CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Mega-edu-bloggo-reading

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Mega-edu-bloggo-reading:

ICYMI: Mega-edu-bloggo-reading

The Economist Gets Everything Wrong

One of the peculiar side features of the reformster movement has been the elevation of economists to expert status on the subject of education. This makes precisely as much sense as the White House calling me to hear my advice on How To Fix the Economy, and yet it keeps happening-- almost as if reformsters are more interested in the economic benefits of ed reform than any educational ones.So when

by Peter Greene / 8min 

I have a ton of stuff for you this week. Enjoy.

Former SAT Official Blows the Whistle 

Yeah, you probably caught this story this week, but since every single person in the world should see it, I'll put it here just in case. Here's Mercedes Schneider's look at the former College Board official who is blowing the whistle on just how big a sham the new SAT is.  

High Standard

A great, simple, direct statement about what's wrong with the reading standard that some states like New York have chosen to build ELA around. 

When Success Leads To Failure

In the Atlantic, Jessica Lahey (the Gift of Failure writer) talks about the negative effects of the pressure to succeed.

Equality of Opportunity

You may or may not agree with this piece, but you'll be better for figuring out why you do or don't. A hard look at why equality of opportunity may not be a good idea for anybody.

When the Neighborhood Gentrifies and the School Doesn't

From Slate and Jessica Huseman, a look at what happened in one gentrified Portland neighborhood that pushed out the residents, but left the school.

Only 2% of Teachers Are Black and Male: Here's How We Might Fix That

One of the largest problems in education today-- a teaching pool that is mostly white and female. Here's what they're doing in Pittsburgh to try to address that issue. 

Mr. Lemov Meet Madeline Hunter and Many Others Who Discovered the Same Things and Gave Credit Where Credit Was Due

Well, the title doesn't leave much to wonder about. If you are tired of Mr. Teach Like a Champion, here's a great explanation of why you are right to be annoyed. 

The Horror of Charter School Finance

One more explanation of how charter schools are gutting public education

Third Way in Education Not the Answer

One more writer figures out that the Third Way is just the same old way-- the way private interests try to raid the piles of money tied up in public ed


Choosing a School for my Daughter in a Segregated City

You probably saw this already-- folks on all sides of the ed debates were passing it around this week. Brings some of the issues in education right down to the human level.

CPS Newly Posted Job Executive Director of Personalized Learning Comes with a Dire Warning

Looks like Chicago is next to jump on the personalized- competency based education bandwagon. That's terrible news for Chicago. CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Mega-edu-bloggo-reading:

Pat Kelly & Thought Leadering

Thanks to reader Robert D. Skeels. This is just too fun not to pass along.

15 by Peter Greene / 1d 

PA: New Face for Old Pearson Scam

If you are in Pennsylvania, you may have been seeing advertising for Commonwealth Charter Academy. CCA avoids calling itself a cyber-anything, but it is in fact one more cyber charter littering the Pennsylvania landscape. As with many schools pushing the tech solution to education issues, it leans heavily on "personalized learning" and markets itself as a family approach. That seems to b

21 by Peter Greene / 1d 

JUN 10

Thought Leader Duncan Has Another New Job

Arne Duncan continues to build that resume. He was already signed on with Emerson Collective, the philanthropic mish-mash of Steve Jobs widow; in that position, he is poised to work on the youth unemployment problems of Chicago.Now comes word that Duncan has joined the board of directors for Pluralsign.If you aren't a tech professional, you may not recognize Pluralsign's name, but they've been in

44 by Peter Greene / 2d 

Common Core Standards (Still) Don't Cut It

Every few years the ACT folks unleash a big ole survey to find out what's actually going on Out There in the world of school stuff. This year's survey drew at least 2,000 respondents each from elementary and secondary schools, as well as college and workplace respondents. The whole package is eighty-eight pages, and I've read it, and while you don't have to, you might still want to. There are seve

95 by Peter Greene / 2d 

Chester Finn's Charter Market Worries

Chester Finn, honcho emeritus of the right-tilted Fordham Institute, was back on the Fordham blog this week to continue his charter school series with a look at what he thinks are three "market malfunctions in the charter sector." Man, I just love the word "sector"- it sounds so clean and neat, not like marketplace or business. Honey, I'm going to get a tub of popcorn in the sn

14 by Peter Greene / 2d 

The SAT-- Worse Than You Think

Folks have been questioning the accuracy, validity and usefulness of the SAT for decades, and the chorus of criticism only increased when College Board, the test manufacturing company responsible for the SAT, brought in Common Core architect David Coleman to take over. Coleman's fast and ugly rewrite of the venerable test was intended to bring it in line with the K-12 standards of Common Core. Col

200+ by Peter Greene / 2d 

JUN 09

Back to the Children's Table

Do you remember?It was going to be our year. Education-- the issue, the American institution, the highly contested battleground of policy, politics, and pedagogy-- was going to be on the front burner. Presidential politics would be the Big Event, and education was going to be seated at the Big Table.Lots of folks thought so. Jeb! Bush had spent ages first fine-tuning his education organization as

35 by Peter Greene / 3d 

TX: Yet Another Testing Screw-up

The Texas version of the Big Standardized Test is called the STAAR, which could stand for Some Tests Are Always Ridiculous or maybe Should Throw Away Any Results or even Stupid Tests' Asses Are Raggedy.This year's STAAR season has been a parade of blunders and clusterfahrfegnugen. There were plenty of reasons not to like the test to begin with (here's a good list of just ten such reasons). But onc

100+ by Peter Greene / 3d 

The GOP Education Vision

Earlier this week, House Republicans released a... well, a thing. A reporty kind of thing, straight from the House GOP "Task Force" on Poverty, Opportunity and Upward Mobility. There's a website that goes with it, and the language there is pretty blunt and direct:Our nation is on the wrong path. We can complain about it, but that won't help things. To get America back on track, we have t

43 by Peter Greene / 3d 

JUN 08

MA: Boston Schools Remain Opaque

Massachusetts has just a wacky dynamic in the education biz. Their governor is a reformster, their secretary of education is a reformster, and the mayor of Boston is a reformster. Various swarms of reformsters have come to the commonwealth, presumably attracted by tasty clam chowder and the smell of money. And yet the citizens of Massachusetts, many of whom still have vivid memories of when the st

11 by Peter Greene / 3d 

Icahn: A Better Charter?

I've taken a few (hundred) shots at charter schools on this blog, but I've always tried to be clear-- I believe it is possible to do charter schools right, to create a charter school that is not a fraud-running, student-abusing, system-gutting, money-grubbing scam, but which actually serves the needs of students and community and is grounded in actually educating students.With that in mind, I've b

12 by Peter Greene / 4d 

The Left and Right of Ed Reform

Robert Pondiscio triggered a reformy tempest almost two weeks ago when he wrote that the Left was in danger of pushing conservatives out of the ed reform movement. The reformy blogoverse and twitterverse have not shut up about it since, with responses ranging from the sympathetic to... well, less so (Best title: "Audacity of Nope"). A large portion of the education post stable has taken

9 by Peter Greene / 4d 

JUN 07

Maybe Old Teachers Don't Suck

A repeated refrain among some reformsters is that we need to get rid of tenure, job protections, and seniority rules for teachers because the system is clogged with washed-up uncaring has-beens and when budgets are slashed and staffing is cut, it's the hot young rock stars of education that are thrown out on the street (oddly enough, their concern over this issue never translates into calls to kno

1K by Peter Greene / 5d 

JUN 06

System

One of the dreams of ed reform has been to come up with a system that is teacher-proof, a program or script or curriculum that works exactly the same way no matter what carbon-based life form you have propped up in front of the classroom.Systems are particularly appealing as a method of controlling "bad" actors, with "bad" defined as "does not do what I want them to do.&qu

52 by Peter Greene / 6d hide  //  save

Remedial Baloney

When arguing about college readiness, reformsters like to point to the number of college freshmen placed in remedial courses are proof that high schools aren't rigorous enough with coursework, aren't honest enough with grades, and aren't standardized enough with curriculum.There are problems with that. First of all, we keep using the words "college ready" as if we know what that means. W

95 by Peter Greene / 6d

Paul Tough Grapples with Real Challenges Faced by Low Income Students - Living in Dialogue

Paul Tough Grapples with Real Challenges Faced by Low Income Students - Living in Dialogue:

Paul Tough Grapples with Real Challenges Faced by Low Income Students

By John Thompson.

I can’t wait to read and reread Paul Tough’s new book, Helping Children Succeed: What works and Why. Tough’s Atlantic Magazine preview mostly prompted unadulterated joy from reading such an excellent synthesis of scientific research. But it also serves as a reminder that I should not repeat my mistake with his previous masterpiece, How Children Succeed, and get my hopes up and assume that corporate reformers will really listen to Tough and his sources.

In fact, I suspect that many accountability-driven reformers will respond as they have long been doing with Tough’s and others’ indictments of data-driven, competition-driven reform; they will quote Tough and continue – or even step up – the policies that Tough argues against. My first post, however, will focus on the ways that Tough explains what reformers have done wrong since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and how science points the way toward a new era of respectful and humane school improvement.

Tough’s Atlantic article doesn’t mince words, and it immediately repudiates the cornerstone of the contemporary reform movement.  Tough says, “The truth, as many American teachers know firsthand, is that low-income children can be harder to educate than children from more-comfortable backgrounds.” Had output-driven reformers understood that, I doubt we would have gone down their test-driven, competition-driven path. New opportunities have arisen, however, since “the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Act, which dominated federal education policy for the past decade and a half, was finally euthanized.”

First, we now know what most education researchers anticipated would be the likely result of data-driven accountability. The reformers’ quest for metrics to drive their reward and punish schemes would fail to produce reliable estimates of the effect of individual teachers on student performance, even when it was Paul Tough Grapples with Real Challenges Faced by Low Income Students - Living in Dialogue:

Research and Complacency | The Patiently Impatient Teacher

Research and Complacency | The Patiently Impatient Teacher:

Research and Complacency 

So a lot of recent conversation in the education blogosphere has been about research, specifically whether or not it used or used wisely (here and here).  These are timely and important conversations to have as I find a lot of truth to them.

An excellent example of the role of research in the education reform conversation can be seen in this blog. I don’t know the author of this blog, and it is certainly no better or no worse that many others, it is simply one that came across my social media feeds and caught my attention as a topic that I have read a lot of research on. So my apologies to the author in advance for being singled out.

The blog discusses the fact that improvement of schooling at the high school level has been particularly difficult. The author mentions a series of articles from EdWeek that are located behind a pay wall, so I am unable to determine what, if any, research or examples are cited in the material. The only other citation of “research” is from a policy paper from a philanthropic organization. The author concludes that the reason that it is so hard to reform high school is that most communities are complacent about the quality of their high school as simply “good enough” and that they reject the idea of changing the system as something that only those poor, inner city schools with Research and Complacency | The Patiently Impatient Teacher:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: "Are You Legal or Illegal?"

Seattle Schools Community Forum: "Are You Legal or Illegal?":

"Are You Legal or Illegal?"

Sigh.

Yes, State Superintendent Randy Dorn, visiting Raisbeck Aviation High School this week, said to a student, "Now I'll ask you under my breath, are you legal or illegal?" after the student said he had gone to school in Mexico for part of his schooling.

Superintendent Dorn is not a bad guy and, according to the Times article, Ricardo Sanchez, a member of the Washington State Commission on Hispanic affairs, says Dorn has worked to help get financial aid for undocumented students seeking higher education.

