This Little Blog: A Place to Respond

Arne Duncan Catapulted to Higher Office

2010-03-27T22:55:00.005-06:00

For Immediate Release
Washington, D.C.
Department of Education

Determined to defuse nagging tensions over his performance and his qualifications for the office he holds, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan brought a dead possum back to life on a busy highway about 8 miles southeast of D.C today. Duncan applied cardiac massage and artificial respiration to the carcass.

Traffic backed up for 2 miles as a mob of onlookers exited their vehicles to applaud Duncan and wish Godspeed to the bewildered former roadkill.

Following the incident, President Obama called a press conference to announce his appointment of Arne Duncan as NBA Commissioner. The President said it may be as late as April 1st before he can find anyone able to fill Duncan's shoes as Ed Secretary.

(spoof)

Michelle Rhee: Marketing, Marketing, the Business Model in America's Public Schools

2010-03-20T16:43:00.001-06:00

From Bill Turque of the Washington Post (highlights mine):

Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, whose image has been frayed by a series of high-profile news controversies, is turning to former White House communications director and veteran Democratic media consultant Anita Dunn for help.

A D.C. schools spokeswoman confirmed Friday that the agency is negotiating a contract with Dunn's firm, Squier Knapp Dunn. The objective is to more effectively handle the heavy load of local and national news media attention that Rhee attracts and to help roll out major stories to greater strategic advantage. The spokeswoman said Dunn has devoted time to District school issues but would not elaborate

.

Read the rest here. A big thank you to Bill Turque for reporting this. It seems most reporters in an uncritical mainstream media regard Rhee as some sort of hero by virtue of her contempt for America' public school teachers.

Some reports I read claim that schools in D.C. have improved since Rhee came on board as Chancellor. Others, mainly teachers, say the improvements were already underway before Rhee took command. Being far from D.C. I wouldn't know which version is correct or if there is some truth in both. But as a former teacher I confess I'm inclined to lean toward the teachers' version. And if test scores are rising, what does it really mean? It might mean that children are getting a better education and it might not.

In this age of fear and abuse packaged as accountability, with the iron-fisted imposition of the business model in our nation's classrooms, and worship at the altar of data, at what cost higher test scores? All over the country, it is very hard to even know anymore whether test score gains are really a reflection of improved learning. Certainly the joy of learning for its own sake is being snuffed out.

One of the most important things I ever learned from independent researcher and national treasure Gerald Bracey (and as a teacher during this age of maniacal testing and cutthroat accountability) is that high test scores are a good thing in and of themselves, but they are only meaningful when you don't attach too much meaning to them. Repeat that. Test scores are only meaningful when you don't attach too much meaning to them. Attach high stakes to them and as Campbell's Law warns, gaming and corruption ensue. And much else of immeasurable value is lost. The issue isn't the tests themselves, it's their misuse.

There is a very well funded PR machine churning in the dark underbelly of the ed deform movement's failing schools/failing teachers narrative, most often cloaked in civil rights rhetoric. Even well-meaning reporters for whom I normally have much respect on issues other than education are miles and miles behind ordinary folks in recognizing how bloated with distortion and deception that underbelly is.

The current silver bullet being marketed to the media is getting rid of bad teachers. Indeed there are some bad teachers who should find another line of work and it shouldn't take years and an act of Congress to get them out of the classroom. However, I believe from my experience in 12 years of teaching that incompetent teachers are a small minority of the teaching population, (I'd say roughly 5%-7% in my area) and many, many teachers who find they cannot handle teaching simply "fire" themselves by resigning voluntarily.

You can fire every "bad" teacher in the country and it will barely make a dent in the challenges that present themselves to America's public schools, for those challenges are simply a mirror reflection of the poverty and societal ills that our country somehow chooses to turn a blind eye to. We are number one in childhood poverty among wealthy nations. What irony that the very people who have chosen to devote their lives to teaching and working with poor children are singled out and deprecated in the media.

Comment of a Central Falls High School Graduate

2010-03-19T15:59:00.004-06:00

Just happened across this and thought I'd share it. From the Anderson Cooper 360 Blog, amidst all the "FIRE THEM!" reader comments, there was this precious jewel (bold highlights mine):

I have graduated from Central Falls HIgh School and now I am attending an Ivy League University. Every teacher I had at the high school helped get to where I am now. People can look at statistics all they want, but in reality they mean very little. Every teacher at Central Falls High school contributes to the development of the students and strives to help them succeed. From personal experience I know that they are more than happy to stay after school and help any student who needs help with anything. They are there to talk to not only about school matters, but also about personal problems. These teachers are more than educators, they are our family and no one has the right to take them away from our community

How wise this dear student is to realize that the human worth and potential of young people, and the contributions of their teachers, cannot be reduced to data points.

Below is another very telling comment, though I do not fully agree with the part about putting "blame where it belongs". All the blaming going on solves nothing and no child gets to choose the conditions into which they are born:

I was born and raised within 10 miles of Central Falls and lived in the local area for 32 years. Central Falls ought to thank God every day that these teachers show up at all..!!! Put the blame where it belongs, Squarely on the children and the parents. It's easy to sit back, hear half the story and judge these teachers. Someone needs to put an undercover camera in a class and record for a day. Show the public the tape, I can guarantee you, you will be thanking them just for showing up.

FIeld Trips as Test Preparation for Harlem Pre-kindergarten and Kindergarten Students

2009-10-19T21:34:00.023-06:00

Read all about it at the New York Times. Field trips to farms (oops...make that field "studies") as test preparation for Harlem Success Academy pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children. After all, they must be prepared for the state tests they will take as third graders.

But it soon became clear that this was a field “study”— as the teachers called it — not a field “trip,” and the 75 Harlem kindergartners were going not only for a glimpse of rural life, but to rack up extra points on standardized tests.

“I want to get smarter,” 5-year-old Brandon Neal said.

“I want to do better on homework and tests,” added Julliana Jimenez, one of his classmates.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad as can be the children got to go visit a farm.

But the motive for the field trip is sad. Not for learning for its own sake. Not simply for the joy of it. Not just for some good old-fashioned fun. Not just because it's a loving thing to do for children.

Not "I want to see where milk comes from!" but "I want to do better on homework and tests."

