Why Schools Can Never Be Expected to Run Like A Business

Diane Ravitch does it again. Schools cannot and should not be run like a business. Read here and here

Also today Diane wrote about Robin Williams performance in Dead Poets Society and aspiring to be the kind of teacher that changes lives and inspires students.

Yesterday she captured the thought process behind high stakes testing, data collection and pseudo accountability. Read the whole article here.

Those with this narrow, self-serving mindset accept that something is true without checking or affirming it. (i.e., Bad teachers are the problem). They claim to have hunches or insights that will correct problems. A woman who typifies this limited thinking is Michelle Rhee. She demonstrates a myopic way of thinking that is not productive. That is, if you threaten and hurt people they will get in line behind your assumptions or get out of your way. Bill and Melinda Gates are part of this way of thinking. If you devise tests that are designed to fail children and their teachers, you will motivate them and purge the profession – or so this tragic way of thinking plays out…..

Read her daily!

There's something happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear

But, it's getting clearer...

Sold to the Poor for the Benefit of the Elite

No Summer Soldiers or Sunshine Patriots

Diane Ravitch often posts material from Peter Greene. This seems especially appropriate for the 4th of July.

Education Achievement Authority First Hand

Listen, learn and say, "This will not happen here!"
(Audio only.)

American Culture

Diane Ravitch hits the nail on the head when commenting about how American education policy is to make American classrooms more like Chinese classrooms.

This is the dream of “tiger moms” like Amy Chua and Michelle Rhee, to subject children to higher and higher stakes until they think of nothing other than their test scores.

Sorry, guys, but your dream is not the American dream. The American dream is one where everyone has a fair chance to realize their ambitions, whatever they may be–not just test scores, but in sports, music, or some other endeavor. The American dream celebrates those who tinker, who create, who improvise, who invent new ideas while “messing around” with stuff that interests them. This is the dream that made this country great, not a one-size-fits all examination hell that ranks kids according to the whims of the testing industry.

...At Hengshui, students study from 5:30 a.m. to 9:50 p.m., cannot have cell phones and are allowed just one day of vacation every month. Cameras are placed in each classroom to monitor students for laziness...

Look at Chinese society and culture under this system, totalitarian, high pressure and conformist. This is not what we should be aspiring to nor what we should be subjecting our children to.

The Big Crash

The Common Core State Standards or CCSS were never field tested nor were they written by educators. See here and  here. They are tied to high stakes tests that will be used to evaluate teachers which is very unreliable. See here. They emphasize non-fiction reading material and math concepts that already show they are especially inappropriate at the lower grades. You don't make kids smarter just by making school harder.

But, the Standards are under the control of the National Governor's Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. These are private, not public bodies. The tests are based on the Standards. If the Standards don't work they will need to be changed. But, changing the Standards will necessitate changing the tests. Therefore, nothing will change, hence the Big Crash.

Parents are objecting to their children being labeled failures. Student learning will not improve and their experience of school will suffer. Teachers are objecting to being evaluated using unreliable measures. Reports indicate there is a disconnect between the Standards and the tests! See here.

Many states are seeing that they have been sold a bill of goods and Common Core is failing out of the gate. See here.

The education reform monster was developed inappropriately, rolled out prematurely and adopted illegitimately (for Race to the Top eligibility). It is failing already. The BIG CRASH is coming.

What to do?

David Coleman - Architect and Author of the CCSS

Not Just Another Brick In The Wall

From Diane Ravitch's bolg... On a Gates Foundation website, seeking to persuade businesses how much America needs the Common Core–even though it has never been field-tested to gauge its real-world consequences–Alan Golston wrote this execrable sentence: “Businesses are the primary consumers of the output of our schools, so it’s a natural alliance.” 

Peter Greene almost jumps through the page–or, the Internet–shouting NO! He writes:

“Output of our schools. Students are not output. They are not throughput. They are not toasters on an assembly line. They are not a manufactured product, and a school is not a factory. In fact, a school does not create “output” at all. Talking about the “output” of a school is like talking about the “output” of a hospital or a counseling center or a summer camp or a marriage. When talking about interactions between live carbon-based life forms (as in “That girl you’ve been dating is cute, but how’s the output of the relationship?”), talking about output is generally not a good thing. Primary consumers. Here’s another thing that students are not– students are not consumer goods. Businesses do not purchase them and then use them until they are discarded or replaced. Students are not a good whose value is measured strictly in its utility to the business that purchased it.”

They don't walk, talk or think like educators, yet they are foisting their unsophisticated, uninformed and misguided education policies on the entire country, not because they are wise, but because they can. See here.

VAM - Value Added Measure

Common Core tests will tell teachers nothing about how they or their students can improve. They will do nothing to inform instruction. They will be used to judge your teaching ability. VAM's are neither reliable nor stable. The best teacher at a school with 95% poverty will likely score lower than the worst teacher at a school with 5% poverty. This is an interesting article about VAM's.

The Cancer Grows

 The new Mayor of New York approved 14 of 17 new charter schools. This insult resulted in the Democratic governor and legislature passing legislation that...

• established a right to space for charter schools within overcrowded public schools up to and including the right to push all public students out, 
• public schools have to pay for private space rented by new charter schools, 
• increased funding for students going to charter schools.

Who wanted this? Hedge fund managers, charter school operators backed by billionaires, politicians in need of campaign dollars, the usual suspects.

Media Coverage

March 24, 2014 State rejects Deficit Elimination Plan
March 24, 2014 5 things to know about the District's finances
March 26, 2014 Teachers / Administration to meet
March 27, 2014 Board sets special meeting
March 28, 2014 Tentative Agreement
March 31, 2014 Live Blogging School board meets
March 31, 2014 We're going in the right direction.
April 11, 2014 Teachers vote to approve contract, Board approves
April 17, 2014 State approves DEP

Use It Or Lose It

We are told by the anti-union forces that unions were needed at one time, but in an era of global competition they are dinosaurs who only get in the way of both companies and workers. As usual the opposite is true. In an era of global competition and billionaire influence we need someone who can stand up for the interests of workers.

400 Data Points Per Child

We ask students to consider the audience when they are writing. What does it say about the Common Core when many of its lower grade standards are not appropriate for those grades? Was the Common Core written to best serve teachers and students or to generate data that can be tracked?

Check it out.

Rise Above the Mark

Diane Ravitch at the Network for Public Education Conference

Diane Ravitch at NPE Conference, March 2, 2014 from Schoolhouse Live on Vimeo.
Start post introductions at 8 minute mark.

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Nailed It

Sometimes the truth comes wrapped in one neat, tidy package.
Read, The American Public School Under Siege.