Charter schools drain money from public schools, towns - Southern New England

Critics: Charter schools drain money from public schools, towns - News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England:

Critics: Charter schools drain money from public schools, towns

News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England

PROVIDENCE -

The debate about charter schools in Rhode Island heated up with dueling press conferences on Tuesday.

Students descended on the State House to rally against legislation they believe would be a death knell to the future of charter schools in Rhode Island.

While some education officials are in favor of the legislation, as they said these schools are draining resources away from traditional public schools, charter school supporters said the future of school choice is at stake.

“This isn't an out of balance system that cries for a permanent moratorium,” said Timothy Groves of Rhode Island League of Charter Schools.

Others said the unchecked growth of charter schools is putting a burden on local school districts, and by extension, the property owners who fund them.

“We're very concerned that the current charter laws are taxation without representation,” said Timothy Ryan of the Rhode Island School Superintendents Association. “It's a system we can't afford.”

When school districts hand over a per pupil cost for every student that leaves the district for a charter school, the school district still has to bear the burden of special education costs, as well as other expenses that would have been paid for through that per pupil expenditure.

“It's unfair to ask property tax payers to shoulder the burden of essentially a dual education system,” said Timothy Duffy of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees.

One example is Cumberland, where the superintendent said the increase in state aid they will receive next year will translate into $1,869 more per charter student, but only $26 for each district student.

“Our current system is simply defunding existing school districts for the creation of new charter districts,” said Cumberland School Superintendent Phil Thornton.

Groves wants to focus on the funding issue instead of putting the brakes on charter schools all together.

“We think that's wrong headed, that's over reaching, and it doesn't address the inequities that these folks were talking about with respect to funding,” said Groves. “We have professed to anyone who'll listen (that) we're willing to come to the table.”

Supporters of the current bills said their focus now is on what locals say on the future of charter schools. The next session they'll tackle will be the funding issue.

Both measures are in Committee at the State House.Critics: Charter schools drain money from public schools, towns - News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England:

Report: Cost of school vouchers jumps from $16M to $40M

Report: Cost of school vouchers jumps from $16M to $40M:

Report: Cost of school vouchers jumps from $16M to $40M

The cost of Indiana’s private school voucher program jumped from $16 million to $40 million during the past school year, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Department of Education.

Critics of the voucher program say the report proves that subsidizing private education is costly and unsustainable. But supporters say the new figure is misleading.

At issue are publicly funded vouchers that families who meet certain income requirements can use to send students to private schools.

More than 29,100 students received vouchers during the recently completed academic year, up from about 19,800 the year before. Those numbers make Indiana’s program one of the largest in the nation.

Supporters of the voucher program have argued that such an expansion would save the state money because vouchers only provide 50 percent to 90 percent of the funding a traditional public school would receive on behalf of a student. Parents pick up the rest.

The assumption has been that many public school students would move to private schools, saving the state money. But much of the increased participation came from students who have never attended a traditional public school.

In fact, for the first time since the voucher program began, more than half of those receiving vouchers have never set foot in a public school, according to the report. Over the past year, the number of voucher recipients who have never attended an Indiana public school nearly doubled, from 7,779 to 14,700.

As a result, the Department of Education, led by Democrat Glenda Ritz, estimated the increase in vouchers actually cost the state more money.

Daniel Altman, a spokesman for Ritz, defended the calculation, noting that it was Republicans — generally supporters of school choice — who came up with the formula used by the department.

Voucher opponents seized on the results Tuesday.

“It’s a much larger price tag than what supporters said it would be,” said Rep. Terry Goodin, a Democrat who is also superintendent of Crothersville Community Schools. “As we move forward it’s going to be a real burden on our state.”

But school choice advocates say the department’s calculation is deeply flawed because no one knows how many voucher students would have attended public schools if the vouchers were not available. Yet, the study assumes voucher recipients who haven’t attended public school would have chosen private education even without the voucher.

In reality, no more than 20 percent of those students would have elected private Report: Cost of school vouchers jumps from $16M to $40M:

TEACHER EVALUATIONS: WHERE IS THE RAGE? | Reclaim Reform

TEACHER EVALUATIONS: WHERE IS THE RAGE? | Reclaim Reform:

TEACHER EVALUATIONS: WHERE IS THE RAGE?

Posted on June 16, 2015by Ken Previti

Refuse to be a willing victim.

There is a point where teachers themselves must stop arguing about some finely worded minutia in their evaluations. The argument had been framed beforehand by people who want career educators fired in order to hire cheaper labor.
You were set-up to be the loser.

Refuse to be a willing victim.

How? Fight back.

Stop sniveling, whimpering and simpering. Put your evaluation reality in writing.

“How dare you evaluate my teaching ability based upon developmentally inappropriate standardized test scores while forcing me to teach to these expensive, invalid tests you have never seen.”

This is just one example of what to attach as a rebuttal to your evaluation. Personalize your own.

The majority of people who pay taxes to support a school district need to know what is going on from the career teachers who are being abused with rigged evaluations.

Teachers, especially those of you who are losing your jobs now or soon, need to face the reality. You were publicly shamed and unfairly fired. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Fight back by starting a personal lawsuit, not a collective bargaining suit. Your career and salary are over. You personally are the victim of defamation of character, libel, slander, etc. You have suffered by being unjustly maligned, reviled, abused, vilified, and abused. You have been labeled a loser for all potential jobs in your future. Those people who repeated, verbally and in writing, that you deserved to lose your TEACHER EVALUATIONS: WHERE IS THE RAGE? | Reclaim Reform:

Time for Congress to Investigate Bill Gates' Coup | Diane Ravitch

Time for Congress to Investigate Bill Gates' Coup | Diane Ravitch:

Time for Congress to Investigate Bill Gates' Coup

The story about Bill Gates' swift and silent takeover of American education is startling. His role and the role of the U.S. Department of Education in drafting and imposing the Common Core standards on almost every state should be investigated by Congress.

The idea that the richest man in America can purchase and -- working closely with the U.S. Department of Education -- impose new and untested academic standards on the nation's public schools is a national scandal. A Congressional investigation is warranted.

The close involvement of Arne Duncan raises questions about whether the law was broken.

Thanks to the story in the Washington Post and to diligent bloggers, we now know that one very rich man bought the enthusiastic support of interest groups on the left and right to campaign for the Common Core.

Who knew that American education was for sale?

Who knew that federalism could so easily be dismissed as a relic of history? Who knew that Gates and Duncan, working as partners, could dismantle and destroy state and local control of education?

The revelation that education policy was shaped by one unelected man, underwriting dozens of groups. and allied with the Secretary of Education, whose staff was laced with Gates' allies, is ample reason for Congressional hearings.

I have written on various occasions (see here and here) that I could not support the Common Core standards because they were developed and imposed without regard to democratic process. The writers of the standards included no early childhood educators, no educators of children with disabilities, no experienced classroom teachers; indeed, the largest contingent of the drafting committee were representatives of the testing industry. No attempt was made to have pilot testing of the standards in real classrooms with real teachers and students. The standards do not permit any means to challenge, correct, or revise them.

In a democratic society, process matters. The high-handed manner in which these standards were written and imposed in record time makes them unacceptable. These standards not only undermine state and local control of education, but the manner in which they were written and adopted was authoritarian. No one knows how they will work, yet dozens of groups have been paid millions of dollars by the Gates Foundation to claim that they are absolutely vital for our economic future, based on no evidence whatever.

