Faith in High Stakes Testing Fades, Even Among the Corporate School Reformers | janresseger

Faith in High Stakes Testing Fades, Even Among the Corporate School Reformers | janresseger

Faith in High Stakes Testing Fades, Even Among the Corporate School Reformers

After a recent twenty-fifth anniversary conference at the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, Bothell—a Gates funded education-reformer think tank, Chalkbeat‘s Matt Barnum summarized presentations by a number of speakers who demonstrate growing skepticism about the high-stakes, standardized testing regime that has dominated American public education for over a quarter of a century.

Because the Center on Reinventing Public Education is known as an advocate for portfolio school reform and corporate accountability, you might expect adherence to the dogma of test-and-punish, but, notes Barnum:  “The pervasiveness of the complaints about testing was striking, given that many education reform advocates have long championed using test scores to measure schools and teachers and then to push them to improve.”

Then at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology School Access and Quality Summit early this month, Paymon Rouhanifard presented a major policy address challenging the use of high stakes testing to rank and rate public schools.  Rouhanifard was until very recently Chris Christy’s appointed, school-reformer superintendent in Camden, New Jersey.  Formerly he was the director in New York City of Joel Klein’s Office of Portfolio Management.  Rouhanifard describes the belief system he brought with him to Camden and describes how his five-year tenure as Camden’s superintendent transformed his thinking: “Our belief was that politics and bureaucracy had inhibited the progress Camden students and families deserved to overcome the steep challenges the city was facing…  We believed it was important for the district to segue out of being a highly political monopoly operator of schools….  This is a story about an evolution of my own thinking during that five-year experience…. What I’m referring to are the math and literacy student achievement data we utilize to drive so many of the critical decisions we make… My realization a few years ago was that I rarely asked questions about what these tests actually told us.  What they didn’t tell us.  And perhaps most importantly, what were the specific behaviors they incentivized, and what were the general trade-offs when we acutely focus on how students do on state tests.”

In 2013, at the beginning of his tenure, Rouhanifard introduced a school report card that rated each school primarily by students’ standardized test scores. Two years ago Rouhanifard: Continue reading:  Faith in High Stakes Testing Fades, Even Among the Corporate School Reformers | janresseger

CURMUDGUCATION: Don't Call Me A Reformer - https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2018/11/who-is-reformer.html

Common Core Creator Slammed Reading Teachers for Having a Research Gap—How Ironic

Common Core Creator Slammed Reading Teachers for Having a Research Gap—How Ironic

Common Core Creator Slammed Reading Teachers for Having a Research Gap—How Ironic

Teachers have enough difficulties. Sometimes you find an article so full of hubris and irony it cannot be ignored.

Several weeks ago, I criticized a series of reports about reading by journalist Emily Hanford. Hanford claimed teachers didn’t understand reading instruction and that their education schools failed to teach them what they should know.

I made the case that these reports involved poor arguments. The author cited the flawed National Reading Panel report and the National Council on Teacher Quality a think tank meant to discredit teachers.

It seemed like the underlying goal was to pit parents against teachers.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a discussion to be had about reading instruction in public schools, only that Hanford’s articles were promoting corporate reform, however nuanced.

I overlooked an Ed. Week article by Susan Pimental, an architect of Common Core English language arts. Pimental praises Hanford’s articles. She criticizes teachers Continue reading: Common Core Creator Slammed Reading Teachers for Having a Research Gap—How Ironic

CURMUDGUCATION: Trump, Apple, but No Teacher

CURMUDGUCATION: Trump, Apple, but No Teacher

Trump, Apple, but No Teacher

Ivanka Trump, Czarina of Shiny Things, traveled to an Idaho school and took Tm Cook, Big Boss Apple, along with her, to contemplate the glossy beauty of post-teacher education.

The Idaho Statesman covered her visit in severe detail (including coverage of an omelet she ate before leaving). The visit was intended to be quick and quiet, with only the Statesman and an ABC crew allowed to witness. And only to witness-- no questions allowed. Some word got out and an assortment of supporters and protesters were waiting outside the school.