But really, kind of tone-deaf (and it came out worse because he chuckled as he said it.)  Dorn has sought out the student to apologize.

There was another interesting story this week regarding undocumented students and high school graduation.  From the New York Times, "2 Valedictorians in Texas Declare Undocumented Status, and Outrage Ensues."

When Mayte Lara Ibarra, the valedictorian of her high school’s graduating class, revealed her plans to attend the University of Texas at Austin on a scholarship, she did what any graduate would do: She shared her excitement on social media.

Ms. Ibarra also declared, proudly, that she is undocumented.

“Valedictorian, 4.5GPA, full tuition paid for at UT, 13 cords/medals, nice legs, oh and I’m undocumented,” Ms. Ibarrawrote in a tweet posted last week, hours after she gave her valedictory speech to fellow graduates at David Crockett High School in Austin.

 Texas, not exactly known for great public education, has this on its side:

Gary Susswein, a spokesman for the University of Texas, said that federal law prevented him from discussing the cases of individual students, but he offered a statement that said that the university grants two-semester tuition waivers to all valedictorians of Texas public high schools regardless of their residency status.

“State law also does not distinguish between documented and undocumented graduates of Texas high schools in admissions Seattle Schools Community Forum: "Are You Legal or Illegal?":

Harold Meyerson: The Challenge for Progressives in California to Clean Up Our Politics | Diane Ravitch's blog

Harold Meyerson: The Challenge for Progressives in California to Clean Up Our Politics | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Harold Meyerson: The Challenge for Progressives in California to Clean Up Our Politics

Harold Meyerson, editor of The American Prospect, writes in the Los Angeles Times that progressives in California should stay involved in state politics and join to defeat the power of big money.

As he shows, the big money interests have combined to elect conservative Democrats and defeat progressive Democrats. Because of the state’s “top-two” primaries, regardless of party, the big-money guys are picking malleable conservative Democrats and pouring millions into their campaigns to pick off progressive campaigns.

Bernie Sanders’ keystone issue was to limit the role of money in politics. In California, the moneyed interests are saturating legislative races with donations that their opponents can’t match.

Over the past two years, oil companies and “education reform” billionaires have been funding campaigns for obliging Democratic candidates running against their more progressive co-partisans under the state’s “top-two” election process. In this week’s primary, independent committees spent at least $24 million, with most of that money flowing to Democrats who opposed Gov. Jerry Brown’s effort to halve motorists’ use of fossil fuels by 2030, and a substantial sum going to Democrats who support expanding charter schools.

Six years ago, according to the Associated Press, just one legislative primary race had more than $1 million in outside spending, and four had more than $500,000. This year, eight races saw more than $1 million in such spending, and 15 more than $500,000.

In a heavily Democratic district outside Sacramento, a November state Senate runoff will pit Democratic Assemblyman Bill Dodd, who opposed Brown’s legislation, against former Democratic Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada. Dodd has already benefited from one independent campaign funded by Chevron and other energy companies to the tune of more than $270,000, and from an education reform campaign funded by charter school proponents such as billionaire Eli Broad in the amount of $1.68 million.

Since progressives can’t match their millions, they should do their best to expose them and their surrogates as the puppets they are.

Public education in California is a plum for the billionaires. They want to privatize it. Who are the biggest spenders in the self-named “education reform movement”? Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings, and Alice Walton. None is a parent in public schools. None has children in public schools. Two do not even live in California.

This is NOT what democracy looks like.Harold Meyerson: The Challenge for Progressives in California to Clean Up Our Politics | Diane Ravitch's blog:

What’s happening to two undocumented Texas valedictorians says it all about the immigration debate - The Washington Post

What’s happening to two undocumented Texas valedictorians says it all about the immigration debate - The Washington Post:

What’s happening to two undocumented Texas valedictorians says it all about the immigration debate

 A pair of high school valedictorians in Texas have become the targets of social media attacks.

Plenty of people are subject to abuse online. But those who dare to be anything other than white, straight or male had better learn to practice deep breathing. This is especially true if one is also an undocumented immigrant who graduated high school at the top of one's class.

This can be stated as simple fact because, when it became public knowledge that the two girls had not only topped their high school classes but were respectively headed to Yale University and the University of Texas at Austin, the Internet went wild.

The content of online insults, rebukes and complaints shared about the two girls seems to rotate around a theme. The essence: these girls — and they are girls — have gamed the system and are proud of it it. And now, they are preparing to do it again, "taking" some other students' places at Yale and UT.  One mother of another child who graduated alongside one of the girls added that she never thought she would favor deporting a child who attended high school in the United States and never thought she would be a Trump supporter, but this situation had made her both.

In truth, a pretty straight line can be drawn between the public reaction to these students and the current state of American immigration politics. The overlap in the sentiments expressed by so many of those who launched an online war against the students and voters convinced that their economic prospects would improve if the country only had a border wall really should not be missed. What's happened to the two young women in Texas doesn't just speak volumes about the uncivil state of affairs online; it reveals a lot about the way that many Americans view immigration and immigrants overall.

After leading her Austin, Tex., graduating class in the Pledge of Allegiance and delivering the valedictory address, Mayte Lara Ibarra sparked a rabid Twitter controversy with a single tweet. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

"People tend to view the economy as a fixed pie where there is only so many jobs," said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. He says people think there is "only so much opportunity, and that is simply not true. People create jobs, What’s happening to two undocumented Texas valedictorians says it all about the immigration debate - The Washington Post:

Racism in Boston’s schools was focus of gathering at Dorchester church - The Boston Globe

Racism in Boston’s schools was focus of gathering at Dorchester church - The Boston Globe:

Racism in Boston’s schools focus of Dorchester gathering

A white student at East Boston High School told a story about a history teacher who said white privilege doesn’t exist.

A Boston Latin Academy freshman who is biracial talked about a white student who reacted to the hashtag used for stories about racism at the prestigious Boston Latin School by threatening to become a Nazi.

Those stories were among the experiences shared Saturday in the basement of Greater Love Tabernacle in Dorchester, where about 100 students, parents, teachers, ministers, and community leaders discussed the racial climate in Boston public schools and ways to improve it.

“It’s been the elephant in the room and nobody wants to talk about it, but yet it impacts every single thing that we do,” said Barbara Fields, a former BPS equity officer. “I would challenge anyone in this room to come up with an issue that we’re dealing with and show how race has nothing to do with it.”

Complaints of racism and segregation have a long history in Boston’s public school system, which was ordered by a judge to desegregate through a busing system in 1974.

The latest discussion about racism in the schools was brought to the fore anew on Martin Luther King Jr. Day when two Latin School seniors, Meggie Noel and Kylie Webster-Cazeau, posted a video to YouTube in which they denounced the racial climate at the exam school. They complained that some classmates used racial slurs inside the school and on social media, but did not face discipline.

Both participated in Saturday’s gathering, called a Town Hall Action Meeting.

Their video and social media campaign prompted school department officials to launch an investigation in which they found administrators properly handled six race-based incidents reported over a 16-month period but mishandled a seventh.

Latin School headmaster Lynne Mooney Teta later apologized for not responding more quickly to racial tensions, but the local branch of the NAACP and US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz both launched investigations of racism at the school.

The gathering in the church basement Saturday was among a series of events organized by community leaders since Noel and Webster-Cazeau posted their video.

The assembly also observed a moment of silence in honor of Raekwon Brown, a 17-year-old junior gunned down Wednesday outside Jeremiah E. Burke High School.

“We need to get the activists unified so that we could come up with a single set of strategies and recommendations in order to help them change the Boston public school system,” said the Rev. Racism in Boston’s schools was focus of gathering at Dorchester church - The Boston Globe: