From the Washington Post
By Ross Wiener
The massive cheating scandal wracking Atlanta Public Schools has reform advocates and testing opponents battling. Unfortunately, they are having it out with tired explanations that reiterate preconceived problems and solutions. Political leaders and educators need to take a step back, learn from Atlanta’s disgrace and apply the lessons to current reforms. Most important, we need to complement the focus on accountability with a commensurate emphasis on improving educational practices. Unless we do, the cheating problem will spread and get worse.
It’s important to understand that cheating in Atlanta was systemic and pervasive. Eighty-two of 178 educators implicated in the investigation admit cheating; misconduct was documented in 44 of the 56 schools examined (the entire district is 100 schools). One school organized an “erasure party” where teachers and administrators created a social occasion out of illegally and immorally faking their students’ test results. The chief of human resources resigned last month amid allegations that she destroyed evidence of wrongdoing — placing some of the most egregious behavior at the most senior executive level.
Worried that the scandal will undermine test-based accountability, reform advocates are diminishing its significance. Just a few bad apples, they argue, no reason to generalize the problem and impugn the integrity of all the hardworking teachers who play by the rules. But their critique fails to recognize that what went on in Atlanta most assuredly was not a case of individual bad actors. The problem is that the system encouraged and abetted the violations in ways that we do not yet fully understand. Good people — many of them — resorted to reprehensible behavior in Atlanta Public Schools.
If this can happen in Atlanta, it can happen anywhere — and it is likely to happen more if we do not pay attention. Before the scandal, when Atlanta was mentioned in national conversations on reform, it was likely to be critiqued for taking too tentative an approach and being unwilling to rely on tests for high-stakes accountability. As one example of the punitive environment and unreasonable pressure created by Atlanta schools’ leadership, the cheating investigation prominently cites the tradition of honoring schools that met performance targets with seats “on the floor” at the district’s annual Georgia Dome celebration. This incentive is downright quaint compared to the intense pressure to increase test scores under new teacher evaluation and accountability policies.
Abandoning reliance on testing is neither feasible nor advisable. Important considerations of equity, quality and scale make it essential to use tests in strategic, consequential ways. But we need to be honest about unintended consequences and more attuned to the line between healthy and unhealthy pressure.
The first response must be to denounce cheating from the highest levels and in the most certain terms, and to be zealous in rooting it out. Superintendents Andres Alonso in Baltimore and Kaya Henderson in the District recently reacted forcefully when confronted with cheating allegations. Alonso called a news conference with the state superintendent on June 23 and told cheaters that they would not merely be suspended or fired but that their licenses to teach anywhere would be revoked. Henderson voluntarily sought assistance from the U.S. Education Department’s Inspector General’s Office, requesting a thorough, impartial investigation.
Rooting out bad actors is necessary but not sufficient. Education systems need to focus on understanding how to increase effectiveness of schools and teachers, including the conditions necessary to help students achieve. This means finding a healthier balance between accountability at the level of individual teachers and focusing on building organizational capacity to develop teachers and support their continuous improvement. School systems that don’t have a coherent vision for how they expect schools to meet test-score targets have little basis for challenging whether good scores are coming from bad practice.
Ironically, the recent focus on more rigorous teacher evaluation should help on this issue. While there is some danger that increased pressure to improve test scores will push more teachers to cheat, the new policies are pushing school systems to build essential capacity. For the first time in most places, districts and states are explicitly describing the practices in which they expect teachers to engage. To support evaluations, states and districts are developing detailed rubrics that articulate how teachers should plan, engage with students and parents, instruct, and assess student learning. Observations against these rubrics create higher-quality, more actionable information about what’s going on in classrooms. Teachers finally can get meaningful feedback and guidance, and alarms can be raised when results are strong but instruction is weak.
Many reform leaders privately express deep concerns about the unintended consequences of recent policy and political developments, but they keep quiet publicly because they do not want to cede ground to anti-testing ideologues or to be ostracized by fellow reformers. Both sides of this debate need to rethink rigid orthodoxy.
The writer is executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Program on Education and Society
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-teachable-moment-from-atlantas-school-cheating-scandal/2011/08/04/gIQAMcuE1I_story.html
Monday, August 8, 2011
States seek to avoid No Child Left Behind
from the St. Petersburg Times Gradebook
by Jeff Solochek
While Congress remains stalled on renewing No Child Left Behind, a growing number of states are looking to get out from under its thumb.
Tennessee is the latest one to ask for a waiver, after learning that many of its schools continue to miss adequate yearly progress marks, the Tennessean reports. State officials say they want to use new state-generated standards crafted through Race to the Top instead.
And they're not alone.
Stateline.org reports that four other states — Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas and Michigan — also have requested waivers, while still more, including Idaho and Utah, have worked to get around the federal standard without a formal waiver.
Florida leaders have for years noted that there's a disconnect between the state's local school grading system and the federal one, with decreasing numbers making AYP even as the amount of schools earning good grades rises. They've said they're working with the feds, too, to smooth over the differences.
But with states still relying on federal money to make ends meet, just how far can they stray from federal rules? And what's to stop a return to the past practices where one state had much more rigorous standards than the next?
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/states-seek-get-out-no-child-left-behind
by Jeff Solochek
While Congress remains stalled on renewing No Child Left Behind, a growing number of states are looking to get out from under its thumb.
Tennessee is the latest one to ask for a waiver, after learning that many of its schools continue to miss adequate yearly progress marks, the Tennessean reports. State officials say they want to use new state-generated standards crafted through Race to the Top instead.
And they're not alone.
Stateline.org reports that four other states — Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas and Michigan — also have requested waivers, while still more, including Idaho and Utah, have worked to get around the federal standard without a formal waiver.
Florida leaders have for years noted that there's a disconnect between the state's local school grading system and the federal one, with decreasing numbers making AYP even as the amount of schools earning good grades rises. They've said they're working with the feds, too, to smooth over the differences.
But with states still relying on federal money to make ends meet, just how far can they stray from federal rules? And what's to stop a return to the past practices where one state had much more rigorous standards than the next?
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/states-seek-get-out-no-child-left-behind
Sunday, August 7, 2011
The day the middle class died
from Michael Moore.com
By Michael Moore
From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.
Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981."
Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to "go for it" -- to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.
And they've succeeded.
On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.
It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?
Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started -- a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.
Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way:
* The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.
* Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here's your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.
* 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help -- or not.
* Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can't leave now, we're not done. Your kids can make their own dinner.
* You want to go to college? No problem -- just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years!
* What's "a raise"? Get back to work and shut up!
And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:
The AFL-CIO.
The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that's just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers -- they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.
Reagan and Wall Street could not believe their eyes! Hundreds of thousands of working people and union members endorsing the firing of fellow union members. It was Christmas in August for Corporate America.
And that was the beginning of the end. Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything -- and they did. They slashed taxes on the rich. They made it harder for you to start a union at your workplace. They eliminated safety regulations on the job. They ignored the monopoly laws and allowed thousands of companies to merge or be bought out and closed down. Corporations froze wages and threatened to move overseas if the workers didn't accept lower pay and less benefits. And when the workers agreed to work for less, they moved the jobs overseas anyway.
And at every step along the way, the majority of Americans went along with this. There was little opposition or fight-back. The "masses" did not rise up and protect their jobs, their homes, their schools (which used to be the best in the world). They just accepted their fate and took the beating.
I have often wondered what would have happened had we all just stopped flying, period, back in 1981. What if all the unions had said to Reagan, "Give those controllers their jobs back or we're shutting the country down!"? You know what would have happened. The corporate elite and their boy Reagan would have buckled.
But we didn't do it. And so, bit by bit, piece by piece, in the ensuing 30 years, those in power have destroyed the middle class of our country and, in turn, have wrecked the future for our young people. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. Take a look at the statistics and you can see that every decline we're now suffering with had its beginning in 1981 (here's a little scene to illustrate that from my last movie).
It all began on this day, 30 years ago. One of the darkest days in American history. And we let it happen to us. Yes, they had the money, and the media and the cops. But we had 200 million of us. Ever wonder what it would look like if 200 million got truly upset and wanted their country, their life, their job, their weekend, their time with their kids back?
Have we all just given up? What are we waiting for? Forget about the 20% who support the Tea Party -- we are the other 80%! This decline will only end when we demand it. And not through an online petition or a tweet. We are going to have to turn the TV and the computer and the video games off and get out in the streets (like they've done in Wisconsin). Some of you need to run for local office next year. We need to demand that the Democrats either get a spine and stop taking corporate money -- or step aside.
When is enough, enough? The middle class dream will not just magically reappear. Wall Street's plan is clear: America is to be a nation of Haves and Have Nothings. Is that OK for you?
Why not use today to pause and think about the little steps you can take to turn this around in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in your school? Is there any better day to start than today?
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/30-years-ago-today
By Michael Moore
From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.
Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981."
Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to "go for it" -- to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.
And they've succeeded.
On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.
It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?
Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started -- a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.
Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way:
* The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.
* Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here's your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.
* 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help -- or not.
* Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can't leave now, we're not done. Your kids can make their own dinner.
* You want to go to college? No problem -- just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years!
* What's "a raise"? Get back to work and shut up!
And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:
The AFL-CIO.
The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that's just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers -- they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.
Reagan and Wall Street could not believe their eyes! Hundreds of thousands of working people and union members endorsing the firing of fellow union members. It was Christmas in August for Corporate America.
And that was the beginning of the end. Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything -- and they did. They slashed taxes on the rich. They made it harder for you to start a union at your workplace. They eliminated safety regulations on the job. They ignored the monopoly laws and allowed thousands of companies to merge or be bought out and closed down. Corporations froze wages and threatened to move overseas if the workers didn't accept lower pay and less benefits. And when the workers agreed to work for less, they moved the jobs overseas anyway.
And at every step along the way, the majority of Americans went along with this. There was little opposition or fight-back. The "masses" did not rise up and protect their jobs, their homes, their schools (which used to be the best in the world). They just accepted their fate and took the beating.
I have often wondered what would have happened had we all just stopped flying, period, back in 1981. What if all the unions had said to Reagan, "Give those controllers their jobs back or we're shutting the country down!"? You know what would have happened. The corporate elite and their boy Reagan would have buckled.
But we didn't do it. And so, bit by bit, piece by piece, in the ensuing 30 years, those in power have destroyed the middle class of our country and, in turn, have wrecked the future for our young people. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. Take a look at the statistics and you can see that every decline we're now suffering with had its beginning in 1981 (here's a little scene to illustrate that from my last movie).
It all began on this day, 30 years ago. One of the darkest days in American history. And we let it happen to us. Yes, they had the money, and the media and the cops. But we had 200 million of us. Ever wonder what it would look like if 200 million got truly upset and wanted their country, their life, their job, their weekend, their time with their kids back?
Have we all just given up? What are we waiting for? Forget about the 20% who support the Tea Party -- we are the other 80%! This decline will only end when we demand it. And not through an online petition or a tweet. We are going to have to turn the TV and the computer and the video games off and get out in the streets (like they've done in Wisconsin). Some of you need to run for local office next year. We need to demand that the Democrats either get a spine and stop taking corporate money -- or step aside.
When is enough, enough? The middle class dream will not just magically reappear. Wall Street's plan is clear: America is to be a nation of Haves and Have Nothings. Is that OK for you?
Why not use today to pause and think about the little steps you can take to turn this around in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in your school? Is there any better day to start than today?
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/30-years-ago-today
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Things are getting worse in DC
From the American Thinker
by M. Catharine Evans
There's more bad news coming out of the DC Public Schools this week. Already under investigation for a major cheating scandal beginning in 2008, the DC Comprehensive Assessment System reported a double-digit plunge in math and reading scores for the 2011 school year. Some of the same schools that were flagged for a high number of erasures on standardized tests from 2008-2010 showed the sharpest decreases.
At Noyes Education Campus in Northeast Washington, the pass rate in reading dropped more than 25 percentage points, to 32 percent, and the pass rate in math dropped more than 20 points, to 28 percent.
Noyes was one of three schools for which some 2010 scores were invalidated in May after an investigation found evidence or strong suspicion of cheating.
In July DC Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson fired 206 teachers who received poor ratings based on the controversial evaluation tool IMPACT which she helped develop with Michelle Rhee. Henderson could not be reached for comment regarding the dismal test scores.
Like her fellow Teach for America (TFA) alumna Michelle Rhee, Henderson's resume includes top positions in non-profit organizations. She was executive director of Teach for America DC in 1997 and vice president for Strategic Partnership in Rhee's The New Teacher Project in 2000 where she sought to improve teacher hiring for school districts "from a process, policy and capacity-building perspective."
According to Rhee and Henderson, the primary factor in student achievement is teacher quality. Their initiatives have focused on getting rid of "bad" teachers to improve scores and they turned over about half the teacher corps since 2008 through retirement incentives, RIFs, firings, and attrition. The two women replaced many of the old guard with first-year TFA corps members who hail from top colleges without classroom experience or certification.
While Henderson has so far been silent on the plummeting test scores, Michelle Rhee, who presided over DCPS when the possibly related alleged cheating scandal took place, has stayed on message visiting school districts across the nation still preaching the necessity of tying teacher performance to high test scores. Even while cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami, and DC are dealing with the tragic fallout of the Race to the Top incentive, the "Elmer Gantry" of education reform continues her blitz across America into states like Tennessee.
In Nashville Rhee met with former TFA executive and ex-husband Kevin Huffman, Tennessee's new education commissioner. Unsuspecting Tennesseans might not know that in 2008 when Huffman was vice president of Public Affairs for Teach for America, the organization received a failing grade from the Department of Education inspector general's office.
A third of TFA's $75-million budget came from local, state, and federal government coffers. When the DOE conducted an audit TFA "failed to account for half the money." The audit showed that "time and time again...there were no basic records or receipts, none for a $123,878 training expense, none for a $343,428 bill." When asked by a CBS investigative reporter about the financial discrepancies TFA Vice President Huffman stated, "We're confident, we're confident that we spent the money on the training of new teachers."
In a recent interview, ex-wife Rhee praised the Tennessee General Assembly for enacting "tenure reform, charter school expansion and a new way of negotiating with teachers that dramatically reduces the power of the big teachers unions." Now with nationwide statistical evidence illuminating the downside to reforms touted by Henderson, Rhee, and other TFA change agents, Republicans, Democrats, liberals, and conservatives need to do their homework.
In her address at the April 2011 TFA convention in DC Kaya Henderson spoke to over 10,000 TFA personnel. The video is worth watching. Fired up, she comes on stage shouting, "This is my city!" and "Where you at DC?" The Georgetown University alumna revs up the crowd telling them "this is the revolution that we all dreamed about." The acting chancellor then exclaims that DC schools are filled with TFA-ers from top to bottom and "20 years from now...none of us is gonna be surprised when the woman sitting in the White House is a TFA alumna." Is this kind of rhetoric really about the children?
Henderson and Rhee may never have to answer that question. Rhee, the "rock star of education," seems to have made a clean getaway in 2010 when she resigned from her position as DC chancellor. Co-opting the American dream of school reform through measures like school vouchers and charter schools, Rhee has successfully talked the talk, even reversing her position on vouchers which almost derailed her in 2008. If Henderson does not survive the impending scandal, chances are she will join her longtime partner. But the wreckage they will have left behind in DC and other cities which followed the same reforms should be at the very least cause for concern.
In the TFA convention speech Henderson promised to show the world "what all our children can do when they have an excellent education." She seems to have failed miserably in that endeavor lending credence to the assumption that the "revolution" may not ultimately benefit the children.
In addition to the alleged cheating scandals in elementary schools, the 2011 reading and math scores for secondary schools in DC showed a stark drop from 2010. Out of the 10 high schools attended by the majority of DC students only 2 showed slightly increasing scores. Figures from the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Report show the change from 2010 to 2011 scores for individual DC secondary schools.
Anacostia - Reading: 16.07 /13.26 Math: 18.75 / 9.22
Ballou - Reading: 30.22 / 20.90 Math: 25.82 / 19.26
Cardozo - Reading: 20.45 / 27.64 Math: 23.86 / 25.20
Coolidge - Reading: 56.57 / 42.06 Math: 48.48 / 31.75
Dunbar - Reading: 29.46 / 26.79 Math: 23.08 / 18.07
Eastern - Reading: 20.98 / 7.14 Math: 8.39 / 3.57
Roosevelt - Reading: 31.73 / 23.33 Math: 43.69 / 24.17
Spingarn - Reading: 17.24 / 16.67 Math: 12.64 / 10.42
Woodson - Reading: 25.00 / 13.38 Math: 17.89 / 13.38
Wilson - Reading: 64.48 / 65.71 Math: 67.44 / 52.25
Putting students first should not be just a slogan. DCPS's abysmal test scores and pending cheating scandal sound the warning bells that something has gone terribly wrong in the reform movement. In Philadelphia, where 38 schools are currently being investigated for suspicious test results, an unidentified teacher explained why she helped her students cheat.
"I wanted them to succeed, because I believe their continued failure on these terrible tests crushes their spirit...They'd have a hard time, and I'd break it down for them," she said she did it in response to receiving intense pressure from administrators to raise scores at her former school.
In a city made up of 43.2 percent Blacks and with the possibility of schools being shut down and teachers losing their jobs, she says cheating was "widespread" and "constant" amongst almost all of her students who were "poor and African-American."
The non-profit education reformers are continuing to peddle their wares, from school district to school district. Some like Rhee's fellow agent of change former New York City School Chancellor Joel Klein have left the public arena after squandering tens of millions of dollars on merit-pay programs that didn't work.
But most like Henderson still rule over large city school systems where "human capital" like the Philadelphia teacher tries "to break it down" for her poor students while reformers take to the road raking in lots of money for little achievement.
Read more M. Catharine Evans at Potter Williams Report.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/school_reform_in_the_wrong_hands.html
by M. Catharine Evans
There's more bad news coming out of the DC Public Schools this week. Already under investigation for a major cheating scandal beginning in 2008, the DC Comprehensive Assessment System reported a double-digit plunge in math and reading scores for the 2011 school year. Some of the same schools that were flagged for a high number of erasures on standardized tests from 2008-2010 showed the sharpest decreases.
At Noyes Education Campus in Northeast Washington, the pass rate in reading dropped more than 25 percentage points, to 32 percent, and the pass rate in math dropped more than 20 points, to 28 percent.
Noyes was one of three schools for which some 2010 scores were invalidated in May after an investigation found evidence or strong suspicion of cheating.
In July DC Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson fired 206 teachers who received poor ratings based on the controversial evaluation tool IMPACT which she helped develop with Michelle Rhee. Henderson could not be reached for comment regarding the dismal test scores.
Like her fellow Teach for America (TFA) alumna Michelle Rhee, Henderson's resume includes top positions in non-profit organizations. She was executive director of Teach for America DC in 1997 and vice president for Strategic Partnership in Rhee's The New Teacher Project in 2000 where she sought to improve teacher hiring for school districts "from a process, policy and capacity-building perspective."
According to Rhee and Henderson, the primary factor in student achievement is teacher quality. Their initiatives have focused on getting rid of "bad" teachers to improve scores and they turned over about half the teacher corps since 2008 through retirement incentives, RIFs, firings, and attrition. The two women replaced many of the old guard with first-year TFA corps members who hail from top colleges without classroom experience or certification.
While Henderson has so far been silent on the plummeting test scores, Michelle Rhee, who presided over DCPS when the possibly related alleged cheating scandal took place, has stayed on message visiting school districts across the nation still preaching the necessity of tying teacher performance to high test scores. Even while cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami, and DC are dealing with the tragic fallout of the Race to the Top incentive, the "Elmer Gantry" of education reform continues her blitz across America into states like Tennessee.
In Nashville Rhee met with former TFA executive and ex-husband Kevin Huffman, Tennessee's new education commissioner. Unsuspecting Tennesseans might not know that in 2008 when Huffman was vice president of Public Affairs for Teach for America, the organization received a failing grade from the Department of Education inspector general's office.
A third of TFA's $75-million budget came from local, state, and federal government coffers. When the DOE conducted an audit TFA "failed to account for half the money." The audit showed that "time and time again...there were no basic records or receipts, none for a $123,878 training expense, none for a $343,428 bill." When asked by a CBS investigative reporter about the financial discrepancies TFA Vice President Huffman stated, "We're confident, we're confident that we spent the money on the training of new teachers."
In a recent interview, ex-wife Rhee praised the Tennessee General Assembly for enacting "tenure reform, charter school expansion and a new way of negotiating with teachers that dramatically reduces the power of the big teachers unions." Now with nationwide statistical evidence illuminating the downside to reforms touted by Henderson, Rhee, and other TFA change agents, Republicans, Democrats, liberals, and conservatives need to do their homework.
In her address at the April 2011 TFA convention in DC Kaya Henderson spoke to over 10,000 TFA personnel. The video is worth watching. Fired up, she comes on stage shouting, "This is my city!" and "Where you at DC?" The Georgetown University alumna revs up the crowd telling them "this is the revolution that we all dreamed about." The acting chancellor then exclaims that DC schools are filled with TFA-ers from top to bottom and "20 years from now...none of us is gonna be surprised when the woman sitting in the White House is a TFA alumna." Is this kind of rhetoric really about the children?
Henderson and Rhee may never have to answer that question. Rhee, the "rock star of education," seems to have made a clean getaway in 2010 when she resigned from her position as DC chancellor. Co-opting the American dream of school reform through measures like school vouchers and charter schools, Rhee has successfully talked the talk, even reversing her position on vouchers which almost derailed her in 2008. If Henderson does not survive the impending scandal, chances are she will join her longtime partner. But the wreckage they will have left behind in DC and other cities which followed the same reforms should be at the very least cause for concern.
In the TFA convention speech Henderson promised to show the world "what all our children can do when they have an excellent education." She seems to have failed miserably in that endeavor lending credence to the assumption that the "revolution" may not ultimately benefit the children.
In addition to the alleged cheating scandals in elementary schools, the 2011 reading and math scores for secondary schools in DC showed a stark drop from 2010. Out of the 10 high schools attended by the majority of DC students only 2 showed slightly increasing scores. Figures from the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Report show the change from 2010 to 2011 scores for individual DC secondary schools.
Anacostia - Reading: 16.07 /13.26 Math: 18.75 / 9.22
Ballou - Reading: 30.22 / 20.90 Math: 25.82 / 19.26
Cardozo - Reading: 20.45 / 27.64 Math: 23.86 / 25.20
Coolidge - Reading: 56.57 / 42.06 Math: 48.48 / 31.75
Dunbar - Reading: 29.46 / 26.79 Math: 23.08 / 18.07
Eastern - Reading: 20.98 / 7.14 Math: 8.39 / 3.57
Roosevelt - Reading: 31.73 / 23.33 Math: 43.69 / 24.17
Spingarn - Reading: 17.24 / 16.67 Math: 12.64 / 10.42
Woodson - Reading: 25.00 / 13.38 Math: 17.89 / 13.38
Wilson - Reading: 64.48 / 65.71 Math: 67.44 / 52.25
Putting students first should not be just a slogan. DCPS's abysmal test scores and pending cheating scandal sound the warning bells that something has gone terribly wrong in the reform movement. In Philadelphia, where 38 schools are currently being investigated for suspicious test results, an unidentified teacher explained why she helped her students cheat.
"I wanted them to succeed, because I believe their continued failure on these terrible tests crushes their spirit...They'd have a hard time, and I'd break it down for them," she said she did it in response to receiving intense pressure from administrators to raise scores at her former school.
In a city made up of 43.2 percent Blacks and with the possibility of schools being shut down and teachers losing their jobs, she says cheating was "widespread" and "constant" amongst almost all of her students who were "poor and African-American."
The non-profit education reformers are continuing to peddle their wares, from school district to school district. Some like Rhee's fellow agent of change former New York City School Chancellor Joel Klein have left the public arena after squandering tens of millions of dollars on merit-pay programs that didn't work.
But most like Henderson still rule over large city school systems where "human capital" like the Philadelphia teacher tries "to break it down" for her poor students while reformers take to the road raking in lots of money for little achievement.
Read more M. Catharine Evans at Potter Williams Report.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/school_reform_in_the_wrong_hands.html
Education, sadly it's not a priority in Florida
From the Miami Herald
BY KATHLEEN McGRORY
kmcgrory@MiamiHerald.com
TAMPA -- The state Board of Education asked for recommendations on how to improve Florida’s budget for public schools and colleges — and stakeholders from to the Panhandle to Miami-Dade delivered.
More than two dozen superintendents, college presidents, charter school operators, union leaders and policymakers took part in a nine-hour workshop Tuesday on education funding.
Among the ideas proffered:
• Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho recommended the state recognize school districts with efficient business practices. He also suggested some of the dollars generated during Florida’s economic recovery be invested into education.
• Miami Dade College President Eduardo Padron suggested funding for higher education be restored to previous levels and revenue streams for facilities and maintenance projects be broadened.
• David Lawrence of the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation said the state should begin evaluating taxpayer-funded Voluntary Prekindergarten programs to ensure quality. “You insist on just that for K-12,” Lawrence said. “I want you to insist on that for VPK.”
• Patricia Levesque of former Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education said expanding charter schools and voucher programs would create budget efficiencies. She also recommended basing a portion of the school funding formula on student performance and course completion. Florida school districts currently receive funds based on how many students they have.
The state Board of Education will use the suggestions to create budget recommendations for the Legislature.
“It was a very productive discussion, and this is just the beginning,” said state Board of Education Vice Chairman Roberto Martinez, who convened the workshop.
Tuesday marked the first time in recent history the state board has taken an in-depth look at education funding. While state lawmakers are responsible for crafting the budget, the board plays an advisory role.
One message resounded among the speakers: Schools and community colleges cannot survive more cuts.
“We need to see the downward trend [in funding] end soon if we are to do all we can to improve the performance of our students,” Hillsborough Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia said.
Earlier this year, state lawmakers slashed $1.1 billion from the education budget, bringing funding to the lowest level since 2006.
Miami-Dade had to cut hundreds of clerical workers and assistants, and consolidate programs for troubled teenagers. The Broward school district was unable to rehire more than 1,700 teachers and 600 other employees.
Orange County Superintendent Ron Blocker expressed concerns about dwindling dollars for facilities and maintenance.
“When you start talking about buildings in the state of Florida, they don’t stop aging,” Blocker said. “That means there will be roofing issues, maintenance issues, air quality issues and the lawsuits and legal actions that come from it.”
Florida Education Association President Andy Ford said state lawmakers need to find new sources of revenue to fund education. He suggested closing some tax loopholes and taxing additional services.
“Our tax structure is just not adequate to meet the needs of this state,” Ford said.
Martinez said state lawmakers were not likely to raise taxes.
“This is about how we prioritize our existing taxpayer dollars,” he said.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/02/2340835/state-board-examines-school-funding.html#ixzz1UJ2P1OMz
BY KATHLEEN McGRORY
kmcgrory@MiamiHerald.com
TAMPA -- The state Board of Education asked for recommendations on how to improve Florida’s budget for public schools and colleges — and stakeholders from to the Panhandle to Miami-Dade delivered.
More than two dozen superintendents, college presidents, charter school operators, union leaders and policymakers took part in a nine-hour workshop Tuesday on education funding.
Among the ideas proffered:
• Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho recommended the state recognize school districts with efficient business practices. He also suggested some of the dollars generated during Florida’s economic recovery be invested into education.
• Miami Dade College President Eduardo Padron suggested funding for higher education be restored to previous levels and revenue streams for facilities and maintenance projects be broadened.
• David Lawrence of the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation said the state should begin evaluating taxpayer-funded Voluntary Prekindergarten programs to ensure quality. “You insist on just that for K-12,” Lawrence said. “I want you to insist on that for VPK.”
• Patricia Levesque of former Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education said expanding charter schools and voucher programs would create budget efficiencies. She also recommended basing a portion of the school funding formula on student performance and course completion. Florida school districts currently receive funds based on how many students they have.
The state Board of Education will use the suggestions to create budget recommendations for the Legislature.
“It was a very productive discussion, and this is just the beginning,” said state Board of Education Vice Chairman Roberto Martinez, who convened the workshop.
Tuesday marked the first time in recent history the state board has taken an in-depth look at education funding. While state lawmakers are responsible for crafting the budget, the board plays an advisory role.
One message resounded among the speakers: Schools and community colleges cannot survive more cuts.
“We need to see the downward trend [in funding] end soon if we are to do all we can to improve the performance of our students,” Hillsborough Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia said.
Earlier this year, state lawmakers slashed $1.1 billion from the education budget, bringing funding to the lowest level since 2006.
Miami-Dade had to cut hundreds of clerical workers and assistants, and consolidate programs for troubled teenagers. The Broward school district was unable to rehire more than 1,700 teachers and 600 other employees.
Orange County Superintendent Ron Blocker expressed concerns about dwindling dollars for facilities and maintenance.
“When you start talking about buildings in the state of Florida, they don’t stop aging,” Blocker said. “That means there will be roofing issues, maintenance issues, air quality issues and the lawsuits and legal actions that come from it.”
Florida Education Association President Andy Ford said state lawmakers need to find new sources of revenue to fund education. He suggested closing some tax loopholes and taxing additional services.
“Our tax structure is just not adequate to meet the needs of this state,” Ford said.
Martinez said state lawmakers were not likely to raise taxes.
“This is about how we prioritize our existing taxpayer dollars,” he said.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/02/2340835/state-board-examines-school-funding.html#ixzz1UJ2P1OMz
Friday, August 5, 2011
Tens of thousands of teachers have lost their jobs
From CNN money
by Tami Luhby
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Friday's jobs report could kick off the worst quarter for state and local government jobs on record. And teachers are at the center of the bullseye.
The public sector is estimated to have shed 65,000 positions in July, according to Greg Daco, U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight. Some 50,000 are projected to come from state and local governments.
And things won't get better anytime soon. The state and local government sector could shed around 110,000 jobs in the third quarter, which would top the massive downsizing that occurred in the early 1980s.
"The sector keeps bleeding jobs," Daco said. "The third quarter could be the worst ever."
All told, the state and local government sector has lost 577,000 jobs since its peak in September 2008. Some 224,000 of those have been in education.
While teachers and other school employees are often dismissed temporarily over the summer, more are getting the ax this year because of major state budget cuts to public education. And fewer are expected to get rehired in September, leading to the grim estimates for the quarter.
"Since the state and local sector is facing a lot of tough budget decisions, it will lay off teachers it won't rehire in September," Daco said.
Rachel Zertuche of Austin, Texas, is one of those educators looking for a new job. The 6th grade social studies teacher was let go after more than six years in Austin classrooms.
While she hunts for a new position, the new mom is commuting 26 miles to work part-time in an office and taking some proofreading jobs. Her husband, a cook in an upscale restaurant, took a second job at Romano's Macaroni Grill.
Competition for teaching jobs is stiff, she said.
"There are so many of us who were laid off," said Zertuche, who has been teaching a total of 14 years. "We're all scurrying for the same positions."
How long do unemployment benefits last in your state?
Around the country, districts are sending thousands of workers to the unemployment office. In years' past, school administrators were able to meet their budgets through attrition or retirement. And many were able to recall a good number of those who were let go.
But not this year, they say. The disappearance of federal stimulus funds and the continued weakness in the economy mean fewer dollars for public education. And that means fewer employees.
Over the past two school years, New York has lost 10,000 school jobs, but 9,000 of them were through attrition or retirement, according to the New York State United Teachers union.
Now, the ax is falling on actual workers. School districts, which suffered a $1.3 billion cut in state aid for the 2011-12 year, have left 5,660 teachers, librarians, counselors and nurses out of work. Another 1,940 school professionals, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians and teachers aides, are in the same boat.
"This year, there is no room for contraction, which is why you'll see real people on unemployment lines," said Dick Ianuzzi, president of the 600,000-member union.
That means class sizes are soaring and students have fewer support services.
In California, there are now 30 to 35 kids in some classes, up from 20, said Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association. Art, music and some electives are disappearing. School libraries are closed because there are no librarians to staff them.
"What it means for the learning environment is that it changes it drastically," Vogel said.
Some 4,200 teachers around the Golden State are anxiously awaiting word that there's a job for them in September.
Julia Cervantes-Espinoza, who teaches 2nd and 4th grade in the Los Angeles Unified School District, has been laid off each of the last three years. But this is the first time she ended school without being rehired. More than 2,000 teachers remain unemployed in her district.
While she's starting to apply for positions teaching English as a Second Language in community colleges, she remains hopeful that a job will open up for her. She's relatively high on the seniority list.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/04/news/economy/teacher_government_jobs/
by Tami Luhby
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Friday's jobs report could kick off the worst quarter for state and local government jobs on record. And teachers are at the center of the bullseye.
The public sector is estimated to have shed 65,000 positions in July, according to Greg Daco, U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight. Some 50,000 are projected to come from state and local governments.
And things won't get better anytime soon. The state and local government sector could shed around 110,000 jobs in the third quarter, which would top the massive downsizing that occurred in the early 1980s.
"The sector keeps bleeding jobs," Daco said. "The third quarter could be the worst ever."
All told, the state and local government sector has lost 577,000 jobs since its peak in September 2008. Some 224,000 of those have been in education.
While teachers and other school employees are often dismissed temporarily over the summer, more are getting the ax this year because of major state budget cuts to public education. And fewer are expected to get rehired in September, leading to the grim estimates for the quarter.
"Since the state and local sector is facing a lot of tough budget decisions, it will lay off teachers it won't rehire in September," Daco said.
Rachel Zertuche of Austin, Texas, is one of those educators looking for a new job. The 6th grade social studies teacher was let go after more than six years in Austin classrooms.
While she hunts for a new position, the new mom is commuting 26 miles to work part-time in an office and taking some proofreading jobs. Her husband, a cook in an upscale restaurant, took a second job at Romano's Macaroni Grill.
Competition for teaching jobs is stiff, she said.
"There are so many of us who were laid off," said Zertuche, who has been teaching a total of 14 years. "We're all scurrying for the same positions."
How long do unemployment benefits last in your state?
Around the country, districts are sending thousands of workers to the unemployment office. In years' past, school administrators were able to meet their budgets through attrition or retirement. And many were able to recall a good number of those who were let go.
But not this year, they say. The disappearance of federal stimulus funds and the continued weakness in the economy mean fewer dollars for public education. And that means fewer employees.
Over the past two school years, New York has lost 10,000 school jobs, but 9,000 of them were through attrition or retirement, according to the New York State United Teachers union.
Now, the ax is falling on actual workers. School districts, which suffered a $1.3 billion cut in state aid for the 2011-12 year, have left 5,660 teachers, librarians, counselors and nurses out of work. Another 1,940 school professionals, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians and teachers aides, are in the same boat.
"This year, there is no room for contraction, which is why you'll see real people on unemployment lines," said Dick Ianuzzi, president of the 600,000-member union.
That means class sizes are soaring and students have fewer support services.
In California, there are now 30 to 35 kids in some classes, up from 20, said Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association. Art, music and some electives are disappearing. School libraries are closed because there are no librarians to staff them.
"What it means for the learning environment is that it changes it drastically," Vogel said.
Some 4,200 teachers around the Golden State are anxiously awaiting word that there's a job for them in September.
Julia Cervantes-Espinoza, who teaches 2nd and 4th grade in the Los Angeles Unified School District, has been laid off each of the last three years. But this is the first time she ended school without being rehired. More than 2,000 teachers remain unemployed in her district.
While she's starting to apply for positions teaching English as a Second Language in community colleges, she remains hopeful that a job will open up for her. She's relatively high on the seniority list.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/04/news/economy/teacher_government_jobs/
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Was Duval County’s reading initiative a waste of time and money?
Last night at the Art-Walk I met a teacher who worked summer school teaching reading. She said when the summer started she was very excited but as it went on she became more and more disappointed.
At one point she had a class of twenty-three kids in her class, which was more than she would have had during the year, also unlike the year all of these kids were poor readers and there was nobody they could be paired up with. She continued that between the large numbers and the behavior problems that sometimes come along with poor readers it was impossible to get anything done. She said she went from being excited about teaching to being a baby sitter trying to survive the days.
I asked her why she thought the classes had become so big and she surmised it was because more kids equaled more money and that it was better for the district to say more kids were participating in the reading program.
This veteran, consistently high performing teacher could not express her disappointment enough.
If she was right this continues a disturbing pattern that the district has, where it would rather appear to do good than actually do good. Sure we would love to teach 23 kids how to read better over the summer but if we only have the resources to do it for ten then isn’t that what we should have been doing. Couldn't we have streamlined the program so that the classes were manageable and more kids would have benefitted?
According to the teacher I met, all we did was spend a lot of money and provide free babysitting for a lot of families.
Chris Guerrieri
At one point she had a class of twenty-three kids in her class, which was more than she would have had during the year, also unlike the year all of these kids were poor readers and there was nobody they could be paired up with. She continued that between the large numbers and the behavior problems that sometimes come along with poor readers it was impossible to get anything done. She said she went from being excited about teaching to being a baby sitter trying to survive the days.
I asked her why she thought the classes had become so big and she surmised it was because more kids equaled more money and that it was better for the district to say more kids were participating in the reading program.
This veteran, consistently high performing teacher could not express her disappointment enough.
If she was right this continues a disturbing pattern that the district has, where it would rather appear to do good than actually do good. Sure we would love to teach 23 kids how to read better over the summer but if we only have the resources to do it for ten then isn’t that what we should have been doing. Couldn't we have streamlined the program so that the classes were manageable and more kids would have benefitted?
According to the teacher I met, all we did was spend a lot of money and provide free babysitting for a lot of families.
Chris Guerrieri
Florida, Pro Child Abuse and Abstinence
A week or so ago the state turned down 50 million dollars to prevent child abuse. -cpg
From the Orlando Sentinel
by Kimberly Vlach
While the state Legislature has turned its back on millions in health care grants from the federal Affordable Care Act, it appears there's an exception to the rule: Programs aimed at teaching kids to say no to sex.
Appropriations authorized by the federal law give Florida $2.6 million per year from fiscal year 2010 through 2014 to fund the state's Abstinence Education Program. And the state will match those funds with nearly $2 million more.
Florida's statewide campaign, "It's Great to Wait," encourages youths between ages 9 and 18 to abstain from sex before marriage.
While the grant doesn't explicitly prohibit lessons on contraception, it requires programs to teach that "abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and other associated health problems."
Programs also educate young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increases vulnerability.
Abstinence-only education has been favored by conservative groups, but it is controversial among scientists who say there isn't solid evidence that it is effective in curbing teen pregnancy.
For at least two other programs, the Legislature refused funds, even though the governor's office and the Agency for Health Care Administration requested them.
The Money Follows the Person Grant would give Florida $37.5 million to help transition the elderly and the disabled out of nursing homes and back into the community. The Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting grant would have initially awarded $3.4 million, with more to come. It would have provided nurses and case workers to visit the homes of new and expectant mothers to give them support.
Thirteen organizations received abstinence education funding, including the Pinellas Crisis Pregnancy Center, with locations in Pinellas Park, Largo and Dunedin.
HealthyState.org is a public media project of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting at WUSF in Tampa.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/florida-legislators-okay-funds-for-abstinence-education/1184169
From the Orlando Sentinel
by Kimberly Vlach
While the state Legislature has turned its back on millions in health care grants from the federal Affordable Care Act, it appears there's an exception to the rule: Programs aimed at teaching kids to say no to sex.
Appropriations authorized by the federal law give Florida $2.6 million per year from fiscal year 2010 through 2014 to fund the state's Abstinence Education Program. And the state will match those funds with nearly $2 million more.
Florida's statewide campaign, "It's Great to Wait," encourages youths between ages 9 and 18 to abstain from sex before marriage.
While the grant doesn't explicitly prohibit lessons on contraception, it requires programs to teach that "abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and other associated health problems."
Programs also educate young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increases vulnerability.
Abstinence-only education has been favored by conservative groups, but it is controversial among scientists who say there isn't solid evidence that it is effective in curbing teen pregnancy.
For at least two other programs, the Legislature refused funds, even though the governor's office and the Agency for Health Care Administration requested them.
The Money Follows the Person Grant would give Florida $37.5 million to help transition the elderly and the disabled out of nursing homes and back into the community. The Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting grant would have initially awarded $3.4 million, with more to come. It would have provided nurses and case workers to visit the homes of new and expectant mothers to give them support.
Thirteen organizations received abstinence education funding, including the Pinellas Crisis Pregnancy Center, with locations in Pinellas Park, Largo and Dunedin.
HealthyState.org is a public media project of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting at WUSF in Tampa.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/florida-legislators-okay-funds-for-abstinence-education/1184169
The Florida's legislatures agenda to privitize schools: step one charter schools
From Scathing Purple Musings
by Bob Sykes
Florida Today has a tidy little checklist of favors the state’s legislators have been granting the state’s charter schools:
This year lawmakers unfairly axed $122 million in maintenance money for the state’s 3,000 traditional public schools, among other cuts, but handed charters $55 million for construction and repair.
Brevard Public Schools received $4.2 million in maintenance funds last year, but zero for 2011-12, according to Associate Superintendent of Financial Services Judy Preston. The money typically is used for air conditioning repairs, painting, plumbing and other renovation and badly needed.
Other sweeteners lawmakers gave to charters, while cutting $3 billion from the overall education budget, include:
– Reducing from 5 percent to 2 percent the administrative fees districts will be paid for a charter’s first 250 students, if the school is certified under a new law as highly performing. As many as 5 Brevard charters could qualify.
If so, the district could lose a little more than $200,000, requiring deeper cuts elsewhere in its budget, says Preston.
– Making it harder for districts, who must pick up the pieces when charters fail, to turn down the non-traditional schools’ applications or to close them when they are poorly run.
– Clarifying that charters can refuse to admit students in some cases if they don’t meet standards, unlike traditional schools.
They’re not even trying to hide it with clever wording. This is akin to giving money to UPS and Fed Ex while cutting that amount from the US postal service. After detailing instances of failing charters throughout the state, Florida Today calls the state’s legislators on it:
The first responsibility of lawmakers, as required by the state Constitution, is to provide adequate funding for a uniform, high quality school system for all.
Instead, in their bias toward unproven charters, they are draining traditional schools of due dollars.
It’s a plan that flunks the test for improving education and helping Florida’s children succeed.
So why so biased?
As none of the state’s policy-makers have answered specifically, they are open to the assumption that they just plain want to privatize schools. Pay no attention to the fact that so many charters have failed. They know those folks will eventually figure out how to make the numbers work.
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/why-are-florida-legislators-so-clearly-biased-toward-charter-schools/
by Bob Sykes
Florida Today has a tidy little checklist of favors the state’s legislators have been granting the state’s charter schools:
This year lawmakers unfairly axed $122 million in maintenance money for the state’s 3,000 traditional public schools, among other cuts, but handed charters $55 million for construction and repair.
Brevard Public Schools received $4.2 million in maintenance funds last year, but zero for 2011-12, according to Associate Superintendent of Financial Services Judy Preston. The money typically is used for air conditioning repairs, painting, plumbing and other renovation and badly needed.
Other sweeteners lawmakers gave to charters, while cutting $3 billion from the overall education budget, include:
– Reducing from 5 percent to 2 percent the administrative fees districts will be paid for a charter’s first 250 students, if the school is certified under a new law as highly performing. As many as 5 Brevard charters could qualify.
If so, the district could lose a little more than $200,000, requiring deeper cuts elsewhere in its budget, says Preston.
– Making it harder for districts, who must pick up the pieces when charters fail, to turn down the non-traditional schools’ applications or to close them when they are poorly run.
– Clarifying that charters can refuse to admit students in some cases if they don’t meet standards, unlike traditional schools.
They’re not even trying to hide it with clever wording. This is akin to giving money to UPS and Fed Ex while cutting that amount from the US postal service. After detailing instances of failing charters throughout the state, Florida Today calls the state’s legislators on it:
The first responsibility of lawmakers, as required by the state Constitution, is to provide adequate funding for a uniform, high quality school system for all.
Instead, in their bias toward unproven charters, they are draining traditional schools of due dollars.
It’s a plan that flunks the test for improving education and helping Florida’s children succeed.
So why so biased?
As none of the state’s policy-makers have answered specifically, they are open to the assumption that they just plain want to privatize schools. Pay no attention to the fact that so many charters have failed. They know those folks will eventually figure out how to make the numbers work.
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/why-are-florida-legislators-so-clearly-biased-toward-charter-schools/
The FCAT continues to pervert education
From the Miami Herald
By Fred Grimm
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com
In the great Atlanta test scandal, educators cheated mostly on behalf of institutions. Teachers, under intense pressure from principals, altered student scores on statewide standardized tests to save their struggling schools from ignominy and to bring a little glory to their bosses.
“Unreasonable pressure,” as the Georgia Office of Special Investigators put it, to achieve “unreasonable targets,” led to a stunning ethical breakdown in the Atlanta schools system. The 10-month investigation, released in July, found educators had altered test scores at 44 schools in 2009. Investigators determined that 178 teachers and principals cheated.
These finding weren’t based on mere statistical anomalies, such as the unusual rate of erasures on this year’s FCAT test sheets that raised suspicions in 14 Florida school districts. Outright confessions were extracted from 82 educators in Atlanta. Six principals invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Atlanta teachers who had been reluctant to go along with the conspiracies faced “a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation.” But the report found that very little of the cheating there could be attributed to what investigators called “monetary incentives” for the individual teachers.
Merit pay, in 2009, wasn’t a factor. Not yet.
New laws in both Georgia and Florida now tie standardized test results to both teacher pay raises and teacher retention.
Hypothetical income differences under Florida’s new merit pay law range from $41,000 a year for a school teacher burdened with a class full of knuckleheads, up to $76,000, even $100,000 by some calculations, if their onetime dummies aces those FCATs.
Merit raises (the only raises permissible under the new Florida law) will ratchet up the temptation, warned Arizona State University professor Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, who has spent years studying the unintended consequences of high-stakes student testing. She said Wednesday that “it’s pretty clear” that the more consequences states tie to the outcome of the standardized tests, particularly merit pay or cash bonuses, the more cheating we’re likely to see.
Amrein-Beardsley led a team that surveyed 3,000 Arizona teachers. In her study, published last year, more than half admitted to manipulating the test scores on the Arizona standardized tests.
Meanwhile, an investigation by USA Today found improvements in standardized test scores too good to be true in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan and Ohio. Reporters at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Detroit Free Press and Los Angeles Times made similar findings in their respective regions. (Three years of tough-minded reporting by the Atlanta Constitution led to the Georgia investigation.).
But Amrein-Beardsley’s definition of cheating entails more than the blatant stuff uncovered in Atlanta, where teachers would erase the marks inside the bubbles on test sheets and pencil in the correct answers. She talked Wednesday of more subtle tactics. Like teachers, patrolling the room during tests, coaching students or hinting when they’ve made mistakes. Or leaving learning aids visible in the classroom during tests.
More subtle yet, she said, would be the narrowing of the teaching curriculum to only subjects likely to be broached on those all-important money-laden standardized tests and ignoring everything else. From teaching to the test to teaching only to the test.
Amrein-Beardsley expects to see teachers and principals manipulating student enrollments to get rid of slow or disruptive students. She cited an Atlanta school several years ago that jettisoned 80 poor-performing kids who would have dragged down standardized test scores.
Now a monetary reward for good results, or the possibility of getting fired for bad results, will be tied to the tests. “The higher the consequences, the more expulsions,” she predicted.
Most teachers don’t cheat, of course. But FCAT has already warped school curriculums, brought about an epidemic of “teaching to the test,” and created, occasionally, very suspicious test results among some formerly dullard students. Now all those old temptations come attached to dollar signs.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344171/tying-fcat-to-dollars-is-temptation.html#ixzz1U4c2UxbU
By Fred Grimm
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com
In the great Atlanta test scandal, educators cheated mostly on behalf of institutions. Teachers, under intense pressure from principals, altered student scores on statewide standardized tests to save their struggling schools from ignominy and to bring a little glory to their bosses.
“Unreasonable pressure,” as the Georgia Office of Special Investigators put it, to achieve “unreasonable targets,” led to a stunning ethical breakdown in the Atlanta schools system. The 10-month investigation, released in July, found educators had altered test scores at 44 schools in 2009. Investigators determined that 178 teachers and principals cheated.
These finding weren’t based on mere statistical anomalies, such as the unusual rate of erasures on this year’s FCAT test sheets that raised suspicions in 14 Florida school districts. Outright confessions were extracted from 82 educators in Atlanta. Six principals invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Atlanta teachers who had been reluctant to go along with the conspiracies faced “a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation.” But the report found that very little of the cheating there could be attributed to what investigators called “monetary incentives” for the individual teachers.
Merit pay, in 2009, wasn’t a factor. Not yet.
New laws in both Georgia and Florida now tie standardized test results to both teacher pay raises and teacher retention.
Hypothetical income differences under Florida’s new merit pay law range from $41,000 a year for a school teacher burdened with a class full of knuckleheads, up to $76,000, even $100,000 by some calculations, if their onetime dummies aces those FCATs.
Merit raises (the only raises permissible under the new Florida law) will ratchet up the temptation, warned Arizona State University professor Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, who has spent years studying the unintended consequences of high-stakes student testing. She said Wednesday that “it’s pretty clear” that the more consequences states tie to the outcome of the standardized tests, particularly merit pay or cash bonuses, the more cheating we’re likely to see.
Amrein-Beardsley led a team that surveyed 3,000 Arizona teachers. In her study, published last year, more than half admitted to manipulating the test scores on the Arizona standardized tests.
Meanwhile, an investigation by USA Today found improvements in standardized test scores too good to be true in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan and Ohio. Reporters at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Detroit Free Press and Los Angeles Times made similar findings in their respective regions. (Three years of tough-minded reporting by the Atlanta Constitution led to the Georgia investigation.).
But Amrein-Beardsley’s definition of cheating entails more than the blatant stuff uncovered in Atlanta, where teachers would erase the marks inside the bubbles on test sheets and pencil in the correct answers. She talked Wednesday of more subtle tactics. Like teachers, patrolling the room during tests, coaching students or hinting when they’ve made mistakes. Or leaving learning aids visible in the classroom during tests.
More subtle yet, she said, would be the narrowing of the teaching curriculum to only subjects likely to be broached on those all-important money-laden standardized tests and ignoring everything else. From teaching to the test to teaching only to the test.
Amrein-Beardsley expects to see teachers and principals manipulating student enrollments to get rid of slow or disruptive students. She cited an Atlanta school several years ago that jettisoned 80 poor-performing kids who would have dragged down standardized test scores.
Now a monetary reward for good results, or the possibility of getting fired for bad results, will be tied to the tests. “The higher the consequences, the more expulsions,” she predicted.
Most teachers don’t cheat, of course. But FCAT has already warped school curriculums, brought about an epidemic of “teaching to the test,” and created, occasionally, very suspicious test results among some formerly dullard students. Now all those old temptations come attached to dollar signs.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344171/tying-fcat-to-dollars-is-temptation.html#ixzz1U4c2UxbU
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