Vocabulary Lessons on Reform

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More Stress Does Not Make Education Better

Increasing stress in schools is toxic to the relationship between teachers, children and learning. Many aspects of the current education reform movement are increasing this stress: lack of job security, reliance on test scores to measure things the tests are not designed to measure, eliminating programs due to budget cuts give students fewer reasons to engage in school, increasing the time devoted to test prep and testing undermines every teachers' integrity because every teacher knows testing is not teaching or learning.

Contrast this short list with teachers being respected and valued, test scores used to inform instruction, expanding programs and course offerings giving students more reasons to engage in school. The things that will help schools help students are obvious and ignored by the reformers because they either do not know what they are doing or they are serving other purposes and only saying their reforms will work. More at this link.

Opposition to Common Core and High Stakes Testing

Several issues have arisen as Common Core is being implemented. The standards have never been implemented anywhere before being rolled out nationwide. Much of the material was developed by starting at "college and career ready" post high school and then back filling the standards and the grades at which there are to be taught. This has led to things being taught at inappropriate times when children are not ready. This has led to extremely high failure rates where Common Core assessments have been given. This is followed by unprecedented stress on students as they are labeled failures because they cannot perform on tasks that are too difficult for them or that they were never taught. Teachers are to be evaluated based on this. As our blog states, "Education 'reformers' have hidden behind their marketing, but the results of their brand of education are starting to impact students and their families. Most do not like the reality of what they have been sold." The resistance to Common Core and high-stakes testing is growing. This was in NY last night...




Originally posted here.

Test Scores Can Tell You the Quality of the Teacher?

 

Paraphrased from Reign of Error by Diane Ravitch

School reformers who lobby our state legislators say that the single biggest difference whether students succeed in school, or not, is the quality of their teacher. They claim this quality is not determined by teacher credentials, experience or education but by performance measured by student test scores.

This simple argument is difficult to refute because the answer is much more complex and often comes off as making excuses. Good teachers are important, yet learning that shows up on tests is affected by a great many factors, many of them outside of school and outside the control of the teacher. These include:

1 The education level of the parents.
2 The presence or absence of peers and siblings who value education and are willing to try their best (called peer effects).
3 Being frequently read to.
4 Use of complex language and an extensive vocabulary when parents talk to their children.
5 Extreme economic stress so there is no stable or secure home life.
6 Prenatal care.
7 Proper preventive health care.
8 Poor parental health.
9 Ability to travel or visit nearby cultural experiences to stimulate curiosity and desire to learn.
10 Live in a zip code where there are no educated adult role models

The claim by reformers is that great teachers can overcome the influence of family, poverty, disability status, language proficiency and students own levels of interest and ability. The reality is that the vast majority of influence on students' school performance is from their family and their circumstances outside of school. Sometimes our greatest success comes in important things that are taught and learned but cannot be tested. Growing desire to come to school, to try, to trust someone, to feel safe, to have friends, to laugh, to take responsibility...

This is not a call to give up. We recognize how the deck is stacked against some of our students, yet we try to overcome it every day. The reformers simply want to stack the deck against us too.

Diane Ravitch on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Diane Ravitch on Melissa Harris-Perry

MEA - Like the Cop on the Beat

• Senate Bills 89-90 and House Bill 4234, which would eliminate the sales and use taxes on the difference between the value of a trade-in and new vehicle, resulting in a $152 million loss in school aid
• Senate Bills 142-143, which would eliminate sales and use taxes on prewritten software, causing up to $11 million in lost school revenue
• House Bill 4135, which would eliminate the requirement to pay local school operating mills on foreclosed properties and result in up to $42 million in lost school funding
• House Bill 4572, which would eliminate the sales tax on aviation fuel and reduce school funding by up to $41 million

Snyder is campaigning on having increased school funding! Slashing it by billions, then giving a tiny bit back is disingenuous at best. Then, with these bills, they will try to cut the School Aid Fund even more. Without the MEA we would never know about this kind of thing until it is too late.

That's What A Union Is Fellas

Just Sayin'

MEA - What Do You Get For Your Dues?

A Nice Story to Start the Year With

Her last day of teaching first grade.

Equal Protection Anyone?

I wonder if Michigan has a similar law? In Tennessee it may be unconstitutional to allow students to take their educational dollars to private institutions leaving the public schools with fixed costs they cannot meet. At the very least the state should provide for these costs so that the remaining students are more fully served.

Connecting The School Reform Dots

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett cut education funding and now claims that Philadelphia schools cannot manage their money (even though they have been under state control for 10 years). Teachers are under the gun to take massive pay cuts. Sound familiar?
Read more.

Tenure = Due Process, Not Lifetime Employment

Some might say that this battle is over. I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction. When beloved teachers start losing their jobs because the Smarter Balance / Common Core test scores force them out you will see a backlash against rating teachers based on student test scores and a move toward greater job security.

Student Data

Meet The New School Board

For those of you who do not know, ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council. It provides conservative legislators with model legislation in support of conservative priorities. Educationally speaking this means charters, online schools, Right To Work, testing, no tenure, evaluations tied to student test scores, etc. These reforms do not stand on their own as good ideas, but have the incentives of providing profit and/or power to their proponents.

David and Charles Koch fund this assault on public education out of their 50+ billion dollars in assets. Their foundations spend $200 million dollars annually promoting their agenda. This is less than one half of one percent, by the way.

The reason I bring this up now is an article that reveals the following:

They have also collaborated on the annual ALEC education “report card” that grades states’ allegiance to their policy agenda higher than actual student performance. That distorted report card also rewards states that push ALEC’s beloved union-busting measures while giving low grades to states with students who actually perform best on standardized knowledge tests.

They reward legislators who adhere to their agenda with funding and threaten them with more conservative primary challengers if they don't regardless of how students actually perform. This is about power. They don't need the money.

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down

Education reform is a house of cards or a mortarless brick wall. Pick your metaphor. The very data the reformers are counting on to kill public education will be their own undoing. Tony Bennett headed education for Indiana and then Florida until he resigned recently over a scandal from his time in Indiana. Specifically, inflating the scores of his flagship charter school in Indiana. Criticism based on the reality of school reform is coming from the left (middle really) and the right, but not about Michelle Rhee, yet.

Real Education Reform

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The Reformers Behind the Curtain

I hate to use this image because he was a good man, just a very poor wizard. I don't know if we can say the same of the school reformers and legislators and governors working against public education. Even if we assume they are well intentioned, but mistaken they do seem immune to facts.

Bolderapproach.org has an interesting study. If you know in your heart that the reformers are on the wrong track, but don't have the details this study is worth the time to read.

Back in Business

The education reformers continue to press their case that public education is failing and privatization, vouchers and charters will save America's kids. However, the more their policies go into effect the more difficult it is for them to hide behind their marketing. Not just teachers, but the public is beginning to see the effects of their policies.

Diane Ravitch joins the Badass Teachers Association. Consider joining their Facebook page or go to their blog.

Update: Or read about them in the Washington Post.