Blogoversary #11: A Review

Today this blog begins its twelfth year. It would have been nice to be able to write a post on how American public school advocates have overcome the forces of so-called "education reform."

Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. The privatizers are still doing damage and spending their billions to turn public schools into charters. They're still working to divert funds for public education into vouchers.

So instead, of a victory post, here is a short clip from each September that this blog has been in existence from September 2006 through September 2016.

On beyond thirty...

September 14, 2006

From my first post. Now, after 40 years, I am still fascinated by how humans learn...still volunteering in a local elementary school.

So here I am, now a part time pull-out reading specialist in a suburban/rural school in the midwest, still trying to figure out a better way to teach even after 30 years. I still find learning fascinating. It's still hard for some children...easy for others...and I still want to know why.

"That" time of year...

September 10, 2007

It's ten years since this post. Economic stratification and inequity is worse than ever. Test scores still reflect the income of the family.

Poverty, as the media is fond of saying, is no excuse. Gerald Bracey, educational researcher, replies that, true, poverty is not an excuse...it is a condition, just like gravity. "Gravity affects everything you do on the planet. So does poverty."

All the Way with Pearl Jam

September 27, 2008

Sometimes I post non-education content. This song was for the Cubs. Last year they went "all the way." #bucketlist

Duncan's Background and Duncan's Plans

September 6, 2009

*This quote is by Stephen Krashen...containing a quote by Susan Ohanian...

In her book, "Caught in the Middle: Nonstandard Kids Caught in a Killing Curriculum," published in 2001, Susan Ohanian, an experienced and award-winning educator who has actually taught in public schools, pointed out that:

"The pattern of reform … has spread across the nation: Bring in someone who has never been involved in public education; proclaim that local administrators and teachers are lazy and stupid; use massive testing to force schools into curriculum compliance" (page x).

Since this passage was written, this pattern of reform has clearly spread to the highest levels.

Tenure and Unions

September 22, 2010

Indiana teachers no longer have due process as a job protection. Before 2011 tenure in Indiana guaranteed a teacher a hearing in front of an impartial party. No longer.

Tenure, they say, protects bad teachers. Unions support and protect the tenure system which, they say, gives teachers in K-12 a "job for life." The only problem with that statement is that it's wrong.

Tenure, as defined by these reformers and in turn, the general public who listens to them, does not exist. K-12 teachers who achieve tenure -- or permanent status -- do not have a job for life. According to Perry Zirkel, a professor of education and law at Lehigh University's School of Education,

Tenure is no more than a legal commitment (set by the state and negotiated union contracts) to procedural due process, ensuring notice and providing a hearing for generally accepted reasons for termination, such as incompetency, insubordination, and immorality.

Tenure’s primary purpose is economic job security, tied to the otherwise uncompetitive pay in comparison to other professions; however, tenure is not a lifetime guarantee.

Why Are SAT Scores So Low?

September 23, 2011

Here's something which the corporate "reformers" don't like to talk about. The higher the family income, the better the children do on SAT tests. Take a look at this...

Which Future Awaits our Grandchildren?

September 7, 2012

The shame of the nation, as Jonathan Kozol put it, is still the number of American children who live in poverty.

We don't have to write off nearly a quarter of our children to poverty. I wrote a few days ago,

What other nation would accept a poverty rate of almost a quarter of its children?

I don't know about you, but I can't imagine any other of the world's wealthy nations allowing that to continue. The United States is among the world leaders in child poverty -- We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Play is More Important Than Tests

September 9, 2013

Sadly, kindergarten is the new first grade.

I remember when the "abuse of testing craze" started a couple of decades ago...that was when we were required to use "research-based instruction." A group of us got together and found a research basis for everything we did. Every teacher in our school system needed to be ready to justify what they did based on research.

Later, (2002) the US Department of Education started the What Works Clearinghouse so teachers could find teaching techniques and methods which were (supposedly) supported by research.

But now the truth has come out...when research goes against what the "reformers" want it's ignored...or denied.

Retention Wars: Blaming Children

September 25, 2014

More than a dozen states, including Indiana punish third grade children -- 8 and 9 year olds -- for low reading achievement by forcing them to repeat third grade. Retention in grade doesn't work...and we have known it for decades.

In the past, parents, teachers, and administrators used to make the decision to retain a student in his current grade. Now it's state legislatures, governors, and departments of education. We have allowed the wrong people -- politicians and policy makers -- to determine the academic placement of our children using the wrong kinds of tests in the wrong kinds of ways.

Teacher Shortage? When All Else Fails Blame the Union

September 18, 2015

..."Reform" is the status quo in Indiana. Indiana is a state where public schools are closed so charters can open, where bankrupt charters are forgiven their taxpayer-funded loans, where an A-F school ranking system is manipulated for the benefit of political donors, where vouchers are available with only minor restrictions, where teachers are evaluated based on student test scores because testing is overused and misused, where teachers no longer have due process rights, where untrained or poorly trained non-educators can walk into a classroom and start teaching with minimal oversight, where the Governor and members of the State Board of Education blatantly prefer privatization over public schools

#%@! Adults Should Quit Punishing Children

September 7, 2016

Retention in grade doesn't help children. It merely shows how adults have failed children.

FLORIDA STILL REQUIRES THE PUNISHMENT OF 8 AND 9 YEAR OLDS

...as does Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington. Other states – Colorado, Maryland, Oklahoma, Virginia, West Virginia – encourage it, though it's not required. Different hoops are needed to avoid it in various states. See K-3 Quality: Is there a third grade retention policy?

These states and Florida, demand retention in grade of third graders for not learning quickly enough, or not being able to pass a standardized reading test. Retention in grade isn't remediation. Retention in grade punishes children for the failures of adults.

*All quotes are my words unless otherwise noted.

🚌⚾️🚌

Why Are SAT Scores So Low?

The news is out. SAT scores for reading are the lowest they have ever been. The College Board claims that the drop in average scores (3 points in reading, 2 points in writing and 1 point in math) is due to the increased diversity in students taking the test.

...about 27 percent of the nearly 1.65 million test-takers last year came from a home where English was not the only language, up from 19 percent a decade ago.

But Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, a nonprofit group critical of much standardized testing, said the declines were an indictment of the nation’s increasing emphasis on high-stakes testing programs and of No Child Left Behind, the federal education law that has driven it.

So the College Board says it's increased diversity, but FairTest says it's the fault of NCLB.

Former Education Secretary William Bennett, on the other hand, claims that it's the fault of the teachers unions and bad teachers. He reports on Steven Brill's new book "Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools."

...lamenting obvious long-standing barriers to educational improvement such as the "last in, first out" policy that requires teachers to be laid off based purely on seniority rather than performance...

...fossilized teacher union contracts, lax or nonexistent teacher evaluations, and unmovable wages and benefits have straitjacketed any hope of real reform. The solution, Brill says, is to overhaul the public school education system in order to motivate and inspire better teachers. Rewriting union contracts and paying teachers based on performance, not seniority, are among the first steps Brill advises.

Again it's the bad teachers...3.5 million teachers in the United States and there are so many bad ones that the SAT scores have gone down. How is that possible? The PDK-Gallup Poll on the condition of education found that most Americans (71%) "have trust and confidence in the men and women who are teaching children in the public schools." Most people who have children in schools are satisfied with the quality of the school their oldest child attends...79% of Americans who have children in public schools gave the school their oldest child attends an A or a B. These are the members of the public who know the schools best...and only 4% gave them a grade of D or F.

So, I ask Secretary Bennett, where are all these bad teachers? I'd also suggest he check out the research showing that using test scores to evaluate teachers doesn't work as well as the research showing that paying teachers based on test scores is inaccurate.

Here's something which the corporate "reformers" don't like to talk about. The higher the family income, the better the children do on SAT tests. Take a look at this...

As family income increases so do test scores. Beginning at a annual family income of $20,000 and progressing in $20,000 increments, the fact is that the more money a child's family makes the better they do on the SAT. This is true for most standardized tests.

It's clear to me, as Robert Schaeffer said above, that NCLB has not improved education in this country. NCLB was, and is, a plan to crush the public schools and privatize education. There's no real interest in improving learning.

In fact, Schaeffer and FairTest let us know that,

"...many colleges have recognized the folly of fixating on the narrow, often inaccurate, information provided by standardized tests and moved toward test-optional admissions.” According to a free web database maintained by FairTest (http:www.fairtest.org/university/optional), more than 860 accredited, bachelor-degree granting institutions make admissions decisions about all or many applicants without regard to SAT or ACT scores. The list includes 35 of the nation’s 100 top-ranked liberal arts colleges.

Maybe the SAT and other standardized tests are just not that important.

2011 Medley #9:

Poverty, iPads, Honoring Teachers, Standardized Tests, SAT, Common Core Standards

Public education's biggest problem gets worse

*22 percent of American children live in poverty
*39 percent of black children live in poverty
*35 percent of Hispanic children live in poverty

~~~

What the iPad (and other technology) can’t replace in education

We’re focused so much on the device that we’re ignoring what’s on it...We need to stop pretending that technology can fix problems that aren’t technological in nature. Kids are bored. They don’t know why they’re learning what they’re learning. The solution isn’t asking the question better. The solution is asking a better question.

~~~

In Honor of Teachers

...how do we expect to entice the best and brightest to become teachers when we keep tearing the profession down? We take the people who so desperately want to make a difference that they enter a field where they know that they’ll be overworked and underpaid, and we scapegoat them as the cause of a societywide failure.

~~~

Why More Standardized Tests Won’t Improve Education (with references)

The scholarly consensus that documents the limits of standardized testing is quite clear. For example, a comprehensive, nine-year study of testing and evaluation commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences recently concluded that: “available evidence does not give strong support for the use of test-based incentives to improve education.”

A second National Academy report questions the use of test scores to evaluate teachers, noting that such scores “have not yet been adequately studied for the purposes of evaluating teachers and principals,” and “face substantial practical barriers to being successfully deployed in a personnel system that is fair, reliable, and valid.”

~~~

What the decline in SAT scores really means

At some point, all of the evidence will start to convince policy-makers that the punitive test-driven reforms won’t improve academic achievement, especially among the growing numbers of first-generation students and English language-learners.

We can only hope that it will be soon, before more damage is heaped on the harm already done to public education.

~~~

Jeffrey N. Golub: Common Core Standards Leave Teachers Out of the Equation

Common Core Standards...are not 'well-grounded,'...because the authors of the standards have failed to factor in some crucial elements or aspects of instruction. This failure of foresight and insight will surely cause the standards to 'sink' - to become ineffective, inappropriate, and intolerable. The biggest problem with this 'sinking' that is sure to happen is that the students, teachers, and indeed, whole school systems that will labor under these burdensome 'goals and expectations' will sink right along with them.

Teachers do not have a problem with accountability. They are responsible for making learning happen for their students, after all, so they welcome authentic assessments of the progress that they, and their students, have made. But they do object, and rightly so, to a situation in which they are being held accountable for a curriculum over which they have no control.