Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Mucking up the data on post-Katrina New Orleans: A tale of two headlines.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Mucking up the data on post-Katrina New Orleans: A tale of two headlines.:

Mucking up the data on post-Katrina New Orleans: A tale of two headlines.

"No Excuses" N.O. charter  ((Mario Tama / Getty Images)

In our doc seminar at DePaul, my students like to compare and contrast quantitative (statistical) and qualitative (interpretive) methods. Some argue that statistical research is more "objective" while qualitative research, ie. ethnography, participatory action research, etc... is open to interpretation (actually requires it). But every once in a while, real life jumps up and mucks up the data.



For example, here's headline on a story latest study of school improvement in post-Katrina New Orleans. The report comes from Tulane's Cowan Institute whose research has been touted by numerous news agencies, charter school support groups and the Louisiana Department of Education. 

NOLA schools show dramatic improvement post-Katrina

Here's the headline above a similar story on the same study. This one is published in EdWeek.

 10 Years After Katrina: New Orleans School System Still in Flux, Report Says

Remember, they're reporting on the same statistical study based on hard numbers on test scores and dropout rates. So which is it? Dramatic improvement or still in flux?  Or both? Can the same numbers tell two different stories depending on Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Mucking up the data on post-Katrina New Orleans: A tale of two headlines.:

Tech Thursday: Hunting for CCSS/CTE | commoncorediva

Tech Thursday: Hunting for CCSS/CTE | commoncorediva:

Tech Thursday: Hunting for CCSS/CTE

Hunt Institute has a long history of being Common Core supportive.

While it appears all anti CCSS eyes are on the HR5 (the re-authorization of the NCLB), it’s been proven via documents that the HEA re-authorization is just as CCSS tied! Both have been re-authorized in almost the same time periods since their original passing in 1965. Time and time again, Sen. Lamar Alexander has been tied to the re-writing of BOTH bills. The intent? Simply put: what gets started in HR5 for CCSS, CTE, data mining, control,assessments, and educational abuse is CONTINUED into the HEA.

So what does the Hunt Institute’s announcement of 6/16/15 have to do with this? The announcement HI released, details a report published by the SREB (Southern Regional Education Board), which gives us an overview of the BRIDGE between K-12 and post-secondary..This plays right into the hands of BOTH bills being up for re-authorization. We MUST act quickly in alerting our legislators to KILL BOTH bills!! This ‘bridge’ even has a name…and I’ve taken you in great detail into the creation of that bridge. It’s called “Career Pathways”.

The Hunt Institute Announcement:

Here’s an excerpt from the HI’s website about SREB, “Labor market economists project that by 2020, two-thirds or more of all jobs will require some post-secondary education — either a certificate, a credential or a degree at the associate level or higher. At present, however, the Southern Regional Education Board’s (SREB) analyses of educational attainment data suggest that millions of young Americans are being left behind in the transition from high school to college and well-paying jobs. Significant numbers will never graduate, and many who do go on to college will never complete a credential with value in the marketplace. Credentials for All: An Imperative for SREB States, the final report of SREB’s Commission on Career and Technical Education, offers a powerful solution to this problem:Provide more than one pathway to college and careers.”

A Hunt Institute ‘Bridge’ of Their Own:

While busy promoting the SREB’s last report in a series of them, HI has produced some of Tech Thursday: Hunting for CCSS/CTE | commoncorediva:

The Social Power of Love and the Opt-Out Movement - Avalon Initiative

The Social Power of Love and the Opt-Out Movement - Avalon Initiative:

The Social Power of Love and the Opt-Out Movement

Sometimes in life we overlook what is obvious or important, because we are distracted by something less so. Such is the case of many prominent and influential education reformists.

By education reformists, I mean the combine of politicians, bureaucrats, business leaders, philanthropists, and academicians who have been working in concert for decades to “fix” American K-12 education on a national scale using corporate thinking and assets, and the power of the federal government. Their efforts are mainly based on a market economy mindset and ideology, one which is predominantly materialistic and, consequently, narrowly focused on what they think will benefit business and global markets.

