Killing Public Education in Ten Easy Steps

While the public schools are struggling with inadequate funding, legislators in Indiana are considering forgiving loans to "failing" privately run charters*...and private schools are getting a significant increase through Indiana's expanded voucher plan.

There's an open movement to privatize public education (as well as just about everything else) in America. Those who favor privatization are clear that their goal is to remove public control. One of my posts about privatization got this response from "tiffany"...

Like all rational individuals, I do not support public schooling, I do not support charters which are a pitiful compromise, I do not support vouchers which are a frivolous waste of administrative time and resources. I support 100% private education and home education, because that is the only moral education. I support this the same way I support 100% private food service, hotel service, tanning service, and any other service provided by anyone. This is the only correct position – it’s not a conclusion, it’s the starting place for the discussion. Anything less than this is theft and therefore evil.

While not all pro-privatizers would consider all tax money as "theft" the purpose is clear...to remove public control of institutions and place it in private hands. Their point is, I think, that "the market" always does better than the government in everything.

To that end, the governors and legislators of states like Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere have crafted legislation (or taken legislation crafted by ALEC) to "redistribute" public funds from public education to private schools and privately operated charter schools.

A reader of Diane Ravitch's blog listed the steps being taken by pro-"reform" legislatures to destroy public education. Much of the following Surefire Plan to Destroy Public Education has been put into practice (and not just in Texas). Even with the widespread community and parent backlash in places like Chicago and New Jersey, the privatizers are making progress...pushing their agenda.

Obviously many people are in favor of privatization. Those of us who oppose it have less money to buy politicians. The election in Indiana of Glenda Ritz over privatizer-pet Tony Bennett shows, however, that a strong, hardworking group of people can overcome the privatization-based money bent on destroying public education.

Texas: The Surefire Plan to Destroy Public Education

What keeps many of us fighting 20 hours a day and digging into our own pockets to fund the work is our understanding that these bills are not the end game. We’ve read the web sites, beginning with Milton Freidman’s epistle on the Cato Institute’s website, that lay out the insidious plan we are seeing played out. We have also read Naomi Klein’s brilliant book, Shock Doctrine.

[emphasis added]

1. First, impose ridiculous standards and assessments on every school.
2. Second, create cut points on the assessments to guarantee high rates of failure. (I was in the room when it was done in the State of Delaware, protesting all the way, but losing).
3. Third, implement draconian accountability systems designed to close as many schools as possible. Then W took the plan national with NCLB.
4. Fourth, use the accountability system to undermine the credibility and trust that almost everyone gave to public schools. increase the difficulty of reaching goals annually.
5. Fifth, de-professionalize educators with alternative certification, merit pay, evaluations tied to test scores, scripted curriculum, attacks on professional organizations, phony research that tries to make the case that credentials and experience don’t matter, etc.
6. Sixth, start privatization with public funded charters with a promise that they will be laboratories of innovation. Many of us fell for that falsehood. Apply pressure each legislative session to implement more and more of them. Then Arne Duncan did so on steroids.
7. Seventh, use Madison Avenue messaging to name bills to further trick people into acceptance, if not support, of every conceivable voucher scheme. The big push now as states implement Freidman austerity budgets to create a crisis is to portray vouchers as a cheaper way to “save” schools. The bills that would force local boards to sell off publicly owned facilities for $1 each is also part of the overall scheme not only to destroy our schools, but also to make it fiscally impossible for us to recover them if we ever again elect a sane government. Too, districts had to make cuts in their budgets in precisely the areas that research says matter most: quality teachers, preschool, small classes, interventions for struggling students, and rigorous expectations and curriculum. See our report: http://www.equitycenter.org. Click on book, Money STILL Matters in bottom right corner.
8. Eighth, totally destroy public education with so-called universal vouchers. They have literally already published the handbook. You can find it numerous places on the web.
9. Ninth, start eliminating the vouchers and charters, little by little.
10. And, tenth, totally eliminate the costs of education from local, state, and national budgets, thereby providing another huge transfer of wealth through huge tax cuts to the already-billionaire class.

And then only the wealthy will have schools for their kids.

During the last presidential election Mitt Romney gave voice to the effect of privatization on America's public education system. He said,

I want to make sure we keep America a place of opportunity where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they're able to get...and if they have a willingness to work hard and with the right values they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot at realizing their dreams. [emphasis added]

The phrase, as much education as they can afford has, as its corollary, the fact that those who can't afford it won't get it. So the Romneys, the Obamas, the Gates, the Emanuels and the Duncans will continue to attend expensive private schools while those who have no money will have to make do with whatever "they can afford." That's the definition of Romney's "fair shot."

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Shopping for Legislators

How School Privatizers Buy State-Level Elections

A fundamental struggle for democracy is going on behind the scenes in statehouses around the country, as a handful of wealthy individuals and foundations pour money into efforts to privatize the public schools.

The implications are huge. But the school privatizers, and their lobbyists in the states, have so muddied the waters that the public does not get a clear picture of what is at stake.

So it was fascinating when investigative reporter Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ripped the veil off a secretive organization and its hidden political activities by publishing a copy of the American Federation for Children's "2012 Election Impact Report."

The report, which was clearly meant only for members and donors, outlines how the American Federation of Children pours millions of dollars into state races around the country to back candidates who support school vouchers and other measures that siphon public money private schools.

Addendum to The Surefire Plan to Destroy Public Education

5a. Claim that "poverty is not destiny" and use that as an excuse to ignore the high levels of child poverty in America and it's relationship to lowered achievement.

Krashen writes,

To the editor

Re: Obama wants faster Internet in US schools. Would you pay $5 a year for it? (June 6). Twenty-three percent of American children now live in poverty, the second highest among 34 economically advanced countries. In comparison, Finland has less than 5.3% child poverty. Poverty means poor nutrition, hunger, and inadequate health care; all of these have a profound negative impact on school achievement.

Instead of 99 percent of American students connected to the internet with the latest, but soon-to-be-obsolete technology, how about making sure that 100 percent of American children are protected from the impact of poverty?

Next-generation broadband and high-speed wireless are of little help when children are hungry or ill.

What if Finland’s great teachers taught in U.S. schools?

In recent years the “no excuses”’ argument has been particularly persistent in the education debate. There are those who argue that poverty is only an excuse not to insist that all schools should reach higher standards. Solution: better teachers. Then there are those who claim that schools and teachers alone cannot overcome the negative impact that poverty causes in many children’s learning in school. Solution: Elevate children out of poverty by other public policies.

For me the latter is right. In the United States today, 23 percent of children live in poor homes. In Finland, the same way to calculate child poverty would show that figure to be almost five times smaller. The United States ranked in the bottom four in the recent United Nations review on child well-being. Among 29 wealthy countries, the United States landed second from the last in child poverty and held a similarly poor position in “child life satisfaction.” Teachers alone, regardless of how effective they are, will not be able to overcome the challenges that poor children bring with them to schools everyday.

*References to charters generally imply corporate, for-profit charter schools. Quotes from other writers reflect their opinions only. See It's Important to Look in a Mirror Now and Then.

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Sign An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

2013 Medley #12

According to Arne Duncan, "Poverty is not destiny..." Jerry Bracey would respond, "Poverty is not an excuse. It's a condition. It's like gravity. Gravity affects everything you do on the planet. So does poverty."

I accept that "poverty is not destiny," however, while Duncan and the "reformers" are quick to give examples of high poverty children and schools which have succeeded, they ignore the effect that poverty has on the millions of children who are struggling. They use outliers as "proof" that poverty doesn't matter when we (and they) know that it does.

Spouting phrases like "poverty is not destiny" is an excuse to ignore it...to ignore the fact that our legislators, governors, and presidents have failed to resolve issues like poverty. It's much easier to find fault with America's public schools than to take on the difficult issues facing the country.

We are a profoundly divided nation...and the greatest divide is economic. While politicians try to destroy each other...while lobbyists buy legislators...while the wealthiest individuals control more and more of this country's resources...more than one fifth of our children live in poverty and attend underfunded schools. We know that there is a high correlation between a child's family and his/her academic achievement, yet, instead of providing health care, counselors, transportation, and other wraparound services, such as those suggested by the Chicago Teachers Union, we close schools, which punishes students for living in poverty, and punishes teachers for dedicating their lives to helping at-risk children.

Politicians and policy makers don't want to accept the fact that it is they who have failed, so they look for a place to lay the blame.

Privatizing hasn't helped. Closing schools hasn't helped. High-stakes testing hasn't helped. The source of the problem is child poverty.

Valerie Strauss

The biggest scandal in America

Valerie Strauss is one of public education's strongest voices...

There are many ramifications for this in the realm of public education. Because public schools are largely funded by property taxes, schools in high-poverty areas have fewer resources. Federal dollars appropriated to help close the gap don’t come close. Furthermore, if there is anything that education research has shown consistently and conclusively, it is that student achievement is linked to the socioeconomic level of families. Students who attend low-poverty schools do well on international test scores, as well as students in any other country.

Jonathan Kozol

Here is Jonathan Kozol's speech at the Save Our Schools March in DC, 7/30/2011. No one over the last 40 years has spent as much time advocating for poor children as Kozol.

Stephen Krashen

Protecting Students Against the Effects of Poverty: Libraries

• Children of poverty are more likely to suffer from "food insecurity," which means slower language development as well as behavioral problems (Coles, 2008/2009).
• High-poverty families are more likely to lack medical insurance or have high co- payments, which means less medical care, and more childhood illness and absenteeism, which of course negatively impacts school achievement. School is not helping: Poor schools are more likely to have no school nurse or have a high ratio of nurses to students (Berliner, 2009).
• Children of poverty are more likely to live in high-pollution areas, with more exposure to mercury, lead, PCB's (polychlorinated biphenyls) and smog, all of which influence health and learning, and often impact behavior as well (Berliner, 2009, p. 23; Martin, 2004).
• Children of poverty have very little access to books at home and in their communities, with less access to good public libraries and bookstores (Neuman and Celano, 2001).

Protecting children from poverty a better investment than the common core.

The major reason for our unspectacular school achievement is our level of child poverty, now 23%, the second highest child poverty level among 35 “economically advanced” countries. Poverty has a devastating impact on school performance. When we control for poverty, American children's international test scores are near the top of the world.

There is no evidence that more rigorous standards and increased testing improve school performance.

There is strong evidence that that protecting children from the effects of poverty will increase school performance: Strengthening food and health care programs, and providing better support for libraries and librarians is a much better investment than the common core.

Alfie Kohn

Poor Teaching for Poor Children … in the Name of Reform

Those who demand that we “close the achievement gap” generally focus only on results, which in practice refers only to test scores. High-quality instruction is defined as whatever raises those scores. But when teaching strategies are considered, there is wide agreement (again, among noneducators) about what constitutes appropriate instruction in the inner city.

The curriculum consists of a series of separate skills, with more worksheets than real books, more rote practice than exploration of ideas, more memorization (sometimes assisted with chanting and clapping) than thinking. In books like The Shame of the Nation, Jonathan Kozol, another frequent visitor to urban schools, describes a mechanical, precisely paced process for drilling black and Latino children in “obsessively enumerated particles of amputated skill associated with upcoming state exams.”

Not only is the teaching scripted, with students required to answer fact-based questions on command, but a system of almost militaristic behavior control is common, with public humiliation for noncompliance and an array of rewards for obedience that calls to mind the token economy programs developed in prisons and psychiatric hospitals.

David C. Berliner

Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success

...despite their best efforts at reducing inequalities, inequalities do not easily go away, with the result that America’s schools generally work less well for impoverished youth and much better for those more fortunate. Recent test results from America’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and from the international comparisons in both the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program on International Student Assessment (PISA) all show this pattern. Figure 1 (following), from TIMSS 2007, illustrates how closely linked school scores are to the school’s enrollment of low-income students. Comparing the scores of schools in 58 countries in the TIMSS pool against only wealthier American schools, instead of overall averages, makes the link clear. Looking first at the American schools with the lowest levels of poverty—where under 10% of the students are poor—we find that the average scores of fourth grade American students are higher than in all but two of the other 58 countries.6 Similarly, in American schools where under 25% of the students are poor, the average scores of fourth grade American students are higher than all but four of these other countries.

And others...

Hunger, Academic Success, and the Hard Bigotry of Indifference

Research on young children in several U.S. cities found that food insecure children were two thirds more likely to experience developmental risks in expressive and receptive language, fine and gross motor control, social behavior, emotional control, self-help, and preschool functioning. These outcomes held even after controlling for potential confounding variables such as caregiver's education, employment, and depressive symptoms. Other data from a study of 1,000 poor families identified associations between food insecurity and children's behavior problems, such as temper tantrums, fighting, sadness, depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

Map: How 35 countries compare on child poverty (the U.S. is ranked 34th)

UNICEF’s data is important for measuring the share of children who are substantively poorer than their national average, which has important implications for the cost of food, housing, health care and other essentials. Its research shows that children are more likely to fall below this relative poverty line in the United States than in almost any other developed country.

Does America Really Care About Its Children?

I'm really not interested in hearing politicians on either side of the aisle talk about "reform" when they can't even keep per pupil spending at least constant (and that's not even counting for inflation!). And I'm especially uninterested in hearing billionaires tell us their latest wacky schemes to "reform" our schools when the money that's not being spent on our children is winding up in their pockets.

More on Poverty...

No school can make up for years of neglect before a child reaches school age. No school can correct the damage done by lead poisoning or poor nutrition as the child grows. No school can teach a child who has been traumatized by violence. Closing public schools and opening militarized charter schools - such as our new Secretary of Education did in Chicago - do not solve the problem caused by years of social indifference. “Better” tests don’t improve teaching and learning. You don’t fatten the cow by weighing her with a better scale.

Schools need to be included as part of the solution to the problems of generational poverty, crime and malnutrition - absolutely…but someone has to carry the ball back to the children’s homes…and someone has to deal with the other 18 hours a day that the children are not in school.

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Sign An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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Depersonalization, De-professionalization, Demoralization

Ani McHugh, a high school teacher of the year from Delran, New Jersey wrote a letter to the Burlington County (NJ) Times which describes the heart of education "reform" as the depersonalization of both teachers and students.

Ani wrote,

Depersonalization is at the heart of education reform

For decades, newspapers have published letters from people who describe teachers as lazy, greedy and ineffective — and responses from teachers who defend their work ethic, their passion and their profession as a whole.

The problem, though, is one that's older and more deeply rooted than much of this banter addresses. It's one on which the current educational "reform" movement thrives: depersonalization.

To label all teachers as anything is ignorant at best, just as to label all members of any group of people based on commonly-accepted stereotypes is dangerous, derisive and wildly offensive. Are all lawyers corrupt? Are all Irish people drunks? Are all Muslims terrorists? You get the point. It's dangerous.

Yet this kind of depersonalization is the foundation of the "reform" movement. Students have no identity in the eyes of reformers. Instead, they're numbers in a database that are examined for the sole purpose of evaluating teachers, who are also nameless, faceless statistics.

In New Jersey, teachers will be evaluated using student growth percentiles, which track students’ scores on flawed standardized tests to check for yearly "progress." Consider this: A student performs well on high-stakes tests for two straight years. Then, he experiences a death in the family, has problems at home, is plagued by a serious illness, or begins to abuse drugs or alcohol. Would his ability to focus, to try and to care about a meaningless multiple-choice test be affected? Probably. Would his test score that year go down? Probably.

Yet reformers, who have no interest in this student or knowledge of his struggles, would blindly, categorically and authoritatively blame the child's teacher, who obviously failed to do his or her job because the student didn't show adequate "growth" from the year before.

Reformers oversimplify the learning process and ignore the very basic fact that children and teachers are individuals. They stereotype students by categorizing them with others to whom they're "similar" based solely on single test scores. They insist that teachers' lessons address diverse learning styles, yet devalue diversity by forcing all students to pass the same flawed standardized test.

But most alarming is that reformers, who recognize that many people know little about public education but will leap to attack it, use empty jargon that sounds reasonable to promote their dangerous agenda.

In this culture, good teachers will flee the profession because their intellect, individuality, vision and judgment are devalued. They'll become dispensable -- and easily replaceable -- because the curriculum will be narrow, prescribed and designed by non-educators so that those who can follow a script can teach it. Public schools, a cornerstone of our society, will be replaced by for-profit charters that make rich corporations richer at taxpayers' expense.

Good teachers are invaluable, and the profound ways in which they influence their students are immeasurable. Calling teachers lazy, greedy and ineffective is no different than promoting any other stereotype that lumps all people with a commonality into one group, and evaluating teachers based on a testing system that strips any type of human characteristics away from our children promotes this same kind of injustice.

— Ani McHugh

The national trend of depersonalizing educators and students has allowed "reformers" to de-professionalize public education.

In state after state teachers have lost employee rights such as collective bargaining. The call for improved teaching has been accompanied by lowered standards for entrance into the teaching profession. In Indiana you don't need teaching credentials to be a public school teacher, you don't need administrative training or substantial years of teaching experience to be either a principal or superintendent. This "fast-track" of educator preparation is not going to improve teacher or school quality.

The evaluation of teachers based on student test scores has been shown to be invalid and unreliable, yet it continues. The strongest correlation with achievement levels based on standardized tests is a child's family income, yet the number of states employing VAM measures continues to increase.

The de-professionalization of education -- the constant blame heaped upon teachers for things outside of their control, the denial of teachers' expertise, the loss of employee rights, the micromanagement of classrooms...have all contributed to the lowest morale among educators in decades.

Is this the way to improve public education? Do "reformers" really want to improve public education?

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Sign An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

On June 11, the Campaign for America’s Future and the Opportunity to Learn Campaign released An Education Declaration to Rebuild America printed below.

Please take a few minutes to read the seven core principles that frame the Declaration’s vision followed by a “supports-based reform agenda” that rejects test-and-punish and rejects today’s system where opportunity depends “on zip code or a parent’s ability to work the system.” Click here to sign the Declaration.

An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

Americans have long looked to our public schools to provide opportunities for individual advancement, promote social mobility and share democratic values. We have built great universities, helped bring children out of factories and into classrooms, held open the college door for returning veterans, fought racial segregation and struggled to support and empower students with special needs. We believe good schools are essential to democracy and prosperity — and that it is our collective responsibility to educate all children, not just a fortunate few.

Over the past three decades, however, we have witnessed a betrayal of those ideals. Following the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, policymakers on all sides have pursued an education agenda that imposes top-down standards and punitive high-stakes testing while ignoring the supports students need to thrive and achieve. This approach – along with years of drastic financial cutbacks — are turning public schools into uncreative, joyless institutions. Educators are being stripped of their dignity and autonomy, leading many to leave the profession. Neighborhood schools are being closed for arbitrary reasons. Parent and community voices are being shut out of the debate. And children, most importantly, are being systemically deprived of opportunities to learn.

As a nation we have failed to rectify glaring inequities in access to educational opportunities and resources. By focusing solely on the achievement gap, we have neglected the opportunity gap that creates it, and have allowed the resegregation of our schools and communities by class and race. The inevitable result, highlighted in the Federal Equity and Excellence Commission’s recent report, For Each and Every Child, is an inequitable system that hits disadvantaged students, families, and communities the hardest.

A new approach is needed to improve our nation’s economic trajectory, strengthen our democracy, and avoid an even more stratified and segregated society. To rebuild America, we need a vision for 21st-century education based on seven principles:

• All students have a right to learn. Opportunities to learn should not depend on zip code or a parent’s abilities to work the system. Our education system must address the needs of all children, regardless of how badly they are damaged by poverty and neglect in their early years. We must invest in research-proven interventions and supports that start before kindergarten and support every child’s aspirations for college or career.
• Public education is a public good. Public education should never be undermined by private control, deregulation and profiteering. Keeping our schools public is the only way we can ensure that each and every student receives a quality education. School systems must function as democratic institutions responsive to students, teachers, parents and communities.
• Investments in education must be equitable and sufficient. Funding is necessary for all the things associated with an excellent education: safe buildings, quality teachers, reasonable class sizes, and early learning opportunities. Yet, as we’ve “raised the bar” for achievement, we’ve cut the resources children and schools need to reach it. We must reverse this trend and spend more money on education and distribute those funds more equitably.
• Learning must be engaging and relevant. Learning should be a dynamic experience through connections to real world problems and to students’ own life experiences and cultural backgrounds. High-stakes testing narrows the curriculum and hinders creativity.
• Teachers are professionals. The working conditions of teachers are the learning conditions of students. When we judge teachers solely on a barrage of high-stakes standardized tests, we limit their ability to reach and connect with their students. We must elevate educators’ autonomy and support their efforts to reach every student.
• Discipline policies should keep students in schools. Students need to be in school in order to learn. We must cease ineffective and discriminatory discipline practices that push children down the school-to-prison pipeline. Schools must use fair discipline policies that keep classrooms safe and all students learning.
• National responsibility should complement local control. Education is largely the domain of states and school districts, but in far too many states there are gross inequities in how funding is distributed to schools that serve low-income and minority students. In these cases, the federal government has a responsibility to ensure there is equitable funding and enforce the civil right to a quality education for all students.

Principles are only as good as the policies that put them into action. The current policy agenda dominated by standards-based, test-driven reform is clearly insufficient. What’s needed is a supports-based reform agenda that provides every student with the opportunities and resources needed to achieve high standards and succeed, focused on these seven areas:

1. Early Education and Grade Level Reading: Guaranteed access to high quality early education for all, including full-day kindergarten and universal access to pre-K services, to help ensure students can read at grade level.
2. Equitable Funding and Resources: Fair and sufficient school funding freed from over-reliance on locally targeted property taxes, so those who face the toughest hurdles receive the greatest resources. Investments are also needed in out-of-school factors affecting students, such as supports for nutrition and health services, public libraries, after school and summer programs, and adult remedial education — along with better data systems and technology.
3. Student-Centered Supports: Personalized plans or approaches that provide students with the academic, social, and health supports they need for expanded and deeper learning time.
4. Teaching Quality: Recruitment, training, and retention of well-prepared, well-resourced, and effective educators and school leaders, who can provide extended learning time and deeper learning approaches, and are empowered to collaborate with and learn from their colleagues.
5. Better Assessments: High-quality diagnostic assessments that go beyond test-driven mandates and help teachers strengthen the classroom experience for each student.
6. Effective Discipline: An end to ineffective and discriminatory discipline practices, including inappropriate out-of- school suspensions, replaced with policies and supports that keep all students in quality educational settings.
7. Meaningful Engagement: Parent and community engagement in determining the policies of schools and the delivery of education services to students.

As a nation, we’re failing to provide the basics our children need for an opportunity to learn. Instead, we have substituted a punitive high-stakes testing regime that seeks to force progress on the cheap. But there is no shortcut to success. We must change course before we further undermine schools and drive away the teachers our children need.

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

Signatories

Greg Anrig
The Century Foundation

Kenneth J. Bernstein
National Board Certified Social Studies Teacher

Martin J. Blank
Director, Coalition for Community Schools

Jeff Bryant
Education Opportunity Network

Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige
Co Founder, Defending Early Years Foundation

Anthony Cody
Teachers’ Letters to Obama, Network for Public Education

Linda Darling-Hammond
Professor of Education, Stanford University

Larry Deutsch, MD, MPH
Minority Leader (Working Families Party), Hartford City Council

Bertis Downs
Parent, Lawyer and Advocate

Dave Eggers Writer

Matt Farmer
Chicago Public Schools parent

Dr. Rosa Castro Feinberg, Ph.D.
LULAC Florida State Education Commissioner; Associate Professor (Retired), Florida International University

Nancy Flanagan
Senior Fellow, Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA); Blogger, Education Week; Teacher

Andrew Gillum
City Commissioner of Tallahassee, Florida
National Director of the Young Elected Officials Network

Larry Groce
Host and Artistic Director, Mountain Stage, Charleston, West Virginia

William R. Hanauer
Mayor, Village of Ossining;
President, Westchester Municipal Officials Association

Julian Vasquez Heilig
The University of Texas at Austin

Roger Hickey
Institute for America’s Future

John Jackson
Opportunity To Learn Campaign

Jonathan Kozol Educator & Author

John Kuhn
Superintendent, Perrin-Whitt School District (Texas)

Kevin Kumashiro, Ph.D.
Incoming Dean, University of San Francisco School of Education; President, National Association for Multicultural Education

Rev. Peter Laarman Progressive Christians Uniting

Chuck Lesnick
Yonkers City Council President

Rev. Tim McDonald
Co-Chair, African American Ministers In Action

Lawrence Mischel Economic Policy Institute

Kathleen Oropeza
Co-Founder, Fund Education Now

State Senator Nan Grogan Orrock Georgia Senate District 36

Charles Payne University of Chicago

Diane Ravitch
New York University, Network for Public Education

Robert B. Reich
Chancellor’s Professor, University of California at Berkeley; Former U.S. Secretary of Labor

Jan Resseger
United Church of Christ, Justice & Witness Ministries

Nan Rich
Florida State Senator

Hans Riemer
Montgomery County Council Member; Montgomery County, MD

Maya Rockeymoore, Ph.D.
Center for Global Policy Solutions

David Sciarra Education Law Center

Rinku Sen
President and Executive Director, Applied Research Center

Theda Skocpol
Harvard University, Director, Scholars Strategy Network

Rita M. Solnet
Co Founder, Parents Across America

John Stocks
Executive Director, National Education Association

Steve Suitts
Vice President, Southern Education Foundation

Paul Thomas, EdD Furman University

Dennis Van Roekel
President, National Education Association

Dr. Jerry D. Weast
Former Superintendent, Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools; Founder and CEO, Partnership for Deliberate Excellence

Randi Weingarten
President, American Federation of Teachers

Kevin Welner
Professor, University of Colorado Boulder School of Education; Director, National Education Policy Center

Buying American Education

Diane Ravitch posted this letter...and suggested it be reposted everywhere.

This is an extraordinary letter. Please read it. Send it to your friends. Send it to everyone on your email list. tweet it. These are questions that should be answered by the Secretary, under oath, in public hearings.

American education is being radically reconstituted and centralized, with little or no democratic deliberation. The public hears bland assurances about “high standards for all,” “college and career readiness for all,” and other unproven claims and assertions about sweeping changes that have not been subject to trial or open debate or careful review.

Here's the author's posting of the letter. There's an interesting irony in that the author is a teacher at the University of Chicago Lab School, the school which Arne Duncan attended on his way to becoming the CEO of Chicago Public Schools and the Secretary of Education without ever teaching in or attending a public school.

The Honorable Tom Harkin
Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education
Senate Appropriations Committee

June 3, 2013

Dear Chairman Harkin,

I was very saddened to hear that you have decided not to run for reelection as a United States senator. You have always represented the most honest branch of the Democratic Party and the long proud legacy of Midwestern prairie populism extending from James B. Weaver, to Williams Jennings Bryan, to Bob LaFollette, the Farm-Labor party, Paul Simon, George McGovern, and Tom Daschle. We could also count the comedian turned senator from Minnesota in this, but he needs a few more years of “seasoning.” I am sure that you are mentoring him in the tradition. Your friend and my senator, Dick Durbin, shares this tradition, but I am worried that he has cozied up too closely with the Chicago plutocrats to be an effective spokesperson for “the small fry.”

I write because you hold a very important position in congress that has oversight over Education. I am a history teacher, a historian, a leader of history teachers, and a critic of the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top Mandates. I have thirty years of teaching under my belt, including service to the people of the great state of Iowa at Malcolm Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls where I taught high school students and trained pre service history teachers at the University of Northern Iowa.

Your friend and colleague, senator Grassley, has sent you a letter expressing his concerns about the Race to the Top mandates and the Common Core Curriculum Standards, so I will not belabor the concerns that he has already expressed to you, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/19/common-core-standards-attacked-by-republicans/.

I would like to encourage you to call our Secretary of Education before your committee and ask him some hard questions about the way that the RTTT mandates were constructed. His responses to the concerns that many citizens have from all points on the political spectrum have been exceedingly evasive. He typically claims that those who are opposed to the RTTT mandates and the Common Core Standards are hysterical wing nuts who fully embrace Glenn Beck’s conspiracy theories about attempts to create a one world government: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/04/paul_horton_of_common_core_con.html

In fact, despite the claims of a recent Washington Post story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tea-party-groups-rallying-against-common-core-education-overhaul/2013/05/30/64faab62-c917-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html), critics of the RTTT mandates and the CCS come from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. In the national education debate, the status quo agenda that is being pushed comes from the corporate middle of both parties that is backed by many of those who have been the biggest beneficiaries of the current economic “recovery” in Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Manhattan (and Westchester County) and large foundations.

I humbly recommend that Mr. Duncan be called before your committee to answer some serious questions under oath about corporate and investor influence on Education policy. Mr. Duncan told a committee of congress that he did not want to “participate in the hysteria” surrounding the RTTT and the CCS. Because he is a public servant, it is his duty to serve the people of the United States. Part of his job is to be accountable to the public.

I recommend a few questions that any populist or progressive senator would have asked in the 1890s or early twentieth century:

1. How many of your staffers have worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Who are they, and why did you hire them?
2. What role did these staffers and Bill Gates have on the formulation of the RTTT mandates?
3. How much classroom teaching experience do the principal authors of the RTTT mandates have, individually, and as a group?
4. Why are these individuals qualified to make decisions about education policy?
5. Were you, or anyone who works within the Department of Education in contact with any representative or lobbyist representing Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill, or InBloom before or during the writing of the RTTT mandates?
6. What is the Broad Foundation? What is your connection to the Broad Foundation? What education policies does the Broad Foundation support? How do these policies support public education? How do these policies support private education? What was the role of the Broad Foundation in the creation of the RTTT mandates?
7. How many individuals associated with the Broad Foundation helped author the report, “Smart Options: Investing Recovery Funds for Student Success” that was published in April of 2009 and served as a blueprint for the RTTT mandates? How many representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation assisted in writing this report? What was their role in authoring this report? How many representatives of McKinsey Consulting participated in authoring this report? What was David Coleman’s role in authoring this report?
8. Do you know David Coleman? Have you ever had any conversations with David Coleman? Has anyone on your staff had any conversations with David Coleman? Did anyone within the Department of Education have any connection to any of the authors of the Common Core Standards? Did anyone in your Department have any conversations with any of the authors of the Common Core Standards as they were being written?
9. Have you ever had any conversations with representatives or lobbyists who represent the Walton Family Foundation? Has anyone on your staff had any conversations with the Walton Family Foundation or lobbyists representing the Walton Family Foundation? If so, what was the substance of those conversations?
10. Do you know Michelle Rhee? If so, could you describe your relationship with Michelle Rhee? Have you, or anyone working within the Department of Education, had any conversations with Students First, Rhee’s advocacy group, about the dispersal foundation funds for candidates in local and state school board elections?

This is just a start. Public concerns about possible collusion between the Department of Education and education corporations could be addressed with a few straightforward answers to these and other questions.

Every parent, student, and teacher in the country is concerned about the influence of corporate vendors on education policy. What is represented as an extreme movement by our Education Secretary can be more accurately described as a consumer revolt against shoddy products produced by an education vendor biopoly (Pearson and McGraw Hill). Because these two vendors have redefined the education marketplace to meet the requirements of RTTT, they both need to be required to write competitive impact statements for the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice.

Senator Harkin, I have a simple solution to this education mess. You represent a state with a great education system. In Iowa, there are great teachers in Cumming, Hudson, and West Des Moines. Most teachers across the country are dedicated, talented, and creative. They, and not Pearson, McGraw Hill, or InBloom , have a better sense about what is good for kids. Allow teachers to create national rubrics to evaluate authentic assessments and allow teachers to do their jobs and grade these assessments. We can save billions of dollars in a time of austerity if we do this. You have control over the disbursement of RTTT funds. These funds should go to teacher assessments, not assessments designed by people with little or no classroom experience. Likewise, these assessments should be graded by teachers, not by temporary employees or computers under the control of for profit corporations.

Let’s invest in our teachers to insure that this investment stays in our communities and states. Education vendors are not loyal to kids, parents, or states. They seek profit, and they will invest their proceeds wherever they can make the most money. It is time for some common sense. We need education policy for the small fry, not education policy for plutocrats.

I would love to speak to you and to your committee on these issues.

The very best to you,

Paul Horton, History teacher, The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (former History Instructor, The University of Northern Iowa, Malcolm Price Laboratory School, Cedar Falls, Iowa)

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - June 2013

Here are some pictures, graphic images and cartoons from around the net -- plus my own 2 cents worth of comments. Click on any image to see the full sized version.

One Size Fits Few

The problem with relying on standardized tests for evaluating children, teachers, administrators and schools is that there are no standardized children. Every child is different...and half, by definition, will be below average on any given norm-referenced test.

Each child needs to grow at their own pace. Teachers and schools should foster student development, but you can't force someone to learn when they're not ready.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” -- Albert Einstein

Early Learning Day of Action

Today was the Early Learning Day of Action

Think Progress listed Five Surprising Facts About Early Childhood Education.

1. Preschool can help combat crime, teen pregnancy, and high school dropout rates.
2. Early childhood education has a better return on investment than the stock market.
3. The U.S. lags behind almost every other country when it comes to preschool, including Mexico, Chile, and Russia.
4. Early childhood education is a bipartisan issue.
5. Preschool can save families thousands of dollars in child care costs each year.

Would You Let Your Plumber Fix Your Car?

Would you ask a computer tech for legal advice...would you ask an attorney to fix your damaged hard drive...would you call your plumber when your car needed to be repaired? Probably not. Yet day after day people with little or no experience in education make decisions which have an impact on teachers, students and schools.

Arne Duncan, a professional basketball player and sociology major is the US Secretary of Education and regularly promotes education policy.

Bill Gates, a computer guru turned entrepreneur turned billionaire turned philanthropist, keeps throwing money at education "reform."

Legislators in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and across the country make laws which damage public education and public school educators.

In what other field are the experts ignored so completely? Check the backgrounds of "Reformers..."

Money Talks

Children who live in poverty need more services than children of the wealthy, though in actual practice the opposite is what is usually the case. One of the main points of the Chicago Teachers Union strike in 2012 was the lack of wraparound services.

Part 3 of the report, The Schools Chicago's Students Deserve, called for appropriate support services (see pp. 9) including school nurses, social workers, counselors, psychologists and adequate transportation. They also called for a "well rounded curriculum," including the arts, early childhood education, bilingual education, and quality school facilities.

"Reformers" are fond of denying that money improves education until it comes to either their own education (Duncan, Rhee, and Gates all attended expensive private schools). If money works to improve the education of the children of the wealthy, then the same resources need to be available to the children of the poor. They need more services...not less.

Friends

I've been saving this photo for a long time.

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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This Just In: New Data Confirms Old Data

Thank you David Sirota!

The nationally syndicated newspaper columnist has a piece on Salon -- New data shows school “reformers” are full of it.

In the great American debate over education, the education and technology corporations, bankrolled politicians and activist-profiteers who collectively comprise the so-called “reform” movement base their arguments on one central premise: that America should expect public schools to produce world-class academic achievement regardless of the negative forces bearing down on a school’s particular students. In recent days, though, the faults in that premise are being exposed by unavoidable reality.

Sirota knows that this isn't new information...I've read his work. Back in 2011 he wrote about poverty and education...

When a person with a horrific wound or longstanding illness shows up to a hospital emergency room, we don’t typically fault the ER doctors for failing to instantly cure the patient. Yet, those who see schools as social emergency rooms somehow expect teachers to be able to immediately cure children of all the wounds and ailments visited upon them by an economically ailing society. This NBER study shows that such an expectation is unrealistic, unfair and — in terms of policy-making — dangerous.

We've actually known this for a couple of years...or earlier...

The late Jerry Bracey wrote in 2007, in Parents, Poverty and Achieving in School

When people have said "poverty is no excuse," my response has been, "Yes, you're right. Poverty is not an excuse. It's a condition. It's like gravity. Gravity affects everything you do on the planet. So does poverty."

Ok, so that's 6 years ago...before that?

In 2006 we read this from the US DOE, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)...

"The relationship between SES [socioeconomic status] and achievement was consistent across all 20 countries. Students with highest levels of SES, as measured in this study, had an educational advantage over their lowest SES counterparts. This reinforces the associations previously documented in the literature both in the United States and abroad between SES and student educational achievement."

I could keep going of course...since we've known for decades that economic factors have a negative impact on achievement. Anyone who has read the works of Jonathan Kozol -- starting with Death at an Early Age in 1967 -- has been able to follow the relationship between economics (and racism) and achievement.

In 2006 I wrote on these pages about Kozol's then newest book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.

The first appendix shows the per pupil spending in public schools in six metro areas. As you would expect, the spending for rich, white kids is 30-100% more than for poor black kids. This is important information if for no other reason than to answer the people who say "You can't fix schools by throwing money at them." Hey...it works for the rich, white kids.

"Reformers" apparently prefer that we blame the schools...and teachers...and teachers unions...calling for more accountability in teaching and learning. I have yet to hear any teacher or teachers union official suggest that teachers and schools don't need to be held accountable for the education of children, but accountability is a two-way street. Holding teachers and schools accountable means that they must have the supplies, the staff, and the facilities to do what they are called upon to do.

In Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success (2009) David C. Berliner lists out-of-school factors which contribute to low achievement.

Because America’s schools are so highly segregated by income, race, and ethnicity, problems related to poverty occur simultaneously, with greater frequency, and act cumulatively in schools serving disadvantaged communities. These schools therefore face significantly greater challenges than schools serving wealthier children, and their limited resources are often overwhelmed. Efforts to improve educational outcomes in these schools, attempting to drive change through test-based accountability, are thus unlikely to succeed unless accompanied by policies to address the OSFs that negatively affect large numbers of our nations’ students. Poverty limits student potential; inputs to schools affect outputs from them.

Therefore, it is recommended that efforts be made to:

• Reduce the rate of low birth weight children among African Americans,
• Reduce drug and alcohol abuse,
• Reduce pollutants in our cites and move people away from toxic sites,
• Provide universal and free medical care for all citizens,
• Insure that no one suffers from food insecurity,
• Reduce the rates of family violence in low-income households,
• Improve mental health services among the poor,
• More equitably distribute low-income housing throughout communities,
• Reduce both the mobility and absenteeism rates of children,
• Provide high-quality preschools for all children, and
• Provide summer programs for the poor to reduce summer losses in their academic achievement.

Have "reformers" called for accountability from professionals in other areas or from politicians and policy makers? Where is the demand for accountability in medical care or law enforcement? Where is the accountability from politicians and policy makers for providing funds for preschools, mental health services, medical care, insurance coverage, and summer programs?

The point is, of course, that the link between achievement and poverty is not in doubt. We know better. The "new data" linking lower achievement with poverty just supports the "old data" linking lower achievement with poverty. Let's hope Sirota's message reaches people like Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee and Arne Duncan...apparently they haven't heard yet.

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You might also be interested in the following:

• Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success by David C. Berliner, March 2009
• Education and Poverty: Confronting the Evidence by Helen F. Ladd, November 2011.
• Stephen Krashen could eat Arne Duncan for breakfast (Video has been removed, but excerpts are included), June 2011
• The problem is poverty: Evidence from Gerald Bracey, Gerald Bracey and Stephen Krashen, October 2010

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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Summer Vacation - Safety and Parenting Tips

Summer vacation has started...or will be starting soon. Make sure your kids are safe...

SUMMER SAFETY

For the last couple of years I've linked to a site titled Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning. Go there and be prepared...

1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
2. Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has two pages of safety information. Print them and save them...

Summer safety tips...(and en Español).

• Fireworks safety
• Bug safety
• Playground safety
• Bicycle safety
• Skateboard, scooter, in-line skating and heelys safety
• All-terrain vehicles
• Lawn mower safety

and Sun and Water Safety Tips (also en Español)

• Fun in the sun
• Heat stress in exercising chidlren
• Pool safety
• Boating Safety
• Open water swimming

SUMMER LEARNING

The most important summer learning task for parents and care-givers -  read aloud to your children...EVERY DAY.

“The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.” -- Becoming a Nation of Readers

Need some help with read aloud? Try these...

• The Treasury of Read Alouds
• The Read Aloud Handbook
• Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever
• Best Books to Read Aloud with Children of All Ages
• Reading Aloud Tips for Parents and Teachers
• Reading Is FUNdamental: Reading Aloud
• Caldecott Medal Home Page
• Newbery Medal Home Page

PARENTING

Increase harmony during summer vacation with some tips from parenting experts. Don't just read the lists here...go to the sites and take a look.

10 Commandments of Good Parenting

• What you do matters.
• You cannot be too loving.
• Be involved in your child's life.
• Adapt your parenting to fit your child.
• Establish and set rules.
• Foster your child's independence.
• Be consistent.
• Avoid harsh discipline.
• Explain your rules and decisions.
• Treat your child with respect.

9 Steps to More Effective Parenting

• Nurture Your Child's Self-Esteem
• Catch Kids Being Good
• Set Limits and Be Consistent With Your Discipline
• Make Time for Your Kids
• Be a Good Role Model
• Make Communication a Priority
• Be Flexible and Willing to Adjust Your Parenting Style
• Show That Your Love Is Unconditional
• Know Your Own Needs and Limitations as a Parent

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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