tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57752736377285317422024-03-19T05:18:28.682-07:00blog islandAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.comBlogger239125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-44918103567341755982012-11-15T14:49:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:49.964-08:00Economists says smaller classes and higher teacher salary make a difference. Teachers say duh!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From the Dallas Morning News, by Terrence Stutz<br /><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em;">Larger classes typically trigger higher dropout rates and wind up costing more in the long run with less educated workers who pay less in taxes, an expert witness in the Texas school finance trial said Wednesday.</span><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">The testimony comes as school districts across the state continue to increase class sizes to make ends meet.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">Clive Belfield, an economist at Queens College in New York, said there are several steps school districts can take to increase their graduation rates, but most involve spending more money, and there has been resistance to funding increases in Texas and other states.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">Over the long term, he said, raising teacher pay, reducing class sizes and funding other improvements has a direct impact on how many students will graduate from high school — and he offered several examples of the return Texas could expect if it were to finance such upgrades.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">In class size, for example, Belfield said significant class size reductions in kindergarten through third grade — similar to those in Tennessee and other states — could increase the graduation rate by 11 percent.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">“It is a very popular policy from the teacher perspective, but unfortunately it is a costly intervention,” he said. Many states don’t want to make such an investment, he added, even though it is in their best interest for more to graduate.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">“In a class of 15 students, the teacher can spend more time with struggling students. With a class size of 30, a student who is having difficulty is more likely to be left behind,” he said, pointing out those students are more likely to eventually drop out.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">His testimony came as new figures from the Texas Education Agency indicated that a large number of elementary classes will again exceed the 22-pupil limit for kindergarten through fourth grade this year.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">Already nearly 5,500 classes at about 1,000 campuses have been excused from the 22-pupil limit as districts try to offset the massive funding reductions approved by the Legislature last year. In all, 170 districts have obtained waivers from the state allowing them to exceed the limit, with most citing financial hardship because of their funding cuts.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">Belfield, an expert witness for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, also said raising teacher salaries has a positive effect on high school graduation rates. His analysis indicated that if Texas raised average teacher pay by 10 percent, it would increase the graduation rate by 5 percent.</div><div _idv_element_hash="7631152" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">He cited two immediate benefits — veteran teachers would be more likely to stay in their jobs and the applicant pool of teachers for vacant jobs would be larger, with more graduates from elite colleges.</div><div _idv_element_hash="7631152" style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20121114-larger-classes-mean-more-dropouts-economist-testifies-in-texas-school-finance-trial.ece</span></span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-4273288442851148232012-11-15T10:26:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:49.974-08:00Study says Florida public schools do better than its charters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From State Impact, by Gina Jordan<br /><br />While charter schools are an increasingly popular option for Florida students, a University of Central Florida researcher says they don’t perform as well as district schools.<br /><br />Dr. Stanley Smith, a professor at the University of Central Florida’s business school, analyzed school grades of Florida elementary schools last summer, examining the effect of poverty and minority status on those grades.<br /><br />Smith found that “when the poverty and minority characteristics of the student population are controlled, the average charter school performs significantly lower than the average traditional public school.”<br /><br />Smith used complicated formulas (see documents) to conclude that:<br /><br />The average charter school is doing about the same as the non-charter school when no adjustments are made for poverty and minority statuses. When the adjusted scores are considered, the average charter school performs significantly worse than the average non-charter school.<br /><br />These results call into question the emphasis by state education leaders — particularly Republicans — on charter schools, Smith said.<br /><br />“Although charter schools may be cheaper for the state to fund, the adjusted scores suggest that Florida is also getting a lower return on these schools,” Smith said. “Is the lower average return on these schools worth the lower cost?”<br /><br />According to the Center on Reinventing Public Education, “charter schools offer the potential to create high-performing public schools in districts typically plagued by poor student outcomes…To know whether charter schools are fulfilling their mission, we need rigorous evaluation of their performance, costs, and ability to address the unique needs of disadvantaged students.”<br /><br />Charter schools can add requirements for their students — such as additional tutoring — to address problem areas such as math or reading.<br /><br />A StateImpact Florida/Miami Herald investigation previously found that most charter schools don’t serve severely disabled students.<br /><br />Dr. Smith says his findings do not suggest that all charters perform worse than traditional schools, but for now, he does think parents should take more care when enrolling kids in charters. Charter schools were more likely to earn an ‘A’ on state report cards last year, but also more likely to earn an ‘F’ as well.<br /><br /><a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2012/11/15/researcher-florida-district-schools-outperform-charter-schools-on-average/">http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2012/11/15/researcher-florida-district-schools-outperform-charter-schools-on-average/</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-47829484494502048382012-11-15T03:09:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:49.982-08:00Sweeping generalizations and false assumptions about teachers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From the Washington Post's Answer Sheet, <span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">By Carol Burris</span><br /><div _idv_element_hash="112233552" class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">As a high school principal, it is my job to<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/new-teacher-evaluations-start-to-hurt-students/2012/09/29/f6d1b038-0aa6-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> evaluate teachers</a>. I take this responsibility very seriously — it helps ensure that our students receive the rich opportunities to learn that they deserve. With strong teachers, evaluation may entail reaffirming good practice, supporting innovative practice and facilitating ways for them to share their expertise with their colleagues. For novices or those who struggle, we work to improve their practice and, when necessary, to counsel them out or let them go.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"> It is because instruction is so important that the sweeping generalizations and false assumptions that have fueled recent teacher evaluation policies are of such concern to teachers and school leaders alike.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>The waves of misinformation about evaluation undermine confidence in our schools and result in “solutions” based on opinion and gut-level hunches, not research evidence. The recent<a href="http://www.kappanmagazine.org/content/94/3/4.abstract" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Phi Delta Kappan<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></em> opinion piece</a>, entitled “Million Dollar Baby,” is an example of the misguided critiques that appear all too often.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Let me begin by saying that I have always been a fan of the Kappan<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></em>, which skillfully takes scholarly research and makes it accessible to educators who do not have time to pore over academic journals. Despite that fine track record, the generalizations that form the argument in this month’s editor’s note cannot go unaddressed.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>It is time to get the record straight and address three common fallacies that dominate the new rhetoric on teacher evaluation:</div><div class="ListParagraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;"> <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></em><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Every former teacher evaluation system was the same and that unitary system was terrible</strong><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.</strong> To quote from the opinion piece, “Unfortunately educators must bear the bulk of the blame for allowing such a lousy system to exist.” In reality, there was never one evaluation system nor was every system “lousy.” Rather, each school district has had its own system of teacher evaluation, and some of those have been better than others. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we don’t have substantial room for improvement. But it does mean that it’s ridiculous to start a reform discussion with the contention that all districts should abandon their evaluation system regardless of its track record. I would wager, for instance, that Kappan’s</span></em><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> editor would agree that th<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/education/06oneducation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">e Montgomery County Maryland School System has</a> a nationally acclaimed system, and that Cincinnati Schools<a href="http://educationnext.org/evaluating-teacher-effectiveness/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">had a system</a>, before Race to the Top, that has been shown to not only improve the craft of teachers but to increase student achievement. Neither system incorporated test scores. In the small districts on Long Island, most of us did an excellent job evaluating teachers—dismissing probationers who do not merit tenure, helping teachers continue to develop, working with and counseling those who needed to improve or to leave the profession, and building on the strength of even our most expert practitioners.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Among Long Island principals, you will find few fans of New York State’s new evaluation systems, based on APPR.</span></em></div><div class="ListParagraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;"> <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> 2 2. <strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></strong></span></em><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tenure is the problem. It is a job for life and it is unique to teaching. </strong><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kappan</span></em><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> editorial states that tenure is one of the “unique privileges that teachers enjoy.” But in truth due process before dismissal (tenure) is <strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">not unique</strong> to teaching. In fact, it is more difficult for a principal to dismiss a custodian due to civil service protection than it is to dismiss a teacher. <a href="http://www.mrsc.org/subjects/personnel/civserv.aspx" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Civil servants enjoy</a> seniority rights, probation periods, salary schedules, and due process rights for dismissal just like teachers. Civil servants, who are broadly defined as those who work for government, include librarians, police officers, firefighters, transit workers,<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>secretaries, and accountants.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Due process should not be understood or practiced as a “job for life,” but it should remove the threat of political or arbitrary dismissals.</span></em></div><div class="ListParagraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There are excellent reasons for such protections. The civil service was established in the late 1800s because prior to its establishment, government jobs were given to political supporters as spoils. The protections were put into place to make sure that public employees were hired on merit and could not be dismissed on the whims of the incoming administration. This remains a concern. Public schools are run by politicians—in some cases by mayors, in other cases by elected boards of education.</span></em></div><div class="ListParagraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As an alternative to tenure, the Kappan</span></em><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> editorial suggests that teachers “should receive a contract for a limited period of time, say three or five years”.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Although this may sound reasonable, consider the clear consequences. Without the protection of tenure, educators could be dismissed for not pleasing the interests of powerful parents. They could be dismissed in order to bring in friends and relatives of newly elected mayors or board members.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Teachers could be pressured to pass students who did not deserve to pass a class or be pressured to not discipline a student when warranted. Presently, there is one person in every district who works on a renewable contract: the superintendent. Nationally, the average time that a superintendent stays in a district is seven years. For an urban superintendent it is <a href="http://www.changinggears.info/2011/05/05/high-turnover-in-area-school-superintendents/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">fewer than three years</a>. And the constant turnover of superintendents does not serve students or schools well.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Tenure promotes stability and community in our schools.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Teacher turnover, even when it is the less effective teachers who leave, <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2012/03/when_teachers_leave_schools_ov.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">has a negative effec</a>t on student achievement. Likewise it has been<a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/03/02/23principals.h31.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> found that churn in the principalship</a> is not good for schools<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span> Such instability does not<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>promote excellence and the courage to make the tough decisions that are not politically popular but serve the best interests of students. Again, this isn’t an argument against pursuing ways to streamline the dismissal process; it’s an argument against poorly thought through changes.</span></em></div><div class="ListParagraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; text-indent: -0.25in; vertical-align: baseline;"> <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">3.</span></strong><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></em><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">3.<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/student-video-how-high-stakes-tests-affect-kids/2012/05/09/gIQAsKt6DU_blog.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> High-stakes evaluations</a> are fine as long as they do not rely on a single measure</strong>. </span></em><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>This is the new popular rhetoric. It is a partial acknowledgement of the many problems associated with using students’ test scores and growth models in teacher evaluations, problems that have been repeatedly documented. And yet the Kappan</span></em><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> editor and others still insist on the inclusion of students’ test scores in teacher evaluation. Multiple measures are indeed wise, but the effects of including any given measure need to be understood. Current policies do in fact place test scores in a prominent role, one for which they are not valid or reliable and because of which school districts can expect to be (justifiably) challenged in court by dismissed teachers (as explained<a href="http://www.kappanmagazine.org/content/94/3/29.abstract" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> in another article</a> in the same November issue of the Kappan). The troubling reality is that these policies will promote teaching to standardized tests and a narrowing of the curriculum.<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></em></div><div class="ListParagraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The editorial suggests that we also include other untested ingredients, such as student surveys, in the evaluation mix. We should do this, apparently, even though there is as of yet no reliable research base to support the idea. As a high school principal, I thoroughly enjoy working with teenagers. I find their opinions to be frank and refreshing. But I do not think it is fair or wise to give 14 year olds a formal role in teacher evaluation. It is bad enough that we are undermining the student-teacher relationship by basing evaluations on those students test scores.</span></em></div><div class="ListParagraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"> T<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">he magazine’s editor concludes by asserting that “every classroom should have excellent teaching every hour of every day.” I would add that every child should also have an excellent parent who serves them excellent food and provides them with an excellent home in an excellent neighborhood. Let’s also add excellent healthcare and excellent supervision every hour of every day as well. If we could accomplish all of that, we would have the highest achieving students on earth. But the rhetoric itself accomplishes little. What we need are research-based policies supported by lawmakers willing to provide the necessary resources.</span></em></div><div _idv_element_hash="112083440" class="ListParagraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In the meantime, while we wait for those wise lawmakers to emerge, perhaps we all could back off and allow teachers to enjoy the same humanity we seem to graciously grant to others. Teachers aren’t perfect, but I must tell you that nearly all of the teachers that I have met over the years are darn good at what they do. And the variation in their skill is no wider than the variation that I have observed in other professions whose evaluations we never seem to discuss. Let’s look to improve evaluation systems as well as other parts of our schools. But could we stay within reasonable bounds of critique based on fact and research? If we do not stop this constant drumbeat of criticism there will be no one left to evaluate with our new excellent-every-hour-every-<a href="" name="_GoBack" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"></a>day evaluation systems.</span></em></div><div _idv_element_hash="112083440" class="ListParagraph" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/13/the-newest-rhetoric-on-teacher-evaluation-and-why-it-is-nonsense/</span></span></span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-30563326110225884462012-11-14T18:28:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:49.992-08:00Diane Ravitch, charter schools expand despite evidence of success <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From the Diane Ravitch blog,<br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #516064; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.167em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Joy Resmovits has a good <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/charter-schools-growth_n_2125286.html" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #ff8a00; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">article</a> at Huffington Post describing the growth of charter school enrollments and the absence of adequate oversight.</div><div _idv_element_hash="6148688" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #516064; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.167em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Currently, about 5 percent of all American students are enrolled in these privately managed schools. In some urban districts, the proportion is much larger. The districts with the greatest number of students in charters are New Orleans, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, and Flint, Michigan. In 25 districts, at least 20 percent of students attend charters.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #516064; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.167em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">With the support of a bipartisan combination of President Obama, Congress, conservative governors, and rightwing groups like ALEC, these numbers are sure to grow. And the privatization of one of the nation’s most essential public services will continue.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #516064; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.167em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The article mentions that local school boards “argue” that charters reduce their funding. That’s not an argument, that’s a fact. When students leave to attend charters, the public schools must lay off teachers, increase class sizes, cut programs. The more charters open, the more the public schools decline, especially when they lose their most motivated families and students. This is not simply a matter of transferring money from Peter to Paul, but crippling Peter to enrich Paul.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #516064; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.167em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If charters had a stellar reputation, the logic might be on their side. But there are few studies that show charters outperforming public schools even on the crude measure of test scores. With only a few outliers, most studies show that charters do not get different results when they have the same kinds of students.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #516064; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.167em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chester-Upland, Pensylvania, schools may be an example of what happens when well-funded charters (funded by the district’s own revenues) grow as the host dies. The CU schools have been under state control for nearly 20 years. The local charter is not only thriving but providing handsome profits for its founder. Meanwhile the public schools, having lost half their enrollment to the charter, are dying. A state emergency manager just issued a lengthy <a href="http://www.chesteruplandsd.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/398383/File/Other%20Items%202012-13%20S.Y./Chester%20Upland%20School%20District%20Financial%20Recovery%20Plan%20-%2011-13-2012%20FINAL.pdf?sessionid=9a56aebe893b0f5097fbd26f3eda18b8" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #ff8a00; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">report</a> with high benchmarks for future success.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #516064; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.167em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The plan calls for school closings and sets goals for academic gains. The <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20121113_By_Rita_Giordano.html" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #ff8a00; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">bottom line in this plan</a> for recovery is that the public schools will be extinguished if they can’t meet ambitious targets:</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #516064; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.167em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">““If the district fails to meet certain scholastic performance goals, such as federal annual progress targets, by the end for the 2014-15 school year, the plan calls for the schools to be run by external management operations such as charter schools, cyber charters, and education management companies.”</div><div _idv_element_hash="6080032" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #516064; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.167em; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Is this the future of urban education in the United States? Will this be the legacy of the Bush-Obama education program?</div><div _idv_element_hash="6080032" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #516064; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">http://dianeravitch.net/2012/11/14/charters-expand-despite-lack-of-evidence-for-their-success/</span></span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-32368821899698486292012-11-14T09:39:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:49.999-08:00Dr. Vitti listens to the students but does he hear what they are saying?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Dr. Vitti listens but does he hear?<br /><br />Meeting with students at LaVilla the middle school for the arts he heard students tell him about how the arts program is what motivates them to do well in their academic classes. LaVilla however as we know is a special school where kids often get to take classes they are passionate about, sadly it is far from the typical school in Jacksonville.<br /><br />My questions are, what about the schools that have gutted their elective programs, where kids are forced to take classes called research, which is really an FCAT prep course, instead of band, art or drama? What about those kids taking intensive reading and math instead of classes they enjoy, with no real electives to be found on their schedules? What about the interests of the kids at the neighborhood schools? <br /><br />We make school such drudgery for kids and then we wonder why they do poorly or drop out. I get it, standardized tests are here to say but we have to come up with a plan that doesn’t rob kids of their joy or learning, which is what we are doing to so many of our kids now. <br /><br />Dr. Vitti listened to what the students had to say, I just hope he heard them, a lot of kids futures are riding on whether he did or not.<br /><br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-90011124708471812852012-11-14T09:34:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.006-08:00Duval County Public Schools schedule kids for failure<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">As I passed her in the library she had her arms folded under her chin and a frown on her face. She seemed really down so I asked her how she was doing. Fine, she replied but she did so the same way I do when everything is all but fine. <br /><br />I considered moving on. If you let too many kids in it takes being a teacher from tough to heartbreaking. All of the children seem to have a story. A broken home there a lack of opportunity here. It can be overwhelming if you let it. This however was a good kid. Where her grades were very average all her teachers liked her as she is always polite and respectful and at least during class never failed to make an effort. During a previous conversation she told me how she wanted to be a music teacher someday and how she sang in a family gospel band. After hearing this and finding out and that she wasn’t taking music I introduced her to the schools music teacher in the hope that maybe they would make a connection and could set something up next year. I really love music, was one of the first things she had told me. <br /><br />Like almost all my kids do, she deserved a little more than a, that’s cool, I’ll see you later, which is often all I can afford to give, from me. <br /><br />So I asked, “well, how’s school going?” figuring we would either get to what was bothering her eventually or at the very least I would take her mind off her problem for a minute. She then looked up at me and this was the first time during this conversation that we had actually made eye contact and I instantly knew that while trying to take her mind off her problem I had found it. <br /><br />School is actually one of the biggest problems that many children have. They don’t like it or aren’t interested in it. They are often too young to see the big picture and to realize how important it is. Many can’t really turn to their peers either as many feel the same way. Furthermore their parents aren’t much help either. So many of them are concentrating just on putting food on the table or getting barely by that they don’t have the time or energy to play that much of a role in their children’s education. They trust their kid’s schools to do it. <br /><br />It turns out school was her problem and she was feeling overwhelmed with it. “Sometimes it’s just too much and I have nothing to look forward to.” she blurted out. I felt for her, many kids have hours of homework to do each and every night for subjects they aren’t or are at best just marginally interested in. I think homework is important but even though they seem to be growing up faster and faster so is being a kid. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for these kids. <br /><br />Okay, I thought seeing the desperation in her eyes, “tell me what the problem is.” <br /><br />She started, “It’s my schedule, on A days I have intensive math, intensive reading, biology and world history.” Her B day schedule was the same except biology and world history were replaced with geometry and English II. I did a double take; nowhere on her schedule was PE, art or what she loved the most, music. <br /><br />Since she had made a two on the f-cat she was required to take both intensive courses which were offered every day. At no time when speaking to me did she mention that her teachers were mean to her or the amount of work she had to do. She also seemed to understand why she was in the classes she was in, though that wasn’t making it any easier on her. <br /><br />I thought for a moment about what to say, and what I thought was, if I had a schedule like that I would probably be down and feel a little overwhelmed too. Though I knew just because I thought that, I definitely couldn’t say it. <br /><br />I also didn’t want to say; well I have seen worse schedules, kids taking algebra I which is a prerequisite for geometry and geometry at the same time. Apparently prerequisite has some alternative meaning I was unaware of. Or that I have also seen kids taking English II and III in addition to multiple maths and that she was far from the only student without an elective on her schedule. <br /><br />I didn’t want to say that the district in its zeal for preparing children for a global economy had no idea what it was like to be a kid today. They didn’t understand that there one size fits all philosophy was actually setting many children back. <br /><br />I didn’t want to say things were the way they are because the math and science lobby was more aggressive and better financed than the art and music lobby. Actually I am not so sure art and music have a lobby though if they did they should be fired because they are just as important as math and science and it’s time somebody got a clue about that. It’s a shame those classes are always first on the chopping block. <br /><br />I didn’t want to say, the truth is education is no longer about producing well rounded citizens capable of going to college or entering the workforce. Instead all children are is a line on a spread sheet which says, if this then that. Instead of playing to children’s strengths and desires something that would almost ensure success even in the classes they were marginally interested in, now the powers-that-be had decided that society would be better benefited by forcing all children into a single all inclusive curriculum. <br /><br />I didn’t want to say sadly you’re enrolled in a school system that on one hand puts so many kids in no win situations and then on the other seems surprised when they don’t succeed. That it should be common sense that children have at least one class built into their schedule that they look forward to if for no other reason than to give them a break from all the core academic classes. Though making sure they wanted to go to school because they had something they were interested in or to look forward to isn’t such a bad reason either. <br /><br />I didn’t want to say that I get why so many children drop out or quit. They are behind and fall farther and farther behind with their schedules, that there is no wiggle room. I get that they become over whelmed because they don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel and then turn to the streets or worse to fill their days. <br /><br />I didn’t want to say any of those things so instead after I collected myself and I said, I’m sorry, and for a while that’s all I said. She looked at me as if she expected more, some words of wisdom to keep her going, some insight that it was going to get better. So after my long pause I followed up my initial, I’m sorry, with words to those effect. <br /><br />I sincerely hope she believed my words more than I did. </div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-15735996440615256262012-11-13T19:38:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.013-08:00Dr. Vitti on testing, does he get it or is he putting teacher's jobs on the line<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Dr. Vitti said all the right things in an interview with WOKV:<br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">“I actually wanna go back to the days where we talked about just good teaching and learning,” Vitti says.</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">For Vitti, we have fallen in to an “FCAT craze.” He says teachers have fallen in to this mindset of needing to teach to the test, and they must now be “deprogrammed.”</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">“My first step is eliminating a lot of assessments we have in the district right now. We have too many,” he says.</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">He says when teachers are given the liberty to bring creativity back in to the classroom, it will excite them as well as the students, and the higher test grades will fall in after that. He realizes it may be a tough sell because so much emphasis is now placed on teaching to the FCAT and the funding that results from that, but things must change because the district has gone “too far.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">The problem is teachers jobs are now based on how their kids do on standardized tests. Yeah what Dr. Vitti said sounds great and I agree with him 100 percent but how do we ask teachers to put their jobs on the line?</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">The district needs to give some here. Several counties are already on record as saying they won't count standardized test scores against their teachers or at least initially, if Dr. Vitti wants teachers to risk their jobs it sounds like Duval needs to follow suit. </span></span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-12429566659096153032012-11-13T09:40:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.020-08:006 Changes Superintendent Vitti should make immediately<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Leadership, the district is awash with poor leadership. For the last few years who you knew rather than your ability determined your position. The district does have quality leaders but we are at the point where practically all of them are guilty by association and this just doesn’t apply to principals and district staff either but to our assistant and vice principals too. The superintendent should do a review of every person in a leadership position and reassign more than few of them. <br /><br />Teachers, the district has run off and lost a lot of quality teachers over the last few years as it has sought to get younger in the classroom. St.Johns and Clay Counties have benefitted greatly from the lack of respect the district has heaped upon our teachers as they went from valued colleagues to easily replaceable cogs under the previous administration. One way to start rectifying this is by limiting our association with Teach for America. I don’t understand how a district interested in best practices can look to them first when professional teachers and college of education graduates are available. <br /><br />Discipline, the district made an important first step this year when it said it would no longer tie principals evaluations to referrals and suspensions something I have been calling for for years. However that is just an important first step. We should take every available step to make sure teachers are supported and maladaptive students get what they need to improve their behavior or are removed from the regular education environment. We could have serious addition with just a little bit of subtraction.<br /><br />Rigor, teachers are counseled all the time to watch their Fs and Ds. This should stop immediately. Somewhere along the way we gutted student accountability and we must get it back. Perhaps the most important thing a child can learn in school is a work ethic and through grade recovery and harassing teachers to pass kids along we have destroyed that for many of our graduates and students.<br /><br />Schedule, in high school many students are taking too many classes (7 or 8) that are too long (90 minutes) and that students are not interested in. We have gutted our elective and trades and skills classes. We have to stop putting kids in situations where success is unlikely and then scratching our head wondering why they are doing so poorly. <br /><br />Message, we have to end the all is well message that the district has been forcing down the city’s throat. There is nothing wrong with celebrating our successes but when we gloss over or ignore our problems they don’t go away, they get worse. <br /><br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-72616824336752514592012-11-13T09:37:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.027-08:00Superintendent Vitti says it is time we started being honest with the people of Jacksonville<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">One of the biggest problems we have had as a school system is the “all is well” message that the district has been force feeding the citizens of Jacksonville. The system is not the unmitigated disaster that some people pain it as but it is equally true we do have our problems, serious problems the district has tried to ignore or gloss over. The new superintendent said in a Times Union article that we won’t be doing that anymore, to which I say, about time.<br /><br />The “all is well” message the district has pushed the last few years has led to the erosion of faith in the system that the superintendent talks about. Our parents and the citizens of Jacksonville aren’t stupid; they know we have problems and it must have been incredibly frustrating to them as the district took every opportunity to say we are a B district (we are a C now) and to put an unrealistic positive spin on everything. It has been for me.<br /><br />Some might not know it but we do have some great things going on things that should be celebrated but it is way past time we stopped sweeping our negatives under the rug. If we want to improve as a district, recapture the faith of our parents and rally the community around our schools we have to start being honest about our problems.<br /><br />Sometimes being honest can be difficult but at the end of the day it is the best policy and it will be very refreshing to have some honesty come out of the ivory tower and it will be even more refreshing to have a leader that believes in it. <br /><br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-44361291693972391212012-11-13T09:34:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.033-08:00The school district’s all is well message does not sit well with the citizens of Jacksonville <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">First let me say I know there are great things going on in our schools. A lot of great kids being taught by dedicated teachers but at the same time I think many of the success we are having are happening in spite of the district not because of them. Then I am also optimistic about the future, the outgoing board members and superintendent were so terrible for the district that the new ones have to be better even if it is just a little. Unfortunately I think even if the next board members and super come in and insisted we do things the right way it will take us years to recover from their predecessors.<br /><br />The first thing they have to do is junk the “all is well message” that the district constantly tries to shovel down our throats and that the Times Union parrots. We know things aren't all right, we know that despite pockets of success we are underachieving and we are not buying what the district is selling and I know this because recently there have been more housing starts in St. Johns than in Duval, the flat growth of our student population despite the city’s overall growth, the counties that most people move to when they leave Jacksonville are the counties closest to Jacksonville, despite the recession there has been a rise in private school enrollment and finally because I work in our schools and I talk to my colleagues and they feel the same way.<br /><br />People are voting with their feet.<br /><br />I don’t have a problem with us celebrating our successes and we have had some but I have a huge </div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-45936314976017167992012-11-12T05:45:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.040-08:00Louisiana voucher schools teach creationism reject evolution <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From the Huffington Post,<br /><br /><div _idv_element_hash="4858592" style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Public dollars in Louisiana's landmark new voucher program will go toward sending children to schools<a href="http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/60b5d6b0912144818ae49e00ab4f8683/LA--Louisiana-Vouchers" style="border: none; color: #c68700; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_hplink"> that teach creationism and reject evolution</a>, the Associated Press reports.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Under the new initiative, the most sweeping voucher program in the country, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/louisiana-sets-rules-for-_n_1696800.html" style="border: none; color: #c68700; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_hplink">tens of millions of taxpayer dollars will be shifted from public schools</a> to pay private schools, private businesses and private tutors to educate students across Louisiana.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The program is the cornerstone of Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal's bold effort to reform public education in the state. Critics are concerned about funding and fairness -- vouchers would cover the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/louisiana-makes-bold-bid-_n_1563900.html" style="border: none; color: #c68700; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_hplink">full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools</a>, including small, Bible-based church schools. Jindal says the program will spur school competition and expand parental choice.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Several of those religious schools that will be receiving public funds to take in new students from public schools also teach curricula that question the age of the universe, defying scientific evidence and theory and promote religious doctrine that "<a href="http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/60b5d6b0912144818ae49e00ab4f8683/LA--Louisiana-Vouchers" style="border: none; color: #c68700; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_hplink">challenges the lessons central to public school science classrooms</a>," according to the AP.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">"What they're going to be getting financed with public money is phony science. They're going to be getting religion instead of science," Barbara Forrest, a founder of the Louisiana Coalition for Science, told AP.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Proponents of vouchers say that the program expands horizons for students stuck in troubled schools. Opponents point out that vouchers erode public schools by pulling funding out of the system and violate the separation of church and state by sending public dollars to patriarchal private schools. Voucher programs also have yet to yield improvements in student test scores.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">"<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/louisiana-sets-rules-for-_n_1696800.html" style="border: none; color: #c68700; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_hplink">Almost all the voucher schools are religious schools</a>," Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research told Reuters. "And many use an evangelical curriculum that teaches that humans walked the earth 6,000 years ago with dinosaurs. Do I, as a taxpayer, want my taxes to support that as a proper education in science?"</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">One school participating in Louisiana's program notes that its students "will be expected to defend creationism through evidence presented by the Bible versus traditional scientific theory." Refusing to teach evolution also isn't grounds for rejecting a school from the voucher program.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">In 1987, the Supreme Court<a href="http://ncse.com/taking-action/ten-major-court-cases-evolution-creationism" style="border: none; color: #c68700; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_hplink"> struck down a law</a> mandating that "creationism" be taught equally with evolution in public school classrooms, noting that the legislation was an effort to promote religious doctrine.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">Louisiana's voucher program passed through the state legislature amid heated debate, particularly as lawmakers <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/louisiana_n_1593995.html" style="border: none; color: #c68700; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_hplink">objected to funding an Islamic school</a> despite approving of support for Christian schools. Republican Rep. Valarie Hodges also <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/06/valarie-hodges-lawmaker-retracts-support-for-bill_n_1655249.html" style="border: none; color: #c68700; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_hplink">retracted her support for the program</a> this month after realizing the money could be applied to Muslim schools.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">The state's teachers' unions, the Louisiana School Boards Association and many school districts have filed lawsuits to block the program.</div><div>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/louisiana-voucher-program_n_1724259.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-78451267531838888362012-11-12T04:25:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.115-08:00The nation pushes back against standardized tests<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From the Washington Post's Answer Sheet, <span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">By Lisa Guisbond</span><br /><div _idv_element_hash="5184336" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />As attention turns from analyzing ethnic and gender gaps among voters, let’s focus on another kind of gap that will linger long after Election Day. It’s the yawning chasm over the use of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/testing-mandates-flunk-cost-benefit-analysis/2012/06/30/gJQACqfsDW_blog.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">high-stakes standardized testing</a> that exists between teachers, parents and students at the local level, and policy elites, foundations, entrepreneurs and mainstream editorial writers on the national level.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">The latter group continues to promote testing as a way to force improvements and address inequalities in learning outcomes — despite more than a decade of failure. Meanwhile, more and more people at the local level are joining a national grassroots rebellion against high-stakes testing. Promises of new and better standards and assessments are not persuading test-weary public school stakeholders that a slight variation on what has failed will suddenly succeed. </div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">This broad-based dissatisfaction showed up in some surprising places on Election Day. Indiana voters ousted Superintendent of Public Instruction <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/08/tony-bennett-not-the-crooner-as-florida-schools-chief/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tony Bennett</a>, a devotee of test-driven reforms, in favor of 33-year veteran educator Glenda Ritz. Idaho voters soundly rejected several “reform” measures, including test score-based performance pay for teachers.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">It won’t be news to loyal readers of the “Answer Sheet” that there’s a rebellion brewing. But it’s worth a moment to consider the full dimensions and status of this revolt and think about how to further expand and strengthen it. Hundreds of school boards have now passed resolutions loudly stating, “Enough is enough.” Parents groups are rallying to provide support. Test boycotts are expanding. Academic researchers are increasingly speaking out. The growing resistance is attracting increased attention from policymakers and the media. As the scope of the opposition expands, some local organizers are focusing on winning policy changes in their states and communities. </div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Former Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/in-texas-a-revolt-brews-against-standardized-testing/2012/03/15/gIQAI5N0VS_blog.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">helped spark the revolt</a> in January, saying publicly that the mentality that standardized testing is the “end-all, be-all” is a “perversion” of what a quality education should be. Then school boards in Texas that had passed resolutions stating that tests were “strangling’ education,” gained hundreds of endorsements within weeks. <a href="http://www.fairtest.org/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">FairTest</a> organized a dozen other education, civil rights, and religious groups to launch the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing. Groups of parents, students, teachers, principals, school board members and education researchers from around the nation endorsed similar statements. All decry the way high-stakes testing policies are harming our schools, teachers, students and families.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s an update on the status of the high-stakes testing rebellion around the nation:</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">The<a href="http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing</a> has more than 13,700 individual and almost 460 organizational endorsers. It calls on the U.S. Congress and Administration “to overhaul [NCLB,] reduce the testing mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.” The Pennsylvania School Boards Association as well as individual boards in Florida, Oklahoma, Ohio, Virginia endorsed it.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Florida activists adopted their own versions, and the Florida School Board Association passed a variation at its annual conference in the spring. The National Parent Teacher Association said the resolution is consistent with its policy positions. Regional groups continue to announce new initiatives based on the Resolution, including the Massachusetts group Citizens for Public Schools.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Texas school board resolution has been endorsed by more than 830 school districts representing more than 4.3 million – 88% – of all Texas public school students.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Top-down testing mandates, in large part, drove Chicago teachers to strike. The teachers’ arguments were bolstered by 88 researchers from 16 Chicago-area universities who had signed an open letter <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/why-rahm-emanuel-and-the-new-york-times-are-wrong-about-teacher-evaluation/2012/09/12/d0c53044-fce7-11e1-a31e-804fccb658f9_blog.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">to Mayor Rahm Emanuel </a>opposing the city’s plan for using student test scores to evaluate teachers and principals. The letter said, “The new evaluation system… centers on misconceptions about student growth, with potentially negative impact on the education of Chicago’s children.” More than 1,100 New York researchers endorsed a similar letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.newyorkprincipals.org/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A letter</a> protesting New York State’s<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/principals-our-struggle-to-be-heard-on-reform/2012/08/06/f459fc74-dff5-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> teacher evaluation policy</a> and its reliance on student test scores has been signed by 1,512 principals from urban, suburban and rural schools, more than one-third of all New York principals.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">The nation’s second largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, unanimously adopted a resolution at its annual convention saying the focus on standardized testing has undermined education. The National Education Association has approved similar resolutions in the past.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Niagara (NY) Regional Parent Teacher Association passed an emergency resolution in late September. It says,</div><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left-color: rgb(219, 219, 219); border-left-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 2px; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 5px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The intent of this resolution is to ask the State Education Department to suspend its testing program until such time as it can create a new one that reliably measures educational progress without harming children and lowering the quality of education.</div></blockquote><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">School boards, parent organizations and others continue to pass variations on the resolutions and consider how to win the political battle to change testing policies.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">Parent groups in a number of states, including Colorado, California and New York, that helped parents opt their children out of last spring’s tests are planning to continue and expand their boycotts.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;">At the local level, parents, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/student-video-how-high-stakes-tests-affect-kids/2012/05/09/gIQAsKt6DU_blog.html" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">students</a> and teachers can unite to achieve concrete changes, such as halting the proliferation of “interim” or “benchmark” tests imposed by districts that are in addition to state or federal mandates. Winning changes against entrenched state and federal high-stakes testing policies will be a longer, harder task. But the upsurge in opposition to destructive high-stakes testing increases the likelihood of such victories.</div><div _idv_element_hash="5062000" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.fairtest.org/" style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">FairTest’s web site</a> has fact sheets, papers and materials to help testing opponents in their efforts.</div><div _idv_element_hash="5062000" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 22px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/12/revolt-against-high-stakes-standardized-testing-spreads/?wprss=rss_answer-sheet</span></span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-86966998763785936572012-11-11T13:39:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.209-08:00The bigotry of low expectations in Florida<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From School Matters by Judy Rubin<br /><br /><div class="byline story" style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">With the ink barely dry on the outcome of the Presidential election in Florida, the FL school Board is now looking for new and innovative ways to keep the FCAT, virtual schools and private money machine rolling. This way Jeb Bush's buddies. K-12 and other for-profit education outfits who make their money off the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable children and their teachers can keep their wheels greased till 2018 under this proposal.</span></div><div class="byline story" style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><br /></span></div><div class="byline story" style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">The soft bigotry of low expectations used by these privatizers and profiteers for the past decade to push test and punishment and hold teachers accountable for the failures of Wall Street and politicians, is now being used by the actual bigots to keep things running smoothly for their bottom line.</span></div><div class="byline story" style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><br /></span></div><div class="byline story" style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">With new proficiency targets for poor black and brown children, their no excuses mythology that they worked so hard to create for three decades has to be replaced with some other malarkey as our Vice President would say. I would say bullshit. The corporate education and testing industrial complex's powerfully financed propaganda machine is finding new and creative ways to maintain their hold on bankrupt corporate education policies that have done nothing to help close the achievement gap, the economic gap or the racial gap.</span></div><div class="byline story" style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><br /></span></div><div class="byline story" style="background-color: #c0a154; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">It's truly breathtaking how these people manage to think up more insidious ways to make money by pitting children against one another, divide teachers and blackmail administrations while wreaking havoc on the nation's public schools. </span></div><div><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><br /></span></div><div><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/11/the-hard-bigotry-of-low-expectations-in.html</span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-41539495227200476602012-11-11T08:49:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.283-08:00What we should be doing in our schools!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div _idv_element_hash="38904960" class="shareSubtext fcg" style="background-color: white; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; color: grey; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; margin-top: 10px; padding-left: 8px;">Children should be taught to question everything. To question everything they read, everything they hear.<br /><br />- George Carlin</div><ul class="uiList mtm uiStreamActionFooter _4kg _6-h _704 _6-i" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; list-style-type: none; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><li class="uiListItem" style="border-width: 0px; display: block; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></li></ul><img src="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/602272_493013924065392_1126551862_n.jpg" /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-64008127096971770892012-11-11T08:42:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.355-08:00New Florida testing could lead to thousand not graduating<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From the Orlando Sentinel, <span style="background-color: white; color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">By</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><a href="http://bio.tribune.com/LesliePostal" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: initial;">Leslie Postal</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">, </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The passing rate on Florida's new biology and geometry exams — now must-pass tests for a high school diploma — would be under 60 percent if a proposed scoring system is adopted.</span><br /><div id="story-body-text" style="background-color: white; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">That would put success on the state's newest end-of-course exams on par with its algebra 1 exam, which 58 percent of students passed last spring.</div><div style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">Local educators fear in coming years that thousands of high school students will fail one or more of the exams and then need remedial lessons before they retake and, hopefully, pass them ahead of their scheduled graduation.</div><div style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">Florida educators are working this fall to set passing scores for the biology and geometry tests, which were introduced to make sure students mastered key high school subjects.</div><div style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">Education Commissioner Pam Stewart is to make score recommendations to the State Board of Education, which has final say, before its Dec. 12 meeting.</div><div style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">So far, two panels made up of teachers, professors, business leaders and school board members have made suggestions.</div><div style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">The second panel, whose work is likely closer to what will be the final recommendation, suggested setting the biology and geometry scoring systems so that, based on this year's data, the passing rates would be 53 percent on geometry and 59 percent on biology.</div><div style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">If those are adopted, <a class="taxInlineTagLink" href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/topic/us/florida/seminole-county-PLGEO100100414000000.topic" id="PLGEO100100414000000" style="color: black; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: initial;" title="Seminole County">Seminole County</a>, where test scores routinely lead the state, could soon have a "backlog" of 5,000 students who haven't passed some or all of the new exams, said Deborah Camilleri, coordinator of assessment and accountability.</div><div style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">"It will have a cumulative effect and impact on students who are trying to graduate from high school," she said.</div><div style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">And high schools, she added, will be stretched thin trying to get them all into summer classes or other remedial programs to help them pass re-take exams.</div><div _idv_element_hash="38881072" style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><em><a href="mailto:lpostal@tribune.com" style="color: black; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: initial;">lpostal@tribune.com</a> or 407-420-5273</em></div><div _idv_element_hash="38881072" style="color: #292727; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;"><i>http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/os-fcat-passing-exam-courses-20121109,0,2268523.story</i></div></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-69506097250823571682012-11-11T08:39:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.428-08:00Indiana Gets it, why won't Florida?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Indiana put the brakes on their wrong headed education reforms and it is time Florida did the same.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20121111/EDIT07/311119980/-1/EDIT01">Public puts the brakes on reform | The Journal Gazette | Fort Wayne, IN</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-88333043452062102192012-11-10T19:40:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.500-08:00George Carlin - Dumbed Down Education<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WGL8FEMc378" width="420"></iframe></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-84490475169727644602012-11-10T07:49:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.573-08:00In Tallahassee, our elected leaders wielded their strength without restraint or courtesy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: red;">Lessons from the aftermath</span></span></b><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">By John Louis Meeks, Jr.<u></u><u></u></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">“When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible,” said Mahatma Gandhi, a man who lived and died fighting for the rights of his people through the least violent means.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">In Tallahassee, however, our elected leaders wielded their strength without restraint or courtesy. They chose purely political agenda that was designed to exact revenge on their enemies. They disguised their attacks on teachers unions in the guise of education reform, they claimed they were protecting free speech as they tried to limit public workers from being able to deduct their union dues from their paycheck, cut back on early voting days in a cynical move to protect the integrity of the polls, and they took dead aim at a co-equal branch of government by seeking to change how Supreme Court justices are chosen.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">This arrogance was fostered in a state where, although registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by over 400,000 eligible voters, the Republicans held a super majority in both houses of the state legislature and occupy the entire state cabinet. Through the added power of coffers overflowing with money from business and industry, the majority party did not need to listen to others because our leaders designed the system to keep them gainfully employed. Their dominance of state politics by one political party turned the machinery of governance into a steamroller which flattened all opposition.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Republican Party may not have met their Waterloo as they maintained comfortable majorities in the state legislature. They did, however, lose seats in the process and saw incumbent members of Congress from Florida lose their seats. They also failed in their efforts to unseat three state Supreme Court justices. The most painful consequence of their overreach by Republicans was the fact that a president whose unpopularity helped put the governor in office was the same president won Florida’s electoral votes in a repeat victory. Not even Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Connie Mack or Allen West could help put the pieces together again.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The overconfidence began early in Governor Rick Scott’s term. Despite winning office by a razor-thin margin, he and party leaders went above and beyond in crushing their opposition. They began with education ‘reform’ that created an onerous evaluation system that is still being sorted out in school districts statewide. They confiscated three percent of public worker pay on which they balanced the state budget. They sought to privatize state prisons in a way that is reminiscent of former governor Claude Kirk and Wackenhut. They had all the levers of power in their hands and they used these levers as clubs with which to beat their foes. <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The headless Florida Democratic Party gave the false impression that the lack of a public face to the opposition party meant that Floridians would willingly go along with whatever came out of Tallahassee.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">This was made shamefully clear when the state’s elected leaders erected roadblocks to early voting. In spite of a chorus of protests from supervisors of elections around the state, the lawmakers insisted on passing new laws reduce the number of voting days and cracked down on voter registration groups. Even public high school civics teachers were not safe from the legislature and their infinite wisdom.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">When the time to choose finally arrived for Florida’s voters, they responded by bucking the trend that tipped the scales of power in favor of the state’s leaders and their moneyed supporters. The state reached a tipping point in which the polling stations were overwhelmed by people who waited hours to make their voices heard. They responded by reelecting President Obama. They responded by chipping away at the Republican majority in Tallahassee. They responded by keeping all three state Supreme Court justices in office. They responded by voting down all but three proposed constitutional amendments.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">If the political establishment thought that they could avoid such disaster by playing the system to demoralize and discourage the opposition, they were really playing themselves. Did they really think that their bullying would go unanswered forever? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Having dominated state election cycles, the state’s leaders have numbed themselves to any prospect of push back from anyone. They assumed that they could deliver 29 electoral votes to the GOP nominee and could cakewalk to victory all the way down the ballot – including the eviction of three Supreme Court justices from office. Worst of all, they were taking Florida voters for granted, or even stupid.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">If there is to be a takeaway lesson from this past election, it would be to heed the lesson that is told in George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm.’ Decades ago, Florida Republicans were on the outside looking in and were seeking ways to make inroads in governance. They succeeded; perhaps they were victims of their own success. Orwell’s pigs led the overthrow of Farmer Jones but soon adopted the vices of their vanquished nemesis.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The new majority in the state legislature was not content with having the reins of power. Without mercy, they found new ways to assail collective bargaining, public workers, teachers unions, trial attorneys and anyone else who stood in their way. This common thread between our friends in Tallahassee and the fictional beasts of Manor Farm was that the mere expansion of powers enabled them to effectively cripple dissent. The trouble is that intimidation was not at the heart of why we created our republic.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Since 2010, many Floridians indeed did begin to give up on having any kind of voice in their state’s affairs. The record low approval ratings for the governor did little to deter the state’s leaders from behaving as if they were entitled to lead and give orders. While parent and teacher groups were largely ignored in drafting policy, corporations and lobbyists (Including ALEC) had carte blanche with their friends in office.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Paradoxically, the same groups who demanded that the threshold for new constitutional amendments be raised to a super majority of 60 percent or more are the folks we should be thanking for the failure of the constitutional amendment proposals that looked more like a laundry list of Tea Party gripes that were almost enshrined into law. Talk about a silver lining to their shenanigans. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The next question is whether our state’s elected officials plan to become more circumspect about their power-hungry ways or will they continue to plow through the opposition and toward what promised to be a very contentious election year. In an increasingly purple or blue state, true leadership will involve learning from this year’s mistakes to avoid another embarrassing election result.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The final question is what the electorate can learn from this election cycle. Charles de Secondat said, “Power ought to serve as a check to power.” If our state preaches open rebellion against federal abuses of power (e.g. ObamaCare), it is high time that Floridians continue to protest and fight the overreach coming from the state capital. <u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><i><span style="color: red;">John Louis Meeks, Jr. studied political science at the University of North Florida, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications in 1998. He resides in Jacksonville and teaches social studies in Atlantic Beach.</span></i></b></span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-15520935235662234852012-11-09T11:05:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.646-08:00What is better than standardized testing? It turns out pretty much everything.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From the Washington Post's Answer Sheet, By Monty Neill<br /><br />Assessment reformers are often challenged, “What would you do instead of standardized testing?” While stopping the damage wrought by test misuse and overuse is necessary in its own right, high-quality assessment is essential to student learning. Sadly, No Child Left Behind killed many innovative practices as schools were forced to focus on boosting standardized exam scores. However, a number of excellent examples of better assessments exist in the United States and other nations. <br /><br />One top-notch alternative is conducted by the New York Performance Standards Consortium, an alliance of 28 public high schools. Schools in the Consortium use performance-based assessments in place of standardized exams, except the English Language Arts test. The performance assessments are used for graduation and accountability, including NCLB.<br /><br />A recent consortium report, Education for the 21st Century, shows that performance-based assessment works well for the types of students that test-driven “reforms” are supposed to benefit but so often fail. The student population of the consortium’s 26 public schools located in New York City mirrors the city’s student body. They have nearly identical shares of blacks, Latinos, English language learners and students with disabilities. However, the consortium dropout rate is half that of New York City public schools. Graduation rates for all categories of students are higher than for the rest of New York City, while consortium rates for English Language Learners and students with disabilities are nearly double the city’s.<br /><br />In 2011, 86% of African American and 90% of Latino male graduates of Consortium schools were accepted to college. National averages are only 37% and 43%, respectively. Ninety-three percent of consortium grads remain enrolled in four-year colleges after the first two years, compared with an average of 81% nationally. Yet, consortium students are far more likely to be low-income than the U.S. average. Consortium schools also have far lower rates of student suspension, but far higher rates of teacher retention, compared with other New York City schools, including charters.<br /><br />Consortium schools focus on project-based learning. All consortium programs require students to successfully complete four performance-based assessment tasks (PBATs). These include an analytic essay, a social studies research paper, a science experiment, and an applied mathematics problem. They incorporate both written and oral components.<br /><br />Education for the 21st Century explains that the PBATs “emerge from class readings and discussion. In some classes, the tasks are crafted by the teacher and in other instances by the student.” For example, in literature each student must write and then orally defend an analytic paper based on defined requirements. The report includes samples of the wide range of literature and interests addressed by the students, as well as similar samples for the other required tasks. In the oral defense for each PBAT, the student responds to questions from a panel of teachers and outside experts.<br /><br />The report includes the scoring guides (“rubrics”) used to evaluate the tasks and defenses completed for the common graduation requirement. (Many consortium schools also use a range of other performance assessments and portfolios to document student progress.) Samples of the work are independently re-scored (“moderation”) to assure scoring is consistent and based on high standards.<br /><br />No other nation tests as much as the United States. Finnish students, for example, outperform the world. Their schools have well-trained teachers who have autonomy to address their students’ learning needs — and no high-stakes testing! In other nations as well, performance assessments are common.<br /><br />The United States can and must change. This will require developing high-quality assessment systems that can be used with other evidence to evaluate students, teachers and schools and to improve teaching and learning. The experience of the New York Performance Standards Consortium is one valuable model.<br /><br />• See also the Webinar on Performance Assessment, sponsored by the Forum on Educational Accountability. It features Ann Cook of the Consortium, Sally Thomas of the Learning Record, and Monty Neill from FairTest. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/02/an-alternative-to-standardized-testing-for-student-assessment/">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/02/an-alternative-to-standardized-testing-for-student-assessment/</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-13705257722124986842012-11-09T11:01:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.719-08:00Haven't you had enough of high stakes testing?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From Take Part, by Lisa Guisbond<br /><br />About a month and a half ago, astute journalists covering the historic Chicago teachers’ strike realized the issues brought up by the strike weren’t just about money, but were also a reaction to the tsunami of testing that is overwhelming teachers and students.<br /><br />It was part of a growing national rebellion against high-stakes testing. It was also an opportunity to challenge the idea that we can test our way to better schools and smarter students.<br /><br />And it’s not just teachers who refuse to take it anymore.<br /><br />More: The Key to ‘How Children Succeed’: Hint...It’s Not Standardized Tests<br /><br />Across the nation, hundreds of school boards have passed resolutions saying things like, "the overreliance on standardized, high-stakes testing ... is strangling our public schools." Parent-led test boycotts are expanding. Academic researchers are also speaking out. A group of Chicago researchers issued a statement backing up teachers’ concerns that too much testing is harming students. New York professors issued a similar statement.<br /><br />To help spread the word, FairTest organized education, civil rights, and religious groups to launch The National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing. It now has more than 13,600 individual and 460 organizational endorsers.<br /><br />High-stakes testing is detracting from learning rather than enhancing educational quality.<br /><br />Why a testing rebellion? As long as most of us can remember, there have been standardized tests. They may have made students sweat, but they didn’t drive thousands of teachers into the streets or cause parents to organize protests. That’s because the problem isn’t just the tests themselves. It is the way state and federal policies have made raising test scores the primary mission of schools. It’s the way high-stakes testing is detracting from learning rather than enhancing educational quality. Tests and test prep are squeezing out art, music, social studies, gym and even recess.<br /><br />There is a growing recognition that test-driven education, as embodied by “No Child Left Behind,” has failed. Students made greater gains before the law, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. No less an authority than the National Research Council found that a decade’s worth of high-stakes testing policies has brought little learning progress.<br /><br />Test makers have lost credibility after years of expensive and disruptive errors. For example, after the passing rate on Florida’s fourth-grade writing exam plunged from 81 to 27 percent, the Florida board of education lowered the passing score at an emergency meeting. The board realized student writing wasn't any worse, but a new scoring guide penalized students for trivial mistakes. More and more parents understand that test makers are profiting from a testing bonanza with little or no accountability.<br /><br />Finally, a nationwide epidemic of cheating has demonstrated that when so much rides on test results, teachers and administrators feel pressure to cut corners. Cheating scandals have emerged across the country, in Atlanta, El Paso, New York, and Washington, D.C., a total of 37 states in the past four years alone.<br /><br />It doesn’t have to be this way. Alternatives to high-stakes testing have shown impressive results in the U.S. and abroad. For example, schools in the New York Performance Standards Consortium use performance-based assessments in place of standardized exams. A recent report shows that their schools significantly outperform others in New York City while serving similar student populations. Finnish schools also use performance assessments. Their students outperform the world with well-trained teachers who have autonomy to address their students’ learning needs—and no high-stakes testing!<br /><br />Concerned parents, teachers, students and activists can help the rebellion grow in their communities. Talk it up with friends, family and colleagues, then approach school boards, parent teacher organizations, and other groups for support. FairTest’s web site has fact sheets, papers and other materials to use in these campaigns.<br /><br />Sign up for TakePart Education EmailsStay up-to-date on the issues from Waiting for 'Superman' and other education news weekly.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/10/31/why-so-many-people-say-enough-enough-high-stakes-testing">http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/10/31/why-so-many-people-say-enough-enough-high-stakes-testing</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-46178257970715173472012-11-09T10:57:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.792-08:00Rick Scott's bussiness fetish keeps him from understanding education.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From scathing Purple Musinings, by Bob Sykes<br /><br />From the Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Travis:<br /><br />Gov. Rick Scott told members of the state Board of Education on Monday that his priorities for education in the coming year include an increase in K-12 choices and a drop in college costs for Florida families.<br /><br />In a meeting held at Boca Raton High School, Scott said because competition helps improve education, he supports an expansion of charter schools, including lifting enrollment caps that districts can place on how large charters can grow.<br /><br />He also wants to see districts give parents and students more options. He said that during a statewide swing, residents supported the idea of school choice as long as all schools were held to the same standards.<br /><br />“They want to make sure it’s fair for everybody and we ought to live by the same rules,” he said. “When you have competition, prices come down, quality goes up and service goes up.”<br /><br />Emphasis mine at the end. At times I feel that Scott has evolved a bit in the job. He’s afterall been the one who has had to deal with the disastrous infrastructure of the state’s accountability system. But his frequent slips into predictable sophomoric business speak to justify his charter school fetish shows he’s yet to grasp the complexities of education. Schools aren’t competing fast food chains.<br /><br /><a href="http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/rick-scott-wants-continued-charter-school-expansion-in-next-legislative-session/">http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/rick-scott-wants-continued-charter-school-expansion-in-next-legislative-session/</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-2660576387856507142012-11-09T10:54:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.864-08:00Education cuts what kids like to pay for testing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="background-color: black; width: 520px;"><div style="padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="288" src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/embed/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:420999" width="512"></iframe><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 4px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: left;"><b><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-8-2012/katie-dellamaggiore---pobo-efekoro">The Daily Show with Jon Stewart</a></b><br />Get More: <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/">Daily Show Full Episodes</a>,<a href="http://www.indecisionforever.com/">Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>,<a href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow">The Daily Show on Facebook</a></div></div></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-51950592675059869822012-11-08T16:42:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:50.936-08:00Florida's destructive merit pay system<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From Florida Today by Anthony Colucci<br /><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Dear Florida parents, </span><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">I want to call your attention to a destructive policy that will have dire consequences for your children. Florida’s ill-conceived merit pay evaluation system may result in your children being subjected to inferior teaching. </span><br /><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The merit pay system bases one-half of a teacher’s evaluation on standardized test scores, most of which is derived from a Value Added Model (VAM) score. The truth is teachers are being scored based on students they do not teach and not even on the students they do teach. Does that sound like a system in which you’ll know which teachers are the best? </span><br /><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Let me explain how this system played out for me last year. I teach a gifted enrichment class for four elementary schools. Each day, one grade level of students is bused to my school. As a teacher outside the regular classroom, nobody was able to tell me which tests my evaluation was tied to. </span><br /><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Consequently, I taught a whole year and didn’t know how I would be evaluated. Toward the end of the year, I inferred my evaluation would be based on students’ FCAT scores; however, I learned only about 10 of my 80 students would be counted. Why, you ask? </span><br /><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The Department of Education, which we are relying on to use an equation only mathematicians can understand, couldn’t figure out how to include my students who were bused to my school. I tried to correct the measure with the district; however, there was no recourse. My score will likely be based on the test scores of roughly 10 percent of my students. Does that sound like a system in which you’ll know which teachers are the best? </span><br /><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The lunacy of this system doesn’t stop there. Groups of teachers were formed and given a list of some of the school’s lowest- performing students. These students were tied to our evaluation scores, and our charge was to bring their test scores up. </span><br /><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">I pride myself on being a team player, but to determine my effectiveness as a teacher based on students I don’t teach is not what this system was intended to do. Even more preposterous is my evaluation will be based on the performance of a student who never set foot on my school’s campus this year due to an illness. Does that sound like a system in which you’ll know which teachers are the best? </span><br /><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">I commend your efforts to hold the Florida DOE accountable for ill-suited policies. I call on you again to defend the best interests of your children. Demand the merit pay system be repealed and replaced with a system that truly identifies effective teachers. </span><br /><strong style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></strong><strong style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Colucci is a National Board-Certified teacher. He lives in Titusville.</strong><br /><strong style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></strong><span style="color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><b>http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20121108/COLUMNISTS0205/311080002?fb_comment_id=fbc_123132281177898_144350_123381187819674</b></span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-51438638324228383792012-11-08T09:42:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:51.016-08:00President Obama now that you have been reelected can you stop screwing up education?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From the Washington Post's Answer Sheet, by Arthur Camins<br /><br />Arthur H. Camins is director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.<br /><br />With the election behind us, it is time for the Obama administration to step back from its education policy and access whether its foundation is sound and supported by evidence. It is a moment to summon the courage to change course.<br /><br />We have had wars on drugs, poverty and terrorism. Now, depending on perspective, we have a war either for or on education. Certainly, many educators feel under siege. Popular slogans like, “Whatever it takes,” sound like battle cries. This brings to mind the documentary film, “The Fog of War,” as a metaphor for education reform.<br /><br />In the hopeful 1960s, the nation’s focus on poverty was undone by a president fearful of accusations of being weak on defense and soft on communism and trapped by unexamined cold war logic. Lyndon Johnson failed to heed President Eisenhower’s prescient warning to beware of the influence of the military industrial complex. As many presidents who succeeded him, Johnson permitted the defense industry to have undue influence in the making of foreign policy.<br /><br />In the “Fog of War,” an aged and surprisingly reflective war architect, Robert McNamara, makes a compelling case that once the United States found itself enmeshed in war, an intellectual shroud clouded the ability of policy makers to see the evidence in front of them. Vietnam War-era policy makers understood North Vietnam as a tile in a row of falling dominoes that would lead to the worldwide communist domination. While it was readily apparent that their assumptions about the motivations of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong were entirely mistaken, Johnson and his advisers could not recognize or admit that they were wrong. Nor could they summon the courage to change course. Such is the distorting power of unexamined ideology.<br /><br />I think many of the powerful supporters of market–driven education reforms are caught in the fog of their self-made education war. In classic ends-justifies-means thinking, they dismiss the negative impact of over-testing on students learning and the injustice of using imprecise value-added modeling for teacher evaluation and dismissal.<br /><br />During the Vietnam War many people used evidence to show that the United States government did not understand its declared “enemy” and that the war was counterproductive though Johnson, McNamara and those in the defense industry who profited from the war were not persuaded. Listening to McNamara’s telling of the tale, it is not clear whether their failure to change course was because no one inside the decision circle was willing to challenge the conventional thinking, or because there was an unwillingness to admit defeat and cede power or influence to their perceived internal enemies. By the time McNamara voiced any doubts, the course of action was too deeply set. <br /><br />Similarly, I have been trying to understand the persistence of education reformers, especially those in federal and state government, in the light of so much contrary, well-articulated evidence. I have been trying to understand how teachers who oppose charter schools and merit pay, or who make the case that schools alone can’t undo the effects of poverty, have come to be defined by education reformers as the enemy – supporters of and apologists for the status quo. Somehow, educators who do not support the reformers’ ill-conceived version of disruptive innovation, but who have proposed myriad significant improvement, have been cast as defenders of bad teachers who supposedly believe poverty is destiny. Reformers have become so enamored by their own ideology and so invested in their own course of action that they are unable to recognize the evidence that challenges their policies and unable to recognize the damage it is causing to students.<br /><br />I conclude that, as with the Vietnam War, eventually some combination of unrelenting organized opposition and the weight of the failure of the policy itself will eventually bring the folly to an end… but not before inflicting considerable damage on students and their teachers. President Obama, what education legacy do you want to leave?<br /><br />In a recent interview for NBC’s “Education Nation” President Obama said, “You know, I’m a big proponent of charter schools, for example. I think that pay-for-performance makes sense in some situations.” Later in the interview, he said, “What we have to do is combine creativity and evidence-based approaches. So let’s not use ideology, let’s figure out what works, and figure out how we scale it up.”<br /><br />I want to believe the president’s statement about ideology. But, frankly, I am not reassured. What logic and evidence is behind his support for scaling-up charter schools, merit pay, or for sanctions that require the firing of administrators at struggling schools typically inhabited by poverty-stricken students? Mr. President, are you open to the possibility that maybe your assumptions are wrong?<br /><br />Following are several big ideas behind current education reform. Each of them is either not supported by evidence or is inapplicable to education.<br /><br />Failing School Systems: The popular myth is that K-12 education in the United States has not changed much for the last hundred years and that we have made only incremental improvements in outcomes. We certainly do not yet have the outcomes we want, but in reality, NAEP reading and math scores are at their highest levels as are graduation rates. In fact, many of the effective teaching strategies that lead to deeper learning and are common in high-scoring countries such as Finland are also found in many U.S. classrooms. Powerful professional learning strategies such as lesson study, common in Japan, have become more widespread in the United States. What limits the spread of these practices is not educator resistance, but insufficient funding and an overemphasis on test scores as the central outcome goal.<br /><br />What separates education in the United States from so-called competitor counties is that on average, socioeconomic status explains far more of the variation in test scores in the United States than in other industrialized countries. But, as many researchers have pointed out, it is not the presence of unions, tenure, or collective bargaining that explains that difference. A more plausible explanation is that the more successfully scoring countries have far more substantial social support systems to mediate the negative effects of poverty. A far stronger argument can be made that we need to change our focus — especially in struggling schools — from the drudgery of high consequence driven test-prep to engaging students to be critical thinkers and active investigators in meaningful subject matter. Or, even better, from spending millions on testing to spending millions on support services. In addition, the evidence is mounting that schools can also teach essential non-cognitive competencies, such as persistence, ethics, empathy and collaboration. Since the latter are not easily subject to measurement, the continued focus on testing narrow, more easily measured subject matter diverts important attention from their development.<br /><br />Disruptive Innovation: Innovative companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple have rapidly revolutionized how we all communicate. Their success is not just the result of invention, but rather in designing the integration of multiple technical and process innovations, as well as successful marketing to the public. Their transformative power is measured not only in winning over customers from rivals, but in changing the entire landscape so that their rivals must change what they offer and how they operate in order to survive. The thinking of market-based reformers is that we need to make similar rapid and dramatic change in how we educate students. The need for dramatic improvement, especially for children from low-income families, is assailable. But, for every new private sector idea that was transformative, there were thousands generated that were not. In addition, not every idea that is transformative is necessarily good for society. For example, market-supported product and process innovations in the fast food industry have transformed how and what families eat. Consumers “choose” MacDonald’s. Is this a healthy desirable outcome? Ideas rise and fall, as do the fortunes of their developers and investors. This is, I think what reformers have in mind when they push for increasing the “market share” of charter schools that will need to compete for enrollees. Customers decide whether they want to buy an iPhone or a Blackberry. As a result, Apple stocks flourish and RIM’s plummet. For reformers, schools are just another market choice. <br /><br />However, is this the best way to decide on the form and content of schools for children in a democracy? What happens to kids when schools open and close? Instability in the restaurant marketplace may be acceptable, but disruption in schools and teachers is a disaster for students whose lives are already too chaotic.<br /><br />There is no evidence in the United States or anywhere in the world that market-driven choice among competing charter schools is a successful systemic strategy to improve learning for all students — not anywhere! Arguably, the likely result of charter school proliferation is that some students will get to go quality schools, while many others will not. This is hardly transformative. It is a replication of what we have now. In addition, rather than mediating current geographic segregation patterns through more integrated schools, it will exacerbate racial and socioeconomic isolation.<br /><br />The Sword of Damocles: In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks argued that it was the absence of the proverbial sword hanging by a thread over the heads of teachers that explained presumed lack of innovation in schools. Is there evidence to support the notion that private sector innovation in product quality – not short-term profit — is advanced by fear? Is there evidence that fear and competition will spur more effective teaching? If anything, the evidence suggests the opposite. There is no credible evidence to support the reformers’ theory of action that merit pay and of the threat of firing of presumably low-performing teachers will drive systemic improvement. It is pure unsubstantiated ideology. <br /><br />In his popular book, “Drive,” Daniel Pink summarizes the research regarding motivation. Extrinsic rewards are only effective to improve performance for short-term, simplistic tasks. Performance and learning with respect to complex tasks (teaching, for example) is undermined by reward systems. In addition, research shows that once a threshold of “fair pay” is reached, rewards for performance provide no benefit and may be counterproductive. Arguably, the result of reward systems – especially with untrusted metrics – is ethical lapses. We have known all of this for a long time, yet the reformers keep insisting on it as policy in the name of innovation. This is yet another case in the fog of the education war in which ideology trumps evidence. <br /><br />Fire the Bottom 10 percent: Another pillar of current education reform, made famous by Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, is that annual firing of the lowest performing 10 percent of managers drives improvement. Presumably, this is what is behind the push to annually rank teachers across four or five normative performance categories. The charge is that tenure, inadequate teacher and principal evaluation systems, the absence of clear outcome-based performance metrics and lack of competition makes educators complacent about making needed change. By this way of thinking, the relatively low percentage of teacher firings and persistent poor student performance are prima facie evidence to support this strategy. This appears to be the justification for firing 50 percent of the teachers and the principal as a turn-around strategy in Title 1 schools. However, except with reference to anecdotal outliers, there is no evidence to support this idea. <br /><br />In addition, firing as a systemic strategy fails the logic test. There is no substantial evidence that there are so many ineffective teachers or that this is the principle cause of low student performance. Unless it is inexplicably assumed that there is a pool of more effective teachers just waiting to be hired, replacement can only work for a minority of schools. GE might beat out Frigidaire for best refrigerator engineers, but that is only a winning strategy for GE’s bottom line, not the consumers. Once again, applied to schools, this is unexamined ideology driving policy.<br /><br />I hope it will not take decades to see our way out of the fog of the education war. I hope some inside government official will not wait as long as McNamara to speak up. However, reasoned argument is not enough. Without massive organized opposition these policies are unlikely to change.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/07/a-call-for-president-obama-to-change-course-on-education/">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/07/a-call-for-president-obama-to-change-course-on-education/</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5775273637728531742.post-36911543143198694052012-11-08T09:35:00.000-08:002012-11-16T07:52:51.089-08:00Jeb Bush's ed reforms suffer some defeats<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">From Scathing Purple Musings, by Bob Sykes<br /><br />The election sucked all of the oxygen out of the air for the last three months. And from me, too. But as Romney supporter who awakened yesterday with disappointment, I’ve hope that the totality of the voting across that nation signals that public education was saved. Most notably, the education reform movement’s chief political architect, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, suffered three significant political defeats. Lets take a look.<br /><br /><br />1. Floridians didn’t buy the religious freedom nonsense and defeated Bush’s Amendment 8. Voters saw that it was just another back-channel attempt to legalize vouchers. Nearly 1 million Floridians voted against the measure, clearly showing that republican and indepenedent voters didn’t want it.<br /><br />2. Allow me the opportunity to gloat: So how’s that Chiefs for Change thing going, Jeb? Just a few short months after Gerard Robinson resigned in disgrace in Florida, one of Bush’s hand-picked stars suffered defeat in a red state which Mitt Romney won on Tuesday. Indiana school superintendent Tony Bennett was defeated by a teacher, Glenda Ritz. Over 100,000 more Indianans rejected Bennet’s hyper charter school-voucherism in favor of the wisdom of an educator.<br /><br />3. Bush’s foundation have provided significant political support for Idaho school chief Tom Luna. This from <br />The Answer Sheet:<br /><br />Idaho voters appear to have overturned the “Luna laws,” three school reform laws named for state schools Superintendent<br /><br />Tom Luna who made them the centerpiece of his agenda. Voters rejected his plan to require high school students to take two online courses and for the state to spend $180 million to lease laptops to make this happen. They also rejected merit pay for teachers that is linked to student standardized test scores and<br />they opposed limits on the collective bargaining rights for teachers.<br /><br />Mitt Romney won Idaho by a 64 to 36 margin, a clear indication that republican voters rejected Bush-style education reforms.<br /><br />Do Bush and his acolytes know they are backpedaling? They may. Late last month, they quickly jumped on Rick Scott’s bandwagon after he had released his official positions on education policy. Speculation that Bennett would leave Indiana for Florida will probably end after this week’s rebukes of the Bush way. Scott, who clearly has put his finger in the wind on education, may no longer be as enamored with what he’s being told by the Bush camp.<br /><br /><a href="http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/jeb-bush-suffers-three-defeats-at-the-hands-of-republican-voters/">http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/jeb-bush-suffers-three-defeats-at-the-hands-of-republican-voters/</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15511432864734182961noreply@blogger.com0