Federal Government: Standardized tests are very flawed

From the Huffington Post, by Jessica Klein

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan conceded Tuesday that there are serious flaws in standardized testing, telling attendees at a meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) that much criticism about testing “is merited,” according to Education Week.

Duncan was speaking in San Francisco, Calif., at AERA’s annual five-day conference. His remarks came on the same day that both Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, proposed a moratorium for negative consequences on teacher evaluations tied to the first few years of implementing Common Core State Standards, a more in-depth set of math and reading benchmarks for standardized tests.

A protest was held before Duncan’s speech. Picketers held signs denouncing his policies and his appearance at AERA. Some picketers' signs took aim at Duncan’s and President Obama's Race to the Top program, a nationwide competition in which school districts and states compete for grant money based on assessments reflecting teacher effectiveness and student learning.

During his speech, Duncan addressed the protesters’ concerns. According to EdSource, he noted that the “solution to mediocre tests is not to abandon assessment,” but to support “much better assessment."

Duncan also addressed the difficulties schools may face during the first few years of Common Core implementation. When asked if he would put a moratorium on standardized testing while schools got adjusted to Common Core Standards, he said, “We understand this is a difficult tough time of transition. We’re spending a huge amount of time listening to ideas about how to do it."

The Common Core State Standards initiative has been adopted by 45 states and Washington, D.C. While New York and Kentucky have already begun testing based on the new standards, the rest of the states will start doing so in 2014.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/arne-duncan-aera-speech-standardized-tests_n_3196437.html

Fact Checker says Jeb Bush doesn’t understand what a fact is

It never gets old having to debunk Jeb Bush; unfortunately it never gets anything more than sad as well. If you have heard Jeb Bush speak, right after bashing teachers he invariably says the United States spends more on education than every other country and he’s right except for those pesky countries that have dared spend more than us.

Click the link to read more: http://factcheck.org/2013/06/jeb-bush-gets-f-on-school-spending/

Here is the thing, even if he was right and he is not, then so what. The United States is the most prosperous nation in the world, probably in the history of the world. Shouldn’t we be spending more on education than everyone else, shouldn’t we be spending a lot more?

When it is all said and done people are going to consider Jeb Bush a villain who cost millions of kids their futures and held the country back. He is disgusting and as the article points out factually challenged.    

Charter schools aren’t public schools let me count the ways

They, people who like charter schools and who want to speed up their proliferation, always say; charter schools are public schools. They say this not because it is true but because they think this will ease the mind of the community as they seek to privatize public education. Well friends’ charter schools are not public schools and let me count the ways.

Many in the Florida Legislature are looking to exempt charter schools from the Student Success act. In case you don’t now the SSA ended tenure like protections, said 50% of teacher evaluations had to be based on test scores, and called for but didn’t fund merit pay. Rep. George Moraitis, R-Fort Lauderdale while attempting to have his cake and eat it too, said in the Orlando Sentinel that the law “was never meant to cover charters.” He said that because charter school teachers are all “at will” employees — without the tenure-like protections that some traditional school employees enjoy — the law wasn’t mean to govern their work. (1)

However if you are following along, something the representative obviously hasn’t been doing, the SSA ended tenure like protections. Then senate president Don Geatz said, when talking about exempting charter school teachers’ not public school teachers from the odious Student Success act,“I’ve been in business for thirty years. I’ve never asked for an even playing field, you can’t make everything equal.”  (2)

This is what National Alliance for Public Charter Schools says about them on its Web site: Charter schools are always public schools. They never charge tuition, and they accept any student who wants to attend. Charter laws require that students are admitted by a random lottery drawing in cases too many students want to enroll in a single charter school. Charter schools must also meet the state and federal academic requirements that apply to all public schools.

Recent studies however have shown charter schools despite claiming to be the bastions of fairness often pick and choose whom they keep. 

Reuters just did a comprehensive piece showing how many charter schools prohibit, ESOL students, poor academic performers and students whose parents are involved less than they like. (3) Then State Impact reports how charter schools exclude disabled students saying, more than 86 percent of the charter schools do not serve a single child with a severe disability – compared to more than half of district schools which do. That in Duval County, just one student enrolled in a charter school has a severe disability. Duval district schools educate more than 1,000 severely-disabled students. There’s not a single child with a severe disability in charter schools in Pinellas County, the nation’s 24th-largest school district and finally the majority of charter school students with severe disabilities are concentrated in a handful of schools that specialize in those disabilities, often autism. (4)

Public schools are required to try and educate every student who shows up on the doorstep whether they be disabled, speak a different language, be less than academically inclined, have frequent discipline problems or parents who are absentee or not. If charter schools were public schools should they not be required to do the same?

Charter schools also get rid of kids at a faster and far greater rate than public schools do. 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. (5)

Furthermore charter schools don’t have the same financial accountability measures and this has led to massive malfeasance. Leslie Postal wrote in the Orlando Sentinel, According to an August report by the state auditor general, a third of state charter schools had accounting problems, legal violations or other problems in their 2011 audits. One third!!! Could you imagine if one third of public schools came back with the same type of report? The state legislature would be even more off with their heads than they are now. This is also the same industry that allowed the operator of a failed charter school to take home 890,000 dollars over a two-year period. (6) To give you some scale the Duval county School Superintendent who oversees some 170 schools, 14,000 employees and a billion dollar plus budget makes 275,000 dollars.   

Then some people might say, so what to all this. The long waiting lists for charter schools prove the public wants them. Well friends even that’s a lie.  Miami Dade official Iraida Mendez-Cartaya testified in front of the Florida legislature, pointing out that in her district, students are likely to appear on more than one waiting list – an obvious reason for such inflated numbers. (7)

Finally don’t even get me started about how study after study says charter schools don’t perform any better than their public school counterparts. 

At the end of the day they don’t follow the same laws, they don’t have the same admission standards, they get rid of students that public schools wouldn’t and they don’t have financial accountability. How could anybody possibly mistake a charter school for a public school and it is high time we stopped referring to them thusly. 

I have no doubt there are some fine charter schools, where kids are getting a wonderful education. The problem is this rush to privatize has created too great of an opportunity for charlatans and corporations looking to make a buck. Charter schools as parent teacher driven laboratories have a role to play in education. Charter schools as a replacement for public schools do both the children that attend them and the public that finances them a disservice.  

Charter schools are not public schools and the only reason people like Jeb Bush and Don Geatz says they are is because it gives their privatization agenda some cover. It is time we woke up and said enough, not enough is enough because there are two many poor performing charter schools out there and that should be closed but simply, enough.

1. http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2013/02/charter-school-bill-would-free-charters-from-some-parts-of-teacher-merit-pay-plan.html

2. http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2013/02/15/florida-senate-president-says-teachers-shouldnt-expect-an-even-playing-field/

3.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-usa-charters-admissions- 

4. http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/tag/disabled-in-florida-charters/

5. http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/dc-student-mobility-study/281/ 

6. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/os-northstar-charter-high-husband-

7. http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/smacking-down-florida-charter-schools-outrageous-waiting-list-claim/

Did the department of Education lie to the Times Union?

In a piece about Charter Schools, Matt Dixon wrote, Because most charter schools receive high annual grades, Department of Education officials say the growth of students enrolling in schools overseen by a few private companies is not a concern.

Lets examine the claim that charter schools mostly get high grades.

First over 200 have failed in the last decade, there grades probably aren't factored in.

Next 130 charter schools that are currently operating, about a third of them did not receive grades.

Next yes 74% of charter schools made As or Bs but compare that to 72% of public schools that did. The real difference is F schools where 5% of charter schools received that grade where 1% of public schools did. 

I also want to remind you that charter schools benefit from selection bias and that they have extremely low numbers of ESOL and ESE kids, plus many council out poor performers which both inflates their numbers and makes me see concerns everywhere!

The department of education has been taken over by pro charter school supporters who are more concerned with pushing their agenda rather than educating our children and that should concern us all as well.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-06-21/story/charter-school-management-companies-flex-political-muscle-

St. Johns Joyner gets it right, Duval’s Vitti gets it wrong

St. Johns County Superintendent Schools Joseph Joyner supports charter schools, but he has seen differences with the large charter schools run by management companies.

“They are large companies that make dozens of applications every year in dozens of school districts, and they are well funded and well connected,” he said. “In my experience, I fail to see any of the innovative nature and innovativeness” seen in small charter schools.

By contrast, Jacksonville’s superintendent Vitti recently attended a conference whose theme was how do we attract more of these large charter school chains to Florida.  He wants more of these schools that suck the resources out of public schools a very interesting for the superintendent of a public school district to be in.

I have always said as centers for parent and teacher driven innovation Charter Schools have a role to play. Unfortunately Florida has defacto private schools run by hedge fund managers whose priority is making a profit not educating our children.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-06-21/story/charter-school-management-companies-flex-political-muscle-

Charter School Company takes 25 million in management fees, lobbies for more money

Management fees by the way are made up of taxpayer’s money. This is money that doesn’t go into the school and doesn’t go into the classroom. In Florida since many charter school management companies are based elsewhere this money leaves the economy too.    

Since charter schools take so much in management fees why is Florida considering giving them even more money?

In 2011 alone, charter schools paid Charter School USA and Academica nearly $25 million in “management fees” for those services, according to records filed with the IRS.

A lot of that came from Florida and left Florida too.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-06-21/story/charter-school-management-companies-flex-political-muscle-

The downfall of public education

From the Huffington Post by Arnold Dodge

May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Just over 50 years ago, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring (1962) a damning indictment of the chemical industry's passion for DDT spraying to destroy insects. Here is the opening paragraph to a chapter entitled, "And No Birds Sang."

"Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song. This sudden silencing of the song birds, this obliteration of the color and beauty and interest they lend to our world have come about swiftly, insidiously, and unnoticed by those whose communities are as yet unaffected."

Carson's plaintive cry seems eerily familiar to what many of us have been saying about the changes we see in our schools. The classrooms in our nation have grown "strangely silent" where once they were filled with questions, laughter, spontaneity and, yes, noise. This change has come about "swiftly, insidiously and unnoticed" by communities who have been fed lies about a new accountability that promises to improve our schools.

We learned from Carson's well-researched work that when a toxic substance is introduced into a natural environment there is a kill that occurs. Educators have learned from their own well-worn experience that toxic threats producing kills are not limited to birds or fish in the natural environment, but are also found in toxic elements in schools that kill children's spirits.

When standardized tests -- promoted by big business interests -- take the place of teacher judgment, when teachers' evaluations are reduced to numbers, when scripted learning is the norm, when fear and intimidation are more prevalent than love and compassion, when obedience trumps the freedom to question, a poisonous atmosphere is created in our schools. We notice the silence in the joyless and lifeless places that our classrooms are becoming in the wake of a fugue of destructive educational policies designed to satisfy the mandates of Race to the Top.

Fifty years from now, when educational historians look back on this period, they may be honoring those who, Carson-like, exposed RTTT as the educational equivalent of DDT in its attempt to silence a generation by its widespread use of agents that stifle creativity and marginalize imagination. Maybe in their review they will be baffled by the policy makers of this era, posing a litany of questions to the erstwhile education czars: What were you thinking when you decided that a one size fits all, a punishing, severe and unforgiving approach to the care and development of children would work well? Were you hoping for obedience to reign over all other responses, for a triumph over the messiness of growing up, for silence in the school? Did you ever meet a child?

Here is Carson's last paragraph from the same chapter:

"Who has decided -- who has the right (Carson's italics) to decide -- for the countless legions of people that the supreme value is a world without insects, even though it be also a sterile world ungraced by the curving wing of a bird in flight? The decision is that of the authoritarian temporarily entrusted with power; he has made it during a moment of inattention by millions to whom beauty and the ordered world of nature still have a meaning that is deep and imperative."

Who indeed has decided that schools will be lifeless, mechanistic and ungraced by the arc of a child's natural development? Who would have the life of a youngster calculated and parsed so there is no more mystery to childhood? The decision is that of the temporary authorities emboldened by a staggering lack of opposition from a seemingly anesthetized public.

But there is a stirring. Little by little, folks are starting to wake up to the reality that children need recess and the freedom to make mistakes, and to be artistic and messy and difficult. They are new human beings trying out their humanness. To silence them by harsh rules and punitive sanctions is to rob them of their childhood.

Those of us who have been fighting against the corporatizing and standardization of American schools might do well to borrow other iconic symbols from the protest movement of the '60s. The widely disseminated message "War is not healthy for children and other living things," might be updated to "Schools are not friendly to children and other growing things."

Some may claim this dire profile to be hyperbole, an exaggeration of the effects of the new education reforms. For those of us who spend our time in schools, asking students and teachers about the changes, these claims are not an exaggeration. They are a sad reality.

As we close out a year that saw an unprecedented incursion of standardization and business-model accountability in our schools, we wonder about the future. When will we say enough is enough? When will we reclaim the territory that is rightfully the sacred ground of our children?

As we look to next year in our schools, let's all agree that we will not stand by and witness another silent fall where children's voices are outlawed.

What can we do?

Make some noise.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arnold-dodge/silent-fall_