These latter-day reformists have been systematically implementing a highly organized and detailed strategy developed in the wake of the 1983 Nation at Risk report, and supported by both Republican and Democratic political parties. Watching this strategy unfold at the federal and state level over the last three decades, I have observed the following ideas either implied or explicitly stated:

1. Economic life is the most important sector of society.
2. The primary functions of the other two main sectors—government and cultural life (including education)—are to foster economic growth and to further U.S. superiority in the global marketplace.
3. Self-interested behavior, competition, and the desire for profit are the foundations of a robust market economy, and the same is true for a successful education system.
4. Uniform national learning standards and standardized tests enable market forces to work more effectively in transforming our education system.
5. Standardized tests are an essential component in identifying failing students and ineffective teachers and, in the long run, overcoming poverty and the learning gap between the well to do and the poor, and ensuring our national security.
6. What the reformists think essential for a prosperous economy and society is what the next generation should also think.

Employing these ideas has led the reformists to create national educational goals, uniform national “Common Core” learning standards, and high-stakes standardized tests. These are meant to ensure that all children learn what is most The Social Power of Love and the Opt-Out Movement - Avalon Initiative:

Ed Notes Online: Parents Object to Success Academy treatment of children with special needs/co-location in Midwood

Ed Notes Online: Parents Object to Success Academy treatment of children with special needs/co-location in Midwood:

Parents Object to Success Academy treatment of children with special needs/co-location in Midwood

Dear Ms. Ravitch:

You had blogged about our letter a month ago to Eva Moskowitz asking for a response, regarding a terribly insensitive comment she made about children with special needs. She has not responded.

We learned recently that the NYC Panel on Education Policy has delayed a decision on whether to grant Success Academy a co-location space in Midwood. We have written to the Panel asking that no space be given until Success Academy's record on children with special needs is thoroughly examined. I believe the Panel convenes again on June 10.

We thought you might be interested in our comments to this Panel; the email is below.

And thank you as always for all you do for public education.

Best,
Lisa Eggert Litvin
Hastings-on-Hudson PTSA Co President

Dear Panel on Education Policy Members:

We write because we are pleased to hear that you are holding off on a final decision on whether to allow a Success Academy Charter (SA) to co-locate at the Andries Hudde Middle School in Midwood.

We are the Hastings-on-Hudson PTSA Executive Board, and we have been very concerned with Success Academy Charter Schools' treatment of children with special needs. We ask that no space be granted to this chain until SA's record regarding children with special needs is examined thoroughly and is shown to be fair.

SA's record regarding these children has long been a point of contention, with parents relaying, among other things, that these children are pushed out of the SA schools because of their learning issues. In addition, reports are pervasive that SA’s percentage of children with the highest level of special need is far below the percentage in traditional public schools. (See, e.g., http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/mayor-de-blasio-eva-moskowitz_b_4948262.html.)

And just recently, the New York Times published a series of comments from parents whose children attended SA, several of which reinforced that children with special needs face particular and unnecessary hardships at Success Academy schools. "Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy seem to have zero understanding about how to handle children who might learn differently," said one parent, while another commented that "parents with special needs children should be wary." http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/17/nyregion/success-academy-parents-voices.html?_r=0.

Making matters much worse, SA’s CEO, Eva Moskowitz, recently made a jaw-dropping and cruel comment that corroborates these concerns. Specifically, Ms. Moskowitz stated that SA does not accept children after third grade because "It's not really fair for the student in seventh grade or a high school student to have to be educated with a child who’s reading at a second or third grade level." Her shocking insensitivity traveled quickly throughout the education community, with parents and educators stunned that she could be so harsh to these children with reading challenges, many of whom have learning differences. (Comment is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/04/10/new-york-city-charters-leave-thousands-of-seats-unfilled-despite-exploding-demand-study-finds/ .)


