Public Education is a Public Responsibility

John Merrow's latest blog post is a review of Arne Duncan's new book, "How Schools Work."

My first thought about Duncan's book was how ironic it was that someone who had never attended a public school or worked in a public school, claimed to know how schools actually work. But that's something I've ranted about many times, and I'll try not to do it again in this post...

As I was reading I thought that Merrow's review was generally thoughtful and fair, but then I read the comments.

Blogger GF Brandenburg commented...

gfbrandenburg
August 15, 2018 at 1:42 pm

You didn’t really expect him to admit that all his efforts to improve education, USING HIS OWN YARDSTICKS, namely the NAEP, actually failed miserably, do you?

I draw an additional lesson: you should let neither professional athletes nor neophytes (ie neither Michelle Rhee’ nor her two husbands, nor Arne Duncan, nor Andre Agassi, nor Lebron James, nor Betsy DeVos) run education.

Merrow replied...

John Merrow
August 17, 2018 at 7:27 am

Public education is a public responsibility, an invaluable investment in our future and our present….End of story.

Am I wrong in thinking that Merrow's response seemed to imply that it's ok for non-education-professionals such as Rhee, DeVos, Gates, et al, to run schools, create and implement school policy, and make decisions affecting the 50 million public school children in the U. S.? Because, "Public education is a public responsibility, an invaluable investment in our future and our present..."

I agree that they have the "legal" right to do those things...but the "ethical" right, the "professional" right, the "educationally sound" right? Not so much.

Education is still something that most people think "anyone can do" since "we all went to school."

Why is education singled out as something "anyone can do?" Public Health is also a public responsibility, but we generally find health professionals making choices and policy in that area.

When has there ever been a Surgeon General who did not have some connection to a medical profession? (Answer: Never) When has there ever been an Attorney General who hadn't studied law? (Answer: Never) Yet only 3 of the eleven Secretaries of Education had degrees in education or teaching experience in K-12 education (Bell, Page, and King).

Unfortunately, the problems facing education are complicated and generally come from the outside such as the effects of poverty on children and their families and the inequity of funding. If Duncan, as a sociologist (Harvard, BA, 1987), had used his position to try to impact the social order that has led to one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world, that would have been different. But he didn't. He pushed policies that had a direct impact on how schools were run, how teachers were evaluated (junk science), and how tests were used (misused). Duncan, like most education "reformers" who are ignorant of what goes on inside a school, tried to affect the education of America's students by doing things to schools, rather than aiming at the out-of-school-factors.

Public education is a public responsibility, but that is not the end of the story. There can be no "race to the top" when kids, schools, and school systems don't all have the same starting point. We can't have "no child left behind" while children are still being left behind economically and socially. We will never be a nation where "every child succeeds" until we are a nation where every child is given a fair chance to succeed.

The achievement gap will continue to plague us until we can rid ourselves of the economics gap...and the racial gap. No amount of charter schools, vouchers, or the misuse of testing will change that.

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Back to School in America, 2018-2019 Indiana Edition

It's August and the back-to-school march has begun. In many cases, America's public school students are going to schools whose funding is at levels lower than a decade ago and whose teachers' chores have continued to expand. Indiana is one of those places.

It happens every year. The responsibilities of teachers and schools increase mostly from legislated mandates and "accountability."

Mr. Fitz, a teacher, author, and comic strip artist, listed his Top Ten Cognitive Dissonances That Give Teachers Headaches...things like,

Number 8: You should teach creatively, as long as you can be creative just like everybody else.

and

Number 5: You should promote love of learning for its own sake, but also push students to focus on getting grades, scoring well on tests, and collecting credits so they can get a diploma.

His number one cause of cognitive dissonance headaches is

You hear them say they want to hire and retain the best teachers, even as they create a system that drives the most passionate teachers out of the profession.

MORE WORK...

Increased responsibility -- often for things outside of a teacher's control -- lower salaries, lowered expectations of salary increases, less autonomy, insufficient building or classroom resources, lack of wraparound services and support, and larger class sizes, are only a few of the millions of tiny cuts contributing to a nation-wide teacher shortage.

Teachers are leaving the classroom...new teachers, experienced teachers. Here's what former teachers had to say about why they left teaching...from Florida...

I have become more and more disturbed by the misguided reforms taking place which are robbing my students of a developmentally appropriate education. Developmentally appropriate practice is the bedrock upon which early childhood education best practices are based, and has decades of empirical support behind it. However, the new reforms not only disregard this research, they are actively forcing teachers to engage in practices which are not only ineffective but actively harmful to child development and the learning process

...from here in Fort Wayne, IN

While [former Indiana Governor] Daniels promised that reform would bring good teachers higher pay, it never happened. Instead, great teachers perform unrealistic legislative mandates only to receive minuscule stipends. Years of experience? Higher education? Doesn’t matter. Since the teacher rubric model was implemented, teachers’ salaries stay around $35,000. Forever.

A teacher's paid work day is only 7 or 8 hours long...but for the vast majority of teachers, the workday doesn't begin when the students arrive, or end when they go home. Homework and after-hours work is part of everyday life for teachers. I have seen teachers stay at school 4 or 5 hours after the students leave, carry home hours of paperwork every night, or spend every weekend in their classroom, not trying to get ahead, but trying to keep up. I have been that teacher.

And each year the legislature adds something new...

Are Indiana school districts required to do too much?

"There's more and more and more put on the plate of the schools and eventually something has to give...said [TSC Superintendent Scott Hanback]...

"Our day hasn't increased, our school year hasn't increased but our requirements have increased," said [Lafayette School Corporation Superintendent Les Huddle].

Teachers are overworked, and with the stagnation of school funding, underpaid. Is there any wonder why there's a teacher shortage?

...AND LESS PAY

Legislators in our state will quickly claim that "52% of the budget goes towards education spending."

Unfortunately, that 52% includes public school losses due to corporate tax incentives, the constitutional requirement of a property tax cap, and money being diverted from public schools to private and charter schools.

Since its inception in 2011, Indiana's voucher program has accounted for a half billion dollars of public money being taken away from the state's public schools...quite a lot for a program that was supposed to save money for the state.

When the voucher plan was first implemented then-Governor Mitch Daniels said,

Every child deserves an equal chance to be all they can be. Regardless of race, regardless of income, every child and every parent deserves an equal chance...

By "equal chance" Daniels was implying that public schools were "failing" and private schools were better...a falsehood then, and now.

Study: Learning loss persists for voucher students

“Although school vouchers aim to provide greater educational opportunities for students, the goal of improving the academic performance of low-income students who use a voucher to move to a private school has not yet been realized in Indiana,” the authors write.

Much news coverage last year of the preliminary results focused on the finding that voucher students regained the learning they lost. But that finding disappeared, Waddington and Berends said, as they fine-tuned their statistical analysis in response to suggestions from reviewers and editors at the academic journal.

In addition, public funds are now being spent by schools which are allowed to discriminate in hiring, blurring the separation of church and state...

Roncalli High School defends why a counselor would lose job over same-sex marriage

"As role models for students, the personal conduct of every teacher, guidance counselor and administrator and staff member, both at school and away from school, must convey and be supportive of the teachings of the Catholic Church," Roncalli officials posted on the school's official Facebook page Sunday night.

Should a private church school be allowed to choose who their teachers are based on their own standards and beliefs? If so, should they be allowed to use public tax dollars to do it? If not, shouldn't the state have something to say about how its money is spent? Mixing public money with religious schools seems to be damaging to both the church and the state.

Trying to support three separate school systems, a public one, serving 90% of the students in the state, and two private school systems through vouchers and charters, has made it difficult for Indiana to support schools and pay teachers. Can we really afford that?

Only one school system is mandated by the state constitution...the one that serves all students who enter -- no exceptions.

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2018 Medley #20

Segregation, Testing Toddlers, VAM, Duncan Still Unqualified, Why Teachers Quit, Giving Kids Books, Charters

SCHOOL SEGREGATION

Why Is This Happening? Investigating school segregation in 2018 with Nikole Hannah-Jones: podcast and transcript

The U.S. gave up on integrattion. Public school systems are more segregated than when Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down sixty-four years ago. This is all complicated by our underfunding of public education, especially for black and brown students.

So where is the concept of the public good -- where is the concept of "promote the general welfare"?

Nikole Hannah-Jones is one of the few voices calling for Americans to teach their children...all their children...together.

...who the hell pays your social security one day?

Right, when we're a country that is very quickly going to be a minority white country and you're gonna continue to under-educate half of the population of your country, then what jobs are they gonna get that are gonna help pay for the infrastructure of this country, that are gonna help pay your social security.

TESTING

Toddlers and Preschool Testing? Don’t Steal the Joy of Reading!

From the makers of DIBELS comes a new test...this one for toddlers. The next step in educational malpractice.

A child three years old is still a toddler. What demands, if any, should be placed on a child this young when it comes to learning to read? Will it harm their chances of enjoying reading in the future? This is what we should ask when it comes to the new PELI testing.

The same creators of DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Literacy Skills), the controversial assessment started with the controversial program Reading First, following the recommendations of the controversial National Reading Panel, now have reading assessment for children as young as three years old.

DIBELS uses nonsense syllables which might not mean anything to a child. There are other problems with the assessment according to reading expert Ken Goodman who edited Examining DIBELS: What it is What it Does.

Top 10 Reasons You Can’t Fairly Evaluate Teachers on Student Test Scores

Using student test scores to evaluate teachers isn't appropriate, yet we still do it. There's no rational reason for continuing a practice that even the American Statistical Association says is statistically unreliable and invalid. This ignorant use of numbers is just another example of America's anti-science and anti-intellectualism.

Steven Singer lists 10 reasons why VAM is junk science...

2) You can’t assess teachers on tests that were made to assess students.

This violates fundamental principles of both statistics and assessment. If you make a test to assess A, you can’t use it to assess B. That’s why many researchers have labeled the process “junk science” – most notably the American Statistical Association in 2014. Put simply, the standardized tests on which VAM estimates are based have always been, and continue to be, developed to assess student achievement and not growth in student achievement nor growth in teacher effectiveness. The tests on which VAM estimates are based were never designed to estimate teachers’ effects. Doing otherwise is like assuming all healthy people go to the best doctors and all sick people go to the bad ones. If I fail a dental screening because I have cavities, that doesn’t mean my dentist is bad at his job. It means I need to brush more and lay off the sugary snacks.

Former Education Secretary Arne Duncan says U.S. education system "not top 10 in anything"

I agreed with some of what Duncan had to say in his interview on Face the Nation. Unfortunately, when he had the chance to change things he made them worse.

In 2015 I wrote,

Look what we got...Arne Duncan -- who never set foot in a public school as either a student or a teacher -- and Race to the Top which doubled down on No Child Left Behind's labeling of low test takers as losers. Arne Duncan, who cheered when an entire school full of teachers in Rhode Island were fired because the school was "low achieving" (aka filled with high poverty students). Arne Duncan, who manipulated federal dollars meant for low income students so that it became a contest to see which states could raise the caps on Charters fast enough and evaluate teachers based on test scores.

It's the ultimate of ironies that this man wrote a book called "How Schools Work."

"We say we value education, but we never vote on education. We never hold politicians accountable — local, state or national level — for getting better results," Duncan, the education secretary under President Obama, said on "Face the Nation" on Sunday. He added that the "toughest lie" for him personally is that "we say we value kids, and we've raised a generation of young people, teens, who have been raised on mass shootings and gun violence, and that simply doesn't happen in other nations."

"I don't look at what people say. I look at their actions, their policies. I look at their budgets. Our values don't reflect that we care about education or we care about teachers or that we truly care about keeping our children safe and free of fear," Duncan said.

WHY TEACHERS QUIT

Brittani Pollock: "I Left Teaching. I Had To."

Here is yet another story about a teacher who left teaching. In this case it's because of lack of funding in poorly funded Oklahoma. Americans are so intent on paying no taxes that we're sabatoging our future.

I'm donating my blog today to a former student, now friend, Brittani. She was my student and an officer in my club, Teen Volunteers, at Norman North. I always knew she wanted to be a teacher, you could see her deep love of children when she volunteered. I watched her get her teaching degree and watched as she began what we both thought would be a long career in the classroom. I planned to watch her become a National Board Certified Teacher. Things did not work out the way we hoped. And my heart is broken for every student who will never know Miss Pollock's love.

GIVE KIDS BOOKS

Dolly Parton's literacy program donates its 100 millionth book to Library of Congress

Before LeBron James, there was Dolly Parton. She started the Imagination Library in 1995. From the Imagination Library web site...

...a book gifting program that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth until they begin school, no matter their family’s income.

After launching in 1995, the program grew quickly. First books were only distributed to children living in Sevier County, Tennessee where Dolly grew up. It became such a success that in 2000 a national replication effort was underway. By 2003, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library had mailed one million books. It would prove to be the first of many millions of books sent to children around the world.

Earlier this year the Imagination Library sent out its 100 millionth book.

Alongside Carla Hayden, who heads the Library of Congress, the iconic country singer dedicated the 100 millionth book from her Imagination Library to the research library. Through the nonprofit, she has been donating millions of books to children for more than 20 years.

...as of August 1, 2018

The 4th Annual National Give-A-Kid-A-Book Day

Speaking of giving kids books, last July 6 was the fourth annual Give-A-Kid-A-Book day. Did you remember? Russ Walsh reminds us every year.

It's not too late...give-a-kid-a-book today.

Literacy research has shown that the single best way to combat summer reading loss is to get books in kids hands. One way to do this is to give children books.

Participation is easy. All you need to do to is find a child and give that child a book. The child could be your own, a neighbor's child, a student, a grandchild, one of your own kid's friends, children in a homeless shelter. Just give the child a book and say, "I thought you might enjoy this." Some participants like to include a lollipop or other small sweet treat to send the message, "Reading is Sweet!", but the most important thing is to give a kid book.

CHARTERS

In the Public Interest’s weekly privatization report

In the Public Interest posts a weekly privatization report. The reports cover more than just the privatization of public schools. Here is just one of eleven different reports about charter schools from this week's report.

You might also be interested in taking a look at Breaking Point: The Cost of Charter Schools for Public School Districts.

29) Pennsylvania Just a few weeks before the start of the new school year, Wonderland Charter School in Ferguson Township is closing its doors, sending students and parents scrambling after they received email notification. “During the charter review, several people associated with Wonderland, including board members, teachers and parents, informed the board of directors of their concerns with the charter: ‘long-standing, calculated, inappropriate, and unlawful practices with respect to students with special needs,’ according to a letter to the board from Superintendent Bob O’Donnell.”

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2018 Medley #19: LeBron James and the Promise of Public Schools

LeBron James, Public Education,
Public School Funding.

INVEST IN PUBLIC EDUCATION AS IF THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT

The multimillion-dollar school: Support and resources pour into LeBron’s I Promise School opening Monday

LeBron James is a millionaire...but unlike others among the super-rich who stick their wallets into America's education infrastructure, The LeBron James Family Foundation, along with community partners, is helping to fund a public school run by a public school system, and staffed with unionized public school teachers. The taxpayers are paying for the school, teachers, and the usual expenses just like they do for all public schools, while the Foundation and its partners are providing funds for building renovations, wraparound services, and other extras.

This kind of investment is what all our children need and deserve. The Finns, when they decided to improve their schools, invested in education as if their future as a nation depended on it. We should do the same. This article describes the benefits provided by an outpouring of community help...volunteers and local businesses. This should be the design for all local public schools...a community effort for the community's (in this case, the larger community) children.

What does it take to get some of education’s best practices into one school and off the ground?

For the I Promise School, it’s taken one superstar athlete, one force of a foundation, one willing school district, one traveling food truck and at least 35 other community partners that provide an army of volunteers — and millions of dollars in funding.

And that’s just the beginning.

A kid had to grow up and dunk a million basketballs to provide his community with basic services.

That should bother you.

— Ella Septima-Hamer (@Jbrous14) August 1, 2018

Props to LeBron James and his new Akron public school — but what about the other kids?

The effort going into the I Promise School reflects the understanding that a community's children are the community's future. Public schools provide continuity and stability which privatization does not. When a community invests in their public schools they are building a foundation for the future, not lining the pockets of privatizers.

Why is it that we are only able to provide this type of program for children when there's a wealthy individual behind it? LeBron James and other donors for the I Promise School have stepped forward to help the most at-risk students in Akron, but what about the other students in Akron? What about students in Chicago, or New York, or Oakland?

Our children should be our highest priority -- all of them. As Jersey Jazzman asked (see below), "Why do we give disadvantaged children what they need only when an exceptionally generous celebrity leads the way?"

...James’s focus on building a school within a traditional public district suggests he understands the importance of the traditional public education system in the United States, which some argue is the country’s most important civic institution and which is under assault from school “reformers” who want to privatize it.

Still, the fact that this school opened only because of the good graces of a very wealthy, civic-minded athlete underscores the continuing problem with education funding in this country. And it highlights the push for school “choice” that has Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s education secretary, as its chief advocate.

.@KingJames’s new school looks extraordinary: https://t.co/EYmTUv4yId But why doesn’t EVERY child have a neighborhood school like this? Why do we give disadvantaged children what they need only when an exceptionally generous celebrity leads the way?

— Jersey Jazzman (@jerseyjazzman) July 30, 2018

LeBron’s Education Promise Needs to Become This Country’s Promise

All public schools...all of them. [empasis added]

A school funded by LeBron James in Akron, Ohio, is a beautiful example of what all our public education should look like.

SUPPORT PUBLIC SCHOOLS

LeBron James might not know about this latest study showing that private schools are no better than public schools. He might not have read Steven Singer's blog post...

Wealth – Not Enrollment in Private School – Increases Student Achievement, According to New Study.

Instead of spending tax-payers' money to support private and religious schools we should make sure that all of our public schools are fully resourced and are responsive to the needs of the students who attend.

A new peer-reviewed study from Professors Richard C. Pianta and Arya Ansari of the University of Virginia found that once you take family income out of the equation, there are absolutely zero benefits of going to a private school. The majority of the advantage comes from simply having money and all that comes with it – physical, emotional, and mental well-being, living in a stable and secure environment, knowing where your next meal will come from, etc.

The study published in July 2018 attempts to correct for selection bias – the factors that contribute to a student choosing private school rather than the benefits of the school, itself.

No, private schools aren’t better at educating kids than public schools. Why this new study matters.

It's encouraging that James understands that public schools serve communities well. Public schools provide stability for children and, when well resourced, provide their students with the best education America has to offer.

Despite evidence showing otherwise, it remains conventional wisdom in many parts of the education world that private schools do a better job of educating students, with superior standardized test scores and outcomes. It is one of the claims that some supporters of school choice make in arguing that the public should pay for private school education.

The only problem? It isn’t true, a new study confirms.

A Decade of Neglect: Public Education Funding in the Aftermath of the Great Recession

"Why do we give disadvantaged children what they need only when an exceptionally generous celebrity leads the way?" Because we still haven't committed to giving our children the resources they need to secure their...and our...future. Our leaders are so hell-bent on starving the government of tax revenue, that they are starving our future.

Instead of investing in our children we're stripping public education of needed funds.

...this analysis will show how policies of austerity have had a negative impact on education and have not produced the promised boost in economic growth.

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