Instead of Vouchers

Dennis Van Roekel, president of NEA, on PBS News Hour...

Instead [of vouchers], we ought to do what we know works. Take schools and invest in early childhood. Increase parental involvement, small class size, especially in high-poverty schools at the lower grades. Make sure that we have a well-trained, qualified and certified work force that is stable.

When we do that, children succeed. But we do not believe it is a solution to take a few out and leave the rest behind.

[UPDATE: Check out this letter to the editor...

Instead of trying to place children randomly into private school at the taxpayers’ expense, why not start at the core of the problem and help support our public schools – the schools that have been there since the beginning offering education, nutrition and support to every child no matter their gender, race, spoken language or family income level?

STACEY PATALITA Fort Wayne]

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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School Privatization 101

A Confederacy of Reformers

Crazy Crawfish provides a lesson in public school privatization. In each of the sections listed below, he explains how the school "reformers" are using their power, money and influence to privatize and destroy our public education system. He is specifically writing about Louisiana, but his comments are appropriate for many other places...

Intentionally Flawed Teacher Evaluation Systems...

Despite all these studies and findings, reformers and their allies still tout these kangaroo court evaluation systems as valid and necessary, and tie tenure and continuing employment and compensation to them.

Vouchers and Charter Schools are better for “Choice” although not a better choice...

Since they can no longer claim these schools are “better” by their own standards, they have shifted the argument away from quality to one of “freedom” allowing these schools empowers parents by providing them “choice.”

It’s Okay to segregate our schools by class, race, disability as long as we claim to be doing it “for the children”...

...you can create charter schools that through sheer coincidence only enroll white students in a majority minority district, you can split your school district into as many different school boards and zones until you get your preferred racial mix, you can refuse to hire Special education teachers to serve disabled students so they are forced to enroll somewhere else, you can banish all your low performing students or discipline problems to alternative schools...

Student data is a commodity that can be handed over to private entities as long as they claim it is for an educational purpose...

...there is no oversight as to how this data is used or protected, and no way to correct data that may be erroneous...

History and Science are negotiable and can be rewritten to suit conservative agendas...

Schools are teaching slavery was just a misunderstood part of our nation’s history, and not a very bad one.

Virtual Schools with virtually no attendance compliance, or any compliance, and universally poor track records for preparing students are exploding in every education market...

...Virtual school students do worse than their demographic equivalents in physical settings...

Teach for America has been converted into a temp teacher displacement and replacement organization...

Teach for America originally had a noble purpose but it has been corrupted by billionaires and special interests and serves as little more than a temp agency...

It’s better to close schools and spread the students around to higher performing schools to mask the problem....

Rather than trying to fix the schools which have poor students who are performing poorly, Reformers believe it’s better to close the doors and shove all those kids into higher performing schools, no matter how high the class size gets...

In closing he states...

...What I am seeing is a purposeful plot to destroy public schools, and to profit from the destruction. These folks say they are data conscious and want to rely on “data driven decisions” but if that were true the data already readily available shows that everything they are doing is having the opposite effect of what they are purporting to provide. There is too much coordination for this to be accidental, and they are too successful for me to believe they are simply not competent enough to understand the data that disproves everything they claim. These groups have gone out of their way to spin the data, falsify the data, or simply hide or destroy the data to prevent people from seeing what is going on. These groups are fully aware of what they are doing – destroying public education in our country. Some of them are doing it purely for profit driven motives, but there is more going on here.

The privatizers are pushing all across the country. They deny -- or refuse to acknowledge -- the crisis in poverty that is the real culprit in our educational achievement problems and blame a non-existent crisis in education.

NATIONWIDE
With Vouchers, States Shift Aid for Schools to Families

...critics warn that by drawing money away from public schools, such programs weaken a system left vulnerable after years of crippling state budget cuts — while showing little evidence that students actually benefit.

