How So-Called "Education Reformers" Have Learned the Art of War | EdCircuit

How So-Called "Education Reformers" Have Learned the Art of War | EdCircuit:

How So-Called “Education Reformers” Have Learned the Art of War

 By David Greene

David Greene is a former 38-year Social Studies teacher and coach. He is also a program consultant for WISE Services, an organization that helps high schools create and run experiential learning programs for seniors. In addition, the author of “Doing the Right Thing: A Teacher Speaks,” is Treasurer of Save Our Schools, and an active blogger and speaker. His blogs have appeared in Diane Ravitch’s website, Education Weekly, US News and World Report, and the Washington Post. You can visit David Greene’s blog at http://dcgmentor.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter@dcgmentor

I have been in education since 1970.  I have observed a great many reforms, changes in curricula, and reversals in methodologies. I have watched an attack on public education since“A Nation At Risk” was published in 1983 grow in leaps and bounds. That attack started small, almost inconspicuously. Now it has burgeoned with ferocity few saw coming and fewer know how to combat.

One of the major problems in the fight to save public education has to do with understanding strategies. For example, the Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss recently posted an article about a fabulous teacher who won a contest to appear on “Live With Kelly and Michael” who had to quit because she could no longer “drill and kill” to prepare for PARCC exams. The issue stressed by Strauss was PARCC.

Here is the really sad thing: By forcing her and thousands out of teaching, the reformers win. Why? Because they get to replace great teachers with drones who know no better.

I have been active on Facebook groups against Common Core, against standardized tests, for teachers, for parents, or against charter schools. Each site has its own myopic view of the issue. I have witnessed fights, harassment, and division between parents and teachers on many of these subjects. Few have a long view. Few see besides their own particular “hurtful” issue.

On the other hand, the “Education Deformers” do a great job at long-term planning. While we squabble among each other about which thrust they use against public education, they know they are on their way to their end game: destroying public education. So while they divide parents and teachers or elementary school people with secondary by having us branch off vs. Charter Schools, CCSS or PARCC, or OPTING OUT…. they march forward forcing good teachers and administrators out, increasing charter schools, so that even when we win our battles vs. these, they will have won the war, unless we see it and resolve not to let them do that to us.

They know and understand this idea from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. “All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what How So-Called "Education Reformers" Have Learned the Art of War | EdCircuit:

7 things to know about PARCC's effect on teacher evaluations | NJ.com

7 things to know about PARCC's effect on teacher evaluations | NJ.com:

7 things to know about PARCC's effect on teacher evaluations

New Jersey parents and students may have heard that data extracted from the new state tests in English and math will count in the performance evaluation of some teachers for this school year.

That much is simple to explain.

But how that data is calculated, which teachers will have it applied to their evaluation and how it can affect a teacher's performance rating is much more complicated.

As students across the state continue taking the new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams, here's seven things to know about how PARCC affects teachers evaluations.

1. Not all teachers will have PARCC data factored into their evaluations: Teachers who could have their performance rating affected by PARCC in 2014-15 are those teaching math in grades 4-7 or English/Language Arts in grades 4-8.

2. For those teachers, the data from PARCC will count as a 10 percent weight in their evaluation The rest of their performance rating will be based 70 percent on observation and 20 percent on other measures of student achievement.

Next year, PARCC data may count for 20 percent of those teachers' evaluations and observation would be lowered to 60 percent, according to the state.

3. The student score factored into teacher valuations is based on academic growth, not overall performance: Students who take the test will receive a score on a 100-point scale to measure their annual academic growth. It's a percentile comparison of how much progress they have made versus other students across the state with similar academic histories.

A student with a low or moderate score on PARCC can still earn a high mark for growth. This year's growth scores will compare a student's performance on PARCC with their performance on NJ ASK in 2013-14.

4. The median student growth score from a teacher's class is the score that is factored into that teacher's evaluation: So, for example, if Mrs. Smith has 25 students take PARCC, the 13th best student growth score is the one that would count for toward her performance rating. That score is converted to a scale of 1-4 and counts for 10 percent of a teacher's evaluation.

5. If a teacher's median student growth score in 2014-15 is lower than prior years, it won't be counted alone: What if Mrs. Smith's median growth score of her 25 students this year is 55, but her score from last year's 24 students was 75? Since this year's score is lower, the state will calculate the median growth score of all 49 students she taught over the past two years. If the two-year median growth score is higher than her median growth score for this year, the state will use the two-year number toward her evaluation.

6. A teacher can't be fired based on one year of PARCC data: Under New Jersey's tenure reform, a teacher must have substandard, or "partially effective," overall rating in two consecutive years to be in jeopardy of losing tenure.

7. Principals are also evaluated based on PARCC data: Principals of schools 7 things to know about PARCC's effect on teacher evaluations | NJ.com:

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Teaching History the Pearson Way | Alan Singer

Teaching History the Pearson Way | Alan Singer:

Teaching History the Pearson Way

I reviewed a copy of the teacher guide toPearson My World Social Studies: The Growth of Our Country at the New York State Council for the Social Studies annual conference. Curiously (a word I will use throughout this post) the hard-copy teacher guide does not identify a grade level, butonline it is designated for 5th grade.

Online Pearson also includes a price list. Nothing is free, although the curriculum package repeatedly tells students about the benefits of "free enterprise." The student edition of myWorld costs $25.97 each but includes a one-year digital course which you probably have to pay for again if you want it for another year. The workbook costs $24.97, a student atlas is $16.97, for a total of $67.91 per student. Each teacher guide is an additional $245.47. A school district can get a package of activity cards for $46.97, "leveled readers" for $877.47, leveled reader lesson plans for $53.47, an activity kit bundle for $429.97, a student edition DVD-ROM for $44.97, an exam DVD-ROM for $122.47, a myStory DVD-ROM for $190.97, and a Digital Courseware 1-year license for $15.97. I figure for a class of 25 fifth-graders, the entire Pearson myStory package with all the extras would cost a school district $3,725.48, but this bill is just for social studies and for one class. Pearson is also selling packages for all the other subjects.

The Pearson package begins with the statement:

This work is protected by United States copyright laws and is provided solely for the use of teachers and administrators in teaching courses and assessing student learning in their classes and schools. Dissemination or sale of any part of this work (including on the World Wide Web) will destroy the integrity of the work and is not permitted.

I guess this statement is supposed to scare everyone and Pearson appears to be serious. In New Jersey, Pearson was monitoring social media after the recent PARCC exams to see if any students were discussing the Pearson PARCC tests. ApparentlyPearson complained to the New Jersey Department of Education that they had actually caught three students who discussed specific questions and they felt were violating Pearson's copyright.

Let me make this perfectly clear from the start. My purpose in reviewing their curriculum package is not to destroy its integrity because I could not find very much integrity in the package. If Pearson does not like the review, they can sue me.

On the same page as the copyright threat and on page vi there are rejoinders Teaching History the Pearson Way | Alan Singer:

Nine Billionaires Are About to Remake New York’s Public Schools—Here’s Their Story. | The Nation

Nine Billionaires Are About to Remake New York’s Public Schools—Here’s Their Story. | The Nation:

Nine Billionaires Are About to Remake New York’s Public Schools—Here’s Their Story.

A Nation investigation reveals how a group of hedge funders are about to get exactly what they paid for.

 Hedge-fund manager Whitney Tilson stands at a Harvard club podium in midtown Manhattan, facing a room full of investors eating eggs and bacon, and eager to learn more about charter schools. The walls of the wood-paneled room are lined with the portraits of Tilson’s Harvard forefathers. Above the podium where Tilson stands hangs an ornamental gold ship, swaying. In the corner of the room is a large screen, on which the logos of the day’s sponsors, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Sam Walton Foundation, float like guardian angels. Two large stone fireplaces dominate the west end of the room. Their exaggerated mantelpieces are each decorated with two empty crests and a laurel—symbols of power drained of any purpose.

Tilson begins an enormous PowerPoint presentation, speaking of the inequities black and Latino children face in the public school system. “Your entire prison population is in these red bars,” he explains, showing red bars indicating the high percentage of poor black and Latino children who could not read at a fourth-grade level. No such children, nor their parents, seemed to have been invited to this presentation.

Despite the role poverty plays in determining whose kids gets stuck in those red bars, Tilson declares to the room of Ivy League investors, “This is not rocket science. Notice on my list there’s no #5, no Spend More Money. You get new facilities and smaller classrooms but nothing changes. Nobody believes anymore that if you give us more money we’ll solve all the problems.”

Something is Rotten in the State of New York

These exact talking points were echoed in Democrat Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State address, last January, where the governor commanded the legislature, “Don’t tell me that if we only had more money [for education], it would change. We have been putting more money into this system every year for a decade and it hasn’t changed and 250,000 [failing children] will condemn the failing schools by this system.”

Putting his money, or lack thereof, where his mouth is, Cuomo has banked his gubernatorial legacy on a budget that would again fail to meet the state’s public-school funding requirements, instead increasing the privatization of New York’s education system and weakening New York State’s once powerful teachers’ union, NYSUT. Cuomo’s education reform proposal would tie 50 percent of teacher evaluations to student test scores, based on a controversial practice calledValue-Added Modeling, drastically weaken teachers’ opportunity for tenure, expedite the firing of teachers, make room for a hundred more charter schools, and promote state takeover of “failing” (or poor) school districts—a tactic that has been used to expand charter school growth without the consent of elected school boards across the country. In his 2014 re-election bid, Cuomodeclared that as governor he would work to enact long-term measures to “break” public education, which he called “one of the only remaining public monopolies.” His pledge will be put to the test when the state legislature votes on his budget proposals at the end of this month.

The consensus that New York public schools do not require more funding is curious, given the landmark 2006 Campaign for Fiscal Equity court ruling and subsequent statewide resolution ordering the state to correct its inequitable school-funding formula to provide every student their constitutional right to “sound basic education.” In 2007, Governor Spitzer and the New York Nine Billionaires Are About to Remake New York’s Public Schools—Here’s Their Story. | The Nation:

Eva et al. flunk the fairness test | The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Eva et al. flunk the fairness test | The Thomas B. Fordham Institute:

Eva et al. flunk the fairness test

Michael J. Petrilli

March 17, 2015

In the pre-Common Core era, we had a big problem. Most state tests measured minimal competency in reading and math. But we failed to communicate that to parents, so they reasonably thought a passing grade meant their child was pretty much where they needed to be. Little did they know that their kid could earn a mark of “proficiency” and be reading or doing math at the twentieth or thirtieth percentile nationally. Frankly, we lied to the parents of too many children who were well below average and not at all on a trajectory for success in college or a well-paying career.

Playing games with proficiency cut scores provided much of the impetus behind Common Core. States raised standards and started building tests pitched at a much higher level. Most states are giving those tests for the first time right now, though New York and Kentucky made the transition two years ago. As of 2013, New York’s tests were the toughest in the country, according to a new analysis by Paul Peterson and Matthew Ackerman in Education Next, matching—if not exceeding—the performance standards of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.  

That may solve the “proficiency illusion” issue. But now we have a new problem. Some education reformers and media outlets are already using the results of the new, tougher tests to brand schools as “failing” if most of their students don’t meet the higher standards. Note, for instance, the Daily News’s special report, “Fight for their Future,” which leads with the provocative headline “New York City is rife with underperforming schools, including nearly two-thirds of students missing state standards.” This line of attack closely resembles the talking points of Eva Moskowitz and Jeremiah Kettridge of Families for Excellent Schools, who both promote the notion that in New York, “800,000 kids can’t read or do math at grade level” and “143,000 kids are trapped in persistently failing schools.”

These statements are out of bounds, and reformers should say so. They validate the concerns some educators voiced all along: that we would use the results of the tougher tests to unfairly label more schools as failures.

***

Let me be clear: I don’t mind calling schools out as “persistently failing.” Such schools exist, and they should be subject to aggressive interventions, including closure. And I’d be thrilled if they were replaced by high-performing charters like Eva’s Success Academies. But as I’ve argued ad nauseam (and the Shanker Institute’s Matthew Di Carlo has patiently and persuasively explained for years), evaluating schools based on proficiency rates alone is bad math. (Moskowitz and Kittredge define a “persistently failing school” as one in which 10 Eva et al. flunk the fairness test | The Thomas B. Fordham Institute:

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago:

2015 National Conference – Chicago

The Countdown to Chicago Has Begun!

If you haven’t registered for the 2nd Annual NPE Conference in Chicago, there is still time! You can register for the conference on our Eventbrite page, and take advantage of discounted hotel rates at the site of this year’s conference, the Drake Hotel, by following this link. 

These rates expire on March 22nd! 

Make your reservation today, and take advantage of this opportunity to stay at the Drake Hotel with the nation’s most celebrated public school activists.

The theme of this year’s conference is:

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago:

“Public Education: Our Kids, Our Schools, Our Communities”

In addition to a powerhouse line-up of featured speakers, including Yong Zhao, Diane Ravitch, Lily Eskelson Garcia, Randi Weingarten and Chicago’s own Karen Lewis and Jitu Brown, we’ve put together more than forty dynamic and informative panels. There is no other conference that provides the opportunity to be inspired by over 100 of the nation’s leading education activists, and share in their passion for public education. The lineup of panels and panelists is guaranteed to make your weekend with our family of NPE friends and allies one to remember.

They include:

Student Panel – Tanaisa Brown, Kristin Towkaniuk, Hannah Nguyen & others. 

If you’re coming to this conference you care about our students and probably have your own ideas on how to help. This is your chance to hear directly from some of our nation’s leading student leaders. Tanaisa, Kristin & Hannah will talk about what life is like for students today, how they feel about all of these so-called reforms, and what they’re doing to take back their schools.

BATs and Social Justice - Dr. Denisha Jones, Aixa Rodriguez and Kristin Vogel 

Looking to grow your understanding on the connection between race, inequity in education funding and what’s happening in your classrooms? Then join these three prominent voices from the Badass Teachers Association who are committed to social justice and equity in the schools and communities in which we work and live. The conversation starts here.

Perils of Ed Tech - Leonie Haimson, Rachael Strickland and Cynthia Liu

Want to know what’s happening in the world of student privacy? Three leading national activists will bring you up to speed. Between these three women, they have lead the movement to stop inBloom, built a national Student Privacy Coalition, and exposed the iPad scandal in LA Unified School District leading to the downfall of LAUSD Superintendent Deasy. Their workshop will focus on ways to strengthen federal protections, outline strategies for successful coalitions that lobby state & federal officials, and discuss how to expose the fraud and waste inherent in these systems.

Defending the Early Years - Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Geralyn Bywater McLaughlin

Concerned about what’s happening to our youngest children? Join leading national experts as they discuss their work pushing back against the current ed reform climate where academic skills and tests are replacing experiential, play-based learning. This interactive workshop will bring you into full participation by sharing experiences of what has worked and what has not as the group develops concrete actions steps for moving forward to Defend the Early Years.

More Than A Score - Jesse Hagopian

Black Student Lives Matter: The achievement gap is often used by corporate reformers to justify their policies. Are you looking for a way to respond to them that is both respectful of the experiences of communities of color, but does not accept high stakes testing is the way to close the achievement gap? Then join teacher and author Jesse Hogapian as he explores this topic. Jesse will share his experience in leading the successful MAP boycott in Seattle, discuss examples of gaining support from civil rights groups, and talk about how we can all help build a multicultural, anti-racist movement to support all students.

In the coming days and weeks we will continue to highlight additional panels and panelists, but don’t wait to register for the conference and reserve your hotel room. There are a limited number of rooms reserved for the conference, and the discounted rate will soon expire, so take the time now to confirm your plans. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago!

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago:

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago:

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago:

URGENT ALERT - Sit and Stare Policy Violates Common Core SBAC Protocol - Wait What?

URGENT ALERT - Sit and Stare Policy Violates Common Core SBAC Protocol - Wait What?:



URGENT ALERT – Sit and Stare Policy Violates Common Core SBAC Protocol

 Two days ago, the director of the Connecticut Association of School Superintendents (CAPSS) told announced that Connecticut’s superintendents of schools would now be recognizing that parents DID HAVE the right to opt-out or REFUSE to have their child take the unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) test that began this week…

And, equally important, the head of the CAPPS organization explained that children who are opted out will be moved to an alternative location where they can read or do homework during the Common Core SBAC test periods.

But either Mr. Cirasoulo failed to tell local superintendents about this critically important policy shift or some local superintendents are still committed to violating parental rights and refusing to treat parents with the respect, maturity and dignity they deserve.

More than half a dozen parents, all from separate towns, have written to Wait, What? in the last eighteen hours to say that local officials refused or tried to refuse the parents’ directive that their student was not to take the SBAC test yesterday.

Equally appalling is that in at least two communities public schools students were not removed from the testing room while their follow students took were taking the Common  Core SBAC test.

Forcing students to remain in the testing room, referred to as a “Sit and Stare” policy, seeks to punish, humiliate and bully students whose parents have opted them out of the Common Core SBAC testing.

As previously noted here at Wait, What? “Sit and Stare” policies are nothing short of child abuse since they will lead to anxiety and the very real likelihood of resentment on the part of the children who are taking the test.

As a matter of ethics and principle, let alone their legal duty, educators do not engage, condone or allow bullying or child abuse.  Educators do not utilize “Sit and Stare” practices!

But putting aside the immoral and unethical nature of engaging in “Sit and Stare” policies is the fact that the Common Core Balanced Assessment Consortium SBAC Test Administration Manual, called TAM, prohibits the use of “Sit and Stare” for children who are not participating in the Common Core SBAC test!

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Test Administration Manual states;URGENT ALERT - Sit and Stare Policy Violates Common Core SBAC Protocol - Wait What?:

Map of Common Core test boycotts in Louisiana updated Wednesday | NOLA.com

Map of Common Core test boycotts in Louisiana updated Wednesday | NOLA.com:

Map of Common Core test boycotts in Louisiana updated Wednesday

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

Where are students boycotting the new Common Core test in Louisiana? Find out here in our updated map.

Map and story byDanielle Dreilinger

and Dmitriy Pritkin
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Public school students in grades three to eight on Wednesday (March 18) are completing the English portion of an examination developed by the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. That's except for the 1 percentof students who are opting out.

In the map, click on a school system to see total number of students eligible to take the test, the number and percentage who opted out and the date of the latest data. Green school systems have zero opt-outs.

See it in Google Maps

The vast majority of students are taking the tests. The pushback comes from a few, including Gov. Bobby Jindal, who say the federal government is reaching too far into local matters or that the tests are useless or even harmful. Jindal's children, nonetheless, are taking the test.

Download the March 17 numbers in Excel.

WNYT.com - Anti-Common Core activists push for 200,000 test refusals

WNYT.com - Anti-Common Core activists push for 200,000 test refusals:

Anti-Common Core activists push for 200,000 test refusals

Updated: 03/17/2015 9:26 AM
Created: 03/17/2015 12:02 AM WNYT.com
By: Anna Meiler

ALBANY - Common Core based tests are just around the corner and a local assemblyman is joining parents and educators in the fight against what they call high-stakes testing by introducing new legislation.

Concerned parents in the Shenendehowa school district say high-stakes testing is hurting their children's education.

“My child’s education is in no way benefiting from sitting for 540 minutes taking a state assessment every year,” said Deborah Clark.

Many complain classroom focus has shifted from creative learning to test prep- so that students, grades three through eight, don't fail the standardized math and ELA tests held every April. Briana Bays has already notified her children's schools that they will not be taking the tests this year.

“My youngest learns very artistically, hands-on, creative, my son learns with reading, my oldest learns when she writes things out. Each one learns differently. With Common Core, they’re being forced to do test prep and learn in one way. It’s not fair to the children, it’s not fair to the teachers and it’s not fair to the parents,” said Bays.

Assemblyman Jim Tedisco says parents of 60,000 students refused the tests last year. He says if more parents do the same, they could make a difference.

“If we can get close to 200,000 parents to refuse, I think we can stall this whole process and at least reform the testing part of it,” said Tedisco.

So, he's introducing new legislation called the Common Core Parental Refusal Act.

“With this bill you can not only have your child refuse, they can refuse without penalty, they wouldn’t have to sit and stare in a class, they would be doing academic work, teachers couldn’t be penalized or rewarded and school districts couldn’t be penalized or rewarded,” said Assemblyman Jim Tedisco.

“I think more parents would do it. They wouldn’t be afraid to rock the boat,” said Clark.

Assemblyman Jim Tedisco will be holding a press conference at the legislative office building at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. NewsChannel 13 will bring you the latest.WNYT.com - Anti-Common Core activists push for 200,000 test refusals:

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