Thursday, July 7, 2011

'No Child Left Behind' Reforms May Get Left Behind - BusinessWeek

'No Child Left Behind' Reforms May Get Left Behind

Politics and budget cuts endanger President Obama’s education reforms

By John Hechinger and Kate Andersen Brower

Liberty County School District in Florida is running out of time. The district’s $9 million budget has been axed by more than a third since the 2007-08 school year, as federal stimulus money dried up and a tourism dip hurt tax revenue. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, all three schools in the 1,300-student district are labeled as failing and could lose federal funding unless every student passes standardized math and reading tests by 2014. Superintendent Sue Summers says she has no more slack. “If they cut $100,000 from my budget, I’ll have to cut something big,” she says. “I won’t be able to open schools. I won’t be able to provide transportation, or I won’t be able to provide lunches.”

When Barack Obama ran for President in 2008, he pledged to “fix” NCLB, the federal education act signed into law by George W. Bush in 2002 that aims to hold schools accountable for students’ academic performance. Congressional gridlock has halted his plans, leaving school districts across the nation in a state of uncertainty. At the same time, state budget cuts threaten to undermine districts’ efforts to carry out the rest of Obama’s education reforms. “These are blue times, sad times,” says Jack Jennings, a

Reforming the School Reformers - NYTimes.com

No, Seriously: No Excuses

Photo Illustration by Ruud Van Empel/Stux Gallery

By PAUL TOUGH

Published: July 7, 2011

REPRINTS

In the early days of the education-reform movement, a decade or so ago, you’d often hear from reformers a powerful rallying cry: “No excuses.” For too long, they said, poverty had been used as an excuse by complacent educators and bureaucrats who refused to believe that poor students could achieve at high levels. Reform-minded school leaders took the opposite approach, insisting that students in the South Bronx should be held to the same standards as kids in Scarsdale. Amazingly enough, those high expectations often paid off, producing test results at some low-income urban schools that would impress parents in any affluent suburb.

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Ten years later, you might think that reformers would be feeling triumphant. Spurred in part by the Obama administration’s Race to the Top initiative, many states have passed laws reformers have long advocated: allowing for more charter schools, weakening teachers’ tenure protections, compensating teachers in part based on their

NYC Public School Parents: letter from AM Glick to Chancellor Walcott re school overcrowding

letter from AM Glick to Chancellor Walcott re school overcrowding

by Leonie Haimson

Why couldn't she run the DOE? We can always dream....

Dear Chancellor Walcott,

The Department of Education has indicated in numerous meetings that a rezoning of District 2 will occur in the near future. Before any conversations on such a topic can begin, I would like to formally express my underlying concern that any type of rezoning will not be sufficient to alleviate the need for more school seats in District 2. Furthermore, I am concerned that the pedagogical leanings of the Department of Education, which de-emphasize the importance of teacher student ratios, will impact any proposed rezonings in a way that parents in my community find unacceptable. Inadequate capacity, more than anything else, is the issue facing schools in District 2. If a dinner party is held for twenty-nine people but there are only twenty available chairs, switching the seating arrangement does not solve the problem.

My office has long been a proponent for smaller class sizes for New York City Public

Shocking details of Atlanta cheating scandal - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Shocking details of Atlanta cheating scandal

by Valerie Strauss

It’s one thing to say there was widespread cheating on standardized tests in Atlanta public schools, as the newly released results of a state investigation showed. It’s another thing to actually read the volunimous report. The details are shocking.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) on Tuesday released the results of a 10-month state investigation he had ordered into suspicions of cheating on state standardized Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (or CRCT) in the Atlanta School System.

Read full article >>

Intervening in the Education Wars - Dana Goldstein

Intervening in the Education Wars

by Dana Goldstein

Paul Tough has written one of the most sensible pieces about education reform I've read in a long while, an intervention into the debate between Diane Ravitch and her critics, like Jonathan Alter and David Brooks, who claim she misuses statistics.

...a more productive response would be to recommit to the principle that 15 (or 17) percent proficiency just isn’t good enough, no matter where you live. To acknowledge this fact is not to say that reform is doomed; it is not blaming students or insulting teachers. It is merely reminding ourselves that the 83 percent of 11th-grade students at Urban Prep who didn’t pass the state exam, and the 85 percent of 9th-grade students at Bruce Randolph who didn’t pass the state writing test, deserve better.

So why are some reformers resorting to excuses? Most likely for the same reason that urban educators from an earlier generation made excuses: successfully educating large numbers of low-income kids is very, very hard. But it is not impossible, as reformers have repeatedly demonstrated on a small scale. To achieve

Scott Walker’s Education Budget “Success” is Lie after Lie after Lie « Larry Miller's Blog

Scott Walker’s Education Budget “Success” is Lie after Lie after Lie

by millerlf

Scott Walker’s bogus `mission accomplished’ moment – Greg Sargent, Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/scott-walkers-bogus-mission-accomplished-moment/2011/03/03/gIQA3wit0H_blog.html

“What’s more, the use of this one district to declare Walker’s policies a success is almost comical in its cherry-picking. There are 424 school districts in Wisconsin, and as the AP recently noted, Walker’s policies mean draconian budget cuts to 410 of them, with labor officials and school districts predicting increased class sizes and layoffs.”

Kaukauna’s literally unbelievable budget miracle -

http://jakehasablog.blogspot.com/2011/07/kaukaunas-literally-unbelievable-budget.html

“And for all the talk about “Kaukauna class sizes going down,” even Kaukauna School Board President Todd Arnoldussen admits it’s projected class sizes being reduced, and those are reductions from huge INCREASES THAT

Stand for Children’s Jonah Edelman explains how they out foxed Illinois teacher union leadership. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Stand for Children’s Jonah Edelman explains how they out foxed Illinois teacher union leadership.

by Fred Klonsky

This is an amazing video from the Aspen Ideas Festival in which Stand For Children’s Jonah Edelman explains how he, with the support of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Arne Duncan’s senior advisor Jo Anderson (former Executive Director of the IEA) out foxed the CTU, the IFT and the IEA’s Ken Swanson and Audrey Soglin into agreeing to Senate Bill 7.

The video is an hour-long and the sound isn’t great. But it is worth the effort to listen to how teachers got screwed by their leadership’s incompetence and connivence.

New Teacher Evaluation Systems are not Trustworthy Without Better Assessments « Outside the Cave

New Teacher Evaluation Systems are not Trustworthy Without Better Assessments

by Stephen Lazar

It seems that the biggest issue these days in education “reform” is the attempt to change how teachers are evaluated. Locally in New York, the state legislature passed a new evaluation system last year and the Board of Regents more recently released their guidelines for the implementation of that law, though much of the details remain to be negotiated between local districts and unions. Nationally, the Gates-funded Measure of Effective Teaching Project is starting to share some conclusions from the first two years of their study, and a recent reportfrom the Center for Teaching Quality’s New Millenium Initiative by a group of Denver teachers has garnered some positive attention in the blogosphere from Renee Moore, Ariel Sachs, Dan Brown, and others.

Like nearly all issues in education, this one is complex. I have gotten to see just how complex it is from two vantage points within the NYC discourse: I have been working for the past semester to support the social studies teachers in NYC’s transformation schools who were subject to the pilot of new assessments that are to be part of the new teacher evaluation system. I am also on the UFT negotiating committee for the new system. Unfortunately, I am under non-disclosure obligations for both sides, and can’t yet write

Guest Post: Rhee inflated graduation rates by lowering standards through her ''Credit Recovery'' program; thousands affected

by admin

“One of the ways Michelle Rhee attempted to boost graduation rates was by creating after-school courses called “Credit Recovery” in every high school and by massive expansion of summer school”, according to Erich Martel, a social studies teacher in the District of Columbia public schools. CR is a program of after school courses for high school students who have failed the same classes during the regular school day. It enables these pupils to receive credit towards graduation; but the “recovery” courses have distinctly lower standards than the standard kind. As a result, any increase in graduation numbers through these means many well yield a false impression of improved student learning.

Martel notes, “ loopholes Rhee created by allowing thousands (yes, 1000’s) of DC public high school students to get easy graduation credits in little-or-no-work, show-up-sometimes after-school and summer school courses that mimicked day school courses.”

See Erich’s entire post at EdExcellence.net, or by clicking the “more” tab in the right-hand corner of this post.

Ed. Secretary Duncan ''stunned'' by cheating scandal

by admin

Duncan “stunned” . When asked about the pervasiveness of cheating in other cities, like Baltimore and Washington, he dodges the issue. Still not investigating Rhee’s ErasureGate. Read Duncan’s letter here.

How Votetocracy works | Votetocracy

How Votetocracy works

Introduction

Many Americans realize the impact bills in Congress have on your lives. So you make an attempt to get informed and get involved. Doing so has traditional meant sending a message to your representatives. Votetocracy is different. Different because we add an important layer - Measurement. Or goal is to quantify your efforts so everyone can see and benefit from the messages sent to Congress. We accomplish this by tallying the results of your efforts and efforts by fellow Americans so there is a public view of collective sentiment.

Below the Infographic you'll find a textual description of the following:

You and your Congressional Representatives
Finding Bills or Issues that you care about
Voting on Bills - but educate yourself first
Sending your votes to Congress
Comparing yourself to your representatives - Measuring Outcomes and Effectiveness
Staying involved
Is Votetocracy Neutral?
Have ideas to improve Votetocracy?

You and your Congressional Representatives

Every American has representatives in Congress. The first thing we do is lookup your reps using your address. Once found, your experience on Votetocracy is tailored to you and your reps. For example - you will see how you compare to your reps on every bill.

Finding Bills or Issues that you care about

A session of Congress can have over ten thousand bills. We made it easy to find ones you care about. Bills are organized in categories and topics such as health and abortion. We also provide ways to view current or active bills by filtering on their status (ie: In the House or On the President's desk).

Find bills by Category and topic - Such as Health/Abortion or War and Military/Gun Rights

Find bills status - Introduced, In the House, In the Senate, To President, Became Law

Find bills by Agreement - Find bills that Americans and Congress agree on or disagree on

Chicago parking meters funding charter school « Parents Across America

Chicago parking meters funding charter school

by pureparents

I’ve hated those &#@% Chicago parking meters ever since Mayor Daley privatized them and I got a $50 ticket on Mothers’ Day 2010. It was right after the new system was installed across the street from my church (no signs up – and the hours for the meter were changed over the weekend).

So, now I read that Chicago Parking Meters –the company that Mayor Daley sold us out to — recently gave a $10,000 gift to a charter high school.

That’s not quite as bad as when the ComEd/Exelon CEOs built themselves a charter school which they named after themselves. The (John “Exelon”) Rowe- (Frank “ComEd”) Clark Math and Science Academy started off with a sweet $4.2 million donation from the

Shanker Blog » Can We Make Voting Like Tweeting?

Can We Make Voting Like Tweeting?

by Esther Quintero

A recent Brookings Institution forum on new social media and the re-invigoration of democracy got me thinking about whether and how Twitter and Facebook could successfully increase political participation, specifically voter turnout. Voter turnout is one of the most important indicators of a healthy democracy and – as many have noted – U.S. voter participation rates are remarkably low.

It does not surprise me that people don’t see the immediate gains of voting. Going to the polls on election day entails individual costs (e.g., time, figuring out polling locations), while the benefits are essentially collective and weakly dependent on the vote of any one individual. Thus, people may find that it’s in their interest not to bother (Downs 1957 is the classic work on this). This rational approach conflicts with a more normative (even moral) understanding of democracy and civic behavior – e.g., we know we should all vote; it’s as much our responsibility as our right.

In a much less academic vein, although many U.S. citizens are free-riders when it comes to voting, it appears that Americans love to give their detailed opinions on all kinds of things. For example, why are Americans, who are so enthusiastic and industrious when it comes to writing lengthy product reviews, indolent when they are

Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal - High School Notes (usnews.com)

Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal

By JASON KOEBLER

Posted: July 7, 2011

For 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history, according to a scathing413-page investigative report released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal.

More than three quarters of the 56 schools investigated cheated on a 2009 standardized state test, with 178 educators implicated, including 38 principals. Eighty-two teachers confessed to erasing students' answers and correcting tests. The report says widespread cheating has occurred since at least 2001 and that orders to cheat came from the top.

[Read about testing scandals in other states.]

"Superintendent Beverly Hall and her senior staff knew, or should have known, that cheating and other offenses were occurring," the report says. Hall retired in June, after serving as the Atlanta Public School System superintendent for 11 years. Hall's lawyer told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which originally uncovered testing anomalies in Georgia public schools last year, that the former superintendent "definitely did not know of any widespread

Daily Kos: Asking for a little (financial) help:

Asking for a little (financial) help:

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

as some here already know, I am on the Executive Committee of the forthcoming Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action. This is an important event to change the nature of the discussion of educational policy in this nation. We are getting ever growing support as you can see if you go to the web page and take a look at the endorsements.
We have expenses. Some of these are things like insurance. Others are rental of porta-potties. You probably get the idea.
We are getting some support from some unions, but it would be of great help if people were willing to contribute even small amounts, which you can do by clicking on the donate button on the home page.
Take some time. Poke around the web page. Perhaps you will decide to join us in DC at the end of this month. We would love to have you.
Even a $5 or $10 contribution would be greatly appreciated. Please offer support for this important event on behalf of public education.

Save Our Schools March & National Call to Action, July 30, 2011

Thanks.

Test-Based Accountability and International Comparisons: Lessons Ignored | Dailycensored.com

Test-Based Accountability and International Comparisons: Lessons Ignored

Written by Paul ThomasEducationJul 7, 2011

0digg

The historical and current focus on test-based accountability to drive education evaluation and reform is often situated within another historical and current approach to judging U.S. public education—international comparisons. Just as we tend to misuse test data, specifically the SAT, to rank and label the quality of schools and state education systems, we do the same with international comparisons.

“A century ago, the United States was among the most eager benchmarkers in the world,” opens Tucker (2011), leading to the focus of his report, “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: An American Agenda for Education Reform”: “In this paper, we stand on the shoulders of giants, asking what education policy might look like in the United States if it was based on the experience of our most successful competitors” (p. 1). Tucker notes that the report’s goal also stands on the claims by Secretary Duncan that U.S. education is lagging behind other countries.

Tucker (2011) also establishes early the evidence supporting the U.S.’s

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