To Arne Duncan: ‘Check your facts’:

To Arne Duncan: ‘Check your facts’

Posted by Valerie Strauss on February 28, 2013 at 9:18 am

0

Comments

More

Education Secretary Arne Duncan is probably mighty sorry he linked pink slips being given to some teachers to the sequester, not just because that connection is tenuous at best but because he got called out for it.

The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” Glenn Kessler, gave him four Pinocchios, which are given to stories not only with some shading of the facts (one Pinocchio), or significant omissions and/or exaggerations (two Pinocchios), or significant factual errors and/or obvious contradictions (three Pinocchios), but for “whoppers.” It’s the top (or bottom, depending on how you look at it) of Fact Checker’s rating scale.

Fact Checker cites this Post story by my colleagues Lyndsey Layton and Karen Tumulty who exposed just how much Duncan was exaggerating when he said on “Face the Nation” that “there are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices that they can’t come back this fall.”

Fact Checker also said Duncan’s statement that “as many as 40,000 teachers could lose their jobs” appears exaggerated. Concluded the Fact Checker:

There is little debate that across-the-board spending cuts in education funding will cause pain for some schools and states. But there is no reason to hype the statistics — or to make scary pronouncements on pink slips being issued based on misinformation.

Indeed, Duncan’s lack of seriousness about being scrupulously factual undercuts the 

UPDATE: Freedom of Information complaint filed against Commissioner Stefan Pryor and the Connecticut Department of Education - Wait, What?

Freedom of Information complaint filed against Commissioner Stefan Pryor and the Connecticut Department of Education - Wait, What?:

Connecticut Lottery Board prepares to push through new “Management Compensation Program”

by jonpelto

State fiscal crisis?

What state fiscal crisis?

At 11:30 am today, the Connecticut Lottery Corporation’s Personnel Committee will meet. 

The agenda begins with an executive session to review a “Draft Management Compensation Report.”  They will then return from executive session and are scheduled to vote on the meeting’s one agenda item – The Management Compensation Report

Then at 1:00 pm, the full board of directors of the Lottery Corporation will meet.  

Agenda Item IV: Executive Session.  Topic: “Review of Draft Management Compensation Report.” 

Return to open meeting, Agenda Item VI. New Business:  “Review and Possible Action: Management Compensation Report.”

Of course, since the Management Compensation Report is presently in “DRAFT” form, the public entity won’t release the document until it is finalized. 

Thus, anyone wishing to see the report would need to attend the meeting; wait for the 

Freedom of Information complaint filed against Commissioner Stefan Pryor and the Connecticut Department of Education

by jonpelto

“A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both. A people who mean to be their own governor must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”  – James Madison

With three Freedom of Information requests pending with the Connecticut Department of Education for information that is undoubtedly public and no sign of a response from Commissioner Stefan Pryor or his staff, the Education Department has left  no option but to file a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission.

Despite a campaign promise to make government more transparent, the Malloy Administration continues to engage in an unprecedented effort to undermine the independence, sanctity and effectiveness of Connecticut’s Freedom of Information law.  However, as of now, the law remains clear and concise – the public has a right to public 

Vol.#22: The Dark Side of Choosing School Choice | Teaching Speaks Volumes

Vol.#22: The Dark Side of Choosing School Choice | Teaching Speaks Volumes:

Vol.#22: The Dark Side of Choosing School Choice

During the time I was visiting these four schools and writing these posts, this article was released about Wake County dropping the choice plan. However, when I entered my address in the Student Assignment page today, I still got a total of 16 elementary schools, 10 middle schools, and 9 high schools in varying Base, Calendar, and Magnet options for the upcoming 2013-2014 school year. This still looks far from resolved, however.

So…what does all this mean? After visiting an array of options as both a teacher and a parent, what is my final analysis? I have two responses to these two questions, one for each of my two roles.

As a parent…

I don’t question for a minute that every single parent wants what is best for his or her child. Each child is unique, and a one-size-fits-all approach is not the best fit to education. Schools are not factories and students are not widgets.

However, it’s been stated that too many choices is stressful, and limiting choices 

MORNING UPDATE: LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 2-28-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

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

Mathematica: KIPP Produces Big Gains

by dianerav

Mathematica Policy Research has good news for KIPP. Their students make significant gains. The press release follows with a link to the report and summary of the findings.
A few questions occur to me about the replicability of the KIPP model.
First, KIPP has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from philanthropists and the U.S. Department of Education. Does that extra money translate into smaller classes and other perks? If not, what is it used for?
Second, to what extent do KIPP students benefit from peer effects, in that the comparison group is attending

Paul Thomas: How to Solve the “Top Student Crisis”

by dianerav

Some of the leading thinkers of our day decided that our really big crisis is not the low test scores of the bottom 10%, but the desultory gains of our top 10%. This is known as the “top student crisis.”
Where would American education be, after all, if a day went by without another crisis?
Some might say that top students are bored by our national testing regime. Or maybe they suffer because of the 

How Do You Fight Back Without Getting Fired?

by dianerav

This reader asks the question of the day, which is the title of this post. If you are doing a job you want to do but are required to do what you know is wrong, what do you do?
One answer: join with others who agree with you. Find others teachers who feel the same. Join with parents. Alone you are powerless and vulnerable. Learn about any organized opposition to educational malpractice in your community, region, or state.
The reader writes:
I am new to your blog and am finding it very informative and enlighening! I am a middle school math teacher and am in a district that is ALL about test scores. Our students are tested MANY times during the year, and EVERYTHING revolves around the numerous data sets associated with those tests. Online benchmarks for state

New Jersey: Save Money By Cutting Staff for Special Education

by dianerav

Just when you think the corporate reformers have run out of ways to hurt children and kneecap educators, they pull another trick out of their bag.
In New Jersey, the state board of education proposes to cut staff trained to identify and manage the cases of special education students and turn the job over to classroom teachers.
Jersey Jazzman delineates what is happening:
“The New Jersey state Board of Education wants to give districts the option to fire Child Study Team members and have teachers take over the management of special education cases.
“I understand that we are all looking for ways to save money, but this is perhaps the most egregious cost-cutting 

David Coleman Will Change the SAT to Align with Common Core

by dianerav

David Coleman, widely acknowledged as the “architect” of the Common Core standards, was selected last year as CEO of the College Board. He announced recently that the SAT will be redesigned to reflect the Common Core.
Get to know David Coleman.
He is now the de facto controller of American education. He decided what your child in kindergarten should know and do. He decided what children in every grade should know and do. He has decided how they should be tested. Now he will decide what students need to know if they want to go to college. He had some help. But make no mistake: he is the driving force that is changing what and how your children and your students learn.
Coleman, whose mother is president of Bennington College, graduated from Yale and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar. He then worked for McKinsey.
He created the Grow Network, an assessment program that he sold to McGraw-Hill in 2005, reportedly for $14 

Philly Columnist: Time for Teachers to Strike

by dianerav

Philadelphia columnist Will Bunch couldn’t believe the onerous, mean-spirited proposal made by school officials to the city’s teachers. They are asked to accept a cut in pay and benefits, larger classes, a longer work day, and, adding insult to injury, no copying machines or supplies, no water fountains or parking facilities, not even desks.
Students will be in larger classes, in schools with no libraries, no librarians, no guidance counselors, and a corps of beaten-down teachers.
Way to go, School Reform Commission! I am reminded that the best corporations in the United States pamper their employees and make sure they have excellent working conditions. They want their employees to have high morale. In Philadelphia, they want to crush their teachers’ morale. The school officials are not employing a 

Philadelphia Insults Its Teachers and Other Employees

by dianerav

Philadelphia’s Broad-trained Superintendent William Hite offered the district’s employees an insulting contract: pay cuts up to 13%, benefit cuts, longer school days, and no pay increases until 2017. After 2017, any increases would be “performance-based,” dependent on the principal’s recommendation. Seniority would be abolished, as well as any payment for advanced degrees. See here and here
In addition, schools with more than 1,000 students would not be required to have libraries or librarians. No more counselors. No limits on class size. The district would no longer be required to provide teachers lounges, water 

High-Stakes Testing in the UK: An Assessment

by dianerav

Robin Alexander writes here about the collateral damage inflicted by the testing-and-accountability regime in the U.K.
His analysis will be familiar to American readers. As we all seek to be “world class” and to compete with one another, our governments are imposing a dreary conformity on every school and draining them of the spontaneity and joy that is the life blood of teaching and learning.

Why Leon Wieseltier Loves Teachers

by dianerav

This essay by Leon Wieseltier appeared in a recent issue of “The New Republic”:
WHEN I LOOK BACK at my education, I am struck not by how much I learned but by how much I was taught. I am the progeny of teachers; I swoon over teachers. Even what I learned on my own I owed to them, because they guided me in my sense of what is significant. The only form of knowledge that can be adequately acquired without the help of a teacher, and without the humility of a student, is information, which is the lowest form of knowledge. (And in these nightmarishly data-glutted days, the winnowing of information may also require the 

Diane in the Evening 2-27-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 4 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Corporate Bloc Collects $3 Million to Buy L.A. School Board by dianerav Corporate reformers are taking no chances. They have raised more than $3 million to make sure that they control the Los Angeles school board. The school board president Monica Garcia will have $1 million, more or less, to fight off education activist Robert Skeels, who has raised $20,000, more or less. Inexperienced Kate Anderson, the corporate favorite, will have $1 million, more or less, to battle incumbent Steve Words of Wisdom about Com... more »

Nine districts submit waiver for relief from NCLB | EdSource Today

Nine districts submit waiver for relief from NCLB | EdSource Today:

Ten districts submit waiver for relief from NCLB - by Kathryn Baron and John Fensterwald

by Kathryn Baron and John Fensterwald

A collaborative of nine California school districts is submitting today a first-of-its-kind waiverseeking relief from the harshest sanctions of the No Child Left Behind law. The proposal would commit the participating districts to a new accountability system, focusing on student achievementbut deemphasizing standardized test scores. The existing requirements and penalties would remain in effect for all of the other districts in the state.

If U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan consents, the districts in the California Office to Reform Education, or CORE, would join the 34 states and Washington, D.C., with waivers from NCLB; ten more states have applications pending. Since California’s waiver was rejected last year, and the state is not reapplying this year, CORE is going its own way, filing for a waiver under a provision of NCLB allowing districts to submit proposals. State Board of Education President Michael Kirst said Tuesday that he has read the law and agrees that Duncan has the authority to grant waivers to 

Joy Resmovits: School Safety Addressed At House Education Committee Hearing; Arne Duncan's Sequestration Hype -- Ed Today

Joy Resmovits: School Safety Addressed At House Education Committee Hearing; Arne Duncan's Sequestration Hype -- Ed Today:

School Safety Addressed At House Education Committee Hearing; Arne Duncan's Sequestration Hype -- Ed Today

by Joy Resmovits

House Education Panel On School Safety On Wednesday, members of the House Education & Workforce Committee mulled over ways to keep schools safe in light of the horrific Newtown, Conn. elementary school shooting, reports Politics K-12. Witnesses told the committee that "school resource officers, additional guidance counselors, and professional development for educators can help schools head off tragedies," the blog reports. But there was next to no conversation about gun control. Hmmm.

Arne Duncan, Fact-Checked The Washington Post's fact checker gives U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan four Pinocchios for his remarks on teachers in a West Virginia county getting pink slipped -- already -- in light of sequestration. The Post found no news reports about these pink slips before learning that these were just "transfer notices," sent to Title I teachers unrelated to the upcoming across-the-board cuts. And the Head Start layoffs Duncan's staff referred to in that county? They're getting canned because under the Education

Sequester Could Leave Special Education Kids Without Important Services

by Joy Resmovits

Teresa Armstrong is steamed.

The Virginia mother of four has spent the last few weeks watching, reading and listening to politicians argue about the country's finances but fail to reach a deal to prevent impending across-the-board cuts to federal spending. She doesn't understand how they can bicker endlessly while the consequences for her daughter, Angela, hang in the balance.

The squabbling politicians, Armstrong said, aren't setting a good example for children. "It's like they just don't understand that their lack of agreement has real-time effects on people's lives," she said. "People here are 

Children of the Core: Our Kids are at Risk – @ the chalk face

Children of the Core: Our Kids are at Risk – @ the chalk face:

Children of the Core: Our Kids are at Risk

by Kris Nielsen

The more and more I see how the education “reform” movement is operating, the more it makes me ill.  I wish I were exaggerating with that statement, but I’m not.  Every time I hear about some millionaire telling us to increase class sizes, or some high-paid wannabe teacher tells us that teachers are the problem with America, it makes me want to vomit.  I get sick because these are people who pretend to care about kids, with fancy names like StudentsFirst.  But they don’t care about our kids.  Not at all.  These are people who are so addicted to their own ideas and bravado, that they can’t see past their own images on TV.
Teachers know this, and so do many parents and education experts.  And the more I learned, the more I realized that the only way to truly get this to turn around and to make it about kids and their futures is to try to tell more and more parents and teachers and lawmakers–and whoever else will listen–that they are being lied to.  They are being led by false promises and false ideas.  The Common Core State Standards are not going to get our kids ready for life.  Race to the Top is not going to narrow the achievement gap.  Michelle Rhee has no idea what she’s talking about.  And Bill Gates wants your kid to know how to take tests on a computer in a classroom with 70 other kids.
The news doesn’t tell us this.  The media echoes the messages of the ones who are hellbent on hurting our kids 

Laugh it up City's school closures a bummer, negotiations with secret whales a joke Sacramento News & Review

Sacramento News & Review - Laugh it up - Bites - Opinions - February 28, 2013:

Laugh it up

City's school closures a bummer, negotiations with secret whales a joke

By Cosmo Garvin 
cosmog@newsreview.com

This article was published on 02.28.13.

Related stories:  Whale bites Will Mayor Kevin Johnson's billionaires club save Sacramento—or eat us? SN&R, 01.31.13.  Sacramento city school-closure vote set for next week Sacramento's struggling neighborhoods feel bullied by city district's school-closure plan. SN&R, 02.14.13.

The editor suggested a brief “post-mortem” on the Sacramento city school closures. Sounds depressing, but here goes:
“Run for our seats if you think you can do a better job.” That was the take away from newly appointed (not elected) Sacramento City Unified School District board member Jay Hansen last week, as he joined fellow Board of Education members Patrick Kennedy, Jeff Cuneoand Darrel Woo in voting to shut down seven neighborhood schools.
That was just one piece of a nasty little lecture Hansen gave on how folks really ought to be more respectful to the board members and should think of those area residents like himself who don’t have kids, but who graciously pay their property taxes, anyway. “I gladly do that. I know it’s good for the community. … But you have to have people like me on your side.” Yes. Nice of you to pay your taxes, Jay.
At that point, Hansen’s team had thoroughly lost the argument on school closures. The district’s school-capacity numbers were fiction, the cost-benefit analysis was a joke. It was obvious to all that the “rightsizing” process had been designed to shut the public out of decision-making.
Board members Diana Rodriguez,Gustavo Arroyo and Christina Pritchettand student board member Katrina Yefilibustered, highlighting the endless contradictions and problems with the plan. (And providing a glimpse of the civil-rights lawsuit to come.)
But Hansen and Kennedy and Cuneo and Woo, along with their boss, Superintendent Jonathan Raymond, did what they were going to do all along.
They seemed a little put out that so many people would challenge J. Ray’s dictates on what 

Research on preschool: Setting the record straight:

Research on preschool: Setting the record straight

Posted by Valerie Strauss on February 28, 2013 at 6:00 am

President Obama at a preschool in Georgia

Now that President Obama has proposed a new initiative to broaden preschool programs, the debate about the value of early childhood education has gotten a lot louder. To help sort out what is true and what isn’t, W. Stephen Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, has just released a report that details what the best research says about early education — and what it doesn’t.

In the report, called “Getting the Facts Right on Pre-K and the President’s Pre-K Proposal,”  Barnett says that Obama’s proposal draws on valid research and that critics have misinterpreted research to attack it. The report, which can be found in full here, asks and answers four key questions. Here are the questions and excerpted answers:

Question # 1. Do the effects of high-quality preschool programs persist or fade out
by third grade?

