing equity, PISA publications have never even mentioned hukou. 

http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2014/03/18-pisa-shanghai-loveless?utm_campaign=Brown+Center+on+Education+Policy&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=12242390&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_GMDolh3RR9frEGKZWxlzV4KdherIpjoX_Q3ANUSD8hH8Cdopou0DLylwoCxz6bKpGHywHkcAYiT6MaYoMggJv0XRKXA&_hsmi=12242390

The following excerpts from the complete report found at the above link and include my analysis of the consequences and 

3-23-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Seattle Schools This Week

Wednesday, March 26thOversight Work Session on Athletics/Transportation from 4-6 p.m.  I'm assuming from the length of it that these are two sessions in one.  Agenda.Athletic (sic) Presentation- among the "strengths" - It is interesting to try to read between the lines.  It almost sounds like this department wants to run more effectively and smoothly but needs help with technology and a

by Melissa Westbrook / 38min 

Race in our Public Schools

More news on race and children in America.I offer this information as news.  I have tried not to editorialize much here but to listen to what others are saying.  Somewhere in this country, people are suspending preschoolers and most of them are children of color or Special Education students.  (I didn't even know you could suspend a pre-schooler.)  This story from the Huffington Post.  It's a wide

by Melissa Westbrook / 12min 

3-22-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:Seattle Schools Community ForumSeattle Schools and Opting OutI'll have to ask SPS just what happens if a student opts out of a school-wide test.  But here is what is happening in other parts of the country (and it's just wrong).From the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet, the policy of "sit and stare."  Districts and schools are allowing students to opt ou

by mike simpson / 33min

CORE waiver is bad idea | Letters to the Editor | FresnoBee.com

CORE waiver is bad idea | Letters to the Editor | FresnoBee.com



CORE waiver is bad idea

The Fresno Unified CORE waiver hurts kids. Superintendent Michael Hanson characterizes the waiver as a plan to improve education, but in reality the waiver is a business model designed to privatize education, which ultimately harms Fresno Unified children.

The California Office to Reform Education waiver is a plan to turn Fresno Unified schools into for-profit charter schools that need to get quick returns on their business investments. For-profit schools view teachers as an expendable work force and students as widgets. Charters hire young, inexpensive and inexperienced teachers to work with the most disadvantaged population. The nature of for-profit charters is to work their novice teachers under grueling conditions until finally they get restless or spent and decide to leave. This hurts students two deplorable ways: The students lose a teacher with whom they have fostered a bond, and student learning suffers from the lack of continuity.

A business model approach is good for business, but not education. Business deals with products, such as calculators, and education deals with people -- humans with emotions, needs and diversity. The CORE waiver is organized with a business model at heart. Fresno's children and neighborhoods will suffer from the adoption of Superintendent Hanson's CORE waiver.

Karl Kaku

Fresno High School

CORE waiver is bad idea | Letters to the Editor | FresnoBee.com

Nine districts resubmit ‘stronger’ application for NCLB waiver | EdSource Today

mike simpson at Big Education Ape - 22 hours ago

Nine districts resubmit ‘stronger’ application for NCLB waiver | EdSource Today: Nine districts resubmit ‘stronger’ application for NCLB waiver - by John Fensterwald by John Fensterwald Nine California districts resubmitted their application Tuesday for a waiver from key provisions and sanctions of the No Child Left Behind law after spending weeks revising the application in response to dozens of questions by a panel of reviewers from the U.S. Department of Education. If approved, the application by members of the umbrella organization California Office to Reform Education, or COR... more »

CORE districts hoping for July NCLB waiver approval SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources

mike simpson at Big Education Ape - 4 hours ago

SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources: *CORE districts hoping for July NCLB waiver approval* *By Kimberly Beltran* Wednesday, May 29, 2013 A group of California districts seeking relief from federal mandates under the No Child Left Behind Act have proposed implementing its new system for school improvement this fall, assuming its updated application is approved by July, officials said Tuesday. Included in the California Office to Reform Education’s – or CORE’s – proposal is a new school accountability formula that would, in essence, replace existing state and federal performance s... more »

CORE districts win ground-breaking waiver from NCLBSI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources

SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources: CORE districts win ground-breaking waiver from NCLBBy Tom ChorneauWednesday, August 07, 2013Statement on NCLB Waiver Approval - Year 2013"All California schools deserve relief from the unworkable mandates of No Child Left Behind"In a move rife with policy implications nationwide, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan granted Tuesday eight California s

by mike simpson / 5h 

 

Unions Say CORE Waiver Creates 'Privatized Shadow' Education System - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Unions Say CORE Waiver Creates 'Privatized Shadow' Education System - Politics K-12 - Education Week: Unions Say CORE Waiver Creates 'Privatized Shadow' Education SystemBy Michele McNeil on July 19, 2013 8:22 AMThis week, the nine California districts that are applying for their own tailor-made No Child Left Behind waiver met with officials from the U.S. Department of Education to try to seal the

by mike simpson / 8h 

Community Forum on the CORE Waiver's Urges Public Action | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education

Community Forum on the CORE Waiver's Urges Public Action | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education: Community Forum on the CORE Waiver's Urges Public Actionpublished by Kate_Lenox on Thu, 03/20/2014 - 1:36pm                 The takeaway from last night's Community Forum on the California Office to Reform Education NCLB Waiver was that this waiver, and the commission that oversees it, str

by mike simpson / 2min 

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/03/22/3835411/core-waiver-is-bad-idea.html#storylink=cpy

In Defense of Teaching

In Defense of Teaching

See what happens when a high school art teacher and a high school English teacher collaborate to let the public know how they feel about the current state of education. Are your faculty meetings this entertaining?

Relentless | EduShyster

Relentless | EduShyster:

Relentless

 Education Reform, Inc. vs. democracy—now playing on a screen near you

When Netflix bazillionaire Reed Hastings proclaimed recently that, by their sheer relentlessness, charter school warriors will succeed in eliminating the scourge of elected school boards from the earth, the reaction from critics was swift and furious. “Like a shiny red apple that’s rotten to the core,” panned one hater. “Downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again,” trashed another. 

Just watch
But did it ever occur to the haters that maybe CEO Hastings knows a thing or one billion that they don’t? Like that movies and TV shows about school boards are among Netflix’s least-streamed offerings while demand for offerings like *The Road to College IV* and *The Reformers: Back in Business* are literally burning upscreens. Best of all, viewers won’t have to wait 20-30 years to see *Relentless* in major release. In fact, I’m pretty sure 

Louisiana Educator: Destroying the Teaching Profession in Louisiana

Louisiana Educator: Destroying the Teaching Profession in Louisiana:

Destroying the Teaching Profession in Louisiana

Destroying the teaching profession? That's a pretty sensational pronouncement. My background as a science teacher requires me to provide evidence when I make such a dramatic claim. Lets look at the evidence:

Starting with Act 54 of 2010, our State, in an effort to win Race to the Top grants from the US Department of Education, decided to tie half of our teacher evaluations to student performance using a system called the Value Added Model. In the process of adopting regulations for VAM, our new State Superintendent unilaterally (in contradiction to the law) decided to count the VAM for 100% of a teacher's evaluation in cases where a teacher scored in the bottom 10% of the VAM ranking of teachers.   Why do I consider this as part of the destruction of the teaching profession? As the LDOE was in the process of finalizing the VAM system, it was never revealed to the general public that the initial testing of the VAM demonstrated that the stability or reliability of the VAM system was totally erratic and unreliable. Data showed that up to 74% of the teachers rated as ineffective by VAM could have been incorrectly graded. Around that  Louisiana Educator: Destroying the Teaching Profession in Louisiana:

Education in the Age of Globalization » How Does PISA Put the World at Risk (Part 3): Creating Illusory Models of Excellence

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » How Does PISA Put the World at Risk (Part 3): Creating Illusory Models of Excellence:

How Does PISA Put the World at Risk (Part 3): Creating Illusory Models of Excellence

23 MARCH 2014 144 NO COMMENT

Few numbers in the world command as much power as PISA scores, not even the number of Olympic medals or Nobel Prize winners in the world today. It is utterly shocking and embarrassing to see some otherwise rational and well-educated people (or at least they should be) in powerful positions believe that three test scores show the quality of their education systems, the effectiveness of their teachers, the ability of their students, and the future prosperity of their society.

PISA has become the star-maker in the education universe because of its bold claim to assess “the extent to which students near the end of compulsory education have acquired key knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies” [1, p. 15]. Moreover, PISA claims to find educational stars by identifying which education systems better prepare their children for “full participation in modern societies”—as measured by PISA scores. The goal is for educational systems to learn from “the highest-performing and most rapidly improving school systems” [1, p. 15].

The claims are as bold as they are illusory. In a June 2013 article in the Times Education Supplement (TES)magazine, William Stewart questioned if PISA is fundamentally flawed:

what if there are “serious problems” with the Pisa data? What if the statistical techniques used to compile it are “utterly wrong” and based on a “profound conceptual error”? Suppose the whole idea of being able to accurately rank such diverse education systems is “meaningless”, “madness”?

What if you learned that Pisa’s comparisons are not based on a common test, but on different students answering different questions? And what if switching these questions around leads to huge variations in the all-important Pisa rankings, with the U.K. finishing anywhere between 14th and 30th and Denmark 

3-23-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:

If you like ALEC’s Mayor then you will love ALEC’s Governor.

1 by Fred Klonsky / 19min

Why does Tim Meegan want to be a Chicago Alderman?

  It was such a cold Chicago morning that even with two layers of gloves my fingers started to tingle with frost bite.  I was knocking on doors for Will Guzzardi with Tim Meegan, who I had just met for the first time that morning. “I’m gonna run for Alderman,” he told me. I must have had a funny look. I asked, “Why would you want to do THAT?” Here’s why. I’m Tim Meegan, an independent progressive

4 by Fred Klonsky / 20min 

Sunday reads.

NYC Educator runs for union office. More like him should. They pissed away $3 million supporting the candidate from ALEC, an idea the membership wouldn’t buy.  The bill is the best charter bill of the season and deserves your immediate support.  David Sirota. Annual pension shortfall = $46B. Annual corporate subsidies = $120B Unions kick ALEC out of Oregon. But they endorsed ALEC Chairman as Gove

by Fred Klonsky / 9min 

3-22-14 Fred All Week Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: Fred All Week Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacherKeeping retirement weird. The viagra trial.It must be a sign of old age. I see a news item about the Vegara Trial in California? I read it as the Viagra Trial. The Vegara Trial, The California law suit that challenges teacher seni

by mike simpson / 48min 

Chicago 4th Grade Activist-Scholar, Asean Johnson, and his mother, Shoneice Reynolds , Give the Moving and Informative Keynote at the NYCORE - Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:



Great Keynotes From the NYCORE2014 Radical Possibilities Conference



Chicago 4th Grade Activist-Scholar, Asean Johnson, and his mother, Shoneice Reynolds , Give the Moving and Informative Keynote at the NYCORE-Organized Radical Possibilities Conference held on March 15, 2014 in Brooklyn, NY.

Grit Academic Success:

What’s Wrong with Grit?

By Vicki Zakrzewski

 Grit is all over the news these days–the “latest fad in schools, ” according to author Alfie Kohn. With research suggesting that grit is linked to academic success, many policy makers, school leaders, and educators are crossing their fingers that this might be the silver bullet needed to give a boost to struggling students.

Yet a closer examination of the actual research on grit reveals that there are many missing pieces to the grit puzzle. And if we’re not careful, encouraging our students to be “gritty” or, perhaps even worse, grading them on their level of grit–as they do at KIPP charter schools–may do more harm than good.

Leading grit researcher Angela Duckworth defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” In a nutshell, her research has found that students with high levels of grit are more successful in both academic and non-academic pursuits.

But there’s a lot more to grit then just identifying a goal and going for it. Before a school races to make grit a key factor in student success, here are a few important things to consider:

1. We don’t know how to teach it, and Duckworth is the first to admit this. So how can schools expect students to develop something that they’re not sure they can teach and students can learn, let alone grade them on it? It’s an unfair proposition for both students and teachers alike.

Part of the challenge is that it’s not known whether a person’s level of grit can change. Grit is understood by researchers to be a stable personality trait, possibly part of the trait of “conscientiousness.” What this means is that a person’s level of grit generally remains the same over time.

Yet while developmental psychologists agree that a child’s personality becomes more stable as he or she goes through certain developmental stages, research on personality traits in adults suggests that these traits may actually change gradually over the lifespan. However, much is predicated on other factors, such as 

Chicago Teachers Union | Response on Candid Video of Karen Lewis

Chicago Teachers Union | Response on Candid Video of Karen Lewis:

Media » Response on Candid Video of Karen Lewis

Chicago Teachers Union President spoke to U.S. Education Secretary about candid remarks

Click here to watch President Lewis' address at the Rethinking Schools - Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference.

Click here for Edward McClelland's take on the flap.

Click here for a statement from The Northwest Teaching For Justice Conference Committee Regarding President Lewis' Speech

CHICAGO – Today, the Chicago Teachers Union released the following statement in response to a viral video promoted by right-wing, anti-public education advocates. The edited clip features remarks made by President Karen GJ Lewis in a keynote address before the Rethinking Schools - Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference which convened in Seattle last month.

This afternoon, Lewis spoke with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and apologized for her comments:

“Karen Lewis has always been candid and outspoken when discussing the personalities and policies that have adversely impacted public education in our nation.   The observations she made about herself and other public figures were an attempt at humor and candor before a live audience.   Though these comments were made more than a month ago, today they are being presented out of context in order to shift the focus from bad public policy decisions in education to attacks on her character,” said CTU spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin. 

“While she may never be honored with the Mark Twain Award for comedy, President Lewis’ opinions and self-deprecating humor were an attempt to lighten the mood during a long and serious discussion about the on-going campaign to blame and vilify teachers for everything wrong with public education.”  

"We who have spent our lives educating children can't help but be hurt and defensive about the attacks on our effectiveness and commitment to improving our schools and the future of our students," says Lewis.  "As a classroom teacher with more than two decades of experience and now as a leader of the third largest teachers union in the country, this teaches me that I can never let frustrations get in the way of carrying out my responsibilities as a leader."