One more rich self-appointed ed expert

Inside, students awaited with... well, what the Statesman described were not exactly technomarvels. They spelled out "welcome" on some ipads, and were "making a movie" of the visitors. The tour lasted an hour, featuring the various uses of the ipads that Apple gave the school three years ago.

Trump dropped the usual line about some states and schools being "laboratories of innovation." No, wait-- that was the usual line for the Obama administration. Huh. But the real kicker was Cook's observation about one of the classrooms:

Cook gestured around the classroom: “You notice in this classroom there is no teacher, there is a mentor. It makes the learning process for students very different because in a classroom where there is a mentor, people can move at different rates. This is life. We all learn things at different rates.”

Instead of a teacher standing before the entire class and lecturing, the students at Wilder hold the classroom in their hands and complete the work at their own pace.

It's an ed reformster techno-twofer-- pushing the Personalized [sic] Mass Customized Learning  Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: Trump, Apple, but No Teacher

Where Do Teachers Get the Most Respect? - NEA Today

Where Do Teachers Get the Most Respect? - NEA Today

Where Do Teachers Get the Most Respect?

How educators are respected in relation to other professions can be a key marker in determining their overall status in an individual country. In China and Malaysia, the teaching profession is often placed on par with doctors. In Finland, the public aligns teaching with social work. Other countries rank teaching alongside librarians. These are just some of the findings in the 2018 Global Teacher Status Index, a worldwide survey of the general public and educators in 35 countries on the status of the teaching profession around the world.

How teachers were viewed relative to other occupations is one of four indicators the index uses to measure overall respect for the profession. The survey also looked at what teachers should be paid and whether parents encourage their children to enter the profession.

The researchers said 2018 data show a clear positive relationship between teacher status/respect and student achievement as measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores.

China and Malaysia have the highest score in the 2018 index, 100 and 93 respectively. Taiwan – the only other country that places teachers on the same level as doctors – is third.  Russia and Indonesia round out the top five. At the bottom of the rankings are Argentina (23.6), Ghana (18.9), Italy (13.6), Israel (6.6) and Brazil (1).

Most countries surveyed recorded an increase in teacher respect for 2018 over the previous year, including the United States. The U.S. score was 39, which placed it 16th overall.

Doctor was the highest status profession in the survey. Other occupations included nurse, librarian; local government manager; social worker; website designer; policeman; engineer; lawyer; accountant; and, management consultant.

(Source: Global Teacher Status Index 2018)

Most countries placed teaching on the same level as a social worker. The U.S. equated the role of teachers to that of librarians, although the educators in the Continue reading: Where Do Teachers Get the Most Respect? - NEA Today

Bullying, Suicide, and Murder | The Merrow Report

Bullying, Suicide, and Murder | The Merrow Report
Bullying, Suicide, and Murder

Last week in this space I connected the dots between bullying and the suicides and attempted suicides by children and adolescents, pointing out the close correlation between them. This week, I want to surface an equally grim reality: school shootings are also closely correlated with bullying.

Fortunately, there are a number of simple steps that we can take to reduce bullying and, by extension, suicides, suicide attempts, and school shootings.

Let’s cut to the chase: Girls who are bullied beyond their breaking point are most likely to try to kill themselves, not others.  All too often they succeed. 

By contrast, boys who reach the breaking point are far more likely to try to kill others.  All too often, they are successful.

Girls rarely use guns.  Boys usually do.  And guns almost always function they way they are supposed to, meaning that people die.  And, sadly, guns are readily available in modern America.  (About 70% of school shooters got their weapons at home or from relatives, according to ABC News.)

“The modern era of school shootings” (an awful phrase) began on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado, when two white male teenagers who had been bullied excessively shot up their high school, Columbine High, killing 13 people and wounding at least 20 others before they turned their guns on themselves.  The ensuing 19+ years have seen close to 300 school shootings  including Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, two that you no doubt remember.  By the way, at least 65 of the shooters Continue reading: Bullying, Suicide, and Murder | The Merrow Report

ACLU appeals use of public tax dollars for private schools

ACLU appeals use of public tax dollars for private schools

ACLU appeals public tax dollars for private schools

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, public education leaders and parent groups filed an appeal Tuesday asking the Michigan Supreme Court to rule the use of public tax dollars to fund private schools unconstitutional.