New York State’s English and math exams include several questions each year about livestock, crops and the other staples of the rural experience that some educators say flummox city children, whose knowledge of nature might begin and end at Central Park. On the state English test this year, for instance, third graders were asked questions relating to chickens and eggs. In math, they had to count sheep and horses.

So leaving no possible test point unexplored, the educators at the Harlem Success Academy, a fast-growing chain of four charter schools known for a relentless emphasis on data, have invented a form of test preparation. The schools haul their students to a farm each year, hoping to expose them to the rural life and lift their scores.

On a chilly morning last week, the kindergartners, in blue-and-orange school scarves, crowded around a corral at the Queens County Farm Museum to gaze at an elderly cow named Daisy and a sheep standing nearby. In the background, children from other schools giggled and played as the Harlem students huddled quietly

“Turn on your listening ears!” a teacher said. She talked about how a sheep’s coat could be turned into sweaters, and repeated the words yarn and wool until the children nodded in understanding.

Here's a spot-on comment left at the NYT by a NYC public school principal:

As a NYC educator (I am a principal of a public elementary school in Manhattan), there are a couple things that bother me about this article. First, the idea that one takes children on trips so that they can do better on tests. Wow. Whatever happened to the idea of nurturing curiosity about the world and building knowledge about things based on experience? Doesn't that have value without the specter of tests hanging over one's five year old head? I can only hope that the slant of this article -- that Harlem Success Academy plans its curriculum for enhanced test scores instead of the betterment of these lovely little human beings -- is merely a conceit of the New York Times. John Dewey would roll over in his grave.

Right. Aren't these children worthy of these experiences simply because?

The Caroline Hoxby Charter School Study and the State of Education Reporting

2009-10-02T07:15:00.044-06:00

Recent editorials about the Caroline Hoxby charter school study in the New York Daily News, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post are typical examples of the severely biased state of education commentary and reporting.

The Hoxby study concluded that NYC charter schools are better than traditional non-charter public schools. I am in no way an expert on the legitimacy of this particular study but I am highly skeptical.

I am skeptical because I believe that Caroline Hoxby, a Stanford economist, longtime proponent of privatization, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, has been involved in some very dubious research practices. Much more detail on that to follow. Think tanks like Hoover are hostile to the very idea of public education.

And I am skeptical because I read the testimony of real life New York City teachers and parents on their blogs. They can hardly compete with the billionaire-backed PR propaganda machine driving the charter school movement. And although I am a non-union teacher, every public school teacher in America is experiencing the weight and enormity of the efforts to undermine and take over our profession.

I will preface clips from the editorials linked above with some observations about think tanks in general, the powerful role they play in shaping public perception and public policy, and the Hoxby connection in particular. For the most part, think tank research is a joke, driven by blind ideology, the results pre-determined.

From SourceWatch:

A think tank (also called a policy institute) is an organization, institute, corporation, or group that conducts research and engages in advocacy in public policy.[1] Many think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax exempt status. While many think tanks are funded by governments, interest groups, or businesses, some think tanks also derive income from consulting or research work related to their mandate.[2] In some cases, think tanks are little more than public relations fronts, usually headquartered in state or national seats of government and generating self-serving scholarship that serves the advocacy goals of their industry sponsors.

Of course, some think tanks are more legitimate than that. Private funding does not necessarily make a researcher a shill, and some think-tanks produce worthwhile public policy research. In general, however, research from think tanks is ideologically driven in accordance with the interests of its funders.

Think tanks are funded primarily by large businesses and major foundations. They devise and promote policies that shape the lives of everyday Americans: Social Security privatization, tax and investment laws, regulation of everything from oil to the Internet. They supply experts to testify on Capitol Hill, write articles for the op-ed pages of newspapers, and appear as TV commentators. They advise presidential aspirants and lead orientation seminars to train incoming members of Congress.

Now, the Caroline Hoxby connection:

In the summer of 2004, the New York Times ran a front page article featuring a report by the American Federation of Teachers about data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The AFT report documented the inferior performance on average of charter schools compared with regular public schools. The report drew outrage from pro-charter, privatization zealots like Hoxby.

All hell broke loose. So great was the outrage that the offended parties took out a $125,000 ad in the New York Times, paid for by Jeanne Allen and her Center for Education Reform, alleging among other things that "the study in question does not meet current professional research standards." When addressing an audience at the conservative Manhattan institute, Hoxby said:

It would be a good idea for someone to produce evidence that addressed the AFT study's most egregious failings.

Who, of course, could take seriously a report by the American Federation of Teachers? A self-serving teachers' union!

Former Assistant Secretary of Education Chester Finn, Jr. (he is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, chairman of Hoover's task force on k-12 education, and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation) labeled the analysis:

...a mischief-bearing grenade, hand delivered by the charter-hating American Federation of Teachers.

How odd. Were it not for the AFT's former head Albert Shanker, charter schools might never have gotten off the ground. Shanker was one of the earliest and most prominent supporters of charter schools. Before his death, however, he had become disillusioned with them.

Just weeks after the Times article featuring the AFT report, Hoxby rushed the dissemination of a paper claiming to offer a methodologically superior study of academic achievement in charter schools. Charter advocates and conservative think tanks promoted Hoxby's report as a complete refutation of the AFT's results.

Yet independent analyses of Hoxby's report by a number of researchers revealed that Hoxby's report violated a number of the very standards that she claimed the AFT violated. Lawrence Mishel's analysis can be found in the American Prospect and Gerald Bracey's chronicle of the events here. Among other things, it was found that when the background characteristics of the traditional public school students vs the charter school students were statistically controlled for, the charter advantage disappeared.

Then lo and behold, the U.S. Department of Education (no friend to public education for many years now) reluctantly released their own overdue report in 2005 and it corroborated the AFT report precisely. Although not all of the differences were statistically significant, the results favored pubic schools in 20 of 22 comparisons. And as Bracey noted:

Because of the reluctance of the U.S. Department of Education to hand over the results of its charter school studies, in November the New York Times had to use the Freedom of Information Act to pry loose another charter study, whose final report was delivered in June. Conducted largely by SRI International, this study also found charters performing less well than regular public schools.

Edward Fisk, a prominent journalist and former ed writer for the NYT, wrote of Hoxby's hypocrisy in an October 6, 2004 letter-to-the-editor in Education Week. He noted that in contrast to the AFT report, which was based on data for individual students, Hoxby used school averages, meaning she used no family-background data on students.

In addition, the events I have summarized here culminated in a book by Martin Carnoy, Rebecca Jacobsen, Lawrence Mishel, and Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute: "The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement".

Now fast forward to the present. Here comes Hoxby again with a groundbreaking longitudinal study being hailed as definitive truth by the corporate press, showing that New York City charter schools outperform the city's traditional public schools "by a mile".

The headline in the New York Daily News reads:

Acing the Test: Charter School Students Outperform Peers By a Mile in a Fair Test

A fair test? We shall see. But that's quite a claim about a study performed by a pro-privatization advocate with a history like Hoxby's.

The leading paragraph from the Daily News is so unprofessional it is embarrassing.

It's official. From this day forward, those who battle New York's charter school movement stand conclusively on notice that they are fighting to block thousands of children from getting superior educations.

How confident the pronouncements.

Note how the motives of those resisting the corporate takeover of public education are characterized.

And what is a superior education? Are children being better educated by the intrusion of business models in their schools, where they are viewed like outputs and commodities, with dog-eat-dog pressure and competition for the highest test scores no matter what the human cost? No matter the corruption, cheating, gaming, and shifting of students from here to there and back again to achieve the measurable results? No matter the demoralization and eventual disappearance (through dropping out) of students who don't measure up?

One of the most galling aspects of the current ed reform narrative is the blasting of our public schools by those in power for the huge dropout rates of poor and minority students. The reforms they have engineered guarantee higher dropout rates. The impact of high-stakes testing on dropout rates is well documented.

And there is this from the Daily News editorial:

But these are public schools. Charter public schools. Your tax money funds them, and you should be proud. Because they are saving kids' lives.

Saving kids' lives? Is the nation to believe that the single-minded pursuit of higher test scores through relentless test-prepping is saving kids' lives?

No, the misuse of testing is resulting in a very narrow and impoverished education for many of our children, and in unprecedented levels of corruption, manipulation, and gamesmanship to attain the all important numbers.

Although the wise and judicious use of assessment is not in question, Campbell's Law is being borne out with stunning accuracy in the sham called U. S. education reform:

The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.

Saving kids' lives? Certainly not in Chicago. Have a look at how corporate-style reform is working out in Chicago .

These are public schools? We are being led on a trajectory to what will essentially be publicly funded private schools. Truly public neighborhood schools destroyed, public schools turned over to private management companies, billions of dollars that could be spent actually helping and improving the schools we already have diverted instead to private hands. Note how 'public' is being re-defined.

Here's what the Wall Street Journal had to say about the Hoxby study:

The New York results are not unique. In a separate study, Ms. Hoxby found Chicago's charters performing even better than the Big Apple's. Using the same methodology, other researchers have seen similar results in Boston.

Really? Check out a little fact sheet on Chicago's charter school success by Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) in Chicago.

And Boston? As Jim Horn notes at Schools Matter, a new study of Boston charter schools "shows them to be more mirage than the miracle that the Boston Globe and the Boston Foundation would have the public believe."

By having almost no students who are Limited English Proficient (LEP), significantly lower numbers of special education students (with milder disabilities, by the way), and fewer poor students (FRLP), there is no wonder that the charterizers have been able to claim the test score edge.

The Wall Street Journal editorial ridiculously concludes:

Little wonder President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are pressuring states to become more charter-friendly. Why the Administration can't connect the dots from the evidence to other effective school choice reforms, such as vouchers, can only be explained by union politics. Caroline Hoxby has performed a public service by finally making clear that "creaming" is a crock.

Hmm. Beyond creaming, it is evident that sifting is also part of the recipe for cooked charter school data.

From the new Boston study about the sifting out of students:

This report shines a light on the shocking loss of students in most Boston charter schools between the year of initial enrollment and the final year," said MTA President Anne Wass. "Students who are not meeting a school’s academic and behavior standards are being sent back to district schools or to the streets, and then exaggerated claims of success are being made based on the small number of students who remain.

The new Boston study documenting very high student attrition rates and low enrollment of high-needs students in the city's charter schools was released by the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Uh-oh, a teachers union!

Like the 2004 AFT report that Hoxby assailed, it couldn't possibly be accurate, now could it?

Congress to Attack Poverty

2009-09-16T23:54:00.023-06:00

In a rare move, Congress is giving children, teachers, and public schools across the nation a break rather than a black eye by passing a mandate to end poverty. Children will be required to do a much better job of selecting their parents and the circumstances into which they are born. Public school teachers will be held strictly accountable for seeing to it that every child has developed the critical thinking skills necessary for making sound birth decisions. A failing teacher will face salary and benefit reductions and be the subject of a scathing editorial by a wealthy, outraged pundit.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Offer Orthopedic Shoes to Failing Public School Teachers

2009-09-12T13:18:00.133-06:00

For Immediate Release
Washington, D.C.

Newsspoof: Gates Foundation & DOE to Fund High-Performing Footwear Initiative

Whenever edu-philanthropreneur Bill Gates gets down and out about the state of public education, the severe economic downturn we are all are experiencing, and the staggering inequalities incurred on the nation by poorly performing public school teachers, he visits some exceptional schools to lift his spirits. On a visit to a KIPP school in Houston, Gates witnessed an "unbelievable thing" about its teachers, a phenomenon apparently unheard of in traditional public schools.

Now, there are a few places -- very few -- where great teachers are being made. A good example of one is a set of charter schools called KIPP. KIPP means Knowledge Is Power. It's an unbelievable thing. When you actually go and sit in one of these classrooms, at first it's very bizarre. I sat down and I thought, "What is going on?" The teacher was running around, and the energy level was high. I thought, "I'm in the sports rally or something. What's going on?" And the teacher was constantly scanning to see which kids weren't paying attention, which kids were bored, and calling kids rapidly, putting things up on the board.

And the more the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation apprised itself of top-notch research, the more apparent it became that the key to closing the achievement gap was to turn the nation's attention to teacher effectiveness as quantified by children's standardized test scores:

The more we looked at it, the more we realized that having great teachers was the very key thing. And we hooked up with some people studying how much variation there is between teachers, between, say, the top quartile -- the very best -- and the bottom quartile. How much variation is there within a school or between schools? And the answer is that these variations are absolutely unbelievable. A top quartile teacher will increase the performance of their class -- based on test scores -- by over 10 percent in a single year. What does that mean? That means that if the entire U.S., for two years, had top quartile teachers, the entire difference between us and Asia would go away. Within four years we would be blowing everyone in the world away! So, it's simple. All you need are those top quartile teachers.