…The most recent and comprehensive metaanalysis published in the peer-reviewed literature summarizes the results of 123 studies conducted in the United States since 

What’s worth learning?

by Valerie Strauss

What’s worth learning?  Veteran educator Marion Brady tries to answer the question below. Brady was a classroom teacher for years, has written history and world culture textbooks (Prentice-Hall),  professional books, numerous  nationally distributed columns (many are available here), and courses … Continue reading →

solidaridad: Despicable: Mónica García accuses fellow candidates of "standing up for predators"

solidaridad: Despicable: Mónica García accuses fellow candidates of "standing up for predators":

Despicable: Mónica García accuses fellow candidates of "standing up for predators"

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene

This flyer, at the behest of the candidate, LAUSD Board President Mónica García, explicitly states "Her opponents stand up for predators..."

Categorically untrue, this deplorable accusation should be widely condemned by everyone. Some of García's opponents are parents whose children attended LAUSD schools, highlighting all the more how depraved is García to make such libelous and slanderous statements.

Despicable: Mónica García accuses fellow candidates of "standing up for predators" by Robert D. Skeels

Tony Bennett: There Will Be No Delay in Common Core, PARCC | Scathing Purple Musings

Tony Bennett: There Will Be No Delay in Common Core, PARCC | Scathing Purple Musings:

Tony Bennett: There Will Be No Delay in Common Core, PARCC

by Bob Sikes

From an Associated Press report in the Tampa Tribune:

TALLAHASSEE — Florida shouldn’t delay new academic standards it’s sharing with 44 other states or a related test despite looming obstacles, the state’s schools chief said today at an education summit sponsored by business interests.
Other participants at the meeting in Orlando, though, said they were worried Florida was moving too fast by attempting to fully implement the standards in the 2014-15 school year.
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett last week told the State Board of Education he was developing a “Plan B” in case the test designed to assess the new standards isn’t ready in time. The test being developed by a 23-state consortium will replace the existing Florida Comprehensive 

New FLDOE Test Scoring Calculations “Has Potential to Dismantle Public Education”

by Bob Sikes

FLDOE researcher Kathy Hebda has testified before the Florida legislature and the state Board of Education that data that was acquired by the SB736  guidelines was valid and measured what was intended. Meanwhile,  Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education has taken Hebda’s numbers and run with it. In a blog post yesterday, National Policy Director Mary Laura Bragg went this far:

The student performance portion of a teacher’s evaluation is based on whether or not students learned something in the classroom that year.
A few weeks ago, the Florida Department of Education released data showing:

• A teacher with a classroom of gifted students does not have an advantage over a teacher 

UPDATE: Taxes and Public Education Seattle Schools Community Forum: One More Reason to Wonder about Tom

Seattle Schools Community Forum: One More Reason to Wonder about Tom:

Taxes and Public Education

by Melissa Westbrook

The Stranger is reporting that the Washington State Supreme Court has struck down the two-thirds supermajority requirement for taxes, 6-3.  Basically, the Constitution sets a minimum already and that's enough for the Court.  Interestingly they also said:

However, we reverse the trial court's decision that the Referendum Requirement presents a justiciable controversy. Because the Referendum Requirement is not justiciable, we make no determination as to its 

One More Reason to Wonder about Tom

by Melissa Westbrook

From The Stranger Slog (with the headline "Rodney Tom Hates Teachers"):

With zero notice Sunday, just one day before it was heard by the Ways & Means Committee, millionaire state Senate Majority "Leader" Rodney Tom (R-Medina) filed a bill that would eliminate defined pension benefits for most state and public school employees, replacing them with a risky 401-K-style savings plan that would subject future retirees to the whims of the market. SB 5856, of which Tom is the sole sponsor, would apply to all future public employees and all current public employees under the age of 45.

That means if you chose a career as a school teacher twenty years ago, trading the opportunity to strike it rich in the private sector for the promise of a secure retirement, you are totally fucked.
Of course, a lot of states have catastrophically underfunded their public employee pension plans. But not Washington. No, Washington has the second strongest funded pension system in the nation, with an enviable overall funding ratio of 98.1 percent. So I'm not exactly sure what the problem is that Tom is attempting to solve