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Tuesday, May 7, 2013

MORNING UPDATE LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 5-7-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | #thankateacher A site to discuss better education for all

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

 #thankateacher




Researcher Says Louisiana DOE Hid Data

Louisiana deserves out attention because it is an extreme example of the corporate reform agenda at work.
As Reuters put it, the “reform” agenda targets the very existence of public education. The radical goal of Governor Bobby Jindal is privatization. Wiping out the teaching profession is a strategy to turn teachers into a compliant workforce, unable to challenge the privatization plan.
Testifying before the state senate education committee, a researcher pointed out


Breaking News: Louisiana Court Rules Funding Vouchers Unconstitutional

The Louisiana State Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to fund vouchers using money dedicated to public schools. The court split 6-1. The decision removes funding not only for vouchers but for “course choice,” which was supposed to fund courses offered by entrepreneurs–many of them online– outside the public schools.

CORRECTION: Louisiana Court 6-1 Against Vouchers

Sorry, I erroneously posted that the Louisiana State Supreme Court ruled the funding of vouchers unconstitutional by 2-1.
The vote was 6-1.

Why Did Educators Boo Duncan? Jennings Apologizes

I did not go to the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco, so was not aware of what is described in this post. Jennifer Jennings says that Arne Duncan was booed when he spoke, and she apologized to Secretary Duncan for the behavior of her fellow researchers.
Why was Secretary Duncan booed, and should AERA (or anyone else) apologize for the booing?
Booing is the behavior of the powerless. Educators are angry–and Jennings knows this–because of the top-down, authoritarian way in which Duncan has imposed policies that are bad for children, ruinous for teachers, 

Will Public Education Survive in Arizona?

Edward F. Berger is a strong voice for sanity in the desert of Arizona education politics.
He attended a community meeting with a gubernatorial candidate.
The condition of public education after 20 years of failed policies is frightening.
“The politician, who has been involved in the demise of public education for well over a decade, is not naïve, he is not misinformed, he is, in fact, part of the insanity that has taken over the state and is openly destroying public education so that now private religious and charter schools have access to our public tax dollars. He stands before this hopeful group and omits what he knows, that these are dollars diverted from district schools, the very 

Petrilli: Closing the Vocabulary Gap Will Close the Opportunity Gap

Mike Petrilli of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute just posted his first blog exchange with Deborah Meier. Mike argues that the key to closing the opportunity gap between rich and poor children is to close the vocabulary gap. He cites the work of E.D. Hirsch to support his contention.
In his article, he refers to me as one of the people who say that nothing can be done until we fix poverty. To be sure I don’t misquote him, as he misquotes me, here is the relevant paragraph:
“Still, the message that comes through in Professors Reardon’s and Carter’s work—and from others on the left, including Diane Ravitch and Richard Rothstein—is that there’s not much schools can do about these gaps. They are visible before kids even enter kindergarten; they don’t grow much, if at all, while children are in the K-12 

Ripping Off Taxpayers in Pennsylvania

A new report from the state auditor general shows how charters and cyber charters are overpaid, while the public system–which most children attend–get the short end of the stick.
“PA cybercharters avg cost of $10,145 was $3,500 more than national average of $6,500.
“PA charters spent avg $13,411 per student, about $3K more than

Why VAM Doesn’t Work: A Short Tutorial

In this video of 23 minutes, you will get a synopsis of why value-added modeling doesn’t work.
The video is a preview of a collection of research papers that will be available online in a few months, and published in 2014 by Teachers College Press in 2014.
The more we learn about the real consequences of VAM, the more we understand that it has perverse consequences.
We know already that it puts too much emphasis on test scores, and we saw what that

Is VAM Junk Science? Matt Di Carlo and I Disagree

I usually agree with Matt Di Carlo. He is one smart guy.
But not always.
That’s okay. Friends can disagree and still be friends (I proved that by blogging with Deborah Meier for five years).
I think that value-added methods of using test scores to

Diane in the Evening 5-6-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

mike simpson at Big Education Ape - 32 minutes ago
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Will My School Die? by dianerav The teacher who wrote this post reequired anonymity, for obvious reasons: I am writing to tell you about a situation at my school — Shea High in Pawtucket, RI. At the start of last year, both Shea and Tolman High (the only two non-charter public high schools in Pawtucket) were told that they had failed to make AYP as per NCLB and would have to undergo transformation. Note that since RI has accepted RttT, last year was the last possible year that this could have happened. Despit... more »