Diane in the Evening 3-24-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

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

To infinity ... and beyond!

When Democracy Died in Camden, NJ

by dianerav

Jersey Jazzman reports that Governor Christie has decided to take control of the Camden school district.
Camden is the fourth school district in the state to be taken over.
Paterson, Newark, and Jersey City are already controlled by the state.
JJ writes:
“Let’s be clear: Paterson has been under state control for 24 years, Jersey City for 22 years, and Newark for 18 

NYC Parents and Students Mobilizing for Real Reform

by dianerav

As the mayoral election of 2013 approaches, New York City parents and students are speaking up about what is most important to them. They got hold of an old school bus, painted it blue, and are driving around the city to raise awareness among other parents and students.
The article linked here shows how parents and their children are trying to inform voters and the candidates about 

Do Americans Believe in Equality of Opportunity?

by dianerav

Governor Jerry Brown of California gave a brilliant state of the state speech in January, where he pledged to change fundings of public schools so that more money went to children with the greatest needs.
It sounded reasonable. It costs more to educate a child who can’t speak English than one who can. It costs more to educate a child with disabilities than one without them. It costs more to educate children with high 

The Chicago Tribune’s Phony Poll Numbers on Reform

by dianerav

Yesterday I ran a post about an editorial in the Chicago Tribune. The editorial touted the results of a poll which the newspaper conducted in partnership with the Joyce Foundation. The poll purportedly supported privatization, merit pay, evaluation of teachers by test scores, and every other failed nostrum of the Rahm Emanuel-ALEC crowd.
But a Chicago parent group called PURE (Parents United for Responsible Education) says that the Tribune poll is a fraud. It underrepresented parents of children who attend public schools and it underrepresented African 

Rahm: I Did It for the Children

by dianerav

Fresh from his skiing vacation in Utah, Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he is closing 54 public schools because he wants all the children in Chicago to get a quality education. So he closing the schools of 30,000 children.
May we see a show of hands? How many people believe that at the end of Emanuel’s term of office, all children in Chicago will have a quality education? Is he hiding his secret recipe?
To add insult to injury, he channels the father of public education, Horace Mann, in calling education “the great equalizer.” Mann was not talking about charter schools or academies or religious schools. He was talking about public schools.

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 3-24-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 6 minutes ago

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] Chicago: A Disaster of “Seismic Proportions” by dianerav Mike Klonsky describes the devastation that will befall communities in Chicago as their schools are abandoned. What will happen to the children? Mayor Rahm Emanuel decided to be in Utah when his plan to devastate black communities was released Celebrated Charter Loses Its Charter by dianerav Few charter schools have received as much attention and accolades as the American Indian Model Schools of Oakland... more »

#edweek pushing the #commoncore on parents – @ the chalk face

#edweek pushing the #commoncore on parents – @ the chalk face:

#edweek pushing the #commoncore on parents

by Timothy D. Slekar

If you’re bored please go here.  EdWeek needs our help.  They want us to explain to “parents” why we need the Common Core.
This is what I posted.

Re: Teaching Parents About the Common Core

Really?  Now EdWeek is trying to dupe parents into the disaster of the coming Common Core.  Parents, WAKE UP!  The Common Core is nothing more than a package of surveillance gadgets designed to track your child’s constant movement and target educational materials at you for you to purchase to “help” your child.  Its is the biggest clusterfart to be heaped on American public schools and parents.  The teachers and schools have absolutely no need for Common Core Standards.  They need smaller class sizes, better teaching resources like lab equipment, time to collaborate and administrators who are also grounded as master teachers.
Take a look at the schools the purveyors of the Common Core send their children to.  NO 

Is this weighing down your Kindergartener’s backpack? #CCSS

by Chris Cerrone

I shared an image of a word problem from a Kindergarten workbook not long ago asking our readers to guess the grade level of a math workbook.  I was forwarded another example from the same corporate produced Common Core math book.  What struck me this time is not the concepts and wordiness, but the fact that a Kindergartener has a book with over 236 pages.  Seriously?
I remember scissors, crayons, and glue in Kindergarten,  not a thick workbook.  What are we doing to our children? I am not worried about a 5 year old being “College and Career ready”. I just want him to learn social skills and be a good human being.

Let’s Re-Learn How to Read for the Common Core | toteachornototeach

Let’s Re-Learn How to Read for the Common Core | toteachornototeach:

Let’s Re-Learn How to Read for the Common Core

by aristotlethewise

Let’s Re-Learn How to Read for the Common Core 

by Stephen Chiger
It’s about time I said I was sorry to Professor Smith.
One of my most vivid college memories is of him rebuking my modern drama class for our lazy reading of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Why did no one notice, let alone try to analyze, the symbolism of Nora dancing the tarantella?
I felt terrible, and as Smith pushed us, I realized why he was so flustered: Ibsen had selected details like the tarantella (Not a tango! Not a waltz!) to articulate a controversial and groundbreaking message. We had skimmed.
Professor Smith, I want to make amends. The new national education standards called the Common Core are designed so that your students will now be better prepared for the type of analysis you expect — but to make that work, we’ll have to start training teachers in the same way you trained me.
If we narrow the Common Core down to a handful of changes, one of the largest is that students will need to read 

Public School Money, Creationism, Evolution, and Schneider | deutsch29

Public School Money, Creationism, Evolution, and Schneider | deutsch29:

Public School Money, Creationism, Evolution, and Schneider

by deutsch29

Over the past year, I have read a number of articles regarding the use of public funds to support schools that are teaching creationism and not evolution.  In all of my reading on the topic, I have not read any articles offering a perspective similar to my own. Therefore, I have decided to weigh in on the subject.
In order for readers to properly consider my perspective, I must first offer insight into the influences that have shaped my thinking, both my own worldview as well as my own brief-yet-critical considerations of the two theories.  Finally, I will offer my view of the use of public funds for supporting the teaching of the state-endorsed theory of evolution.

Playing Well With Others: The Ground Rules

There is a risk in my revealing both myself and my reasoning on a topic that evokes strong responses from people. Thus, I will also establish some ground rules for how readers might register their responses to this post:
I welcome comments that are written in a respectful manner. Such comments need not agree with my viewpoint 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Spotlight on Aki Kurose

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Spotlight on Aki Kurose:

Spotlight on Aki Kurose

by Charlie Mas

The Alliance for Education, by giving Mia Williams the Thomas B. Foster Award for Excellence, has put a spotlight on Aki Kurose. Let's take a look.

Aki Kurose was in Step 5 of No Child Left Behind when Ms Williams was installed as the principal there for the 2008-2009 school year. In Step 5 schools are supposed to either be closed (then re-invented and re-opened) or be "transformed". This transformation must include, at a minimum, the replacement of the principal. It can include replacement of all of the staff. It must, at a minimum, consists of a radical change in the school's operation. The only thing changed at Aki Kurose was the appointment of Ms Williams as principal and the extension of the school day by about fifteen minutes.

So how is that transformation coming along? It's not.



Here are the pass rates for Aki Kurose 8th graders on the state proficiency tests since Ms Williams became principal:

Year	Reading	Math	Science
2008-09 WASL	63.7%	38.6%	34.6%
2009-10 MSP	51.7%	34.8%	30.7%
2010-11 MSP	55.9%	36.4%	49.1%
2011-12 MSP	47.4%	29.3%	36.3%

Is this a record that deserves an award? I don't think so. Aki Kurose, under Ms Williams' leadership, has seen 

School closings are child abuse on a massive scale. | Reclaim Reform

School closings are child abuse on a massive scale. | Reclaim Reform:

School closings are child abuse on a massive scale.

by kenpreviti

Why should you be involved? What can you do?

School closings are child abuse on a massive scale.
Replacing a few of the public schools or building new schools with public funds paid to private for-profit charters includes fraud, corruption and graft. This process is not a “private/public partnership”; it is a plutocratic takeover and true redistribution of wealth.


“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
― Mario Savio
Chicago or Philadelphia. Florida or Colorado. Your school, their school or my school.
Do your best to organize and fight this madness. Stop child abuse by corporations and their puppet politicians. No matter what the odds against you are, stop those who abuse children.
Exaggeration? No. Have you read about forcing a mentally disabled and blind child to take a state mandated test? Why? The test scores will be used to show the school failed, the principal failed and the teacher failed. They will be fired and the school will be closed, that’s why. Read the Washington Post article HERE.

Debt Strangles the 99% | OccupyWallSt.org

Debt Strangles the 99% | OccupyWallSt.org:

Debt Strangles the 99%

by OccupyWallSt

76% of Americans are in debt. 15% are being pursued by one or more debt collectors. 22% of Americans are too impoverished to qualify for credit. That forces them into informal debt like payday loans or worse, which generateinterest rates of up to 500%. So add that together and we have the 99%.

Strike Debt and the Rolling Jubilee believe that no one should have to go into debt to cover basic human rights like health care, education, and housing. One in seven Americans is being pursued by a debt collector. Credit card debt is often the “plastic safety net” that covers for gaps in household budgets caused by financing such essentials.
Medical debt is an area of personal debt that no one from outside the United States can even understand.Spanish activists are campaigning against the privitization of their national single-payer health system. They see any payment for medical treatment as the breakdown of a decent society. The idea that people might be driven to bankruptcy by medical debt is literally incomprehensible.
But in the United States, we find that no less than 62% of all bankruptcies involve medical debt. Of these people, three-quarters actually had medical insurance. So many drugs and procedures are not covered, and so high are the deductibles, that an insured person can easily find themselves unable to cover their medical bills. Two-thirds of working households do not have the resources to cover a $1000 emergency. One hour of a specialist doctor’s time can cost that alone.
Even these stark figures conceal the discrimination built into health care for people of color, low-income workers and LGBTQ populations. More than half of African-Americans struggle to pay medical bills, compared with 34% 

Challenge is not only opening good charter schools, but closing bad ones. A new national discussion begins. | Get Schooled

Challenge is not only opening good charter schools, but closing bad ones. A new national discussion begins. | Get Schooled:

Challenge is not only opening good charter schools, but closing bad ones. A new national discussion begins.

by Maureen Downey

Mike Ritter/AJC

While Georgia seeks ways to open more high-performing charter schools, other parts of the country are engaging in a different challenge: How to close under-performing ones.
The House passed a parent trigger bill that would have allowed parents in even top-rated schools to petition their school boards to convert their school to a charter school. (The bill stalled late last week in the state Senate but could be attached to another bill and come up again.) The recently resurrected Charter Schools Commission is beginning to consider applications for new charters.
Charter schools are public schools that operate under individualized contracts that award them more freedom and flexibility in exchange for a pledge of higher student achievement. To expand parental choice, many states, including Georgia, have been eager to open charters, but less diligent in closing them when the promised achievement doesn’t materialize.
In his study, “Improving Charter School …

Lafayette School. Evidence of a failing, underutilized school in Chicago. | Fred Klonsky

Lafayette School. Evidence of a failing, underutilized school in Chicago. | Fred Klonsky:

Lafayette School. Evidence of a failing, underutilized school in Chicago.

by Fred Klonsky

PopoutH/T: Last Stand for Children First.

Lafayette School is just one of 54 schools that the Chicago Public Schools are planning to close.  Lafayette’s Illinois School Report Card shows just what a colossal failure it is.  With 98% of the student population living in poverty, should they really be earning the upright bass?  Why not teach these students instruments that they could play on street corners and help their families out?  It seems to me fine arts money could be better used on more affluent students in the first place.Mayor Emanuel has never visited Lafayette School nor have any School Board members, but they must have done their homework shutting down 

Jersey Jazzman: How ONE Question on ONE Test Can Cost You Your Job

Jersey Jazzman: How ONE Question on ONE Test Can Cost You Your Job:

How ONE Question on ONE Test Can Cost You Your Job

by Duke

Last week, I pointed out a big math failure in the proposed New Jersey teacher evaluation system, AchieveNJ:

Slide 14 (annotations mine):

Slide 20:

 OK, wait a minute...

Slide 14 says my students' Student Growth Percentiles, or SGPs, will be calculated on a scale of 1 to 99. We've already established that my evaluation will use the Median SGP for my class, even though that is potentially a hugely distorted metric (see NJDOE Math Fail #1 for more). But Slide 20 has an example where a teacher gets a "raw score" of 2.0 for their mSGP.

How in the hell did the NJDOE calculate this number?

The more I looked at this, the more absurd it seemed. If NJDOE is going convert a number 

Missouri Education Watchdog: Common Core Discussion Board for Parents

Missouri Education Watchdog: Common Core Discussion Board for Parents:

Common Core Discussion Board for Parents

by stlgretchen

Parents and taxpayers, here's your chance to have your voice heard about the standards/assessments to be taught to your children via Common Core.

From Education Week Teacher and Teaching Parents about the Common Core:

For the Education Week Teacher story package on "Common Core Instructional Opportunities,” we spoke with teachers, curriculum specialists, and principals about what the new standards mean for teaching. One group of stakeholders we did not have a chance to cover, but that came up in our reporting, was parents.

 In your experience, what do parents know—or not know—so far about the Common Core State Standards? What do you think is important for them to understand? How have you, your school, and/or your district reached out to them about this issue? What else would you like to see done? 

You can comment at the site.

N&O’s Ned Barnett on Diane Ravitch « The Progressive Pulse

N&O’s Ned Barnett on Diane Ravitch « The Progressive Pulse:

N&O’s Ned Barnett on Diane Ravitch

Post on March 24, 2013 by Rob SchofieldNo Comments

In case you missed last week’s NC Policy Watch luncheon with Diane Ravitch, you can still watch it by clicking here. You can also read Ned Barnett’s column in this morning’s edition of Raleigh’s News & Observer in which the veteran journalist summarizes the hard truths Ravitch spelled out as she dismantled the “reform” plans of North Carolina’s Senate leader Phil Berger.

On Tuesday, state Sen. Phil Berger, an Eden Republican and president pro tem of the Senate, introduced Senate Bill 361 calling for sweeping changes to repair the state’s “broken” public schools, mostly by getting tough with teachers.

The bill would end teacher tenure and offer bonuses to the most effective teachers. It also dictates that grades A through F be applied to schools based on their performance on state tests, national exams and graduation rates.

“The days of accepting a broken education system in North Carolina are over,” Berger said at a news conference.

On Thursday, Diane Ravitch swept into the capital city for a talk at Marbles Kids Museum and delivered a rousing rebuttal to Berger and a host of other would-be reformers who Ravitch thinks 

Thinking About Schools: Value-SUBTRACTED Measures

Thinking About Schools: Value-SUBTRACTED Measures:

Value-SUBTRACTED Measures

Subtract: a) to eliminate, reduce, terminate, cut, or other action which reduces value or ability to succeed.  

 

In an era where "Value-Added Measures" (along with excessive testing and teacher labeling) are all the rage, what about Value-Subtracted Measures which force action we know are bad for kids and learning and can in no way counter the noble efforts and success of those adding value to learning? 

 

I read with interest (and because of the pictures our son sent) about the U.S.A. World Cup preliminary round soccer match– in a Commerce City, Colorado blizzard. U.S.A. 1 and won; Costa Rica 0 andfroze.

 

Conspiring to put South American soccer players on a snow covered field, while pretty sneaky is apparently not an uncommon strategy.  In a NYT article, George Vescey explained a similar reason Honduras scheduled a recent match against the U.S.A. in 100 degree afternoon sunshine.  Honduras 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: I feel Rahm's pain

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: I feel Rahm's pain:

I feel Rahm's pain

by Mike Klonsky

Try this Mr. Mayor

The mayor says closing 54 schools and displacing 30,000 students has been "very difficult" for him. 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Saturday said the “difficult” decision to close 54 Chicago elementary schools was not a matter officials took lightly.There is a lot of anguish and I understand that and I appreciate it,” said Emanuel, who appeared to have windburn from his Utah skiing trip. -- Sun-Times

My first thought upon hearing about the mayor's discomfort over the school closings decision was, maybe we should cancel Wednesday's mass protest rally at Daley Plaza in order to give him time to heal his face. After all, just think what he and his family have already been through. I mean, the whole school closing thing coming right on top of the book-banning fiasco would be enough to ruin anyone's ski trip. How could we be so insensitive as to hold a protest and do mass civil disobedience across the city so soon after his vacation

I know I've always hated having to jump back into the rat race the next day after a restful vacation. Not to 

The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools

The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools:

Still Seeing High Numbers for African American Male Student Suspensions

By Serena Valdez
Friday, March 15th, 2013 at 10:36 am in Uncategorized
20 Comments »

At Wednesday night’s school board meeting, Superintendent Tony Smith and a small panel, including two principals, presented the Balanced Scorecard Accountability Report. The topic: suspensions.

One major focus of the report is to work toward reducing suspension rates overall, but specifically with African American male students.

In the 2011-12 school year, African American students accounted for one-third of enrolled OUSD students and 63 percent of the students who were suspended. Of the male students, African Americans make up 16 percent of all OUSD students and 41 percent of suspended students. Compared to other ethnicities in the district, this figure is disproportionate and raises a few red flags.

Latino students, for example, have proportionate suspensions compared to the total students enrolled in the district. They make up 38 percent of all OUSD students and 27 percent of suspended students. Latino males in the district and those who were suspended make up 38 percent and 27 percent respectively.

The report also details possible root causes of student suspensions and strategies schools are and should be utilizing to reduce the number of suspensions and be more proactive to all student success. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicago Board of Education Plans to Shut Down 54 Schools, Move 30,000 Students | PBS NewsHour | March 22, 2013 | PBS

Chicago Board of Education Plans to Shut Down 54 Schools, Move 30,000 Students | PBS NewsHour | March 22, 2013 | PBS:

Chicago Board of Education Plans to Shut Down 54 Schools, Move 30,000 Students

SUMMARY

The Chicago Board of Education plans to close 54 schools, citing a $1 billion deficit and under-enrollment. Critics say this move will disrupt communities and put kids in danger. For both sides of the debate, Jeffrey Brown talks with Board vice president Jesse Ruiz and Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union.

5 Comments and 26 Reactions

Listen: MP3

Transcript

JEFFREY BROWN: The debate over the city of Chicago's plan to close dozens of public schools intensified today. Public school officials cited a billion-dollar deficit and under enrollment as the driving factors behind the move. But critics claim it will hurt the communities where the schools are located, primarily Hispanic and African-American neighborhoods.

The closures could start as soon as this school year ends. This week, parents received letters alerting them to the proposed cuts.

Disaster Capitalism, Chicago-style | Jacobin

Disaster Capitalism, Chicago-style | Jacobin:

Disaster Capitalism, Chicago-style

 by Kenzo Shibata

(seantmcgill / flickr)

In public policy circles, crises are called “focusing events” — bringing to light a particular failing in government policy.  They require government agencies to switch rapidly into crisis mode to implement solutions. Creating the crisis itself is more novel.

The right-wing, free market vision of University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman informed the blueprint for the rapid privatization of municipal services throughout the world due in no small part to what author Naomi Klein calls “Disaster Capitalism.” Friedman wrote in his 1982 treatiseCapitalism and Freedom, “When [a] crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around”

In Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine, she explains how immediately after Hurricane Katrina, Friedman used the decimation of New Orleans’ infrastructure to push for charter schools, a market-based policy preference of Friedman acolytes. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was the CEO of Chicago Public Schools at the time, and later described Hurricane Katrina as “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.” Duncan is of the liberal wing of the free market project and a major 

Sunday read. | Fred Klonsky

Sunday read. | Fred Klonsky:

Sunday read.

by Fred Klonsky

Photo credit: Sarah Jane Rhee/loveandstrugglephotos.com.
Be sure to join us for cocktails and conversation with Karen Lewis at Weegee’s Lounge in Logan Square on April 11th. Anne and I are part of the host committee. All proceeds go to the Caucus of Rank and File Educators in the CTU. I’ll be the one in the orange sweater. And be sure to be at the Daley Center at 4PM on Wednesday.
Chicago teachers: “We will put our bodies on the line to fight school closings”
The Chicago Tribune and the Joyce Foundation team up to trash talk public education.
Chinua Achebe. Rest in peace.
Why won’t UFT President Mulgrew talk about his record of leadership asks the MORE caucus in NY.
Gary Tyler has been in a Louisiana prison since 1975, sentenced to death, and then life without parole at

The Opt Out Update: More parents around the country are opting their students out of high stakes testing and the issue of student privacy rights is front and center | Seattle Education

The Opt Out Update: More parents around the country are opting their students out of high stakes testing and the issue of student privacy rights is front and center | Seattle Education:

The Opt Out Update: More parents around the country are opting their students out of high stakes testing and the issue of student privacy rights is front and center

by seattleducation2011

First, we’ll begin with why parents are opting their children out of high stakes testing.

Blind, severely disabled boy forced to take standardized test

Rick called me a few days ago. He had, he said, been contacted by Linda Stewart, a member of the Florida legislature. She was looking into a constituent’s school-related complaint, and wondered if Rick would check the matter out for her.The constituent is an administrator in a special school that serves the educational needs of kids who for one reason or another can’t be served by the county’s regular public schools. The school, however, is under school board jurisdiction and therefore subject to the same rules and regulations as all others.

One of those regulations is that every kid has to take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in order for the school to receive state support. That creates a problem, the school administrator tells Stewart. The problem: Michael. He has a disability.

Contacted, state officials cite state statutes. Michael has no options. He has to take the 

What Happened to the FLDOE’s Investigation of K12 Inc? | Scathing Purple Musings

What Happened to the FLDOE’s Investigation of K12 Inc? | Scathing Purple Musings:

What Happened to the FLDOE’s Investigation of K12 Inc?

by Bob Sikes

What Will Happen to FLDOE Investigation of K12 Inc

 When Tony Bennett Arrives? | Scathing Purple Musings

A top financial backer of Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, K12 Inc got into hot water with investors for inflating their claims about student success. Earlier this month, the corporation settled with share-holders. From Sean Cavanagh in Education Week:

The for-profit education provider K12 Inc. has reached a tentative settlement in a class-action securities lawsuit brought by investors who said they were misled by the company’s business practices and academic performance.
The online schools provider has agreed to pay $6.75 million to plaintiffs who have brought the suit, while company officials said they also continue to deny any claims of wrongdoing.
The agreement will settle allegations related to K12′s disclosure of student retention and