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.
IT'S POVERTY
Now, Anthony Cody, author of EdWeek's Living in Dialogue Blog adds his voice (click the title to read the entire article. You should!).
Poverty is what’s crippling public education in the US—not bad teachersHere are some other people saying the same thing...
...reformers [have] advocate[d] that we:
...new data shows that in the three large urban school districts where these reforms have been given full rein, the results are actually worse than in comparable districts that have not gone this route.
- Test students more often...
- Eliminate barriers to firing the “bad teachers”...
- Create new evaluation plans that give significant weight to “value added” measures...
Some of the key findings...
Most importantly:
- Test scores increased less, and achievement gaps grew more, in “reform” cities than in other urban districts.
- Test-based accountability prompted churn that thinned the ranks of experienced teachers, but not necessarily bad teachers.
- School closures did not send students to better schools or save school districts money.
- The reforms missed a critical factor driving achievement gaps: the influence of poverty on academic performance.
- Parents, Poverty and Achieving in School, by Jerry Bracey, August 2007
- 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
- New data shows school “reformers” are full of it by David Sirota, June 2013.
WHERE'S THE ACCOUNTABILITY
...for the politicians and policy makers who have allowed so many of our children to grow up in poverty?
...for the Bush team who saddled us with NCLB based on the falsely named Texas Miracle?
...for the Obama team who saddled us with Race to the Top based on Arne Duncan's failed Renaissance 2000?
...for the Bloomberg team in New York City and the Emanuel team in Chicago? Close schools, fire teachers, shuffle children around no matter what it does to them?
...for all the "reformers" who are privatizing education and starving the nation's public schools?
NOTABLE QUOTES
From Susan Ohanian
"We are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished." -— Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
"There are two major factors preventing teachers from being even more effective: (1) The high level of child poverty in the U.S., 23.1 percent, second among high-income countries; children who are hungry, have poor health care and little access to books will not do well in school regardless of teacher quality. (2) The unreasonable demands of the Common Core: a tight, inflexible curriculum that crushes creativity, designed by elitists with little idea of what goes on in classrooms, and a massive amount of testing, more than we have ever seen on this planet." -— Stephen Krashen, Seattle Times, Jan. 11, 2013
"16.4 million children living in poverty in this country. Solution: Blame the schools and take away teacher benefits and bargaining rights." -— Susan Ohanian, Twitter, Sept. 14, 2011
"The relationship between poverty and all kinds of academic achievement is one of the best-established and most replicated results in all of educational research. People keep "rediscovering it" and politicians keep ignoring it, or tell people to 'stop whining' (Rod Paige)." —- Stephen Krashen, e-mail, Aug. 10, 2011
"Let's blame
(1) teachers
(2) schools of education
(3) the decline of the US
(4) lack of a national education program
(5) parents.
But not
the real culprit:
POVERTY."
-— Stephen Krashen, March 22, 2011
I mean this with all respect. I'm on my knees here, and there's a knife in my back, and the prints on it kinda match yours. I think you don't get it...It's not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It's pure, raw poverty. We don't teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities..." —- Paul Karrer, Education Week, Feb. 2, 2011
"Thousands of studies have linked poverty to academic achievement. The relationship is every bit as strong as the connection between cigarettes and cancer." —- David Berliner, Our Impoverished View of Ed. Reform, Aug. 2005
"For many critics, teachers have become the villains in the wealthy elite's panic over educational accomplishment and foreign competition. But teachers don't cause financial meltdowns, home foreclosures, climate change, or hurricanes. And they don't invade countries or outsource jobs. Teachers don't cause mind-numbing conditions of poverty that limit children's ability to learn. However, teachers are the ones asked to cope with the poisonous effects of poverty. Why? Because most of society doesn't give a damn." —- Richard Gibboney, in Education Hell: Rhetoric vs. Reality by Bracey
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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!
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