2014 Medley #18

ISTEP, Privatization,
Texas, NASA

ISTEP OBSESSION

Indiana's big education news this week has been the release of the 2014 ISTEP scores. No surprises here...

Carmel-Clay and Zionsville public school corporations (Free and Reduced lunch populations under 10% and LEP under 5%) scored the highest.

Indianapolis Public Schools (Free and Reduced over 80% and LEP over 10%) and Gary (Free and Reduced over 80%) didn't fare so well.

The articles below (and most of the others I've seen) focus on the test scores, old standards, new standards, higher scores, lower scores, charter school scores, private school scores, and all are written with the underlining assumption that standardized tests are adequate measures of student achievement. They equate learning with test scores.

The insane focus on standardized test scores in the U.S. hasn't changed a bit since President Bush II signed No Child Left Behind into law surrounded by smiling suits filled with both Democrats and Republicans -- but no teachers.

In 2002 Alfie Kohn wrote about the mind-numbing, child-punishing testing regimen which permeates American education...

Standardized Testing: Separating Wheat Children from Chaff Children

Of all the chasms that separate one world from another, none is greater than the gap between the people who make policy and the people who suffer the consequences. There are those who reside comfortably on Mount Olympus, issuing edicts and rhetoric, and then there are those down on the ground who come to know the concrete reality behind the words...it’s the difference between important grown-ups who piously exhort us to hold our educational system “accountable” and a nine-year-old who has come to detest school because the days are now full of practice tests in place of projects and puzzles. Up there: people pounding the pulpits about the need for World-Class Standards. Down here: little kids weeping, big kids denied diplomas on the basis of a single exam score, wonderful teachers reduced to poring over the want ads...

And once you realize that the tests are unreliable indicators of quality, then what possible reason would there be to subject kids – usually African American and Latino kids -- to those mind-numbing, spirit-killing, regimented instructional programs that were designed principally to raise test scores? If your only argument in favor of such a program is that it improves results on deeply flawed tests, you haven’t offered any real argument at all. Knock out the artificial supports propping up “Success for All,” “Open Court,” “Reading Mastery,” and other prefabricated exercises in drilling kids to produce right answers (often without any understanding), and these programs will then collapse of their own dead weight.

ISTEP scores released, final year for old test

Carmel-Clay Schools once again scored the highest among school corporations...

Indianapolis Public Schools...51.6% of students passed both portions of the test

State releases ISTEP-Plus scores

The scores at EdisonLearning's Gary Roosevelt continue to falter. EdisonLearning is a private management company appointed by the state to operate the high school. The Indiana Department of Education graded the school an F in 2013.

IDOE releases 2013-14 ISTEP results

ISTEPs bring 'mixed bag' for Ind. charter schools

Carmel, Zionsville top Indiana's ISTEP scores

Middle schools at center of IPS testing woes


PRIVATIZATION

Privatization Watch is a great blog to watch. Public education isn't the only target of privatizers.

Here are some items from the last few weeks of Privatization Watch...

Fixing something that isn't working right makes sense. If public schools are "broken" (an assumption which I don't believe is true to the extent that privatizers do), then they should be fixed...not closed or sold to private corporations.

Rather than privatize, fix public schools

The solution should not be to outsource our children's education to institutions that care more about the bottom line or resist accountability. The solution should be to address and fix our problems, many of which were created by individuals and politicians who seek to privatize our schools and profit off our children.

Defend public schools.

The Public School Counterinsurgency Field Manual

A public school defender's tactics should certainly include conventional weapons, such as union organizing, protests, civil disobedience, legislative, electoral and judicial processes. But conventional weaponry alone cannot beat back an insurgency. School-based educators especially must focus on non-combative, ally-building approaches: tactics that foster personal connections between the local populous and their public schools.

Hedge fund managers, corporate shills, ALEC, and other private sources don't want the public to know that they are fostering the destruction of America's public education. "Corporations are people, too, my friends" is making it easy for billionaires and tax-freeloading corporations to buy up America's infrastructure.

Campbell Brown Won’t Say Who Is Funding Her School Privatizing Group

Using Brown’s logic no political contributions should be made public for fear that people will be criticized for funding candidates and initiatives others find objectionable. The rich and powerful should be able to buy elections and candidates freely – that’s none of the public’s business.

Rarely is the backwardness and venality of the movement to privatize public education made so obvious.

Private companies running charter schools is wrong. The idea behind public schools and public school boards is that public accountability is important. Luckily this group is being investigated.

FBI raided local charter school

FBI agents raided a Bond Hill charter school in June as part of an ongoing federal investigation into whether Horizon Science Academy Cincinnati, its sister schools in Ohio and two other states, and its management company outside Chicago had improper relationships with several technology vendors.

TEXAS TEXTBOOKS c. 2002

Textbook publishers don't publish different books for every state. Instead, they focus on the states with the largest markets and publish books that will sell there. Texas is one of the nation's biggest markets and the right wing faction of the state school board always makes it difficult for the rest of us.

In 2002, these folks decided that a free, public education is an entitlement, and is therefore unacceptable. One wonders if these folks want to start charging admission to public parks or libraries. The rabid anti-taxers don't believe that government has any purpose whatsoever...It's a selfish, anti-community attitude. According to them we're not "all in this together." Instead, it's "every man for himself." The social studies text books are up for revision this year. I don't doubt that the same sort of lunacy will prevail (Think I'm wrong? Take a gander at the Texas GOP platform for this year).

Ten Outrageous Changes Publishers Agreed to Make to Texas Social Studies Textbooks in 2002

A publisher agreed to delete “In the United States, everyone has a right to free public education” from a textbook after a critic argued that the sentence suggested education is an entitlement.

TIME TO DREAM AGAIN

Neil deGrasse Tyson...

Do You Know The Silly Reason Why America Put A Man On The Moon? Do You Know Why We Stopped Going?

"The NASA budget is four-tenths of one penny on a tax dollar." If I held up the tax dollar and I cut - horizontally into it - four tenths of one percent of it's width, it doesn't even get you into the ink. So I will not accept a statement that says, "we can't afford it."

Do you realize that the $850 billion dollar bank bailout - that sum of money is greater than the entire 50 year running budget of NASA? And so, when someone says, "We don't have enough money for this space probe." I'm asking, "No. It's not that you don't have enough money." It's that the distribution of money that you're spending is warped in some way that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.

The home of tomorrow. The city of tomorrow. The transportation of tomorrow. All that ended in the 1970's. After we stopped going to the Moon, it all ended - We stopped dreaming.

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Sign An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

Teacher Shortages? No Surprise.

BLAMING TEACHERS

"Reformers" love to talk about "failing schools." In America, "failing schools" are most often schools filled with students who were born into poverty.

Test Scores, Students and Learning: Our overall scores are unspectacular because of our high rate of child poverty. (WSJ)

When researchers control for the effect of poverty, American scores on international tests are at the top of the world. Our overall scores are unspectacular because of our high rate of child poverty. The U.S. has the second highest level of child poverty among all 34 economically advanced countries. In some big city public school districts, the poverty rate is over 80%. Poverty means poor nutrition, inadequate health care and lack of access to books, among other things. All of these profoundly impact school performance.

This is compelling evidence that the problem is poverty, not teachers, teacher unions or schools of education. This is also compelling evidence that we should be protecting students from the effects of poverty, not investing in the Common Core.
Stephen Krashen

(See also David Berliner Responds to Economists Who Discount Role of Child Poverty)

So-called "failing schools" are closed only to be replaced with charters (which also, inevitably "fail"). Their staffs are fired or moved elsewhere. The disruption of students' lives is the political fallout of federal, state and local governments' inability to deal with poverty in their communities, i.e. "failing municipalities" in a "failing society."

Rather than attack the root cause of low achievement -- poverty -- politicians, and policy makers attack the invisible bogeyman of "bad" teachers. Teachers unions are blamed. The adults who teach and live with the students every day are blamed for the effects of poverty on learning and achievement.

"Reformers" force schools to fail by requiring higher test scores while providing less support for teachers and students. The "failing school" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the vulture-capitalists move in to take over, grabbing public dollars with no public oversight while they replace public schools.

TEACHER SHORTAGES

The pressure on teachers to help students pass "the test" is enormous and throughout the country teacher shortages are increasing.

In Indianapolis, 200 educators have left since the end of the last school year. They have either retired, quit or moved to other school systems.

IPS board member: 'Exodus' of teachers

"A lot of it is teachers are not feeling respected, they're feeling like people don't think they know what they're doing," Cornett said.

Of course they're not feeling respected. Despite any rhetoric to the contrary, politicians, pundits and policy makers are consistent in blaming teachers for all the ills facing public schools.

States like Indiana have elevated "the test" to the point where it is all that matters in a teacher's professional life. Teachers are paid based on how well their students do on "the test." Teachers' contract renewals are based on how well their students do on "the test."

Of course "the test" doesn't measure everything of value, but that doesn't matter. Teachers are being told what to teach, how to teach, and when to teach and then are blamed when that doesn't work.

Benefits for teachers have been targeted...incentives for becoming and remaining a teacher are disappearing through legislation and lawsuits. The advantage of being a career teacher is disappearing. The reward for having years of experience is disappearing. There's only "the test." Further, the Indiana legislature and State School Board have lowered the qualifications for becoming an educator. (How does that improve teaching and learning?)

The problem is not unique to Indiana. More and more states have made teaching less desirable and are now facing shortages of experienced teachers especially in high poverty areas.

"Lack of support" like "lack of respect" is common in America's schools. Through our political leaders and media moguls, we have insulted teachers for nearly 3 decades by refusing to include teachers in policy decisions and discussions, instead choosing to blame teachers for "failing schools" and removing benefits for career teachers.

"Reformers" and their political friends are apparently satisfied with "ed-temps" who will work for a few years and then quit and move on to other careers. Constant churn. Lower salaries. No pay incentive for longevity. No pensions. No career educators.

Is this what we want for our children? Is this what high performing nations do to improve their education systems? Is this what's best for the future of our democracy?

Southern Indiana schools rush to replace departing faculty

"You try to hire the best, it's sort of like a chess game when It comes to staffing.” Superintendent of Clark County Schools Andy Melin said, “You're just constantly trying to figure out what the next move needs to be always making sure the best people are in the best spots for our kids.”

Finding the best comes with competition. First year Principal Sara Porter says she still has three positions to fill at Pleasant Ridge Elementary and class starts next Thursday.

NATIONWIDE

The Teacher Dropout Crisis

"Roughly half a million U.S. teachers either move or leave the profession each year," reads a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education, an advocacy group. And this kind of turnover comes at a steep cost, not only to students but to districts: up to $2.2 billion a year.

...Nearly 20 percent of teachers at high-poverty schools leave every year, a rate 50 percent higher than at more affluent schools. That's one of every five teachers, gone by next September.

...The report points to a variety of reasons for the turnover, including low salaries and a lack of support for many teachers. Which helps to explain why those most likely to quit are also the least experienced: 40 to 50 percent of new teachers leave within their first five years on the job.

Teachers in Demand Across the U.S.

• Arizona: Students head back to school and find teacher shortages

“We have a teacher shortage, and we’re trying to retain the best teachers we can get. And in order to do that, we have to have a competitive salary and give them working conditions that make them want to come back and teach,” said Chris Thomas with the Arizona School Boards Association.

• Florida: Approval of Critical Teacher Shortage Areas for 2014-15

• Illinois: Designated Teacher Shortage Areas

• Iowa: Teacher Shortage Areas

• Oklahoma: Oklahoma teacher need reaches crisis point

TEACHERS QUIT

“I’m Mad as Hell, and I’m Not Going to Take This Anymore!” The Real Reasons Why Teachers Stay or Quit the Profession

Make no mistake, if we don’t have a crisis with teaching already, we will have one in the next few years...you don’t get teachers to commit to reform, unless you make them a part of it. You also don’t endear them to you by blaming them in the media and constantly telling the American people they have failed, especially when they haven’t.

...our school district announces there will be fewer breaks and they will now ban recess so as to have more time for test prep, because they need to save the school from closing. PE is also on the chopping block. How do you respond, or do you say anything?

...You have angry parents who want you to quit teaching to the test, and they don’t want you administering the test to their child. They want you to stand up against testing. You don’t like the high-stakes tests either. How do you manage all the data collection when you want to be doing more meaningful work? How do you support parents and do what’s right for your students without losing your job?

...You have poor children in your class. Some you think might be homeless and others look sick. Your school lost its nurse a long time ago. Your school counselor is not readily available, if you have one. How do you help these children and also the child who has a severe toothache?

What defines an ‘ineffective’ teacher?

I am an effective teacher, despite what my principal, the observer from Central Office and the state may say. However, I am leaving a profession that ignores all data except test scores and very subjective evaluator scores.

~~~

Sign An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

Insanity is...

INSANITY

...doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The above quote, often attributed to Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin, or Mark Twain, is a good representation of the American educational practice of "retention in grade."

For the past 100 years the "common sense" concept of "retaining," "flunking," or "holding students back" has been a mainstay of American education. It seems to make sense that if a child doesn't achieve the required learning during his/her year in a particular grade, repeating the grade to reinforce the learning would help. Unfortunately for the child, the "common sense" is wrong and retention in grade usually doesn't work.

It may seem reasonable to give a child an extra year to "catch up," however, research has consistently shown that retention in grade is less effective than other forms of remediation.

Despite the research, however, the current trend is for states to require students to read "at grade level" by third grade or face retention. The mayoral controlled city school systems of Chicago and New York have also tried it and found that it didn't work. Florida does it. North Carolina does it. Indiana does it. It's also being used in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Arizona. (FYI see Chapter 7, Section 2 of the A-Plus Literacy Act by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC)

Rather than simply expecting schools to bring all children to a Lake Wobegon standard of "at grade level" by third grade, Americans, and their legislators must understand that not all children learn at the same rate. Rather than wasting money retaining children at third grade, states ought to invest in early childhood education, early interventions like Reading Recovery and smaller class sizes.

Holding Kids Back Doesn't Help Them by Deborah Stipek and Michael Lombardo

A majority of peer-reviewed studies over the past 30 years have demonstrated that holding students back yields little or no long-term academic benefits and can actually be harmful to students...

Moreover, there is compelling evidence that retention can reduce the probability of high school graduation...

Instead of giving children the same treatment that failed them the first time, alternative strategies provide different kinds of learning opportunities.

Interventions should also begin long before 3rd grade. Research has provided compelling evidence that investments in preschool can reduce retention and have positive long-term payoff for individuals and society, in contrast to the negative long-term effects of holding a student back later.

FLORIDA THINKS TWICE

Jeb Bush's reading rule loses ground

Not mentioned in the article below, but included in the one above, is the fact that the gains of "retention in grade" are lost in about 2 years, and by 8th grade Florida students are still below the national average in reading proficiency.

Many students could use the extra help: Nationally, 32 percent of fourth-graders were reading at below basic levels in 2013, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

But it’s unclear whether the retention policies work as intended.

One study from Florida shows that after two years of implementation, third-graders who were retained made significant reading gains relative to their socially promoted peers.

But other studies have shown that retention leads to loss of self-esteem, a decreased feeling of belonging at school and negative effects on college attendance. A Harvard University study found that any positive effects of retention fade out over time.

Data from Florida show that about a third of students held back for a year in 2003 never became proficient at reading. But a state official also noted that fewer students have been retained over the years because they’re getting more intensive instruction, thanks to the law.

A benefit of the Florida law that further denies the effectiveness of grade retention is

...retention plus being assigned to a highly effective teacher and receiving 90 minutes of additional literacy instruction per day is more effective than being promoted with no such guaranteed, high-dosage interventions.

The Marsico Institute for Early Learning and Literacy at the University of Denver reviewed the research on retention.

They concluded that Florida had improved test scores according to some studies specifically because...

Florida also has universal preschool, class size limits, and guaranteed high-quality literacy coaches, among other well-financed innovations.

In other words, when money is provided for proven interventions, student acheivement improves.

...since 2006 Florida has legislated a separate education fund guaranteed to be spent on literacy. This year that fund has $130M to distribute across its districts to be spent on highly qualified literacy coaches, intensive summer reading camps for lagging readers, among others. Although Florida’s unique combination of reforms and financial backing is likely largely responsible for some test score gains seen there, the effects of retention itself are not possible to isolate.

WRONG PRIORITIES

Until the United States finally decides to place a high priority on our early learners, especially those who are at risk due to poverty and English language learners, we'll have an economic and linguistic learning gap. Forced retention at third grade won't change that.

There are sufficient data to conclude that retention in the absence of well-funded, guaranteed, and high-dosage interventions is ineffective or harmful. This includes the most recent research using the most rigorous methods to control for pre-retention differences.

Forced retention in grade, the overuse and misuse of testing, closing schools instead of supporting them, charter schools, vouchers, invalid teacher evaluations, reducing teacher benefits, lowering requirements for educators -- None of those "reforms" will help children.

What will help is early and intensive research-based interventions for students at risk of failure.

Unfortunately, "reformers" haven't figured out how to make money from actually helping students.

~~~

Sign An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

The Case Against "reformers"

THE 'rEFORM' LIE

Three recent articles did a nice job of summarizing the problems facing public education in the U.S. They add to the already strong case against the so-called "reform" movement.

• The Vergara decision: The big picture by Stephen Krashen

• Five Facts for the Dangerously Deluded Education Reformers by Paul Buchheit

• To Close the Achievement Gap, We Need to Close the Teaching Gap by Linda Darling-Hammond

The ultimate goal of most "reformers" is, apparently, the privatization of America's public schools rather than improved student achievement. "reformers" use a variety of tools to achieve that goal...tools like union busting, overusing and misusing tests, transferring funds from public to private hands through vouchers, charters and virtual charter schools, political manipulations -- such as the recent takeover of the responsibilities of the Indiana school chief, Glenda Ritz (and her DOE) by the Indiana State Board of Education and Governor Pence (see HERE and HERE), funding cuts, school closings, deprofessionalizing the teaching profession by inserting untrained amateurs like Teach For America temps into public schools, general political propaganda, and buying state and federal politicians.

• They starve schools of needed resources, raise class sizes, eliminate libraries and the arts, deny that the poverty which runs rampant throughout our cities has any effect, and then blame students, parents and teachers when achievement is low.

• They close schools or turn them over to private corporations with no public oversight.

• The low achievement of our most economically deprived students is blamed on teachers...yet there's rarely a comment about teachers when it comes to the high achievement of our nation's wealthy students.

• They demand accountability of teachers and use student test scores to grade teachers and schools, but dismiss any accountability for the failure of the states and nation to deal with its huge child poverty levels and segregated schools.

• They want to lower the qualifications for entry into the teaching profession (In what universe does less training make better teachers?).

• They obsess over student achievement on tests rather than recognizing that a child is more than a test score.

• They blame unions, but don't explain why the presence or absence of teachers unions in a state has little effect on student achievement. (Hint: It's poverty)

• They want to deny employee protections to teachers, blame "bad teachers" for low achievement, and then (apparently) expect to have legions of expert teachers clamoring for low paying, high stress jobs.

The one thing that the "reformers" don't have is a research basis for the changes they champion.

IT'S POVERTY

Stephen Krashen...

The Vergara decision: The big picture

Our unspectacular international test scores are the result of poverty, not teaching quality: The US has the second highest level of child poverty among all 34 economically advanced countries (23%, compared to Finland’s 5%). When researchers control for the effect of poverty, American scores on international tests are at the top of the world.

There is no evidence that Teach for America teachers do better, no data supporting flipped classrooms, and no data showing that less experienced teachers are better. Evaluating teachers using test-score gains is inaccurate: Different tests produce different ratings, and a teacher’s ratings often vary from year to year.

Firing teachers based on unreliable measures, eliminating tenure (really due process), and devaluating experience will reduce the number of teachers. They will be replaced with unproven technology, a boondoggle for computer companies but a disaster for students.

Paul Buchheit continues the assault on the "reformers" misrepresentations...

Five Facts for the Dangerously Deluded Education Reformers

1. Privatization takes from the poor and gives to the rich.
...The salaries of eight executives of the K12 chain, which gets over 86 percent of its profits from the taxpayers, went from $10 million to over $21 million in one year...Head Start was recently hit with the worst cutbacks in its history...Spending on K-12 public school students fell in 2011 for the first time since the Census Bureau began keeping records over three decades ago.

2. Testing doesn’t work.
..."The tests that are typically used to measure performance in education fall short of providing a complete measure of desired educational outcomes in many ways"...With regard to teacher evaluation, the American Statistical Association reported that Value-Added Assessment Models "are generally based on standardized test scores, and do not directly measure potential teacher contributions toward other student outcomes."...

3. The arts make better scientists.
...A comprehensive study at Michigan State University found that "success in science is accompanied by developed ability in other fields such as the fine arts."...

4. Privatization means unequal opportunity for all.
...A National Education Policy Center study found that charter schools, in comparison to nearby public schools, were substantially more segregated by race, wealth, disabling condition, and language. The Civil Rights Project at UCLA shows that "segregated schools are systematically linked to unequal educational opportunities."...

5. Reformers are primarily business people, not educators.
...Billionaires like Bill Gates and Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch and the Walton family, who have little educational experience among them, and who have little accountability to the public, are promoting education reform with lots of standardized testing. As already noted, the writers of the Common Core standards included no early childhood educators or experienced classroom teachers. More than 500 early childhood educators signed a joint statement rejecting the standards as inappropriate for children in the early grades...[emphasis added]

People like Jeb Bush, Arne Duncan and Bill Gates, who don't know anything about education are having a huge impact on America's public schools. Unfortunately they rarely listen to, or purposely ignore, actual practitioners and researchers.

CLOSE THE GAPS

To Close the Achievement Gap, We Need to Close the Teaching Gap

Linda Darling-Hammond is an experienced educator with more than 40 years of experience in public education and educational research. She maintains that teachers in the U.S. are prevented from doing their jobs. High achieving nations treat teachers with more respect, allow teachers to do what they were trained to do, give teachers time to collaborate, and provide sufficient resources.

In addition, the fact that nearly a fourth of America's children live in poverty creates special difficulties that higher achieving nations don't have. Our high poverty children are more at risk because our social safety nets are less adequate than in other developed countries. We have more children without health care. We have more children living with food insecurity. We have more homeless children. We spend less money on our students who live in poverty than we do for our wealthy students. Teachers who work with high poverty students have enormous challenges to overcome and are given fewer resources.

...American teachers today work harder under much more challenging conditions than teachers elsewhere in the industrialized world. They also receive less useful feedback, less helpful professional development, and have less time to collaborate to improve their work. Not surprisingly, two-thirds feel their profession is not valued by society -- an indicator that OECD finds is ultimately related to student achievement...

...Address inequities that undermine learning: Every international indicator shows that the U.S. supports its children less well than do other developed countries, who offer universal health care and early childhood education, as well as income supports for families. Evidence is plentiful that when children are healthy and well-supported in learning in the early years and beyond, they achieve and graduate at higher rates. The latest PISA report also found that the most successful nations allocate proportionately more resources to the education of disadvantaged students, while the United States allocates less. It is time for the U.S. finally to equalize school funding, address childhood poverty as it successfully did during the 1970s, institute universal early care and learning programs, and provide the wraparound services -- health care, before- and after-school care, and social services -- that ensure children are supported to learn....

Value teaching and teacher learning: Countries where teachers believe their profession is valued show higher levels of student achievement....

Redesign schools to create time for collaboration: OECD studies show that higher-performing countries intentionally focus on creating teacher collaboration that results in more skillful teaching and strong student achievement. U.S. researchers have also found that school achievement is much stronger where teachers work in collaborative teams that plan and learn together....

Create meaningful teacher evaluations that foster improvement: All U.S. teachers stated that formal appraisal is used in their schools, based on classroom observations; feedback from parents, guardians, and students; and review of test information. This is not very different from the TALIS average. What is different is the nature of the feedback and its usefulness. American teachers found the feedback they received to be less useful for improving instruction than their peers elsewhere...

We cannot make major headway in raising student performance and closing the achievement gap until we make progress in closing the teaching gap. That means supporting children equitably outside as well as inside the classroom, creating a profession that is rewarding and well-supported, and designing schools that offer the conditions for both the student and teacher learning that will move American education forward.

We have lost our way as a society. We've lost the ability or the desire to do what's right for the children of our nation, and our nation is, and will be poorer for it. Susan Zimmerman, in Comprehension Going Forward, said it best.

"Somewhere along the line we've forgotten that education is not about getting this or that score on a test, but it is about enlarging hearts, minds, and spirits. It's about fulfilling human potential and unleashing human creativity. It's about helping children understand that the world is a place full of wonder, truly wonder-full. It's about giving children the tools they will need to participate in a complex global world where we can't imagine today what the next twenty years, let alone century, will bring."

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Sign An Education Declaration to Rebuild America

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~