INDIANA

Indiana Legislators are poised to expand the state's voucher program. The privatizers no longer even pretend that it's about helping poor children get better schooling...since there's no evidence that private schools are better than public. It's about shifting money from public education to private and parochial schools. Indiana residents, take the time now to write your state senators. Urge them to vote NO on HB 1003, the voucher expansion bill.

Ind. school voucher ruling could influence others

"As State Superintendent, I will follow the court's ruling and faithfully administer Indiana's voucher program," [Ritz] said in a statement. "However, I personally believe that public dollars should go to public schools, and I encourage Hoosiers to send that message to their representatives in the Statehouse."

There is still some question about how popular the vouchers are in Indiana. Voters elected Ritz over former Republican Schools Superintendent Tony Bennett, long the state's most visible supporter of vouchers. But they also awarded a supermajority to House Republicans, who have pushed for a sweeping expansion of vouchers this year.

See also For Indiana Legislators, Some Choices Get More Respect

MAINE
Inflating schools' woes eases path to privatization

Instead of publicly elected school boards overseeing superintendents, principals and teachers, a system based on school choice puts public money in the hands of private school administrators, church groups and corporations that run charter schools, none of which is accountable to anyone but itself.

NORTH CAROLINA
North Carolina Considers ALEC Model Bill to Privatize Schools

Local school boards would be required to lease available buildings or land to a charter school for $1 per year unless they can demonstrate the lease is not economically or practically feasible or that the local board does not have adequate classroom space to meet its enrollment needs...

This is nothing more than a blatant, cynical attempt to re-segregate North Carolina's public schools while placing them under the oversight of corporate charter school operators, and the Koch's libertarian, dystopian fetish with destroying the country.

CHICAGO
Chicago's Unfair School Closings Will Gut Remaining Supports for Kids

"Nearly 90 percent of the students in the closing schools are black, though African Americans make up only about 40 percent of the district's entire student population." And second, "In the past, most of the closed schools have eventually become charter schools," and you have clues that begin to lead to the true endgame of school closings.

Charter schools use tax dollars, but are run privately and are not required to admit all students from the surrounding neighborhood.

Where will the kids end up? Kids who are African American or Latino, are low-income, and who have only attended low-performing schools may be less likely to meet a charter school's admissions criteria. Kenzo Shibata, social media director for the Chicago Teachers Union, explained in a recent radio interview that "One thing we know about the charter schools is they don't enroll students with special needs, they don't enroll students who are English language learners, so it creates another tier of education in the city which we don't need. We need to have fully funded public education for all students." This wave of school closings moves us in the opposite direction.

WASHINGTON D.C.
D.C. school facilities plan considers charters for the first time

The decision to avoid specifics is a sign that city officials are grappling with unanswered questions about how to plan for the coexistence of traditional and charter schools. The 2013 facilities plan is the first in the city’s history to consider charters, the taxpayer-funded, independently run public schools that have grown quickly in recent years and now enroll more than 40 percent of the city’s students.

MINNEAPOLIS
Education reform industry targets Twin Cities

The greatest threat of all is that charter schools are undermining the fundamental American principle that public schools should be governed by the communities they were built to serve. But one need only look at the Board of Directors of these various charter schools to see where education reform is taking us. Hiawatha Academies, for example, has a board of executives from major corporate entities such as United Health, Best Buy, Standard Health, and U.S. Bank. Similar evidence can be found with dozens of other charters. In some cases, the charter chain headquarters are not even located in Minnesota.

It is time for our elected leaders to put a stop to this attack on public education and re-dedicate themselves to rebuilding and renewing the public schools of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

NEW JERSEY
Governor Chris Christie Announces Privatizing Scheme For Camden City Schools

Governor Chris Christie has announced a state takeover of the Camden school system to force privatization programs. The privatization program had been stymied by residents and their local representatives who did not want to lose their public school system. Now privatization advocates have been able to go around local authorities and have the Governor hand them power.

Chris Christie was formerly a registered lobbyist for education privatization firm Edison Schools Inc. His current education commissioner, Chris Cerf, was previously President of Edison Schools Inc. at the time of Christie’s employment.

You might also be interested in these other sources of information about privatization:

• Privatization Watch

• HOW TO PRIVATIZE PUBLIC EDUCATION IN 12 EASY STEPS

• The Privatization of Public Schools

• Test Today, Privatize Tomorrow: Using Accountability to "Reform" Public Schools to Death

• A Look at Some of the Driving Forces behind the School Reform Movement and the Effort to Privatize Public Education

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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Indiana's Privatization Plan: Vouchers...continued

Last week I wrote about the voucher expansion bill in the Indiana General Assembly...I went to Indianapolis to lobby against expanding it. This week the Indiana Supreme Court unanimously upheld the current voucher plan...which was followed almost immediately by the Senate Education Committee passing the bill for expansion. The fight's not over yet...it still has to be passed by the entire General Assembly, but with the voucher-supporting-party holding supermajorities in both houses it looks like a sure thing.

It's not surprising at all. Of the three senators I talked to last week, none of them sent their children to public schools. The money supporting vouchers has a loud voice and is very powerful in this state...and the people voted for state senators and representatives who will support it as well. This is, once again, who we elected. Through our votes we chose to expand privatization in Indiana...and now we're getting what we chose.

Karen Francisco, the pro-public education blogger for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette wrote in her blog that the decision was not an endorsement of the voucher program by the voters because the court said that the actual value of the program is a legislative issue. The ruling by the court specifically states that it isn't endorsing the plan on educational grounds...only that it's not unconstitutional.

Vote on vouchers? Yes, please

Some voters might have been expressing an opinion of school choice when they voted to elect Glenda Ritz as superintendent of public instruction, of course. Her opponent was Tony Bennett, the incumbent superintendent who was the face of school choice in Indiana (and elsewhere) until he lost handily to Ritz.

It would be a stretch to say voters were casting ballots in support of school choice when they elected pro-voucher Gov. Mike Pence, because John Gregg and the Democratic Party failed to make vouchers an issue in the November gubernatorial election. Pence's campaign focused on jobs, not school choice.

Likewise, Republican candidates for the General Assembly were careful to downplay the issue, with many incumbents insisting they wanted to give the so-called education reform agenda a chance to prove its effectiveness before making any more changes. Many of those lawmakers – Reps. Kathy Heuer, Dan Leonard, Matt Lehman, to name a few – quickly reversed themselves once they were reelected, voting to expand the voucher program through House Bill 1003.

I agree that the voucher plan was not a big issue in any election other than Ritz's victory over Bennett. However, it's clear from Pence's campaign material that he favored vouchers. On his campaign web site Pence wrote,

Our strategies to achieve these goals will include efforts to improve freedom for schools and teachers, expand school choice, access to quality schools, and parent freedom, and improve school accountability for reading and math skill development. We also will continue to see that Indiana is on the cutting edge of charter school development, and to ensure that every high school graduate is college or career ready by increasing our efforts to bring career, technical and vocational education back to every high school in Indiana. [Emphasis added]

The Republican legislators who were elected were bound to follow suit. So, maybe it wasn't a conscious endorsement of the voucher program by the people...but it was an endorsement, nonetheless.

Constitutional? Yes, but...

...the lawsuit did not require defendants to prove school vouchers are good for Indiana children or taxpayers. That’s for lawmakers to determine before they vote to spend even more on the program.

“Now that the court has made the decision on the legal issues, it’s up to legislators to decide from a policy standpoint if the voucher program is effective,” said Terry Spradlin, director for education policy at Indiana University’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy. “For some kids it probably is, but we don’t know if that’s the case for all.”

The court has left the decision on the benefits of the program up to the legislature...a legislature which is overwhelmingly pro-privatization.

...and the goal is privatization. It's no longer just for helping poor kids leave their struggling schools (struggling because of poverty and lack of resources from the state). The expanded voucher plan now being considered in the General Assembly no longer can claim that it's goal is to help poor kids...or to save the state money. It's about moving funding and support from the public schools to private schools.

Further, is there anyone who doubts that, given a larger amount provided by the voucher, the cost for a private school education will increase accordingly?

Dan Carpenter: Public schools take blow from Indiana Supreme Court

Sold as a ticket out of “failing” schools for modest-income families, the program under House Bill 1003 no longer would require prior attendance in a public school for many children, including kindergartners and siblings of voucher recipients. Thus, public schools would lose state money preemptively; and they’d lose more every year, as the bill removes the current cap on the already-fast-growing number to be issued. Private school lobbyists, meanwhile, are clamoring for a higher stipend.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, who ran for election in opposition to vouchers, has asked the legislature to hold off on the huge expansion until the two-year-old program has been evaluated. But the Democrat has won little sympathy from the other party in her posture toward the brainchild of the man she defeated in November, Tony Bennett. Clearly, she views the “public” part of her title differently from her predecessor, an unabashed fan of private and parochial schools, which have turned out to be the beneficiaries of more than 90 percent of voucher money.

Why won't the forces of privatization wait for an evaluation of the current voucher plan? Because private schools don't do any better than public schools given similar students. To repeat, students attending private schools don't do better, as a group, than comparable students in public schools. Vouchers don't improve education. Waiting for an evaluation of the program would only reinforce that fact, and the privatizers don't want that to become common knowledge. See here, here, here, and here.

Diane Ravitch clears away the smoke...privatization is a benefit for people who want to discriminate...politically, economically, religiously and academically.

Indiana Voucher Decision Allows Public Funding to Schools That Discriminate

The schools getting the vouchers may require students to participate in religious exercise, and they typically do.

The schools getting vouchers may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, “But they are free to discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, test scores, IQ, family income, parental politics or just about any other criteria you can imagine.”

It is hard to square this decision with the language of the state constitution.

The radical choice ideologues in Indiana don’t like public education. Left in power, they will destroy it.

The students most in need will remain in the public schools, and the state, through the legislature, is willing to let them remain in need. One of Pence's proposals is to reward (with increased funding) "successful" schools (READ: higher income) and punish "failing" schools (READ: schools with high levels of poverty.

Voucher decision sad but no surprise

After this year, there will be no limit on the number of students who can participate. It’s open to children from middle-income families, not just poor families. And there’s no requirement that students first attend a low-performing public school in order to qualify.

As Indiana University School of Education school law expert Suzanne Eckes suggests, the program flies in the face of conceptions of freedom of religion and fair access that we’ve come to expect under the federal and state constitutions.

For example, Indiana’s law is unusual in that it lets parochial schools compel voucher students to take part in religious activities. “Interestingly, no other voucher program in the country includes this type of requirement,” Eckes says. And voucher schools get a pass from the usual state rules against discrimination. They can’t bar students because of “race, color or national origin.” But they are free to discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, test scores, IQ, family income, parental politics or just about any other criteria you can imagine...

...The court makes clear at the outset that it’s not endorsing vouchers as public policy. “Our individual policy preferences are not relevant,” it says. In other words, if we don’t like it, we should take it up with the legislature. Indeed we should.

The politicians, pundits and policy makers haven't been able to -- or haven't chosen to -- solve the problems of poverty, increased social stratification, and an increased income gap. The expanded voucher program will not solve this problem...nor will it help Indiana's children.

If you live in Indiana, contact your legislators HERE and urge them to vote against HB 1003, the bill to expand the state's voucher plan.

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

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2013 Medley #6

Economic Inequity, VAM, Evaluations,
Chicago, Profession of Education, ALEC

ECONOMIC INEQUITY

Teachers Make Handy Scapegoats, But Spiraling Inequality Is Really What Ails Our Education System

The achievement problems in the US are problems of economics, not education. The schools are not the cause...but a reflection of what is happening in the nation. The extreme -- and growing -- gap between the haves and the have-nots in America is reflected in its children and their classrooms. Until we begin to address poverty and its related societal problems, we won't solve the achievement gaps. Testing, charters*, vouchers, teacher evaluations, closing schools...none of those things will help neighborhoods struggling with unemployment, low wages, lack of health care, violence, stress, hunger and other life situations which are the result of poverty.

You get what you pay for...and we're not paying for the social safety nets our children need. The economic hardship so many in our nation face is our national selfishness in the form of tax cuts at work.

...the United States has more children living in poverty, by a long shot, than any other industrialized nation. Right now about one in four children are living in poverty. In most other industrialized nations we’re talking about well under 10 percent, because there’s so many more supports for housing, healthcare, employment, and so on.

With that very high poverty rate, our average scores on international tests look a little above the average in reading, about at the average in science and somewhat below the average in math, and a lot has been made out of that in the United States. But in fact, students in American schools where fewer than 10 percent of the students live in poverty actually are number one in the world in reading. Students in schools with up to 25 percent of kids living in poverty would rank number three in the world in reading, and even schools with as many as 50 percent of kids in poverty scored well above the averages in the OECD nations – which is mostly the European and some Asian nations. Our teachers are doing something very right in terms of educating kids to high levels in much more challenging circumstances than children face in other countries.

The Reformy Argument, And The Response

We continue to do what hasn't worked...our most vulnerable students are getting shuffled around like so many pieces on a chess board, while the legislators and billionaires protect their own children by selling off the public school system and deflecting money for public schools into the private sector.

My friends at NEIFPE and I spoke to three state senators last week...all of them support privatization...none of them sent their children to public schools.

We will never equalize educational outcomes until we provide a basic standard of living for every citizen of this country. We could rapidly implement plans to provide universal health care, create jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, make taxes truly progressive, and get monied interests out of politics and our media. So why don't we?

...There is no evidence that charter expansion, test-based teacher evaluation, vouchers, de-unionization, gutting tenure, merit pay, or ending seniority can be scaled up to provide meaningful improvements in student achievement.

It's really this simple...

VAM and EVALUATIONS

Now We Know Why Obama Doesn’t Understand VAM

For some numbers provide the answer to every question related to teaching children. Do you understand VAM? Why shouldn't we use student test scores to evaluate teachers? Here's a quality answer.

That’s right. Banker and former director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Obama administration Peter Orszag has written an enlightening piece for Bloomberg.com explaining that VAM really does work. According to Orszag, VAM can determine “which teachers are best.” Now, mind you, I’m no banker, but I would like to offer my thoughts on Orszag’s very positive article on the value of the value added.

...as an expert in statistics and as one who has written detailed accounts of the problems with VAM such as this discourse to Louisiana legislators, I did not (I could not) limit my discussion to only two flaws. VAM is replete with problems, not the least of which is the problem of data integrity and management of the so-called pilot studies purporting to support VAM. No study is ever better than the quality of its data. Neither will be any “testing” of teachers using VAM. Data collection for a high-stakes measurement situation must be flawless.

CHICAGO

Chicago closing 54 schools; union leader blasts ‘outrageous’ plan

While the mayor was on vacation the city announced it was closing 54 schools. These will, most likely, be replaced with charter and private school opportunities for students who can afford it. The others will have to get on city buses and pay for a trip to a school...because their local school within walking distance of their house, was closed.

Closing 50 of our neighborhood schools is outrageous and no society that claims to care anything about its children can sit back and allow this to happen to them. There is no way people of conscience will stand by and allow these people to shut down nearly a third of our school district without putting up a fight. Most of these campuses are in the black community. Since 2001 88% of students impacted by CPS school actions are African-American. And this is by design...

...The city has already raised CTA fares and now they expect parents to put their five-year-old on a crowded city bus in order for them to get to school, when they used to be able to walk to a school in their neighborhood. The way this is being done is an insult and it is disrespectful.

...School closings will not save money and taxpayers will not see cost benefits in two years. Why? Because vibrant school communities will be quickly transformed into abandoned buildings, neighborhood eyesores and public safety hazards.

STUPID QUOTE OF THE DAY

Chicago closing 54 schools; union leader blasts ‘outrageous’ plan

(same article as above)

What am I missing here? Valerie Strauss blogs about Karen Lewis's press conference about the school closings in Chicago. A comment from someone on 3/22/13 said the following...

2:03 AM EDT
Let's face it Karen Lewis, your schools are broken because your families are largely broken there. But keep voting for democrats, that'll solve the problem, not........

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Rahm Emanuel a Democrat? Aren't Dems at the federal level just as anxious to close schools and destroy public education as Republicans?

Other comments reflect the same lack of understanding, the same anger at teachers, the same disrespect for others. According to some of the commenters, gang and turf wars are the same as high school sports rivalries...it's the union's fault...teachers' make too much money...


A TEACHING CAREER

I Miss Teaching — A Late-Night Musing

There are still moments of joy in the classrooms I visit as a volunteer. The teachers I work for make it happen, but all over the country classrooms are focused on test-prep, scripted lessons, and a lack of curricular variety which threatens to kill the desire to learn for millions of our children. Discipline problems increase. Attendance decreases. This is not education.

I miss the feeling of knowing that I’m going to do something great today. I miss the feeling of watching middle school students glow with pride because they figured out how something works, or came up with a new way of doing something. I miss watching kids discover their world and learn how to interact with it effectively. Hell, I even miss bus duty.

But I’m not the only one. I’ve spoken to countless teachers–actual, working teachers–who miss it just as much as I do. There are so many ridiculous and meaningless mandates and policies that have completely strangled this profession. Teaching is supposed to be a journey, where you get to join several young people as they move through the complexities of the world, stepping in to help them correct the path or encourage them to keep moving. For many, though, it has become worse than just a job. It has become a painful spectatorship of the goals of the wealthy and the powerful.

A message to parents from your child’s teacher

We become teachers because we want to teach...not because we want to make a lot of money...not because it's easy (nearly 50% of all beginning teachers leave because it's not easy!), not because we get the summer's off, and not because we can't do anything else. By an overwhelming margin -- more than 75% nation-wide and more than 80% in Indiana -- people with children in public schools are satisfied with their children's teachers. Those parents need to join with us in fighting the privatization of public education.

This teacher makes a strong statement. Click the link above to read her letter to parents...or watch the video below.

I have chosen to devote the better part of what will be the years that make up my life to educating your child. I take it very seriously and I should; I am a stakeholder in your child’s future...

...how willing would you be to allow some other parent to take over this role for you –someone who claimed to know “better” than you about what was right for your child?

...that is what is happening in my classroom. And it isn’t because they know “better” than I do how to educate your child –the undertaking I have chosen to devote my life’s work to becoming better at doing. It certainly isn’t because they have spent months getting to know the individual you have raised in an effort to better understand what your student needs to thrive in a responsive learning environment. It has nothing to do with the relationship they have formed with your child in order to show respect and care for him/her as a person and as a learner. It doesn’t, for a second, reflect the passion I have for the subject I teach –passion that I pass on to your student in every way I can and at every chance I get.

It simply has to do with money.

...My life’s work. The countless hours I spend with your child presenting new material, creating on-going formative assessments that are authentic and based on your student’s individual needs at a given moment in time, the active learning and knowledge-construction happening in my classroom on a daily basis, the time I spend creating lessons which require students to build upon and re-evaluate prior knowledge and the work that reflects the relationship that I have worked diligently to foster with your student: is it worth putting all of this hard-won expertise on the back-burner so that someone can divert money intended for your child?

ALEC

Legislation from ALEC is popping up in states around the nation targeting collective bargaining and teacher rights, vouchers, charter schools, testing, and more. Go to ALECExposed.org

*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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