In response to Ms. Moskowitz's comment, we, the Hastings-on-Hudson PTSA and the Hastings Special Education PTA (SEPTA), sent her the email below; as of yet, we have received no response. (Our letter also appeared on Diane Ravitch's blog, here: http://dianeravitch.net/2015/04/30/a-pta-writes-a-letter-to-eva-moskowitz-about-inclusion/)

Accordingly, we ask that this Panel not authorize additional space to any Success Academy Charter Schools until Ed Notes Online: Parents Object to Success Academy treatment of children with special needs/co-location in Midwood:

NPE Forms Coalition of Education and Civil Rights Groups to Oppose High-Stakes Testing – The Network For Public Education

NPE Forms Coalition of Education and Civil Rights Groups to Oppose High-Stakes Testing – The Network For Public Education:

NPE Forms Coalition of Education and Civil Rights Groups to Oppose High-Stakes Testing

We, the below undersigned organizations, oppose high-stakes testing because we believe these tests are causing harm to students, to public schools, and to the cause of educational equity. High-stakes standardized tests, rather than reducing the opportunity gap, have been used to rank, sort, label, and punish Black and Latino students, and recent immigrants to this country.

We oppose high-stakes tests because:

There is no evidence that these tests contribute to the quality of education, have led to improved educational equity in funding or programs, or have helped close the “achievement gap.”

High-stakes testing has become intrusive in our schools, consuming huge amounts of time and resources, and narrowing instruction to focus on test preparation.

Many of these tests have never been independently validated or shown to be reliable and/or free from racial and ethnic bias.

High-stakes tests are being used as a political weapon to claim large numbers of students are failing, to close neighborhood public schools, and to fire teachers, all in the effort to disrupt and privatize the public education system.

The alleged benefit of annual testing as mandated by No Child Left Behind was to unveil the achievement gaps, and by doing so, close them. Yet after more than a decade of high-stakes testing this has not happened. Instead, thousands of predominantly poor and minority neighborhood schools —the anchors of communities— have been closed.

As the Seattle NAACP recently stated, “Using standardized tests to label Black people and immigrants as lesser—while systematically underfunding their schools—has a long and ugly history. It is true we need accountability measures, but that should start with politicians being accountable to fully funding education and ending the opportunity gap. …The use of high-stakes tests has become part of the problem, rather than a solution.”

We agree.

Yours sincerely,

Network for Public Education

50th No More - Action Now - Alaska NAACP - Alliance for Quality Education - Badass Teachers Association

Better Georgia - Chicago Teachers Union - Children Are More Than Test Scores - Class Size Matters

Community Voices for Education - Concerned Parents of Franklin County, Tennessee - Defending the Early Years

Delaware PTA - EmpowerEd Georgia - FairTest - First Focus Campaign for Children - HispanEduca

Indiana Coalition for Public Education - Indiana PTA - Indiana State Teachers Association - Journey for Justice

Metamorphosis Teaching Learning Communities - More Than A Score - NE Indiana Friends of Public Ed

Newark Parents Union - Newark Students Union - NJ Teacher Activist Group - NY State Allies for Public Ed

Opt Out Orlando Oregon - NAACP Parents Across America - Providence Students Union - Rethinking Schools

Save Michigan’s Public Schools - Save Our Schools March - Save Our Schools NJ - Seattle King County NAACP

Students United for Public Ed - Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence - The Coalition for Better Ed

The Opt Out Florida Network - The Plainedge Federation of Teachers - United Opt Out - United Opt Out Michigan

Voices For Education - Waco NAACP - Washington State NAACP - We Are Camden - Young Teachers Collective

NPE has formed a coalition of Education and Civil Rights groups that have taken a stand on high-stakes testing by signing on to the statement Resistance to High Stakes Tests Serves the Cause of Equity in Education authored by Seattle activist and teacher Jesse Hagopian and NPE
. 

As the Senate and House prepare to vote on their respective ESEA reauthorization bills it is critical that we make a strong case against the high-stakes testing that is causing harm to students, to public schools, and to the cause of educational equity.

