What's in your water?

Many of America's children continue to be poisoned by their local and state governments...because the Federal government won't listen to its own agency.

Around the country, schools are fighting the effects of environmental toxins in their students' drinking water. The most notorious example is in Flint Michigan, where the school system has seen a doubling of the number of students needing special services due to lead poisoning and the damage to the developing brain that it causes.

Other pollutants are damaging as well. Mercury, along with cancer-causing dioxins, are released from coal-fired power plants and municipal waste incinerators. The airborne toxins travel to the lungs of children or are absorbed into food and water supplies.

2019 was a bad year for lead...in Flint, Newark, Hammond IN, New York City, Detroit, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Thousands of our nation's children have had their lives damaged by the toxicity of lead. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reminds us that even the smallest lead level in the blood of children is unsafe.

Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention

No safe blood lead level in children has been identified. Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect IQ, the ability to pay attention, and academic achievement. The good news is that childhood lead poisoning is 100% preventable.

Preventing childhood lead exposure is cost-effective.

According to a 2017 report from the Health Impact Project, a federal investment of $80 billion would prevent all U.S. children born in 2018 from having any detectable levels of lead in their blood. This investment has an estimated $83.9 billion in societal benefits, which represents a 5% return on investment. If it cost less than $80 billion to remove lead from the environment, then the cost-benefit ratio would be greater. Additionally, permanently removing lead hazards from the environment would benefit future birth cohorts, and savings would continue to grow over time.

The American Academy of Pediatrics echoes the CDC's call to completely eliminate lead exposure in children.

With No Amount of Lead Exposure Safe for Children, American Academy of Pediatrics Calls For Stricter Regulations

The AAP calls for stricter regulations, expanded federal resources and joint action by government officials and pediatricians in the policy statement, “Prevention of Childhood Lead Toxicity,” published in July 2016 Pediatrics. Identifying and eliminating sources before exposure occurs is the only reliable way to protect kids from lead poisoning.

“We now know that there is no safe level of blood lead concentration for children, and the best ‘treatment’ for lead poisoning is to prevent any exposure before it happens,” said Dr. Jennifer Lowry, MD, FAACT, FAAP, chair of the AAP Council on Environmental Health and an author of the policy statement. "Most existing lead standards fail to protect children. They provide only an illusion of safety. Instead, we need to expand the funding and technical guidance for local and state governments to remove lead hazards from children's homes, and we need federal standards that will truly protect children."

Despite what the CDC says, the Federal government recklessly sets the safe level of lead exposure to 15 parts per billion. This gives state governments the excuse to ignore the damage done to America's children.

How is your state doing?

INDIANA

GET THE LEAD OUT: Ensuring safe drinking water for our children at school

The United States Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) has joined with the Environment America Research & Policy Center to release a state by state report on lead in drinking water. Each state is graded on its lead eradication policies.

Unfortunately, Indiana's grade is a big fat F.

This stems from the fact that Indiana uses the Federal 15 ppb standard. In other words, while no amount of lead is safe for human consumption, Indiana won't address any lead levels in drinking water until it passes fifteen parts per billion. In addition, participation in the lead sampling program does not automatically apply to all schools and child care centers. The state program is voluntary and only K-12 schools can opt-in. Our pre-schools, apparently, are not worth the money.

The report says...

...most states are failing to protect children from lead in schools’ drinking water. Our review of 32 states’ laws and regulations finds:

• Several states have no requirements for schools and pre-schools to address the threat of lead in drinking water; and

• Of the few states with applicable laws, most follow flaws in the federal rules — relying on testing instead of prevention and using standards that allow health-threatening levels of lead to persist in our children’s water at school.

Testing shows elevated lead levels in 7 Hammond schools

Hammond city schools discovered they were above the 15 ppb standard.

A new round of testing has found lead levels in the drinking water at seven northwestern Indiana schools that exceed the federal action level for the toxic metal.

The School City of Hammond’s board heard from a consulting firm Tuesday that drinking water in seven Hammond schools and two other district buildings tested above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s lead action level of 15 parts per billion.

Too many states, like Indiana, don't have a mandatory program to check for lead in the water.

Report: If you think dangerous lead in schools is a limited problem, think again

The report, released recently by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, highlighted how many school districts — 72 percent — are not even inspecting their buildings for lead-based paint hazards. The Government Accountability Office restricted its analysis to school districts that had at least one school built before 1978, and those that obtained drinking water from a public water system.

Among the 12 percent that do inspect for lead hazards, more than half found them. That raises questions about what amount could be found in the remaining 88 percent of schools that aren’t looking.

FLINT, MICHIGAN

Flint’s Children Suffer in Class After Years of Drinking the Lead-Poisoned Water

It's been five years since the state of Michigan switched Flint's water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The damage done to nearly 30,000 children has now hit the city schools.

The result is enraging. The futures of Flint's children have been sacrificed to greed. The school system, already overburdened by the effects of poverty in the city, now has to add the impact of increased numbers of children with special needs.

Are we doing enough to eliminate lead from the environment? Not according to this article. We spend billions on testing, but apparently can't afford to keep our children safe from poisoning. The problem is that most of those who are affected by environmental toxins like lead are poor children of color.

The city of Flint is suffering from the effects of environmental racism.

Five years after Michigan switched Flint’s water supply to the contaminated Flint River from Lake Huron, the city’s lead crisis has migrated from its homes to its schools, where neurological and behavioral problems — real or feared — among students are threatening to overwhelm the education system.

The contamination of this long-struggling city’s water exposed nearly 30,000 schoolchildren to a neurotoxin known to have detrimental effects on children’s developing brains and nervous systems. Requests for special education or behavioral interventions began rising four years ago, when the water contamination became public, bolstering a class-action lawsuit that demanded more resources for Flint’s children.

That lawsuit forced the state to establish the $3 million Neurodevelopmental Center of Excellence, which began screening students. The screenings then confirmed a range of disabilities, which have prompted still more requests for intervention.

The percentage of the city’s students who qualify for special education services has nearly doubled, to 28 percent, from 15 percent the year the lead crisis began, and the city’s screening center has received more than 1,300 referrals since December 2018. The results: About 70 percent of the students evaluated have required school accommodations for issues like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as A.D.H.D.; dyslexia; or mild intellectual impairment, said Katherine Burrell, the associate director of the center.

ELSEWHERE AROUND THE COUNTRY

How many thousands of children have been poisoned? How many more will be before we clean things up?

Various Cities

A hidden scandal: America's school students exposed to water tainted by toxic lead

More than half of public schools in Atlanta were found to have high levels of lead, in some cases 15 times above the federal limit for water systems. Schools in Baltimore, Portland and Chicago were all found to have significant amounts of lead in drinking water.

New York City

Still High Levels of Lead in Drinking Water in NYC Schools

The numbers continue to point to a significant health risk because there is no safe level of lead in drinking water for children. Simply stated, New York’s action level of 15 ppb is way too high—even test results below 15 ppb present a significant risk for our kids.

California

Lead Found in Drinking Fountains at 17% of California Public Schools

The state, however, only requires schools to take action – including notifying parents, shutting down dangerous fountains and conducting more testing – if lead levels exceed 15 ppb. Schools that do detect levels of lead above 15 ppb must take follow-up samples from the place at which the school’s plumbing connects to the community water supply to identify whether tainted water is reaching the school from the outside. As of mid June, 268 California schools reported lead levels above 15 ppb, according to the Water Resources Control Board.

Detroit

Detroit schools to use bottled water due to lead, copper concerns

Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai P. Vitti sent a letter to staff to announce that he was ordering drinking fountains at all 106 district campuses turned off after tests found 16 schools with "higher than acceptable" levels of copper or lead in their tap water.

...The shut down of water fountains doesn't apply to charter schools, but Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, intends to initiate "the same level of" water quality testing at those campuses, Vitta said.

Newark

Newark Officials Said There Was No Lead In Schools' Water, Data Shows Otherwise

Seven of 22 Newark schools tested this year had levels of lead in some drinking water sources that surpassed federal standards according to data obtained by WNYC/Gothamist. That runs counter to repeated assurances given by school board officials and City Hall that there was no lead in any drinking water at any of the city’s public schools.

As recently as last week, Water Department Director Kareem Adeem reiterated this to a crowd of more than a hundred Newark residents attending a “State of Our Water” town hall event at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

“The schools [do] independent testing and they post that testing on their website,” Adeem told the audience. “They don’t have lead in the schools.”

But that’s not the case.

Philadelphia

Philly school knew about toxic lead in drinking water but kept parents in the dark

In 2016 — while headlines blared about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan — [Frederick Douglass Elementary School teacher Alison] Marcus’ North Philadelphia charter school raised money to buy bottled water for residents of the distressed Midwestern city. But as she watched students at the charter, run by Mastery, toss change into a large plastic bucket, she felt a pang of guilt.

“I just remember thinking, ‘We should definitely be testing the water here,’” she said in an interview this month.

That’s because Marcus says she and other teachers feared the drinking water at the school wasn’t much better than Flint’s. That same year, for roughly a week, some hallway fountains and sinks spurted a brown liquid that looked more like apple cider than water, according to nine former and current staffers.

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2018 Medley #4: Privatization and Push-Back

Pastors in Texas; Privatization at Purdue; Charters in Pennsylvania, Arizona, New York, California, and Utah; Push-Back in Iowa

PRIVATIZATION: PUSH-BACK IN TEXAS

Voucher opposition article of faith for pastor

A small group of Texas pastors has come to the aid of public school students focusing on fighting vouchers, and the separation of church and state. The Pastors for Texas Children (PTC) have grown to become a force in the Lone Star State and lead a coalition of public education advocates to push back against the forces of privatization.

Other states have copied the PTC model, In Oklahoma, the Pastors for Oklahoma Kids has started advocating for public education.

Numbers of pastors and educators have started similar groups in other states, including Indiana.

We can't afford multiple, parallel, state funded, systems of education in Indiana. The state should fund the public schools. Period.

“I am a Baptist Christian. I have certain convictions that have shaped my experience of God, faith, church and – frankly – I don't want my tax dollars supporting religious programs that I don't agree with, any more than my friends of other faith traditions don't want their tax dollars supporting religious programs that might adhere to my own beliefs,” he said.

...The powerful case offered by Johnson and Pastors for Texas Children, however, could have many rethinking the blurring line between government and Indiana's church-based schools.

PRIVATIZATION: PURDUE

Keep Purdue Public: Tell the HLC to Vote NO on Purdue-Kaplan Deal

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has organized a petition campaign in opposition to Purdue's acquisition of Kaplan University, a for-profit company. This new aspect of Purdue's university system will be named Purdue University Global.

The problem according to the AAUP is that, under a move by Governor Holcomb, all this would be exempt from public open records laws. This, says AAUP, does what most privatization schemes does...it favors shareholders over students.

Senators Sherrod Brown and Dick Durbin are concerned about the predatory history of for-profit colleges and urge transparency.

According to AAUP,

The Purdue-Kaplan deal puts Kaplan shareholders over Purdue students.

• Pays 12.5% of revenue to Kaplan after operating costs are met

• Pays Kaplan an “efficiency payment” of 20% of any cuts in operating cost

The Purdue-Kaplan deal takes resources from a public university and gives them to a private corporation.

• Gives tax revenues and Indiana's scholarship money, like the 21st Century Scholars Program, to a private corporation

• Establishes a "public-benefit corporation" operated by and for the profit of Kaplan

PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS

#Anotherdayanothercharterscandal

...IN PENNSYLVANIA

How a loophole let charter schools 'buy' buildings and still collect rent from state

A charter school buys its building, then rents it to itself. The rent, of course, is reimbursed by the state. The school's CEO calls it "a great perk."

Like many charter schools, Executive Education Academy spends a good chunk of its budget on rent, some of which is later reimbursed by the state. That’s allowed, as long as the school doesn’t own its building, which Executive Academy doesn’t — technically.

The school at 555 Union Blvd., Allentown, is owned by the Executive Education Academy Charter School Foundation, a nonprofit set up solely to support the school. The school used to pay about $2.2 million a year in rent to a private landlord and get $100,000 back from the state.

Now the school will pay $2.3 million a year in rent to its foundation, which bought the building last summer, and still be able to apply for reimbursements from the state.

“That’s not the reason why we would do this, but that’s a great perk for a charter school,” said Robert Lysek, the school’s CEO. “I hate to say ‘it is what it is,’ but it kind of is.”

...IN ARIZONA

Sudden closure of charter school renews calls for stricter oversight

Read this story about how charter schools enrich their executives and end up closing in the middle of the school year, leaving parents and students scrambling for a new school (Note: Naturally, they often end up back at the stable, traditional, and open to all, public schools).

The lack of public oversight often leaves parents and children with few options. Whose choice?

The issue of charter schools funneling payments through entities owned by executives is not unique to Discovery Creemos.

A study by GCI last year found 77 percent of charter schools engage in business transactions involving their owners, board members or their families, a practice known as “self-dealing” or “related-party transactions.”

...IN NEW YORK

New York education officials move to block rules allowing some charter schools to certify their own teachers

The bottom line for corporate owned, privatized schools, is profit, not children. In-house training would allow those schools to hire cheaper, and therefore, more profitable, teachers...oh, and they wouldn't have to worry about that pesky teachers union, either.

The regulations allow SUNY-authorized charter schools to certify teachers who complete the equivalent of a month of classroom instruction and practice teaching for 40 hours — compared to at least 100 hours under the state’s certification route, according to the lawsuit. And unlike teachers on a traditional certification route, they are not required to earn a master’s degree or take all of the state’s certification exams.

...IN CALIFORNIA

Teachers Say They had No Idea Sacramento Charter School was Shutting Down

When my local school district decided to close four elementary schools (three of which I had worked in!) due to funding shortfalls and declining enrollment, local members of the school board held town meetings all across the district to hear from citizens and explain why they wanted to do what they were going to do. The process took an entire year...and many voters were against the plan. If they chose to, those voters were able to exercise their displeasure with the plan during the following school board election.

Unfortunately, parents who patronize charter schools, and teachers who work in such schools, have no such electoral protection. Parents, students, and teachers, have no "choice" when a charter school closes. The money is gone. The students' educational year is disrupted. Teachers are out of a job.

Parents began looking for transcripts and were trying to get their kids transferred to new schools. Teachers were waiting for stipends and belongings from their classrooms.

While reading a prepared statement, Contreras-Douglas got emotional. She insisted staff was aware of the school's low enrollment and financial troubles before shutting down Wednesday.

"Several meetings with teaching staff were conducted to specifically address this issue throughout the school year," Contreras-Douglas said.

But teachers say they didn't have any idea the school was closing until it happened.

...IN UTAH

Tribune Editorial: Charter schools need state board's oversight

Public schools have locally elected and locally based school boards. The schools are subject to the financial oversight of both the local school board and the state department of education.

Charter schools ought to have the same public oversight.

This legislation speaks to the bigger issue of what we want charters to be. When they first came into being, the intent of charters was to be laboratories where alternative approaches could be tested without the interference of public-school bureaucracies. Many have succeeded doing exactly that.

But some ideologues are trying to use charters as the leading edge of an educational disruption movement with the intent of dismantling the public school system and the teachers union, replacing it with a marketplace where every parent goes shopping for schools. In that view, the state school board represents market suppression.

PRIVATIZATION: PUSH-BACK AGAINST "CHOICE" IN IOWA

Iowa public school advocates fight for funding amid cries for 'choice'

Thousands of Iowans are pushing back against "school-choice" in Iowa.

A grassroots group made up of Iowa public school parents and activists is fighting what organizers say is an onslaught from lawmakers intent on eroding the state's public education system.

Iowans for Public Education was formed online in November 2016 after Republicans won majorities in both the Iowa House and Senate. It has since grown to more than 12,500 followers.

The group organized a Teachers Rally last February that brought thousands to the Iowa Capitol grounds to oppose changes to Iowa's collective bargaining law. It has launched petitions and letter-writing campaigns.

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2015 Medley #11

Atlanta Cheating Scandal, Tomorrow's Teachers, Opt-Out, Priorities for America's Future

ATLANTA CHEATING

Jail for Black Educators, Millions for Bankers

The Biggest Outrage in Atlanta’s Crazy Teacher Cheating Case

No one should condone the cheating done by teachers and educators in Atlanta (or Las Vegas, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Chicago, NYC, Texas, Los Angeles, and elsewhere), but what punishment is appropriate to fit the crime?

The first thing I always think about when I hear about cheating on standardized tests is that there is an assumption that standardized tests measure student achievement, teacher competency, school effectiveness, and real learning. They don't. Standardized tests most accurately measure student/family economic status and neighborhood income. Tests are being overused and misused and therein lies the real crime.

That being said, it's still unethical for educators to manipulate tests in order to protect their jobs, increase their bonuses, or any other reason. Teachers who do so should be removed from the classroom immediately with a loss of their credentials.

Yet it's important to remember that many teachers around the nation now find themselves in no-win situations. They are required to raise test scores (most often made impossible by legislatures) or risk losing their jobs. Backed into a corner it's not a surprise that many otherwise honest, hardworking teachers cheat in order to keep feeding their families. It's easy for outsiders to say they shouldn't do it, but when faced with loss of job in a difficult market, people often make poor choices. Definitely they should be punished for those poor choices.

What would the appropriate punishment be? 20 years and a racketeering charge like drug dealers and mobsters? A slap on the wrist like the bankers who brought the world economy crashing down? 10 years like the average for first time armed robbery? The threats of harsh sentences for the Atlanta teachers is just another point of proof that American Justice, while she may be wearing a blindfold, can see money very clearly.

You don’t have to consider the Atlanta teachers innocent to know something has gone terribly awry in the country when filling in bubbles on Scan-Tron sheets can get you 20 years, but stealing people’s homes and defrauding pension funds can’t get you indicted. The only way you could see what the justice system has granted bankers as in any way commensurate with what it does to ordinary people is if you grade on a curve.

Atlanta Cheating Scandals and Eva Moskowitz Success Academies 2 Sides of the same Coin

You decide which is worse- Cheating or Child Abuse.

That we have come to this is telling testimony of the absurdity of annointing raising test scores as the nation's primary anti-poverty strategy and its path to restoring Global Economic Competitiveness

The Atlanta Cheaters

Peter Greene understands that the educators who cheated in Atlanta are just a few more in a long line of cheaters starting with the main cheat which is No Child Left Behind. The law was based on the so-called "Texas Miracle" -- which never actually happened. Greene doesn't discuss it here, but we can also include the cheat of "Renaissance 2010" from Chicago which gave rise to Race to the Top.

When you nationalize something that only worked because of cheating and tell educators to duplicate it (or else!), you'll get more cheating.

The fate of the Atlanta cheaters stands in stark contrast to the fate of teachers and administrators cheating across the US. Can I pull up a list and name them? No, nor would I. But I don't doubt for a fraction of a second that hundreds upon hundreds of schools in this country survived the insanely unattainable politically-set requirements of federal reform by cheating in ways big and small. This can't be a surprise-- school reform's first big exemplar was the Texas Miracle, which turned out to be nothing more than creative accounting and magic tracking. The federal government literally paraded a big fat lie in front of schools as if it were a model and then said, "Okay, now YOU do that, too!"

BUILDING TOMORROW'S TEACHING CRISIS TODAY

The Rewards of Teaching

"Reformers" don't get it. They don't understand the motivation to teach. If they did they wouldn't be foisting a "business model" on public education. Teachers don't walk into a classroom like a salesclerk walks into a retail store, or an hourly assembly line worker walks into a factory. Those folks may love their jobs, but being an educator is more like a novelist struggling with the development of a character...more like an artist mixing colors on a canvas...more like a doctor trying to diagnose a particularly puzzling illness.

Increased pay for educators is great...but so is administrative support, materials, and the opportunity to teach and analyze one's work.

When "reformers" think they can motivate teachers with more money, or threats...when "reformers" remove all the subtle, personal rewards of teaching and replace them with an obsessive focus on test scores, the incentive to teach is lost...and no amount of money or so-called merit pay will make up for it.

A great school to work in is one where there are the fewest possible obstacles between the teachers and the intrinsic rewards of teaching. And the intrinsic rewards of teaching are, most simply stated, using your skills, knowledge, judgment and efforts to help your students learn and grow, and getting to see the real life results of that growth.

The more obstacles stand between a teacher and the use of those personal skills, knowledge, judgment and effort, the less rewarding it is to work there.

Does Anyone in Education Reform Care if Teaching Is a Profession?

I find it hard to believe that today's education "reformers" really believe that teaching is a profession at all. If they did, the pressure to make certain only top students enter university-based teacher preparation and then to make sure those students have rigorous preparation would be coupled with similar efforts to raise the attractiveness of teaching as a lifelong career. Instead, reformers act as if they believe that teaching is something you do in your twenties when you are idealistic and want to "give something back" -- and then you move on to a "real career" in some other sector. If your charter school bosses like you, perhaps they will make you a school principal before you are 30, or they will set you on a path to become Commission of Education for the state of New York when you are only 36 years old. But mostly, they will thank you for a few years of service and see you off to your grown up life outside of education. After all, reformers' favorite schools -- "no excuses" charters -- manage to train their students into "little test taking machines" without very many career teachers, so why should reformers really value teachers who dedicate their entire adult lives to teaching? That people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are dedicated and developing professionals who wish to remain in the classroom must seem like an amusing and quaint anachronism to them.

THE WAR ON TEACHERS

Here is the New York State Teacher Evaluation Bill

Here's a perfect example...politics hurts children. The teachers union in New York didn't support the re-election of Governor Cuomo, so his response is to do as much damage to teachers' careers as he can. Does he understand that teachers' working conditions have an impact on students?

This is a bill that is written to oust teachers. It reeks of disrespect. It shows Governor Cuomo’s rage against the people who work with children in public schools every day. This bill is his payback to the teachers’ unions for not endorsing his re-election after he declared himself the lobbyist for charter students (3% of the state’s enrollment)...Enrollments in teacher education programs are collapsing, in New York and across the nation. Those who enter teaching today are either woefully uninformed of the politicians’ hostility towards them or are prepared to fight a long battle for their children and their profession. What kind of society makes war on its teachers?

STEP UP - OPT OUT - BREAK THE RULES

Principal: ‘There comes a time when rules must be broken…. That time is now.’

Republicans on the right and Democrats on the left have all bought into the privatization of public education. It's up to parents and educators to protect, support and rebuild America's public schools.

It has become increasingly clear that Congress does not have the will to move away from annual high-stakes testing. The bizarre notion that subjecting 9-year-olds to hours of high-stakes tests is a “civil right,” is embedded in the thinking of both parties. Conservatives no longer believe in the local, democratic control of our schools. Progressives refuse to address the effects of poverty, segregation and the destruction of the middle class on student learning. The unimaginative strategy to improve achievement is to make standardized tests longer and harder.

THE LOW PRIORITY OF EDUCATION IN AMERICA

What If Education Reform Got It All Wrong in the First Place?

We are a selfish, short-sighted, nation. Our priority is "mine, mine, mine" and our plan for the future is non-existent. Politicians talk about not leaving future generations in debt, and use that as an excuse to justify cutting programs which squander the hopes of those very future citizens. If we actually cared about the future of our nation, about the children who will be leading us in a few short years, we would change our priorities.

"...if money doesn’t matter, then why is it that people who have money send their kids to schools that have many, many more resources?” Gandara adds. “I think fundamentally the problem is that other developed nations have social systems that support families and children in a variety of ways: with childcare, with good health care, with recreational opportunities—with lots of things that support healthy development. We have dumped it all on the schools and said, ‘We’re really not going to provide any of these services. You deal with it, schools.’”

Times aren’t tough; why the hit to schools? by Connie Boesen, a member of the Des Moines, Iowa School Board

Fewer opportunities, larger classes, fewer teachers, ever larger student debt, higher child poverty...is this our plan for the future? Is this how we plan to compete in a global economy?

If Iowa continues down this path of low funding for our schools, this is what we know: We will have fewer teachers, coaches and other adults that can connect with students. We will have fewer course offerings. We will have larger class sizes with less personal attention for each student. We will have fewer opportunities for students to connect with extracurricular activities and the fine arts that excite them to succeed in school.

We are elected to the school board just as the Legislature is elected with responsibilities, rules and timelines to follow. It is disappointing that we are now over a year late in establishing the school funding for the upcoming school year of 2015-2016. Education should not be a political issue but a moral issue of providing all children with great educational opportunities.

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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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Insanity is...

INSANITY

...doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The above quote, often attributed to Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin, or Mark Twain, is a good representation of the American educational practice of "retention in grade."

For the past 100 years the "common sense" concept of "retaining," "flunking," or "holding students back" has been a mainstay of American education. It seems to make sense that if a child doesn't achieve the required learning during his/her year in a particular grade, repeating the grade to reinforce the learning would help. Unfortunately for the child, the "common sense" is wrong and retention in grade usually doesn't work.

It may seem reasonable to give a child an extra year to "catch up," however, research has consistently shown that retention in grade is less effective than other forms of remediation.

Despite the research, however, the current trend is for states to require students to read "at grade level" by third grade or face retention. The mayoral controlled city school systems of Chicago and New York have also tried it and found that it didn't work. Florida does it. North Carolina does it. Indiana does it. It's also being used in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Arizona. (FYI see Chapter 7, Section 2 of the A-Plus Literacy Act by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC)

Rather than simply expecting schools to bring all children to a Lake Wobegon standard of "at grade level" by third grade, Americans, and their legislators must understand that not all children learn at the same rate. Rather than wasting money retaining children at third grade, states ought to invest in early childhood education, early interventions like Reading Recovery and smaller class sizes.

Holding Kids Back Doesn't Help Them by Deborah Stipek and Michael Lombardo

A majority of peer-reviewed studies over the past 30 years have demonstrated that holding students back yields little or no long-term academic benefits and can actually be harmful to students...

Moreover, there is compelling evidence that retention can reduce the probability of high school graduation...

Instead of giving children the same treatment that failed them the first time, alternative strategies provide different kinds of learning opportunities.

Interventions should also begin long before 3rd grade. Research has provided compelling evidence that investments in preschool can reduce retention and have positive long-term payoff for individuals and society, in contrast to the negative long-term effects of holding a student back later.

FLORIDA THINKS TWICE

Jeb Bush's reading rule loses ground

Not mentioned in the article below, but included in the one above, is the fact that the gains of "retention in grade" are lost in about 2 years, and by 8th grade Florida students are still below the national average in reading proficiency.

Many students could use the extra help: Nationally, 32 percent of fourth-graders were reading at below basic levels in 2013, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

But it’s unclear whether the retention policies work as intended.

One study from Florida shows that after two years of implementation, third-graders who were retained made significant reading gains relative to their socially promoted peers.

But other studies have shown that retention leads to loss of self-esteem, a decreased feeling of belonging at school and negative effects on college attendance. A Harvard University study found that any positive effects of retention fade out over time.

Data from Florida show that about a third of students held back for a year in 2003 never became proficient at reading. But a state official also noted that fewer students have been retained over the years because they’re getting more intensive instruction, thanks to the law.

A benefit of the Florida law that further denies the effectiveness of grade retention is

...retention plus being assigned to a highly effective teacher and receiving 90 minutes of additional literacy instruction per day is more effective than being promoted with no such guaranteed, high-dosage interventions.

The Marsico Institute for Early Learning and Literacy at the University of Denver reviewed the research on retention.

They concluded that Florida had improved test scores according to some studies specifically because...

Florida also has universal preschool, class size limits, and guaranteed high-quality literacy coaches, among other well-financed innovations.

In other words, when money is provided for proven interventions, student acheivement improves.

...since 2006 Florida has legislated a separate education fund guaranteed to be spent on literacy. This year that fund has $130M to distribute across its districts to be spent on highly qualified literacy coaches, intensive summer reading camps for lagging readers, among others. Although Florida’s unique combination of reforms and financial backing is likely largely responsible for some test score gains seen there, the effects of retention itself are not possible to isolate.

WRONG PRIORITIES

Until the United States finally decides to place a high priority on our early learners, especially those who are at risk due to poverty and English language learners, we'll have an economic and linguistic learning gap. Forced retention at third grade won't change that.

There are sufficient data to conclude that retention in the absence of well-funded, guaranteed, and high-dosage interventions is ineffective or harmful. This includes the most recent research using the most rigorous methods to control for pre-retention differences.

Forced retention in grade, the overuse and misuse of testing, closing schools instead of supporting them, charter schools, vouchers, invalid teacher evaluations, reducing teacher benefits, lowering requirements for educators -- None of those "reforms" will help children.

What will help is early and intensive research-based interventions for students at risk of failure.

Unfortunately, "reformers" haven't figured out how to make money from actually helping students.

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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!

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2012 Medley #4, Part 2: More from New York...

NYC teachers' rankings based on test scores published.

(Click here to see Part 1, It's all About New York.)

The attacks on public education and public school teachers will continue until America's millions of teachers stand up and say, "No more." No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have shown what the politicians mean to do to America's public schools. Our union leaders tell us we need a seat at the table. The experiences in Los Angeles and New York have shown that strategy to be a mistake. The "seat at the table" has backfired and teachers, who hoped for cooperation from the administration can now see what that cooperation has gotten them.

The students in America's public schools are counting on us to make sure that there is a qualified, well-trained professional in every classroom, not someone with five weeks of training who is marking time between their Bachelors degree and a business career. Our students are counting on us to return content to the curriculum and end the damage that the insanity of mindless testing has caused. Our students are counting on us to be their voice...to tell the nation that enough is enough and that we need to return real learning to the classroom.

Dennis Van Roekel and Randi Weingarten take note...we should be fighting to save public education not relying on untrustworthy politicians to do it for us.

How to Demoralize Teachers

Diane Ravitch reminds us that the VAM assessment data is invalid and unreliable. Why then, is it being publicized? She has the answer for that, too.

Most testing experts believe that value-added assessment has many technical problems that reduce its validity and reliability. The most recent research review appears in the current issue of the Phi Delta Kappan. Unfortunately, advocates of measuring teacher quality by student test scores never let research or evidence or, in New York City's case, unequivocal commitments to privacy, get in their way.

The New York Post exulted with a front-page, full-page banner headline: "REVEALED: TEACHER GRADES." On day one, it printed a picture of and story about "the best teacher," and on day two, a picture of and story about "the worst teacher." The Post interviewed parents who said they wanted their child out of that teacher's class or they wanted her fired. In recent years, the Post has often run stories about teachers who allegedly are criminals, perverts, or just plain lazy, greedy dummies who can't be trusted to teach anything and shouldn't be allowed near children. It seems that the Murdoch journal won't be satisfied until every school has been turned over to private management, with no unions, no seniority, and no job protections whatever for teachers.

Why we won’t publish individual teachers’ value-added scores

One publication, Gothamschools.org, has refused to publish the information.

But before we publish any piece of information, we always have to ask a question. Does the information we have do a fair job of describing the subject we want to write about? If it doesn’t, is there any additional information — context, anecdotes, quantitative data — that we can provide to paint a fuller picture?

In the case of the Teacher Data Reports, “value-added” assessments of teachers’ effectiveness that were produced in 2009 and 2010 for reading and math teachers in grades 3 to 8, the answer to both those questions was no.

New York City Teacher Ratings: Teacher Data Reports Publicly Released Amid Controversy

The president of the NYC teachers union, Michael Mulgrew has written a full page ad to explain why the numbers shouldn't be used to evaluate teachers. He includes the facts that the data uses tests which have since been labeled invalid, the reports are full of errors, and the methodology contains a margin of error so large as to make the results meaningless.

He also reminds everyone the procedure was so experimental that even former Chancellor Joel Klein

...promised when it began that the results would be available only to teachers and their supervisors. Then the Department of Education reneged on its pledge and has released them to the public.

From Huffington Post...

In response, the union, the United Federation of Teachers, has launched a city-wide newspaper advertising campaign. The ad headlines, "This Is No Way To Rate A Teacher!" followed by a lengthy and complicated mathematical formula as well as a letter from UFT President Michael Mulgrew with a list of all the reasons he says the data reports are faulty and unreliable.

Crunching the New York Teacher Evaluations 2/24/2012 12:00:00 PM

The Wall Street Journal, rarely a friend to public school teachers, posted a video interview with it's "Numbers Guy," Carl Bialik, who tries to explain the "reliability" and unintended consequences of the evaluations.

Bialik said,

...you can reallly only control for data that you can measure...There could be all sorts of unintended consequences that you really want to address ahead of time. Things like, maybe it's harder to get people to enter the profession if they know they're going to be judged based on a number. Maybe teachers start teaching even more to the test than maybe they have been already if their career is decided based on it. Maybe you have a big expense from administering all the data needed to actually get these numbers.

Bialik's point about it being harder to get people to enter teaching is important. Why would anyone want to be an education professional when public humiliation based on inadequate and invalid data hangs over their heads? The threat of public evaluations is going to cause a qualified teacher shortage. Would you want your child to choose a career like that? Maybe we need to use valid instruments to evaluate teachers.

U.S. schools chief endorses release of teacher data

Just as a reminder...a year and a half ago, when the Los Angeles Times released the same data for teachers in LA, Arne Duncan praised the newspaper. From August 16, 2010...

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Monday that parents have a right to know if their children's teachers are effective, endorsing the public release of information about how well individual teachers fare at raising their students' test scores.

"What's there to hide?" Duncan said in an interview one day after The Times published an analysis of teacher effectiveness in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest school system. "In education, we've been scared to talk about success."

Parents have a right to know if their child's teacher is effective...but let's use valid and reliable instruments to evaluate teachers. No teacher should be against fair and appropriate accountability.

UPDATE: Here's the story of one NY teacher who was the subject of misinformation, harassment and personal humiliation.

The True Story of Pascale Mauclair

As in many other cases, the story of Pascale Mauclair and P.S. 11 begins with a tale of the flawed methodology and invalid measurements of the Teacher Data Reports.

P.S. 11 is located at the epicenter of a number of different immigrant communities in northern Queens, and over a quarter of its students are English Language Learners. Mauclair is an ESL teacher, and over the last five years she has had small, self-contained classes of recently arrived immigrants who do not speak English. Her students arrive at different times of the school year, depending upon that date of their family’s migration; consequently, it is not unusual for her students to take the 6th grade exams when they have only been in her class for a matter of a few months. Two factors which produce particularly contorted TDR results – teaching the highest academic need students and having a small sample of students that take the standardized state exams – define her teaching situation.

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2012 Medley #4 It's all About New York

NYC teachers' rankings based on test scores published.

The New York Times published teacher rankings based on student test scores.

Teachers in the rest of the nation (except for LA, where it's already happened) get ready. It won't be long till your "rank" based on how well your students do on a standardized test is used to judge you and humiliate you.

It doesn't matter if it's accurate, valid or reliable. That only matters when your teaching methods are in question.


NYC releases teachers’ value-added scores — unfortunately

This takes some kind of special nerve: New York City’s Education Department publicly released the rankings of 18,000 public school teachers based entirely on student standardized-test scores — after pleas from educators not to do it because it would be unfair and disparaging. And then it told the news media not to use the results to disparage teachers.

New York Teachers "Assaulted and Compromised:" Lawyers Line Up

Teachers will be rated as “ineffective, developing, effective, or highly effective.” Forty percent of their grade will be based on the rise or fall of student test scores; the other sixty percent will be based on other measures, such as classroom observations by principals, independent evaluators, and peers, plus feedback from students and parents.

But one sentence in the agreement shows what matters most: “Teachers rated ineffective on student performance based on objective assessments must be rated ineffective overall.” What this means is that a teacher who does not raise test scores will be found ineffective overall, no matter how well he or she does with the remaining sixty percent. In other words, the 40 percent allocated to student performance actually counts for 100 percent. Two years of ineffective ratings and the teacher is fired.

Reporting of Teacher Performance

It had to happen sooner or later. Sixteen months after the Los Angeles Times published rankings of 6,000 third- through fifth-grade teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District that it compiled from seven years of math and English scores, news organizations under the Freedom of Information Law finally received data on 18,000 teachers in the New York City school system...The New York Times published the names of teachers and their schools, and their ranking based on their students' gains on state standardized tests in math and English over five years until the 2009-10 school year ("City's Ratings of 18,000 Teachers Indicate That Quality Is Widely Diffused," The New York Times, Feb. 25).

The rationale was that parents have the right to know how their children's teachers rank. It's a compelling argument if it can be proved that publication of ratings leads to better instruction. But it doesn't...A teacher's score could be 35 points off on the math exam, or 53 points off on the English exam. These numbers hardly instill confidence. For another, teachers who teach English language learners, special education students and disadvantaged students receive lower scores than when they teach affluent students. This raises the question of fairness. Finally, the practice relies on the alleged benefits of naming and shaming, which even Bill Gates opposes ("Shame Is Not the Solution," The New York Times, Feb. 23).

I can't think of data reports with a similar margin of error in any other field that have received such prominent coverage. In fact, most editors would in all likelihood dismiss out of hand any study with such shaky statistics. The imprecision alone would constitute a red flag. Aaron Pallas put it best: "For teachers, the key concern is fairness. Fairness is primarily a procedural issue: Teachers, and the unions that represent them, seek an evaluation process that is neither arbitrary nor capricious, relying on stable and valid criteria that they believe accurate characterize the quality of their work" ("Reasonable doubt," Eye on Education, Feb. 6).

A simple question teachers should now ask about their profession

The reality is that the release of teacher scores based in student test data will exacerbate all of the bad consequences of using test scores to evaluate teachers. Teachers will be even more likely to teach to the test, to resent uncooperative students, and to see fellow teachers as rivals not colleagues. They will hesitate to take on student teachers, who might depress their score...For evidence regarding the unreliability of VAM scores, see here.

We will see a tremendous push by the most skilled, demanding, and well-resourced parents to get each year’s “highly effective teacher” and for district offices to “stick” the ineffective teacher in a class (or school) where the parents are less likely to complain...

...student grades assigned by a teacher labeled less than effective will be challenged...The evaluation scores given to teachers by principals who themselves are rated less than effective, will be challenged as well. Can a teacher be fairly rated by a principal who was rated ineffective that year? And when the “ineffective principal” is dismissed, who will agree to lead that school, if the ineffective rating was based in large part on student achievement? No administrator will risk that move — achievement cannot be turned around that quickly — and the students in struggling schools will lose again.

...teachers with highly effective evaluations in hand, will head for the Gold Coast of Long Island to land a higher paying teaching job. Superintendents in well resourced districts will vie for the highest share of highly effective teachers in the state. Isn’t that the rule of the marketplace that the reformers embrace? Once again, students in financially struggling schools will be left behind.

NY principal: Teacher scores inaccurate at my school

It is wrong to call a great teacher a failing teacher because a few kids got 3-4 questions wrong one year rather than 2-3 questions wrong the year before. It is particularly problematic given that the 3rd grade test in the past was very different from the 4th grade test. It could be that the children in a particular class were always weaker in writing, but the 3rd grade test for the years the TDRs are being released had very little writing compared to the 4th grade test, so the children may not actually do worse; it may be that they are just tested on different material.

I honestly cannot understand how public ranking of teachers by percentile will have anything but a negative effect on teaching and learning. Particularly in middle school, I can imagine teachers losing control as children and parents take the position, “why should I listen to you, you’re a below average teacher.”

Click here for Part 2: More from New York...

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Arne Duncan, How Dare You!

The race for President is in full swing. President Obama sent his friend, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, after one of the Republican front runners.

Valerie Strauss reported...

Arne Duncan blasts Rick Perry and Texas schools

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, coming out early and tough against Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said he feels “very, very badly for the children” in Texas who go to public schools under Perry’s administration.

Duncan was correct in what he said...

• Perry is the one governor who is most at odds with the Obama administration's education policies. He even opted Texas out of the Race to the Top program.
• Texas has seen massive increases in class size
• Texas has cut funding -- the recently approved state budget included $4 billion in cuts to public schools, even though an extra 80,000 students are expected this academic year.
• The effects of education cuts as well as slashes in Medicaid will fall disproportionately on Latinos, who make up 49 percent of K-12 public school students in the state.
• Texas ranks 42nd in per-pupil spending in the United States and 43rd in high school graduation rates

This is all true. Perry has taken the public schools in Texas, already reeling from Bush's so-called Texas Miracle (see this debunking of said miracle), and damaged them even more.

What angers me, though, is that Arne Duncan is self-righteously blaming Perry while the Obama administration, under Duncan's leadership, has continued and increased the damage caused by No Child Left Behind.

Where are the rest of the Republicans?

At least Perry, unlike most Republicans, has the consistency to decry the massive federal intrusion into education caused by No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

Even as other Republicans have found bipartisan ground with Obama on education reform, Perry has repeatedly criticized Duncan’s Education Department, accusing it of attempting a “federal takeover of public schools” with the Race to Top competition in which states vied for federal funds by promising to implement specific education reforms.

(So where are all the Republican cries for "less government" when it comes to the destruction of America's public school system? Perry seems to be the only Republican voice who is consistent with the otherwise constant conservative voices shouting about how the government is too big.)

Are Teachers in Obama's Electoral Pocket?

Anthony Cody, in his Living in Dialogue blog has suggested that the Obama administration needs to firm up support among teachers before they just assume that we'll all follow in lock step and vote him into a second term. This despite the premature endorsement from the NEA.

In President Obama on Shaky Ground with Teachers: Can He Firm Up Support? Cody said,

From the start, Secretary Duncan has specialized in doubletalk. He has given innumerable speeches calling for us to avoid teaching to the test, at the same time his policies mandate that teacher pay and evaluations be based in part on test scores. When President Obama called for a reduction in standardized tests this year, Secretary Duncan insisted he was "on the same page," even though the Department of Education has put in motion a tremendous expansion of the frequency, scope and importance of tests.

How dare Secretary Duncan blame someone else for hurting public schools. He is the one wearing the corporate collar which is sucking the life out of public schools everywhere and crushing the spirit of public school teachers around the country.

Where was Duncan, defender of public education, when

• ...an entire staff of teachers were fired in Rhode Island?
• ...the Mayor of New York dumped (and continues to dump) charter schools into public school buildings, pushing the public school students into corners and cellars?
• ...Los Angeles ran their inquisition against school libraries and librarians?
• ...Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Idaho, Florida, and other states stripped teachers of their hard fought rights for collective bargaining and evaluations and yanked money from the public schools for vouchers and charters, at the same time they were whining about not having enough money while increasing corporate tax breaks?
• ...Seattle schools laid off certified, qualified, experienced teachers and then made a deal with Teach for America to dump untrained, inexperienced, college graduates into the neediest schools?

It seems to me that if President Obama really wants our support he'll do what he should have done after his first week in office -- Dump Duncan.

Mr. President, play basketball with him if you want, but put a real live teacher in the Secretary of Education's chair.

2011 Medley #5: Happiness Plan, Open Letter to Duncan, Hope

The Happiness Plan

We know that reading aloud helps improve reading achievement. We know that access to books and a large selection of books from which to choose improves reading achievement. These are proven activities which will help students become more proficient.

Today I read an "end of the year reflection" on Borderland, Doug Noon's blog about teaching and education. Give it a look...and read the entire entry from which this quote was taken.

...I am done caring about reformist nonsense. At a staff meeting earlier this year we were discussing our AimsWeb Data Boards put up around the room to show how many students in each grade level are below proficient, at risk, or proficient based on how well they handled an oral one-minute timed reading. To me, this was a disgusting display of a brain-dead method to evaluate reading. We were asked to say what we planned to do to improve our students’ scores. Since the data showed lots of kids scoring “below proficient” in first and second grade and very few in that category by the time they got to sixth, I observed that the trend was positive, and that at least as far as word-calling skills go, we seem to be doing all right. Teachers at each grade level announced what they planned to do, like focus on comprehension, vocabulary, decoding – the usual. When it was my turn, I said I’d be going with the happiness plan. What’s that? It’s getting the kids to enjoy reading so that they do it on their own. How does it work? Easy. Give them choices and time to read every day, and then celebrate their accomplishments. I got a round of applause. Kind of sad, really, when I think about what that might mean.

The "happiness plan" is based on research...and will likely work as well, or better, than any drill and kill, test prep or scripted reading program.

An open letter to Ed Secretary Arne Duncan

A principal has written a letter to Arne Duncan. Think it will help?

I am certain that you know that there are many educators across this nation who quietly and generously go above and beyond each day for their students. Some work in very difficult circumstances in schools that are overwhelmed by poverty and truly do not have the resources to serve their students well. Others, like me, are lucky enough to work in well-resourced districts with more limited numbers of students who have great need. I know that you would not want to deliberately harm the work that we do.

However, the punitive evaluation policies that New York State has adopted (and that many other states have adopted) due to the Race to the Top competition are doing just that. It is a dangerous gamble that might score political points but it will hinder what you and I and so many others want—better schools for our kids. We already know from research that reforms based on high stakes testing do not improve long-term learning.

Reasons for Hope

Diane Ravitch continues to fight for public education and rational educational practices. In her recent blog entry she gives us hope, followed by an historian's perspective...

Of one thing I feel sure—history will not be kind to those who gleefully attacked teachers, sought to fire them based on inaccurate measures, and worked zealously to reduce their status and compensation. It will not admire the effort to insert business values into the work of educating children and shaping their minds, dreams, and character. It will not forgive those who forgot the civic, democratic purposes of our schools nor those who chipped away at the public square. Nor will it speak well of those who put the quest for gain over the needs of children. Nor will it lionize those who worshipped data and believed passionately in carrots and sticks. Those who will live forever in the minds of future generations are the ones who stood up against the powerful on behalf of children, who demanded that every child receive the best possible education, the education that the most fortunate parents would want for their own children.

Now is a time to speak and act. Now is a time to think about how we will one day be judged. Not by test scores, not by data, but by the consequences of our actions.

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SAVE OUR SCHOOLS MARCH AND NATIONAL CALL TO ACTION

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Klein Shows his True Nature: Hypocrite

Don't miss this great article, Pensions for teachers vs. chancellors, by Valerie Strauss. Blatant hypocrisy! Here's a teaser...

It seems fair to note that after making a public stink about the awfulness of pensions for public school teachers, former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein has himself accepted a $34,000 pension check.

Klein recently penned an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal titled “Why Teacher Pensions Won’t Work,” in which he equates the pension system for New York City’s public teachers to a Ponzi scheme.

But apparently, he doesn’t feel the same way about pensions for former chancellors.

The New York Daily News reported that shortly before that op-ed was published, Klein “walked into the city's teacher pension office to collect his own annual windfall,” which was a pension check for $34,000.

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Who Made Bill Gates Emperor of Education - Part 2

Who made Bill Gates Emperor of Education in the USA?

In her latest blog entry, Diane Ravitch discusses how Bill Gates and Arne Duncan are speaking the same words...calling for the corporate changes in America's educational system. They both believe that schools should be run like businesses...and children should be considered the "product."

These are two non-educators, remember. Gates is a college drop out, a computer geek, marketing maven, and slick operator who outwitted Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (founders of Apple Computer) by "using" the Macintosh interface and changing it just a bit while getting enough political and economic power to stave off a copyright suit...and later antitrust attacks.

Gates is no fool. He built Microsoft into a huge multinational corporation and the company which 92% (as of November 2010) of the world relies on for their computer access.

But, what does he know about education?

Arne Duncan is a "good-old boy." A Harvard basketball player, sociology major, and friend of President Obama, he started his education career "hanging" with the students his mother tutored. That's as close as he ever got to either attending or teaching in a public school. He ingratiated himself with Mayor Daley in Chicago, and was responsible for the Chicago Miracle, which, like the Texas Miracle that Rod Paige oversaw, never actually happened.

Which one is running the US Department of Education? Gates or Duncan? Here's Ravitch...

The struggle for control of American education continues to evolve at a dizzying pace. I read that Bill Gates advised the Council of Chief State School Officers to eliminate seniority and tenure and recommended that schools stop spending to reduce class size and stop giving teachers extra money for master's degrees. He wants teachers to get paid based on "performance" (i.e., their test scores). I guess we are now seeing a full-court effort to impose the corporate model of school reform, and Gates is the leading spokesman.

No, wait, I take that back, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said something very similar in a speech a day or two earlier, where he seemed almost happy to say that the days of wine and roses are over and schools must learn to do more with less. They seem to be sharing scripts. I don't know who is the leading spokesman.

I can imagine some of Secretary Duncan's predecessors, such as Secretary Shirley Hufstedler or Secretary Richard Riley or commissioners of education such as Frank Keppel or Harold Howe saying something very different. I can imagine them going to the public and urging them to support more resources where they are needed and more equitable funding. I can hear them saying that we need to thank our hard-working teachers, and we need a stronger profession. But Secretary Duncan likes to win plaudits from the people who love to cut education budgets. Go figure. The eerie similarity between Secretary Duncan and Bill Gates makes me wonder who is running the Department of Education.

Why do billionaires like Gates get to define the terms in American public education?

Ravitch, again...

Since Gates is a multibillionaire, he can't possibly understand what it means to work in an environment where you might be fired for disagreeing with your boss. Nor can he possibly understand that schools are collaborative cultures that need senior teachers who are ready and willing to help newcomers. He can't imagine that school is different from Microsoft or other big corporations. Let's be honest. CCSSO and The New York Times pay attention to what Gates says because he is so rich. If he didn't run the biggest foundation in the world, if he wasn't one of the richest men in the world, would anyone care about his opinion of education? Really, who would care what he said if he were the chairman of the Whatzit Corporation and sold widgets?

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Kansas City and spoke to the annual meeting of the Missouri NEA. Afterwards, as I was signing books, I spoke to teachers from across the state, from urban districts, small towns, and rural areas. They said things like, "Hi, I have been a teacher for 25 years, and I love it." "Hi, please sign this for my mother, she is a teacher, too." "Hi, I'm the third generation of teachers in my family." "Please sign this for my dad, he's a superintendent..."

...These are the people who teach our children, these are the members of the public who serve their local schools without compensation year after year. They and their children and their children's children will be here long after the corporate reform crowd has moved on and been forgotten.

These are the people on whom our public schools depend. They care deeply about their children, their communities, and their public schools. They don't get to speak to the Council of Chief State School Officers. They don't control billions of dollars. They won't be quoted in the New York Times. But these are the people who make our country work. I wish Bill Gates would get out and listen to them. They could tell him a thing or two.

Ravitch is right. Gates is wrong.

Does Gates want to improve public education or does he just want a piece of the education industry pie?

Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox News) just bought a huge chunk of a for-profit educational software company, Wireless Generation. The New York City DOE, under the control of the Mayor and appointee, Cathie Black (well, not yet, but soon), is partnered with Wireless Generation "on its Achievement Reporting and Innovation System and School of One initiative." That's why Murdoch hired straight-from-NYC-DOE Joel Klein as his new director of education entrepreneurship.

Does Bill Gates look at all the money to be made in education and think...I want some of that money? Surely not. Instead I'm betting he thinks, "let's do what's best for the education of children in the United States." Surely he would realize that the research shows that merit pay doesn't work...Charter schools are no better (or worse) than traditional public schools...and the biggest factor in the "achievement gap" today is the 1/5 of American children who live in poverty.

Wouldn't he?

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