2020 Medley #11: DeVos, Cuts, and Online education

DeVos privatizes with pandemic funds,
The cuts have already begun,
Selfish Americans, the Digital Divide,
Real schools are better than online

DEVOS USES PANDEMIC TO FURTHER DAMAGE PUBLIC EDUCATION

Arne Duncan, Barack Obama's Secretary of Education said that Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans." The test scores of students in New Orleans did improve, though that was likely due to increased funding (by nearly $1400 per student) and the fact that the number of students living in poverty decreased significantly. In any case, the point is that Duncan ignored the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Americans as an excuse to privatize public education.

Not to be outdone by this, Betsy DeVos is all for using the suffering of millions and the deaths of tens of thousands to support privatizing public education throughout the entire country.

Taking Duncan one step further, DeVos has ignored Congressional intent for the millions of dollars set aside to support public schools that serve all children and manipulated its distribution with "guidelines" intended to dump more than originally intended into the coffers of private and religious schools.

Just how much damage can this administration do to public education, and the rest of the country, before they are finally replaced next January?

Betsy DeVos Is Using The Coronavirus Pandemic To Push School Vouchers

Vouchers are a bad policy idea during the best of times, and during this pandemic, they’re even worse. Voucher programs don’t improve student achievement, lack appropriate oversight and accountability and, of course, violate religious freedom by forcing taxpayers to fund religious education at private schools. Public schools need public funds desperately right now. They must pay teachers and staff, provide technology and distance learning, support struggling students, and survive budget cuts. The last thing public schools need during a pandemic is DeVos’ unaccountable, unfair, and ineffective voucher agenda.

Small Things: Secretary DeVos, Twitter, and Teachers Vs. Charters

...I think it's worth highlighting once again that we have a Secretary of Education who is not a supporter of public education or the people who work there, who is, in fact, far more excited about a privately-run system for replacing the institution that she is charged with overseeing. I can't say that it's highly abnormal, because the office has never attracted many people who really support public education, but it's still weird that when public school teachers look up at state and federal authorities, they find people who are lined up against them. It's a weird way to run a national education system.

DeVos Funnels Coronavirus Relief Funds to Favored Private and Religious Schools

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is using the $2 trillion coronavirus stabilization law to throw a lifeline to education sectors she has long championed, directing millions of federal dollars intended primarily for public schools and colleges to private and religious schools.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, signed in late March, included $30 billion for education institutions turned upside down by the pandemic shutdowns, about $14 billion for higher education, $13.5 billion to elementary and secondary schools, and the rest for state governments.

Ms. DeVos has used $180 million of those dollars to encourage states to create “microgrants” that parents of elementary and secondary school students can use to pay for educational services, including private school tuition. She has directed school districts to share millions of dollars designated for low-income students with wealthy private schools.

Asked whether she is using crisis to support private school choice, DeVos says ‘yes, absolutely’

“Am I correct in understanding what your agenda is?” [Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of New York] asks.

“Yes, absolutely,” DeVos responded. “For more than three decades that has been something that I’ve been passionate about. This whole pandemic has brought into clear focus that everyone has been impacted, and we shouldn’t be thinking about students that are in public schools versus private schools.”

The comments are DeVos’ clearest statement to date about how she hopes to pull the levers of federal power to support students already in — or who want to attend — private schools. She has already made that intention clear with her actions: releasing guidance that would effectively direct more federal relief funds to private schools, and using some relief dollars to encourage states to support alternatives to traditional public school districts.

THE CUTS HAVE ALREADY BEGUN

Schools Will Need Help to Recover

States are going to have to make up the money lost during the coronavirus pandemic somewhere, and if past history is any guide the public schools are going to suffer (Indiana schools are still waiting for money promised after the 2008 cuts). DeVos's redistribution of funds intended for public schools is just the first in a long line of cuts to public schools.

The cuts have already begun, and they’re sobering. In April alone, nearly 470,000 public school employees across America were furloughed or laid off. That’s 100,000 more teachers and school staff who lost their jobs than during the worst point of the Great Recession a decade ago. At the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, we are closely analyzing state budget gaps because we know the tremendous harm that can result from funding cuts.

Recently, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, announced plans to cut $300 million in K-12 funding and $100 million in college and university funding for the current year. Meanwhile, Georgia’s top budget officials told the state’s schools to plan for large cuts for next year that will almost certainly force districts to lay off teachers and other workers.

AMERICAN SELFISHNESS

Weekend Quotables

Mike Klonsky, in his Weekend Quotables series, posted this picture. The residents of Flint, Michigan, while the state claims that the water is now ok, and 85% of the city's pipes have been replaced, are still scared to drink their water. Meanwhile, some Americans are more concerned with their appearance than human lives...insisting that wearing masks make them "look ridiculous" or demanding haircuts.

DIGITAL (CLASS) DIVIDE

The Class Divide: Remote Learning at 2 Schools, Private and Public (Dana Goldstein)

Dana Goldstein, the author of The Teacher Wars, compares two different schools facing the coronavirus pandemic requirement to close. This is a clear description of how money provides more opportunities for some children than others.

Private school students are more likely to live in homes with good internet access, computers and physical space for children to focus on academics. Parents are less likely to be working outside the home and are more available to guide young children through getting online and staying logged in — entering user names and passwords, navigating between windows and programs. And unlike their public-school counterparts, private school teachers are generally not unionized, giving their employers more leverage in laying out demands for remote work.

ONLINE ED CANNOT REPLACE REAL SCHOOLS

Why online education can’t replace brick-and-mortar K-12 schooling

In the Public Interest has gathered research on online education, revealing a track record of poor academic performance, lack of equity and access, and concerns about privacy. Take a look...

Coronavirus has put the future of K-12 public education in question. School districts, teachers, and staff are mobilizing to provide students with online learning, emotional care, meals, and other support. Meanwhile, online education companies—with the ideological backing of right-wing think tanks—are aiming to further privatize public education and profit off of students.

It goes without saying that online education can’t replace the in-person teaching, social interaction, and—for many students—calories that a brick-and-mortar public school provides. However, that isn’t stopping some from arguing that much if not all of K-12 education should stay online after the crisis.

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More Random Quotes – May 2016

LOBBYISTS

About Those School Lunches…

OpenSecrets.Org tells us this about Lobbying

The primary goal of much of the money that flows through U.S. politics is this: Influence. Corporations and industry groups, labor unions, single-issue organizations - together, they spend billions of dollars each year to gain access to decision-makers in government, all in an attempt to influence their thinking.

Just how much did the top three industries spend on lobbying in 2015?

Total for Pharmaceuticals/Health Products: $230,693,261

Total for Insurance: $156,801,882

Total for Oil and Gas: $129,836,004

Think about those totals when you pay for your medications, your insurance premiums, and the energy needed to power your car and heat your home. How much of your dollars are going to pay for lobbyists who work against your interests?

Which sets the stage for the following simple and important quote...

From Sheila Kennedy

...poor kids don’t have lobbyists...

DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPRIATE

The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten

We have pushed down the curriculum and now expect kindergarteners to learn what first graders learned a generation ago -- and then we blame the children for not learning and their teachers for not teaching.

From Dianemarie

It may satisfy politicians to see children perform inappropriately difficult tasks like trained circus animals. However, if we want our youngest to actually learn, we will demand the return of developmentally appropriate kindergarten.

INVEST IN THE FUTURE

It Takes a Policy

We are only one of three nations in the world who invest more money in schools for our wealthy children than for our poor children. We have one of the highest childhood poverty rates – nearly 25% – of any advanced nation in the world and we know that students who live in poverty have out of school factors which inhibits their achievement.

"Reformist" politicians, instead of taking responsibility for the high levels of poverty in our nation, blame schools and teachers for low achievement.

Instead of investing in our future – our children – we're wasting tax dollars on privatizing our education system.

From Paul Krugman

America is unique among advanced countries in its utter indifference to the lives of its youngest citizens.

...In other words, if you judge us by what we do, not what we say, we place very little value on the lives of our children, unless they happen to come from affluent families.

...it would indeed be an investment — every bit as much of an investment as spending money to repair and improve our transportation infrastructure. After all, today’s children are tomorrow’s workers and taxpayers. So it’s an incredible waste, not just for families but for the nation as a whole, that so many children’s futures are stunted because their parents don’t have the resources to take care of them as well as they should. And affordable child care would also have the immediate benefit of making it easier for parents to work productively.

NEW ORLEANS

Now reformers want to "give back" New Orleans charters. 'Can't avoid democracy forever'.

Local public schools provide more stability than "market forces."

From Mike Klonsky

...eliminating neighborhood schools has undermined the most vulnerable students by uprooting them from their communities and scattering them to schools citywide.

TEACHER SHORTAGE

The big trouble in Indiana public schools, as explained by a troubled educator

It's almost as if they purposely wanted to create a teacher shortage.

From school counselor Brenda L. Yoder

"...Yes, the mess in education isn’t just affecting those of us who are in education. First, legislators thought we weren’t doing our job, so they legislated the pay scale so good teachers would get paid more for their efforts. In reality, the legislature has capped teacher salaries, not allowing years of experience or education to fiscally matter. Being a highly effective or effective teacher results in a minuscule stipend, maybe enough to get the brakes fixed on your car.

"Salaries for teachers statewide are stagnant. Your income does not rise over time. Families cannot be supported on a teacher’s salary over time, and yet college costs the same for them as it does to be an engineer.

"I wonder why there’s a teacher shortage..."

STAND UP TO THE MONEY

A master teacher went to court to challenge her low evaluation. What her win means for her profession.

This teacher decided that it was time to take a stand against testing companies and "reformers."

From Carol Burris

It is time for the madness to stop. It is time for other teachers to stand up and legally challenge their scores. And it is past time for taxpayers to stop these silly measures that cost them millions while enriching test companies and the research firms that produce the teacher scores.

MORE THAN FULL TIME

#TeacherAppreciationWeek? Enough, already.

Teaching is high intensity work and teachers carry their job with them wherever they go, sometimes physically, usually mentally, often emotionally. Most teachers have take-home paperwork...themes, assignments, or tests to grade, but they also bring home the mental and emotional quandaries which they deal with every day in the classroom. While fixing dinner a teacher may think about how to reach the hard to educate child in their classroom. While watching TV a teacher might worry about the child living with a dangerous home life. Most teachers don't leave the classroom when they go home at night.

From Aubyn Scolnick

Teaching during the school year isn't a full time job. It's a full time life.

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW...

"His freedom guarantees mine": J. K. Rowling at the 2016 PEN Literary Gala

Silencing those we disagree with doesn't help anyone.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech..."

That freedom is not available all over the world. In Bangladesh, for example, freedom of speech can be severely punished. In the last few years more than a dozen bloggers – citizen journalists celebrating their own free speech – were murdered because of what they wrote. Self proclaimed "speech police" determined that their words were worthy of a death sentence. The government has tried, weakly, to stop the murders, however, they can't seem to prevent them. They have even stooped so low as to blame the writers for their own death.

PEN America is a group dedicated to the view that "people everywhere have the freedom to create literature, to convey information and ideas, to express their views, and to make it possible for everyone to access the views, ideas, and literatures of others." This year they honored, among others, British writer J.K. Rowling.

From J.K. Rowling

I find almost everything that Mr. Trump says objectionable. I consider him offensive and bigoted. But he has my full support to come to my country and be offensive and bigoted there.

His freedom to speak protects my freedom to call him a bigot. His freedom guarantees mine. Unless we take that absolute position without caveats or apologies, we have set foot upon a road with only one destination. If my offended feelings can justify a travel ban on Donald Trump, I have no moral ground on which to argue that those offended by feminism or the fight for transgender rights or universal suffrage should not oppress campaigners for those causes. If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed the line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture, and kill on exactly the same justification.

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2015 Medley #28

Reform, Read-aloud, New Orleans, Teacher Shortage, Privatization, Pushing Children, TFA, The Danger of Choice

AGAINST REFORM

Why Conservatives Should Not Support Our Current Education Reform

Something to think about when you listen to Republican candidates talk about public education policy...

Education reform does not really mean smaller government: it has resulted in an unprecedented expansion of the power and influence of the Federal Department of Education. Education reform has resulted in the Federal government interfering with local decision-making, using top-down edicts to drive what happens in districts, in schools, and in individual classrooms. No Child Left Behind, Race To The Top, and the Common Core State Standards (which were heavily promoted, if not used as a bribe) were all examples of federal overreach...

...the free-market theory of education states that if only parents could choose schools for their children, we would quickly see "bad" schools close when parents took their children elsewhere, and we would soon be living in an educational utopia. First, a true free-market would not be government- funded...

...Public schools are often criticized as being full of teachers who are only there for the money, for an easy paycheck. Money is seen as being a bad motivator. Yet no one seems to question the money-making motivation of testing companies, charter schools, or for-profit private schools. The question becomes, is money the best motivation for education?

READ ALOUD

Study says reading aloud to children, more than talking, builds literacy

Reading aloud to children continues to prove its worth. Thank you Jim Trelease!

Reading aloud is the best way to help children develop word mastery and grammatical understanding, which form the basis for learning how to read, said Massaro, who studies language acquisition and literacy. He found that picture books are two to three times as likely as parent-child conversations to include a word that isn’t among the 5,000 most common English words.

YET ANOTHER MIRACLE PROVES FALSE

The Myth of the New Orleans School Makeover

First we had George W. Bush's "Texas Miracle" which brought us No Child Left Behind and the statistically impossible goal of 100% proficiency by 2014.

Then Arne Duncan told us about the "New Orleans Miracle"...and gave thanks for the destruction caused by Katrina.

It turns out, however, that the "New Orleans Miracle" is no more successful than the "Texas Miracle."

...the New Orleans miracle is not all it seems. Louisiana state standards are among the lowest in the nation. The new research also says little about high school performance. And the average composite ACT score for the Recovery School District was just 16.4 in 2014, well below the minimum score required for admission to a four-year public university in Louisiana.

There is also growing evidence that the reforms have come at the expense of the city’s most disadvantaged children, who often disappear from school entirely and, thus, are no longer included in the data.

The author also responds to critics of this article. Read here.

TEACHER SHORTAGE

Crisis hits Oklahoma classrooms with teacher shortage, quality concerns

The teacher shortage is finding its way across the country.

A host of other things made her life as a teacher more difficult, including bigger class sizes, rates of teacher turnover and student discipline problems, plus she feared repercussions for speaking out about those problems.

Tart said she and her colleagues would sometimes stay at school as late as 9 p.m., grading papers and finishing lesson plans. She would also take work home, some nights working past midnight.

Education reform caused teacher shortage

Robert Behning began his career in the Indiana House as a florist, but apparently, collecting donations from school "reform" proponents is adequate training in education because now, all of the sudden, with no additional schooling whatsoever, Behning has become an "educational consultant."

Behning, and State Senator and auctioneer, Dennis Kruse, have led their respective houses of the Indiana General Assembly, along with the Pence dominated State Board of Education, on a 5 year campaign to destroy public school teachers and public schools. With the Governor's blessing, the General Assembly and SBOE have overseen the loss of revenue to more and more testing, diversion of public funds for vouchers and charter schools, teacher evaluations based on test scores, the end of due process for teachers, lowering the qualifications for teaching, and severe reductions in collective bargaining rights. During the legislative sessions the battles for and against public schools are widely publicized and reported around the state.

Yet Behning and Kruse don't understand why there is a teacher shortage.

As chairmen of the Indiana House and Senate Education Committees, Rep. Robert Behning and Sen. Dennis Kruse have announced formation of a study committee to determine why there is a pending teacher shortage. They seem surprised. They shouldn’t be.

They and Gov. Mike Pence need to look into the mirror...

PRIVATIZATION

Pearson to become the gate-keeper for student teachers in Illinois.

There's no longer any pretense in the quest to privatize everything to do with public education. In the first of what will likely become a national trend, Pearson, the giant textbook, test prep, and test publisher will now be responsible for licensing teachers in Illinois.

Student teachers will be evaluated by Pearson's "edTPA" and, without regard for their supervising teachers' opinions, be granted, or not granted, certification.

Oh...and it will cost student teachers an extra $300 above the tuition (and the thousands of dollars of debt) to the teacher preparation institution they might be attending.

While high achieving nations reduce the cost for teacher candidates...and in many cases pay them during their internship...we are going in the opposite direction.

Starting this fall Pearson will be in the business of deciding who becomes a teacher in the state of Illinois.

The Illinois State Board of Education has adopted a rule that designates Pearson’s “edTPA” as the means by which student teachers will be evaluated and granted certification.

As the fall semester begins, all student teachers in the state will be required to pay an extra $300 (on top of the tuition they are already paying) and arrange for videotaping so that they can submit a lengthy narrative that covers the planning, execution and evaluation of a series of lessons with one of their classes as well as a ten-minute video of themselves carrying out their lesson with a class.

Student teachers are required to get parent permission for their children to be video-taped.

Pearson owns the video.

Once submitted to Pearson, an “evaluator” will apply rubrics and 2-3 hours of their time to decide whether or not the student teacher “passes” and can be licensed to teach by the State of Illinois.

That’s right—no longer will the evaluations of cooperating teachers, university field instructors and education professors determine the success of a student teacher.

Sounds like a nightmare?

TOO MUCH, TOO EARLY

Why pushing kids to learn too much too soon is counterproductive

In this and the following articles we see once again, that the United States ignores the lessons of research and the best practices which high achieving nations use. We ignore developmentally appropriate practices. We are going backwards with the training of teachers; We're pushing for less training instead of more. And we're steadily, surely, moving our schools back to a segregated, inequitable, and unequal system.

Given the nationwide push to teach children more and more complex concepts at earlier and earlier ages, you’d think that there surely must be an extensive scientific literature to support these efforts. Not only does no such data exist, but an emerging body of research indicates that attempts to accelerate intellectual development are in fact counterproductive.

TFA

The Teach For America Bait and Switch: From 'You’ll Be Making a Difference' to 'You’re Making Excuses'

How do we get the "great teachers" that "reformers" claim we need to make our schools great again, when we let our most vulnerable students go to classes taught by poorly trained novices?

TFA staff ignored the life circumstances of many of my students. I could not change the circumstances that led Jerome to bring a roach-infested notebook to school, or the fact that Peter’s mother told him to “get his lick back,” meaning that if someone hits him, he should hit back. Whenever I tried to bring up the lived realities of my students’ lives and the real challenges they faced, once again, I was told I was “making excuses.” Despite my having personal knowledge of my students and their families, my voice and ultimately my potential to use alternative methods and ideas for creating a more learner-centered, productive environment was repeatedly pushed aside, as it contradicted TFA talking points.

CHOICE = INEQUITY

Opinion: National experiment in school choice, market solutions produces inequity

A look at Chile's educational system will give you a glimpse into our future...a two tiered system with well funded, high quality schools for the rich, and deteriorating, underfunded, crowded classrooms for the rest. Milton Friedman's legacy is tragic.

Imagine a country that was once committed to quality public education, but began to treat that public good like a market economy with the introduction of charter schools and voucher systems.

Imagine that after a few years, most students in this country attended private schools and there was public funding for most of such schools, which must compete for that funding by improving their results. Imagine the state fostered this competition by publishing school rankings, so parents were informed of the results obtained by each institution.

Imagine, finally, that school owners were allowed to charge extra fees to parents, thereby rendering education a quite profitable business.

But let’s stop imagining, because this country already exists.

After a series of policies implemented from the 1980s onward, Chilean governments have managed to develop one of the most deregulated, market-oriented educational schemes in the world.

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Support Teachers of Conscience

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

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Vermont State Board of Education: Statement and Resolution on Assessment and Accountability, Adopted August 19, 2014

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Campbell Brown Hearts NOLA Charters

Campbell Brown was on C-SPAN yesterday (August 18, 2015) talking up her new school "reform" web site, The Seventy Four. Her discussion focused on the usual "reformer" talking points...choice, failing schools, and most of all, how much better New Orleans schools are now, compared to what they were pre-Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina

Before I get to some of her comments, though, it's important to note that this month marks the tenth anniversary of the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

In 2010, Arne Duncan famously commented...

"...I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that 'we have to do better.' And the progress that they've made in four years since the hurricane is unbelievable.

Just last week, Chicago Tribune writer Kristen McQueary echoed Duncan's sentiment when she wrote,

I find myself wishing for a storm in Chicago — an unpredictable, haughty, devastating swirl of fury. A dramatic levee break. Geysers bursting through manhole covers. A sleeping city, forced onto the rooftops...That's what it took to hit the reset button in New Orleans. Chaos. Tragedy. Heartbreak.

The backlash against Duncan forced his boss to make him "not-apologize" for his remarks. Likewise, the backlash against McQueary forced her to write a "not-apology" a few days later (see here and here for two responses to McQueary's article).

School reform vastly expanded in New Orleans after the hurricane. Dozens of schools were added to the Recovery School District. Whether you approve of charter schools or not, it was a revolutionary change in education, and it would not have happened without Hurricane Katrina.

Many readers thought my premise — through my use of metaphor and hyperbole — was out of line. I certainly hear you. I am reading your tweets and emails. And I am horrified and sickened at how that column was read to mean I would be gunning for actual death and destruction.

She said she didn't actually want hurricane-level damage to hit Chicago. Her point was that Chicago needed a "disaster capitalist" excuse to tear things down and rebuild from scratch because nothing would have gotten accomplished otherwise.

Is it true that nothing was done to improve the New Orleans public schools till they were wiped out by Katrina? How hard did individual teachers work to help their students in the struggling, likely underfunded, New Orleans public schools before Katrina? How much time was spent by administrators in lobbying for more funding, better facilities, and up-to-date materials for their schools?

The plight of public schools in high poverty areas are easily ignored by politicians because the parents of the community are often too busy working two or three jobs, or are unfamiliar with the hoops they must jump through get full, equitable funding for their children. Sometimes there are educational and language barriers that parents can't overcome. Sometimes there are racial barriers as well. Note the number of schools on the south side of Chicago which have been or are targeted to be closed and replaced with charters while schools on the north side are well stocked and successful.

I'm not going to reproduce all the information which shows how the Recovery School District (RSD) in New Orleans has failed to improve the education of New Orleans children. There are others who have done that...Mercedes Schneider, for example has discussed it in great detail in dozens of posts which you can find here...and especially here, here, here and here. It would take hours to go through it all...so here's a taste...

...the term “school choice” could well mean that it is the school that exercises greater leverage when it comes to choosing, not the parents.

One-third (10 of 30) of schools selected or excluded students by, for example, counseling students who were not thought to be a good fit to transfer to another school, holding invitation only events to advertise the school, or not reporting open seats. This number included five OPSB schools and five RSD schools. [Emphasis added.]

And another taste...

New Orleans charters opened longer did not show better 2014 AP outcomes.

What is clear is that with only a couple of exceptions, the results are not impressive.

My spreadsheet of the data can be found here:

New Orleans Charter High School May 2014 AP Results

Once again, there is no miracle here.

To the districts nationwide that are watching the New Orleans Charter Circus with wide eyes, know that any reported New Orleans charter *miracle* patently contradicts its consistently unimpressive outcomes.

For another look at New Orleans RSD schools read these posts by Crazy Crawfish. Check out the post, The RSD and New Orleans miracle (of cheating), for some information about test scores in New Orleans.

New Orleans Schools

Let's now turn to Campbell Brown and her appearance on C-Span, August 18, 2015, Education Policy.

Studying the material at the two blogs I mentioned above ought to be enough to rebut the following...

At 7:25 in the program she said...

It's such an incredible story of the progress that's been made in New Orleans since Katrina when they have revamped public schools...

Innovation

At about 33:55 she announced in a Chris Christie sort of way about how America's public schools today are no different than the public schools that her grandparents and great-grandparents went to.

Just think over the last century how our lives have changed in so many ways because of technology. I mean...for a hundred years we're living vastly different lives except in how we educate our kids. We are educating our kids today -- and our grandkids -- exactly the same way we educated my grandparents...my great-grandparents. We have not had innovation or advancement in the same way in education. And it's...you know...we've failed to see real gains because of that.

First, she's wrong because achievement has improved. Diane Ravitch, in Reign of Error, documented the increase in NAEP math and reading scores from 1973 through 2008. The trend is upward.

Second, anyone who has spent time in classrooms recently knows that they are fundamentally different than classrooms of the past in a variety of ways. Can we improve classroom education? Of course. But we need research based innovations. As we have learned from schools' experiences around the country, integrating technology like Smart Boards or iPads into the curriculum doesn't change anything unless teachers are trained in their use.

Finally, innovation just for innovation's sake, like technology for technology's sake, doesn't help children learn. Research into new teaching methods and best practices ought to drive innovation...not bells and whistles.

At about 41:40 she responding to a caller who said we ought to reward kids with money for learning. After acknowledging that "good idea," Brown said,

...because we haven't been able to innovate as quickly as we need to...one of the things that happens in our schools is that the kids in the middle...you know a teacher can't teach everybody...right? There's just...she doesn't have the tools or he doesn't have the tools to have the flexibility to let those kids who are learning more quickly continue to be challenged, or the kids who need extra help...you know, how does one person take the time to give those kids the extra help they may need...and then deal with everybody else. There are lots of cool, really interesting technologies that are trying to...you know...individualize lesson plans. So that these kids can move forward at their own pace...and...and we're giving them more of the kind of individual attention that they need to progress so that the kids on the higher end can be more challenged and the kids on the lower end can take their time and get the extra help that they need and hopefully free up time for that teacher to be able to help those kids more and spend a little more time with them.

Her points seem to be that 1) teachers can't teach everyone in their classrooms because the ranges of achievement and abilities are too wide, 2) high achieving kids are held back while low achieving kids aren't getting their needs met and 3) innovation with "cool" technology is the way to solve that problem.

This is a perfect example of why actual real life, currently practicing educators ought to be included when education policy is discussed and made. It's obvious that Brown has never heard of "differentiation" (or if she's heard of it she doesn't understand what it is). Good teachers understand and use differentiated instruction...and those who are adept at it can gear instruction to children at the level they need. Understanding and using differentiation is not something you can do with just 5 weeks of training (after graduating from a high-status college with a degree in business administration). Like other pedagogical tools, it takes study, practice, and a long term commitment to a career in education.

Fully staffing schools with specialists who have advanced certification or degrees in reading (like me!), special education, and gifted education, can also help teachers deal with the wide range of achievement levels in a general education classroom.

Finally, as long as standards, and standardized tests based on those standards, have high-stakes attached to them, students will not be allowed to progress at their own rates. Requiring all students, except those with the most severe academic disabilities, to pass the same test at the same time, and then using those test scores to label schools and teachers, is educational malpractice. Brown said that children should be allowed to "move forward at their own pace." On that point, she is right.

The Chartering of New Orleans

Beginning at about 43:50 Brown extolled the wonderfulness of New Orleans' charter schools.

...[In New Orleans] after Katrina...they were trying to figure out how to rebuild that school system...they made a choice to basically take almost all the schools in New Orleans and make them charter schools. You know, take the handcuffs off, and put the union contracts aside, and give the schools the flexibility to be innovative, and to do different things than they had been doing before.

Now the real truth comes out. Disaster capitalism depends on a catastrophe to make it successful. The catastrophe of Katrina had to destroy everything so that the vultures edupreneurs could swoop in and start all over. And one thing which had to be destroyed was the teachers union.

"...take the handcuffs off, and put the union contracts aside..." The goal of charters in the "reform" movement is to get public dollars for educating students in the cheapest way possible. Teachers unions stand in the way of that.

Politicians and education "reformers" will tell you over and over again about how much they love teachers...but how much they hate teachers unions (except, of course, Chris Christie who makes no bones about how much he hates teachers and their unions). The fact is, however, that teachers unions are made up of teachers...millions of them. All over the country average, dedicated classroom teachers negotiate contracts with duly elected school boards. Those contracts protect children as well as teachers. The conditions under which teachers work...class size, availability of special services, preparation time...are the conditions under which students learn. Individual teachers unions can sometimes pressure school boards to do things that they wouldn't normally do, but on the whole states with strong teachers unions achieve at higher levels than states with weak or non-existent teachers unions. Charter school takeovers of public schools, like in New Orleans, will not change the conditions of children's lives. The poverty level of children in America and the refusal of those who run our nation, states, and cities to acknowledge poverty as a factor in student achievement is the number one problem facing public education today. It's not "bad teachers," teachers unions, or teacher contracts that are damaging public education...it's elected officials like Mike Pence, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and Rahm Emanuel...it's political appointees like Arne Duncan and his predecessor Margaret Spellings...and it's people who don't know anything about education acting like they do...like Campbell Brown.

Campbell Brown ought to throw her support to the teachers who struggle in public schools every day, not hedge fund managers, politicians, or other "reformers." If she truly wants to help the children she claims to care so much about, then she needs to change her tune and fight for more equitable funding of public schools, wrap-around services for children in need, more and better training for teachers, and the end to test and punish policies. Here's a good place for her to start...

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Support Teachers of Conscience

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

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Vermont State Board of Education: Statement and Resolution on Assessment and Accountability, Adopted August 19, 2014

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Coming Soon to a City Near You -- Part II*

City after city and, in the case of Louisiana, even states, are losing their public school system to privatization -- through corporate charters and vouchers. New Orleans (where Arne Duncan claimed that Katrina was the best thing that happened to education) and all of Louisiana, as well as Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago...and now...

Memphis

Memphis District to Lose $212 Million to Charter Schools by 2016

The story unfolding in Memphis around the consolidation of Memphis and Shelby County Schools gets more and more interesting. Today one of the Gates front men, Gary Shorb, published a plea in the Commercial-Appeal for all sides to come together to embrace what is essentially a resegregation merger plan written by the Gates Foundation and their political arm-twisting outfit, Stand On For Children (SFC). SFC has successfully led the anti-teacher, anti-child, and anti-parent fight for corporate education reform in Colorado, Ilinois, Massachusetts, and Tennessee. It is most interesting and the ultimate irony that the County Commission, which supports the "merger" plan, is now accusing outlying Shelby County towns of racism for planning to bail out on this corporate-sponsored apartheid plan for Memphis.

There are obvious conflicts of interest here...yet no one seems to notice or care. There is also the fact that the public school system is being removed from public control.

Theft of Public Education in Memphis
By 2016, a mere four years from now, enrollment in charter schools will increase from 4% to 19%. This will happen not because parents or students have asked to be assigned to charters but because the planners want it to happen (one guess as to who devised the plan).

This will result in a handover of $212 million of public funds to privately managed charter schools.

That is, $212 million will be removed from the budget of the public schools and transferred to charter schools whose governance is private and not subject to local, democratic control.

Cleveland

...and add Cleveland to the list, too. Cleveland is already home to America's oldest voucher plan in which millions of dollars each year are given to private schools. Research has shown that the achievement of the students in the privately run, but publicly funded schools is no better than the public schools.

Cleveland's corporate reform bill signed by Kasich

The new law overrides the union's contract and discards previous board-union agreements governing teacher pay and layoffs, does away with tenure, lengthens the school day and year without accompanying compensation, evaluates and pays teachers based largely on student test scores, and pushes the biggest move yet towards privately managed charter schools along the lines of the Philadelphia model. The new law is also an affront to parents, requiring them to attend meetings under penalty of law. It will take badly-needed funds away from neighborhood public schools and line the pockets of politically connected consultants.

This is not a case of so-called "failing" public schools being improved by corporate intervention or of privately run schools doing a better job with the influx of public funds. This is simply a giveaway of the public schools by corporate and conservative interests. It's privatization of public schools for the sake of profit. America needs it's public schools...and we need them under public control and scrutiny, not run by the same people who gave us our current economy. If schools are broken, invest in them and fix them. Don't give them away.

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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*Coming Soon to a City Near You, Part I dealt with the publication of teacher evaluations.