Dan Korobkin, ACLU of Michigan's deputy legal director, said the state constitution clearly prohibits the use of public funds to fund private schools. State lawmakers must not be allowed to use public school dollars to fund private interests, he said.

"Our constitution could not be clearer on this issue: Public money should only be spent on public schools,” Korobkin said.

The ACLU of Michigan and others sued in March 2017 to prevent the state from diverting $5 million to private schools to reimburse them for complying with health and safety laws.

Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Diane Stephens issued a preliminary injunction against the payments in July 2017, and issued a ruling declaring them unconstitutional in April 2018, ACLU officials said.

But last month, a divided Court of Appeals panel ruled Michigan lawmakers can provide public funding to private schools to cover the “actual costs” of mandates that do not directly support student education.

In a 2-1 decision, judges William Murphy and Anica Letica ruled state funding to reimburse private schools for complying with health and safety laws is not inherently unconstitutional despite a ban on public aid for private education.

The funding must be “incidental” to teaching and providing educational services, cannot support a “primary” function critical to the school's existence and must not involve or result in “excessive religious entanglement,” they said in devising a new three-part test.

Any state law concerning student health, safety or welfare is “almost by definition” incidental to teaching, the judges said.

Public school advocates sued the state in 2017 after the Republican-led Legislature Continue reading: ACLU appeals use of public tax dollars for private schools

DeVos: Teachers union has a ‘stranglehold’ on many federal, state politicians | TheHill

DeVos: Teachers union has a ‘stranglehold’ on many federal, state politicians | TheHill

DeVos: Teachers union has a ‘stranglehold’ on many federal, state politicians

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on Tuesday ripped teachers unions across the country, saying they have a “stranglehold” over many federal and state officials and are resistant to “changes that need to happen.”

“The teachers union has a stranglehold on many of the politicians in this country, both at the federal level and at the state-level, and they are very resistant to the kind of changes that need to happen,” DeVos said in an appearance on Fox Business Network. “They are very protective of what they know, and there are protective, really protective of adult jobs and not really focused on what is right for individual students.”

DeVos has regularly clashed with national and state teachers unions over her comments criticizing the nation’s public education system and her platform to expand school choice, particularly by increasing the number of privately run charter schools, vouchers and similar programs that use public money for private education.

“One of the most fundamental things again is focusing on individual children and knowing that all students are different, they learn differently. I have four children, they were all very different, very different learners. We have to allow for more kinds of schools, more kinds of educational experiences, and to do that we need to empower more families to make those decisions on behalf of their students,” DeVos said before targeting the teachers unions for “protecting the status quo.”

“We have a lot of forces that are protecting what is and what is known, a lot of forces protecting the status quo. We need to combat those, break them, and again empower and allow parents to make decisions on behalf of their individual children because they know their children best,” she added.

Before being nominated to Trump’s Cabinet, DeVos was a prominent advocate for school choice in Michigan.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, slammed DeVos over her latest comments Tuesday.

“Betsy DeVos is showing her true colors. We are fighting for the safe and welcoming public schools that kids deserve, healthcare protections so people aren’t one pre-existing condition away from bankruptcy, affordable college without life-burdening student debt, and decent wages. Since she is against all of that, Betsy is attacking the unions that create a voice for teachers to advocate on these issues. As secretary of education, it is her sworn duty to help kids and their communities reach their full potential. Comments like these do the opposite, and she knows it," Weingarten said Continue reading: DeVos: Teachers union has a ‘stranglehold’ on many federal, state politicians | TheHill

How Betsy DeVos Does the Koch Brothers’ Bidding | OurFuture.org by People's Action

How Betsy DeVos Does the Koch Brothers’ Bidding | OurFuture.org by People's Action

How Betsy DeVos Does the Koch Brothers’ Bidding

While the serial outrages of the Trump administration continue to make headlines, the more mundane activities of his cabinet officials and their underlings often fly under the radar.

Take U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, for instance, whose nomination drew a history-making opposition and set off an avalanche of ridicule in social media and late-night comedy, but who now operates largely out of public view, behind a security screen that is projected to cost the taxpayers nearly $8 million over the next year.

What’s largely been overlooked behind all the lurid headlines and endless insults are all the ways in which officials like DeVos are quietly at work continuing to use our tax money to advance a deeply troubling agenda.

Now that Congress is poised to turn from Red to Blue, DeVos’s activities – such as rolling back regulation of for-profit colleges, stalling the forgiveness of student loans and rewriting rules for the treatment of campus sexual assault – are getting increased scrutiny from House Democrats.

Doing the Koch Brothers’ Bidding

In a recent low-profile appearance, DeVos and her high-priced security detail paid a friendly visit to Koch Industries in Wichita, Kansas without telling local officials, the media, or any other public outlet. The purpose of her stopover was to meet with a select group of representatives of Youth Entrepreneurs, a Wichita-based non-profit group founded by Charles and Liz Koch.

Youth Entrepreneurs, according to an investigative report by the Huffington Post, provides high school curriculum designed to inculcate students in the blessings of unfettered capitalism and libertarian ideology. Among the teachings included in the program’s lesson plans and classroom materials are that “the minimum wage hurts workers and slows economic growth. Low taxes and less regulation allow people to prosper. Public assistance harms the poor. Government, in short, is the enemy of liberty.

“Charles Koch had a hands-on role in the design of the high school curriculum,” the reporter reveals, based on leaked emails from a Google group left open to the public. “The goal … was to turn young people into ‘liberty-advancing agents’ before they went to college, where they Continue reading: How Betsy DeVos Does the Koch Brothers’ Bidding | OurFuture.org by People's Action

CURMUDGUCATION: When Is Personalized Learning Not Personalized Learning

CURMUDGUCATION: When Is Personalized Learning Not Personalized Learning

When Is Personalized Learning Not Personalized Learning

Personalized Learning is a hot new brand in education, the Great New Thing that is going to revitalize education and elevate students to new levels of awesome. And yet, what is being pitched in many school districts is not personalized learning at all.

When we hear the words "personalized learning," we imagine an educational plan crafted to the individual student. Pat really loves dinosaurs, so the teacher creates a reading unit based on books about dinosaurs combined with a writing unit involving research about dinosaurs. If Pat is weak on particular styles of charts and graphs, Pat may get an extra unit that works on organizing information about dinosaurs visually. Meanwhile, Chris needs remedial work on reading, so Chris gets some lower-reading level high-interest materials about rodeos and horses, because that's what Chris loves. On the other side of the hall, Sam wants to be a concert pianist, so Sam's educational program approaches history from the perspective of the history of music, and Sam actually spends less time daily on science so that there's more time for music-related studies.

That, or something like it, would be personalized learning.

But what many school districts are actually talking about is personalized pacing. Chris, Pat and Sam all complete exactly the same reading materials, they study the exact same units in math, and they study history out of exactly the same textbook. The only difference is the speed with which they move through the materials. Chris is weak in reading, so Chris takes three tries to successfully complete the Unit 2 test, while Pat and Sam continue to Unit 3. Pat has trouble with volume problems in math class, so while Chris and Sam move ahead, Pat gets some supplemental materials (aka extra practice) with volume problems. There is nothing personal about their learning program except the speed with which they move through it.

This is not a new idea in education. If you're of a Certain Age, you may remember Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: When Is Personalized Learning Not Personalized Learning

Help save public education by giving to NPE - If You Shop at Amazon, Please Designate the Network for Public Education as Your Charity

Help save public education by giving to NPE - Network For Public Education

If You Shop at Amazon, Please Designate the Network for Public Education as Your Charity | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-leE via @dianeravitch

Help save public education by giving to NPE

Giving Tuesday is November 27. This holiday season please remember to give a gift to save public education by donating to NPE.

Right now your tax deductible gift can have twice the impact. Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor who deeply believes in the importance of public education, every donation made between today and December 15 will be matched, up to a total of $10,000.

Give your tax deductible gift here and our donor will match it.

