2012 Medley #20

Letters to the President, Corporate Charters,
Indiana Election, Testing.

LETTERS TO THE PRESIDENT

There are only two more days. Please consider contributing your thoughts about NCLB and Race to the Top in the form of a letter to the President. Instructions can be found at the end of this blog entry.

A Powerful, Important Letter to President Obama

This was posted on Diane Ravitch's blog. It's a portion of a letter to the President from Nancy Carlsson-Paige. Click the link above to read the entire, excellent letter.

...Children of the wealthy and privileged such as your daughters attend elite private or public schools. Children of less affluent families who are relatively able students with better informed parents increasingly find their way to charter schools, many of which have access to private funding and greater resources. But the third tier is left for the majority of poor or working-class children who must attend underfunded, under resourced, mostly inner-city public schools.

...Please look closely at how your education policies are impacting children, especially our youngest and poorest children. Your focus on competition and market-driven reforms is resulting in greater inequities in our education system and an undermining of our public schools. A vibrant, flourishing public education system is the cornerstone of our democracy. Please be willing to re-examine and reverse the direction of your approach to education. Please don’t be the President who abandoned our nation’s children and our public education system.

Other teachers have posted their letters on Dr. Ravitch's blog as well. Many clearly express the frustration and anger felt by teachers at the destruction of public schools. The love these teachers have for their profession, and for their students comes through in their words. Their disappointment in the President's policies is vividly described. The frustration they feel as they have to sit by and watch public education being sold to the highest bidder is powerful and tragic. Some of them, with mixed feelings like I had, have left teaching behind. They've been defeated by the "reformers" who have used their billions to buy public education and America's children.

Here are some selections from Dr. Ravitch's blog...

Diana

Your Race to the Top program is misguided and destructive. You have said that you do not believe in “teaching to the test.” Yet your Race to the Top program has had the effect of forcing schools and teachers to spend an inordinate amount of time doing just that, much to the detriment of student learning and motivation. Schools should be collegial communities of learning, where principals support teachers, teachers support each other, and all support students’ understanding, motivation and personal growth. Instead, they have become anxiety-ridden places where principals and teachers exhaust themselves in an effort to produce the data that will prevent their schools from being labeled “failing.” And authentic educational experts assert that the data being pursued is flawed at best. Yet it is driving the educational process all across the nation. Race to the Top has become an abusive program that undermines the efforts of educators to do their real jobs of fostering critical thinking and creativity in their students.

gailrichmond

When I listen to you speak it is clear to me that you have no clue about what it’s like to be a teacher, nor do you care. I believe “education” to politicians is one of those terms that is used to either fuel the anti-union fire or to appease the parents across the US who care about their child’s education. If you truly respected teachers and wanted the best for public school children, you would have actual teachers with many years of experience in the field advise you or work with you to develop policy...

I want you to know, that due to your policies and those of Andrew Cuomo, I have switched my party affiliation to Independent, after being a lifelong Democrat. I did NOT contribute to your campaign, nor will I. I have WITHDRAWN my PAC money from VOTE COPE and have urged my colleagues to do the same. NYSUT and AFT (my parent unions) might be supporting you, but the average teacher is NOT. I have called on Mr. Iannuzzi to represent MY feelings. I’m sure I’m one of thousands of NYSUT members calling for the same. I am an education activist and will continue to rally teachers across the US. Your silence has been deafening but perhaps it is what we needed to wake us up. To shake us into action and to fight for this thing that we all love-public education.

Kristen

One year ago I moved 4,382 miles so I could teach. This December I will move back 4,382 miles and not be returning to the teaching profession. I cannot bring myself to return to a system that is so utterly broken and using our students as fodder in political games. Continuing Bush era policies couched under a new name (Race To The Top) hasn’t made them work better or improved learning conditions for millions of American students. By failing to offer a truly new vision of education policy, your administration has failed to grow hope where it has been sorely eroding; public schools...

Making mistakes, I tell my students, is how we learn. I also teach them, Mr. President, that it takes courage and vulnerability to admit our mistakes and as long as we don’t keep making them we’re doing pretty well.

Creating Race To The Top was a mistake and continues to leach the public out of public schools. It is time to take responsibility and own the mistake.

Linnea

It takes intuition, compassion, willingness to go the extra mile for a kid and a geeky personality that gets a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of helping someone learn. This job is hard, has always been hard, no matter how smart you are. This is a job in which you could always do better. There is no upper limit, just daily reflection on how you could improve next time. Satisfaction comes in small doses, and sometimes in big ones when you see the success of your former students. We do not need to beat up teachers. Nothing at all good will come of it, but several very bad things will.

CORPORATE CHARTERS*

Today's lesson: charters do not outperform unionized schools

"Reformers" claim that charter schools perform higher than regular public schools. Some "reformers" blame teachers unions...other just blame teachers. Studies show that charters, as a whole, do not perform better than regular public schools.

Besides, the chief barometers for measuring good versus bad are standardized tests that bear little relation to anything of value that anyone would eventually do in a real profession, or in life. Plus, students can improve their scores by taking special classes, should their parents be able to afford them. Which is another way of saying that higher scores can be bought—like just about everything else in Chicago.

The Great Charter Charade

• Charter schools, public schools, and private schools all have essentially indistinguishable ranges of student outcomes. Research shows there is nothing about the way school is packaged among the three that produces uniquely superior outcomes.
• Charter schools do, however, appear to have a powerful segregating effect that is detrimental to the goals of universal public education.
• Charter schools are allowed autonomy simultaneously with public schools losing autonomy; and the outcomes remain about the same.
• Charter school advocacy exposes the failure of promoting solutions without identifying problems.
• No compelling or substantial evidence exists showing that any form of competition creates better educational outcomes for the choices offered (such as charter schools) or the traditional schools. Isolated positive and negative data exist regarding the impact of competition.
• Charter school outliers receive disproportionate media coverage, almost no media scrutiny, and nearly no follow up that confirms we simply do not have evidence of "miracle" schools. Comparisons of apples to apples, scalability, and long-term data are almost never included in media support of charter schools.

INDIANA ELECTION

Indiana is a red state. It went for Obama in 2008, the first time in over 40 years a Democrat carried the state in a presidential race. The state legislature is dominated by Republicans, both the House and the Senate. The US Congressional delegation is as well. There is a slight chance that the Democrat will win former Senator Richard Lugar's Senate seat, however most polls indicate that it's too close to call at this time. The new Governor will likely be a Republican in 2012.

Tony Bennett is the Republican State Superintendent of Public Instruction. His challenger, Glenda Ritz, is counting on a "grass-roots" movement to unseat the powerful, pro-privatization, big-money backed Bennett.

Tony Bennett Selling the Big Lie about Need for Hoosier Teacher Accountability

In sum, much of the turmoil surrounding the need for greater teacher accountability is because Bennett has said teachers need improvement and endorsed his own statement saying so...

...Indiana, it is time for a change. How can Bennett think he is putting students first by continually putting teachers last? A teacher’s working conditions are the student’s learning conditions. Bennett’s denigration of the Hoosier teacher results in the denigration of all public education students.

It will take years to fix the damage Bennett has wreaked on Hoosier schools. Four more years of Tony Bennett’s policies and the damage may well be irreversible.

Time to halt Bennett’s ambitions

While enthusiastically promoting vouchers and charter schools, Bennett has expanded state control of local schools and exercised authority to hand them over to for-profit operators. Through the rule-making process, he has weakened the licensing requirements for teachers and administrators and now champions the national Common Core academic standards – less rigorous than Indiana’s highly acclaimed standards – and a new test to replace ISTEP+.

Also troubling are his ties with out-of-state donors and corporate interests. He spent much of 2011 traveling the country, often at the expense of groups looking to privatize schools. His campaign donors include wealthy school-choice proponents. Wal-Mart heir Alice Walton gave him $200,000, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg contributed $40,000. Some of the largest have come from groups backed by hedge-fund managers. Bennett’s campaign chest is nearing $1.5 million. Compare that to the $39,000 Reed had raised at the end of her 2004 re-election contest. Ritz has raised about $100,000 to compete against Bennett.

TESTING

Schooling Beyond Measure

Alfie Kohn reminds us that assessment hasn't always been limited to standardized tests. Measurement does not equal assessment. Assessment does not equal measurement. Teachers who are experienced and well trained "child watchers" are also necessary. Qualitative, rather than quantitative, assessment is what's needed in today's classrooms.

The reason that standardized test results tend to be so uninformative and misleading is closely related to the reason that these tests are so popular in the first place. That, in turn, is connected to our attraction to -- and the trouble with -- grades, rubrics, and various practices commended to us as “data-based.”

...In education, the question “How do we assess (kids, teachers, schools)?” has morphed over the years into “How do we measure…?” We’ve forgotten that assessment doesn’t require measurement -- and, moreover, that the most valuable forms of assessment are often qualitative (say, a narrative account of a child’s progress by an observant teacher who knows the child well) rather than quantitative (a standardized test score). Yet the former may well be brushed aside in favor of the latter -- by people who don’t even bother to ask what was on the test. It’s a number, so we sit up and pay attention. Over time, the more data we accumulate, the less we really know.

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

~~~

ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT!

Diane Ravitch and Anthony Cody, have teamed up with a plan to flood the White House email with letters in support of -- and against the privatization of -- public education. While President Obama's reelection is in no way guaranteed, he is, of the two main party candidates, the one who is most likely to listen. Sample letters and suggestions are on Diane Ravitch's blog.

There is no guarantee that the President will listen, but it can't hurt to let him know that there are many people who are unhappy with the corporate privatization of America's public education system.

For more information about participating, see Instructions for the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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Not everything that can be counted counts...

...and not everything that counts can be counted.

Earlier this month the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education (NEIFPE) released a brochure titled, The Costs of High Stakes Testing: What Informed Citizens Need to Know about Standardized Testing in Our Public Schools. (Full disclosure: I'm a member of NEIFPE, edit the blog/web site, and was present at meetings where the brochure was edited for content.)

The brochure (also available as a pdf file) describes the testing program in Indiana's public schools. Tests are listed and are noted as being mandatory if they are required by the state. The brochure notes that testing costs the taxpayers of Indiana in excess of $46 million...money which NEIFPE, and I, believe can be better spent elsewhere.

[NOTE...the monetary cost of testing listed in the brochure does not include the time spent by each corporation and school in labor costs for test coordinators to instruct staff on the appropriate use of testing as required by the state DOE, the time needed to transport the tests to and from classrooms, time spent labeling and packaging tests -- boxing them up for mailing and for lots of other things which I am probably missing. If that was added in, the cost to the state of Indiana and its residents is likely to be much greater. Test coordinators generally have other titles and duties which must be set aside during the testing windows.]

The brochure also discusses suggested questions for parents and public school patrons, things to do to become more informed about testing or fight excessive testing, and some information about the amount of time spent on testing -- and related activities -- during the school year.

The NEIFPE brochure appeared on our (NEIFPE's) web site on September 3, 2012.

About a month later, a page titled The Truth About Testing was published on the Indiana DOE web site. The writer began,

A philosophical argument regarding the value of testing has recently resurfaced in Indiana.

Being the self-centered and self-absorbed person that I am, my first assumption was that this article from the DOE was a direct response to our brochure. However, when I read the DOE article a second time it became clear that it was not...here's why.

The writer of the article (for simplicity's sake, let's just call him/her Tony) claimed that

Critics of testing exaggerate the emphasis and time spent on testing, and they use it as an excuse for poor outcomes. The truth is only students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 10 take tests required by federal or state law each year. Neither federal nor state law requires any testing for students in grades K, 1, 2, 9, 11 or 12. Said differently, of the 13 grade levels (K-12), students are not tested at six levels (nearly half of all grades).

First, if Tony had actually read our brochure he/she would have noticed that nowhere did we say that the time wasted on testing was responsible for "poor outcomes." My personal feeling is that schools which have consistently "poor outcomes" are struggling for a variety of reasons...lack of support from the DOE, high levels of poverty, high class sizes and few resources due to inadequate funding. Yes, it's true. I'm one of those people who thinks we should throw money at public schools...it seems to work so well for schools like the University of Chicago Lab School where Mayor Emanuel sends his children...or Sidwell Friends School where the President sends his children...or Belmont Hill School for Boys where Mitt Romney sent his children...but I digress.

The second reason that Tony's article could not have been referring to the NEIFPE brochure was the information it included about tests used in Indiana. The brochure clearly states that only certain tests are mandatory from the State DOE. The other tests, some of which are offered by the state, but not mandatory, are locally chosen. The excessive testing in Indiana schools, therefore, is not merely the fault of the State Department of Public Instruction or the US Department of Education. Children are overtested due to pressure at all levels of government...from the lowliest principal (no offense to my Administrator friends) to the most important person with public school responsibilities in the nation...which seems to be Bill Gates, apparently.

Tony continues...

Furthermore, the students who are tested spend fewer than six and a half hours during each school year taking the tests required by federal and state law...When considered in perspective, six and a half hours (or less, depending on grade level) out of a minimum of 900 is a reasonable amount of time to spend on tests required by federal and state law.

A table of "time a student spends on testing each year at each grade level" is included for our edification.

The NEIFPE brochure, on the other hand, states...

Elementary educators estimate they spend about six weeks of the 36 week school year on test preparation and administration. Tests focus on reading and math, leaving little time for the following:

• Social Studies and Civics
• Art and Music
• Science and Physical Education

Again, Tony obviously didn't read the brochure since it plainly stated that the time estimated included test preparation as well as administration. Because of the high stakes nature of the tests, school systems, school leaders and teachers are pressured to help their students improve their scores through test preparation. In fact, in some schools the first two hours of every day is set aside for test prep in tested grades. It also seems apparent that Tony has never taught in a standardized tested classroom, otherwise he/she would know that high stakes testing takes a lot out of children and a wise teacher gives her class plenty of opportunity to let go of the stress associated with testing.

I'd like to note that I have actually taught tested grades (third, fourth, and sixth) during my years as a classroom teacher, and was a test coordinator (actually a co-coordinator with our wonderful guidance counselor) for many years after I left the classroom. So, since I have had actual real-life experience giving standardized tests to children, I know that there is more time spent in classrooms before and during testing than the actual time it takes to administer the test. Students need breaks, some of which are built in to the testing time. However, the high stakes aspect of the test causes much anxiety so extra time is often needed to let students wind down after testing...especially young children in third grade. This is, of course, in addition to any test preparation required by local schools and school corporations. Furthermore, NEIFPE's test list included locally required tests, as well as those from the state. So the amount of time given over to testing each year is very much more than what's listed in the DOE table.

Finally we are told,

Critics also argue standardized tests force teachers to "teach to the test." As long as the tests actually test the skills and content we want students to learn and know, "teaching to the test" should not be considered taboo. In fact, we should encourage teachers to help students meet the state standards and learn the content we believe will be fundamental to success in life.

Perhaps Tony doesn't know much about the education of children or tests and measurements in particular, but we know that standardized tests are useful for only one thing...testing the content included in the test. Tony apparently believes that Indiana's standardized tests account for everything which students need to know. Perhaps he/she should read one or all of the following,

What's Wrong With Standardized Tests?

They do not measure the ability to think deeply or creatively in any field. Their use encourages a narrowed curriculum, outdated methods of instruction, and harmful practices such as grade retention and tracking.

Why Standardized Tests Don't Measure Educational Quality

Employing standardized achievement tests to ascertain educational quality is like measuring temperature with a tablespoon. Tablespoons have a different measurement mission than indicating how hot or cold something is. Standardized achievement tests have a different measurement mission than indicating how good or bad a school is. Standardized achievement tests should be used to make the comparative interpretations that they were intended to provide. They should not be used to judge educational quality.

Standardized Testing and Its Victims

*The quality of instruction declines most for those who have least. Standardized tests tend to measure the temporary acquisition of facts and skills, including the skill of test-taking itself, more than genuine understanding. To that extent, the fact that such tests are more likely to be used and emphasized in schools with higher percentages of minority students (a fact that has been empirically verified) predictably results in poorer-quality teaching in such schools. The use of a high-stakes strategy only underscores the preoccupation with these tests and, as a result, accelerates a reliance on direct-instruction techniques and endless practice tests. "Skills-based instruction, the type to which most children of color are subjected, tends to foster low-level uniformity and subvert academic potential,"

It seems to me that Tony really has had very little experience teaching in Indiana's (or any states) public schools. As a matter of fact, it's been suggested that the DOE article wasn't written by anyone at the DOE at all, but instead, someone from McGraw-Hill, the publishers of Indiana's standardized tests and a contributor to State Superintendent Tony Bennett's reelection campaign to the tune of (at least) $5000. In any case, Tony might want to consult with actual teachers before spouting off about the nature of testing (Tony, if you're reading this, shoot me an email...I'll make time for you).

Here's an interesting list of things not measured on tests. Some of them might be worthwhile for our students to develop (and for certain members of the Indiana DOE as well). Feel free to add your own.

[UPDATE] Another blogger comments on the DOE's Truth about Testing at "Truth" Really?

~~~

Diane Ravitch and Anthony Cody, have teamed up with a plan to flood the White House email with letters in support of -- and against the privatization of -- public education. While President Obama's reelection is in no way guaranteed, he is, of the two main party candidates, the one who is most likely to listen. Sample letters and suggestions are on Diane Ravitch's blog.

There is no guarantee that the President will listen, but it can't hurt to let him know that there are many people who are unhappy with the corporate privatization of America's public education system.

For more information about participating, see Instructions for the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools

Diane Ravitch and Anthony Cody, have teamed up with a plan to flood the White House email with letters in support of -- and against the privatization of -- public education. While President Obama's reelection is in no way guaranteed, he is, of the two main party candidates, the one who is most likely to listen. Sample letters and suggestions are on Diane Ravitch's blog.

There is no guarantee that the President will listen, but it can't hurt to let him know that there are many people who are unhappy with the corporate privatization of America's public education system.

For more information about participating, see Instructions for the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools. The letters will be sent on October 17th.

I sent my letter today. It follows...

~~~

Dear President Obama,

I am a product of the Chicago Public Schools. I attended a public university and went on to a career in education during which I taught for 35 years in America's public schools. My wife of 42 years is still teaching in our public schools. My children attended public schools. My grandchildren attend public schools. I am very concerned about the current lack of support for public schools in the United States.

In the summer of 2007 a candidate for president of the United States told a group of teachers,

"Don't label a school as failing one day and then throw your hands up and walk away from it the next. Don't tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of a year preparing him to fill out a few bubbles in a standardized test...You didn't devote your lives to testing. You devoted it to teaching, and teaching is what you should be allowed to do."

That candidate, of course, was you.

In 2008 I voted for you because I had hope that finally we had a leader who would put children before profits and return some sanity to America's public schools. It was my hope that you would restore standardized testing to its appropriate place in educational assessment and that you would push back against the national tide of privatization.

To say that I have been disappointed would be an understatement.

The 2012 Democratic Party platform says,

"The Democratic Party understands the importance of turning around struggling public schools. We will continue to strengthen all our schools and work to expand public school options for low-income youth, including magnet schools, charter schools, teacher-led schools, and career academies.

"...includes raising standards for the programs that prepare our teachers, recognizing and rewarding good teaching...We also believe in carefully crafted evaluation systems that give struggling teachers a chance to succeed..."

During your first term "turning around struggling public schools" has meant firing staffs, and/or selling off public educational institutions to private companies and expanding charter schools. "Carefully crafted evaluation systems" has meant evaluating teachers based on test scores. Neither of those "reforms" has any basis in research. Charters perform no better, on average, than public schools and VAM evaluation processes have been found to be invalid. The American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education issued a joint paper saying that such evaluation methods are inaccurate and unstable. Teachers get high ratings if they teach the easiest students, and low ratings if they teach the most challenging students.

Race to the Top encourages more teaching to the test, not less.

There is a conflict between your words and your actions. On the one hand you have frequently stated that teaching to the test is the wrong direction for schools and students, yet Race to the Top requires tying evaluations and pay for teachers and principals to test scores. In addition, the Department of Education, under Secretary Duncan, is planning to expand the number of subjects tested and to increase how often the tests are given. Is this the way to reduce the need to teach to the test?

By continuing to elevate standardized tests as the most important piece of data in a school or school system you guarantee that the curriculum will follow the test, not vice versa, and guarantee that teaching to the test will not just continue, but increase.

Furthermore, high stakes testing places excessive pressure on schools attended by our most neediest students. It's poverty, not poor teaching which leads to lower achievement. Pressuring the schools these students attend to increase test scores forces teachers to focus on those test scores, instead of a rich, well-rounded curriculum.

Race to the Top requires states to increase privatization of public schools.

The public school system in the United States has served us well and should not be scrapped for a system of private and for-profit charter schools.

Studies have shown that charter schools do not perform better than public schools. When comparing similar populations of children for profit charters have the same successes and failures that regular public schools have. There's no reason to increase the number of charter schools. Doing so just reduces the number of schools and school systems run by locally elected school boards and turns them over to corporate boards of directors whose bottom line is profit, not children.

I urge you to redirect the department of education away from the failed effort to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students.

I urge you to change Race to the Top and to stop encouraging municipalities to close schools and fire staffs because of low scores. Low scores are a reflection of high poverty, not an indicator of bad schools or bad teachers. Insist that schools enrolling large numbers of poor and minority students get the resources they need to succeed.

Please, President Obama, recognize that your policies are demoralizing teachers. Many are leaving the profession. Young people are deciding not to become teachers. Your policies are ruining a noble profession and causing widespread damage to public schools, public school teachers and public school students.

Thank you,

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

2012 Medley #19

Letters to the President, Privatization, Won't Back Down,
Corporate Charters, Professional Educators.

LETTERS TO THE PRESIDENT

Diane Ravitch and readers of her blog have come up with a plan to flood the White House email with letters in support of, and against privatization of, public education. While President Obama's reelection is in no way guaranteed, he is, of the two main party candidates, the one who is most likely to listen. Sample letters and suggestions are on Diane Ravitch's blog.

There is no guarantee that the President will listen, but it can't hurt to let him know that there are many people who are unhappy with the corporate privatization of America's public education system.

For more information about participating, see Instructions for the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools.


PRIVATIZATION

The Milton Friedman style corporate privatization of America is not restricted to Education. Privatization Watch has frequent updates about how Corporate America is moving against the public sector. Here are two Indiana examples.

IN: Indiana panel approves lottery outsourcing deal

The commission voted 3-0, with two members absent, to approve a 15-year contract with Rhode Island-based GTECH that is expected to make $1.7 billion in profit over five years — a $500 million increase over state projections. GTECH already provides and maintains vending machines for the Hoosier Lottery. In exchange for running the lottery’s marketing and other services, GTECH will be paid a management fee that hasn’t yet been determined as well as a share of the lottery profits. The state received $188 million in lottery proceeds last year….Illinois Lottery Superintendent Michael Jones criticized Indiana’s search for a private lottery manager in August, saying Indiana officials didn’t seem to have learned from Illinois’ problem-plagued lottery outsourcing effort. New Jersey and Pennsylvania also are researching whether to outsource their lotteries. 

IN: IU Employees Fear Losing Jobs Over Privatized Parking

Some unionized workers at Indiana University say they are worried about losing their jobs if the school decides to privatize its parking operations. In a short period of time, Indiana University officials could issue a request for proposals which would seek a trade: a private firm gives a large lump sum of money to the school in exchange for running IU’s parking operations for years to come… But that worries Communication Workers of America Local 4730 President Ed Vasquez. “The burden is that once you start doing all these privatizations I think there will be an impetus to start privatizing other services throughout the campus,” he says. “This provides a lot of anxiety for a lot of staff.” 

WON'T BACK DOWN

Working America: 10 Reasons Not to See ‘Won’t Back Down’.

Won't Back Down was produced with the objective of demonizing teachers unions and promoting Parent Triggers. This article was written before the movie opened...so it's failure at the box office isn't included. Nevertheless, here's are reasons to pass on this film from the AFL-CIO.

The Walden Media film “Won’t Back Down,” starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis, opens in theaters today. The film dramatizes a parent fighting to improve her child’s school, but it’s actually a dishonest Hollywood portrayal of the problems in our educational system—funded by the very people who want to privatize and profit from our schools. Here are 10 reasons to skip it.

CORPORATE CHARTERS*

The Great Charter Charade

"Reformers" insist on using standardized test scores as the one true measure of student achievement, teacher competency, and school success. However, corporate charters do no better than neighborhood public schools on standardized tests when similar populations are studied. The success of charters using the "reformer's" methods are no better than regular public schools. P. L. Thomas, at Schools Matter, has a summary.

• Charter schools, public schools, and private schools all have essentially indistinguishable ranges of student outcomes. Research shows there is nothing about the way school is packaged among the three that produces uniquely superior outcomes.
• Charter schools do, however, appear to have a powerful segregating effect that is detrimental to the goals of universal public education.
• Charter schools are allowed autonomy simultaneously with public schools losing autonomy; and the outcomes remain about the same.
• Charter school advocacy exposes the failure of promoting solutions without identifying problems.
• No compelling or substantial evidence exists showing that any form of competition creates better educational outcomes for the choices offered (such as charter schools) or the traditional schools. Isolated positive and negative data exist regarding the impact of competition.
• Charter school outliers receive disproportionate media coverage, almost no media scrutiny, and nearly no follow up that confirms we simply do not have evidence of "miracle" schools. Comparisons of apples to apples, scalability, and long-term data are almost never included in media support of charter schools.

WARNING: More Corporate Charter School Profits on the Way

The advance of corporate charters continues. Tony Bennett, Indiana's Superintendent of Public Destruction has given corporate charters full access to Indiana's school children. It's all about the money.

Here is the latest corporate charter school application looking to expand in Indiana and tap into our taxpayer education fund.

Nexus Academy of Indianapolis by Better Blended Learning for Indiana - looking to open up 3 campuses in Downtown Indy, Southern Indy, and in the Carmel Clay School district. This is a blended learning/college prep charter school serving students in grades 9-12 with expected enrollment to be 300 students at each campus. Blending learning is a combination of face-to-face learning in a building and virtual/online learning.

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATORS

Why don't educators speak out against the destruction of public education? One reason is that the "reformers" have so overwhelmed public education with unreasonable goals that the average teacher hasn't got time to think about anything other than keeping their heads above water. Still, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of teacher blogs on the net, where teachers reflect, vent and cry out against the damage being done to their students and their profession. Valerie Strauss at the Answer Sheet, hosts a guest blogger who lists...

Things educators could say but don’t

1. To Parents: “If you effectively raise your children before you send them to school, we can teach most of them. If you do not, we cannot.”
2. To Legislators: “Do not order us to repair the developmental damage that is done to children before they reach school age. We cannot do so and pretending otherwise wastes resources, damages K-12 education and does nothing to help those utterly innocent children who need it (and deserve it) most.”
3. To Reformers: “Academic achievement gaps, robust and intractable, are well-established long before the first day of kindergarten. Those gaps are not caused by teachers and cannot be fixed by teachers. What you like to call ‘reforming’ schools does nothing to help children who spend their first five years living in inadequate, often chaotic, households. If you want to help those children, you must do something to change those households. Any other approach is foolish, wasteful and destined to fail.”

The so-called failure of America's public education system is a failure of America's promise. "Reformers" blame teachers and public schools for not solving the problems which politicians and governments have failed to solve. One fourth of our children live in poverty. Schools with high levels of poverty have lower achievement (see #3 above), while schools with low poverty levels achieve at the highest levels in the world. Social safety nets are unable to provide everything children in poverty need...and neither can schools.  "Reformers" claim, without any basis, that improved schools (defined as closing "failing" schools, firing "bad" teachers, breaking teachers unions, turning public education over to private corporations, and redistributing public funds to private and parochial schools) will help children rise out of poverty. We, who are educators, know that we can't do it alone. We need to fix our public schools...not privatize them.


Should a Teacher's Past Be the Basis for Firing?

What if you did something perfectly legal, but a bit off the mainstream before you started teaching? Many young people make poor decisions and generally they leave the past behind as they mature. Bill Clinton smoked pot, Mitt Romney participated in a high school bullying incident, and others behaved in equally foolish and immature ways. A guidance counselor in New York City was a model before she started teaching. Should she have been fired because she modeled underwear? Is modeling what some might consider suggestive clothing as bad as breaking the law by using an illegal drug, or assaulting a classmate because of his presumed sexual orientation?

I was reminded of this by the case of Tiffany Webb, a 37-year-old high school guidance counselor in the New York City system who was fired after 12 years of exemplary service because she seductively posed in her undergarments several years before she became a teacher in 1999. These photos are not pornographic any more than Victoria's Secrets are. Nevertheless, she was axed, even though she disclosed her former career when she was first hired.

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

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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