What Happens When Students Boycott a Standardized Test? — The Atlantic

What Happens When Students Boycott a Standardized Test? — The Atlantic:

What Happens When Students Boycott a Standardized Test?

The movement to opt-out of nationwide exams is gaining traction—and forcing policymakers to rethink the role of such assessments in public education.

 Standardized tests have been an integral part of the American school routine since the 1970s, the protocol changing very little. Children were told to put away their books; to fill in the bubbles, with No. 2 pencils, completely; and, when the time was up, to immediately put down their writing utensils. However, those ubiquitous (and ever-dreaded) tests have evolved dramatically as of late—and deliberations over their purpose have become increasingly urgent.

This semester, students in roughly three dozen states and the District of Columbia are taking one of two new standardized tests that are known by their consonant-riddled acronyms: PARCC, which is part of the Pearson family, and SBAC, which was developed by a consortium of states. The force behind these assessments is the Common Core State Standards, the set of highly controversial universal learning benchmarks that, the thinking goes, would’ve been difficult to implement without new-and-improved standardized tests. (Students in the remaining states are taking other exams; under No Child Left Behind, the federal government requires that every state gives its kids some form of assessment, but it doesn’t stipulate a specific one.) Like the hodgepodge of older tests used over the past five decades, these new assessments are designed to gauge students' proficiency in math and English via series of multiple-choice questions.

The days of booklets and pencils, however, are long gone; these tests are administered on computers and come with fancy resources such as virtual rulers and protractors and can be customized to students with, say, special needs. Some sections feature "drop-and-drag" options and even adaptive questioning that responds to individual students’ abilities. The Common Core standards, which have been adopted by more than 40 states, emphasize critical thinking. That means the English tests include essay sections, for example, while those for math at times ask students to explain how they found their answers. Compared with the previous assessments, the results from these tests generate more information for officials and parents about student proficiency and progress.

But perhaps the most obvious distinction from years past, at least now, is that significant resistance to the standardized tests has organized in a growing number of states—to the point of mass boycotts in certain communities. This movement was jumpstarted by parents and has since garnered the support of the teachers’ unions. And now it’s getting some ammunition from the students themselves. This campaign isn’t only raising pressing concerns about the validity of standardized tests, it’s also revealing the extent to which the foray into a new era of test-driven accountability and debates surrounding this reform could end up damaging the country’s public education system. After all, the consequences of an exam boycott could be just as severe as those that come with over-testing; finding a compromise is certainly preferable to too much or too little.

While states generally have not released exact numbers on the opt-outs, school officials and local newspapers report that growing numbers of students, with their parents’ blessing, have not taken (or will not take) their standardized tests this spring. In New Jersey, for example, at least 46,000—or 5 percent—of the roughly 896,000 public-school students in grade levels subject to the exam are estimated to have opted out of the first installment of the PARCC test, which was conducted in March; greater numbers are expected refuse to take the second one in May. (Similar statistics are predicted in Colorado, Florida, and New York, too.) And while the vast majority of students are still taking their tests, the number of refusals is hard to ignore—as are the specific areas in which refusals are most prevalent. At least in New Jersey, the opt-outs are largely concentrated in wealthy communities, according to an analysis of compiled data.

Here in New Jersey, I witnessed the anti-testing politics evolve over the past few months. It appeared to begin with a small number of parents expressing diverse concerns, sharing information at school board meetings and through social media. Opposition started to increase, however, as the teachers unions helped parents organize. The teachers reversed their initial support of the new testing guidelines once the Legislature, similar to those in many other states, passed legislation tying teacher evaluations—and thus their pay—to assessment results. Some of the unions’ local branches even arranged parties to view the filmStandardized (Lies, Money, & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education) or set up websites informing parents how to complete the necessary What Happens When Students Boycott a Standardized Test? — The Atlantic:

What Can We Agree On, After Atlanta? | Taking Note

What Can We Agree On, After Atlanta? | Taking Note:

What Can We Agree On, After Atlanta?

 “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” William Butler Yeats wrote in 1919 in ‘The Second Coming.’ Yeats was describing the world after the Great War, but it aptly describes American education today[1]: polarized, shouting at, but rarely listening to, each other. We disagree about dozens of issues: the Common Core; whether ‘opting out’ of the Common Core tests is appropriate (or even legal); the role of unions; the effectiveness of charter schools; the federal role; the amount of standardized testing; how to evaluate teachers; poverty’s impact on children’s learning, and more.

Now, out of the blue, we have two[2] points of agreement: 1) Draconian punishment for the Atlanta cheaters is unjust, unseemly and counter-productive; and 2) students are the losers when adults cheat.

By now everyone knows that 11 Atlanta educators have been convicted for cheating and could be facing serious time behind bars. Thoughtful observers like Richard Rothstein, Robert Pondiscio and David Cohen are weighing in. Mr. Rothstein’s piece takes the deepest dive, and so I suggest you start there.

Even though everyone agrees that kids[3] were cheated, we don’t agree on what should be done. Should they be offered free tutoring? Or is an apology enough?

And we disagree about who’s really to blame for the cheating in Atlanta. Superintendent Beverly Hall was too ill to stand trial and died before the decision was handed down, but for many the buck started and stopped with her.[4] Others blame the unrealistic demands of No Child Left Behind for the cheating in Atlanta, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio and Austin, Texas.

Everybody’s got a villain, whether it’s Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top; an obsession with ‘data-driven decision-making; education profiteers; greedy teacher unions; or a right wing vendetta against those same unions. [5]

Can’t we agree on something else? I suggest two big ideas that everyone who is genuine about putting kid first can support. One, expose hypocrites and hypocrisies, wherever they may be. Two, school spending should be transparent, because we are talking about taxpayer dollars, and sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Of course, the two are related, because hypocrisy often involves money and secrecy.

To me, the biggest hypocrites are those who preach, “Poverty can never be offered as an excuse” (for poor student performance) but then do nothing to alleviate poverty and its attendant conditions. What they are saying, bottom line, is “It’s the teachers’ fault” when kids in poverty-ridden schools do poorly on tests or fail to graduate.

These preachers disguise their mendacity with words of praise for teachers, calling them ‘heroes whose brave work changes the lives of their fortunate students blah blah blah.’ Sounds great, but when it comes from those who discount all the other factors that affect outcomes, it’s hypocrisy. They’re setting up teachers and schools to be blamed.

How satisfying and convenient to have a simple, easy-to-grasp analysis. And how hypocritical.

OK, poverty is not an excuse, but surely substandard housing, inadequate health care, poor nutrition, abuse and abandonment (all of which are more likely in high poverty areas) are factors in poor academic performance. So why are these hypocrites either standing by silently or actively opposing efforts to alleviate poverty and thereby What Can We Agree On, After Atlanta? | Taking Note:

School District projects 22 percent graduation rate in 2017 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

School District projects 22 percent graduation rate in 2017 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:



School District projects 22 percent graduation rate in 2017

 

Photo: Rachel Feierman

Projected impact of Keystone exams on Philadelphia graduation rates.

In two years, Pennsylvania students will have to pass three standardized tests -- the Keystone Exams -- to graduate high school.

Right now, 65 percent of Philadelphia School District students graduate in four years, but District officials expect a big drop when the Keystone Exam requirement comes into full effect.

"While our graduation rate remained steady last year, extrapolating from current seniors, only 22 percent of the Class of 2017 will graduate on time," according to a report published by the District in January. That estimate is based on the number of current seniors on track to pass all three Keystone Exams and obtain the requisite class credits to graduate this spring.

In 2008, Gov. Ed Rendell's administration introduced the Keystone Exam as the state Graduation Competency Assessments (GCA). The State Board of Education approved the graduation requirement in 2009. Since then, use of the Keystone tests to determine graduation has triggered debate at the state and local level.

States use graduation requirements to assess school performance and ensure graduates are prepared for college or the workforce. Fully 70 percent of students at the Community College of Philadelphia need to redo high school-level course work before moving on to college-level classes.

Under Gov. Tom Corbett, the number of tests to be rolled out in schools was reduced from 10 to three: biology, algebra I and literature. The Corbett administration also pushed back the year when the tests would officially count toward a student's graduation to the 2016-2017 school year. In other words, current high school sophomores.

Getting ready for the tests

Philadelphia is not alone in posting test scores that would hit their graduation rates.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

School District projects 22 percent graduation rate in 2017 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

Federal funding is crucial for our charter schools : News

Federal funding is crucial for our charter schools : News:

Federal funding is crucial for our charter schools

 Thousands more of St. Louis’ children could soon get their shot at achieving the American dream and be on the path toward getting prepared for a career of their choice. Or not, depending on what happens in Washington over the coming months as Congress determines funding for charter schools.

Charter schools are independent, public and tuition-free schools given the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for advancing student achievement. Because they are public schools they are funded by local, state and federal tax dollars. Charter schools are open to all children, serve all students, do not charge tuition, and do not have special entrance requirements. Charter schools do, however, operate independently of school districts, and this flexibility allows them to provide families with more modern, successful learning environments.

Charter schools have become an increasingly significant part of the St. Louis public school landscape, providing quality educational options for parents and students. Nearly 10,000 children in St. Louis are a part of a community twice as large attending public charter schools in Missouri. This is great news! However, many more students linger on waiting lists or live in communities throughout Missouri where charter schools are not yet even an option. Parents deserve to have options when they send their children off to be educated, and students deserve a shot at a better future.

The first step is strong support from Congress through funding. This year, there is bipartisan support to do this. Federal Charter Schools Program funding makes a critical difference in helping new charter schools open, as launch funding is often not otherwise available. Communities across the state are counting on U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt to give our children a high-quality choice in education.

To keep the American dream from becoming a distant memory, we must build a better future for our children. This dream has made our country the greatest nation on earth, and for nearly our entire history, each generation has enjoyed a better life than the previous. Education is the cornerstone of better opportunity. And the more than 6,700 public charter schools across our nation are today woven into the very education fabric that is American opportunity itself.

Public charter schools are proven to work. Nearly every academic report published on charter school performance since 2010 — 15 out of 16 — has found that students in charter schools do better in school than their traditional peers. Additionally, children who attend charter schools are more likely to graduate from high school than their traditional school peers. In dozens of charter schools across the country, every single graduating senior is accepted into college. Charter schools also continue to disproportionately top the lists of America’s best high schools in Newsweek, US News and World Report, and the Washington Post.

Now is the time for Congress to act, and vote to ensure public charter schools have the resources Federal funding is crucial for our charter schools : News:

Mapping the Growth of Statewide Voucher Programs in the United States CEEP: Indiana University Bloomington

CEEP: Indiana University Bloomington:

• New CEEP Policy Brief
  Mapping the Growth of Statewide Voucher Programs in the United States
  A new brief comparing statewide voucher programs finds all are growing as never before in the last five years. The brief, “Mapping the Growth of Statewide Voucher Programs in the United States,” examines four statewide voucher systems for students in general education programs (open to all students): Wisconsin, Ohio, Louisiana, and Indiana. The brief is authored by Katherine Cierniak, CEEP graduate research assistant, Molly Stewart, CEEP research associate, and Anne-Maree Ruddy, director for education policy and senior research associate at CEEP.
  Click here to access a PDF of the brief.

 CEEP: Indiana University Bloomington:

Teachers unions: wanting the perks of membership without the politics - LA Times

Teachers unions: wanting the perks of membership without the politics - LA Times:

Teachers unions: wanting the perks of membership without the politics

If  you're a public school teacher and you pay your union dues, you get to enjoy whatever salary deal the union negotiates for you.

But the union spends part of your dues on political lobbying and campaigning, perhaps for causes and candidates you can't stand. Then what? Forcing you to pay to advance positions you dislike violates the 1st Amendment.

To deal with this problem, you can quit the union and keep your job, thanks to court rulings. You will still pay your fair share to cover the service the union provides in negotiating your contract, but you won't pay the portion that goes to political activity.



And what if you don't want to support the union's political stances, but you want to be able to vote out your contract negotiators and elect new ones? You also want some of the other benefits the union provides only to its members — including lawyers when you get into a dispute with your principal, or insurance policies and discounts. Does it violate the 1st Amendment to force you to choose between paying for unwanted political activity and accepting fewer benefits?

That's the gist of a lawsuit filed last week by four California teachers backed by the education reform group StudentsFirst. Like the suit in Vergara vs. California, in which a court found that tenure rules unconstitutionally subjected some students to bad teachers, the latest suit appears to be aimed at loosening the stranglehold that reformers say teachers unions have over public schools.

Unlike Vergara, though, the current case doesn't focus on students or education but is at its core an attack on the power of any public employee union to engage in politics. Plaintiffs argue that more and more benefits formerly won through collective bargaining are now union membership perks. That compels employees to join and pay their full dues — including the part that goes toward politicking — leaving employees who don't want to join the union with second-class benefits.



The implication is that the Constitution not only protects workers' speech but also guarantees them the right to every benefit the union offers to its members, even if those benefits were not negotiated with the company. It's a creative argument but not, in the end, convincing. The 1st Amendment prevents employees from having to join a union, and even guarantees them the fruits of collective bargaining, but it's hard to see how it allows them to join but not follow the rules.Teachers unions: wanting the perks of membership without the politics - LA Times:

Two Pro-Common Core Groups Urge Against Overhaul of No Child Left Behind | TheBlaze.com

Two Pro-Common Core Groups Urge Against Overhaul of No Child Left Behind | TheBlaze.com:

Two Pro-Common Core Groups Urge Against Overhaul of No Child Left Behind

 Two pro-Common Core advocacy groups are now urging against a dramatic overhaul to another education reform effort – No Child Left Behind.

After a bipartisan Senate bill was introduced Tuesday with backing from the White House to replace the Bush-era federal education reform, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue and Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights President Wade Henderson wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post urging against any major changes.

“Are we going to bow to the special interests of adults, or will we stand strong for the special interest that has no lobby — our children?” said the op-ed written by leaders of interest groups. “We have made great progress for millions of kids since NCLB. Let’s not return to a time when these students were left in the shadows.”

The op-ed says that while now, “accountability is directed from Washington” that states should have more flexibility to implement strong standards. Taking on one of the thorniest aspects of national standards, Donohue and Henderson defended the standardized testing.

“First, students must be given annual statewide assessments, which provide the only way for us to accurately measure what students are learning,” the op-ed said. “Let’s be clear: The federal law only requires students to be tested once or twice a year. Concern about overtesting is driven by local and state policies, not by Washington.”

Both the Chamber of Commerce and the Leadership Conference have been Common Core supporters. While support for NCLB and Common Core often doesn’t overlap, opposition to both is based heavily on concerns of federalizing education, which has traditionally been under local control, as well as concerns over too much testing.

Since President Barack Obama’s Department of Education has issuing NCLB waivers to school districts and adopted new standards. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have voiced support for Common Core, and tied “Race to the Top” state education grants with the standards.

The bill to replace NCLB is co-sponsored by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), respectively the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Education Committee. A hearing on the legislation is scheduled for April 14.

Alexander and Murray say their bill will eliminate the need for schools to seek waivers from some of the burdensome aspects of No Child Left Behind. Under the bill, the states would design accountability measures that are subject to federal approval; continue the often unpopular testing but allow the states to determine the weight of testing when evaluating the performance of schools; and provide federal grants to low performing school districts.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest expressed general support for the Senate legislation.

“Today’s announcement from Senator Alexander and Senator Murray is an important step in their Two Pro-Common Core Groups Urge Against Overhaul of No Child Left Behind | TheBlaze.com:

D.C.'s lessons for New York on teacher evaluations | Capital New York

D.C.'s lessons for New York on teacher evaluations | Capital New York:

D.C.'s lessons for New York on teacher evaluations

When Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a new teacher evaluation system in January that would rely heavily on the judgment of outside consultants, rank-and-file teachers and principals across the city exploded in outrage.

Similar consultants have already evaluated teachers in a handful of other places across the country, including Toledo, Ohio; Montgomery County, Maryland; and perhaps most notably, Washington, D.C. And experience elsewhere suggests that having outside educators observe teachers can be successful in the short term.

But whether the use of outside evaluators improves teaching in the long run remains an open question.

Research supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has advocated for more rigorous teacher evaluations, suggests that using two evaluators tends to yield more accurate assessments than using one. But such a system is costly to implement and requires careful planning, as well as buy-in from teachers, to work well.

The discussion in New York about using outside evaluators to help grade teachers has been divisive. The teachers’ and principals’ unions weren’t consulted before the plan was announced, and Cuomo initially tied increases in school funding to the plan’s passage. Now, the Legislature may hand some responsibility for a new evaluation system to the Board of Regents, with a deadline of June 30.

The Washington, D.C. system, with its reliance on outside observers to evaluate teachers, is probably the most similar to Cuomo’s proposal, but differs in key ways—most notably in the weight placed on the outsiders’ opinions.

“This type of evaluation system can help drive and sustain improvements in performance, but they have to be well communicated to teachers,” said Thomas Dee, an education researcher at Stanford University and co-author of a study that found the D.C. system to be an effective means of encouraging low-performing teachers to improve their practice.

There are lessons for New York in the Washington experience, both positive and negative.

FORMER D.C. SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR MICHELLE RHEE began implementing the city’s new teacher evaluation system, called IMPACT, more than five years ago. The old system consisted of annual teacher observations done by principals. By contrast, IMPACT relies on observational scores both from principals and from “master educators”—highly rated former teachers who work full-time for the district—as well as on student test-score growth, which increasingly is being used to evaluate teachers nationwide.

In 2008, the Washington school district invited hundreds of teachers to participate in focus groups designed to engage teachers in the new system’s design. Teachers wanted evaluators who had specific content expertise, something principals couldn’t always provide. The master educators’ program was born of this request, according to district officials.

To become master educators, teachers must survive a six-part application process. Summer training includes four rounds of video testing. Master educators complete mock evaluations for already-scored lessons, and are graded for their accuracy. They have to pass three of four tests before they perform real evaluations, and are given three additional follow-up tests throughout the year.

Forty master educators work full time to evaluate nearly 4,000 teachers, managing caseloads of about 100 teachers each semester. The district spends $6.2 million per year to fund the program, according to Maggie Thomas, assistant director of the master educator program for the D.C. public schools.

Teachers are judged by broad categories that cover things such as how well they explain content to students, how organized and time-efficient their lessons are and how they reach students with different abilities.

The IMPACT system rates teachers on a scale from “ineffective” to “highly effective.” “Ineffective” teachers are dismissed immediately and teachers rated “minimally effective” are given one year to improve before being considered for dismissal. As teachers move up the district’s professional-designation ladder from “teacher” to “expert teacher,” they are observed with less frequency. Annual IMPACT scores determine whether a teacher moves up the ladder.

But when the IMPACT plan was rolled out, some teachers, and the local teachers' union, saw it as overly punitive—more focused on firing teachers than helping them improve. In 2010, IMPACT’s first year, nearly 2 percent of teachers were fired. Then, in 2011, another 5 percent of teachers, 206 men and women, were fired for poor performance. Union officials say hundreds more have been fired since then. 

The results of IMPACT are themselves a matter of dispute. The study by Stanford’s Dee, with co-author James Wyckoff from the University of Virginia, found that the system has had a positive effect on teachers with both low and high ratings. The potential for significant bonuses and permanent raises has encouraged good teachers to get better. And the real threat of dismissal has pushed struggling teachers to leave voluntarily or to seek to improve, often with help from the master educators assigned to them. Either outcome is good for students, said Thomas, who works on the D.C. master educators program.

Another study of the IMPACT system, published by Education Sector, an education think tank run by the American Institutes for Research, reported that the teachers interviewed “almost universally liked the people who evaluated them, finding them for the most part helpful, empathetic and smart.”

But other education experts are more skeptical.

Linda Darling Hammond from Stanford University criticized IMPACT’s heavy reliance on test-score growth, which can be an unreliable way to measure teacher effectiveness. And while test scores in the district have improved since IMPACT began, a recent study by the National Urban League found that Washington produces the nation’s largest reading-proficiency gaps between black, Hispanic and white fourth-graders.

Most of the complaints about IMPACT have in fact focused on the use of test scores, rather than on the master educators. (In 2013, calculation errors resulted in erroneous evaluation scores for 44 teachers, including one who was mistakenly fired.)

But the outside evaluators have also been a source of frustration for some teachers.

Laura Fuchs, a social studies teacher, said in a statement to chancellor Kaya Henderson in 2011 that short visits from master educators don’t show the full picture of teachers’ efforts in the classroom. She complained that post-observation conferences are treated as D.C.'s lessons for New York on teacher evaluations | Capital New York:

Guiding principles for a more enlightened U.S. education policy - The Washington Post

Guiding principles for a more enlightened U.S. education policy - The Washington Post:

Guiding principles for a more enlightened U.S. education policy

Michael V. McGill is the long-time superintendent of the Scarsdale school district in New York, one of o the most successful in the country. Now a professor of school leadership at Bank Street College of Education, McGill challenges the dominant vision of school reform in a new report that defines what effective policy and school leadership should like in quality schools. The paper synthesizes McGill’s views from his forthcoming book, “Race to the Bottom: Corporate Reform and the Future of Public Education” (Teachers College Press, April 2015).

By Michael V. McGill

Congress and the White House are doing the porcupine dance as they try to reauthorize the education law called No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Some of the disagreements are old: Should the federal government have more or less control over schooling? Some are newer: Must every child in grades 3-8 take federally mandated standardized tests every year?

Either way, however, the policy response from Washington and in statehouses continues to focus largely on silver-bullet strategies that lack a foundation in research and have fallen markedly short of their goals.

Current policy tries to force improvement by holding educators accountable for students’ test scores and by creating competition among teachers and schools. But these strategies are not improving learning appreciably, let alone creating schools for the 21st century. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), younger children’s learning improved most in the 1970’s, before the accountability era. Since the late 1980’s, their gains have been modest, while 17 year-olds’ scores have been essentially flat. Additionally, we’ve made little recent progress in closing achievement gaps. There was a large improvement in reading between 1971 and 1980 and a smaller one after 1980, for example. However, it’s narrowed by just four points in the NCLB years.

According to most studies, charter schools do about as well on average as regular district schools. Meanwhile, Ted Kolderie, one of the movement’s early advocates, has recently written that charters have fallen short on their promise of sparking teacher-led innovation because, in recent years, they have largely promoted a single academic model. They also continue to siphon resources away from district schools.

Furthermore, the accountability and competition strategy has too often undermined the quality of education. Test prep has displaced efforts to make learning interesting and inspiring. Curriculums have gotten narrower. Educators have become increasingly demoralized. And growing numbers of parents are angry about a testing system on overkill.

In short, the accountability movement that began in the 1990’s, then became codified in NCLB, is not what America needs. Considering the human and financial resources that have been poured into the approach, its results are at best unimpressive and often worse. Instead of trying to improve education by the numbers so that performance converges on a low average, we need to establish ‘schools of tomorrow’ that will redefine what and how students learn in order to lift all of them up.

Guiding Principles for More Effective Education Policy

It’s time to consider what a more enlightened policy might look like.

After 16 years, I recently left the position of superintendent of one of the most successful school districts in the country, Scarsdale, New York. Graduation rates and college acceptances were exceptional. SAT scores were consistently in the top one percent of the top one percent.

Scarsdale and its schools have admitted advantages. Nonetheless, we can Guiding principles for a more enlightened U.S. education policy - The Washington Post:

What's next for Atlanta Public Schools? | Cover Story | Creative Loafing Atlanta

What's next for Atlanta Public Schools? | Cover Story | Creative Loafing Atlanta:

What's next for Atlanta Public Schools? 

The school system’s historic cheating trial verdict has closed the books on one of the city’s darkest moments.

CASE CLOSED: On April 1, Fulton County Superior Court jurors found 11 former Atlanta Public Schools educators guilty of racketeering and other lesser charges such as theft by taking, influencing witnesses, false swearing, and false statements. Multiple lawyers have said their clients are planning to appeal the verdict.

 Chandra Harper-Gallashaw has a pretty good view of Windsor Street from her front patio. Dawn has just broken on the first day of April and the Pittsburgh community activist and mother of four daughters is sitting in her wicker chair, watching parents and bus drivers drop off children outside the white two-story school across the street.

That Atlanta Public Schools facility is now known as Sylvan Hills Middle School following a merger of two schools. Before summer 2013, the Windsor Street school had a different name, Walter Leonard Parks Middle School, ground zero for what's been called the nation's largest school cheating scandal. It's also where Harper-Gallashaw's daughters have learned math lessons, received homework assignments, made friends, and taken standardized tests.

Thirteen-year-old Chyler Harper, a seventh grader at Sylvan Hills Middle School, used to attend nearby Charles L. Gideons Elementary School, where according to state investigators teachers erased wrong answers before filling in bubbles with correct ones. The atmosphere of cheating has damaged her trust in her teachers. She now thinks twice about whether her work is actually good whenever she's praised in the classroom.

"Teachers convinced me I was doing some good work," says Harper before heading off to school. "It hurt me because they lied to me and could've just told me the truth so I didn't feel guilty like I cheated."

Harper, one of the many students impacted by rampant standardized test manipulation, has worked hard to move past the damage done by former educators. After years of investigation, almost three-dozen indictments, and seven months of courtroom deliberations, Fulton County jurors found 11 former APS educators guilty of racketeering and other charges on April 1. The sight of bailiffs placing teachers in handcuffs and transporting principals to prison offered an image that might provide some closure to a cheating scandal that rocked a once-reputable school system, cast a shadow on the city, and provided a textbook case of high-stakes testing gone wrong.

Yet the final results offer little recourse for many students stripped of a quality education in an attempt for national recognition. Four years after state investigators linked nearly 200 educators to test score inflation, APS officials have tried to look beyond the school system's darkest moment in hopes of returning to the core mission of providing children with a quality public education. Officials have frequently discussed this goal amid calls for education reform and demands for justice for the students harmed during the seven-year ordeal. The results are mixed.

Last year a new superintendent and school board members began enacting system-wide reforms, overhauling a broken culture, and focusing on children first. About two out of every five APS students are dropouts; the city's massive gap between rich and poor undermines most parts of the education process; and distrust still lingers among students and parents, and in the greater community. Though APS has a host of new solutions, the problems facing students today largely remain the same as ones that prompted teachers to cheat in the first place.What's next for Atlanta Public Schools? | Cover Story | Creative Loafing Atlanta:

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LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO

 I know its reaching, but I thought I’d give everyone a little Easter reference with this surprise post.  

Before I left LDOE 3 years ago I was asked to help assemble some de-identified data for a research outfit named CREDO.  At the time most of my colleagues didn’t know who CREDO was or what they were all about.  (It turns out they are a pro-charter funded propaganda machine masquerading as legitimate researchers.)   We had a standing policy not to provide this type of data to anyone. . . except a few local research universities like ULL we had established contracts with – to provide analysis services to LODE for specific grants.

Then came John White and CREDO.  We’d been telling CREDO “No” for years because the amount of data they wanted was excessive and the time involved with compiling it was also going to be pretty steep.  John White was not the State Superintendent when he started giving orders through Erin Bendilly, a Jindal appointee.  This request was one of those, and it was coordinated, reviewed, and delivered by Kim Nesmith, the “Data Quality Director” and department’s FERPA enforcer.  (The fact that this request was  being forced through quickly on John White’s behalf was confirmed by both Kim and Devora Davis, head CREDO researcher, in a conference call.)

FERPA tidbit:

US DOE requires State agencies to select a number between 1 and 10 to mask all their student level data to conform to FERPA. Kim actually required the department go one step further.  She insisted we mask by using less than (<) and greater than (>) symbols in the ones digits in most numbers reported.  (We can still derive the specific numbers from the LDOE Lays an Egg: Violates FERPA and Their Own MOU Providing Data to CREDO | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

All That Glitters: Top Down Change in Minneapolis | Bright Light Small City

All That Glitters: Top Down Change in Minneapolis | Bright Light Small City:

All That Glitters: Top Down Change in Minneapolis

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Top down reform is all the rage in education these days, from Arne Duncan on down to individual districts, like Memphis (taken over by the state), Little Rock, AK (wrestling with an attempted takeover by the Walton family and their Wal-Mart money), and New Orleans (all charter schools, all the time). 

Panic button? Image from Alternet

And, it is set to sink in further, here in Minneapolis.

Under the guise of wanting to provide schools “more autonomy,” the Minneapolis Public Schools is set to roll out four “autonomous” Community Partnership Schools (CPS), including north Minneapolis’ Nellie Stone Johnson (NSJ) K-8 School. In this CPS model, traditional schools will become more “autonomous,” and partner with a community organization. In Nellie Stone Johnson’s case, the presumedpartner is the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), which is run by school board member Don Samuels’ wife, Sondra (lingering question: will Don recuse himself from the school board’s vote regarding this intended partnership, from which his wife’s organization stands to gain?).

Autonomous schools–which promise greater freedom and independence to a school, in theory, in exchange for more “accountability”–do have an appealing, “rugged individualism” sound to them. Many schools, in Minneapolis and beyond, are of course being suffocated by too many mandates, while simultaneously being starved by too little funding (public funding for schools in MN has declined significantly, since 2000, when, surprise!, demands for greater accountabilitybegan ramping up).

And, I can imagine that many schools desperately want and need greater flexibility in how they run things, given the constantly shifting demographics and needs of today’s public school students, staff, and families.

Thus the PR appeal of Minneapolis’ intended shift to a decentralized school district, with the big dream of lots of empowered, individualized school sites throughout the city. The problem, however, is that in an era of school district CEOs and politician-friendly top down management schemes (and “what if we dismantled the Minneapolis Public Schools” queries), this proposed push towards “independence” may not be as liberating as it seems.

Case in point: Nellie Stone Johnson. This K-8 school, which serves a population of “high needs” kids, is slated for big changes next year: 

Nellie Stone Johnson demographic info, from ProPublica

1. It is supposed to become a Community Partnership School (the school board will officially vote on this at an April 14 meeting; let’s hope we see democracy–and not rubber stamping–in action).
2. It will become a K-5 school, and will therefore lose staff members and send older students to a different site. (This is it’s own form of upheaval, of course).
3. It will also have to pilot a new, more “autonomous” funding model, called Student-Based Allocations (this has connections to an ALEC bill, where public school $$$ is supposed to “follow” a student–this is ALEC’s way to undercut funding for public education). 

All of these changes are to be made all at the same time, and a clear question that should be All That Glitters: Top Down Change in Minneapolis | Bright Light Small City: