2015 Medley #22

Political Endorsements,
Teacher Shortages, Arne Duncan

AFT JUMPS THE GUN

Big news with the AFT leadership endorsing Hillary Clinton...before the primary. In 2011 NEA endorsed President Obama early despite his dismal record in education, but there were no other Democratic candidates, so NEA was saying that they wanted a Democrat over any of the Republicans left in the race at that point.

And NEA endorsed Obama without getting any guarantee that he would rein in Arne Duncan.

Fast forward to 2015 and now AFT endorses Clinton without getting her to change her position on charters or CCSS. She answered the questions on the AFT questionnaire, and had the right answer for vouchers...

I strongly oppose voucher schemes because they divert precious resources away from financially strapped public schools to private schools that are not subject to the same accountability standards or teacher quality standards. It would be harmful to our democracy if we dismantled our public school system through vouchers, and there is no evidence that doing so would improve outcomes for children.

When talking about charters however, she neglected to include the "divert precious resources away from financially strapped public schools" and jumped straight to the transparency and accountability issue...

Charters should be held to the same standards, and to the same level of accountability and transparency to which traditional public schools are held. This includes the requirements of civil rights laws. They can innovate and help improve educational practices. But I also believe that we must go back to the original purpose of charter schools. Where charters are succeeding, we should be doing more to ensure that their innovations can be widely disseminated throughout our traditional public school system. Where they are failing, they should be closed.

I have three objections to her comment about charters. First, I agree that they should be held to the same transparency and accountability as real public schools, but, to get back to the original purpose of charters, they should be run by real public school systems, not private corporations. The big problem with charters is that they, too, suck much needed funds from public schools and drop it into corporate pockets.

Second, she said that voucher schools don't follow the same "teacher quality standards." In Indiana, at least, charter schools are allowed to hire non-teachers to fill classrooms -- up to 50% of the staff. Charters should also follow the same "teacher quality standards."

Finally, her last sentence in the quote above is noteworthy. Schools are generally failing because of high levels of student poverty...when charter schools fail it's because they haven't understood that children in poverty can't make up the difference in their experiential differences by simple test-prep. Those charters that have the means, skim for higher achieving children, wealthier children, and children whose parents are more involved. The phrase "failing schools" implies that it is the school that is at fault...not American society for allowing nearly one-fourth of our children to live in poverty. The implication here is that Clinton accepts the "reformist" line that schools "fail" and that public education in the U.S. is "failing." [For a good discussion of "failing schools" see Reign of Error, by Diane Ravitch.]

So, AFT, and likely NEA to follow, has endorsed another "reformist" for president without getting any guarantee that the attacks on public schools, public school teachers, and their unions will end.

Also see the AFT candidate questionnaires for Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley.


Who Is Served by the Unions?

Peter Greene takes AFT to task for their foolishly early endorsement of Clinton. What will AFT get for the endorsement? "Nothing at all."

What did or will AFT get out of endorsing Clinton? I'm going to predict the answer is "Nothing At All." Particularly now that she landed the endorsement without even having to make a show of backing public education. This is not realistic politicking. This is giving away milk for free in hopes that someone will then decide to buy your cow.

Teachers do have an interest in having their unions cultivate political power. But the union leaderships interest in political power does not always align with the interests of teachers.

Other commentary about AFT endorsement of Clinton:

• Did AFT Rank and File REALLY Endorse Hillary Clinton for President? If So, Release the Raw Data

• AFT's early Clinton endorsement is creating a rank-and-file backlash

• AFT Endorsement Of Clinton Shows Lack Of Democratic Process

• Democracy appears to be a burden for the “modern” American Federation of Teachers

• No Surprise Except the Timing: AFT Endorses Hillary Clinton for President

TEACHER SHORTAGES

Teacher shortages are exactly what "reformers" want. Since they believe that "anyone can teach" the fact that traditional teacher preparation programs are drying up...the fact that fewer students are going into education as a career...the fact that teachers are leaving the profession in large numbers...is a plus, not a problem.

Untrained teachers, TFA's who only want to teach for 2 years, and others who think that teaching is an easy way to get summers off, are all cheaper to hire...cheaper to keep...and will leave before they become expensive. They won't need pensions. They won't need extended benefits. The bottom line is to privatize America's schools while spending the least amount of money possible, thereby maximizing profits.

States like Indiana have lowered qualifications for teachers so those school systems who are struggling to fill classroom positions can start to recruit people who aren't qualified. Is this how we increase achievement?


Indiana schools see shortage of teacher applications

School leaders say state funding constraints, testing pressures and a blame-the-teachers mentality have steered people away from education as a career.

Many education programs have seen their enrollments drop in recent years.

Enrollment in Ball State University’s elementary and kindergarten teacher-preparation programs has fallen 45 percent in the last decade. Other schools are reporting similar declines.

Denise Collins, associate dean with the College of Education at Indiana State University, said enrollment there has fallen 7 percent, and the number of students completing an education degree has dropped 13 percent.

How to keep teachers from leaving the profession

News Flash: Indianapolis teachers are leaving the profession by the hundreds.

Well, this is not news to teachers. We have been predicting this shortage for years as we see veteran teachers retire early and new teachers stay only three to five years. The lack of positive, supportive working conditions, i.e., school culture, is the main reason for teacher flight. How long can a new teacher be subjected to a more than eight hour working day which provides little job satisfaction and little support, to sustain his teaching passion, for $35,000 a year? Not long.

Most public school teachers fall into one of three categories: Those who will leave soon, those who have too many years vested to seek a new career, and those good souls who have accepted the victim mentality of, “It’s all about the kids.”

North Carolina Teacher to General Assembly: “I Can No Longer Afford to Teach”

I realize that no one in Raleigh will care or feel the impact when this one teacher out of 80,000 leaves the classroom. I understand. However, my 160 students will feel the impact. And 160 the next year. And the next. My Professional Learning Community, teachers around the county with whom I collaborate, will be impacted, and their students as well. Young teachers become great when they are mentored by experienced, effective educators, and all their students are impacted as well. When quality teachers leave the classroom, the loss of mentors is yet another effect. This is how the quiet and exponential decline in education happens.

Higher teacher pay may be unpopular, and I am aware it is difficult to see the connection between teacher pay and a quality education for students, so I will try to make it clear. Paying me a salary on which I can live means I can stay in the classroom, and keeping me in the classroom means thousands of students over the next decade would get a quality education from me. It’s that simple.

Teacher shortage “emergency” grows in Oklahoma

Right now, there are approximately one thousand teacher vacancies in Oklahoma, according to the Oklahoma State School Board Association (OSSBA)

The emergency certification allows someone without formal training to step into the classroom and teach.

For example, a private sector scientist could become a chemistry teacher if their skill set is comparable and the district specifically requests them.

“Someone who is an accountant and wanted to be a business teacher,” Smith gave as another example. “We’re just trying to accommodate and help schools any way we can to get them through this rough patch.”

That emergency certification lasts till the end of the school year, officials say, and the teacher must achieve certification during the year if they want to continue teaching.

NCLB AND RttT ARE FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S KIDS

Education Secretary Duncan’s children to go to Chicago private school he attended

I have said this over and over again...Lame duck Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has never taught in a public school. He never even attended a public school. As a child he attended the University of Chicago Lab school...then went to Harvard. He majored in sociology and played on the basketball team. When he graduated he played professional basketball in Australia, then came home and found a job in the education world. He has no education qualifications...no education credentials.

Yet Duncan is the man who has, for the last 6 and a half years, foisted his "education reform" agenda on America's schools, school children, and public school teachers.

Race to the Top, often called NCLB on steroids, has done nothing to improve education in the U.S. The money spent by the federal Department of Education has not gone to help the schools and children with the greatest need. It's gone to help schools in states who toe the line by increasing charter schools, accept the Common Core standards, and evaluate their teachers using test scores -- three plans which do nothing to increase achievement.

And what about his own kids? While in Washington D.C. they attended public school in Arlington, Virginia, where the Common Core has not been adopted. Now they have moved back to Chicago and will attend Arne's alma mater, the University of Chicago Lab School. They will be taught by highly qualified teachers who are union members, and who are not evaluated by their students' test scores. Arne's children will not be affected by Arne's public education policies.

And in a year and a half, Arne will likely go to work for some "reformy" company...

...While Duncan is interested in making his own family’s logistics easy, the very public charter schools that Duncan and his department have supported and pushed for expansion have hastened the closure of many neighborhood public schools, making it more difficult for many families — especially single-parent families — to get their children to schools that are nowhere near their homes. Charter schools have been permitted to open wherever the founders want with no consideration for what cities need to serve all of their students. Charter schools can limit the number of students who attend; traditional public schools can’t. As a result, in urban areas where neighborhood schools have been closed, parents must apply to charter schools and hope to get into one that is near them. It doesn’t always happen....

See also Arne Duncan’s Children Were Never Exposed to Common Core

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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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2015 Medley #21

Teacher Shortages, Poverty,
Seniority and Hypocrisy,
Vouchers, Education Experts

CRISIS IN TEACHING

The real crisis in teaching is not that there are so many "bad teachers" as "reformers" would have you believe. The real crisis is just beginning; The "reformers" have created a situation in which fewer people will want to devote their careers to teaching. The public schools of the United States are, and will be, facing a serious teacher shortage in the coming years.

Is this the plan? In Indiana "reformers" in the legislature, governor's office, and State Board of Education have succeeded in lowering the qualifications needed to become a teacher. Charter school laws don't require trained educators to fill all their classrooms. The U.S. Secretary of Education, along with his "reformist" supporters continue to shout "bad teachers" and are now calling for the "reform" of university level teacher training programs.

The bottom line is, of course, money. Untrained teachers, non-professionals, temporaries, all cost less than career teachers trained in content and pedagogy. There's no desire to invest in experience and longevity in teaching. It's too expensive.

The "reforms" designed to make teaching less desirable -- loss of collective bargaining rights, pension wars, evaluations based on the junk science of VAM, loss of seniority rights, denial of the value of experience -- have combined with budget cuts, loss of salary, and larger class sizes, to shrink the ranks of professional educators as well as students in teacher training programs. Teachers are blamed for low achievement based on economic inequality and poverty. Schools are blamed while legislators and politicians ignore the effects of poverty in their constituent neighborhoods. The relationship between achievement and poverty is well defined (see below - POVERTY). The U.S. has the highest rate of child poverty in the industrialized world, yet the government structure responsible for this condition isn't called into question. Why not?

As an answer to that last question listen to John Kuhn's speech at the Save Our Schools March in July of 2011. [For more video from the SOS March see HERE and HERE.]

Starting at about 3:50...

Where is adequate yearly progress for the politicians? Will we have 100% employment by 2014? Will all the children have decent health care and roofs over their heads by their deadline? But wait...they don't have a deadline. They aren't "racing" anywhere, are they?

When will our leaders ensure that every American community offers children libraries and little leagues instead of drugs and delinquency?

Lawmakers send you [teachers] into congressional districts that are rife with poverty, rife with crime, drug abuse and poor health care, but lawmakers will never take on the label of legislatively unacceptable  because they do not share the courage of a common school teacher.

I say...I say, let us label our lawmakers like they label teachers. Let us have a hard look at their data. Let us have merit pay in congress.

Congressmen, politicians, if you want our children to grow lush, stop firing the gardeners and start paying the water bill.

Politicians, your fingerprints are on these children. What have you done to help them pass their tests?

President Obama, why don't you come and join me in the crucible of accountability? We have talked enough about the speck in our teachers' eyes. Let's talk about the plank in yours.

The practice of blaming the teachers hasn't stopped since 2011...and the numbers are starting to show it.

It's a simple process. Manufacture a crisis of "failing schools." Place 100% of the blame on educators and make the job unpleasant and less desirable, thereby creating a shortage. Change the rules to allow unqualified, lower paid temps to fill classrooms. This, combined with the privatization of public schools into charters and vouchers for private schools, provides higher profits for those who are sucking public tax money out of public schools.

Meanwhile...fewer Americans are looking at teaching as a career. The deprofessionalization of teachers is happening now.

Who will be teaching your grandchildren?

Fewer people want to be teachers

"There is a negative narrative out there that somehow obscures the actual profession where teachers work with kids," said Michael Wischnowski, dean of the School of Education at St. John Fisher College.

Fisher has seen the number of new students applying for admission with plans to become teachers drop by about 50 percent — from 991 for the 2010-11 school year to 493 this past school year. And the number of these students who ended up enrolling decreased from 356 in the 2010-11 school year to 173 this past school year.

This scenario is playing out elsewhere.

Schools Struggling to Find Teachers

According to the Indiana Department of Education, the state issued in the 2007/08 school year about 7,500 teaching licenses. In 2013/14, the most recent year for which data were available, the state issued just 934 licenses.

And the state saw the greatest decline among teachers with at least 10 years of experience. The number of those licenses in the last six years fell from 333 to just four, down 99 percent.

...And, Quick said, when the state restricts teacher compensation, reduces teachers’ ability to bargain and increases standardized testing, fewer young people believe that teaching is a good career.

“I think it’s a direct result of the kind of policies and the kind of press that (have) been coming out … in the last decade or so,” Quick said.

We are losing talented, dedicated and experienced teachers and here’s why

The public schools are losing well-qualified and experienced teachers who have made a commitment to our communities and dedicated themselves to teaching our children and yet we are losing them in large numbers. Why?

There are many reasons but for the most part is has to do with the phrase “Education Reform”.

POVERTY

New Illinois Analysis: Test Scores Correlate with School’s Economic Level, Not School’s Quality

Income inequality is growing, so the achievement gap based on income-inequality is also growing. The relationship is indisputable.

The most conclusive research on the correlation of poverty and school achievement is the demographic data of Sean Reardon at Stanford University. Reardon documents that across America’s metropolitan areas the proportion of families living in either very poor or very affluent neighborhoods increased from 15 percent in 1970 to 33 percent by 2009, and the proportion of families living in middle income neighborhoods declined from 65 percent in 1970 to 42 percent in 2009. Reardon also demonstrates that along with growing residential inequality is a simultaneous jump in an income-inequality school achievement gap among children and adolescents. The achievement gap between students with income in the top ten percent and students with income in the bottom ten percent is 30-40 percent wider among children born in 2001 than those born in 1975.

As the School Year Ends, Public Education is in Doubt

Indiana used to be one of those states which invested more in high poverty schools...until the last legislative session. The rules have now changed so we, too, are among those who give more and more money to schools in wealthy areas and cut the percentage of funding going to schools with high poverty levels.

"The entire myth of the 'failing school' depends on a refusal to acknowledge the ways that poverty impacts local communities, and how austerity policies and years of underfunding have led to the crises we see now."

New reports show that most states continue to put less money into public schools than they did before the recession, and about half put less money into schools that serve low-income students than schools that serve the wealthy.

LEGISLATIVE HYPOCRISY OVER SENIORITY

Pennsylvania GOP Lawmakers Demand Seniority For Themselves But Deny It For Teachers

Seniority.

Somehow it’s great for legislators, but really bad for people like public school teachers.

At least that was the decision made by Republican lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House Tuesday. They voted along party lines to allow schools to furlough educators without considering seniority.

But the House’s own leadership structure is largely based on seniority!

Hypocrisy much?

VOUCHERS

Why lawmakers repealed voucher cost calculation

To sell the voucher program to the public the Republicans in the legislature and the Governor's office claimed it would save money. Now that it doesn't save money they are doing away with the last vestiges of that sales pitch....a classic bait and switch.

One of the selling points when Indiana’s school voucher program was created in 2011 was that it would save money — because students who got vouchers for private-school tuition would cost the state less than if they attended their local public schools.

Legislators even wrote a formula for calculating the savings and included it in the state budget, along with a plan for distributing the extra money to public schools.

But the savings disappeared as the state expanded the voucher program to include many students who had never attended a public school. The savings became a cost – and the cost grew, reaching $40 million in the 2014-15 school year.

How did state legislators respond? By repealing the cost calculation formula.

....Indiana provides state funding for private schools that aren’t accountable to the public, that can discriminate in admissions and that teach religious doctrine and, in some cases, controversial views of history and current events.

See also Controversial views of history and current events

WHO ARE THE EDUCATION EXPERTS?

Nancy Flanagan, in Who Are the Education Experts?, quoted Ernest Boyer:

The harsh truth is that America is losing sight of its children. In decisions made every day, we are putting them at the very bottom of the agenda. While people endlessly criticize the schools, I'm convinced that the family is a much more imperiled institution than the schools. I'm further convinced that, in many neighborhoods, the public school is, in fact, the only institution that's still working.

"Reformers" are, for the most part, non-educators. People like Arne Duncan (and his predecessor Margaret Spellings), Bill Gates, and Eli Broad, have never taught in public schools...some, like Duncan and Gates, never even attended public schools as students. How have they become experts in public education when people like Anthony Cody, Carol Burris, your child's teacher, or your local school's principal, are not?

Seriously. I'd like to know just who qualifies as an education expert.

The [Detroit Public Schools] elected governance structure has been disenfranchised, to a greater or lesser degree, for over 15 years. Emergency managers, nonprofit advisors, celebrity charter founders, big-ticket consultants and carefully assembled commissions—all touted as expert in transforming public schools—have come and gone. And failed. Their net contribution has been reducing the student population by 75% and amassing incredible debt.

I'm tired of hearing that this is the fault of the only people still slogging along in the public sphere—teachers and school leaders—because they were promised a retirement plan in exchange for years of investment in the community....

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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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Public Education: An Investment in America

This morning I watched Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of NEA, present the keynote address to the 7000-plus delegates to the NEA Representative Assembly currently meeting in Orlando, Florida. In it she quoted from her "favorite poem" titled The New American Dream written by Carolyn Warner, former Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The New American Dream

Give me your hungry children, your sick children,
Your homeless and abused children.
Give me your children who need love
as badly as they need learning.
Give me your children who have talents and gifts and skills.
Give me your children who have none.
Give them all to me, in whatever form they come, and the people within these walls will help
Give you the doctors and the engineers and the scientists and the lawyers and the ministers and the teachers of tomorrow. We will give you the mothers and the fathers, the thinkers and the builders, the artists and the dreamers.
We will give you the nation of tomorrow.
We will give you the future of America.
We will give you the American Dream.

Supporting our local, state and national public schools is an investment in our nation's future -- not an expense.

1. Spending on public education tends to decrease income inequality. This is even true when there are "adjustments made for other factors affecting income inequality."
2. Spending on public education decreases income inequality mostly by "contributing more to lower incomes than to higher incomes."
3. Public education expenditures also contribute to reductions in poverty rates. This is, of course, consistent with the finding that "increased public education expenditures decrease income inequality by increasing lower incomes."
4. "Greater income equality, increased lower incomes, and reduced poverty rates all lead to other non-economic social benefits, such as reduced crime rates and improvements in the quality of life." More specifically, "states with greater expenditures on public education seemed to have fewer incidences of property crime."

Public schools accept all children. Public school teachers teach all children. Public education works for everyone.

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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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Random Quotes - July 2015

VOTING

“Everybody Blogs. Nobody Reads.” True or False?

Elections matter.

From Diane Ravitch

If every teacher and principal voted, things would change faster. If every parent who wants a neighborhood public school voted, things would change even faster. We have the numbers, we have the power, we must use it to support democracy.

SPEAKING OUT

2013 Principal of the Year Resigns in Protest of NY State Education Reforms

Not every educator has the luxury of being able to quit their job and leave the system rather than participate in forced education "reform." Those who can, however, should stand up and speak out like Carol Burris.

From Carol Burris

I cannot be part of reforms that eat away at the moral fabric of our schools. I cannot be part of a system that puts test scores based on a set of flawed standards before the interests of the whole child.

PROFITABLE NON-PROFITS

Privatization Primer

Until there is adequate public oversight of charter schools there will be corruption and chaos. Public school systems run by publicly elected school boards are not perfect, but the right of the people to speak via the election process is a better safeguard than the unregulated "market."

From Peter Greene

It makes no difference whether the charters bill themselves as for-profit or non-profit. They are always profitable. Non-profits know many tricks for still turning a profit (eg, hiring themselves to run the school, or leasing the building back form themselves). A non-profit charter is just a for-profit charter with a money-laundering department.

POVERTY

Fear and Learning In America: Bad Data, Good Teachers, and the Attack on Public Education

We're still judging schools, teachers, and students by test scores. The so-called accountability is nothing more than an economic ranking system. Schools with lots of money, and the students and teachers who work in them, do well. Schools in high poverty neighborhoods, and the students and teachers who work in them, do poorly.

by John Kuhn

The school accountability competition wasn't really a contest at all. It was more like a children's tale, with schools starring as the Three Little Pigs and the test as the Big Bad Wolf. The schools that had bricks did well; the schools that had straw did poorly.

Poverty's enduring hold on school success

This quote refers to Illinois, but it is applicable to every state in the union. Test score data is an indication of the level of poverty. Despite school "reforms" like closings, charters, higher standards, evaluating teachers by student scores, and "better" tests, low scores still correlate with poverty.

From WBEZ Radio, 91.5, in Chicago.

...poverty remains a frustratingly accurate predictor of how well schools will perform. Schools full of middle-class kids rarely perform below average on state tests; schools made up of low-income kids rarely score above.

IGNORANCE AND DOUBLE STANDARDS

Appalled and Disheartened. Governor Christie, How Dare You?

From Sarah Mulhern Gross in the Reading Zone

Two quotes here. The first is from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie talking about public education. In the video embedded in this post Christie shows his massive ignorance of what teachers actually do and what schools are actually like. The vast majority of teachers work more than the 6 hours a day which Christie imagines. Christie also adds up all the time in which teachers are not in school and comes up with teachers being "off" four months a year. This assumption is faulty as well. Teachers work when students are not in school (see here and here). If Christie spent any time talking to teachers instead of just bullying them he would know this...

"It's the same as it was in the 1800's for God's sake...It's a row of desks facing forward to a black board or a white board...a person standing in the front of the room...talking to the people at the desks...

"And they do so from roughly 8:30 to roughly 2:30 or 3 o'clock, and they're off four months a year."

In her response, Sarah Mulhern Gross said...

You know where else I see those dreaded rows? In charter schools. In fact, I see that in your friend Eva Moskowitz’s Success charter schools, where students are routinely humiliated and the teacher turnover rate is astronomical. You know what I do not see in her charter schools? Students with disabilities and students with behavior issues. Charter schools like Success usually achieve their test scores because they do not serve our neediest populations, while our public schools do.

TEST SCORES VS. GRADES

Standardized tests versus grades

Krashen gives evidence (complete with references) that high school grades are a good predictor of college success. Where is the evidence that standardized tests predict success?

From Stephen Krashen

[There is] research evidence showing that high school grades in college prep courses are an excellent predictor of college success, and that standardized test scores (the SAT) do not provide much more information than grades alone.

FORCING FAILURE

U.S. DOE Continues to Force Test Failure on Children with Special Needs and ELL Students

The Democratic administration in Washington D.C. is no better than the previous Republican administration. The goal is to defund public education, make public schools look bad, and privatize.

From Nancy Bailey

It is amazing the lengths high ranking authorities at the U.S. Dept. of Education will continue to go to make public schools, teachers and their students look bad, all while they are breaking up special education and converting public schools into charters.

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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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