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Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Zoe is in the sixth grade in North Carolina. She decided to opt out of the state tests.her parents supported her. At first, the school told her there would be no repercussions. But when testing day came, her family got a letter warning that she would not be allowed to come back to school unless she took the test. Zoe and her dad started the Blue Hat Movement.
You can read about it here.
Zoe refused to take the test and was asked to leave the building. She is a straight A student.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/23/what-is-the-blur-hat-movement/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
This is a brilliant, stunning analysis by a reader, who explores the goals of corporate reformers–using the template of Schumpeter’s ideas–and contrast them to the ethics of educators. She says that the market reformers and educators are necessarily at odds because their basic values are in conflict.
Continue reading →
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Ohio leaders–Governor John Kasich and the Legislature–are determined to privatize public education, demoralize teachers, and generate profits for entrepreneurs and campaign contributors. Here is the latest from Bill Phillis, who is leading a campaign to stop the destruction of public education in Ohio. A former deputy commissioner of education, he leads the Ohio Education and Adequacy Coalition.
Continue reading →
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is following the ALEC script:
More charters
More vouchers
Lower standards for entry into teaching
Did he ask the voters if they want to get rid of public education? No.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/23/scott-walker-determined-to-privatize-wisconsin-schools/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Even as Rahm Emanuel says he has no money for schools, none at all, the cupboard is bare….. He somehow managed to find $55 million to build a private basketball stadium. Now, this is a mayor with priorities!
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/23/rahm-no-money-for-schools-but-millions-for/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
A few years ago, a study released by the American Enterprise Institute concluded that teachers are overpaid.
Not so, writes CNN contributor LZ Granderson. In this wonderful article, he shows the every day courage of teachers–most recently demonstrated when a devastating tornado hit an elementary school in Moore, Oklahoma, and last December when teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, died shielding their students.
Here is the AP story about the Oklahoma tornado, showing how quickly teachers protected their children.
When the think tank desk jockeys have long been forgotten, we will still remember our teachers.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/23/are-teachers-overpaid-the-last-word-comes-from-oklahoma/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/common-core-clash-aft-president-fires-back-at-state-ed-officials/2013/05/21/a93321e8-c245-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_story.html
Common Core clash: AFT president fires back at state ed officials
By Lyndsey Layton,
The Washington Post
Tuesday, May 21, 3:45 PM
The head of a major teachers union fired back Tuesday at state education officials who had dismissed her call for a moratorium on stakes associated with new standardized state tests in public schools.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the Chiefs for Change, a small group of state education officials, was distorting her call for a moratorium on the use of new standardized tests based on Common Core standards to evaluate teachers and students.
The Common Core standards in math and reading are rolling out across the country and will be in place in 45 states and the District by next school year. Next spring, students in grades 3 through 12 will be tested on the new standards, which will significantly change the way reading and math are taught.
While a majority of teachers polled by the AFT support the new standards, most said they were not being adequately prepared by their school districts.
Weingarten said states should not use test scores based on the new standards to judge the performance of students, schools or teachers until the Common Core standards have been fully implemented. She was backed by Dennis Van Roekel, the president of the National Education Association. Together, the two unions represent most public school teachers.
Continue reading →
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Please join this important discussion about the corporate attempt to trick parents into handing their public schools over to private corporations:
The Parent Trigger from California to Florida
Sunday, May 26, 2013 from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM Pacific Time
We will be hearing from Lori Yuan, a parent in Adelanto who fought the Parent Trigger at her school, and Parents Across America Founding Member Rita Solnet who, along with other organizations, defeated the Parent Trigger bill in the Florida State Senate on March 9, 2013.
To reserve your ticket, go to eventbrite.
This event is free.
This event is organized by Parents Across America.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/22/join-discussion-of-parent-trigger-hoax/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Susan Spicka is a public school parent in Central Pennsylvania and a strong advocate for high-quality public education. She wrote this post after her daughters finished their NINTH days of state testing in elementary school. The sentence that bowled me over was when she said her fifth grade daughter was crying for fear that if she didn’t do well, her school might not meet AYP. Why should this burden be placed on the backs of little children? Should they be afraid that their poor performance will cause their teachers to be fired and their school to be closed? There is a touch of sadism in these federal policies, as well as child abuse.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/22/pennsylvania-parent-why-i-oppose-common-core-and-high-stakes-testing/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Karen Lewis reacts to Chicago school board’s decision:
Karen Lewis Reaction to Chicago Board of Education’s Vote to Close the Largest
Number of Schools in an Urban School District in U.S. History
CHICAGO – Today, Chicago Teachers Union Karen Lewis released the following statement on the largest school closings in U.S. history:
“Today is a day of mourning for the children of Chicago. Their education has been hijacked by an unrepresentative, unelected corporate school board, acting at the behest of a mayor who has no vision for improving the education of our children. Closing schools is not an education plan. It is a scorched earth policy. Evidence shows that the underutilization crisis has been manufactured. Their own evidence also shows the school district will not garner any significant savings from closing these schools.
Continue reading →
Posted March 13, 2013
From FEA:
Oppose HB 7011: Leave the Florida Retirement System alone
HB 7011, which is being pushed hard by House Speaker Will Weatherford, would close the Florida Retirement System (FRS) to new hires beginning next year and force them into a 401k-style investment plan.
Some facts about FRS:
- Florida’s Retirement System is one of the strongest in the world.
- Changing the system to a 401k would cost taxpayers millions.
- Directly affects teachers, firefighters, police officers and all vital public workers.
- Dismantling FRS would have a huge impact on Florida’s economy.
Weatherford claims the bill will not impact current FRS enrollees but that is simply UNTRUE.
Closing the plan to new participants means the cost of maintaining the system for current enrollees will increase because fewer people are paying into the plan. These new costs will have to paid by somebody: either by the state, by employees, by local governments like school boards OR by reducing benefits.
The long-term fiscal viability of the FRS Trust Fund would be undermined and ultimately destabilized by HB 7011. This change will likely mean employees will be forced to pay more than the 3 percent they started paying in 2011; benefits will be cut and school boards will get a bill for the rest — taking more money off the bargaining table and away from classrooms.
Call or email your state senator and state representative and tell them to oppose HB 7011. Tell them FRS is not broken and does NOT need to be fixed. Tell them to protect retirement security for public school employees and their families.
| 135 S. Monroe St., Tallahassee, FL 32301 · 850-224-6926 · FAX 850-224-2266
UPDATE: First Responders Speak Out Against Passage of HB7011
After overwhelming public testimony from Florida’s Police, Firefighters, and public servants, HB7011 passed the State Affairs Committee today on a party-line vote. Over 60 first responders, from across the state, testified in opposition of this bad bill with only the Florida Chamber of Commerce voicing support. Stay tuned for more updates and alerts on how you can take action against this bill as it progresses.
TAKE ACTION NOW by writing a letter to your local newspaper.
CLICK HERE for more information.
Remember the facts
- Florida’s Retirement System is one of the strongest in the world.
- Changing the system to a 410k would cost taxpayers millions.
- Directly affects teachers, firefighters, police officers and all vital public workers.
- Dismantling FRS would have a huge impact on Florida’s economy.
CLICK HERE for more information about Florida’s Retirement System. |
Posted March 21, 2013
From FEA:
Messing with YOUR retirement
There are several legislative proposals to change our FRS retirement plan floating around the Capitol, but the most egregious of these bills has been put on a fast track in the Florida House. Lawmakers will debate this bill tomorrow and take a final vote in the House on Friday, March 22.
TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR RETIREMENT
HB 7011, the bill pushed hard by House Speaker Will Weatherford, would close the FRS to new hires beginning next year and force them into a 401k-style investment plan. House Leadership claims it will not impact current enrollees – this is simply UNTRUE. Closing the plan to new participants increases the cost of maintaining the benefit plan for current enrollees because fewer people will pay into the existing system. Additional costs will have to be paid by somebody: by employees, local agencies like school boards, or the state. The other likely possibility is reducing retirement benefits.
If HB 7001 passes, it is quite possible your 3% FRS contribution will increase. Reducing your take-home pay or your retirement means you have fewer dollars to spend on your family in your community. Closing the traditional defined benefit pension plan will cost taxpayers more and deliver less for everyone.
CONTACT MEMBERS OF THE FLORIDA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES by calling them toll-free at 888-997-3169 or email your legislator at FEA’s action page and tell them to oppose HB 7011.
Tell them FRS is not broken and does NOT need to be fixed. Tell them to protect retirement security for public school employees and their families.
Posted March 26, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Florida House pension limits plan follows ALEC’s lead
The Florida House’s push to overhaul the $136 billion pension plan used by more than 600,000 teachers, police, firefighters and other government workers is headed toward tense, end-of-session deal-making with the Senate.
But roots of the controversial reform effort are deep and stretch far from Florida’s Capitol. Critics trace the campaign back three years — to New Orleans, where dozens of Florida lawmakers gathered for a conference hosted by a controversial advocacy group that helps corporations and conservative interest groups write bills for legislatures across the country.
Continue reading →
Posted March 30, 2013
From FEA:
Teachers’ union to lawmakers: Back off FRS
Leaders of the state teachers’ union held a news conference this morning to blast proposed changes to the Florida Retirement System.
Standing beside a basket of colorful plastic Easter eggs, Florida Education Association President Andy Ford and Vice President Joanne McCall said the pension proposals would deprive teachers of their nest egg.
“Because of the actions of our political leaders, teachers have no expectation of continuing employment, no due process and a performance-based pay system that is not funded and based on bad or irrelevant data,” McCall said. “Now they want changes to the pension system that guarantee retirement insecurity. These proposals make it more difficult to recruit and retain high-quality teachers.”
Continue reading →
Posted April 2, 2013
From FEA:
Senate FRS bill headed to the floor
The Florida Senate’s proposal to change the Florida Retirement System cleared its last committee Thursday and now is headed for the floor in the next couple weeks.
SB 1392 passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on a 14-5 vote, with state Sen. Jeremy Ring, of Margate, as the only Democrat to buck an otherwise partisan vote.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, would close the FRS defined-benefit plan to senior management and elected officials, and instead offer the a 401(k)-style investment plan to newly eligible participants.
Continue reading →
Posted April 2, 2013
From FEA:
Florida parents don’t want parent trigger bill (by Kathleen Oropeza)
Despite its bruising defeat in the 2012 session of the Florida Legislature, “parent trigger” is something its proponents are too stubborn to drop.
Anointed 2013 sponsors, Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, and Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, struggling to reposition their brand, say, “We want to give parents a seat at the table.”
Thanks, but no thanks.
The “parent trigger” bill (HB 867) would use parents like a stack of cheap dinner napkins. It would “empower” us to do the grunt work, then mute our voice.
Parents would be expected to blindly pull the trigger on a failing school without any guarantees and transfer a valuable public asset to for-profit charter chain investors – who funded creation of “parent trigger” in the first place.
Continue reading →
Posted April 2, 2013
From FEA:
Budget brings clarity to teacher pay fight
A debate over how to boost the pay of public school teachers that had been centered largely on generalities gained clarity Friday, as House and Senate blueprints for the state’s $74 billion budget for the coming fiscal year were released.
For weeks, lawmakers had signaled that they agreed with Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to increase teacher pay, but wouldn’t go along with his plan for an across-the-board raise of $2,500 after waging a brutal battle to push through performance pay just two years ago.
In their own spending proposals for the year that begins July 1, leaders on both sides of the Capitol drew a specific contrast with fellow Republican Scott — and with each other.
The House plan would give districts $676 million in funds through the state’s main funding formula to use on priorities — money that lawmakers clearly want to go largely to salary increases.
The budget also “strongly encourages” districts to base at least half of those raises on performance. House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, said the budget isn’t more specific because it faces the same obstacle that Scott’s proposal would run into.
“Whether you put in $2,500 for each teacher, whether you put in merit pay, at the end of the day, it has to be collectively bargained,” he said.
Continue reading →
The Palm Beach Treasure Coast CLC (Central Labor Council) now has a text messaging alert system that you can sign up for to receive updates on current legislation and activities surrounding the legislative session in Tallahassee. Once you sign up you will be sent a text message from Pat Emmert, the President, informing you of an action or an activity you need to be aware of.
For all those that want to sign up the process is very simple.
Send a text to the phone number, 954-204-3698 with the phrase corresponding to your county:
@martincty
@stlucie
@okeechobee
@IRcounty
@palmbeach
@pbtcmember
Be mindful of the spelling. Chose the location you are in and send that phrase to the number. So if you are from St. Lucie County, you would text the phrase “@stlucie” to the number and you will receive updates. If you sign up by county we can inform you of area specific events and not just the whole CLC. So again if you are in Palm Beach County text the words “@palmbeach” and you will receive information relating to you.
Thank you for your participation.
Rodney Statham
Zone 4 Coordinator
850-567-6607
Posted April 17, 2013
Teachers mount legal challenge to new evaluation system
When the state began evaluating teachers based on student test scores last year, Bethann Brooks watched her performance rating slip from “highly effective” to “effective.” Brooks was baffled. She teaches health science to juniors and seniors at Central High in Brooksville. But her evaluation was based on reading test scores tallied on freshmen and sophomores.
“I don’t even know any freshmen,” Brooks said. “It doesn’t make any sense.” Brooks and six other Florida teachers, with the help of the state and national teachers’ unions, are suing state Education Commissioner Tony Bennett and the state Board of Education for deploying what they consider to be an unfair evaluation system.
Continue reading →
Posted April 18, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Florida school superintendents complain about pay law
Superintendents expressed frustration Wednesday with the state’s teacher evaluation law during a meeting with Gov. Rick Scott a day after teachers filed suit in federal court to overturn the law.
Scott himself endorsed trying to fix the provision attacked by the lawsuit, part of a long-running dispute between the state and teachers over an effort to implement performance pay.
The law, passed in 2011, aims to tie educators’ compensation more closely to their students’ achievements. But some teachers whose courses aren’t measured in state tests are seeing part of their pay based on the scores of students they don’t teach or the scores of their students in other subjects.
Continue reading →
Posted April 18, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Hernando teacher joins in federal lawsuit over evaluation system
How would you like to be evaluated based on someone else’s performance? Fair? You may not think so. That’s what many Florida teachers say is happening to them and soon that evaluation will show up in their paycheck.
A group of Florida teachers are taking the state to court. Seven teachers, including Bethann Brooks from Central High School in Brooksville, are suing the state’s education commissioner and the State Board of Education for what they say is an unfair system that violates their constitutional rights.
“It’s not evaluating my teaching ability, not evaluating how I teach, or areas I teach. It’s a flawed system,” says Brooks.
Continue reading →
Posted April 18, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Weatherford’s pension overhaul appears in jeopardy
With a little more than two weeks left in the Legislative session, Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford’s plan to overhaul the state’s pension fund appears in doubt.
Since becoming speaker last year, Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, has declared pension overhaul one of his top goals.
He said the Florida Retirement System’s pension fund, which has about 1 million members, is a “ticking time bomb” in the state’s finances.
But he’s had trouble convincing union groups, Democrats and some senators of the urgency in revamping a $132 billion fund that is generally considered to be on safe fiscal ground.
On Wednesday, Weatherford met with Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-New Port Richey, to discuss the status of negotiations in the Senate. Simpson, who is sponsoring the Senate version of the pension overhaul, said afterward they were far from agreement.
Continue reading →
Posted April 19, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
A reader sent this comment:
“I work at a cyber charter. It is ironic that the administrators at these charters make us work twelve hours a day doing inane busy work, and yet the quality of education is much worse than in public schools.
I just got home from doing state testing. At one point during the day one of the third graders raised his hand to get my attention, he had just finished the multiple choice section and was stuck on the first open-ended question. He asked me what he was supposed to do. I just told him to answer the question, we are not allowed to do much more.
After he stared at the page for fifteen minutes one of the other teachers went over to give him some encouragement and get him working. He still just stared at the page. After about an hour of this we realized that he couldn’t read or write. The other teacher told him to skip the open-ended questions and move on to the next section. In the next thirty minutes, before we noticed, he completed the next three sections.
That should have taken him 3 to 4 hours. He was just acting like he was reading the questions then filling in random bubbles. This is the only face time we will get with them all year. Not enough time to do much of anything. I wonder what will happen to this kid.
I would love a job teaching in the city. I have tried for the past three years to get a job in an inner city public school, but they are too busy firing teachers and closing buildings. They are not hiring anyone because they are losing too much money to the charters.”
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/04/19/teacher-report-from-inside-a-cyber-charter/
Posted April 24, 2013
From FEA news clips:
New provisions added to teacher evaluation bill
Sen. Anitere Flores’s pitch to tweak the state’s teacher-evaluation model now includes language that prevents students from having low-performing teachers for two consecutive years.
Sound familiar? There’s similar wording in the controversial parent trigger bill.
Flores, a Miami Republican, said Tuesday that she was OK with the addition because she wants the “important provision” to pass, regardless of what happens with the trigger. Almost like a back up plan? “Exactly,” she said.
Continue reading →
Posted April 24, 2013
From FEA news clips
Parent trigger OK’d by Senate panel; amendment may be altered
The Senate appropriations committee voted Tuesday to approve the contentious “parent trigger” bill. But Sen. David Simmons’ amendment — which made the bill more palatable to some critics — may be altered when the bill hits the Senate floor, said Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, the bill’s sponsor.
The bill aims to give parents more say in the fate of a struggling school. Simmons, a Maitland Republican, proposed that parents still decide, by petition, which “turnaround” option they want for the school.
But his amendment, adopted April 11, would leave the final decision to the local school board. Stargel’s original bill, like the version the House has already passed, leaves the final say to the State Board of Education.
Continue reading →
Posted April 24, 2013
From FEA news clips
Prof: Standardized testing creates “toxic environment” in schools
With standardized testing finally coming to an end in most districts, schools across the nation are exhaling a collective breath of relief. After weeks of rigorous test preparation, anxiety-inducing practice, pep rallies and other contrived motivational activities, teachers and students are finally being liberated from the standardized testing rituals that have become an annual rite of passage each spring.
To Southeastern Louisiana University Education Professor James Kirylo, standardized testing has facilitated “an incredibly toxic environment in our schools and in our discourse about education, ultimately turning schools from learning centers to testing factories.”
That emphasis on standardized testing has corrupted the focus on learning, he added, turning school-aged children into “experimental pawns.”
Continue reading →
Posted April 29, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Senate, House agree on details of teacher pay raises
The House and Senate have firmed up the details of the closely watched teacher pay raises. Under the compromise language, the salary increases will go to more than just classroom teachers.
“School district and charter school classroom teachers, guidance counselors, social workers, psychologists, librarians, principals and assistant principals” will all be eligible. The raises must be at least $2,500 for employees evaulated as “effective” and up to $3,500 for employees evaluated as “highly effective.”
Continue reading →
Posted April 29, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
In a terrific opinion piece that was prominently featured in the Sunday New York Times, Sean Reardon of Stanford University wrote that the gap between the children of the rich and the children of the poor has grown by 40% in the past 30 years.
Reardon puts to rest virtually every reformer myth: schools don’t cause inequality; schools don’t cure inequality: the achievement gap(s) begin before the first day of school. Stop blaming schools for conditions beyond their control. Poverty matters.
Continue reading →
Posted April 30, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Questions follow in the wake of teacher raises
With $480 million included in the state budget for teacher raises, Gov. Rick Scott declared victory on his top priority heading into the legislative session. “All teachers have the opportunity to get a pay raise. We’re going to give flexibility to the school districts,” Scott said Monday. “This is a victory for our students and our teachers.”
But the state’s teachers union Monday started questioning the specifics of the plan House and Senate budget negotiators agreed to Sunday night. Teachers and other instructional school employees would be eligible to receive raises in June 2014 based on evaluation systems developed by their school districts.
Continue reading →
Posted April 30, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Open memo to Rick Scott: Veto entire education budget
Gov. Rick Scott declared victory Monday. But he didn’t win, and neither did Florida’s teachers. Senate and House leaders agreed over the weekend to spend $480 million to raise some of the nation’s lowest teacher salaries as Scott proposed.
But the pay raise is tied to pay-for-performance plans not yet in effect in most school districts. That’s not the across-the-board increase Scott has sought for months.
Teachers won’t see any more money in their paychecks until the end of the next school year in June 2014, making them the only group of public employees who are not guaranteed a pay increase in the new budget.
Continue reading →
Posted April 30, 2013
From FEA news clips:
“Grass roots” support hurts credibility of parent trigger backers
Maybe they got greedy. Maybe they were too cocky. Maybe they just didn’t think anyone was paying attention. No matter the explanation, supporters of a parent trigger law went one step too far when they produced a petition riddled with inconsistencies and doubt.
The petition was supposed to prove this pro-charter school legislation had grass roots support among parents, but instead it highlighted what critics have been saying all along: This law is about pushing Jeb Bush’s education agenda, and little else.
Continue reading →
Posted April 30, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
This morning I went to hear Randi Weingarten speak to a major group of business and civic leaders in New York City. Present also were the state’s education leaders, including Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch as well as College Board President (and Common Core architect) David Coleman.
Randi praised the Common Core as the most important innovation in education in our generation, but warned that it would fail unless there is time and support for proper implementation: professional development, curriculum, materials, collaboration, field testing, etc.
New York State and City plunged right into testing without adequate preparation. Randi predicted that Common Core was doomed unless there was enough time to do it right. She urged the importance of a field test. She suggested to the business leaders that none of them would roll out a new product without field testing.
Continue reading →
Posted April 30, 2013
| Ask Speaker Weatherford to Fix the Salary Increase Budget Provisio
Since Sunday night we have been working with the Governor in an attempt to modify the teacher salary proviso language. This is not over yet.
We are working to ensure that this money is not only distributed as early as possible in the next school year, but gives locals the maximum flexibility possible. Please remember that the budget also includes a 6% increase in the FEFP and other salary dollars for teachers and ESPs.
We will keep you updated as the situation develops. Nothing has passed yet and we should not skip a step in the legislative process and jump to reactionary efforts.
Your help is needed. Please call Speaker Will Weatherford at 850-717-5000. Ask him to change the proviso language so teachers and ESPs can be rewarded for their outstanding performance at the beginning of the budget year.
Andy Ford, President
Florida Education Association
NEA, AFT, AFL-CIO
850.224.1953
http://feaweb.org
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Florida Education Association
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Posted May 1, 2013
From FEA news clips:
For second consecutive year, parent trigger bill dies on tie vote
The controversial “parent trigger” bill died a dramatic legislative death Tuesday the same way it did last year: in a surprise tie vote in the Florida Senate during the final week of session.
“The second time is just as sweet,” said Florida Education Association President Andy Ford, who helped lead the charge against the proposal. “I’m happy that the Legislature stepped up and did what’s right for the state of Florida.”
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, would have let parents demand major changes at failing public schools, including having the school transformed into a charter school.
Continue reading →
Posted May 1, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Teachers may not have to wait until 2014 for raises
Teachers may not have to wait to get performance-based raises included in the state budget, according to Senate President Don Gaetz.
Gov. Rick Scott had wanted $2,500 across-the-board pay raises for teachers. House and Senate budget leaders this weekend agreed to $480 million for raises but with some limitations.
Teachers graded “effective” will be eligible for a $2,500 pay raise, beginning in June 2014. Those rated “highly effective” would be eligible for $3,500.
Continue reading →
Posted May 1, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Pension bill dies in Senate
After months of calling pension reform a top priority in his inaugural year as Florida House speaker, Will Weatherford could do nothing Tuesday as his plan went down to defeat in the Senate.
A third of Senate Republicans joined Democrats in voting 22-18 against an amendment that would have banned new state workers, teachers and county workers from joining the state’s $132 billion pension system, and steer them instead toward private, 401(k)-style investment plans, shifting the risk from taxpayers to workers.
“One of the reasons they work for government is not for the salary,” said Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater. “They haven’t had raises in six or seven years. It’s for the pension and if we want to continue to have the quality of employees that we have, we need to continue to offer that pension.”
Continue reading →
Posted May 1, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
The Bush-Obama education policies have led to a destructive overemphasis on testing. The very nature of schooling is changed for the worse when higher scores become the goal of education. As we lose sight of the true purpose of education, we lose many fine educators who will not abandon their principals. Here is one whom we have lost due to misguided federal policy.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/01/principal-i-quit/
Posted May 2, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Teacher raises may kick in this year – not 2014
Florida’s teachers could get raises as soon as this summer under a revised budget agreement state lawmakers hammered out Wednesday.
The change means school employees won’t have to wait until June 2014 for a pay hike, as legislative leaders had decided earlier in the week. The latest agreement allows for the $480 million earmarked for school employee raises to be doled out as soon as local school districts and their unions decide how to divvy up the money based on student performance.
“This is a step in the right direction,” said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association.
Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie said it’s a good thing the raises can be given sooner, but he warned teachers not to expect the $2,500 and $3,500 raises being mentioned in Tallahassee.
“The dollars aren’t going to meet the expectations that have been set,” Runcie said. Besides the other instructional employees the Legislature added into the mix, Runcie said he still doesn’t know if raises for charter school teachers will also have to come out of the $47 million the district expects to receive.
Continue reading →
Posted May 2, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Virtual schools report uncovers underperforming schools
In the last decade, although virtual schools have expanded rapidly there is little data to justify their growth.
Continue reading →
Posted May 3, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
The corporate reform movement has been bashing teachers and public education without let-up for the past several years. The bashing became super-charged after the introduction of Race to the Top in 2009, because it explicitly blames teachers for low test scores despite evidence to the contrary.
The “reformers” claim they want “great teachers” in every classroom, and the way to do it is to fire teachers whose students get low scores, to close schools with low scores, and to deny teachers the right to due process. This is their formula, and they are sticking to it even though no other nation in the world has launched a vendetta against the teaching profession and public schools.
Now the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing reports a sharp decline in the number of people who want to teach.
Teresa Watanabe writes that:
” Interest in teaching is steadily dropping in California, with the number of educators earning a teaching credential dipping by 12% last year — marking the eighth straight annual decline.
Continue reading →
Posted May 2, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Valerie Strauss does an excellent job of deconstructing the disaster of Obama’s education policy.
Remember when candidate Obama in 2008 spoke of hope and change. That encouraged many educators to believe that No Child Left Behind would be ended, tossed into the dustbin of history, where it belongs.
Sadly, President Obama built his Race to the Top right on the flawed foundation of NCLB, and made teaching to the test a necessity.
As the for-profit charters proliferated, he said nothing.
As radical governors destroyed collective bargaining and teacher due process, he said nothing.
As cyber charters grew, garnering huge profits but terrible education, he said nothing.
As vouchers spread, he said nothing.
As privatization accelerated, he said nothing.
The very idea of a “race to the top” refutes the principle of equality of educational opportunity.
Continue reading →
Posted May 3, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Teachers’ lawsuit against merit pay law is dismissed
A lawsuit by Florida’s teachers union over the merit-pay law was dismissed Thursday, with a circuit judge ruling the sweeping 2011 law did not violate teachers’ constitutional rights.
Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper sided with state officials and shut down the lawsuit filed by the Florida Education Association in his ruling issued Thursday.
Cooper wrote that the merit-pay law does not prohibit collective bargaining and, therefore, does not infringe on teachers’ collective bargaining rights, as spelled out in the Florida Constitution.
The lawsuit, filed in September 2011, contended that the new law — which overhauled how Florida teachers are to be evaluated, paid and promoted — brought about changes that “collide” with that bargaining right.
“We’re discouraged that the court ruled against FEA members,” said Andy Ford, the union’s president, in a statement. “But there’s nothing in the ruling that prevents us from going to court in the future when specific aspects of SB 736 impairs our members’ collective bargaining rights. We believe that this has occurred already and will continue to occur throughout the state as this flawed law is implemented.”
Continue reading →
Posted May 4, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
State testing was disrupted by major computer breakdowns in Indiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Minnesota.
All 46 states and D.C. are supposed to administer Common Core assessments online by 2014-15.
Maybe the corporations will solve the technological problems by then. Maybe states will come up with the money to pay for enough computers by then. Maybe students will figure out how to hack into the assessments by then.
All sorts of surprising and unpredictable things happen when big business and big government decide to take the work of humans out of human hands.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/04/online-testing-broke-down-in-several-states/
Posted May 3, 2013
From FEA news clips
Amendment on Florida House bill targets “unsatisfactory” teachers
Two days after the Florida Senate killed the parent trigger bill, one of the proposal’s more controversial provisions found new life in the Florida House. The language, which would prevent students from being assigned to “unsatisfactory” teachers for two consecutive years, was tacked onto a bill that would hold charter schools more accountable for their management and finances. The House approved the amendment, and then the larger proposal, in a pair of party-lines votes Thursday.
HB 7009 is now headed to Gov. Rick Scott. Earlier in the week, the upper chamber defeated the divisive parent trigger, which would have allowed parents to demand major changes at failing public schools. But Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, was working to protect a less-discussed provision of the bill.
Continue reading →
Posted May 3, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Responding to a complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. Department of Justice warned voucher schools in Milwaukee to stop excluding, counseling out, or otherwise discriminating against students with disabilities.
“The state cannot, by delegating the education function to private voucher schools, place students beyond the reach of the federal laws that require Wisconsin to eliminate disability discrimination in its administration of public programs,” DOJ officials wrote in the letter to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Tony Evers.
Continue reading →
Posted May 6, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Legislature wraps up 2013 session with bipartisan tone
The Florida Legislature concluded its 2013 session Friday in a burst of bipartisanship, taking advantage of a resurgent economy to overwhelmingly pass the biggest budget in history and giving pay raises to state workers for the first time in seven years.
On the final day, lawmakers also expanded early voting sites, carved out a nursing home for the influential developer of the Villages retirement community and gave families a three-day back-to-school sales tax holiday in August.
They also rejected a heavily lobbied effort by the Miami Dolphins to seek voter-approved tax subsidies for Sun Life Stadium. As the session adjourned sine die at 7:16 p.m., House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, heartily hugged in a crowded Capitol rotunda and noted how much more smoothly the session ended than in the past couple of years.
“The age of acrimony between the House and the Senate is over,” Gaetz proclaimed to loud applause. Weatherford and Gaetz celebrated passage of higher ethical standards for public officials, including limits on lobbying by former lawmakers and on patronage jobs they can take while in office.
They championed changes to campaign laws, including higher contribution limits for candidates, but Weatherford fell short of his goal of moving public employees from the state’s traditional pension plan to 401(k)-style retirement accounts.
Continue reading →
Posted May 6, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Teachers support Common Core and moratorium on stakes
Three-quarters of public school teachers surveyed support the Common Core State Standards, yet just 27 percent said their district has provided them with the tools and resources necessary to teach the standards, according to the results of a new AFT poll.
The AFT surveyed 800 kindergarten- through 12th-grade teachers on the Common Core State Standards for math and English language arts, which 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted. At least two states — Kentucky and New York — already have given Common Core-aligned assessments before they had fully implemented the standards.
Continue reading →
Posted May 6, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Education leaders recommend shift in NEA policy on digital learning
http://www.nea.org/home/55434.htm
Posted May 6, 2013
From FEA news clips:
How the Finnish school system outshines U.S. education
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/january/finnish-schools-reform-012012.html
Posted May 6, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
You won’t find the answer to that question in this exchange but you will see some sharply worded responses to David Greene, who has mentored many TFA recruits.
Greene has the somewhat antiquated (but true) belief that we need teachers who see teaching as a career. As he writes, “Teaching must be a lifelong career worthy of those we want to teach.”
It is odd that there are so many (including Arne Duncan and the far-right Walton Foundation) who see TFA as a systemic answer to the question. Duncan gave TFA $50 million. Walton gave them $49.5 million.
And yet in its 20+ year history, TFA has produced less than 30,000 alumi. Most of them are no longer in classrooms. Its most prominent graduates are demanding privatization of public education: Michelle Rhee, John White in Louisiana, Kevin Huffman in Tennessee.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/05/what-makes-a-great-teacher/
Posted May 7, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
In this video of 23 minutes, you will get a synopsis of why value-added modeling doesn’t work.
The video is a preview of a collection of research papers that will be available online in a few months, and published in 2014 by Teachers College Press in 2014.
The more we learn about the real consequences of VAM, the more we understand that it has perverse consequences.
We know already that it puts too much emphasis on test scores, and we saw what that produced in Atlanta, DC, El Paso, and other districts.
We know it narrows the curriculum, as only the tested subjects count.
We know it encourages teaching to the test.
We know that it is unstable and unreliable.
We know that good teachers may get low ratings because they teach kids who have high needs.
We know that the composition of the class has a greater effect on the teacher’s rating than the teacher’s “quality.”
We know that the test scores are affected by many factors, not just what the teacher does.
When the papers are available, I will post a link.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/07/why-vam-doesnt-work-a-short-tutorial/
Posted May 7, 2013
Teachers who are losing their positions at a particular school, (Excess) or teachers who are being UAT (Unit Adjusted Transfer) should go on-line and complete the IPP Form (Instructional Placement Preference Form); this form must be completed on line and sent to Tim Kubrick, Human Resources Manager, on May 21, 2013.
It is very important to choose the schools you have preference for first, and your second preference should follow.
Failure to complete the form properly, or not at all, can result in a placement you are very dissatisfied with; and a placement that might be in the area you are willing to travel. This can happen with the completion of the form.
Please consider your area of certification, the area in which you live before making your selection. In order words consider the distance you will have to travel if you live in the North, and you place a position that is located in the South area.
Posted May 7, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
This teacher realized that she could not be free to think for herself until she stopped internalizing and accepting the reproaches of the corporate reformers. She was free when she realized that her training and experience as an educator mattered. She was free when she realized that when she did not attain perfection every day, it was not her fault.
She wrote:
“Can’t speak for everyone, but the way it worked for me was this way… initially, there was this vague sense of confusion when the NCLB legislation went through. “How can we defy the Bell Curve?” I asked myself. I chuckled thinking, “Ha, just wait ’til ‘they’ figure out that it can’t be done!” I was teaching special education at the time.
Continue reading →
Posted May 7, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Teacher pay hurt by recession, report says (Dennis Van Roekel quoted)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/education/teacher-pay-hurt-by-recession-report-says.html
Posted May 8, 2013
From FEA news clips:
2013 session summary: Education
http://www.thefloridacurrent.com/article.cfm?id=32744167
Posted May 8, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
John Merrow deserves enormous praise for his dogged investigative journalism in pursuing the allegations of widespread cheating in the DC public schools during the tenure of Michelle Rhee.
Perhaps even more impressive is that he recognized his own error in his past coverage, which had presented Rhee in a heroic light. Merrow, by his account, ran a dozen PBS segments on Rhee, which were very positive. It was only towards the end of his last story that he began to dig deeper, especially after he heard the story of Adell Cothorne. Cothorne was the principal at Noyes campus who says she walked in on a grade-changing meeting of staff; she reported it at once to central headquarters. In no time, she was a pariah. Merrow wanted to know why.
Kudos to John Merrow.
Here is a compilation of his reports: REPORTING ABOUT MICHELLE RHEE.
Continue reading →
Posted May 8, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Earlier I posted President Obama’s proclamation on National Charter School Week, which happens to coincide with Teacher Appreciation Week.
A charter school teacher responded with this comment:
“I’ve been an educator in Columbus, Ohio since university. In my 8th year, I currently earn 34,000 before taxes at a 9-12 charter school. I can be fired at any time. I have no tenure, no union, and scarce resources to teach. I also act as a librarian, though I wear no such title nor do I earn pay for wearing this hat. Students come in and depart through a revolving door of enrollment procedures I am not privy to. I’ve seen two administrators at two different charter schools resign because they were stealing. One continues his work at another charter in the city. My family needs the money I earn, so I must teach, but I just pray a public school gives me a chance.”
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/08/a-teacher-responds-to-obama-proclamation-on-charter-school-week/
Posted May 8, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
A student in a gifted program wrote this piercing analysis of the state tests he and his classmates just endured.
The tests he took had many brand names and registered trademarks. He realized this is product placement.
He wrote:
“Non-fictional passages in the test I took included an article about robots, where the brands IBM™, Lego®, FIFA® and Mindstorms™ popped up, each explained with a footnote. I cannot speak for all test takers, but I found the trademark references and their associated footnotes very distracting and troubling.
Continue reading →
Posted May 8, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Brian Ford, teacher and author, writes in a comment, responding to John Merrow’s investigative reporting:
It was John Merrow’s interview with Michelle Rhee, when she was still in charge of DCPS, that first raised my hackles. She said, “Pressure is good.” It was a bit like two decades ago, when Gordon Gekko declared, ‘Greed is good.’ In both cases the statement is presented as the hard, unvarnished truth that people are unwilling to accept because they are too politely unrealistic. That the declaration of the goodness of pressure and greed also serves the interest of the speaker is left unsaid.
That was the goal of Michelle Rhee and the others:
Creating A System Of Pressure –
–a system of pressure that would have people teaching children doubt themselves and blame themselves for things over which they had no control
–a system of pressure that would put more power into the hands of managers, just as it has in the university system
–a system of pressure that would come down on people who worked everyday, that would justify the accumulation of wealth by a few who the market selected and who our political system would not touch
Continue reading →
Posted May 9, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
In this thoughtful article, Charles Taylor Kerchner of Claremont Graduate University explains that Michelle Rhee’s belief in using test scores to reward and punish teachers is guaranteed to produce adverse consequences like cheating.
Her reliance on test scores plus her “fear-based management style” is the Achilles’ heel of reform policy, he says.
“This is the lesson of organizational history, not an isolated “bad judgment” aberration. It’s about more than school test scores in the District of Columbia, Atlanta, Texas or even Rhee’s possibly outsized claims of how well her students did during the three years she taught school in Baltimore. The policies Rhee endorses create bad incentives. Bad incentives lead to disastrous results. They certainly played a part in the largest business collapses in recent history: Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers and the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.”
Continue reading →
Posted May 9, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Rifts deepen over direction of U.S. education policy
In statehouses and cities across the country, battles are raging over the direction of education policy—from the standards that will shape what students learn to how test results will be used to judge a teacher’s performance.
Students and teachers, in passive resistance, are refusing to take and give standardized tests. Protesters have marched to the White House over what they see as the privatization of the nation’s schools.
Continue reading →
Posted May 9, 2013
From FEA news clips:
ALEC’s report card receives failing marks
Ranking states is a popular tool for education advocacy groups, with the goal of advancing a policy agenda based on ideologically driven pre-packaged reforms.
These report cards receive considerable media attention, although few reflect research-based evidence on the efficacy of particular polices.
The 18th edition of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Report Card on American Education: Ranking State K-12 Performance, Progress, and Reform is no different according to an academic review.
Christopher Lubienski, associate professor of education policy and Director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the University of Illinois, and T. Jameson Brewer, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois, reviewed ALEC’s Report Card for the Think Twice think tank review project.
Lubienski and Brewer find that ALEC draws its grades exclusively not from research organizations, but from like-minded market-orientated advocacy organizations. “Furthermore, when studies are highlighted in this report, they do not represent the peer-reviewed research on a given issue, are often of extremely poor quality, and generally unsuited for supporting their claim.”
http://www.greatlakescenter.org/docs/Think_Twice/TT_Lubienski_StateReportCard.pdf
Posted May 10, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Buena Vista schools in Michigan shut down abruptly in the face of a fiscal crisis, even though the teachers in the district offered to work for free.
There is no indication that Governor Rick Snyder will do anything to help the district.
In most states, the state government is responsible to be sure that all children have access to public education. Apparently not in Michigan.
Continue reading →
Posted May 10, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Crazy Crawfish here writes a brilliant post about The Great Accountability Scam.
He is writing about Louisiana and the Recovery School District, but what he describes applies with equal force to every “reform” scheme in every state and even to Race to the Top.
What he explains is the destructive and failed theory of action that is the very heart of the corporate reform movement.
It goes like this: use test scores to fire teachers, fire principals, close schools, and shatter communities. Create a swath of destruction that falls hardest on poor children, their families and communities. Cover your tracks by declaring success where none exists.
His prime example in this case is Louisiana’s Recovery School District. It has been recognized in the media as a national model, but it is a failed experiment that has benefited its promoters, not students.
Continue reading →
Posted May 10, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, explains here why she supports the Common Core Standards and why she believes there should be a moratorium upon the high stakes attached to the testing until teachers have had enough time to master them and students have had the opportunity to learn them.
Randi writes:
It’s no secret that the AFT is a big supporter of the Common Core State Standards. We believe these standards have the ability to transform the DNA of teaching and learning to ensure that ALL children, regardless of where they live, have the critical thinking, problems solving and teamwork skills and experience they need to succeed in their careers, at college and in life.
Continue reading →
Posted May 10, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
At a panel discussion in New York City, Bridgeport Superintendent Paul Vallas made a startling admission. He said that the efforts to develop a teacher evaluation metric was a huge mess and that no one understands it.
He said:
“The Bridgeport, Conn. superintendent — who has served stints in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans and earned a reputation as a turnaround consultant for struggling districts with big budget gaps — said reforms he backed were at risk of collapsing “under the weight of how complicated we’re making it.”
Continue reading →
Posted May 10, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Here is the absurd consequence of the terrible ideas that have dominated education policy in the US. for the past 20 or so years.
The governor and legislators in Michigan have stripped more than a billion dollars from the public schools even as they better test scores. Now, as they plan to cut public school budgets even more, they want to tie teachers’ salaries to test scores.
The fact that test-based incentive have failed and failed and failed does not have any bearing on the state’s policymakers. No doubt they can claim they are marching in step with Arne Duncan, who believes that test scores must be a significant part of teacher evaluation.
The formula of slash and burn is not good for children, not good for schools, and not good for the quality of education. The tests will rule every decision. I wonder how many of the legislators could pass the tests that will determine the reputations and lives of teachers.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/10/michigan-formula-defund-the-schools-then-tie-teacher-pay-to-scores/
Posted May 10, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
David Kirp, professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of “Improbable Scholars,” describes here the ruinous consequences of high-stakes testing.
Everything associated with the corporate reform movement is failing. How much longer will the hedge fund managers and the federal government continue to fund failing strategies?
He begins:
“It’s a terrible time for advocates of market-driven reform in public education. For more than a decade, their strategy—which makes teachers’ careers turn on student gains in reading and math tests, and promotes competition through charter schools and vouchers—has been the dominant policy mantra. But now the cracks are showing. That’s a good thing because this isn’t a proven—or even a promising—way to make schools better.
Continue reading →
Posted May 10, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Delay teacher evaluation system until judge rules on union lawsuit
A Leon County Circuit Court judge has ruled that the teacher evaluations ordered up in 2011 by Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature do not violate the Florida Constitution.
So now they’re legal, but they’re still absurd.
Continue reading →
Posted May 10, 2013
From FEA news clips:
Support grows for moratorium on Common Core stakes
Growing numbers of teachers and parents across the country are very much in favor of the Common Core State Standards and want the implementation of these standards done right.
As a result, they are calling on federal and state officials to put the brakes on the high stakes associated with Common Core assessments until the new standards are properly implemented and field-tested.
“The momentum is building to step on the accelerator of quality implementation, and put the brakes on the stakes,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said Thursday during a visit to the Oyler School in Cincinnati.
Continue reading →
Posted May 11. 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Merit pay is the idea that never works and never dies. It has been tried in the schools for nearly a century and has never made a difference, other than to demoralize teachers and destroy collaboration.
This reader uses an analogy to show why merit pay always fails:
Can you imagine offering a surgeon a bonus if he does his absolute best on your surgery?
How about offering your airline pilot a bonus for landing safely?
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/11/on-merit-pay/
Posted May 11, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
This is a story that may elicit a gasp from you. That’s what it did to me. Arne Duncan was asked about the breakdown of the computer assessments in Indiana. He responded with a brief soliloquy on how businesses fail and succeed, and why we cannot go back to the olden days of pencil and paper (which no one suggested). Be sure to read the excellent comments that follow the linked articles.
And ask yourself what happens if and when hackers tamper with the tests and the scores.
A reader sent this not-to-be-missed article:
This is our education CEO speaking on the fact that kids in Indiana are on Week Two of a frustrating, time-wasting adventure in standardized testing:
Continue reading →
Posted May 12, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Angie Sullivan, a kindergarten teacher in Las Vegas, sent the following message to members of the Nevada legislature to mark Teacher Appreciation Day:
It’s been a long, long time since my district has had positive educational leadership.
I watched this short video of Interim Superintendent Skorkowsky – and I wept. Something unusual – to NOT receive abuse and berating – but instead a positive uplifting message. I weep because my heart is breaking for my profession that is being destroyed – and not being replaced with anything of value to kids.
I don’t know when the “witch hunts” for the infamous “bad teacher” started but it’s now become harrassment for everyone.
I don’t know when it became sport to hurt women who teach people to read.
I don’t know when everyone became convinced that testing is teaching and. . . now there is NO MORE teaching. . . only testing.
I don’t know when we started paying “reformers” without research to “fix-it-up-chappie” our schools instead of being willing to pay for retirement for professionals who were dedicated for decades.
Continue reading →
Posted May 12, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
I posted a few days ago about a panel discussion in New York City where Paul Vallas made this startling statement: “We’re losing the communications game because we don’t have a good message to communicate.”
He spoke bluntly of the “testing industrial complex.”
Here Valerie Strauss briefly reviews Vallas’ role in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, where testing and privatization were key elements of his reforms. It is difficult to see any of those districts today as a template for reform of the nation’s schools. Chicago is in dire straits, As is Philadelphia, and the only thing sustaining the myth of New Orleans is a massive disinformation campaign by the funders of privatization.
I know Paul Vallas and there was a time about a decade ago when I thought he was the most promising leader of school reform in the nation. I was impressed by his energy and his quick intellect.
Because he is so smart, I hold out hope that he might be the first of the “reform” A-team to see the light, as I did around 2005.
By his remarks at the forum cited in the links, he recognizes that teacher evaluation by formula is a mess. From his Philadelphia experience he may have learned that privatization is no solution. He inaugurated the nation’s most extensive experiment in privatization a decade ago, and it failed.
Now Vallas has another chance to get it right, this time in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a small district compared to his previous assignments.
Will he lead the way away from the failed status quo? Will he be first to renounce the failed status quo?
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/12/paul-vallas-nixon-to-china-moment/
Posted May 12, 2012
From Diane Ravitch:
A teacher writes to explain how life in the classroom differs from his earlier life in another field:
I worked in industry for 15 years before switching careers and moving into education. I can honestly say I work harder as a teacher than I did in my job in the communications industry.
I do make comparable pay to my previous job now although it has taken 20 years of service to do it. There were some lean years when I started as an educator. I get paid for 9 months of work and it gets spread out over 12 months. I have yet to actually see “3 months” off. I may, if lucky, squeeze about 4-5 weeks off where I’m not responsible for something directly related to teaching or keeping my professional certification so I can keep my job.
That’s what I had in my previous job after 15 years. I could take my vacations when I wanted to then. I can only take my vacations between mid June and mid August now. I had a health plan that I paid into in my previous job that was very similar to the one I have at my current school. I had a retirement account through a large investment company which I paid into and the employer matched it. I was evaluated once per year in my previous job and had the option to join a union but was not required. I signed a contract each year which I had to negotiate with my immediate superior and the corporate lawyers. That was not easy and I got eaten alive on a few occasions by their New York lawyers. I was evaluated by my superior strictly on my performance in my job and how he as a professional in the same field thought I did.
If I had to base my pay and job security on one test given to a group of 7th and 8th graders who knew nothing about how I did my job, I would have left sooner. I watch my students take some of the state mandated tests and cringe when I see them drawing dot to dot puzzles on a scantron or sleeping during a timed portion of the test. That’s supposed to be a fair evaluation of my performance? No parent, no adminstrator, no other teacher will see that student’s indifference because I’m the one proctoring the test and I can’t influence them in my room while they are testing. They will only see the final numbers or the media spin on the scores.
Continue reading →
Posted May 13, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a study of Florida’s accountability system–the one that Jeb Bush brags about–and concludes that the system promotes behavior to game the system. Schools are assigning children to categories where they will not lower the school’s letter grade.
Here is a succinct summary of the paper, from the Wall Street Journal blog:
“The way some schools are being held to account for student performance can corrupt how these institutions seek to achieve the standards, a new paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York warns.
“The bank’s researchers took at look at what happened among some schools in Florida around the turn of the millennium. What they found was alarming.
“Analysts Rajashri Chakrabarti and Noah Schwartz found evidence some Sunshine State schools deliberately moved underperforming students into exempt categories in order to have those students not drag down the performance of the school as a whole.”
This, of course, has nothing to do with improving education or addressing the needs of the children. It is all about meeting a target.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/13/surprise-florida-high-stakes-accountability-promotes-gaming-the-system/
Posted May 13, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
In a rare break from its established stance of applauding whatever Mayor Bloomberg’s Department of Education does, the New York Daily News published an editorial ridiculing both Pearson and the schools’ chancellor Dennis Walcott.
Only
Sat week the News had an editorial defending the Pearson Common Core tests, even though the vocabulary and content of the fifth grade exam that was available to the editors was age-inappropriate.
What seems to have moved the editors to high dudgeon was that Pearson made so many errors in scoring the high-stakes exams for preschoolers hoping to enter a kindergarten for gifted and talented.
A deeper question might have been to ask why there are G&T programs for 5-year-olds.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/13/ny-daily-news-rebukes-pearson-and-walcott/
Posted May 13, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
The school district of Buena Vista, Michigan, is out of money. The schools are closed for the year. The district will offer “skills camp” to students.
The state of Michigan, which has a responsibility to provide a free public education to all children, has abandoned the students and their schools. The town and the schools are predominantly poor and black. The town once thrived but started to die when the automobile industry collapsed. Nw those left behind have been betrayed by Governor Snyder.
The Congressman who represents Buena Vista is upset:
“The students of Buena Vista have a constitutional right to an education and deserve the same educational opportunities as other Michigan children, and that means being in a classroom full-time to complete their school year,” said Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democratic congressman who represents Buena Vista, on Monday. “I do not believe that a voluntary camp amounts to a proper education for the children of Buena Vista.”
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/13/michigan-officials-abandon-students-in-buena-vista/
Posted May 14, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Legislation is advancing in North Carolina that will harm the state’s underfunded public schools and strike a blow against its beleaguered teachers.
North Carolina is a right-to-work state, so there is no collective bargaining, and teachers have no voice in policy decisions about education.
Among the worst of the new bills is a proposal to fund a voucher/tax credit program, removing $90 million from public schools so that 1% of the state’s 1.5 million students may attend private and/or religious schools.
Another bill would strip away due process rights from teachers, so that teachers would have no right to a hearing if fired, no matter how many years of experience they have.
The new legislation would restrict eligibility for preschool, reducing the number of children who may enroll, and remove class size limits for some elementary grades.
Make no mistake (President Obama’s favorite expression, mine too): this legislation will save money in the short run but will cost the state far more in the long term. The Legislature is planning not only to harm public education, but to harm the children who benefit by being in preschool and in classes of reasonable size.
Continue reading →
Posted May 15, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
People often wonder if there is any district or state that is working to support children and to strengthen public education. In the age of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, it is difficult to find districts that manage to keep their focus on students instead of carrots and sticks.
But there are success stories.
One is Cincinnati. When I visited there a couple of years ago, I met with the community leaders working together in a collaboration called Strive. They used data to mark needs and progress on key indicators, not to fire educators and close schools. I saw impressive collaboration between the teachers’ union and other community agencies.
In this article, Greg Anrig explains why Cincinnati has taken a different course from the rest of the nation.
He explains:
“What can other urban school districts do to replicate these results, and move away from the highly confrontational reliance on market-based incentives that have dominated educational policymaking in recent years?
Continue reading →
Posted May 15, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Great post by Valerie Strauss. A succinct explanation of the most important problem facing American children today.
If we halved the child poverty rate, test scores would soar because children would arrive in school well fed, healthy, and ready to learn.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/15/the-most-important-problem-facing-american-children-today/
Posted May 15, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Wisconsin has always been a leader in K-12 public education because we have long valued the right of every child to receive a quality public education. The fundamental nature of our values is reflected in the State Constitution, which guarantees all children equal access to educational opportunity in our public schools. That constitutional right is now being systematically eroded and defunded. The research presented in this report shows that current fiscal policy and education funding are depriving our poorest students access to a sound public education. Public schools are not failing our children, Wisconsin legislators and policymakers are failing the public schools that serve our children.
Continue reading →
Posted May 16, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
In a victory for teachers who boycotted the MAP tests this year, the Seattle superintendent Jose Banda said that the leadership team in each high school could decide whether to take it. For other schools it remains mandatory.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/16/seattle-will-drop-map-test-for-high-schools/
Posted May 16, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
I posted earlier today about a new Xerox machine that is being marketed to “read” and grade student essays. Not to score bubble tests, but to grade essays. Granted, this is not a new idea. There are now different companies selling machines to grade student writing. I have seen demonstrations of this technology, and I can’t shake the feeling that this is not right.
Why? I am not opposed to technology. But here is the nub of my discomfort. I am a writer. The moment I realized I was a writer was when I discovered many years ago that I write for an audience. I think of my reader(s). If I am writing for a tabloid, I write in a certain style. If I am writing for the New York Times, I write in another way. If I am writing a letter to a family member, another style. If I am writing for a scholarly journal, something else. When I write for this blog, I have a voice different from the voice in my books. I don’t know how to write for a machine.
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Posted May 17, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Richard Rothstein recently gave a commencement address to the graduates of the Chicago Loyola School of Education.
What do you say to new teachers, embarking on their careers in these perilous times? What do you say to those who have chosen a profession that is under siege?
Rothstein is a deeply knowledgeable and fearless scholar. Read what he said.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/17/rothstein-advice-to-future-teachers/
Posted May 17, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
A reader from Houston suggests that we watch the PBS documentary on Houston’s Apollo program and watch the faces of the students:
He writes:
To see how many kids react to an overemphasis on testing, watch Dropout Nation. PBS Frontline’s Dropout Nation series featured HISD and its Apollo Program in its September broadcast. While there are some good things about Apollo-individulized tutors, more support staff, etc., it’s data driven focus contains the seed of its own destruction. Talking about tests all the time, doing test prep all the time, making kids take tests that they are not relevant to them and that they are not prepared for is wrong.
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Posted May 17, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Having studied the history of education for some decades, I have a built-in resistance to claims about the school of the future, particularly when it involves the end of schooling. Over many years, I have seen predictions about that Great Day when all children are self-motivated, all learning comes naturally, and instruction by adults becomes superfluous. The archetype of this idea was A. S. Neill’s “Summerhill,” which was a huge bestseller in the 1960s. But it was preceded by many other visions of schools without books, without tests, without classes, without teachers, without stress, without walls, without without without.
Here is the latest: a school in the Cloud, with Grannies to answer questions as self-motivated children use the Web to learn at their own speed, as they wish. The man behind this proposal won a $1 million TED prize for this idea.
What do you think?
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/17/is-the-school-of-the-future-in-the-cloud/
Posted May 17, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Parents and teachers in Concord, Massachusetts, are outraged over the firing of the teachers’ union leader, an 18-year teacher of third grade, allegedly for ineffectiveness.
“The catalyst for the protest was the decision by Thoreau Elementary School Principal Kelly Clough not to renew the contract of veteran third grade teacher and Concord Teachers Association President Merrie Najimy.
“Barbara Lehn has been a teacher with Concord’s school system for 25 years. She said she has known Najimy since she was hired 18 years ago. She said the idea that Najimy could have been found deficient in every single area of her evaluation as suspect and “laughable.”
“The evaluation system that exists has been misused and abused,” Lehn said. “It’s not because of her teaching, but because she is president of the Concord Teachers Association. … Merrie has been an exemplary teacher.”
Did it ever occur to any of the proponents of the new teacher evaluations that they could be used arbitrarily and capriciously?
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/17/concord-rebellion-stirring-over-dismissal-of-union-leader/
Posted May 17, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Peter DeWitt, principal of an elementary school in upstate New York, tries here to understand the contradictory messages sent out by Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the NY Board of Regents.
On one hand, she says that teachers should no longer teach to the test, but with the advent of Common Core, there is more testing than ever.
She says that testing is less important than ever as kids sit for hours of it.
The state plans to increase the stakes attached to the testing, but teachers should not teach to the test.
She says the Common Core will introduce a new era of critical thinking, which insults the teachers who have been doing exactly that for years.
Tisch will be honored by Teachers College, Columbia University, on May 21.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/17/peter-dewitt-does-chancellor-tisch-know-what-testing-is-doing-to-children/
Posted May 17, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
This article describes what a grass-roots rebellion looks like.
It describes a growing revolt against failed education policies.
It reviews the mounting protests by students, parents, teachers, school boards against senseless mandates.
It even shows clueless Secretary Duncan both embracing and not embracing the so-called “parent trigger” that was defeated twice by Florida’s parents.
This is how a revolution against the status quo begins.
With spontaneous actions by all affected.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/17/the-status-quo-begins-to-fall-apart/
Posted May 17, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that segregation of the races in public school was unconstitutional. At the time, segregation was the law in 17 states and many districts.
For years, the states where segregation was outlawed resisted the court decision. Their favorite ploy was school choice. They knew that school choice would preserve racial segregation because whites would choose to stay with whites, and blacks would be fearful of applying to white schools, where they would face a hostile climate, harassment, and even violence.
The Supreme Court and lower federal courts overturned the many strategies enacted to evade the necessity of desegregation.
But that was then, and this is now.
Now, billionaires proudly sponsor segregated schools. Now, cities and states authorize all-black, all-Hispanic, all-white charter schools without embarrassment.
The UCLA Civil Rights Project says that racial resegregation is on the rise, for blacks and Hispanics.
Continue reading →
Posted May 17, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
John Merrow has written a blistering critique of the Establishment’s cover-up of the cheating scandal in D.C.
The article he wrote exposing the cover up was rejected by a national magazine, unnamed.
When Merrow directly asked Duncan about the scandal, Duncan bobbed and weaved.
But Merrow reserves his greatest ire for the editorial writers at the Washington Post, who were cheerleaders for Michelle Rhee and who dismissed anyone who dared to criticize her.
Why? This is the newspaper that revealed Watergate.
What is the mysterious power of Michelle Rhee over the Washington Post editorial board?
Are they afraid of her?
Why?
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/17/john-merrow-shame-on-the-washington-post-for-refusing-to-investigate-dc-cheating-scandal/
Posted May 18, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
I have heard repeatedly in the past few years that teachers don’t want student teachers in their classrooms. The teachers are so focused on raising test scores that they can’t take the time to mentor the younger generation, and they are afraid to lose ground if they let a student teacher try a practice class. Consequently, the opportunities for the would-be teachers to get student teaching experience are closing up. This is not a problem for Teach for America, whose recruits get five weeks of training, but it is a huge problem for those planning a career as an educator and eager to get classroom experience before they enter into the profession.
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Posted May 18, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Deborah Meier has been blogging recently with Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Deb is known as a progressive, Mike as a conservative. Deb was one of the founders of the small schools movement and a leader of opposition to standardized testing through her involvement in Fairtest. Mike strongly supports standardized testing, charter schools, and competition a drivers of change.
In his previous post, Mike asked Deb whether she was part of the problem (because of her opposition to standardized testing and her general skepticism towards what is called “reform” today, I.e., No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top).
This is a good exchange. I wonder if they can bridge their differences.
Deborah answered here. I won’t begin to summarize what she said. Let me just say that she is at her best and what she wrote about children, about the shrinking middle class, and about what schools can and cannot do. Please take the time to read what she wrote.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/18/deborah-meier-am-i-part-of-the-problem-or-the-solution/
Posted May 18, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Larry Cuban says it’s all over for Michelle Rhee. She has become so radioactive that she has lost all credibility.
Despite all the publicity, she is on a downward trajectory, he says.
Soon, people will wonder who she was.
But he has an idea about how she can recoup her reputation.
Read here to find out how.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/18/larry-cuban-kiss-michelle-rhee-goodbye/
Posted May 19, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Carol Burris, chosen as principal of the year by her colleagues in New York State, has written a brilliant and frightening critique of the state’s ill-planned principal evaluation plan.
As you read her enter to the New York Board if Regents, you can’t help but wonder whether systems like this are intended to demoralize principals and to destroy public education.
What kind of inexperienced technocrats dream up such flawed and damaging schemes?
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/19/carol-burris-the-unintended-consequences-of-nys-principal-evaluations/
Posted May 19, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
What if you were a product of public schools and found yourself years later getting a graduate degree in business management at Oxford University? Your British friends are very taken with ideas like accountability and competition. Maybe they saw “Waiting for Superman” and they too want to close the achievement gap.
What would you tell them?
Susan Altman found herself in that situation and she explains it here. This is a young woman with a keen sense of values. She has had a good education.
This is how she begins the explanation:
“Data isn’t everything.
“Did anyone here get really fired up for practicing the GMATs? Would your 9 year old self have loved school if you practiced 3rd grade GMATs all day, every day? Of course not. Testing is miserable, uncreative and doesn’t inspire us to be lifelong learners.
“The education reform movement is driven by a vision of the world that isn’t grounded in the messy (and potentially wonderful) reality of education. Instead, these policies come from a world of numbers, data, and a deep, compulsive desire for statistics. Which is fine if you are running a business and profit is the only outcome. But education is not a business. Test scores are not currency. And doing well on a test does not serve as proxy measure for “received a high quality education.”
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/19/how-to-explain-reform-in-the-us-to-b-school-friends-at-oxford/
Posted May 19, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Uri Tresiman of the Dana Center at the University of Texas spoke to the annual NCTM conference about the true needs of American education.
This is an important speech in which he shows how shallow current reforms are and how deeply poverty affects children’s performance in school.
I intend to post this speech twice this week. It is that powerful.
I may post it more than twice.
It meant a lot to me because Dr. Treisman agreed with what I have been saying. We will not narrow the achievement gaps unless we act to reduce poverty. He does not say–nor do I–that schools don’t matter. We agree that schools and teachers matter very much. But so does poverty.
A few days ago, I wrote that if we halved the child poverty rate–now a scandalous 23%–then achievement would score. A faithful reader and blogger who works for a conservative think tank wrote offline to disagree with me. He said that we don’t know how to reduce child poverty, and he doubted that it would matter much even if we did. He countered that if we increased the number of charter schools, then achievement would soar.
I challenge him to watch Dr. Treisman’s speech. Pay particular attention to his evidence about the effects of charter schools.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/19/how-can-we-assure-equity-in-education/
Posted May 20, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
The writer of this article, Colin Woodard, recently won the George Polk award, one of the highest honors in journalism.
The article is bout a sordid effort to promote technology as a for-profit enterprise in Maine schools. To introduce a Maine virtual charter school, to require online courses for graduation, and to follow a script written not by educators but by lobbyists.
This is a classic. Don’t miss it.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/20/the-for-profit-scandal-in-maine/
Posted May 20, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
The NYC public is tired of Mayor Bloomberg’s policies of testing, school closings, and privatization. But for 12 years he has had the constant support of the city’s three major newspapers.
The editorialists have supported and cheered him at every turn.
But WOW, today the Néw York Times has an editorial today that agrees that the critics have a point. Will wonders never cease?!
Continue reading →
Posted May 20, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
This year the city of New York will pick a new Mayor, after 12 years of Michael Bloomberg.
For some reason, he thinks that his legacy will be his education “reforms,” but the voters don’t agree. The last Quinnipiac poll showed that only 22% of voters want his autocratic style of governing the schools to continue. The rest want some form of shared governance, where other elected officials have a voice in choosing the city’s school board, and the school board treats parents and the public with a modicum of respect.
Despite the constant trumpeting of the Bloomberg PR machine, voters understand that the city school system has not improved and that it is highly inequitable.
Continue reading →
Posted May 20, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Tennessee charters have learned the secret to high test scores: push out low-performing students right before testing time.
That way, the charter keeps the money, and the public school gets the low score.
This is not a closely guarded secret, but it usually fools the media and the politicians.
Here is one journalist–Dennis Ferrier at WSMV–who was not fooled:
“When it comes to the net loss of students this year, charter schools are the top eight losers of students.
“In fact, the only schools that have net losses of 10 to 33 percent are charter schools.”
The KIPP school in Nashville has an attrition rate of 18%.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/20/tennessee-charters-lose-struggling-students-before-state-tests/
Posted May 20, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
The Edwin F. Mandel Legal Clinic of the University of Chicago and a major law firm sued the Chicago Public Schools in federal court on behalf of students with disabilities and African American students. The closing of their schools, the lawsuit claims, has a damaging and disparate impact on these students.
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Posted May 20, 2013
From FEA:
Gov. Rick Scott Pens Budget: The Governor has signed the new $74.1 billion state budget into law, but vetoed nearly $400 million in spending, including a large appropriation for Gulf Coast State College and the authority for universities to increase tuition. Now teachers and ESPs turn to their local school districts where the fight for salary increases heads to the bargaining table. President Ford Responds.
Posted May 20, 2013
From FEA:
With this evaluation system, Florida teachers have no shot
In 1999 the Florida Legislature and then-Gov. Jeb Bush enacted a law that said the state will assign valid grades to every public school.
In 2001 Congress and President George W. Bush enacted a law that said every public school student in the United States will perform on grade level by 2014.
In 2011 the Florida Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott enacted a law that said the state will give every public school teacher a fair evaluation that takes all factors, such as student learning readiness, into account.
While they’re at it, why don’t these politicians decree that every student will be 7 feet tall, will have a mean jump shot and will be a terrific free-throw shooter?
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Posted May 22, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Nicholas Lemann has written a powerful review of Michelle Rhee’s memoir, in which she calls herself “radical.” She is indeed radical. She wants to tear down public education, a basic democratic institution. That is very radical.
As Lemann points out, Rhee has reduced all the problems of American education to the very existence of unions. This can’t offer much hope to the many states where unions are weak or nonexistent. Who should those states blame since they don’t have unions to scapegoat?
Lemann notes that Rhee loves to portray herself as a victim, a woman of courage who stands up fearlessly to the rich and powerful. The reality, of course, is that Rhee is a tool of the rich and powerful.
Continue reading →
Posted May 22, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Eva-Marie Mancuso, chair of Rhode Island’s state education board, passionately defends the status quo.
Over the protests of parents, students, and teachers, Mancuso supports high-stakes testing. Despite overwhelming evidence from researchers that evaluating teachers by test scores is inaccurate, unstable, and demoralizing, Mancuso wants more. Despite the protests of student leaders across the state, Mancuso insists that standardized tests–the NECAP–should be a graduation requirement.
A recent poll of teachers found that 85% oppose a new contract for the state superintendent Debirah Gist. Mancuso doesn’t care. Gist is a member of Jeb Bush’s hard rightwing Chiefs for Change, which includes the most conservative, test-loving, privatizing superintendents in the nation.
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Posted May 22, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Researchers Sarah Reckhow of Michigan State University and doctoral student Jeffrey Snyder reported at an AERA session that foundation giving is increasingly concentrated on a small number of recipients.
Foundation funding is moving away from giving to public schools–attended by 90% of American students–and is going instead to “challengers” to the system, especially charter schools–attended by about 5% of American students.
Continue reading →
Posted May 22, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Policymakers and the media in Tennessee thought that charters would outperform public schools. They would “save minority kids from failing public schools.” Unfortunately, the charter schools are manufacturing “success” by pushing out low-performing children right before testing time.
Continue reading →
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
The most noxious element of President Obama’s Race to the Top is the requirement that teachers should be evaluated to a significant degree by the test scores of their students.
By now, there is a large body of research that shows that this is a very bad idea, that the rankings based on test scores say more about who was in the class than the quality of the teacher.
But the idea of evaluation by test scores has been taken up with delight by the farthest right-wing state legislatures, the latest being Michigan.
Michigan has one of those legislative bodies that devotes considerable time to figuring out what they can take away from public schools and public school teachers.
And so now there is a bill to tie teacher compensation directly to test scores.
We know how this will end:
Continue reading →
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Tom Aswell, investigator journalist and blogger, is covering and uncovering evidence of fraud in the Louisiana Course Choice program.
Hundreds of students were somehow registered for online courses without the knowledge of the students or their parents. How did this happen? This would mean a massive transfer of funds from Louisiana taxpayers to online corporations based in Texas, connected to former Secretary of Education Rod Paige.
What a tangled web of connections.
Continue reading →
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
New Mexico is the state with an acting superintendent who previously worked for Jeb Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Remember, they love teachers. They just don’t respect them.
This teacher writes:
“Hey, in New Mexico we’re already being told that 50% of our evaluation will be student test scores. Then at our last staff meeting, we were told that all the gifted students were going to be place in one classroom. If our test scores don’t go up, we are out of a job after a 90 day growth plan. Forget compensation (we haven’t had a raise in 5 years, and it doesn’t look like there will be one this year either), we will just be unemployed.”
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/21/teacher-the-news-from-new-mexico/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Monica Ratliff won a historic upset in Los Angeles!
She won with 52% of the vote!
She had less than $50,000 in small contributions.
Her opponent Antonio Sanchez had the support of billionaire Eli Broad, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and organized labor groups.
People power beat money power!!!
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/22/monica-ratliff-wins-beats-billionaires/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Anthony Cody has an excellent post that explains what you need to know about the massive data-collection program called inBloom.
The database will contain detailed personal information about students and teachers. The corporation cannot guarantee the security of this data.
Arne Duncan made inBloom possible by loosening the regulations of FERPA, the federal law that is supposed to protect student privacy.
Let’s just say that this whole project is an outrage. It is a massive invasion of privacy. As the grandparent of a public school student, I am furious! I don’t want Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and Joel Klein to have my family’s personal information.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/22/what-you-need-to-know-about-inbloom/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Now that Commissioner Pryor has the go-ahead from Governor Malloy to apply the principles of corporate education reform, he has loaded up the payroll of the state education department with his fellow reformers. Here comes the privatization movement, prepared to bust unions, demoralize teachers, and generate profits for friends of the movement.
Naturally, there is a Talent Officer, a Turnaround Officer, a Performance Manager, and a bevy of Broad interns. This in one of the nation’s top performing states.
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/22/the-connecticut-corporate-reform-gravy-train/
Posted May 23, 2013
From Diane Ravitch:
Author William Doyle has been observing the current “reform movement” promoted by people like Arne Duncan, Michael Bloomberg, Bobby Jindal, Rick Snyder, Rick Scott, and Michelle Rhee, and he has developed a theory about its true nature. Doyle thinks that the current movement is Soviet-style, with unrealistic targets and top-down control. What struck me as amazing is that I read an article in the Teachers College Record and blogged about it a year ago, in which the author argued that the current model of “education reform” is Stalinist. At the time, I thought this was perhaps extreme. I am not so sure anymore.
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