Common Core SBAC Test Designed to ID 9 in 10 Special Education Children as Failures - Wait What?

Common Core SBAC Test Designed to ID 9 in 10 Special Education Children as Failures - Wait What?:

Common Core SBAC Test Designed to ID 9 in 10 Special Education Children as Failures

The Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Test is intentionally designed to ensure that the vast majority of students are deemed failures.  [The Common Core PARCC test is no better]

According to SBAC’s own official policy, the Common Core SBAC test is designed so that almost 7 in 10 children who take the “mandatory” test fail to reach “goal” in math and about 6 in 10 are deemed failures in English Language Arts.

Making the Common Core SBAC Test even more inappropriate is that the fact that the 2014 SBAC Field Test results prove that the test discriminates against students who come from poor households, students who are not proficient in the English Language (English Language Learners) and students who need special education services.

Perhaps the most outrageous reality of all is that the Common Core SBAC test is rigged to ensure that the almost all students who require special education services are deemed to be failures.

Not only is the Common Core SBAC Test unfair and inappropriate, it is nothing short of immoral and unethical.

According the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Disaggregated Field Test Data for 2014, the cut scores that have been set for this year’s test are designed to produce the following results

Projected Failure Rate for Special Education Students with IEPs on the Common Core SBAC Math Section

4th Grade Math – Special Education Students with IEPs	87.1% WILL FAIL
6th Grade Math – Special Education Students with IEPs	91.3% WILL FAIL
8th Grade Math –  Special Education Students with IEPs	90.3% WILL FAIL
11TH Grade Math –  Special Education Students with IEPs	92.5% WILL FAIL

Projected Failure Rate for Special Education Students with IEPs on Common Common Core SBAC Test Designed to ID 9 in 10 Special Education Children as Failures - Wait What?:

Education 'experts' may lack expertise, study finds:

Education 'experts' may lack expertise, study finds

The education experts cited in media stories and blog posts may have little background in research or education policy, suggests a new study by, left, curriculum specialist Joel R. Malin and education professor Christopher Lubienski, both at the University of Illinois. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

The people most often cited as "education experts" in blogs and news stories may have the backing of influential organizations - but have little background in education and education policy, a new study suggests.

The findings are cause for concern because some prominent interest groups are promoting reform agendas and striving to influence policymakers and public opinion using individuals who have substantial media relations skills but little or no expertise in education research, say the authors of the study, Joel R. Malin and Christopher Lubienski, both at the University of Illinois.

To examine possible links between individuals' media presence and their levels of expertise, Malin and Lubienski compiled a diverse list of nearly 300 people who appeared on the lists of experts prepared by several major education advocacy and policy organizations, including the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal National Education Policy Center.

Malin and Lubienski also added to their sample a handful of scholars not on those lists but who are prominent and influential in the field of education.

Each person's level of expertise was then scored using a formula that included their number of Google Scholar citations; their years of experience, calculated by subtracting the year they attained their highest degree from 2014; and whether or not the person had earned a doctoral or equivalent degree.

Each person's level of media influence was calculated based upon the number of times they were quoted or mentioned in education press, U.S. newspapers or blogs during 2013; whether they had a Twitter profile; and their Klout score, which is a proxy for social media influence.

Experts were more likely to be quoted or mentioned in newspapers and blogs if they had higher scores on Google Scholar, Malin and Lubienski found. Every 1-point increase in an expert's Google Scholar score was associated with a 1-percent increase in blog mentions.

Accordingly, each 1-point increase in years of experience corresponded with an increase of about 1 percent in newspaper citations, the researchers found.

However, affiliation with a policy or advocacy organization also substantially increased an expert's media presence. People associated with the American Enterprise Institute were nearly 2.5 times more likely to be cited in education media.

Likewise, experts were 1.78 and 1.5 times more likely to be mentioned in blogs if they were affiliated with Cato or the American Enterprise Institute, respectively.

Although the initial list included 287 experts, Malin and Lubienski could not find the Education 'experts' may lack expertise, study finds:

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-experts-lack-expertise.html#jCp

#STOPHR5 US Representatives on Twitter Find your Member Hit them with a Vote No on HR5 Tweet

List members:

#STOPHR5 US Representatives on Twitter Find your Member Hit them with a Vote No Tweet on HR5 

Education & the Workforce Committee ( @EdWorkforce )  http://1.usa.gov/1BJ7DQh

Ed & Workforce Dems ( @edworkforcedems ) Twitter http://bit.ly/1BJ86SG

Click Here to Find Your Representative on Twitter

Click Here to Find Your Representative's Phone Number 

Click Here to find your Representive's Email Online Directory for the 114th Congress

¿Quiere ponerse en contacto con miembros del Congreso en Español?

Contacting the Congress is a very up-to-date citizen's congressional directory for the 114th Congress. As of February 19, 2015 there are 539 electronic contact addresses (of which 538 are Web-based contact forms), and 539 home pages known for the 540 members of the 114th Congress. Traditional ground mail addresses are available for all current members of Congress.

It has been reported that the US House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 5, the "Student Success Act," on Friday, February 27th. The bill, which is the House's version of the long overdue reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, was rushed through the House Education and the Workforce Committee with no public hearings. The bill is deeply flawed, and raises many concerns for public education allies.

There are four crucial issues:

• Requires that states test all children in grades 3-8 and once in high school, even though no high performing nation tests all children every year 
• Makes Title I funds portable, which will decrease funding to the schools in greatest need, and opens the door for vouchers
• Limits Title II funding to 10% for class size reduction
• Increases funding for charter schools and encourages the growth and expansion of Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), which will advance the privatization movement

The time is now to send a clear message that we demand better for our children and our schools. Please join NPE and write your Representative today to let him/her know you oppose the passage of this bill.

Click Here to:  Join NPE and write your Representative today to let him/her know you oppose the passage of this bill.

 

Tell Congress: Vote NO on H.R. 5 – The Student Success Act

Find Your Representative

Not sure of your congressional district or who your member is? This service will assist you by matching your ZIP code to your congressional district, with links to your member's website and contact page.

Please review the frequently asked questions if you have problems using this service.

Enter your ZIP code:

State-by-State Lawsuits Over Inadequate School Funding Abound:

State-by-State, Lawsuits Over Inadequate School Funding Abound

Posted on February 23, 2015 by admin

Late last year, when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled against more than 450 school districts in a lawsuit over inadequate school funding, champions of public schools took a punch. But, they’re not down — and they have a lot of friends. Relief may be in sight.

The ruling hinged on a technicality. It was not based on a decision that school funding was adequate, but instead, the suit itself was flawed. Adair v. The State of Michigan was filed by taxpayer plaintiff Daniel Adair, along with individuals from 450 districts. The impetus behind it was an unfunded mandate requiring districts to report to the Center for Educational Performance and Information, supplying data on compliance with the federally mandated No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. As with many of these evaluation and performance initiatives, the school bears the burden of cost with no compensation — taking money out classrooms. The court found that the plaintiff neglected to provide a specific amount of underfunding, sending them back to put a dollar figure on their claim.

A court cop-out? Not necessarily.

“Costing-Out” May Pave the Way to Legal Victory

Michigan is among a handful of states that has not yet conducted a “costing-out study” to determine the actual cost of public education. But now, a new law will require the state to crunch the numbers. The organization Access to Quality Education describes the importance of “costing-out”:

Historically, the amount of funding provided to public schools has been based on a politically determined amount of money available for state education aid – without an analysis of educational needs – and on local ability to raise through property taxes. As a result, school revenues are the result of political struggles over how to distribute money among a state’s school districts.

In 37 states, experts in education finance have performed “costing-out studies” at the request of state legislatures or other organizations, in order to determine the amount of school funding needed to provide all students a meaningful educational opportunity.

Rep. Brandon Dillon (D-Grand Rapids) attempted to legislatively remedy the oversight through a proposal last year, but GOP lawmakers smothered it in committee. There was also a 2013 Republican version lurking in committee, loaded-down with some partisan baggage requiring public schools to provide a heaping helping of patriotism as part of the State-by-State Lawsuits Over Inadequate School Funding Abound:

A Walmart Fortune, Spreading Charter Schools - NYTimes.com

A Walmart Fortune, Spreading Charter Schools - NYTimes.com:

A Walmart Fortune, Spreading Charter Schools

WASHINGTON — DC Prep operates four charter schools here with 1,200 students in preschool through eighth grade. The schools, whose students are mostly poor and black, are among the highest performing in Washington. Last year, DC Prep’s flagship middle school earned the best test scores among local charter schools, far outperforming the average of the city’s traditional neighborhood schools as well.

Another, less trumpeted, distinction for DC Prep is the extent to which it — as well as many other charter schools in the city — relies on the Walton Family Foundation, a philanthropic group governed by the family that founded Walmart.

Since 2002, the charter network has received close to $1.2 million from Walton in direct grants. A Walton-funded nonprofit helped DC Prep find building space when it moved its first two schools from a chapel basement into former warehouses that now have large classrooms and wide, art-filled hallways.

One-third of DC Prep’s teachers are alumni of Teach for America, whose largest private donor is Walton. A Walton-funded advocacy group fights for more public funding and autonomy for charter schools in the city. Even the local board that regulates charter schools receives funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

In effect, Walton has subsidized an entire charter school system in the nation’s capital, helping to fuel enrollment growth so that close to half of all public school students in the city now attend charters, which receive taxpayer dollars but are privately operated.

Walton’s investments here are a microcosm of its spending across the country. The foundation has awarded more than $1 billion in grants nationally to educational efforts since 2000, making it one of the largest private contributors to education in the country. It is one of a handful of foundations with strong interests in education, including those belonging to Bill and Melinda Gates of Microsoft; Eli Broad, a Los Angeles insurance billionaire; and Susan and Michael Dell, who made their money in computers. The groups have many overlapping interests, but analysts often describe Walton as following a distinct ideological path.

In addition to giving grants to right-leaning think tanks like the Thomas BA Walmart Fortune, Spreading Charter Schools - NYTimes.com:

These Are The States That Suspend Students At The Highest Rates:

These Are The States That Suspend Students At The Highest Rates

 Schools in the Sunshine State may not rank at the top as far as SAT scores or high school graduation rates, but they did suspend students at the highest rate in the country during the 2011-2012 school year, according to a report released Monday by UCLA's Center for Civil Rights Remedies.

Using the latest data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, the report and an accompanying research tool analyzes which states and school districts handed out the most out-of-school suspensions and whom these suspensions most affected.

Overall, while suspension rates for black, white and Latino students were similar in 2011-2012 to suspension rates in the early and mid-2000s, they were still significantly higher than they were in the early 1970s, when the federal government began collecting such data. Black students, Latino students and students with disabilities are still significantly more likely to face this type of punishment.

"The question we're asking here is, 'Are we closing the school discipline gap?'" Daniel J. Losen, the director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, said in a press release. "For the first time, we can answer that question in a really meaningful way. And the answer is, 'A lot of school districts are closing the gap in a profound way, but not enough to swing the national numbers.'"

Florida posted the highest suspension rate in the country for elementary and secondary school students. At the elementary school level, Florida suspended 5.1 percent of young students overall, as shown in the map below. The average national suspension rate for elementary school students, on the other hand, was only 2.6 percent, according to the report. Notably, state-level data were not presented for New York and Hawaii because of errors in how data was reported by school districts in the states.

Florida suspended 19 percent of its secondary school students -- a category that includes middle, junior high and high schoolers -- during this time period. Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina suspended 16 percent of those students. North Dakota, at the opposite end of the spectrum, suspended only 3 percent of its secondary school students.

School suspensions put students at greater risk for dropping out and contribute to the so-called school-to-prison pipeline, which pushes students away from school and into the criminal justice system, research shows. Representatives for the Florida Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment regarding the state's high suspension rates.

Racial disparities in suspension were especially present in Missouri -- a trend that is notable given recent, racially charged protests in the state. At the elementary school level, Missouri had the highest gap in school suspension rates between black and white students. At the middle school, junior high and high school level, Missouri landed in the top five in terms of suspension disparities.

Two of the 10 school districts with the highest secondary school suspension rates in the country were located in the greater Ferguson, Missouri area, including the school district attended by black teen Michael Brown. At age 18, Brown was fatally shot by white Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in August. His death set off weeks of unrest in the area.

"The Normandy school district in Missouri, where Michael Brown attended, is among the highest suspending districts in the entire nation with an overall suspension rate These Are The States That Suspend Students At The Highest Rates:

Knowledge Isn’t Power - NYTimes.com

Knowledge Isn’t Power - NYTimes.com:

Knowledge Isn’t Power

Regular readers know that I sometimes mock “very serious people” — politicians and pundits who solemnly repeat conventional wisdom that sounds tough-minded and realistic. The trouble is that sounding serious and being serious are by no means the same thing, and some of those seemingly tough-minded positions are actually ways to dodge the truly hard issues.

The prime example of recent years was, of course, Bowles-Simpsonism — the diversion of elite discourse away from the ongoing tragedy of high unemployment and into the supposedly crucial issue of how, exactly, we will pay for social insurance programs a couple of decades from now. That particular obsession, I’m happy to say, seems to be on the wane. But my sense is that there’s a new form of issue-dodging packaged as seriousness on the rise. This time, the evasion involves trying to divert our national discourse about inequality into a discussion of alleged problems with education.

And the reason this is an evasion is that whatever serious people may want to believe, soaring inequality isn’t about education; it’s about power.

Just to be clear: I’m in favor of better education. Education is a friend of mine. And it should be available and affordable for all. But what I keep seeing is people insisting that educational failings are at the root of still-weak job creation, stagnating wages and rising inequality. This sounds serious and thoughtful. But it’s actually a view very much at odds with the evidence, not to mention a way to hide from the real, unavoidably partisan debate.

The education-centric story of our problems runs like this: We live in a period of unprecedented technological change, and too many American workers lack the skills to cope with that change. This “skills gap” is holding back growth, because businesses can’t find the workers they need. It also feeds inequality, as wages soar for workers with the right skills but stagnate or decline for the less educated. So what we need is more and better education.

My guess is that this sounds familiar — it’s what you hear from the talking heads on Sunday morning TV, in opinion articles from business leaders like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, in “framing papers” from the Brookings Institution’s centrist Hamilton Project. It’s repeated so widely that many people probably assume it’s unquestionably true. But it isn’t.

For one thing, is the pace of technological change really that fast? “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters,” the venture capitalistPeter Thiel has snarked. Productivity growth, which surged briefly after 1995, seems to have slowed sharply.

Furthermore, there’s no evidence that a skills gap is holding back employment. After all, if businesses were desperate for workers with Knowledge Isn’t Power - NYTimes.com:

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Bogus 'Parent Trigger' petition rejected by Anaheim board

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Bogus 'Parent Trigger' petition rejected by Anaheim board:

Bogus 'Parent Trigger' petition rejected by Anaheim board

Last month I wrote about an attempt in Anaheim, CA to privatize the management of another public school, using the so-called Parent Trigger law.



The law, which turns parent against parent in a community, gives a temporary majority, who are willing (often cajoled) to sign a petition, the power to hand their public school over to a private company. That company can then fire the principal and all the teachers as well as abrogate the district's collective bargaining agreement. It doesn't matter if next week, or next year, the majority shifts. The school can be privatized and there's little district parents and taxpayers can do about it.



Well, there is something they can do and they did it Thursday in Anaheim when the school board found that the petition submitted by a group of Palm Lane Elementary School parents failed to collect enough valid signatures to privatize the school.

According to a story in the Orange County Register, about   Schooling in the Ownership Society: Bogus 'Parent Trigger' petition rejected by Anaheim board:

Opting out of state tests has costs for Ohio students, schools | The Columbus Dispatch

Opting out of state tests has costs for Ohio students, schools | The Columbus Dispatch:

Opting out of state tests has costs for Ohio students, schools

 Parent groups have sprouted throughout the state — and central Ohio — to protest the new state exams aligned with Common Core standards.

But parents say there has been a lot of confusion about whether they can keep their kids from taking the tests.

Here’s the rub: Students and their parents can opt out of state testing, but there are consequences for their teachers and for some students if they do.

Lisa Riegel recently held a meeting with Olentangy schools officials and 30 other parents after a Facebook exchange on the subject generated more than 200 comments, many of which included misinformation.

“There was a lot of half-fiction and half-truths,” she said.

Also at the meeting were an Ohio Education Association representative and state Rep. Andrew Brenner of Powell, who introduced a bill on Thursday that would limit end-of-course exams to no more than three hours beginning next school year. It also calls for the state to identify alternatives to the high-school end-of-course exams next year.

Brenner, a Republican, also co-sponsored a bill that would limit testing time beginning next school year to no more than four hours per subject.

Several districts, including Columbus, Upper Arlington and Worthington, have reported that parents excused a total of dozens of students from state testing.

>>  PARCC practice test  << 



Parents echo many of the concerns raised by school leaders and Opting out of state tests has costs for Ohio students, schools | The Columbus Dispatch:

Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National

Click Here to go to United Opt Out National: 

Click Here to go to the Website- United Opt Out Team

No Child Left Behind: how to end 'teaching to the test' - LA Times

No Child Left Behind: how to end 'teaching to the test' - LA Times:



Editorial 

No Child Left Behind: how to end 'teaching to the test'

When U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last year that the incessant focus on testing was “sucking the oxygen” out of public school classrooms, his statement seemed like a pointed criticism of the federal No Child Left Behind Act and of his own long-standing policies. For the last 14 years, the law has pressured public schools to raise scores in math and reading; that in turn has led schools to “teach to the test” — and to administer increasing numbers of interim tests throughout the year, as schools and individual teachers have tried to determine whether students are on track to score well on the all-important year-end exams.

But it turned out that Duncan wasn't saying what critics of No Child Left Behind had hoped: that there should be fewer standardized tests, which are taken annually in grades three through eight and once in high school. Instead, Duncan proposed giving states incentives to get rid of other “redundant and low-quality” exams. The problem is that as long as there are annual high-stakes tests, schools are going to prepare for them with their own tests.

Duncan is right when he says the annual tests provide important information about schools. They should remain a component of the law, along with high standards for what students should learn. The better way to ensure that test prep doesn't replace
creative, stimulating lessons in class is to relax the law's rigid reliance on scores as a measure of school and teacher performance, and to tone down its harshly punitive elements.

For one thing, the Obama administration should drop its insistence that the test scores be used as a major measure in teacher evaluations. That is now the rule in the 43 states — California isn't one of them — that received waivers from No Child Left Behind, and the administration clearly wants to make it a requirement for all states if the law is reauthorized this year. But the value of this approach has not yet been proved, and as long as states show academic progress, the federal government shouldn't interfere in how they go about it.

No Child Left Behind: how to end 'teaching to the test' - LA Times:

Positive School Reform: Reimagining ESEA - Education Week

Positive School Reform: Reimagining ESEA - Education Week:

Positive School Reform: Reimagining ESEA

By Jack Jennings

 Teachers and other advocates for public education know what they oppose. Too much student testing. Too much emphasis on charter schools. Too much negative news about the schools. And not enough coverage of what is going right. Those are the common complaints—and they are accurate.

While we know what educators oppose, though, it is much more difficult to know what they are for. What would make the schools better for all children in the opinions of those whose job it is to educate? Further, what does research tell us would be most effective in improving education?

I raise this issue because I have learned from nearly a half-century of involvement in education policy that if your agenda is not being carried out, then you are working to implement someone else's ideas. For decades, this is exactly what has happened. People from outside the field have been setting the agenda.

To be precise, business leaders, think tanks, state governors, and other political leaders have had much more influence in fashioning school reforms than have the people whose careers are in education. The No Child Left Behind Act, teacher evaluations based on inappropriately used state tests, and a tremendous emphasis on charter schools are prime examples of recent policies that were imposed on most educators.

In Presidents, Congress, and the Public Schools (to be published next month by Harvard Education Press), I examine the long history of externally imposed reforms, finding that they have seldom, if ever, had the success promised when first laid on the schools. This is not to say that there were no good results from these efforts, but nothing on the order of what our schools need to prepare students for the challenges of the future.

—Kali Ciesemier for Education Week

I reached my conclusions despite the fact that I had spent an entire career creating many of these reforms, and, once they were enacted, arguing for their continuation. Reflection while writing this book has led me to support a far different approach today.

Fundamental rethinking of school reform is not happening as the new Congress tries to piece together legislation that will extend the No Child Left Behind Act. That 2002 law, the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, expired in 2008, and has since been extended by Congress on a yearly basis Positive School Reform: Reimagining ESEA - Education Week:

Big Education Ape: Tell Congress: Vote NO on H.R. 5 – The Student Success Act http://bit.ly/1JwDIz3

Blogs Are Critical to Re-establishing Public Schools:

BLOGS ARE CRITICAL TO RE-ESTABLISHING PUBLIC SCHOOLS

What was once Harding High School in Okla. City Public Schools is now Harding Charter Preparatory High School, authorized by the district.

Over the last ten years, bloggers have kept the issues of who controls schools at the forefront when so many big money interests want desperately to have us look the other way.

One advantage that school raiders have in taking public schools away from the public and turning them over to investor-owned charters is that the traditional news sources are hobbled from reporting accurately and fully.

On the other hand, in Oklahoma, blogs have been the spine of exposing the lies and game plan of school raiders who have used big money from investors to attack public schools and promote charter and voucher schemes.

Let’s look at the differences in blogs and the traditional, mainstream “press” or “media” when it comes to reporting about education.

Ownership

The Oklahoman and the Tulsa World, Oklahoma’s two biggest metro dailies that have circulations that spread throughout the state, are each owned by fabulously wealthy individuals who live in other states and never have had any family ties to Oklahoma.

On the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest people in the U.S. for 2014,Warren Buffet, whose firm Berkshire Hathaway owns the Tulsa World, is #2, and The Oklahoman’s owner, Philip Anschutz of Colorado is #42.

Forbes lists Buffet as being worth $67 billion and Anschutz as being worth a measly $42 billion.

These quite smart individuals have been purchasing large newspapers for a reason: Those companies have the potential for a good return on investment if they are operated in an efficient manner. In this case, “efficient” means that more advertising dollars are coming in than expenses that are incurred.

Anschutz, however, has been buying up a string of radio stations and newspapers and has been actively pushing his right-wing ideology through them, even though not blatantly. The Oklahomangives appearances of being a neutral organ, but is too often caughtmisusing information in news stories to push a particular editorial viewpoint against public schools.

It is no secret that Anschutz is pushing corporate charter schools Blogs Are Critical to Re-establishing Public Schools:

 

EduBloggers:

http://edubloggers.org/

Dedicated to truth-telling for democracy.