"I'm a huge fan of Bill Gates," reported Ed Secretary Arne Duncan, whose department has filled key posts with officials having strong ties to Gates.

"For decades, critics old and new in the education reform industry have known and rightly warned Americans that our public schools are failing the nation. Well-meaning ed reformers have bravely and unselfishly pushed reform after reform. And it's like we've been sort of looking around for the silver bullet and it turns out the answer has been right under our noses the whole time!"

However, until such time as all the teachers in the nation's 3.7 million K-12 classrooms are top-quartile teachers, Gates opines that we are left with "what to do" with the nation's corp of tired, old, less visionary teachers.

While it's certainly no panacea, we do know that great teachers are on their feet constantly for hours every day, engaging and re-directing the most challenging students. In conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education, the Gates Foundation will fund a high-performing footwear initiative in the nation's traditional public schools. Teachers who choose to take advantage of the offer will receive vouchers to visit to a podiatrist of their choice to be fitted for custom orthotics. Teachers already wearing orthotics may want their doctor to see if they're wearing the right type of orthopedic shoes. No pun intended, but we really do want to give teachers fair and balanced support in their efforts to improve.

"I'm a huge fan of orthopedic shoes," raved Duncan. "When I played pro-basketball, the quality and comfort of my shoes made a huge difference."

--news spoof brought to you by staff at This Little Blog

Tom Vander Ark's List of Race to the Top Edu-Entrepreneurial Opportunities

2009-09-06T07:18:00.030-06:00

Tom Vander Ark was the first Executive Director for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is now partner in Vander Ark/Ratcliff, an eduction public affairs firm, and a partner in a private equity fund focused on "innovative" learning tools.

Drooling for Data-Driven Dollars might have been a better title for this post. And for children? Much, much more of the same, where they are viewed as commodities to be standardized and developed for corporate harvesting and consumption.

Below find Mr. Vander Ark's list of 10 edu-entrepreneurial opportunities to be fueled by Race-to-the-Top.

Race-to-the-Top for who?

With the Race to the Top language out, it’s time to refine the list of opportunities for education entrepreneurs (both .org & .com). From largest to niche size they include:
1. School improvement: between RTT, Inovation, and School Improvement, there will be a couple billion spent on attempts to improve struggling schools. America’s Choice should be well positioned as will a new services group at Pearson. Groups like AdvancePath that target under-credited students as a school-within-a-school should also do well.
2. CMO/EMO: with grant money and air cover from Obama and Duncan, the demand for high quality charters has never been stronger. If CMOs like Green Dot can figure out a reliable conversion strategy, several will finally achieve scale. A for-profit operator, National Heritage is now twice as big as Green Dot and bigger than the KIPP network. It will help if RTT helps improves access to public facilities.
4. Assessment: the big guys will continue to own state contracts, but there’s a new opening for formative and periodic assessment. Groups like Wireless Generation are well positioned to take advantage of the push for quick tests that improve instruction.
5. Adaptive content & learning games: Over the next five years, we’ll see a third of the $8B textbook business shift to digital with a third of that going to the new field of adaptive content and games.
6. Training: It has been a tough year in the professional development business, but that should change as federal funding flows. Where data is linked to evaluation, we’ll see strong demand for targeted training.
7. Consulting: lots of states, districts and schools need lots of services including data integration, policy development, program design and implementation (i.e., evaluation), grant writing, program management, and communications.
8. Advocacy: The big bucks and big demands on the system will make the next few years very dynamic. We need a ConnCAN in every state to connect communities, lawmakers, and policy experts. We need to mobilize underserved communities to steer school improvement and new school opportunities.
9. Evaluation: evaluating $5B of spending will yield $250M of evaluation contracts—it’s a good time to be MDRC.
10. Web 2.0: with dozens of new entrants in the social learning space and content management and student information systems incorporating web 2.0 functionality, we’re bound to see a couple of these gain widespread adoption in the next four school years.

Ed Secretary Duncan Gets Head Stuck

2009-08-20T12:03:00.004-06:00

For Immediate Release
Washington, D.C.

According to unnamed officials at the Department of Education, Ed Secretary Arne Duncan got his head trapped inside the two metal bars of the extendable handle on his rolling attache case. He was able to insert his head fully through the handle without it getting stuck but was subsequently unable to pull his head back out.

Leading ed reform spokesmen Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich discovered the Secretary in his office muttering expletives and feverishly trying to pull his head out. The pair had arrived on schedule to meet with Duncan to brainstorm stratagems for dealing with an absence of any credible evidence to support the administration's education reform proposals.

Once freed from the device by Sharpton and Gingrich, Duncan brushed the mishap off as a teachable moment about not sticking your head in places where it doesn't belong.

Department employees have graciously refrained from asking Duncan why he stuck his head through the bars in the first place.

Diane Ravitch Comments on Race to the Top (And A Teacher's Proposal for Obama and Duncan to Submit to Nationally Televised Debates)

2009-08-16T23:13:00.011-06:00

Great comments from Diane Ravitch:

Dear DOE,

I wish to register a strong objection to these regulations. As a former
federal official (I was Assistant Secretary of Education in 1991-92), I
object to the coercive nature in which the federal government is dictating
education policy to the states. But of great importance, the policies you are
dictating are not based on evidence.

You want states to tie teacher evaluations to test scores, but you present
no evidence that doing so improves achievement; instead you rely on economists
who project that it might do so. To achieve this goal, you tell states that they
must roll back laws they have passed. This oversteps the bounds of federal
authority in education.

Similarly your pressure to open charter schools goes beyond any evidence
that charter schools are superior to regular public schools. The recent Stanford
study by Margaret Raymond found that only 17% of charter schools were better
than nearby public schools. Why then should schools eliminate their caps on
charters?

I think the DOE should respect the requirements of federalism and look to
states to offer their best ideas rather than mandating policies that the current
administration likes, even though there is no evidence to support them.

Humility is sometimes the best policy, especially when you are not on firm
ground with your remedies.

Diane Ravitch

Thank you, Diane.

