2012 Medley #22

Politics, Testing, Professional Educators,
Lead, Libraries and Privatization.

POLITICS

INDIANA ELECTION

It's crunch time in Indiana. The election is tomorrow and there is a close race between the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett, and his challenger, Glenda Ritz. If you live in Indiana and haven't voted yet, be sure to pull the lever next to Ritz's name.

Give more control to local school districts
Stop the flow of public tax dollars to private education companies running take-over schools
Stop the lowering of standards for teacher licensing and evaluations
Clear the barriers to quality career and technical education

NATIONAL ELECTION

Politics and school reform: Power, ideology and the use of evidence

Larry Cuban, writing in Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet, wants to believe that the privatizers will finally look at evidence...and that public education will be transformed because the evidence shows that privatization, charters, and vouchers don't help.

Republican legislators had pressured the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service into withdrawing a report that reached a conclusion about tax rates and economic growth that undercut a central GOP philosophy. -- Valerie Strauss

The rational part of me still expects top decision-makers, even ex-governors, to use the best evidence available to support proposed directions. The real-world political part of me, however, recognizes that policy elites cherry-pick studies and facts to support decisions already determined. I guess I am still innocent enough to expect top decision-makers faced with an accumulation of evidence that runs counter to their advocacy of technology policies, at the very least, would pull up their socks and admit that they either goofed or would reconsider their decision. They won’t because Oops! is taboo in policymakers’ vocabulary.

I would find the expression of honest doubts about policies derived from facts, not faith, to be both refreshing and courageous. -- Larry Cuban

Ann Romney: We Need To ‘Throw Out’ The Public Education System*

Ann Romney echoes her husband's feelings about public schools. She blames the unions, of course. How does she (or her husband) explain that their home state of Massachusetts has such a successful school system while being heavily unionized?

How many public school advocates will vote against their own interests tomorrow?

The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers’ unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system. -- Ann Romney

This attack on public school teachers echoes one that has been frequently heard in her husband’s stump speeches and debates. In his Friday economic speech, he said “It matters for the child in a failing school, unable to go to the school of his parent’s choosing, because the teacher’s union that funds the President’s campaign opposes school choice.”

Both Romneys have it wrong. President Obama has also consistently supported charter schools as a supplement to traditional schools. In May, he declared in his “Charter School Week” proclamation, “charter schools serve as incubators of innovation in neighborhoods across our country.” Obama has opposed, however, proposals to take taxpayer money out of public schools and to fund private and parochial schools that do not have to achieve the same standards. Romney has embraced a risky school voucher scheme. Studies have also shown that charter schools may not necessarily improve children’s education.

TESTING

Point Person: Our Q+A with John Kuhn on school’s over-reliance on testing (Requires paid subscription)

John Kuhn denounces the overuse and misuse of testing.

Question: How does this [focus on standardized testing] affect how a teacher teaches?

Kuhn: Teachers face a perverse incentive to drill and kill in the classroom and focus intensely on the narrow curriculum that is tested. Principals face the temptation to enforce scripted approaches that overemphasize test prep. Marketers are pitching materials keyed to STAAR with great zeal; districts face an onslaught of big promises: “Raise STAAR Scores Now!” Some teachers and schools resist a test-centered approach in favor of a child-centered approach; but with livelihoods on the line if scores don't rise, it’s as if teachers are being asked to teach under hanging anvils.

Teachers and administrators agree with the need for accountability and want to be held accountable for our results. What we ask for are honest measures that take into account all factors that contribute to our success or failure. Educational outcomes do not solely hinge on teacher quality. There are home and community and funding factors in play, but accountability gurus are happy to leave those variables out of their formulas. No one but the teachers are up for criticism in their world of selective accountability.

The U.S. Department of Education has chosen to set a 100 percent standardized testing pass rate as the goal, with constant classroom duress as the main motivator for teachers and students and absolutely no pressure on legislators to provide equitable resources from school district to school district. We shouldn’t be surprised to see unintended consequences as schools struggle to attain the impossible: getting 100 percent of their kids to pass the almighty bubble test by 2014. What's good for test scores isn't always what's good for kids, but our punitive accountability fetish has established test scores as the measurably more important of the two.

Question: But aren't there poor teachers who fail to prepare their students, and don't test scores help establish that?

Kuhn: Yes, poor teachers exist. No, a poor test score doesn’t establish poor teaching. It’s not that simple. A terrible teacher in an $8,000-per-pupil school may obtain higher scores than a wonderful teacher in a $4,000-per-pupil school. Those extra funds impact outcomes by providing smaller classes, fewer leaks in the roof, more and newer instructional materials, and various supports that aren’t available at the other school.

Our current system dissuades the best teachers from teaching in our toughest schools because they will be facilely scapegoated for things outside their control. Pinning everything on the classroom teacher lets policymakers and budget writers off the hook pretty easily. Accountability only falls on teachers, and politicians laugh all the way to re-election.

THE PROFESSION OF EDUCATORS

The 'Natural' Teacher

The best advice I can give teachers today who face demands I never did during the 28 years that I taught is to try to form bonds with students. As I wrote before, "there has to be chemistry between teacher and students" ("What Jaime Escalante Taught All of Us," Apr. 5, 2010). Although multicultural classrooms can enrich learning, they can also make it hard to understand students whose backgrounds are different. But it's important not to give up trying to reach them. Teachers may find, as I did, that my students taught me more than I taught them.

LEAD

If the goal is 100% "failure" then we're almost there

Mike Klonsky talks about how lead poisoning is still an issue in the Chicago Public Schools. How does this fit into the test-score-based-evaluation of teachers?

LEAD

There's not better example of these negative external poverty-driven forces than the fact that Chicago has the distinction of being home to more cases of lead toxicity than any large city in the U.S. One in 12 of the city's children is lead poisoned. Megan Cottrell makes the link between lead poisoning and under-performing students in the Nov. 1 issue of The Reader.

A recent study out of the University of Illinois at Chicago examined the blood lead levels of third graders between 2003 and 2006—students now likely to be roaming the halls at CPS high schools. It turns out that at three-quarters of Chicago's 464 elementary schools, the students' average blood lead level was high enough to be considered poisoned, according to standards set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And although lead poisoning is rarely mentioned in the debate on how to improve schools, the UIC research shows just how much it may be damaging kids' ability to succeed. According to the study, lead-poisoned students in Chicago Public Schools are more likely to fail the third grade and score notably lower on their yearly standardized tests.

LIBRARIES

New PA Study Shows Full-time School Librarian Boosts Student Achievement

This supports everything we already know about the importance of libraries in public schools...and gives strength to the argument in favor of public school libraries. This is research that matters...will the "reformers" listen?

“The overall findings fit with research we’ve seen in other states—access to a full-time, certified school librarian significantly impacts students achievement in reading,” said Debra Kachel, Pennsylvania School Librarians Association Legislation Committee Co-Chairperson. “What stands out to me is the impact on writing scores,” she said. “We haven’t seen that data before, and it underscores the larger impact having a full-time, certified school librarian has on skills, such as writing, that prepare students for college and the workforce.”

PRIVATIZATION

Recipe for Privatization of Public Education

Here is a satirical “Recipe for How To Change The Nation’s Schools.” I am a 33 year classroom teaching veteran currently working on the campaign to stop the charter school initiative in WA state. It doesn’t look good as Bill Gates and friends spend $9 million on ads (we have no ads).

RECIPE for Taking over a Nation’s Public Schools

Ingredients:

• A Few Super Wealthy Families (that have never attended public schools)
• Powerful Religious Groups convinced that what is wrong with the nation is caused by public education.
• Lobbyists for Private Corporations Waiting To Cash In on Public Money.
• A Political System that allows legislation to be “bought” where campaign money is uncontrolled.
• The illusion that the Public School System is Broken (despite the fact that it has steadily gotten better over time according to the NAEP)
• A few convincing movies to create a negative version of public schools to sway public sentiment.
• A pretense at reform by mandating progress on test scores with unattainable, unsupported goals that ensure turmoil and failure. Tie funding to those scores so they become all consuming. Also, remember that testing is big business for our friends.
• Someone to Blame: Teacher Unions (this is an especially important ingredient since they are the only organization with enough influence to stop the process of taking over the public schools)

Directions:

Put all the ingredients together, stir well. When the time is right, buy legislation with millions and millions of dollars that puts into place the kind of privately controlled schools you really want. Also, do this in a way that further weakens neighborhood public schools by stealing their funding and resources.

Finally, sit back and enjoy you what you have created: A new version of Public Schools where teacher’s cannot unionize, where creationism can be taught as scientific truth with public funds, and where corporations can better control education of the public more to their liking while their friends cash in on the profits.

The frosting on the cake: Yes, it was a little expensive buying these ingredients, but now we have the public permanently financing our project!

Personal Note

Diane, thanks for all your years of kind, patient and compassionate service to struggling learners (and their teachers!). You brought that same kind, patient and compassionate bearing to the friendships you offered so freely. Thanks for brightening our lives with your smile, your understanding, and your supersized heart. You will be missed by all who knew you. 

*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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Unintended Consequences and the Death of the Teaching Profession

I have always felt comfortable speaking my mind to administrators -- my local principals (I've taught under 9 different principals) as well as system-wide administrators -- whenever I've disagreed with them on an issue affecting teachers or students.

• I frequently told one of my principals, who had been a middle school and high school principal, that being a principal of an elementary school was different than being the principal of a secondary school. He never did, in my opinion, learn that difference and as a consequence had difficulty with his job (which he thankfully no longer has).
• I had a meeting with Superintendent G. She decided that she wanted to use teacher collaboration time for professional development. At that time the teachers contract clearly stated that teachers would use at least half of all monthly collaboration times to collaborate with colleagues. I told the superintendent in no uncertain terms that we would not allow her to break the contract...the correct way to change it was through negotiations.
• I was on the "Discussion Team" whose purpose was to meet regularly with administrators and discuss issues which were affecting the school community. It was our job to discuss those items before they became problems. During one heated session, an assistant superintendent made a statement about new teachers. I felt no qualms about informing him that I thought his statement was unprofessional.
• After an IEP meeting, the Director of Special Education told me that I had said something which could have gotten the school system in trouble about the placement of a student. I told her that the current placement of the student was based on convenience, not the needs of the student. I said that I was an advocate for my students, not the school system.
• One year in September, Superintendent B came to our building to explain why a first grade teacher was being transferred to another building...and her students divided up into several other classrooms. I told him that it would be disruptive to those early learners to essentially restart their' school year after they had created a bond with their teacher.

I had no problems speaking out when I felt passionate about something, and well enough informed to speak with authority and from a factual basis. Not all teachers, however, are willing to do that...and not all administrators can take that sort of criticism without trying to retaliate. Unions can't always protect teachers from angry administrators.

Walt Gardner, in Unintended Consequences of Teacher Evaluation suggests that new teacher evaluation systems based on student test scores will have the unintended consequence of allowing principals to find ways to arbitrarily dismiss veteran (meaning high paid) or other, unwanted (meaning people like me who required explanations of difficult situations) teachers.

New performance evaluation systems being adopted in school districts across the country are heralded as long overdue. But there's one aspect that is downplayed by reformers: they give principals a rare opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Their prey are veteran teachers who are at the top of the salary scale and who are likely to speak out on issues affecting their school because they have tenure. By rating them as ineffective, principals can get rid of them, in the process improving the district's balance sheet and silencing opposition.

Excuse my cynicism, but from what I've seen, the consequences of such evaluation systems are often not unintended at all. It's just one more tool to de-professionalize educators and make teaching a "job" instead of a profession. It's another of the union busting techniques which include laying off experienced, fully trained teachers and then hiring TFA students with 5 weeks of training, firing entire staffs because they can't solve all the problems of poverty, and legislative removal of collective bargaining laws in various states.

Using test scores to evaluate teachers is invalid and part of the misuse of testing which also includes high stakes consequences for students, schools, and school districts.

The war on public schools and public school teachers which consists of the above along with the proliferation of corporate charter* "turn-around" schools and voucher programs, is well organized. The goals of the movement are not the improvement of student learning, but the privatization of public education. Teachers and teachers unions are the biggest obstacle to that so-called "reform."

One important focus for "reformers" is teacher contracts and teachers unions. The claim is that teachers unions are standing in the way of "reform." No answer has ever been given as to how high achieving states (and nations) which are heavily unionized can succeed while low achieving states which have few or less powerful unions have failed. My answer, of course, is that teachers unions are not the most important variable in the equation...especially since two sides are necessary to come to a contract agreement. There must be other variables in play as well, but the "reformers" don't want to acknowledge them.

One aspect of the drive to do away with teachers unions is the push to eliminate seniority. Seniority the "reformers" claim, allows good young teachers to be laid off while incompetent older teachers remain. I agree that happens sometimes, however I would place blame not on the seniority system, but on weak administrators who don't take the time or make the effort to help teachers improve or document reasons why they should be fired. Furthermore, most teachers who are not capable of making it in the classroom are gone within their first 5 years either because it's too hard for them, or because they are counseled out of the profession by administrators or colleagues. The United States does not have a crisis in teacher quality.

In a recent blog post, Anthony Cody asked Is Seniority for Teachers Bad for Students? He said,

In the school where I taught for 18 years, there used to be teachers who had been there for twenty or thirty years. They had a different set of gifts from those of the youthful novices, but they were of great value nonetheless. They carried the school's culture, the history of the place. We had a sense of family, and they were our elders. They served as mentors, and helped us through some tough times. They brought a sense of stability, and taught generations of children from the families of our community. As research has shown, stability is very important for our students, and instability undermines student performance.

All schools need a balance of experienced and new teachers. Like a sports team, experienced players help bring a continuity to the goals of the organization and leadership to the team. Youth complements experience and brings innovation and energy. Constant turnover and lack of experienced leadership among the players is a recipe for disaster.

There is a reason that states (and nations like Finland) with strong teacher unions tend to have better education systems. When we invest in schools, and give teachers a sense that their experience and expertise is honored, that they will have academic freedom and autonomy in the classroom, they are happier with their work. They stick with it, and are driven, not by a fear that their students' scores will be low resulting in the loss of pay or job security. They are driven by their passion to inspire their students with new challenges, to create outstanding work, to investigate the world around them in new ways. This sort of teaching is not the product of some perfectly aligned testing and evaluation system. It is the product of the passion for teaching and learning that drew so many of us to work with children in the first place.

We cannot build -- or in our case, rebuild -- a great public education system without a solid foundation of excellent teachers. The current tendency to blame teachers and their unions for all the problems facing American schools will turn out to have the consequence -- unintended or not -- of lowering the number and quality of teachers. The "best and the brightest" will make other career choices...and the children most in need of help from high quality educators won't get it.

*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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Electoral College

C.G.P. Grey, the great Youtube explainer, explains how the electoral college works and why we should do away with it just in time for the election.




Part 2:



You can also read about the how the Electoral College works at the National Archives, which has a video as well.

In How the Electoral College Works, the How Stuff Works web site takes a turn explaining.

Finally, here are Five myths about the Electoral College in which some interesting thoughts about the history of the Electoral College are discussed.

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

Killing Public School Teachers and Walmart Elementary

Diane Ravitch's blog entry NC Teacher: “I Quit” continues to get a lot of comments. I posted How very sad. And how incredibly accurate on Tuesday with a small sampling of the comments and responses. They continue to grow...79 entries on October 31 alone. Here are a few from October 31.

...I don’t believe in what we are being forced to do instructionally. The kids are numbers and the teachers are numbers.

...we are being treated as if the only way student achievement can happen is if we are micromanaged and policed as if we’re incapable. It’s demoralizing...

Some days I miss teaching so much my heart nearly literally aches. Then the reasons I left come to mind....

I feel this way almost daily, for much the same reasons...

...with each year that passes I start to wonder why I try so hard in a system that continues to devalue my work, pigeonhole students with ridiculous tests, and subscribe to rote memorization instead of creative and critical thinking...

I am a secondary math teacher in NC and feel the exact same way….no books, no paper, no resources, no discipline, no student accountability...

...I am also planning on leaving the profession that I worked so hard to enter. It is beyond frustrating to walk into the classroom everyday knowing that the expectations placed upon the teacher are unrealistic...The demands increase, but the resources decrease...

...I plan on quitting teaching at the end of this year after only teaching for a year and a half. What i have experienced has made me hate teaching.

I haven’t resigned yet because I can’t afford to until I find a job outside education, but I will as soon as I can.

After 16 years, I will be another statistic. November 15 (is my resignation date) and only because our “kiddos” have two field trips. God Bless our students!

I taught for 34 years and loved almost every minute of it. But the last 10 years of teaching became a chore, not because I had changed or burned out, but because of the statewide testing...

Kris Nielsen, the author of Dear North Carolina Public Schools: I Quit, has his own blog, Middle Grades Mastery. I noticed this graphic he had in his blog entry A Connection is Made: Pearson, RttT, Rhee…and Me. It's a venn diagram showing connections in the "reformer's public school world."

(click the image for a closer look)

Nielsen wrote,

It’s hard to see it all in order, but I know that large companies like Pearson win contracts from state governments, who are forced by Race to the Top to take part in “student learning measurements” (a.k.a. standardized tests), and all in the name of privatizing education. If Pearson publishes the texts and the tests, and the government is forced to administer them, then ALEC and the charter movement can point to the dismal results and say that teachers and their unions are failing kids.

Teachers, like me, and students pay the price with the kind of curriculum disasters, bad working conditions, and student disenfranchisement we see today. Districts are caught in this as well, and are fronting most of the costs.

The first thing I noticed in the diagram was that public school educators, school boards, students, and parents, are nowhere to be found...and they don't fit anywhere either. Nielsen's comment about "student disenfranchisement" is telling. Students don't fit into this. The research that shows how students learn, what's missing from public education, and how we can solve some of the problems facing teachers today, doesn't fit with the "needs" of the "reformers."

It's a closed system. In the center is money, defined by Nielsen as "Education Reform: Better known as corporate takeover of schools for profit motive".

We're going to lose our public schools. The Friedmanesque design for complete privatization, extremist private sectorism, will land us with poorly funded public school systems, small "Mom and Pop schools" fighting to survive against "Walmart Elementary", "Bill Gates Middle School" and "Rupert Murdoch High School."

Guess where the hard-to-teach students, those who live in poverty, or have special needs, will go to school?

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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