You can use this simple form to add the name of your organization to our growing coalition.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN US!

Thompson: Washington Monthly Spins NOLA School Reform Impact This Week In Education:

This Week In Education: Thompson: Washington Monthly Spins NOLA School Reform Impact:

Thompson: Washington Monthly Spins NOLA School Reform Impact

The safest summary of evidence on the effectiveness of New Orleans school reforms is Politico's Caitlin Emma.  Emma's The New Orleans Model: Praised but Unproven explains that "mayors and governors from Nevada to Tennessee have sought to replicate the New Orleans model by converting struggling public schools into privately run charters and giving principals unprecedented autonomy to run their own staffs, budgets and curricula — as long as they deliver better test scores." But, she adds, "behind all the enthusiasm is an unsettling truth: There’s no proof it works."

Emma further notes that there have been "similarly mixed signals in other places where the New Orleans model has been tried." As we wait for better evidence, a newcomer to education, such as the Washington Monthly's David Osborne, could have contributed to the discussion on the lessons of New Orleans, but he would have had to have written an article that was far different than his How New Orleans Made Charters Work.

Osborne starts with the dubious claim by the pro-charter CREDO that charters receive less per student funding, but he did not mention the additional $3,500 per student funding provided for post-Katrina schools. He cites the objective researcher, Douglas Harris, who says that NOLA undertook “the most radical overhaul of any type in any school district in at least a century.” 

But, Osborne cites no evidence by Harris or anyone else that the New Orleans radicalism can work in a sustainable manner or that it could be scaled up. Instead, he devotes almost all of his article to praising true believers in unproven theories on school improvement.

Had Osborne dug deeper into Harris's research, he would have seen that the scholar's first report on NOLA strikes at the heart of reformers' claims that high-performing charters serve the same students as lower-performing neighborhood schools.  Neither does Osborne ask whether the test score evidence he cites is meaningful or not. But, Osborne's greatest failing was ducking an opportunity to consider his daughter's experience as a lens for evaluating policy issues. 

Osborne's daughter was a Teach for America teacher at a charter that faced closure if it did not raise scores dramatically. The school "pulled out all the stops on remediation and test prep. Its scores soared, the state raised its grade from an F to a C, and BESE renewed its charter. But the school continued to struggle with student discipline, and the next year it fell back to a D."

Improved test scores in such schools might or might not be meaningful. In a situation like that, is there any reason to believe that increased test scores mean that more learning occurs when all stops are pulled from test prep in a C school, as opposed to a D or F school? Rounds of such remediation are bound to improve metrics important to adults, but do they help or hurt the children who endure them? 

That brings us back to the reason why we should wait for Douglas Harris's Education Research Alliance (ERA) to complete its research before claiming that New Orleans shows that charter schools can systematically overcome poverty. I certainly plan to withhold judgment on New Orleans until Harris's final study is released, even though the first two ERA reports should undermine Osborne's This Week In Education: Thompson: Washington Monthly Spins NOLA School Reform Impact:

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Assault on Public Ed Advances

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Assault on Public Ed Advances:

PA: Assault on Public Ed Advances

You may recall that State Senator Lloyd Smucker has been trying to sell the idea of an Achievement School District, and that he even brought some charter-choice advocates to town to help push the idea. Well, his initiative has made it out of the concept-and-hearings stage and is now an actual bill.

Senate Bill 6, the Educational Oppportunity and Accountability Act, would amend the school code to establish an Achievement School District, a state-run body that would take over local school districts. If you're wondering if this process would be politicized, here's how the seven ASD board members would be selected-- One by the Governor, two by President Pro Tempore, two by the Speaker of the House, one by Minority Leader of the Senate and one by Minority Leader of the Senate.

The ASD board would appoint an executive director who would have the power to "transfer an eligible school" to the ASD as well as the ability to authorize a charter school.

It gets worse.