On a related note, I believe we should be joining forces and publicly challenging Obama and Duncan to submit to nationally televised debates about the merits of their recipe for education reform. Since it is highly unlikely that they would concede to participating in debates where they could not control and frame the debate, I think we should present the challenge to them under the condition that they submit to fair and DEMOCRATIC debates in which neither side is allowed to control or frame the debate. If they refuse, that alone would say a lot.

I proposed this challenge on a listserv to which I belong (arn-the assessment reform network). Jerry Bracey responded that to "publicly" challenge Obama/Duncan would present a daunting challenge, mainly getting the media's attention and "getting it in a big way." He's right, but he offered that he's open to ideas.

So I submitted another idea. As some of you already know, the Standing Committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures recently issued statements about its position on lifting charter school caps and the imposition of national standards. It seems they oppose both. Here's the link (if you visit the link you have to scroll down a bit to get to the statements about lifting state charter school caps and national standards):

http://www.ncsl.org/Default.aspx?TabID=773&tabs=855,22,634#Public_Charter

I suggested that perhaps we try appealing to and through the NCSL to call for national debates. I notice that Jerry then sent our discourse on the matter to Arne Duncan and other officials at ed.gov, as well as to various journalists, including Sam Dillon of the NY Times and Jay Mathews of the Washington Post.

Don't know if this idea will go anywhere but would appreciate any ideas out there to add to the discussion.

The Road Most Traveled by the Ed Reformers

2009-08-07T16:35:00.001-06:00

With deep apologies to Robert Frost for the liberties taken, I'm posting this again (revised from my original post) to reflect how I feel and what I believe about the education reform business. And it has indeed become big business and a corrupt one at that. It seems to me it is disaster capitalism, the hijacking of a public good for corporate interest in a nation that remains number one among wealthy nations in childhood poverty. And the staggering inequalities are only growing.

Two roads diverged in the urban wood,

One to crush and the other to help.

The first lush with profit, long I stood

Pressing schools down as hard as I could

With truth kept hidden in the undergrowth.

I took the first road as just and fair,

And having no doubt a believable claim.

Posing for poor children wanted no wear,

They'd yield data for market repair,

And for this scheme I felt no ounce of shame.

Throughout the journey well hidden lay

The leaves that I had trodden black.

Oh, I kept that knowledge for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever turn back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one most traveled by,

And for poor kids it made little difference.

Show and Tell

2009-08-01T16:25:00.003-06:00

The 'Middle Wife' by an Anonymous 2nd grade teacher:

I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. 'This is Luke, my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday.'

'First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.'

She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

'Then, about two Saturdays ago, my mom starts saying and going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!' Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. 'She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!' (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.)

'My dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my mom to lie down in bed like this.' (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.)

'And then, pop! My mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshheew!' (This little kid has her little hands miming water flowing away.)

'Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said was from mom's play-center, (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys inside there. When he got out, the middle wife spanked him for crawling up in there.'

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another 'Middle Wife' comes along.

Fun With Arne

2009-06-17T00:38:00.036-06:00

In a speech before the National Press Club yesterday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that he believes children should be in school seven days a week and also on weekends.

When prompted to correct his error, Duncan explained that for students already demonstrating "dramatically on target readiness for college and the workforce", he meant seven days a week but not on weekends.

Prior to being appointed Secretary of Education by President Obama, privately educated Duncan catapulted his way to his former position as CEO of Chicago Public Schools by doing some tutoring when he was in high school, earning a B.A. in Sociology from Harvard, and playing pro-basketball in Australia for four years.

Of his experiences as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, the Secretary stated that he is "absolutely proud of the progress made in Chicago."

In regard to his new role as Secretary of Education, Duncan described himself as a huge fan of reform, passionately committed, and unbelievably excited.

- newsspoof by staff at this little blog

Deconstructing Arne Duncan Quote

2009-06-07T14:00:00.015-06:00

Is it just me? The following Arne Duncan quote has troubled me for some time but I've never said anything. Check out Duncan's placement of priorities here (bold highlights mine):

“Hungry children are distracted children. We want to make sure nothing gets in the way of our children performing well academically, including hunger.”

Hungry children should be fed because they are hungry. Period.

That children's academic performance will improve when their most basic, fundamental life needs are met is truly secondary. NOT unimportant, but secondary.

NCLB, Shark Attacks, and Tapeworms

2009-04-23T21:16:00.037-06:00

Undaunted in the face of setbacks and mounting evidence that the No Child Left Behind Act has been an abysmal failure, research titans at the Free Market Think Tank Community are uncovering surprising quality-of-life benefits for children that they have tied directly to the testing and accountability provisions of the sweeping federal law.

Shark attacks on children in the United States declined by 23% from the inception of NCLB in 2002 to 2008, confirmed ichthyologist Gill Bates of the International Stop-the-Shark Attacks File, a program that is part of the Philanthrotank Museum of Natural History.

"The more time children spend studying for standardized tests, the less time they have for trips to the beach," said Bates. "We gladly anticipate further declines in shark attacks on children as public schools are held to higher and higher standards."

In other research news, fellows at the Broad Institute for Child Well-Being have confirmed that a sharp reduction in childhood tapeworm infestations occurred from 2002 to 2008.

"It is clear that longer school days, school on Saturdays, summer school, two hours of homework every evening, and intensive test preparation reduce the amount of time children have to play in the dirt and play with pets," said KIDD Schools founder Mike Nofunberg. "These activities are known to make children very susceptible to tapeworms."

The Most Valuable Thing I Have Learned from These Dark Ages of Ed Reform...

2009-04-16T21:58:00.016-06:00

...is how NOT to teach.

So thank you NCLB and high-stakes testing.

No Child Left Behind is A Lie

Under your heel of oppression, that which matters most is valued least.

I couldn't link to it directly, but here at the NYC Public School Parents blog, check their April archive for the post titled, "Want to See the Future of NCLB? Look to the UK." It is not to be missed.

When will the revolution start in the United States? Soon I pray.

The New Philadelphia Story, Education Occupation Version

2009-04-10T06:10:00.029-06:00

In military usage, occupation refers to the invasion, conquest, and control of a nation or territory by foreign armed forces. There is a striking parallel to be found in the oppressive top-down control, hijacking, and destruction of public education being wrought by the billionaire-financed forces of education privatization.

The latest on the 'success' of the Education Occupation in Philadelphia, as reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

City schools under Philadelphia School District control outperformed those run by outside managers paid millions of dollars to run them, according to a study released today.

The research - which echoes three previous studies - comes at a crucial moment for Philadelphia's privatization experiment, the largest of its kind in the country. The contracts of 18 privately managed schools run by six companies are up June 30, and Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has publicly stated that she
will not support schools that don't work.

Conducted by Johns Hopkins University researcher Vaughn Byrnes and published in the May issue of the American Journal of Education, the study found that students at Philadelphia's privatized schools made strides on state exams but that pupils at district-run schools made bigger gains.

Byrnes looked at test scores of sixth, seventh and eighth graders at 88 city schools from 1997 through 2006.

"By 2006, the achievement gap between the privatized group and the rest of the district was greater than it was before the intervention," Byrnes said.

Tutoring Bonanza: No Child Left Behind Act Highly Profitable, Except for Children

2009-04-08T02:18:00.009-06:00

from New York Daily News
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
by Juan Gonzalez

Department of Education Paid Private Tutor Firm 21M in 2 Years, Most of It In Overhead

In its drive to improve school reading and math test scores, the city's Department of Education paid a private company more than $21 million in two years to tutor thousands of public school pupils at home.

But most of that money - more than twice the amount the DOE originally budgeted - went for overhead, management and profit for the company, Champion Learning Center.

Champion got $79 an hour to tutor each pupil for up to four hours per week, according to a copy of the contract obtained by the Daily News.

That adds up to almost $320 a week in tutoring costs per child.

Champion paid its part-time tutors, mostly college students with no teaching experience, an average of $17 an hour.

That's right. The company received an astounding $62 in overhead for every hour its employees spent tutoring a child.

Champion is one of dozens of private companies with state approval to provide tutoring services under the No Child Left Behind Act.

"We received very little training in our orientation," said one college student hired by Champion. "They just told us to follow the instructions in the test prep workbooks they gave us."

Read the rest of the article here.

This is sad and it is obscene. Wild profiteering while subjecting children to such a narrow and impoverished view of education....tutoring to artificially pump up test scores. The obsession with standardized testing and data-driven instruction is resulting in the dumbing down and numbing down of our children. I think it serves the interests of the oligarchs controlling ed reform to keep it that way.

That the plight of poor children is being exploited in this way is the true nature of the No Child Left Behind abomination. The unrelenting failing public schools propaganda that ultimately led to this law, and the increasing imposition of business models in our schools, have succeeded in lining the pockets of business interests while simultaneously undermining support for public education.

More devastating, however, failing public schools propaganda has served brilliantly as a convenient scapegoat to divert national attention away from the condition of childhood in this nation, a way to avoid the difficult but necessary task of confronting this crisis directly. Far easier to blame the schools and teachers and charge them with fixing it. See the State of America's Children 2008 Report.

It is unjust and beyond irresponsible to charge that public schools and teachers are to blame because achievement gaps exist and that they alone can close them. Evidence is mounting on the impact of poverty and societal ills on the developing brain. School reform, decidely not the harsh kind of "reform" disadvantaged children are now being subjected to, must be combined with social and economic reforms.

I think the more we learn, the more the shamefulness of this Dark Age of Oligarchical Ed Reform will be laid bare. Mark it down for the historical record, the war on public education.

Check out what NCLB and high-stakes testing have accomplished for disadvantaged children.

Meanwhile, as vast inequities continue to expand in our society, increasing waves of difficult to educate children pour into our schools from circumstances they have no control over. For more related commentary, see the Perimeter Primate's post, "Where Sociology, Criminology, and Charter Schools Converge".

Broad Prize Dubbed "Nobel Prize" in Education Reform

2009-04-02T20:32:00.045-06:00

Billionaire ed reformer Eli Broad has become the recipient of the first annual Orwellian No-Nonsense Award in the Peacock Plumage Display of Brazen Hubris category. Send word to Eli so he can strut on over here to receive his reward.

In the ed reform oligarchy's edu-newspeak machine, the annual Broad Prize has been dubbed the "Nobel Prize" in urban education reform. Yes, really.

From U.S. News and World Report
April 2, 2009

The 5 Most Improved Urban School Districts for 2009

Five school districts
from California to Florida are in the
running for an award that has been described as a Nobel Prize in education
reform. The Broad Prize for Urban Education, as the award is officially known,
is given each year to an urban school district that has made significant
progress in raising achievement, especially among low-income and minority students. The award comes with $2 million in scholarships for
the five finalists.

A little NCLB/ high-stakes testing/accountability history is in order. The first annual Broad Prize went to the Houston Independent School District, presided over by then-to-be Secretary of Education Rod Paige, for accomplishing the Houston Miracle, a "success" story that turned out to be a massive fraud produced by Enron-type accounting. The Texas model of success became the blueprint for NCLB.

In 2008, the Broad Prize went to the Brownsville Independent School District in Texas. On the distinguished panel of the 2008 selection jury was none other than Rod Paige. As Susan Ohanian noted:

So what choice did Broad have when a vast majority
of the nation's largest urban districts, including three of the four runners-up for this year's Broad prize, also failed to meet NCLB's annual targets? They look at "other indicators". Hmmm. Some people have been advocating this all along.

Hey, U.S. News! Great in-depth coverage and a Nobel Prize for you.

Jay Mathews' Latest on KIPP and My Response

2009-03-29T11:59:00.014-06:00

The KIPP PR machine rolls on in today's Sunday edition of The Washington Post:

By Jay Mathews
Sunday, March 29, 2009; Page B03

Like most principals, Dave Levin believed that parental support was essential to a school's success. So when many families pulled their kids out of his struggling South Bronx charter school after its first year, he thought he was in trouble.

Some parents called him and his teaching partner, Frank Corcoran, "crazy white boys." The two had recruited 46 fifth-graders, barely enough to start the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) Academy, and 12 failed to return for sixth grade. Test scores were somewhat better than at other local schools, but Levin's discipline methods weren't working. By March of his second year he believed that he had no choice but to close the school.

That was 1997. Twelve years later, the academy, saved by a last-minute change of mind, is considered a great success and a model for the 66 KIPP schools in 19 states and the District. Together, they have produced the largest achievement gains for impoverished children ever seen in a single school network.

And Levin did it, in the beginning, with very mixed reviews from parents. The story of his school and others like it suggests that the importance of parental involvement, at least in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, has been exaggerated, probably because middle-class commentators have been imposing their suburban experiences on very different situations. Unchallenged, this misunderstanding of what works for low-income children could stymie efforts to improve the country's worst schools.

The best school leaders say that they don't need much parental involvement when they are hiring staff, creating class schedules and putting discipline procedures in place. Take Susan Schaeffler, the founder of the cluster of KIPP schools in Washington. She had no track record and zero name identification when she and her staff started teaching fifth grade in an Anacostia church basement. She recruited students by standing in front of markets and shouting: "See me if you are interested in a school that will keep your child from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon!" That promise of free child care is what persuaded many parents to give her a try. Much time passed before she was able to prove that her teachers could produce the highest test scores of any public school in the city.

Read the rest of the Jay Mathews column here. The comments I left at the site are below:

"Much time passed before she was able to prove that her teachers could produce the highest test scores of any public school in the city."

Oh, the maniacal quest to "produce" higher test scores! It is quite literally resulting in the dumbing down of America, IMO.

There is nothing wrong with standardized tests in and of themselves. It is their overuse and misuse that is so destructive and senseless. For example, what have we to show for NCLB and its high-stakes testing? Flat NAEP scores and increasing dropout rates.

Ironically, the more importance you attach to standardized test results, and the more you 'teach to the test', the more meaningless the resulting scores become. Please see David Berliner and Campell's Law in "Collateral Damage". Attaching life-altering consequences to the results of these tests inevitably results in gaming and corruption.

Furthermore, higher test scores do not necessarily equate with being well educated. I fear that intensive test prep results in higher test scores but not learning that is deep and lasting and able to be applied to real life problem-soving. And what about the simple joy of learning for its own sake?

Assessment of student progress is critical and teachers have always done it. I will wager that on-the-spot classroom assessments by the teachers who actually know and interact with their students on a daily basis give more accurate information than the far-removed, standardized tests that are lining the pockets of business interests with taxpayer money.

The same dog-eat-dog, market worshipping hyper-competitiveness agenda that our corporate/politicos are imposing on our nation's "public" schools has sure taken our nation to new heights of glory hasn't it?

And forgive me Jay, but the more I read about KIPP, the more 'cultish' it sounds. Granted, I have never even visited a KIPP school so I am hardly an authority.

Just hope people will think deeply about what is happening as our nation and its schools are increasingly under corporate domination and control.

An Excellent Letter: Hello Dear Policymakers!

2009-03-26T21:21:00.039-06:00

The following letter from Austin mom and public school librarian Sara Stevenson highlights the opportunity-narrowing/dream-crushing/dropout-producing insanity of of the one-way-for-all standards and accountability movement.

Monday, March 23, 2009

AUSTIN — My daughter just completed her first semester at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

She took 15 hours, made straight A’s and the dean’s list.

What reads as a success story would have had a very different outcome if my daughter and son had traded places.

My daughter graduated in 2008. My son will graduate in 2011, the first year the mandated “4-by-4” plan goes into effect. It requires four years of math and science to earn a recommended diploma.

If my daughter were in his graduating class, she would have been a high school dropout instead of on the dean’s list.

Read the rest of Sara's letter here.

Policymakers, how is it that you impose destructive policies like high-stakes testing and idiotic "4-by-4" plans, then hypocritically turn around and castigate our public schools for the dropout rates?

It is you, our representatives in government, who are supposed to be held accountable by we the people. How clever and convenient, turning democracy and representative government upside down under the guise of "accountability".

BTW, here is some more commentary from yours truly on the "liberty and higher math for all" issue from a previous post.

Dear San Diego Reader,

2009-03-24T07:52:00.007-06:00

I see that you are monitoring my blog and flagging it as having objectionable material. Please have the courage to comment and tell me exactly what you find objectionable. Was it this post that initiated your objections?

If I and others in the resistance are seen as being a threat to the Bill Gates agenda for "public" education and the corporate domination of our nation in general, then I consider it a compliment to be flagged.

Perhaps you have other objections. Whatever they may be, lay them out so I can respond.

Profoundly Disturbing, Profoundly Undemocratic

2009-03-23T03:03:00.027-06:00

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini

Bill Gates and the best public education policy money can buy for the American aristocracy are in the works. But I pray for the resistance and I sense it is growing.

Education Week reporter Michele McNeil reports on how key positions in the U.S. Department of Education are filling up with people with strong ties to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Education philanthropy or control of the masses?

Eduportunists, what a convenience the plight of poor children has been for your purposes. I am much more impressed with the widow's mite.

Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success

2009-03-10T01:00:00.001-06:00

EAST LANSING, Mich., (March 9, 2009) - A new report by David C. Berliner (co-author of The Manufactured Crisis and Collateral Damage), argues that out-of-school factors related to poverty are the major cause of the achievement gap that exists between poor and minority students and the rest of the student population. This is in direct contrast to current federal education policies that are based on the belief that public schools should shoulder the blame for lack of achievement on the part of impoverished students.

You can find the Executive Summary and the report here. We owe Dr. Berliner a debt of gratitude for his years of perseverance and dedication, working to expose the unrelenting and hypocritical scapegoating of America's besieged public schools. I urge you to disseminate this report as widely as possible on the Internet, to the media, to President Obama, Ed Secretary Arne Duncan, and members of Congress.

Susan Ohanian, another champion for children to whom we owe much, has provided a list of names and phone numbers of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

Let's act.

Public Schools Outperform Private Schools in Math Instruction

2009-02-28T12:17:00.019-07:00

From ScienceDaily (Feb. 25, 2009):

In another “Freakonomics”-style study that turns conventional wisdom about public- versus private-school education on its head, a team of University of Illinois education professors has found that public-school students outperform their private-school classmates on standardized math tests, thanks to two key factors: certified math teachers, and a modern, reform-oriented math curriculum.

More excerpts from the Science Daily article:

'According to our results, schools that hired more certified teachers and had a curriculum that de-emphasized learning by rote tended to do better on standardized math tests,' Lubienski said. 'And public schools had more of both.'

They also discovered that smaller class sizes, which are more prevalent in private schools than in public schools, significantly correlate with achievement.

'Smaller class size correlated with higher achievement and occurred more frequently in private schools,' Lubienski said. 'But that doesn’t help explain why private schools were being outscored by public schools.'

Lubienski said one reason private schools show poorly in this study could be their lack of accountability to a public body.

