CURMUDGUCATION: The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores

CURMUDGUCATION: The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores

The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores

It has been almost a month since the NAERP scores have dropped, and some folks are still trying to torture some sort of useful insights from the numbers (here's Mike Petrilli at Fordham writing a piece that should be entitled "What to learn about being better a hitting the wrong target").

The world of education is a fuzzy one, with some declaring that teaching is more art than science. But then the National Assessment of Educational Progress is issued. “The Nation’s Report Card” is greeted as a source of hard data about the educational achievement of fourth and eighth graders (and in some years, high school students), theoretically neither biased nor tweaked as state tests might be. 

NAEP scores were released three weeks ago, and they have been percolating down through pundits, ed writers, ed bureaucrats, and ordinary ed kibitzers. So now that we have had weeks to absorb and process, what have some folks offered as important lessons, and what’s the only lesson that really counts?

Some have offered lessons that are simply misreadings of the data. The three NAEP levels (basic, proficient, and advanced) do not necessarily mean what folks think they mean, which is why Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was incorrect when she claimed that NAEP showed two thirds of students don’t read at grade level. NAEP’s “proficient” is set considerably higher than grade level, as noted on the NAEP site. (This is a lesson that has to be relearned as often as NAEP scores are released.)

It’s worth noting that there is some debate about whether or not NAEP data says what it claims to CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores

Unequal Access and Denial of Opportunity: the Collateral Damage of Portfolio School Reform | janresseger

Unequal Access and Denial of Opportunity: the Collateral Damage of Portfolio School Reform | janresseger

Unequal Access and Denial of Opportunity: the Collateral Damage of Portfolio School Reform

Last week, after New York City’s former mayor, Michael Bloomberg, expressed an interest in running for President, this blog reviewed the history of the school reform scheme he imposed during his three term tenure as mayor. In 2002, he convinced the state legislature to grant him mayoral governance of the city’s schools.  He and Joel Klein, the prominent attorney he appointed as his schools chancellor, imposed what was—nearly two decades ago—a new kind of school governance scheme.

The New York City Schools were among the early so-called “portfolio school districts,” and the district remains part of the Portfolio School Reform Network, big city school districts which adopted portfolio governance theory from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a Gates-funded think tank at the University of Washington, Bothell.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein launched this scheme in New York City by creating district-wide school choice, breaking up large comprehensive high schools into small schools with curricular specialties, encouraging the opening of a large number of charter schools, co-locating many schools—small specialty public schools along with charter schools—into the same buildings.  Those running the school district would consider all of these schools of choice as if they were investments in a stock portfolio. The district would hold on to the successful investments and phase out those whose test scores were low or which families didn’t choose.

Portfolio school reform has created collateral damage across the school districts which have experimented with the idea. After the Chicago Public Schools, another district managed by portfolio school reform theory, closed 50 schools at the end of the 2013 school year, the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research, and separately a University of Chicago sociologist, Eve Ewing tracked widespread community grieving when neighborhoods lost the public school institutions that had anchored their neighborhoods.

But there have been other kinds of collateral damage beyond the tragedy of school closures. In CONTINUE READING: Unequal Access and Denial of Opportunity: the Collateral Damage of Portfolio School Reform | janresseger

Um, that’s not what Warren actually said about charter schools - The Washington Post

Um, that’s not what Warren actually said about charter schools - The Washington Post

Um, that’s not what Warren actually said about charter schools

No, this isn’t about Wednesday night’s debate among the Democratic presidential candidates, which, incidentally, did not have a single substantive discussion about education. The moderators didn’t ask a single question about it, but then again, that’s happened in most of the Democratic debates too this year.

This post is about Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (Mass.) recently announced her preK-12 school reform plan, or, rather, the reaction to it. Last month, candidate Warren unveiled her reform, which calls for spending hundreds of billions of dollars to improve public schools from prekindergarten through 12th grade — and getting America’s wealthiest individuals to pay for it.

Elizabeth Warren calls for billions of new dollars to reform pre-K-12 schools and fight privatization. Here’s how she plans to pay for it.

One of the features in that plan is ending federal funding for the U.S. Charter Schools Program. The program provides money to states to create new charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated. In recent years, the charter movement, which once enjoyed bipartisan support, has become controversial, with many Democrats pulling back from it even as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has made expanding school “choice” her top priority.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a Democratic presidential candidate, also included the same feature in his expansive K-12 plan, which was released well before Warren’s. But she’s the one who became the target of tough criticism, which I wrote about here, at a time when she was rising in the polls and leading some of them.

This post looks at the problem with some of the criticism, which is being increasingly repeated as truth. It was written by Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a professor of education policy there. He was among the researchers consulted by Warren’s policy team as they drew up her education plan — but they had no involvement in, or awareness of, this commentary.

Carol Burris is the executive director of the nonprofit Network for Public Education, an advocacy group. A former award-winning school principal, she was the lead author of “Asleep at the Wheel,” the report about fraud in the charter school sector that was cited in Warren’s plan.

A report that detailed up to $1 billion in wasted federal funds on bad charter schools may have underestimated the problem

By Kevin Welner and Carol Burris

When Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) education plan was released a few weeks ago, one part drew strident criticism from some vested interests: her proposal to end the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP). Since 1995, that program has disbursed over $4.1 billion taxpayer dollars to people eager to open new charter schools or expand existing charter schools.

A shocking amount of this money was squandered, according a 2019 report released by the nonprofit advocacy group, the Network for Public Education. In her plan, Warren cites that report, saying that “the federal government has wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools that never even opened, or opened and then closed because of mismanagement and other reasons."

The pushback to Warren from advocates of charter schools was immediate and intense. A flurry of CONTINUE READING: Um, that’s not what Warren actually said about charter schools - The Washington Post

Louisiana’s COMPASS Teacher Eval System Still Down Following Statewide Cyberattack | deutsch29

Louisiana’s COMPASS Teacher Eval System Still Down Following Statewide Cyberattack | deutsch29

Louisiana’s COMPASS Teacher Eval System Still Down Following Statewide Cyberattack

On Monday, November 18, 2019, Louisiana’s state office computer systems experienced a cyberattack. As a precaution, the state shut down those systems, with the expectation that computers in some offices would be back in operation the same day, and others, within days.

However, as of this writing (Thursday evening), Louisiana’s teacher evaluation system, the Compass Information System (CIS), is still not in operation.

The Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) website is up, as is the la.gov email system. On November 21, 2019, at 4:52 a.m., LDOE curriculum supervisor, Jackie Bobbett, was able to send the following email to Louisiana’s curriculum review team regarding the cyberattack:

Please be advised that the LDOE has been affected by the cyber attack that began Monday. We apologize for any delays in responses.

We appreciate your patience during this time and will update you as we have more information.

LDOE Academic Content Team

In a November 19, 2019, update, the governor’s office did say it might take “several days” to restore service, and the November 21, 2019, Shreveport Times reports that Louisiana’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is closed until Monday, November 25, 2019, and that according to Governor Edwards, “the ransomware attack was ‘largely unsuccessful’ because the state didn’t lose its data and didn’t pay a ransom.”

From the Office of the Governor, dated November 19, 2019:

“While it is nearly impossible to prevent all cyber attacks, because we have prioritized improving Louisiana’s cybersecurity capabilities, we were able to quickly neutralize the threat. The majority of the service interruption seen by employees and the public yesterday was due to our aggressive actions to combat the attack,” Commissioner of CONTINUE READING: Louisiana’s COMPASS Teacher Eval System Still Down Following Statewide Cyberattack | deutsch29

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Bellevue SD Dumps Check Yourself Mental Health Screener

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Bellevue SD Dumps Check Yourself Mental Health Screener

Bellevue SD Dumps Check Yourself Mental Health Screener

My email to the Board this morning:

Dear Directors,

(Yes, I know - how can you miss me if I won't go away. Soon.)

I just wanted to make you aware of a couple of changes that have come in the use of the Check Yourself mental health screener for middle school students.

1) Bellevue SD has dropped it completely. They are now using this SOS model in which the screener is an appropriate length (about 6-8 questions) AND where the teacher talks to kids about mental health issues in the classroom and the students learn about recognizing issues both for themselves AND classmates. Plus, a lot less personal student data going out into the world.

My understanding is that Bellevue made the change because they were worried about student data privacy issues.
2) The person I am working with on this issue believes that both districts and King County are NOT being clear to parents that using of the Check Yourself screener when it is given in schools by school staff then make the results fall under FERPA, not HIPAA. That needs to be made explicitly clear to parents and no one should just say, "It's HIPAA compliant" when it simply does not fall under HIPAA.

3) I remind you that SPS and other districts know that they had been violating federal education regulation PPRA via the Department of Education and were forced to change the notification procedure.

I urge you to follow Bellevue's lead and switch to a less invasive screener that allows kids to not just think of themselves but to watch out for friends and classmates.

Sincerely,
Melissa Westbrook
Seattle Schools Community Forum blog

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Bellevue SD Dumps Check Yourself Mental Health Screener

Time to Panic? The NAEP Scores Didn’t Go Up! | Live Long and Prosper

Time to Panic? The NAEP Scores Didn’t Go Up! | Live Long and Prosper

Time to Panic? The NAEP Scores Didn’t Go Up!

The NAEP scores are in and the “reformers,” or as Diane Ravitch has taken to calling them, the “Disrupters” are up in arms because the scores haven’t improved. The disrupters promised all of us that charter schools, testing, vouchers, and other “reforms” would solve the low achievement scores, but as we now can see, that didn’t happen. Perhaps there’s something else that might be affecting the achievement of the students in our classrooms…

When reading through the articles noted below it’s important to remember two things.

First, the National Reading Panel did not support heavy phonics instruction despite what “phonics-first” partisans might tell you. It’s true, the National Reading Panel Summary said that a phonics-based approach was supported, however, that was different than what was actually in the full National Reading Panel report! (See also I Told You So! The Misinterpretation and Misuse of The National Reading Panel Report by NRP Panel member, Joanne Yatvin and More Smoke and Mirrors: A Critique of the National Reading Panel (NRP) Report on “Fluency” by Stephen Krashen.)

The actual National Reading Panel Report says (p. 2-97),

…it is important to emphasize that systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction to create a balanced reading program. Phonics instruction is never a total reading program. [emphasis added]

So…the NRP recommends something akin to Balanced Literacy…something the “phonics-firsters” decry as “unscientific.”

Second, as Steven Singer (Gadfly on the Wall Blog) reminds us, NAEP proficient level isn’t the same as grade-level. Diane Ravitch, who served on the NAEP Governing Board for seven years explains it this way…

Proficient is akin to a solid A. In reading, the proportion who were  CONTINUE READING: 

Time to Panic? The NAEP Scores Didn’t Go Up! | Live Long and Prosper

The Supreme Court Is Considering Forcing You To Fund Religious Education | Americans United for Separation of Church and State

The Supreme Court Is Considering Forcing You To Fund Religious Education | Americans United for Separation of Church and State
The Supreme Court Is Considering Forcing You To Fund Religious Education

One of the most important things that separation of religion and government does is ensure that Americans are free to give financial support only to the faiths of their choosing – or support none at all.

That’s the ideal, anyway. Sadly, the Supreme Court has been drifting away from that principle, and during this term, the high court might even rule that under certain circumstances, taxpayers can be compelled to support religious schools.

In a pending case, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the justices will consider an appeal of a ruling handed down in December 2018 by the Montana Supreme Court.

The state high court struck down a private school voucher program that used tax credits to divert public funds to private religious schools, finding that it violated the clear language of the Montana Constitution, which protects religious freedom by barring “direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies … for any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination.”

Religious freedom protection language like this is found in three-quarters of the state constitutions. It’s designed to ensure that no one is taxed, directly or indirectly, to pay for someone else’s religion.

Opposition to church taxes, no matter what they may be called or what form they may take, has a long history in the United States. As James Madison once argued, if the government can force you to pay even a minuscule amount to support religion, it can compel you to conform in other ways.

“Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?” Madison wrote in 1785. “That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment CONTINUE READING: The Supreme Court Is Considering Forcing You To Fund Religious Education | Americans United for Separation of Church and State

CURMUDGUCATION: Yes And

CURMUDGUCATION: Yes And

Yes And

Akil Bello@akilbello

Why do I see such a profound lack of “yes and” in education conversations?

“YES we can criticize bad data AND advocate for preparing students for the jobs of the future.”

“YES we can advocate for abolishing the the tests AND argue to improve education.”

184

11:32 AM - Nov 13, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

37 people are talking about this

This tweet (shared with permission) really hit me where I live. Because defenders of public education have too often let themselves be pushed into a one-part argument when a two-part argument is what's called for.

Blame No Child Left Behind. It was educational baloney, but rhetorical genius. Every attempt to discuss the empty baloniness of it was met by the same response; "Well, then, which children do you want to leave behind."

Ever since, this has been the ed disruptors' framing for everything. If you want Goal A, then you must support Method Z. If you want accountability, you must support high stakes testing. If you don't like bad schools, you must support privately run charter schools (also, if you support freedom, you must support charter schools).

When pressed, reformsters double down on descriptions of the awfulness of the problem.

Reformster: Look at these test results. Look at these x-rays. You definitely have a brain tumor, and if it's not fixed, you'll soon lose feeling in your limbs and your legs will stop working properly.  CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Yes And

A Model Of Mismanagement In Sacramento Schools (Opinion) | Sacramento, CA Patch

A Model Of Mismanagement In Sacramento Schools (Opinion) | Sacramento, CA Patch

A Model Of Mismanagement In Sacramento Schools (Opinion)
COMMENTARY: Sacramento is by no means the only Californian school district in financial and political meltdown.

California's extra budget cash could soon top $26 billion, analysts say - Los Angeles Times - https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-20/californias-state-budget-excess-cash by @johnmyers on @latimes

By Dan Walters,  (BLAME EVERYTHING ON TEACHERS)
Originally published on Monday, November 18

Two years ago, with teachers in Sacramento's school district on the verge of striking, the city's mayor stepped in to mediate a compromise contract.

"Forty-three thousand students, parents, teachers and our entire community can breathe easy this afternoon," Mayor Darrell Steinberg declared after the Sacramento City Unified School District and the Sacramento City Teachers Association agreed to a new contract giving teachers an 11% raise over three years.

"Let this be the beginning of a new day of partnership that puts old wounds behind," Steinberg added, referring to long-running acrimony between the union and the district's administration.

However, the ink was scarcely dry on the agreement before the district's politics and finances began to go south again.

It was soon revealed that the salary increases would drain a reserve account set aside to pay the district's fast-increasing pension fund payments, leaving its budget even more imbalanced. And the war of words between the union and Superintendent Jorge Aguilar resumed, becoming even bitterer.

In 2018, less than a year after Steinberg hailed the new contract, Sacramento County's school superintendent, David Gordon, began rejecting district budgets that fell short of minimum reserve requirements.

California's Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), a sort of rescue squad for troubled school systems, also became involved in 2018, issuing a very critical report and predicting that the district would run out of cash in 11 months unless it closed a $30 million budget gap. "The fiscal risk is real, imminent, and serious, FCMAT wrote. "Without action, state intervention is certain."

However, the labor-management acrimony escalated even further. The union staged a one-day strike last April and a state takeover of the district's operations was averted only by a last-minute fiscal bandage.

Sacramento City's fundamental problems remained unaddressed and Gordon, the county superintendent, continued to reject its imbalanced budgets, most recently in October, calling again for spending reductions.

The administration wants to reduce employee health care costs, while the union insists that spending cuts be made in the administration, citing "bureaucratic bloat."

Sacramento is by no means the only California school district in financial and political meltdown and if it can't resolve its issues CONTINUE READING: A Model Of Mismanagement In Sacramento Schools (Opinion) | Sacramento, CA Patch

Education Through Friendship: One Man’s Story (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Education Through Friendship: One Man’s Story (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Education Through Friendship: One Man’s Story (Part 4)

Parts 1, 2, and 3 trace the arc of my close friendship with a small group of Pittsburghers beginning in the late-1940s. Far beyond the schooling I have had, my friendship with these “buddies” of mine has educated me and made possible my living a full life.

Turning Points in the Group’s History

Moving from a bunch of teenage boys in high school and college who had learned over years to accept both strengths and flaws in each other to a group of husbands and wives coming together monthly was a huge leap. Most adolescent friendships that survive college, I would guess, founder as couples form and marriages occur.   

In our group, many wives did not know one another well before they married into the group. It was a Pittsburgh Jewish community divided into Oakland, East Liberty, and Squirrel Hill where different B’nai Brith youth groups straddled neighborhoods so some wives had met and knew of one another but not as close friends. Surely, many of us knew the wives when they were dating one of the guys especially as dating evolved into engagements and then marriage. Our annual New Year’s Eve parties brought the women we dated together. For example, I brought Barbara to her first New Year’s Eve party in 1957, a year before we got married.

Wives expand group. Why did the group of close pals accept wives as integral members of the group and make it a joint venture in forming the book club in CONTINUE READING: Education Through Friendship: One Man’s Story (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Education Research Report TODAY

Education Research Report

Education Research Report 

TODAY

Most Teachers Access Academic Research, But Few Use It to Inform Practice

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 35min

More than nine in 10 educators access academic research about education, but just 16% use it to inform classroom practice, according to new research by the nonprofit Jefferson Education Exchange. Based on surveys of educators from all 50 states and the District of Columbia , the research also found that a majority of teachers have opinions about what education-related topics should be studied, an

Estimating Individual Guidance Counselors' Effects on Educational Attainment

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 43min

Guidance counselors are a common school resource for students navigating complicated and consequential education choices. I provide the first causal estimates of individual counselors’ effects on high schoolers, using quasi-random counselor assignment policies in Massachusetts. This study find that counselors vary substantially in their effectiveness at increasing students’ high school graduation

K-12 Engineering Education

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 2h

State education leaders are making strides in their efforts to incorporate technology and engineering into K-12 science standards and instruction. A new Policy Brief analyzes results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Technology and Engineering Literacy and the questionnaires that accompany it. The brief also explores state policies and practices that can continue boosting st

YESTERDAY

Student Outcomes in Middle Schools Participating in the Presidential Youth Fitness Program

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 18h

Obesity and lack of physical activity among children and adolescents are public health problems in the United States. This Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP) evaluation measured program implementation in 13 middle schools and its effect on physical education practices, student fitness knowledge, and student physical activity and fitness levels. PYFP, a free program with the potential to po

Student Outcomes in a Sample of Middle Schools Participating in the Presidential Youth Fitness Program

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 18h

Obesity and lack of physical activity among children and adolescents are public health problems in the United States. This Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP) evaluation measured program implementation in 13 middle schools and its effect on physical education practices, student fitness knowledge, and student physical activity and fitness levels. PYFP, a free program with the potential to po

Nutrition Education in US Schools

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 18h

Download the research brief pdf icon [PDF - 1 MB] on Opportunities for Nutrition Education in Schools . Schools play an important role in helping students establish healthy eating behaviors, by providing: Nutritious and appealing foods and beverages. Consistent and accurate messages about good nutrition. Ways to learn about and practice healthy eating. 1 Nutrition education is a vital part of a c

Making Time for School Lunch

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 18h

Download the research brief pdf icon [PDF - 463 KB] on . The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 external icon required changes to the nutrition standards for the National School Lunch Program external icon and School Breakfast Program external icon . 1 As a result, schools are serving more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, as well as reducing the sodium content of the meals. 2–4 However,

America's Reading Crisis

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 20h

Strong reading skills propel us to achieve success in school and advance through postsecondary education, get a job and keep it, increase our level of earnings, and more. Conversely, difficulty with basic reading skills and comprehension can throw one obstacle after another in our path. In fact, research shows that a lack of literacy proficiency can have compounding negative impacts on future lif

The value of higher education is tied to its relevance in their work and lives

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 21h

Complete report What do Americans value in their education? We haven’t really known, because too often the consumers of higher education have been absent from the conversation. So the Strada Education Network partnered with Gallup to ask more than 340,000 individuals about their experiences with education and work after high school. The Education Consumer Value Equation gives them a voice in what

Building an education-to-employment system centered on adult learners

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 21h

Complete report As the future of work continues to evolve, more adults will face career transitions that demand the acquisition and demonstration of new skills, creating cycles of learning and earning throughout life. Despite the rapid changes in work, the pathways to employment through education and hiring have not made as significant or important a leap. Traditional pathways to employment were

13 reports an online growth mindset program administered to 9th grade students.

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

The Mindset Scholars Network has announced that initial findings are now available for the 13 studies funded through the National Study of Learning Mindsets Early Career Fellowship. The fellowship is a project of the Mindset Scholars Network and the University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center , with funding from the Bezos Family Foundation . While many of these studies are ongoing, e

Give Schools an Honest Grade, Say School Superintendents

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

Give schools an honest grade. That's the message to school critics from school superintendents who recently published an infographic urging the public to take a closer look at the real story about school performance. Giving Schools an 

Education Research Report