The ASD has the power to convert any school under its jurisdiction to a charter school. It has to establish criteria for such conversions "consistent with national standards" which-- what? What national standards? Exactly what national standards for public-to-charter school conversion are we talking about here?

Every year the ASD must do at least one of the following to at least five (but no more than fifteen) schools in its jurisdiction:

     * Replace the principal and at least 50% of the staff
     * Contract with a nonprofit or for-profit management entity to operate the school
     * Convert the school to a charter
     * Close the school and transfer the students to some high-performing school
     * Open a new charter school and give priority to students in the area

How can schools become "eligible" for this great treatment? Three ways:

     * Ranking in the lowest 1%  SPP rating for two consecutive years starting in 2013-2014
     * A school that qualifies as an "intervention" school for three straight years starting 2013-2014
     * Or 50% of the parents can pull the trigger

The first is particularly tasty, because there will always be someone in the bottom 1%. Pennsylvania could have the most awesome schools in the world, and there will still be a bottom 1%. CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Assault on Public Ed Advances:

Summer Opportunity

It's time for the beginning of summer break. That means a time of opportunity for teachers, ranging from the personal to the professional. But the greater availability of teachers also means that summer is a time of opportunity for policy makers and education deep thinkers.

Even policymakers and edubiz advocates who want to involve teachers in the Ed Conversation (yes, I think there are such people) can find it challenging to do so during the school year, because those of us who teach are busy doing our jobs. Simple ways of connecting and conversing that work in the private and government sectors ("I'll just pop in to your office for an hour or so tomorrow afternoon to go over the details") do not translate at all to the teaching world ("I think I can take five minutes out of lunch to run those forms up to the office"). Lobbyists and thinky tank types take long working lunches while first grade teachers go seven hours without peeing because they don't have the time. Legislators hold hearings about education, but no teachers are there because they are working (and if they do take a personal day to be there, they may wait in vain an entire day to speak).

Much has been made of the Media Matter study showing that only 9% of evening cable shows about 

Summer Opportunity

New Study: Local Media Coverage of Education and Schools Is on the Rise, But

New Study: Local Media Coverage of Education and Schools Is on the Rise, But Coverage of Education Policy Is Declining - WDRB 41 Louisville News:

New Study: Local Media Coverage of Education and Schools Is on the Rise, But Coverage of Education Policy Is Declining

 New Report by Andrew Campanella, “Leading the News: 25 Years of Education Coverage,” evaluates news coverage of education and schools over 25 years.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) June 18, 2015

News about K-12 education is three times more likely to garner coverage in local, regional, and state media outlets than by the national press, according to a new study released today. (Download the study at http://www.andrewcampanella.com or on Scribd.

According to the study, in 2014, education coverage in local, regional, and state news outlets was up 7.7 percent over the average level of coverage for education stories. Nearly 7 percent of all local, regional, and state-level news coverage focuses on education and schools. Comparatively, 2.3 percent of national news stories focused on education.

The study, Leading the News: 25 Years of Education Coverage, evaluates news coverage of education from 1990 to 2014. It is the first national report to study education coverage trends over a quarter century, relying on searches of archives from more than 5,000 news sources.

The study also found that nearly 25 percent of all K-12 news stories mention school sports, events at schools, or education funding.

Despite the growth in education-oriented coverage, coverage of education policies is on the decline. Policy-oriented coverage comprised just 7.5 percent of all local, regional, and state-level K-12 education coverage. Policy topics that saw increased levels of coverage, in 2014, included education standards, school safety, and school choice.

“People in local communities are interested in what’s happening, day to day, at their local schools. This study indicates that reporters and editors at local, regional, and state level media outlets genuinely value the public’s interest in, education-related coverage,” said Andrew Campanella, the study’s lead researcher. “At the same time, it is discouraging that cutbacks in newsrooms across the country has led to an overall decline in stories focused on education policy issues.”

Leading the News: 25 Years of Education Coverage, was released by CMPA Research and can be downloaded at andrewcampanella.com.New Study: Local Media Coverage of Education and Schools Is on the Rise, But Coverage of Education Policy Is Declining - WDRB 41 Louisville News:

“A train wreck you could see coming” – A lesson from Detroit about MPS takeover plan | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog

“A train wreck you could see coming” – A lesson from Detroit about the Darling/Kooyenga MPS takeover plan | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

“A train wreck you could see coming” – A lesson from Detroit about the Darling/Kooyenga MPS takeover plan

Milwaukee public schools has been led by Dr. Darienne Driver for one year. In that time MPS has taken unprecedented steps to stabilize its finances, reform its lower performing schools and aggressively establish a child-centered teaching and learning culture. Rather than support these efforts and the MPS Superintendent, Sen. Darling and Rep. Kooyenga continue to seek a policy that will undermine these efforts and cause significant harm to school reform in MPS.

There continue to be questions about the financial impact of the Darling/Kooyenga MPS takeover plan and at this point we have yet to see the final legislative language and there are any number of questions that can’t be precisely answered. What can be shared is that where similar experiments have been tried, particularly in Detroit, the results have been financially disastrous for both the school district and now school districts across the state of Michigan.
Knowing what we know today about what happened in Detroit, why would legislators in Wisconsin want to create the same chaos in Milwaukee?

As one republican legislator in Michigan stated recently about, “I think there is culpability here… we have some blood on our hands.”

Or as Detroit’s mayor recently told his colleagues, the takeover plan was “a train wreck you could see coming.”
If the people in Michigan knew this wasn’t going to work and their worst predictions have now come true, why would we go down the same path in Wisconsin?

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan made a compelling case last month that the Detroit Public Schools’ downward spiraling enrollment is partly attributable to efforts to fix its finances through emergency managers. The problem, Duggan told attendees at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference, is that massive school closings, teacher layoffs and other cuts created enough uncertainty about the system’s future that parents moved their children elsewhere.

“It was a train wreck you could see coming,” he said, because emergency managers are temporary, but parents are making long-term decisions for their children.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20150607/OPINION01/306079975/governor-should-mull-duggans-detroit-public-schools-plan

Kelly, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on education, also acknowledged the state bears some responsibility for DPS’ financial mess.

The state has controlled DPS for much of the last 15 years. It has been run by governor-appointed emergency managers since 2009, and was under state control from 1999 until 2005.“A train wreck you could see coming” – A lesson from Detroit about the Darling/Kooyenga MPS takeover plan | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

Which Student Data Privacy Bill Will Become Law? | EdSurge News

Which Student Data Privacy Bill Will Become Law? | EdSurge News:

Which Student Data Privacy Bill Will Become Law?

When data privacy finds its way into thePresident’s State of the Union address, it’s a telltale sign that legislation is on the way—especially when children are involved. Currently three bills to protect student data privacy have been proposed:

• Student Privacy Protection Act: Senator David Witter (D-LA)
• Student Digital Privacy & Parental Rights Act of 2015: Representatives Luke Messer (R-IN) and Jared Polis (D-CO)
• Protecting Student Privacy Act: Senators Edward Markey (D-MA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

So which one is most likely to become law? We confess: We’re no Frank Underwood when it comes to tallying votes and predicting where the cards will fall. But there’s dim hope for Witter’s proposal, according to a survey (PDF) of 50 to 75 political “Insiders” published by Whiteboard Advisors, a Washington, DC-based consulting firm that publishes a monthly pulse check on proposed legislations. These “Insiders” consist of 50 to 75 current and former staff at the White House, Congress, US Department of Education and state education leaders.

SOURCE: WHITEBOARD ADVISORS

“No Insiders think Senator Vitter’s student data privacy bill will be signed into law,” according to the report. It’s more likely that the bill, which one respondent believes would “basically eliminate any positive use of data in education,” will be rolled into other federal privacy legislation. A better bet is the proposal from Senators Hatch and Markey, which 71 percent of respondents agree strikes a balance between privacy and innovation.

Still, 42 percent of Insiders say “none of the current proposals are likely to be the eventual framework,” although a slim majority believe student data privacy legislation will be in place by the end of 2016.

Respondents also weighed in on other education legislation, including proposals to streamline FAFSA and reform college loan financing, which many believe will become law. The reaction is more mixed when it comes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and Higher Education Act (HEA), which 57 and 82 percent, respectively, say will not be reauthorized under the Obama administration.Which Student Data Privacy Bill Will Become Law? | EdSurge News:

Political Parties Present Clear Choices For Education In 2016, So Far

Political Parties Present Clear Choices For Education In 2016, So Far:

Political Parties Present Clear Choices For Education In 2016, So Far

For years, there’s been an agreement – a “Washington consensus” – among Beltway policy makers and political elites that America’s schools are in “crisis” and only a punitive program of standards, testing, and accountability can remedy them.

Both Republicans and Democrats bought into that narrative and adopted it into their party platforms.

So, as seasoned edu-journalist, Jay Mathews of The Washington Post has long observed, “Republican and Democratic presidential candidates have been happily copying each other” on education policy and political rhetoric.

This phenomenon started, according to Mathews, when “a group of Democratic governors (including Bill Clinton) started the school accountability movement in the 1980s and several Republican governors (including George W. Bush) joined in.”

But there are signs this era may be coming to a close.

As prospective and declared candidates in the 2016 presidential race kick off their campaigns, what we’re hearing on education policy is a clear division between Republicans and Democrats. So far, one party is doubling down on continuing failed accountability policies, while the other party calls for an investment agenda to relieve years of grueling austerity and ineffective policy branded as “reform.”

Can you guess which party is promoting which?

The Walker Way On Education

On the Republican side, likely presidential candidate Scott Walker, the current governor of Wisconsin, touted his education credentials recently in an op-ed that appeared in an Iowa newspaper where it could get the attention of potential voters in that state’s critically important primary.

In the column, he brags about changing Wisconsin’s “broken system” that provided teachers with some job protections, what he calls “tenure.” He calls attention to a “Wisconsin Teacher of the Year,” who he says was let go because of the “old system” but now would be protected in his new and improved plan. And he claims to have increased “the number of quality education choices all over Wisconsin.

He calls for “moving money out of Washington” so it can be spent “at the local and state level” where it “is more efficient, more effective and more accountable.” And he calls for ” big, bold reforms” like school vouchers that allow tax dollars to flow to private and religious schools.

“The reforms are working,” he declares. “Schools are better. Graduation rates are up. Third grade reading scores are higher.”

What Walker doesn’t mention is that he presided over the “biggest cuts to education” in Wisconsin’s history. His most recent state budget proposaltakes an additional $127 million bite out of education spending next year, according to state news outlets, causing school districts across Iowa to consider where they will have to cut next – staff lay-offs, teacher pay, or program reductions.

While he promotes the idea of sourcing school funding decisions at the local level, he actually enacted a freeze on local spending that “greatly restricted schools’ ability to raise property taxes to make up for the lost aid.” The result was another $800 – $900 million cut to school districts.

In higher education, Walker plans to cut $300 million from the state’s prized university system while funneling $500 million to a basketball stadium. As a result, as Think Progress reports, colleges across the state are now planning faculty lay-offs, offering massive employee early retirement packages, and eliminating student majors and degree programs.

Walker’s claims of making education improvements are way over-blown. When Alyson Klein at Education Week looked into reading scores and graduation rates in the state, she found a mixed bag, at best. “Wisconsin trend lines in fourth grade reading on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (aka the Nation’s Report Card) have increased during Walker’s tenure, but their rate of improvement … before Walker came in … are almost identical,” Klein writes.

“Graduation rates tell a similar story. Wisconsin’s graduation rate is up, but the nation’s is up too. And in fact, the Badger State is growing a little slower than the national average.”

And that teacher whose job Walker says his new system would save? First, she wasn’t really a Teacher of the Year, Salon’s Joan Walsh reports. Second, she wants him to stop telling this story. “I am hurt that this story is being used to make me the poster child for this political agenda,” she says, according to The Huffington Post.

The Christie Education Chronicles

Another prospective Republican presidential candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, also has an education agenda he wants to bring to the nation. In a recent speech reported on in The New York Times, Christie claims to know what “real education reform for America looks like.”

If it looks like what has taken place in New Jersey, a Christie presidential administration would be disastrous for the country.

First off, it’s troubling, to say the least, when a top government official equates classroom teachers to terrorists, as Christie did recently did. Watch the video here to see him agree with a questioner’s contention that Political Parties Present Clear Choices For Education In 2016, So Far:

Similarities Between TTP Trade Deal, Common Core & The Student Success Act » Missouri Education Watchdog

Similarities Between TTP Trade Deal, Common Core & The Student Success Act » Missouri Education Watchdog:

Similarities Between TTP Trade Deal, Common Core & The Student Success Act

Another sovereignty grab, this time the Federal sovereignty is to be handed over to an international body.

 Do you notice similarities between the Trans-Atlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) Trade Deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)/ trade promotion authority (TPA) Republican leadership and President Obama are trying to pass with Common Core adoption?  The bills/mandate involve lack of transparency with the voters, the urgency of passage (it’s a crisis!) and the fact that those agreeing to the mandates/law don’t know what’s in the text of what they are supporting.  Many of the politicians have not even read the trade bill and the taxpayers (and also may politicians) only have surface knowledge of the details and ramifications of the bill.  It’s ironic that this lack of transparency mimics the famous we have to pass it so we can find out what’s in it line from Speaker Nancy Pelosi regarding her urging of the passage of The Affordable Health Care Act and she is now demanding transparency for this bill.  In fact, it was Pelosi who was instrumental in derailing the trade bill’s passage last week in the House.  (How lack of transparency is permissible for some bills but not others is another post for another day).

This bill takes away the sovereignty of American courts and it will be necessary for international sources to settle future disputes.  The bill will require the loss of American jobs and workers are promised there will be millions of dollars available for job retraining.  One ‘minor issue’ is that these millions are to come from Medicaid.  Who will be cut from the Medicaid rolls and where will the new jobs be located and what are these new jobs?   Those details are not disclosed.  It is reminiscent of how the CCSS consortia were to be funded after the Federal stimulus funding ran out which provided their existence.

The United States government is supposed to be for the people to protect their individual rights, not to lordover the people and to hand American sovereignty to oligarchs.  So it is with Common Core.  TheSimilarities Between TTP Trade Deal, Common Core & The Student Success Act » Missouri Education Watchdog: 

Russ on Reading: In Praise of School Librarians

Russ on Reading: In Praise of School Librarians:

In Praise of School Librarians

Today a word about school librarians and how important they are to the goal of bringing literacy to children. I suppose first of all we need to deal with the nomenclature issue. Today it is more accurate and politically correct to call these very special folks "media specialists." Certainly the job of the librarian has grown over the years, so that librarians are now expected to be what Howard Stern used to call himself, "The King of All Media." But I confess I have a soft spot in my heart for the term "librarian", which evokes for me lazy afternoons dawdling in the stacks looking for another short novel by Steinbeck or historical parody by Richard Armour or picture history of World War II with a librarian often leading the way. So for me it is librarian and I hope no media specialists out there are offended.

I learned very early in my teaching career that the school librarian could be the teacher's best friend. I was teaching at Bristol Junior-Senior High School in Pennsylvania and had been charged with taking my freshly minted Master's degree in literacy, which the school district had helped pay for, and starting a brand new "developmental reading" program for the seventh grade. To start the program, the district gave me the princely sum of $400. I took my purchase order and my own list and went down to the school library to talk to Hilda Ben Ezra, school librarian.

Hilda was one of the more remarkable people I have ever met and she is the Russ on Reading: In Praise of School Librarians: