Charter schools routinely counsel out poor performers and wishing they didn't doesn't change that fact..

The pro choice, err pro privatization crowd really like to seize on any sliver of evidence that says what they are doing isn’t reprehensible and run with it. Take for example Patrick Gibbons of Redefined ED who takes a crack at charter schools not counseling out poor performers:  Mr. Gibbons writes: Even if the worst fears are true – and a few bad charter schools are abusing rules to weed out low-performing students – we must ask ourselves if it’s worth condemning an entire system. http://www.redefinedonline.org/2013/09/charter-schools- but the thing is they do it and at an alarming rate and yeah we should be condemning the entire system.

First teachers all over the nation report that after FTE time (when the money is paid out) their schools get an influx of poorly prepared charter school students, but that’s anecdotal so let’s look at some actual studies and news reports.

First the Success Schools in New York City have a history of weeding out poor performers. It was hardly just two ESE students as Redeined Ed would have its reader believe. According to the NYDaily news between 14-22% of kids were suspended from the 5 success schools and at least dozens were forced out. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/success-academy-fire-parents-fight-disciplinary-policy-article-1.1438753

Then there are the DC charters schools who not only expel more kids but also have more kids drop out than their public school counterparts do.  The DC student mobility project reveals that 6.6% of charter school students drop out over the course of a year. http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/dc-student-mobility-study/281/
 

All schools have some degree of mobility but the study reports essentially no overall attrition from the regular public schools. Expulsion undoubtedly counts for some of the charter school losses but low performing kids being counseled out also undoubtedly play a role as well. Public schools not charter schools take all the kids that show up at their doors and do their best to educate them.

I guess Mr. Gibbons could chalk it up to bad luck or coincidence but the rest of us know what is happening.

Some charter school operators admit counseling out is a practice they follow such as this Florida Charter School Superintendent who not only admits he counsels out underachievers but revels in it. http://www.theledger.com/article/20100928/NEWS/9285030

Then don’t get me started about KIPP which counsels out so many of their kids. http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2011/04/01/kipps-atrocious-attrition/

The thing is our worst fears are true but it’s not a few charter schools that do it, it is a lot of charter schools and when the pro-privatization crowd gives them cover it does the few that are doing things the right way a disservice.  

The Stunning hypocrisy of the Florida Times Union or Just how dumb is the public defender?

The second part of above is the title of Ron Littlepage’s latest blog. Mr. Littlepage is a long time columnist for the Times Union and I think asks a legitimate question. It seems like Jacksonville’s public defender is making one unforced error after another. I also wonder is they are going to pull Littlepage’s blog because of that that title, after all it is a little inflammatory.

Another reason I ask is because my blog was pulled from the Times Union after I wrote the classic: Is Gary Chartrand homophobic?

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/08/is-gary-chartrand-homophobic-too-union.html

Mr. Chartrand made some controversial remarks at a recent education summit and I felt like the question was worth asking. I didn’t say he was, I just let Mr. Chartrand’s own words do the talking for him.

I however was removed from their feed. How is what I did different from what Littlepage did?

You know I learned to read at the dining room table with the Jacksonville Journal and my mother worked there for 28 years; it has been a big part of my life but it is nothing like it used to be and really does the citizens of Jacksonville a disservice.   

Forrest High School makes the national news.

From the Washington Post's Answer Sheet, by Valerie Strauss

In the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff category: A petition on change.org with some 75,000 signatures is asking a Florida school district to change the name of a high school that is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate  general and the first  “grand wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan.

And, according to Marsha Oliver, chief of communications for the Duval County School District, it doesn’t matter how many people sign the petition because the process for changing a school’s name is community-based and the ultimate decision resides with the school board.

The school board was asked by the School Advisory Council in April 2007 to change the name but the panel voted 5-2 against it. The board’s membership has changed since then.

The school was named after Forrest when it opened with white students only in 1959, a name suggestion that came from an organization called the Daughters of the Confederacy. Now, more than half of the school’s students are African American.

(It should be noted that there is another Nathan Bedford Forrest High School in the United States, this one in Chapel Hill, Tenn., where Forrest was born.

The change.org petition was initiated by a man named Omotayo Richmond, who wrote the following to explain his action:I moved to Jacksonville from Long Island 12 years ago. Since then, I’ve put down roots here. I’ve helped raise a beautiful daughter here. This place is my home now, and the people who live here deserve better than a high school named for the first Grand Wizard of the KKK.

That’s right, Jacksonville is home to Nathan Bedford Forrest High School, named in honor of a Confederate general who infamously slaughtered Black Union soldiers who’d already surrendered and who was a founding member of the original Ku Klux Klan. The school got its name in 1959, when white civic leaders wanted to protest a court decision that called for integrating public schools. 

I don’t want my daughter, or any student, going to a school named under those circumstances. This is a bad look for Florida — with so much racial division in our state, renaming Forrest High would be a step toward healing.

Five years ago, the school board voted 5-2 to keep the name. But a lot has changed in five years. All five members who voted for Nathan Bedford Forrest have been replaced. There’s a new school superintendent who publicly stated that he would support a push from our community to change the name. Now is the time to right a historical wrong. African American Jacksonville students shouldn’t have to attend a high school named for someone who slaughtered and terrorized their ancestors one more school year.

In the end, I want my child to be able to go anywhere in Jacksonville and be proud of where she is. That can’t happen with Nathan Bedford Forrest High School. Please support changing the name today.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/09/12/school-named-after-kkk-leader-asked-to-change-its-name/

President Obama’s Race to the Top education initiative is a disaster.

That’s not what the headline in the Washington Post said, but it should have.

RttT bribed cash strapped, desperate states, and remember in 2009 nobody but the federal government who can just create money out of thin air had any, what basically amounted to pennies to let the wolves (testing companies and charter schools) in the door, to double down on standardized tests and to blame teachers for not being able to completely overcome the dehabilitating effects of poverty. The Washington Post reports almost nothing RttT did addressed poverty which we should all know is the number one measurable factor in education. Those students that live it don’t do as well as those that don’t.  Furthermore the whole thing has proven to be a financial boondoggle as well as it has dramatically driven up costs.

From the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet: Parents cite the increased amount of class time devoted to test taking as one indication of the new and undesired direction of Race to the Top. One parent with whom we spoke reported that her 8-year-old daughter, an advanced third grader, devotes roughly 25 days of her school year to test taking. Teachers tell the mother that 30 days is about average, and this excludes extensive additional time devoted to preparing for the tests. This increase is reflected in the growing cost of the tests. Since RTTT implementation began, Tennessee has tripled payments to the testing company Pearson; annual costs have risen from just over $7 million in 2009 to nearly $22 million in 2013 (Tennessee Central Procurement Office n.d.). By 2012, the state will have paid Pearson a total of $115 million, including a $55 million amendment signed in 2012 that indicates optional development of a K-2 standardized test, as well as test practice materials. (Tennessee Central Procurement Office n.d.).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/09/12/report-race-to-the-top-isnt-delivering-big-results/

Oy Vey, you know I like the president but geeze Louise what a disaster he has been on education and sadly there is nobody on the republican side to turn to either. I can’t be happy just because the president tells me I am pretty before he drops me off broke with my dress ripped and a black eye.

DCPS has plenty of issues to go around and more testing is one of them

From a reader:

We are definitely giving more tests. In fact, the IOWA is given to every student at every grade level despite passing the FCAT or being College-Ready. So far, we are also scheduled by our Testing Coordinator to give the Pre-Cast on top of the CGA (2 "70" min tests), yet they are supposedly identical. The coordinator is praising this effort, claiming we will be data-rich when this is all over; however, we are 4 weeks in with little to no data. This does nothing for me as a teacher. I cannot wait 3-6 weeks to get data. 

On top of that, the average reading class is still in the 40's, and many are in the 50's and 60's. We are told we are getting new teachers; however, when this will happen has not been confirmed. In my 8 years in Duval, I have NEVER experienced this focus on testing (ultimately time-consuming and overwhelming for students/teachers) and saving money (with class sizes at such a high average). Keep in mind that we are 4 weeks in now with these class sizes and testing in these huge classes. Beyond that, although we have tests, we have no curriculum for Reading classes (that is currently being used as there is a lack of access). ELA classrooms don't have enough books. Let's just say, there are plenty of issues to go around. 

Things get worse for Tony Bennett and those who supported him.

I want you all to remember Rick Scott, Jeb Bush and Gary Chartrand stood up for Bennett. They talked about his high character and about the good job he did. I guess they haven’t noticed the chaos that happened to Florida’s accountability system under his watch and that he did such a good job in Indiana one of the reddest of red states, they elected a democrat union member to replace him.

As for his character, which has been under question since the revelations that he took campaign contributions from a charter school operator whose grade he had changed and for throwing business to his wife’s future employer things might about to get worse.

This is what the Associated Press is reporting: Former Indiana schools chief Tony Bennett kept multiple campaign databases on Department of Education servers and ordered his staff to dissect a speech by his Democratic opponent for inaccuracies last fall in apparent violations of Indiana election and ethics laws, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

Violating the official duties law, known as the "ghost employment" statute, can be a felony punishable by up to three years in prison. http://www.indystar.com/viewart/20130911/NEWS05/309110080/Tony-Bennett-

Ironically public pension hater Rick Hess and Redefined Ed, Jeb Bush’s blog came out just yesterday and said an investigation had exonerated him of all wrong doing.

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2013/09/rick-hess-on-school-choice-common-core-and-

This despite, John Grew and William Sheldrake, the authors of the report said Friday that the report does not “exonerate” or “vindicate” Bennett, nor condemn him. They said it only explains how his team changed the grading formula. http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2013/09/06/indiana-report-finds-bennetts-grade-

I wonder how his supporters will try and spin the fact he may be a felon and I hope people remember those who supported him too!

DCPS has money for testing but not for libraries?

From a reader:

Ed White's media center is a very dark and unloved place and has been for some time and certainly could have used the renovation dollars. But, at least the media center at Ed White was not renovated and tax payers money wasted. One would think that any challenged school that had been recently sliding on the D or C scale should have their media center opened. Nevertheless, I am dismayed at the lack of support for the local libraries, the lack of book stores, and now the cuts to the Duval district media centers.

 I refuse to believe that this is happening because the students and community are not using the facilities or are not checking out books. The need for libraries is greater now then it has ever been as witnessed by many teachers that have to work with students who do not read on grade level. As long as we continue to throw money down the testing hole and continue to make Pearson, and other companies like it richer, educators and the community at large can forget about the right thing being done for our children. It stopped being about our kids long time ago. It stopped being about the teacher in the class room too (you can't have student without the teacher). 

It's all about what the testing companies can do to strip the education system of as many dollars as possible. Can we get the real numbers spent on testing, including industry certification exams, for each of the last ten years? Taxpayers will really be surprised! Big business is laughing all the way to the bank under the guise of reforming education. 

Tony Bennett’s plausible rehabilitation

Tony Bennett’s supporters are pointing to a report that said his actions were plausible as vindication. Note, the writers of the report say it neither condemns not vindicates him and just explains what happens, but hey what do they know they just wrote it.

Friends we have fallen pretty far if plausible in this case equals vindication. Officer isn’t it plausible this smoking gun in my hand isn’t mine and I had nothing to do with that body over there. If we use their bar then nobody can ever be found guilty of anything again.

You know what convinced me of his guilt? It wasn’t the damning e-mails, it wasn’t the fact his wife took a high paying job with a charter chain that he had thrown business to. It wasn’t even the campaign donations he received from the charter operator either. Nope, it was the fact the story broke on Monday and he wrote his resignation letter on Wednesday, what innocent person, a person who feels he is fighting for the future of children quits like that? The answer is none.

Then Bennett’s supporters have complained that Glenda Ritz his replacement in Indiana and enemy of privatization released the e-mails to the press to smear him. They must think that if only she would have kept his own words under wraps then nobody would have known about all his dirty business. I guess that is plausible but I think it is more likely it would have come out eventually. You see people like Bennett and Bush and Rhee and Chartrand and Gate’s fifteen minutes are rapidly coming to an end. More people are catching on that they aren’t in education to help kids but to advance themselves or to make a buck. They are picking up that charters, vouchers, high stakes testing, merit pay and odious blame the teacher evaluations aren’t making things better but are making them worse. People are also learning about what is happening in Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin North Carolina and other places run buy the pro-privatization crowd and they don’t like it.

It’s plausible I guess that Bennett was innocent but then again it’s plausible that at least part of the moon is made of cheese and pigs will gain the ability to fly on their own power too, well just as plausible anyways.

The freedictionary.com site gives several definitions of plausibility. 1. Seemingly or apparently valid, likely, or acceptable; credible: a plausible excuse. 2. Giving a deceptive impression of truth or reliability. 3. Disingenuously smooth; fast-talking:

When his supports say plausible which definition do you think fits the best?

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/report-political-foes-staff-released-tony-bennetts-e-mails-to-ap/2140950

Florida Teacher: Get out of my room!

From the Diane Ravitch blog:

I have no doubt that the whole point of what the conservative Republican NC legislature has done and what the “reformers” nationwide are doing is make sure that as many of us as possible leave the profession so that the NEA and AFT are ruined and, so their thinking goes, the Democratic party by extension.

The sad irony is that the neo-liberals in the Democratic party are happy to help this happen; they are more than willing to trade union support for corporate and Wall Street support and let teachers and public schools die in the process and the two political parties become one party that represents the plutocracy.

My Florida school received an “F” last year on Florida’s insane School Report Card scam. We have been in session for exactly 10 days. I have been “observed” daily since the 6th day of school, as have all of my colleagues. The district and the state are sending in these “observers” to collect “data” so they can create a “reform plan” for our school (and the 9 other Title I schools in our district that received “F” grades this past year).

I can’t begin to explain how annoying, humiliating, and nerve-wracking these anonymous and silent observations become, day after day. I feel that my first graders and me are fish in an aquarium or animals in the wild while these cold, nameless “observers” appear and disappear, marking down everything we say and do on their clipboards without ever acknowledging that we are human beings and not scientific oddities.

There is no allowance for humanity at all in this system. No bad days for teacher or kids and no lousy lessons that fall flat are allowed. With the Danielson rubric it is easy to make sure that every lesson is lousy in some way. Although they delude themselves into thinking that they are there to “help” us in reality all they do is raise tensions and create animosity and fear. I guess that’s in keeping under our newly revealed surveillance society and the NSA.

I loathe these people and wonder how a teacher can abandon their original mission of educating children to become a member of the reform inquisition where they spend their days working to end the careers of their former colleagues and providing the evidence to deliver the “death penalty” as NY governor Cuomo calls it, to long-term neighborhood schools.

Although I have dearly loved my profession for nearly 2 decades now I honestly don’t know how much longer I can continue to work under these circumstances. The pressure to speak up and tell these people to get out of my room and leave me alone builds every day. My blood pressure problems and stomach ulcers are returning after a summer free from stress. I want to teach my children to pick up a clipboard and sit in a circle around these hated people to make little marks on papers while staring coldly and unfeelingly at them for 40 minutes to see how it makes them feel.

Every morning I tell myself that I’m doing it for the children but that mantra is becoming tattered and worn out and doesn’t make it any easier when I know that my classroom will be a daily exercise in humiliation, degradation, disrespect, a source of mistrust in my own professionalism and abilities and that I am forced to actively participate in my own destruction.

The people who are “observing” and controlling me all chose to leave the classroom and quite teaching for one reason or another. None of them have achieved any of the things that they claim I must now do — overcome lack of English speaking ability, physical, mental, and emotional handicaps, and extreme poverty and oftentimes neglect and abuse to produce the ever-rising test scores the state demands.

The district eliminated our school librarian’s position this year. We have little to no money to purchase materials to help these kids catch up due to an austerity budget. Seven of our colleagues were laid off last June and only three of those positions will be restored. Everything being done to us is designed to prevent us from succeeding. None of it is helpful or supportive — it is all punitive, shaming, and soul-destroying.

And still I go in every morning and smile at my six year olds and read them stories all while I am dying inside and living in fear, anxiety, and under tremendous stress. I want out and I know that’s what the reformers want most of all — for me to leave just a few years shy of a good pension that they won’t have to pay. The question has become “Is this job worth sacrificing my good health and mental stability for?” and my answer has become “No.”

I don’t want to give up and let them “win” but I don’t want to destroy myself either. This twice former “teacher of the year” and National Board Certified teacher with 2 masters degrees has just about thrown in the towel and that makes me feel even worse but I can’t maintain my best work under these circumstances and I can’t give my children 100% when the “observers” are sucking out my soul, hour by hour, either.

 http://dianeravitch.net/2013/09/08/the-secret-thoughts-of-a-florida-teacher-get-out-of-my-room-and-leave-me-alone/

Rick Hess director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute blames retirees pensions and health benefits for the problems in education. (rough draft)

Mr. Hess was on Jeb Bush’s blog Redefined Education having a chat moderated by the ReDefined Ed staff. The toughest question they asked him was, how is your day going?

When answering a question about for profits putting profits first he answered, Well, sure. That's always a concern. Of course, I trust Patricia recognizes that there are plenty of public school districts that fail to put needs of students and parents first. The point is that for-profits are not uniquely culpable, and that they have strengths as well as weaknesses.

I wondered if he could give some examples of school districts not putting kids and parents first and he answered:

Sure, take a look at health care and pension obligations in cities like Detroit or Philadelphia that are starving classrooms in order to make things comfortable for retirees. Look at procurement systems and HR departments that have avoided hard choices, throwing money at mediocre vendors and failing to get serious about evaluating or improving employee performance. These things are difficult and unpleasant, so the status quo is allowed to linger.

Where do I start? Am I wrong or is he saying that giving health care and pensions to teachers who gave a lifetime of service is a poor policy for school districts and that it robs from kids and parents. His dig about procurement systems is a bit of a stretch, yes I think school districts often choose crappy books but they choose them from for profit companies, which Hess was on Redefined Ed to promote. Then he goes into the tired old blame the teacher argument. Are their teachers that have chosen the wrong field? Sure just like there are probably directors of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute too.

I want to go back to what he blamed first and that’s the health benefits and pensions of people who dedicated their lives to children. That’s what we are battling against here, people who have no respect or appreciation for their service. Lets not forget that they often gave up on higher pay for better benefits and a pension too. People like Hess would see teachers have none of them.

I asked a follow up question, I have read the average teacher retiree in Detroit makes 19k a year that hardly seems like we are making them comfortable after a lifetime of service. Philadelphia's problems also seem to come from decades of mismanagement at the state and local level. Those two examples aside, do you think pensions are a problem in education as they divert funds from classrooms?

To which he replied, Yeah, you might want to take another look at the Detroit data. That figure is way off for a retiree who retired with 25 yrs. Look, the point is not that pensions are good or are bad. It's reasonable for people to want the pensions they've been promised, and we all like good benefits. But retirement obligations are carving huge chunks out of K-12 outlays (look at the Pew work on unfunded obligations and what that'll mean for states over the next decade or two). Public systems tend to be bad at resisting these demands, because nobody likes to be a bad guy. For-profits have self-reasons to keep those retirement obligations under control, which has the happy result of ensuring that more funds are going into salary for practicing teachers and into classrooms.

Once again he says where teachers wanting them isn’t unreasonable teacher pensions are the problem. He then added for profits make sure more money goes into salaries which we know to be a total lie as charters and the private schools in strip malls usually pay quite a bit less than public schools do. So yeah, I might need to look up how much Mrs. McGillicutty who taught for 30 years in Detroit is receiving but he needs to look up how much for profit schools are paying their staffs too. Who wants to best I am closer to the truth?

He then went on to praise Jeb Bush and Tony Bennett and I went on to throw up in my mouth a little. http://www.redefinedonline.org/2013/09/rick-hess-on-school-choice-common-core-and-for-profits-in-education/

So there you have it friends, the pensions and health benefits of people who dedicated their lives to children are two of the biggest stumbling blocks to improving education. After all they divert money from our classrooms and lets just forget teachers often traded pay for pensions and benefits, that way we will be able to sleep at night as Mrs. McGillicutty eats her cat food and lives in the back room of her daughters house.