Common problems with Common Core reporting - Columbia Journalism Review

Common problems with Common Core reporting - Columbia Journalism Review:

Common problems with Common Core reporting

Big Education Ape: Is Alexander Russo "Working the Refs" on Common Core Protest Coverage? - Living in Dialogue http://bit.ly/1xyl3Z5

 “Something big is happening in New Jersey,” PBS NewsHour special correspondent John Merrow intones ominously at the start of last week’s NewsHour segment on standardized testing in New Jersey and elsewhere. “It’s happening in Newark … . It’s happening in Montclair … . And it’s happening in the state capital.”

The “something big,” according to PBS and other media outlets, is growing grassroots resistance among parents and students to a new set of tests being administered nationwide for the first time.

But so far, at least, much of the media’s coverage of this spring’s Common Core testing rollout has been guilty of over-emphasizing the extent of the conflict, speculating dire consequences based on little information, and over-relying on anecdotes and activists’ claims rather than digging for a broader sampling of verified numbers. The real story—that the rollout of these new, more challenging tests is proceeding surprisingly well—could be getting lost.

The tests under scrutiny were developed in conjunction with the Common Core State Standards, which the nation’s governors produced and President Obama has since supported. But since their creation in 2009, those standards and the new tests have become controversial among some conservatives as well as liberals, including some teachers and parents.

There’s no doubt that this spring’s Common Core testing is a big story. According to the AP, roughly 12 million students in 29 states plus DC will take the new tests. But looking at recent national media coverage, you’d think the whole Common Core enterprise was about to come crashing down.

Reality isn’t so clear. Efforts to convince state legislatures to roll back the standards and tests have fared poorly, as Politico recently noted. Last year’s trial run with the new tests generally went well, technically and otherwise. Parents’ willingness to opt their children out of the tests has been high in just a few schools and smaller school districts. Only a handful of teachers have endangered their jobs by refusing to administer the tests.

So the collapse of the Common Core and its tests may happen at some future point, but it isn’t happening yet—despite overheated coverage. I’m not the only one who thinks so:

“What’s missing from the journalism, and from the public’s understanding, is that students have long sat through hours of tests that their teachers may or may not find useful in helping teach better,” says former Education Writers Association public editor Linda Perlstein, who currently consults for clients including the pro-Common Core Gates Foundation. “People are blaming a lot on the Common Core, and reporters aren’t always critical and analytical enough in response.”

It’s not so much that the coverage includes factual errors (though there are some chronic problems on that front). Nor is it that reporters are being barraged with emails and tweets from testing opponents (though that’s happening as well). The real challenges are that instead of two simple “sides” for readers and reporters to choose from, there are multiple players with all sorts of views and interests—from parents and teachers to conservatives and liberals.

Then there are various technical glitches around the country that are hard to describe without over-generalizing, and the lack of timely information from districts and state education agencies that forces reporters to rely on anecdotes and advocates’ claims (about, say, opt-out numbers).

The March 11 PBS NewsHour segment illustrates many of these issues.

Co-host Judy Woodruff introduces the opt-out movement as a rebellion brewing in New Jersey and elsewhere and says if reports of students opting out keep building, “it could endanger the goals of the standards themselves.” According to PBS, anti-testing protests were occurring in New Jersey “just about every night, often with strong language.” And New Jersey wasn’t alone. Anti-testing efforts were taking place in Florida, New York, Washington, and Colorado.

“How strong is this grassroots test refusal movement?” asks correspondent Merrow. “Politicians are paying attention. Twelve states have already dropped the Common Core tests. And others are considering it.”

There are a few problems with the news segment. The opening footage showing Newark students protesting the local school board suggests that the new tests are a main concern of the protesters, when all previous reports have them rallying primarily against Christie-appointed Newark school superintendent Cami Anderson. Eleven of the 12 states that Common problems with Common Core reporting - Columbia Journalism Review:

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

Click Here to go to the Website FairTest

Simple Answers Are Doomed | Oklahoma Observer

Simple Answers Are Doomed | Oklahoma Observer:

SIMPLE ANSWERS ARE DOOMED

 BY JOHN THOMPSON

This is the second in a series of posts about SB 68, and other radical “reform” policies that supposedly would save Oklahoma City schools by defeating or even destroying the Oklahoma City Public School System. It is a reminder that simple answers [like school choice and testing] to complex and deeply rooted historical problems [such as underperforming schools] are doomed.

The authors of the supposed “game changer” known as SB 68 may not understand the fire they are playing with.

In 1968, U.S. District Judge Luther Bohanon, seeking to reverse three generations of de jure segregation, ordered students who attended the all-white Harding High School in central Oklahoma City to be bussed to Northeast High School, 1½ miles across the railroad tracks. Harding became a troubled middle school and, in 1983, my wife, Jocelyn, and I bought a small house in central Oklahoma City a block from it. From the top of our sycamore tree, Northeast was visible.

Desegregation may have been a small change geographically but it was huge culturally. In a classic case of “white flight,” families with children moved out.

Over the next generation, the exodus became a more generalized process of “suburban flight,” as parents of all races fled to the 23 other school districts in the metropolitan area, draining the older, inner city of economic diversity.

The population of the Oklahoma City Public School system [OKCPS] dropped from nearly 75,000 to 40,000. Voters stopped passing annual bond issues for maintaining schools. Home repairs ceased. Shade trees lost to the Dutch elm disease were not replaced. A generation later, the neighborhood looked like “the day the earth stood still.”

The railroad tracks had once been the legal dividing line between white and black residents, and it remained the symbol of the de facto segregation that replaced de jure segregation. The good news during the Oklahoma oil boom of the 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s was that black families could inch across the tracks and join working-class whites as homeowners.

This transition required riskier home mortgages. Then Oklahoma’s oil economy went bust – followed by the collapse of Penn Square Bank and the rest of the region’s banking and savings and loan industries. Our neighborhood also became the epicenter of the Reagan Administration’s Housing and Urban Development scandal, and 300 houses were abandoned.

Our Central Park neighborhood then became the epicenter of crack and gangs in Oklahoma City. When I walked my dog, children would come running from the drug houses seeking love and reassurance. After becoming a mentor to troubled children, I changed careers and taught in the inner city for nearly 20 years.

Back then, OKCPS high schools did not have the extreme concentrations of generational poverty as Harding and other middle Schools. If I thought I had a hard day teaching at John Marshall, I’d drive an extra block past Harding, watch the Hoova set of the Crips’ “O.G.s,” with their Rottweiler guard dogs, Simple Answers Are Doomed | Oklahoma Observer:

Walton defender gets typing hand slapped in charter school debate | Arkansas Blog

Walton defender gets typing hand slapped in charter school debate | Arkansas Blog | Arkansas news, politics, opinion, restaurants, music, movies and art:

Walton defender gets typing hand slapped in charter school debate

Posted By Max Brantley on Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 5:25 PM

click to enlarge

• FOLLOW THE MONEY: That was Walton Business College prof Julie Trivitt's sneer at a Walton critic. The critic took her up on it.

Mercedes Schneider is an education blogger. She once wrote a piece critical of the Waltons for what she described as education-on-the-cheap reform strategies built around charter schools.

For that, she got a sneering retort on Facebook from one Julie Stroud Trivitt, an economics faculty member at the Walton College of Business at the Waltons' university in Fayetteville, known by some as the University of Arkansas and home to the Walton-financed College of Education Reform.

Sneered Trivitt:

I was not familiar with Mercedes Schneider before you mentioned her. I read on her blog for a few minutes. I will bet that if you follow the money, you will see she is funded by a teachers union.

Schneider responds to the specific in a full financial disclosure here. She is not funded by a teachers union. She IS a public school teacher, a job not held in high esteem by the Walton forces.

Here's Schneiders full put-down of Trivitt today. Highly recommended.

Waltonites tend think the rest of the world is like them — for sale. Jim Walton doesn't lavish money on people who can't be bought.

click to enlarge

So, Ms. Trivitt — Follow the money? Yes, follow the damn money, to Kathy Smith, Laurie Lee, Gary Newton, Scott Smith, Bruce Cozart, Charlotte Douglas, Jane English, Bart Hester, Bill Gossage, most Republican legislators, the University of Arkansas, the UA College of Education Reform, the Walton College of Business, to Education Commissioner-to-be Johnny Key, Gov. Hutchinson and on and on and on.

Oh and speaking of Walton toadies:

Just got off the phone with Rep. John Walker. He was with Walton-financed lobbyists Gary Newton andScott Smith when a process server called his phone and asked him how to find Newton to serve a subpoena to testify in the lawsuit opposing the Walton-backed takeover of the Little Rock School District for their grand privatization scheme.

Walker said, "He's right here. Come on over to the Capitol." He told Newton a process server was looking for Walton defender gets typing hand slapped in charter school debate | Arkansas Blog | Arkansas news, politics, opinion, restaurants, music, movies and art:

Recess: An Essential Part of the School Day - US News

Recess: An Essential Part of the School Day - US News:

Recess: An Essential Part of the School Day

WEDNESDAY, March 18, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Recess is an essential part of children's school days that can help set students up for success once they head back to the classroom, a new study suggests.

Yet, many schools are cutting back on recess or not offering quality recess time. This may have unintended negative consequences, the Stanford University researchers cautioned.

"Recess isn't normally considered part of school climate, and often is shortchanged in tight fiscal times, but our research shows that [recess] can be a critical contributor to positive school climate in low-income elementary schools," study co-author Milbrey McLaughlin, the founding director of Stanford's John W. Gardner Center, said in a university news release.

When planned well, recess can boost attendance as well as academic performance, the research showed. It can also help kids make friends, learn how to resolve conflicts and gain a more positive outlook about learning, particularly for those in low-income schools, the study's authors noted. High-quality recess can also curb bullying among students, according to the researchers.

"We saw how a positive recess experience can benefit classroom climate in low-income elementary schools through students' improved conflict-resolution skills and sense of teamwork," McLaughlin said.

In examining the effects that recess has on students, the researchers analyzed information on six low-income elementary schools that had implemented a non-profit organization's recess-based program designed to encourage a safe, healthy and inclusive environment.

Trained, full-time coaches were sent to these schools to improve their recess programs, establishing organized games with rules, offering conflict-resolution tools, encouraging positive language and making sure no students were left out. All of the schools had two recess periods daily.

The coaches, teachers and principal from each school were interviewed. The researchers also conducted student focus groups and observed recess periods. They compared their findings to other schools with a variety of recess programs ranging from poor to very good.

The study revealed that good recess programs rely on adult supervision and guidance. Conflicts can arise when children do not agree on games and rules. The study showed that 89 percent of the teachers surveyed saw an improvement in recess organization once the coaches were sent in to offer support.

"It's more of a structured, fun environment. You can see that they're playing soccer, whereas, before, you weren't sure what they were playing," one teacher commented in the study.

The recess improvements also appeared to lead to a more positive environment. Nearly half of the Recess: An Essential Part of the School Day - US News:

State Renews 14 Charter Schools, but Puts Seven of Them on Probation - NJ Spotlight

State Renews 14 Charter Schools, but Puts Seven of Them on Probation - NJ Spotlight:

STATE RENEWS 14 CHARTER SCHOOLS, BUT PUTS SEVEN OF THEM ON PROBATION

Mixed numbers indicate tricky balancing act -- foster charters while maintaining high standards

The Christie administration renewed 14 charter schools for another five years, but placed half of them on probation in what is becoming a tough balancing act of both supporting the alternative schools and holding them to tougher standards.

The administration this week released additional information in the latest cycle of charter approvals and renewals, which included notifying seven schools that they would be renewed but under probationary status.

Lagging academic achievement was the reason cited for putting many of the schools on probation. The administration also delivered prescribed steps for “school turnaround.”

Earlier this week, the state approved one new charter, while rejecting two Camden district schools that were the first in the state to seek to convert to charter status.

The state also ordered two others to close.

The leaders of the one approved charter, the Hudson Arts and Science Charter School, sent self-congratulatory emails noting that what started as a small North Jersey charter network is now moving into its seventh school.

Meanwhile, one of two schools ordered to close -- the 10-year-old Central Jersey Arts Charters School in Plainfield -- released a statement saying it was “deeply disappointed” with the state’s decision but indicating it would likely not appeal.

The school had been on close watch for several years. In the past two years it reconfigured its board and hired an outside charter management company.

“In the last two years since a professional management company was hired and a new governance body appointed, remarkable turnaround progress has been made in operations, finance, and academics; especially with last year’s math scores,” read the statement from Raj Menon, the board chairman.

“It is for these reasons we are sure that this decision by the Commissioner and his staff was a difficult one to make.”

The leaders of the two Camden schools denied their charter bids declined to comment yesterday, according to a spokesman for state-appointed superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard. But the superintendent praised the two school’s principals.

“We respect the NJ DOE’s decision, just as we respect our principals’ desire to increase their autonomy,” said Brendan Lowe, a district spokesperson. “We will continue to work with them and all of our school leaders to make sure they are best positioned to help their students and staff be successful.”

And the state’s charter school association gave a mixed verdict to the announcements.

“Today’s NJ DOE announcement on the various charter public school renewals and applications was a mixed bag,” said Michael Turner, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Renews 14 Charter Schools, but Puts Seven of Them on Probation - NJ Spotlight:

Who's grading your kids' assessment test in California? | Local News - KCRA Home

Who's grading your kids' assessment test in California? | Local News - KCRA Home:

Who's grading your kids' assessment test in California? 

 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —California will spend nearly $240 million in three years to administer and score its new standardized test, the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.

For that amount of money, one might expect certified teachers would be responsible for scoring portions of the exam that require students to answer with handwritten responses, rather than filling in bubbles.

Watch report: Who's grading your kids' standardized tests?

However, KCRA 3's investigative unit has learned the vast majority of those who will be scoring the CAASPP are not teachers. In fact, some may not have any background in education.

More than 3 million students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 will take the new "Smarter Balanced" assessment in language arts and math.

Instead of giving multiple-choice answers, students must actually write essays and math equations to solve some problems. The handwritten answers require people, not just computers, to score the tests.

"The end goal is to have the most prepared and most qualified person grading this portion of the test," said Claudia Briggs, a spokeswoman for the California Teachers Association.

Briggs said she believes teachers would be most qualified to score the CAASPP. The hurdle is that the company administering the exam is offering to pay scorers $13 an hour.

Most teachers are passing on the work, deciding their time and expertise is worth more.

"(It's) not enough of a compensation for the work that is required of a professional who is highly trained, educated and who really has a high level of experience," Briggs said.

The state Board of Education is finalizing a three-year contract with Educational Testing Service that's valued at just less than $240 million.

ETS plans to hire and certify more than 6,000 scorers. The California Department of Education provided numbers that show as of last month, ETS had certified 3,777 people to score the exam.

Of that number, 31 scorers are teachers, fewer than 1 percent.

ETS has created recruitment flyers and posted with online job sites. The only requirement listed is a bachelor's degree, although it says teaching experience is preferred.

"No, you won't find the best people," said parent Jose Lopez, a critic of standardized testing. "You're finding people that are just coming off the street."

He is among a growing number of California parents "opting out" of the CAASPP and other standardized tests. Lopez is concerned by the scoring system because teachers have been removed from the process.

"If you're going to spend a lot of money on education, do the right thing," Lopez said. "Do what's correct for the students."

KCRA 3 was unable to connect with a spokesperson for ETS prior to the deadline for this story.

During the search for a contractor to administer the CAASPP, state educators received three bids. A panel of evaluators determined ETS had the highest score of the three, based on the criteria required. Who's grading your kids' assessment test in California? | Local News - KCRA Home: 

Superintendents issue ‘clear and compelling vision’ for school reform - The Washington Post

Superintendents issue ‘clear and compelling vision’ for school reform - The Washington Post:

Superintendents issue ‘clear and compelling vision’ for school reform

 As Congress debates how to rewrite No Child Left Behind, a dozen district superintendents in Connecticut have issued a manifesto that spells out their view of real school reform that moves away from the standardized test-based accountability systems dominant for more than a dozen years.

The following commentary (which has appeared in the CT Mirror) comes from these superintendents:

Thomas Scarice, Madison Public Schools; Jody Goeler, Hamden Public Schools; Jan Peruccio, Old Saybrook Public Schools; Kathy Veronesi, Region 13 Public Schools; Jack Cross, Clinton Public Schools; Jerry Belair, Waterford Public Schools; Patricia Ciccone, Westbrook Public Schools; Paul Freeman, Guilford Public Schools; Howard Thiery, Region 17 Public Schools; Ruth Levy, Region 4 Public Schools; Kevin Smith, Wilton; and Diane Dugas, East Hampton Public Schools.

Here is their manifesto:

The journey of education reform, which has at times moved in a deliberate direction and at other times wandered in many directions, is currently at a very important and, potentially exciting, crossroads. At this moment, a narrow window of opportunity has presented itself. As the federal government debates renewing the failed No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB), our state is set to submit our latest plans to be held harmless from the sanctions of NCLB through a federal waiver, last done in 2012, and due for renewal on March 31, 2015. Any effective system is best served by knowing when an important juncture presents itself and identifying, at that precise moment, the changes necessary to travel down the road of continuous improvement.

Our public school landscape is littered with initiatives, while the vision for learning in Connecticut lacks clarity and coherence. In this “vision void” our measures (i.e. test scores) have become our goals, confounding the purpose of schooling and perpetuating yet another round of piecemeal initiatives. The path we should avoid taking is the one that implements the NCLB waiver plan as the de facto vision for the education of Connecticut’s children. Instead we should identify a clear and compelling vision for education in our state and employ all of our resources to achieve it. Staying the course of current reform efforts without a deep analysis of the effects in actual classrooms across the state will further cement the system of compliance and “one size fits all” that grips our very diverse school districts like a vise.

One way to clarify the vision is to answer the direct and simple questions:

• What are the most worthy outcomes of our public education system?
• Are we preparing our students for the world they will enter when they graduate?
• Is our public education system positioned for continuous improvement, as opposed to ranking, sorting and punishing?
• To what extent do our laws increase conformity at the Superintendents issue ‘clear and compelling vision’ for school reform - The Washington Post:

Organized Confusion: PARCC Hypocrisy, Bullying, and Fear-Mongering in CPS | ‪#‎Chuy2015‬

Organized Confusion: PARCC Hypocrisy, Bullying, and Fear-Mongering in CPS | Troy LaRaviere‘s blog:

 

Organized Confusion: PARCC Hypocrisy, Bullying, and Fear-Mongering in CPS

An Open Letter to Barbara Byrd-Bennett, CEO of Chicago Public Schools

Cc: Rahm Emanuel, Mayor

Ms. Byrd-Bennett,

In response to parent and teacher support for opting children out of the PARCC Test, you sent amessage to all CPS principals. It states:

Please be advised that ISBE does not recognize a parent’s right to opt a child out of required student assessments, as there is no law in Illinois allowing this.  While a parent cannot “opt a child out,” there may be students who refuse to participate in required state assessments.

There are numerous faults and inconsistencies in your letter. I attempt to address a few of them here.

“Choice” Hypocrisy

It is pitifully ironic that you, Mr. Emanuel, and ISBE Chairman James Meeks—self-professed proponents of what you call “parental school choice”—would fight so vigorously to deny parents the choice of opting their children out of testing.

Posturing, Bullying and Wasting Learning Time

Your letter states that even if the parent states, in writing, not to test the child, school officials still must present each child with each one of the five sections of the PARCC tests and force the child to refuse each section separately. In April—when the second half of the PARCC is administered—you have directed us to repeat this process with up to 3 sessions. In total we have been directed to force students to verbally or physically refuse the PARCC on up to eight distinct occasions.

Your letter goes on to state:

It is unfortunate that ISBE’s limited guidance on this matter has placed the burden of refusing the test on students. I believe this is unfair to our students, families, principals and staff. However, we are obligated to follow ISBE’s limited direction to avoid sanctions that would have a devastating impact on our district.

If you believe it is “unfortunate,” and “unfair” then why are CPS officials alleged to be forcing children in some schools to refuse not only to the teacher, but to the principal and the network chief? If you believe it’s “unfair,” why was a network chief sent to Mollison School—my elementary alma mater—where the chief is said to have made students refuse directly to her; in one case allegedly forcing a fourth grade autistic child to articulate his desire to opt out despite the fact that he’d already made his desire clear when he himself submitted a signed note from his mother?

Then there’s what is alleged to have happened at Taylor school on the far southeast side, where a teacher reported an administrator, “got within a few inches of the face of one young man in the [opt-out] line, and asked him loudly, “DID SHE PUT A TICKET IN YOUR HAND?!!!”, then ordered the teacher to “PUT A TESTING TICKET IN EVERY STUDENT’S HAND AND PUT THEM IN FRONT OF A COMPUTER!”

Although the facts behind both of the above incidents are in dispute, it is noteworthy that the people making the above claims are all parents of low-income minority children—the children our mayor said would “never amount to anything”; the children whose schools he shut down; and the children who he funnels to charter schools where they experience less academic growth than in the public system they came from. Why has CPS added PARCC bullying to the long list of offenses it has committed against these children and their families?

Deception and Confusion Part 1: Repressive Framing of the Law

Your letter is deceptive in how it frames parental rights. The letter does not state that parentsdon’t have a right to opt their children out. It states that ISBE does not recognize a parent’s right to opt their children out. In other words, despite the fact that parents do have that right, ISBE has chosen not to acknowledge it.

There is a sentence on which the logic of everything in your letter rests. The sentence is as follows:

Please be advised that ISBE does not recognize a parent’s right to opt a child out of required student assessments, as there is no law in Illinois allowing this.

The statement, “There is no law in Illinois allowing this” is particularly disturbing. There is no law in Illinois allowing us to teach with “smart boards,” pull our children from school for family vacations, or assign homework on Fridays. Yet people do all of these things with regularity without consequence. We are not a society that curtails its actions based on the absence of a law allowing us to do a particular thing. We curtail our behavior based on the presence of an explicit law or rule prohibiting us from engaging in a particular act.

The fact that ISBE and CPS expects this kind of ominous and unsettling totalitarian logic to hold water is insulting to the principles of liberty and a seemingly desperate and pathetic attempt to inject confusion into a matter which is utterly clear: In a situation in which students are distressingly over-tested, parents have the right to opt their students out of standardized testing.

Deception and Confusion Part 2: Funding

Third, you cite a letter from ISBE that threatens to withhold funding should CPS not test “100%” of students. These threats violate ISBE’s own precedents in terms of how it has dealt with opt-outs in past years, and would subject ISBE to a massive class-action lawsuit should it be foolish and vindictive enough to follow through on its threats to withhold money from bilingual students, students with disabilities, and students from low-income households simply because students and their parents chose not to take a test. This threat has no merit; yet you continue to spread ISBE’s false doomsday pronouncements in an effort to frighten parents, teachers, and principals into subjecting our students to the failed practice of over-testing them.

A couple months ago you stated it was not in our students’ best interested to take the PARCC. If you sincerely believed this, you could have done what the New York City Department of Education advised its principals to do when parents opt their children out of similar state tests. They instructed their principals to “respect the parents’ decision and let them know that the school will work to the best of their ability to provide the child with an alternate educational activity.”

Instead you changed your tune and began praising the PARCC, calling it the “truest measure of the Common Core” in your letter to principals. Your implausible flip-flop on the issue gives some measure of believability to those who felt CPS’s request to have only 10% of students take the PARCC was an insincere election season ruse.

Summary and Conclusion

CPS has exhibited intense hypocrisy in regard to parental choice. It has bullied children and their families, been deceptive in its repressive framing of the law in regard to opt out rights, and parroted dubious claims about losing funds in relationship to opting out.

As a result, I will be taking the following course of action and call on you to advise all CPS principals to do the same:

Our school will meet its responsibility to administer the PARCC to all students who want to take it. Nearly 80% of our students have already expressed their decision to refuse the PARCC by submitting letters from their parents opting them out of the test. When students handed that opt-out letter to their teachers, that act was an expression of their refusal to take the test. That is enough for me, and it should be enough for CPS and ISBE. No child under my watch, who has expressed his or her decision to refuse the PARCC, will be sat in front of any computer to take it, nor presented with any materials. We will not waste even more learning time by subjecting our students to ISBE’s deceptive fear-mongering and CPS’s hypocritical test-driven political theater.

Respectfully,

Troy LaRaviere

• CPS Graduate
• Former CPS Teacher
• CPS Parent
• CPS Principal
• Email: TroyLaRaviere@gmail.com
• Twitter: @TroyLaRaviere

Next Week: ISBE’s Version of Stand Your Ground – An Open Letter to James Meeks, Chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE)Organized Confusion: PARCC Hypocrisy, Bullying, and Fear-Mongering in CPS | Troy LaRaviere‘s blog:

Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website

‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Legislators Sold Out Our Kids and Teachers to Federal VAM Scam Blackmail for Ten Dollars Per Child

Legislators Sold Out Our Kids and Teachers to Federal VAM Scam Blackmail for Ten Dollars Per Child:

Legislators Sold Out Our Kids and Teachers to Federal VAM Scam Blackmail for Ten Dollars Per Child

On March 11, 2015, by a vote of 26 to 23, the Washington State Senate passed Senate Bill 5748, which requires student test scores to be used as a part of evaluating teachers.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=5748&year=2015

Numerous studies have shown that this crazy idea, known as the VAM Scam, is no more reliable than a coin toss. Teachers who are ranked as the best by the VAM scam one year are likely to be ranked as the worst teachers the next year. The VAM scam harms teachers by tying their jobs to unreliable test scores and it harms students by increasing pressure on them to pass meaningless drill and kill tests just to save the jobs of their teachers. The American Statistical Association has concluded that value-added metrics (the VAM scam) do not measure teacher effectiveness and that using test scores to fire teachers is unreliable. Using test scores in evaluations is unfair to teachers working with lower-income families. Student test scores on high stakes high failure rate tests such as SBAC are not an accurate measure of learning and can vary dramatically. 
http://www.amstat.org/policy/pdfs/ASA_VAM_Statement.pdf

For more on the drawbacks of the VAM scam, see this article:
http://weaponsofmassdeception.org/5-teach-for-awhile-fake-teachers/5-3-vam-scam-firing-teachers-based-on-student-test-scores

President of the Washington Education Association, Kim Mead said this about the vote: 
“Our kids deserve better. We deserve better. Frankly, I’m ashamed of the senators who voted for this misguided policy. They sold out our students”
http://ourvoicewashingtonea.org/senate-democrats-pass-bill-to-link-student-test-scores-to-teacher-evaluations/

Here is the vote count on SB 5748 (with the Democrats in Bold): Total: 26-23. 

Voting Yes were 19 Republicans and 7 Democrats: Senator Bailey, Baumgartner, Becker, Benton, Braun, Cleveland, Dammeier, Ericksen, Fain,Frockt, Habib, Hewitt, Hill, Hobbs, Honeyford, King, Kohl-Welles, Litzow, Miloscia, Mullet, O’Ban, Parlette, Pedersen, Rivers, Schoesler, Warnick

Voting No were 6 Republicans and 17 Democrats : Senator Angel, Billig, Brown, Chase, Conway, Dansel, Darneille, Fraser, Hargrove, Hasegawa, Hatfield, Jayapal, Keiser, Liias, McAuliffe, McCoy, Nelson, Padden, Pearson, Ranker, Roach, Rolfes, Sheldon

Had only 2 more Senators voted No, the bill would have been defeated. 

Follow the Money
Speaking in favor of this bill at the Public Hearing on February 10, 2015 were members of four groups who have received millions of dollars from Bill Gates, the “man behind the curtain” who is the chief promoter of the VAM scam. These groups were Stand for Children (SFC), the League of Education Voters (LEV), Teachers United (TU) and the Washington State Board of Education (WSBOD). 
http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2015-16/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/Senate/5748-S.E%20SBR%20APS%2015.pdf

Stand for Children received 11 grants totaling more than $12 million. Here are just a few: 

The League of Education Voters received 15 grants totaling more than 6 million. Here are just a few: 

Teachers United received 2 grants totaling nearly one million dollars: 

The Washington State Board of Education received 2 grants totaling more than one million dollars:

In short, Bill Gates paid more than $20 million directly to the four groups who spoke in favor of his VAM scam bill on February 10 2015. In addition to direct funding from the Gates Foundation, all four of these groups have received millions of dollars in hidden indirect funding from Bill Gates and his hundreds of fake groups. 

Sadly, the Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Randy Dorn, also spoke in favor of this toxic bill. On January 26, 2015, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), announced that Randy Dorn had been elected to their Board of DirectorsLegislators Sold Out Our Kids and Teachers to Federal VAM Scam Blackmail for Ten Dollars Per Child:

Parents just don’t get social media, chief NJ testing officer says | Bob Braun's Ledger

Parents just don’t get social media, chief NJ testing officer says | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Parents just don’t get social media, chief NJ testing officer says

Erlichson, third from left, with friends from the NJ School Boards Association, which supports PARCC

The chief testing officer for the New Jersey education department is blaming others–particularly parents and educators–for the uproar about a private company’s monitoring of the social media accounts of children taking state, standardized tests known as PARCC.

“The last several days have made evident that a large number of both educators and parents do not understand the nature of social media,” wrote Bari Anhalt Erlichson, in a memo sent to school superintendents and other educators throughout New Jersey. Erlichson is an assistant education commissioner.

Her memorandum, dated March 17, ends with a lecture to parents about what they should do:

“Parents should make informed decisions as to whether to permit their child to have an online presence and to work with their child in establishing the privacy settings for various applications, such as Facebook. It is my hope that by working together – parents, students and schools – that we further our students’ understanding of how to participate in social media responsibly, safely, and in ways that further their development as curious, self-directed learners.”

The memorandum clearly shows how she–or her boss, state Education Commissioner David Hespe–will try to explain away the monitoring of children’s social media by Pearson, the multi-billion-dollar international Parents just don’t get social media, chief NJ testing officer says | Bob Braun's Ledger: