Education Links

"Let's consider what we know now about the major education reform agendas currently impacting out schools"

"When our schools are run for profit, there are disastrous consequences for both students and teachers. Teachers are "managed" through the "outcomes" they produce, meaning their students' test scores. This makes teachers focus not on their students strengths, not on their students' needs or interests, but rather on their deficits, on the skills and concepts the students must master to pass the next test. Students who are, for whatever reasons unable to produce test score gains (perhaps they might be uninterested, alienated, traumatized, hungry, special education, new to the English language, or a hundred other reasons) become a liability for the teacher and the school. Under the pressure to produce "profits" is the form of higher test scores, schools begin to systematically reject students like these, as we are already seeing among some charter schools. Schools care less about nurturing students or teachers. The environment becomes less humane. Turnover increases among teachers, and attrition rises for students. Residual public schools become a dumping ground for students too difficult to educate."

"To teachers, administrators and parents these may seem like the dark days on the eve of destruction of public education. Indeed, from draconian budget cuts to school closings, from competition for students from private fund-enhanced charter schools to maniacal focus on test scores, from flawed measures of teacher performance to attacks on teacher professionalism, public schooling as a collective good is under siege. These threats are especially ironic and unconscionable because we now know more about teaching, learning and effective change than ever before. So, it is the age of wisdom, light and hope because our knowledge grows and deepens. But it is also the age of foolishness, darkness and despair because ignorance and selfishness have prevailed over knowledge and evidence. In each critical area for improvement, foolishness threatens wisdom."

"The Upper West Side Success Academy charter school has touted itself for not trying to push out kids with special needs or behavior problems, but a parent has audio to the contrary."

"The conventional wisdom has always been that schools and students need experienced teachers committed to a career in education. But many charter networks are depending on young, inexperienced teachers who quit after only two to five years. Officials of the schools believe the young teachers remain motivated and energetic, unlike more experienced teachers at many public schools who might stay on even after they've burned out. Are they onto something?"

"Recently, I have been on the radio talk-show circuit promoting my new book, which exposes the ugly realities of what passes for "school reform,"and how the current obsession with test scores and other data is playing a big part in destroying a public education system that once was the envy of the world. Of course, much of talk radio takes an anti-government attitude on just about every subject ("Traffic lights? Why should the government have a monopoly on traffic lights?!"). So my plea for fixing - not dismantling - our public schools rarely is met with sympathy."

"We are at a tipping point in Philadelphia. I say this as a teacher, fully committed to the promise of public education for all the young people living in this city I love, who has felt the repeated stab of the School District's systemic dysfunction and the State and City's structural abandonment. I say this as a teacher activist, who is engaged in the community-wide fight for public education.  I am a part of Teacher Action Group-Philadelphia (TAG) a member-run grassroots organization of educators working to strengthen our influence on the decisions that most affect us - how schools are run, funded, and governed - so that community control, equity, and fairness are back at the center of public education."

"The charter school chain Success Academy is being criticized for its high suspension rate, as parents complain that special-needs kids are pushed out and students are being denied due process."

"A couple of weeks ago, Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute made the case that absolute proficiency rates should not be used as measures of school effectiveness, as they are heavily dependent on where students "start out" upon entry to the school. A few days later, Fordham president Checker Finn offered a defense of proficiency rates, noting that how much students know is substantively important, and associated with meaningful outcomes later in life. They're both correct. This is not a debate about whether proficiency rates are at all useful (by the way, I don't read Petrilli as saying that). It's about how they should be used and how they should not."

"In sum, the AP article does not reflect the declared purpose of the survey as evidenced by the survey questions. The parents completing the AP survey were not instructed in the use of the term "high stakes," including the potential, serious outcomes of high stakes testing.  They were also not informed of the high-stakes-testing requirements associated with Common Core. If one considers the survey results separate from the AP article, one sees parents who believe their children are receiving a better education than they did from excellent-yet-underpaid teachers who care about their students.  I dare the Joyce-Foundation-funded AP to print that info."

"I've examined the various statistics about Success and will summarize and analyze them here with the hope of shedding light on what things this network might be doing that 'works' and also illuminating some of the problems with this network."

"Let's take another trip back to Philadelphia for the day, because the reformy conversation around Philadelphia is just so darn illustrative of how reformy thinking works. Here's a synopsis of the reformy approach to pushing pre-established, fact free, ideological reforms:"

"I think the tests are really being used as weapons against teachers and schools to force them to adopt questionable but expensive curriculum being marketed by test prep companies that seem to have enormous influence over politicians. Instead of buying packaged test prep and curriculum programs, New York State can get the best bang for its buck by having students memorize a few simple lower order thinking rules."

"School officials have chalked up $21.8 million of the expected budget increase to four new publicly financed, privatelyoperated charters set to open in 2014-15, along with expansion of existing charters."

"This is the third and final post about Education in Chile by Professor Mario Waissbluth, which he wrote for this blog to help us understand a system that took Milton Friedman's advice and relied heavily on testing and choice."

"The attack on the spirit of higher education is exemplified in the installation of former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a neoliberal archfiend of public schooling, as president of Purdue University."

"This is the second is a series of three articles written by Professor Mario Waissbluth of Chile for this blog. In this series, he describes the school system in Chile, which is based on testing and choice."

"This book is about designing classroom grading systems that are both precise and efficient. One of the first steps to this end is to clarify the basic purpose of grades. How a school or district defines the purpose of grades dictates much of the form and function of grades."

"This is the first of three posts written by Professor Mario Waissbluth about education in Chile. I invited him to contribute to the blog, because Chile represents our future if we continue our present course of action towards a market system built around the principles of testing and choice."

"New scores from standardized tests   aligned with the Common Core State Standards were released earlier this month in New York, and, as expected, the number of students who did well plummeted. This decline was predicted by New York State officials. How did they know? Here to explain in an eye-opening piece is award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York, who has for more than a year chronicled on the test-driven reform in her state"