Why does state and local control matter? Until now, in education, the American idea has been that no single authority has all the answers. Local boards are best equipped to handle local problems. States set state policy, in keeping with the concept that Time for Congress to Investigate Bill Gates' Coup | Diane Ravitch:

Evers: Under proposed state budget WI will have "Charter School CZARS" accountable to nobody : blue cheddar

Evers: Under proposed state budget WI will have "Charter School CZARS" accountable to nobody : blue cheddar:

Evers: Under proposed state budget WI will have "Charter School CZARS" accountable to nobody

Supt. Tony Evers makes some remarkable comments at about the 23:20 mark in this June 1st interview (which I wish I had seen earlier). Evers discusses a radical proposed change made to the “2r” or independent charter schools.

“The legislators are significantly empowering the University of Wisconsin System – not the regents and not the president – and the Waukesha County Executive and others in the state to open 2r charters across the state frankly but primarily Southern Wisconsin.”

Evers explains that these two individuals will have the sole authority to open an UNLIMITED NUMBER of charter schools in school districts that have 25,000 children or more.

That means Madison and Milwaukee will be targeted.

Steve Walters is incredulous and asks many questions:

Walters: One person authority? A Charter Czar?

Evers: Yes. In Madison and Milwaukee. Large school districts. 25,000 kids or above.

Walters: Subject to approval by the Regents?

Evers: No way. They..

Walters: Not even to the president [Ray Cross]?

Evers: Not even to the president….From what I read – and I have read it 100 times – this person once hired – is – Czar …In addition Senator Farrow – and County Executive Farrow – is being given the authority to open charter schools in Waukesha County”

Walters then asks for clarification –

Walters: Schools plural? Or just one?

Evers: There is no limit.
Evers says the creation of Charter School Czars and the 2r expansion is in the Board of Regents budget.

(I read this article by Erin Richards. Perhaps when I saw “140 districts” I defaulted to thinking one school per district – or – …)

The problem with this charter expansion proposal – Evers says – is that it takes away decision power from local school boards and the second Evers: Under proposed state budget WI will have "Charter School CZARS" accountable to nobody : blue cheddar:

How Should Schools Help Teach Democracy? - Bridging Differences - Education Week

How Should Schools Help Teach Democracy? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

How Should Schools Help Teach Democracy? 

Today Deborah Meier and Joe Nathan discuss how schools can teach students about democracy. Deborah begins and Joe responds.

Dear Joe,

As I've noted many times elsewhere, democracy is hard to define for good reasons. Its definition is, at its best, so deeply contextual and never a fixed, "there, that's it." Furthermore, it's not particularly natural, I'd guess. No more than any other form of governance. It might even be that it's particularly unnatural, though that's hard—if not pointless — for us to decide.

It's always a weighing of one democratic principle against another. Have I a "right" to over-rule because I know better? Never? Sometimes? If I'm older and wiser, more expert, have knowledge that I haven't time to impart — then do I say "just do what you're told?"

Surely we've all been in circumstances where we've used one of these excuses. And, where we still feel we were right to do so. And what made it possible of course, was that we had the power to do so.

Ultimately democracy has to do with the distribution of power, and each of its most honored attributes rhetorically presumes an equality of power that does not exist. And probably can or should never — or should never.  Some of us are physically stronger, which sometimes is the deciding factor. Some more persuasive, more charismatic. Others have knowledge that is deliberately not available to all, resources that make them more persuasive, or access to forms of force that can overwhelm those that do not have such access.

And on and on. At a crucial moment in the third year of Central Park East, I fell back on my unequal power in a crisis to save the school. But doesn't every dictator use that in his (her?) defense.

When the teacher walks into the room — as I discovered as a substitute teacher — she either does or doesn't bring with her an aura of power. Every motion, tone of voice, gesture, choice of language reinforces or undermines her impact on those in front of her who could, if they "dared", make her authority disappear in a second. Alas, I was mostly a failure with students over the age of 9 or 10!  Schools are precarious organization that we all feel, uneasily, could at any moment break down if we are not alert to using our unequal power wisely.

Of course that also means that schools are by nature very poor places for honestly demystifying power that is at the heart of the democracy project. If the students glimpsed the magician in the Wizard of Oz as Dorothy did — in the flesh — authority would collapse. It's as though the one thing a How Should Schools Help Teach Democracy? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

Charter Program Expansion Looms Despite Probes into Mismanagement and Closed Schools | PR Watch

Charter Program Expansion Looms Despite Probes into Mismanagement and Closed Schools | PR Watch:

Charter Program Expansion Looms Despite Probes into Mismanagement and Closed Schools

As Congress stands poised to increase funding for the quarter-billion-dollar-a-year federal Charter Schools Program by a whopping 48 percent, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has uncovered that the U.S. Department of Education's Office of the Inspector General has major nationwide probes underway into closed charter schools and suspected waste and financial mismanagement within the program.

The program is designed create and expand “high-quality” charter schools, but it has been repeatedly criticized by the watchdogs at the department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in the past precisely because there is no way of knowing whether the money has gone to “high quality” schools.

With the vote looming in the U.S. Senate on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act containing the provisions expanding the charter schools program, Department of Education officials have assured stakeholders that the problems with millions disappearing down black holes is a thing of the past.

Last week, the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools sent a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan calling for more disclosure to the public of information on the impact and track record of the program. Federal officials responded through the Washington Post saying that the department has stepped up its monitoring activities and efforts to hold states responsible. The message was: all is well in federal charter land.

But the fact that the OIG has found reason to launch major probes this year tells a different story.

Lack of Oversight and Closed Schools Still a Major Concern

A PowerPoint presentation given by an OIG Regional Inspector General in December last year shows that the agency will have its work cut out for it. The top four priorities for its 2015 work on charter schools are investigations into:

• The “lack of oversight and monitoring” within the Charter Schools Program. A 2012 audit on federal charter school money in Arizona, California and Florida found a complete lack of accountability both on the federal and state levels. Florida did not even track how much grant money “charter schools drew down and spent,” and California charter “schools” received grant money without ever opening. The Department has assured stakeholders that it has learned from its mistakes and introduced new safeguards to tighten accountability and prevent waste. The OIG is not convinced;
• Charter Management Organizations, which are corporations that manage charter schools. Examples abound of how these for-profits fight tooth-and-nail against disclosing how much taxpayer money ends up in corporate coffers rather than in classrooms;
• Online charter schools. Thanks to legislation pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, these schools, which are often run by for-profits, are treated as brick-and-mortar schools in many states. As such, they receive the same amount of per-pupil funding as physical schools even though they do not have to pay for classrooms, athletic facilities, lunch or transportation. Low overhead means more money goes straight into the pockets of shareholders and executives. CMD's review shows that online schools are also huge beneficiaries of the federal charter schools program, even though they perform abysmally across the board.
• Closed charter schools. The 2012 OIG audit exposed an absurd lack of financial controls in the case of money awarded to charters that later closed. “The school files had no follow-up documentation for any of the 12 closed schools reviewed,” the OIG noted in the case of California, adding that: “there was no indication of any of the assets purchased with SEA grant funds.”

Before these audits are published, we can only speculate about possible findings. But a report recently published by CMD—"New Documents Show How Taxpayer Money is Wasted in Charter Schools: Stringent controls Urgently Needed as Charter Funding Faces Huge Increase"—paints a bleak picture of a program whose rhetoric speaks to accountability and oversight and yet is designed to foster a system of unaccountable schools exempt from state regulation and public control through elected school boards.

Strikingly, states that do not have the power to monitor charter authorizers and schools actually have the upper hand when applying for federal funding as they tend to score high on the rubric “flexibility offered by state law” used in evaluating the applications.

Moreover, CMD’s review of internal corrective action plans shows that the states exposed for terrible oversight in the scathing 2012 OIG audit were let off the hook after minimal follow up. The Department of Education, in short, took no meaningful action to stem the tide of taxpayer millions disappearing into a black hole.

Charter Schools Close at Two and a Half Times the Rate of Public Schools

It is impossible to anticipate the findings of the OIG probe into closed charter schools, but chances are that not much has changed since the 2012 audit revealed how millions in grants, as well as school assets bought with federal dollars, went missing after charter schools closed down.

CMD has compared the closure rates for charter schools and traditional public schools, and the result gives cause for concern. By combining the most recent data on school closures published by the federal National Center for Education Statistics with enrollment figures for the same school year, CMD calculates that one out of 71 charter school students saw their schools close in the 2011-2012 academic year. For those attending traditional public schools, the figure was one in 174.

In other words, charter school students run two and a half times the risk of having their education disrupted by a school closing and suffering academic setbacks as a result. Dislocated students are less likely to graduate and suffer other

- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/06/12859/charter-program-expansion-looms-despite-ongoing-probes-mismanagement-and-closed#sthash.KcQaCh5R.dpuf

Wisconsin's Attack on Freedom. | BustED Pencils

Wisconsin's Attack on Freedom. | BustED Pencils:

Wisconsin's Attack on Freedom.

Can it get any worse in Wisconsin?  I guess the answer to that question is it can always get worse.  I mean at this point we’re only restricting local taxpayers’ freedom to self govern their community schools.  Politicians are only restricting citizens’ freedom to new knowledge?  Corporations are only restricting academics’ freedom to have research agendas through monetary “donations” to our politicians.

As they say, “it can always be worse!”

Can it? Really?

Once we lose our freedom to self government and once we lose our freedom to knowledge haven’t we truly entered a state of tyranny?

So have we? Have we entered a true state of tyranny?  One only need look at the purposeful dismantling of Wisconsin’s public K-12 and university education systems to answer that question.

Legislatively declaring schools failing and them handing them over to private management is an attack on the freedom of citizens to self government.  Simply put: School takeovers are tyrannical actions.

Legislatively removing job protections from academics and restricting the exchange of knowledge between teachers and students is an attack on the freedom to inquire and learn. Again. Simply put: Attacking the freedom to learn is a tyrannical action.

The freedom to self government and the freedom to teach and learn are the only guarantees against the totalitarian exploitation of the people.

This should be a wake up call to ALL teachers and academics in Wisconsin! You have been targeted for elimination! It doesn’t matter if you retire early, quit, or your asked to leave, the message is clear (Act 10 and now the Joint Finance Committee’s attack on Public schools Wisconsin's Attack on Freedom. | BustED Pencils:

Setting the record straight on Adamowski and Hartford - Wait What?

Setting the record straight on Adamowski and Hartford - Wait What?:

Setting the record straight on Adamowski and Hartford 

Robert Cotto Jr. is a member of the Hartford Board of Education.  He is also a leading academic expert on education policy in Connecticut.  His articles have appeared in numerous publications and his writing and work can be regularly found in the Hartford Courant, CT Mirror and CT NewsJunkie.

Having seen witnessed Mr. Adamowski’s time in Hartford first-hand and written extensively about the challenges facing Hartford’s public school system, Robert Cotto Jr. sent the following letter to the Norwalk Board of Education today.

Letter to Norwalk Board of Education (By Robert Cotto, Jr. June 16, 2015)

This letter is sent in my capacity as an individual and do not represent the views of any organization I am involved in.  The views are my own.

Dear members of the Norwalk Board of Education,

Several newspapers recently reported that the Norwalk Board of Education would be hiring a former Superintendent of the Hartford Public Schools (HPS). As a Hartford Board of Education member since 2010 and an educational researcher, I write to raise concerns about claims made about the Hartford Public Schools between 2006 and 2011.

A press release from the Norwalk Board of Education suggests that HPS improved test results and graduation rates because of a change in policies and a new superintendent in 2006. It is true that HPS embarked on a policy of expanded school choice and hyper-accountability. This included closing schools and reopening them as themed academies.

However, there is little evidence that these policies alone resulted in improved achievement and graduation rates. As I wrote in The Hartford Courant in 2011, there was a mixed result from these policies – at best. Most importantly, the apparent “increases” only began when testing and graduation policies changed to artificially inflate this data.

Hartford’s “historic” test result increases only began when low-income, Black, and Latino students with disabilities were removed from regular tests and allowed to participate in a separate modified assessment in 2009. By 2011, 10% or more of all Hartford students, all with disabilities, were selected for a separate test. While this was happening, the HPS superintendent and administrators took credit. They also took bonus money for the subsequent increases, caused in large part by removing these kids.

I have written extensively on this issue. You can read my Op-Ed in the Hartford Courant, my report for CT Voices for Children, and my TEDx Talkat Central CT State University on the issue. This is not speculation, but fact.

Hartford’s graduation rate also has a number of question marks. Between 2006 and 2011, several policies changed that inflated graduation rates. First, the formula changed to calculate graduation rates. This new formula has 

Setting the record straight on Adamowski and Hartford - Wait What?:

What Would a Sanders Administration Do on K-12 Education?

What Would a Sanders Administration Do on K-12 Education?:

What Would a Sanders Administration Do on K-12 Education?

residential candidate Bernie Sanders has excited his base with some bold ideas surrounding higher education. He’s said college should be a right, that public universities should have free tuition, and that public universities should employ tenured or tenure-track faculty for at least 75 percent of instruction, as a way to reduce the growing dependence on cheap adjunct labor. But Sanders’ stances on K-12 issues—arguably more contentious topics for politicians to engage with compared to higher ed and universal pre-K—have garnered far less attention.

Here’s what we know so far:

1. He wants to roll back standardized testing, but still supports Common Core.

Sanders opposes the expansion of standardized testing we’ve seen through the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB); he argues that such tests narrow school curriculum and hurt student creativity and critical thinking. However, this past March he voted against an amendment that would have allowed states to opt-out of the Common Core standards without a federal penalty. The amendment also would have barred the federal government from “mandating, incentivizing, or coercing” states into adopting the standards.

2.  He supports expanding the school day and year.

Sanders is a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and in 2011, he worked to raise support for expanding the school day and year. Citing research on “summer learning loss”—Sanders notes that low-income students stand to lose much of what they learn if they’re denied extra-curricular enrichment opportunities. He also secured more funding for after-school and summer learning opportunities in Vermont.

3.  He wants to see teachers paid more, and is a defender of pensions.

Sanders believes all educators, from early childhood workers up to college instructors should be paid more. He said, “Something is very wrong when, last year, the top 25 hedge fund managers earned more than the combined income of 425,000 public school teachers. We have to get our priorities right.” And while he believes the public pension crisis “must be addressed” he is more interested in reigning in Wall Street to solve it than reducing retiree payments.

4. He opposes Big Money in politics, but has not taken a clear position on the role of Big Money in education.

Sanders has come out strongly against oil companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and other special interests that pour money into politics. Citing these groups as a threat to true democracy—he wants to overturn Citizens Unitedand push for publicly funded elections.

However, whether he will bring the same critical rhetoric to the foundations, consultants, and hedge fund managers shaping education policy remains to be seen. As Anthony Cody, the co-founder of Network for Public Ed pointed out recently, Sanders has yet to speak very clearly on these issues, but his opposition to Big Money elsewhere leads one to think that it’s at least a reasonable possibility.

5. He wants to strengthen who can be considered a “highly qualified” teacher.

The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education honored Sanders in 2012 for his “outstanding support” for educator preparation programs. In 2011 he introduced the Assuring Successful Students through Effective Teaching Act, which would aim to strengthen the definition of what a “highly qualified” teacher is considered to be, and work to reduce the number of unqualified teachers working in needy schools.

6. He has an unclear position on charter schools, but opposes vouchers.

He voted for the Charter School Expansion Act of 1998, but has not engaged much in the polarized charter debate since. Vermont is one of the few states that do not permit charter schools, in part because the Vermont public education system already allows for “school choice” in other ways. However, Sanders is a strong What Would a Sanders Administration Do on K-12 Education?:

CORPORATE DREAM TEAM: PT Sac Mayor Kevin Johnson Praises...Ben Carson? - Breitbart

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson Praises...Ben Carson? - Breitbart:
SACRAMENTO MAYOR KEVIN JOHNSON PRAISES…BEN CARSON?

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a Democrat who has praised Barack Obama for his efforts to “improve policing” in America and lauded him by saying “he’s hip, he’s a smooth president,” decided to flatter a GOP candidate for president on Monday, praising Ben Carson in Sacramento at a gathering of Johnson’s “Indivizible” African-American empowerment organization.

The Sacramento Bee reported that roughly 325 people heard Johnson declare, “Our goal should be the best that we can be. And when you strive for excellence, and you become excellent, nobody ever cares where you’re from or what you look like or the color of your skin….And the person that to me best represented that was Dr. Ben Carson.”

Johnson, a close friend of the Obamas, has not praised any other GOP candidate.

Johnson lauded Carson’s history, noting his “impressive” education and his presidential Medal of Freedom.

Carson, a famed neurosurgeon, attended Yale and the medical school at the University of Michigan. He became the youngest-ever division head at Johns Hopkins University, leading the department of pediatric neurosurgery.

When Johnson criticized Carson for saying that Obamacare was the worst thing since slavery, saying, “I think people felt the way you said that was not proper or deferential or with respect,” Carson backtracked, according to the Bee.

“You probably noticed over the last few months that I am not nearly as inflammatory as I used to be. Because what I’ve discovered is that when you say certain things people actually can’t hear what you’re saying,” Carson was quoted as saying.Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson Praises...Ben Carson? - Breitbart:

The One About Data, Numbers and Truth - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

The One About Data, Numbers and Truth

By:  Dr. Mitchell Robinson

Originally posted on his blog  http://www.mitchellrobinson.net/2015/06/13/the-one-about-data-numbers-and-truth/

Much has been made by the corporate reform community about how poorly American students do on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests. According to the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development, which administers the exams, "the United States performed below average in mathematics in 2012 and is ranked 27th. Performance in reading and science are both close to the OECD average. The United States ranks 17 in reading...and 20 in science." Now, if these were "apples to apples" comparisons, we would be well advised to be concerned. But they aren't; and the reformers know it, don't care, and are more than willing to use this misleading data to advance their agenda. 

What the reformers don't share--because it would not support their agenda of failing schools, bad teachers, disengaged students, uninvested parents, and greedy unions--is that more American students take these exams than do students in other countries, and that US students from schools with low rates of poverty do extremely well--better than students in most other countries. 

(An important caveat here: I don’t think that test scores are a terribly meaningful way to assess what students know and can do, but it’s the data we are used to seeing. The idea that we need standardized test results to tell us what our children know is one of the biggest lies told by the reformers. Teachers know a LOT about our students: we know their strengths and weaknesses, we know about their siblings and families, we know when they are in trouble, and we know what they are thinking and feeling. Only persons who have never taught would believe that we need standardized test scores to let us know how our students are doing. The truth is that these test scores are among the LEAST meaningful things we know about our students, and no amount of hype and reformer drama is going to change that.)

The issue here is that the PISA test scores are usually not disaggregated--that is, the scores are not parsed out by poverty rates, but instead are all lumped together. Many in the corporate reform community are fond of reporting these international scores without sharing the fact that US poverty rates are nearly 30%, while countries like Finland are at 5% or less. 

There is a strong correlation (not causation) between SES and test scores (and zip code and test scores, for that matter)--which is not to say that wealthy kids are smarter than poor kids. They aren'tBadass Teachers Association: