“The FloridaTreats Public Schools Like Prisons Act.”

BY FRANK CERABINO - PALM BEACH POST STAFF WRITER

It’s about the guards, not the inmates.

That’s the best way to think about the state Legislature’s latest attempt to undermine public education in Florida.

The bill is called the Parent Empowerment in Education Act, which has something called a “parent trigger” — a kind of magic switch that can turn struggling neighborhood schools controlled by elected local school boards into charter schools run for profit by unelected and sometimes out-of-state corporations.

I think a more accurate name for the bill would be “The Treating Public Schools Like Prisons Act.”

Consider this. Two years ago, legislators made a clumsy attempt to radically undermine the state prison system, the third-largest in the country, with a plan that was ultimately blocked by the courts.

Here’s how it worked: Without fanfare or public debate, legislators inserted language into the state budget that called for turning 29 prisons in 18 counties in the southern part of Florida into for-profit prisons.

And to make sure those privately run prisons would show the mandated 7 percent savings in operational costs over the state’s traditional prisons, the state started shipping the high-maintenance and expensive prisoners out of those prisons earmarked for privatization and into the traditional public prisons.

That’s one way to show privatization works.

Now, they’re doing the same thing to public schools.

The parental trigger bill is designed to lead to the widespread conversion of traditional public schools in Florida to charter schools, which receive public money but don’t have to follow the restrictions of traditional public schools.

Hundreds of charter schools already are operating in the state and teaching about 7 percent of the state’s public school students. The results are mixed. Some schools are good, but many aren’t. Charter schools routinely get more than their share of F-ratings in the annual roundup of schools.

And they take capital improvement dollars away from traditional schools, money that’s flushed away when the charters go broke, which happens about 20 percent of the time.

Charter schools in Florida also have found some bizarre ways to turn a profit: One school in Miami-Dade operated as a nightclub after school hours. A Pensacola charter rented out teens for road work. And a charter school in New Port Richey offered $50 for students to sign up new kids to boost the school’s head count.

The state Department of Education released a study recently to bolster the Legislature’s love affair with charters. The report found that charter schools outperformed traditional state schools on 55 of the 63 metrics measured in state exams.

But Stanley Smith, a professor at the University of Central Florida’s business school, did his own examination and arrived at the opposite conclusion. Smith took into account that charter schools pick and choose the students they take, leaving these schools overall with fewer poor students, or kids with learning or language issues — the sort of kids who do poorly on standardized tests.

“The average charter school is doing about the same as the non-charter school when no adjustments are made for poverty and minority statuses,” Smith wrote. “When the adjusted scores are considered, the average charter school performs significantly worse than the average non-charter school.”

See? It’s just like the prisons. The tougher-to-educate kids get shunted to the traditional public schools, allowing the for-profit model to claim superiority.

In either case, the primary aim of these privatization forays isn’t to better the lives of the inmates or the students. It’s to cheapen and transform a traditional public service for the many into a private business opportunity for the few while eliminating careers of public employees, be they prison guards or teachers.

Forgive me if that doesn’t leave me feeling empowered

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1107550755163115303#editor

Tony Bennett and the Florida legislature’s stunning hypocrisy (rough draft)

Tony Bennett says he wants local school boards to have control over the parent trigger decision, that way they won’t be passing the buck to the state. They will have to explain to locals their decisions. To make sure that happens he asked the Florida legislature to gut the parent trigger bill, to make it totally toothless. Great that’s the way it should be anyways, but then why has he and the state usurped the right of school districts to allow or disallow charter schools? Why doesn’t he think local school boards are capable of deciding what public schools should operate in their jurisdictions? Wouldn’t the same logic to both charter schools and the parent trigger apply? Of course it would and Bennett either knows it and he is a stunning hypocrite or there is something else going on.

The truth is the state doesn’t want locals in charge of charter schools because locals care about their children, something those in Tallahassee being paid off don’t. Locals also know that as a group charter schools are doing pretty poorly and we don’t want them educating our children. If locals alone were in charge of charter schools they would be both rare and good. We couldn’t have that however because who would contribute to all those republican legislators in Tallahassee.

So that leaves something else going on, something like he knows it is a stunningly bad bill but he has to have it pass so the school choice, err privatization movement doesn’t slow down. He has to have it pass so he and Jeb Bush have a shred of credibility left.

You should be asking yourself some questions, is Tallahassee for local control of schools or not, are you for local control of schools or not and who says one thing and does another. If you are being honest I believe you will easily find the elephant in the room. If you are for local control don’t be a hypocrite and tell Tallahassee to get out of our schools, that not charter schools or the parent trigger will lead to improvement.

To read a little more about the subject, click the link: http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/fl-gop-want-to-end-local-control-of-schools-except-when-they-dont-to-get-parent-trigger-passed/

Florida’s false school choice

Oh the powers-that-be from Jeb Bush to Tony Bennett to every podunk legislator in between scream how important school choice is, how every parent has the right to set their student’s destiny. Well accept with the FCAT that is, then it is the states way or the highway or so parents are told. The truth is in third grade portfolios can be used and in high school the ACT can be used instead for promotion. As for every other grade there doesn’t seem to be any replacement but there doesn’t seem to be any consequence for not taking it either.

And folks they need kids to take it. Not so they can determine how children are doing, they really don’t care but so they can continue down the privatization route they started. If tests were to serve a legitimate and important purpose there would be one the first week of school to see what kids need and one the last to see if they got it.

So I’m not saying have your kid skip the FCAT but what I am saying is if I had a smart high schooler going to go to college who was going to take the ACT, I would give them the option and that’s more of a choice than the school choice crowd would give them.

To read more click the links: http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2012/12/24/whos-required-to-take-the-fcat/

http://www.susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=738

The FCAT is here, keep your kids home

Parents stand up for your kids, opt them out of the FCAT

All across the nation anti-standardized tests movements and prominent individuals are saying no to high stakes tests. The Bartleby project in New York, Governor Jerry Browne in California and Superintendent John Kuhn in Texas are just a few examples. Parents in Florida, which has been ground zero for standardized tests, should push back too. If you have a son or daughter preparing to take one of the tests next week do them a favor and keep them home.

Now there is no official opt out process for parents in Florida which is surprising because of how much the legislature screams about wanting to give parents choice but what would happen if you kept your child home or they refused to take the test? For the most part nothing because there are only two FCAT tests that are used to determine promotion, the third grade and tenth grade tests. Even then third graders can use a portfolio to make up the test and tenth graders can take the ACT.

So why have we spent months drilling, curtailed the arts and stressed kids out? So the adults can feel like they are doing something, well that and so corporations can make a lot of money off education. Testing giant Pearson, has a three hundred million dollar contract in Florida alone and they are branching out everywhere. They have become the Halliburton of the education world, they provide the tests they grade the tests and they provide supplemental testing to kids who don’t do well on the test. Their long fingers are felt everywhere.

Parents and educators need to draw a line in the sand and tell legislators who want to privatize our schools and big businesses that want to profit off our children that we aren’t going to have it. That we aren’t going to play your game anymore and it starts with just a little bit of civil disobedience. It starts with us saying, no, our kids are not going to take your little test.

The problems with the FCAT are many and whatever noble purpose it may have once had, has since been perverted. What was originally designed to let schools know how kids were doing has become the end all be all of Florida’s education system. We don’t even pretend not to teach to it anymore. We have become a state where learning is not important, just drilling kids to the point where they can get a 3 or better on the FCAT is.

If kids don’t pass the third grade test they can be retained and if they don’t pass the tenth grade test they eventually graduate without a diploma, just a certificate of completion not worth the paper it is printed on.  Schools can be taken over or closed if not enough kids pass it as well and issues like living in poverty, absentee parents and slashed school budgets don’t matter. There is no level of difficulty depending on a kid’s ability or surroundings, like our curriculum has become, it is one size fits all test and aptitude, desire and if the kid eats regularly or not, be damned. 

Kids and schools aren’t the only ones being handicapped by the test; teachers and society in general are as well. Teachers will now have their evaluations based on how kids in their classes do on the test and where intuitively that sounds right when critical thinking is applied it is fraught with peril. Studies where merit pay is based on high stakes testing indicate it is the quality of kids not the quality of instruction that determines how well they do on the test. Then society is now filled with recent graduates taking remedial classes in college or unemployed because all the school system has taught them to do is to take the FCAT. 

Furthermore what will people do when their livelihoods or money is on the line. Just look to Atlanta or Washington D.C. for your answer.

If we are serious about having a standardized test that does some good, why don’t we give the test the first week of school? That way we can see what kids need and then get it to them. Then we can give them the same test the last week to see if they got it. If they didn’t they would have to attend summer school or be held back. That would give them plenty of incentive to do well and it would make the test just a component of education which is all it was originally designed to be anyway.

Also right now the FCAT tells what the kids don’t know and passes the buck to the next year and their next set of teachers, it does nothing to help them catch up and once a kid starts falling behind they very rarely do catch up. Furthermore this would also help us see which teachers were more effective, right now the FCAT measures years of learning and holds teachers who have kids just a few months accountable.

However if enough families said enough and had their children opt out of the test, the state couldn’t possibly punish, children, teachers and schools but if thy tried can you imagine the outrage. Many people are simmering about the state of education here in Florida and are just looking for the right catalyst to inspire action.

What’s perhaps even more pervasive than just fundamentally changing the landscape of education is the fact that the FCAT has become big business. The state pays hundreds of millions to for profit testing companies that grade and administer the test. They have a vested interest in making sure we propagate this failed mess and have no problem hiring lobbyists or making contributions to see that this happens. As do their cousins the for profit charter school companies and the for profit education management organizations. This is money, money, money not going into our schools to be used to help our children, instead it is lining the pockets of far off hedge fund operators more concerned with the bottom line than what is best for our children.

Then there is the data. It is amazing that the powers-that-be scream that they want data driven instruction but then ignore data when it goes against something they support. Dianne Huafmann reported in Education Next that in 2002 when the FCAT was just getting started, 32 percent of tenth graders received a one on the reading FCAT. Fast-forward to 2010 when a generation of kids have grown up with the FCAT and 32 percent of tenth graders relieved a one on the reading FCAT. There was no change in the percentage of kids scoring the lowest grade.

We completely redid they way we did things and it resulted in a zero percent change in the percentage of kids scoring a one! Level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, grade 10, 2010, 32, 29, 18, 8, 14, GRADE 10, 2002, 32, 33, 21, 8, 7. Where would we be now if we had done nothing? Well ask yourself do you think our schools were better off in 2002 or better off now?

It’s unfortunate that the state doesn’t completely opt out of high stakes standardized tests but at this point they are not going to do it, too many people are making to much money for them to turn back now and that is why it has to be our parents that opt us out. It has to be them that take back our schools from bad policies and from corporate greed.

I watched the school board meeting and one by one all the board members wished Jacksonville’s children luck on their upcoming FCAT tests. I wish one would have had the guts to say, little Johnny refuse to take it, and little Suzie stay home, in the long run they and education will be better off.

Is it testing or punishment?

From Momma Bear

Thank you for writing this (The FCAT is here, keep your kids at home). Had I seen it earlier, I might have spared my child a very bad day.

I love educators, have the utmost respect and admiration for them. Most of them. I used to give all teachers the benefit of the doubt.  No longer.

Whether one thinks they are simply following the letter of the law or not, as a fellow human being and the adult charged with supporting the education and well-being of (often young) children, one ALWAYS has a choice. The teachers and staff "handling" my 8-year old child yesterday had a choice. They had my written refusal. They had no problem pushing this test on her through their smiles, in direct opposition of my express refusal, not request. 

They pulled her to make up yesterday's test as I had brought her to school after testing yesterday. She was seated at a conference table with two other kids testing and the ESE Specialist seated across from her... 

She was given the test, and was told, "You can start the test now." She held out for 5 minutes, in silence, as the ESE Specialist watched and smiled at her. Can you imagine how long that 5 minutes was for her? In her words, "She was watching me... so I took the test. I was mad when she gave me the test, and I was mad during the whole test." Of course. She did exactly as they planned. She was disappointed in herself, until I told her that she did good, and did not let me down. I am FURIOUS!  Should have seen it coming.  Even after that, her innocence lets her believe the best and lets her do what I cannot... forgive.  She says, "I don't think she wanted to make me take the test. I think the County makes her do it."

She still does not want to test, and I won't put her in that position again.  So I'll keep her home for the next 8 days of testing. 

What must it do to their psyche to force so young a child to do something they KNOW goes against the wishes of that child's parents? What do they have to tell themselves to be able to look their own kids in the eye after that? I wonder how many consider how THEY might feel to have someone else force their own child to do something against their own wishes as a parent.

Maybe when I'm not so bitter and angry, I will think differently and can be more generous. Right now, I think their behavior was unconscionable, no matter what the Law says. Don't we have enough examples in history where good people were doing horrible things, and they were simply following the Law? We have had many bad laws on the books. Not everyone followed them. There were many who were able to listen instead, to their conscience, and did the right thing, sometimes at great cost to themselves. Going along, not choosing, not looking, not seeing - are also choices. 

I don't make excuses for bad behavior anymore.  Not anyone's. 

They have poked the Momma Bear.

Education Matters makes the Folio!

The topic is bringing back student accountability something Duval county is sorely lacking. Check out the back page for print or just follow the link.
http://www.folioweekly.com/Focus-on-What-We-Can-Control,4190

Teaching, sad isn't it?

The following is a comment from a teacher who I invited to write on my blog. They didn't want to write much because they were afraid of retaliation. -cpg

Thank you for inviting me to speak out. I have been an obedient servant of our school system and yet I have nothing to show for it. I am being relentlessly bullied by administrators who tell me that it's their way or the highway. Yes, I could change jobs but it would betray my students for me to walk away. It would also betray my colleagues to walk way. In my opinion, it is my job to shut up and color for the sake of self-preservation. It does wound me every day when my principal judges my work based on a limited definition of what it means to serve our students. I believe that I do good work but it will never matter as long as I have a principal who believes that I am the enemy. I am ashamed to be a teacher because principals, assistant principals and their superiors have already decided that I am a bad person and they are working hard to fit their perception of me to fit their biased agendas. At the end of the day, they are covering their asses and throwing us under the bus. Sad, isn't it? 

-Any Teacher Duval County Public Schools.

Another way teaching is different from other professions.

Can you solve this equation?

Board of Education Chair Gary Chartrand gives 50k to governors reelection campaign, complains about teacher raises.

Gary Chartrand, or Gary, as the director of Save Duval Schools likes to call him, recently wrote a check to the governor’s reelection campaign for 50 thousand dollars while just a few days before panning the governor’s plan to give teachers, who have taken a 5% pay cut over the last two years, a raise. He is also the chair of the state board of education having gone from top fifty in grocery store news to running our schools. Hhmm, I wonder if contributions like above played a role in that.

Insert hypocrisy comments here.

I am seriously speechless , my school librarian however said, what a jerk.

About the raises, Chartrand likes merit pay even though every study says it doesn’t work but hey what’s facts and evidence when you are rich.

http://news.wfsu.org/post/state-ed-board-pans-govs-teacher-raises-while-scott-chides-weatherford

About the donation which is more than what 95% of Florida teachers make in a year.

http://news.wfsu.org/post/state-ed-board-pans-govs-teacher-raises-while-scott-chides-weatherford