You can also choose to make that donation in honor of a family member, friend or teacher, and they will receive an email from us, notifying them of your gift.

Your donation to the Network for Public Education supports our advocacy work. Donations fund our reports​, toolkits, investigations​, grassroots group work, email alerts​ and more. Each year we host, with NPE Action, an annual conference​ that we heavily subsidize. We provide scholarships to bring activists with financial need to the conference so that they can work and learn together to fight against privatization and for the improvement of public schools.

We have big plans for 2018 as the battle to privatize our public school system pushes forward in nearly every state house. We will create model legislation to clamp down on charter abuses, lobby with the new Congress, and expand and mobilize our Grassroots network. We are making great progress. But to continue the fight, we need your help. Give generously here and know that your donation will be generously matched. You donation is tax deductible and you will receive either an email or letter receipt. 

If you prefer to send a check, please send it to our new address:

Network for Public Education

PO Box 227

New York, NY 10156

Thank you for all you do.

Help save public education by giving to NPE - Network For Public Education

Former Louisiana schools chief Paul Pastorek gets Puerto Rico contract: report | nola.com

Former Louisiana schools chief Paul Pastorek gets Puerto Rico contract: report | nola.com

Former Louisiana schools chief Paul Pastorek gets Puerto Rico contract: report

Louisiana’s former education superintendent has accepted a six-figure contract to revitalize the school system in Puerto Rico, Education Week reports. The website’s story comes from The Metro newspaper in Puerto Rico.

The report, which cites a report from Metro in Puerto Rico, says Paul Pastorek, a New Orleans native, agreed to a contract with Puerto Rico’s Department of Education to help with various tasks, including assisting the island’s school system in getting hurricane recovery funds to implement a plan under the state’s Every Student Succeeds Act. The contract reportedly runs until June 2019 and is worth up to $155,000, at $250 an hour, Education Week reports.

Puerto Rico was devastated in September 2017 when Hurricane Maria hit the island, leaving nearly 3,000 dead and severely damaging the island’s power grid.

Betsy DeVos praises 'creative' school reforms on New Orleans visit

DeVos called New Orleans 'a really great and important example' to the nation in how to lead change.

Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher told Education Week that Pastorek is “particularly helpful” given his post-Hurricane Katrina experience.

Not everyone approves of the decision. The report says American Federation of Teachers' President Randi Weingarten said Pastorek only seeks to further the goals of U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, which include “closing schools, privatization and disinvestment from public schools."

Pastorek was a partner at Adams and Reese in New Orleans for 27 years and served on the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education before he was named state superintendent of schools in 2007. He is known for leading the state’s education efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and credited with helping design Louisiana’s school accountability measures and stabilizing the Recovery School District. Many of the education reforms he supported allowed New Orleans to become the majority charter school district it is today.

Pastorek resigned as Louisiana schools chief in 2011 to serve as an executive for Airbus Group Inc., a defense contractor based in CONTINUE READING: Former Louisiana schools chief Paul Pastorek gets Puerto Rico contract: report | nola.com

What’s Behind the Chan Zuckerberg (CZI) Push for “Brain Science?”

What’s Behind the Chan Zuckerberg (CZI) Push for “Brain Science?”

What’s Behind the Chan Zuckerberg (CZI) Push for “Brain Science?”

It doesn’t matter how much trouble Mark Zuckerberg might appear to be in with Facebook, he and his wife still find time to mess with education and give elitist advice to teachers.

Their latest initiative is to claim teachers need to learn brain science. They’re donating $1 million to Neuroteach Global, an online PD platform created by the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, calling themselves a mind, brain, and education research center.

Some teachers will get financial support to learn about brain science, while others will pay for it on their own, or likely through their school districts.

It’s also about transforming education to technology.

The group is based out of St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland. The sponsors of the program include Teach for America. They’re hoping to sell this program to schools and universities across the country. How ironic that a group like TFA with minimal instruction and understanding about teaching, is a part of promoting brain science to teachers.

Real teachers from reputable university education programs have always taken child Continue reading: What’s Behind the Chan Zuckerberg (CZI) Push for “Brain Science?”