Lubienski hopes that politicians who favor more privatization would realize that the invisible hand of the market doesn’t necessarily apply to education.

You can read the Science Daily article in its entirety here.

Adding Career Teachers to Endangered Species List

2009-02-22T00:00:00.001-07:00

A new study by staff at This Little Blog (I have my own research arm) finds that the need to add career public school teachers to the federal list of endangered species is diretly correlated to habitat destruction and predatory encroachment and oppression facilitated and funded by the nation's superclass, essentially brutes in suits. And in soft pullover sweaters worn over button down shirts. From Seattle.

Charter School/Voucher Agenda Disguised as Educational Research

2009-02-16T19:04:00.007-07:00

From Education and the Public Interest Center, School of Education, University of Colorado at Boulder:

TEMPE, Ariz and BOULDER, Colo. (February 16, 2009) -- In 2006, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released its Report Card on Education, 1983-1984 to 2004-2005. A review of that report by Professor Gene Glass assigned it failing grades. ALEC has just released another report card. Unfortunately, ALEC has done little to address key problems Glass pointed out two years ago.

Read more here.

Pay Attention to the Perimeter Primate

2009-02-14T12:06:00.018-07:00

In regard to the question of selection bias in charter schools, The Perimeter Primate has sought the perspective of Elijah Anderson, professor of sociology and author of "Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City". Don't miss her post and her comments about Dr. Anderson's response.

More on the Corporate Hijacking of Public Education

2009-02-11T00:35:00.004-07:00

Below, Ken Libby weighs in on what the new stimulus package means for public education. Talk about putting the status quo on steroids!

It seems to me the very last thing the superclass and their underlings in power want is real vision in public education reform. I think they would see Educating for Human Greatness as a threat. See my sidebar at the top. Also learn more about the vision and guiding principles of EHG here.

Now, back to oppression and control:

Stimulating Corporate Education
Ken Libby

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the corporate charter school movement hit the jackpot with the new stimulus package. The Democratic plan for shifting control of education from the public to the private sector sets aside $7.5 billion to be directed explicitly by Duncan.

The "State Fiscal Stabilization" fund includes legislation designed to shift control of education to corporate interests through for-profit and non-profit education organizations. The stimulus package would allow Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, privatizer extraordinaire in the Chicago Public Schools prior to his work in the Obama administration, to direct $7.5 billion for "State Incentive Grants," which includes a $650 million "Innovation Fund".

Eligibility for Duncan's new "Innovation Fund" giveaway requires an organization to "demonstrate that they have established partnerships with the private sector, which may include philanthropic organizations, and that the private sector will provide matching funds in order to help bring the results to scale." Yet securing a grant also would "allow such eligible entities to work in partnership with the private sector and the philanthropic community" to expand "to scale based on demonstrated success."

Duncan's push for the bill's approval included a speech to the American Council on Education in which he noted, "From Teach for America to the KIPP charter schools to instructional innovations at colleges and universities, we have proven strategies ready to go to scale." This is a significant injection of federal funding into the corporate model of educational reform envisioned by Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Family Foundation, KIPP schools, Teach For America, Chris Whittle of Edison Schools, the Committee for Economic Development, and the Business Roundtable.

States willing to play by the data manipulation game mastered by corporate charter chains are eligible for billions more in "IncentiveGrants." Section 1406(b) of the stimulus bill specifies: "The Secretary shall determine which States receive grants under this section, and the amount of those grants, on the basis of information provided in State applications under section 1405 and such other criteria as the Secretary determines appropriate." Section 1405 contains the most significant aspects of No Child Left Behind, particularly the punitive aspects and overall philosophy. States receiving these funds are also required to adhere to specific aspects of the America COMPETES Act (passed in 2007 under President Bush with bipartisan support), most notably to "align the requirements, standards, and assessments with the knowledge and skill necessary for success in academic credit-bearing coursework in postsecondary education, in the 21st century workforce, and in the Armed Forces without the need for remediation," practically a summary of Duncan's tenure as CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

Duncan spent the past seven years reforming CPS, which included the opening of 5 high school military academies filled by minority students, mandating curriculum optimal for teaching children the limited reading skills demanded by the minimum-wage employment in corporate America, expelling low-achieving students to boost test scores, spreading the corporate/militant model of education reserved for minority students in inner-city charter schools, and preserving the best public education for the wealthiest families. Duncan's definition of "what works" borrows the playbook from corporate America's profit-driven ideology and imposes the rigid structure of the military on our children.

Education Industry Associates, representing many of the most powerful education interest groups, note that, "Education is rapidly becoming a$1 trillion industry, representing 10% of America's GNP and second insize only to the health care industry." Elementary and secondary education represents nearly $600 billion annually, with high-poverty schools the target of for-profit education management organizations(EMOs) in the endless search for emerging markets. Neoliberal social entrepreneurs are salivating at the prospect of expanding their teach-to-the-test, militarized learning environments suitable for drilling students in the discrete skills necessary to pass high-stakes tests.

Under the education provisions in the stimulus plan, Federal dollars will be diverted to for-profit corporations and non-profit foundations representing corporate America, a continuation of the abysmal policies of the Department of Education during the previous eight years. Washington elites, and the Democratic party in particular, are presenting a false choice of eliminating supplemental state assistance or providing "State Fiscal Stabilization" with billions reserved for dismantling public education. Emergency public funding will either be slashed in an era of unprecedented bailouts for the same institutions responsible for the State and local budget shortages; or, public education funding will be diverted back to corporate America through the U.S. Department of Education.

The Washington elite couldn't care less about public education for the poor when their children have access to high-quality education free from high-stakes testing and militaristic learning environments, which they deem necessary for working class children to overcome the effects of the poverty that Washington continues to simply ignore. As for the general public, a far cheaper education system guided and controlled by corporate America becomes the only education system capable of legitimizing current power structures displaying blatant disregard for our children and collective future.

"Taken together, the Barack effect, the leadership on the Hill, the proven strategies, and the money in the stimulus package represent what I call the perfect storm for reform, a historic alignment of interests and events that could lift American education to an entirely new level," Duncan announced.

The perfect storm is upon us, the storm of corporate education.

More Uncritical Adulation of KIPP in the New York Times

2009-02-08T13:45:00.003-07:00

In mainstream media, the KIPP PR Machine rolls on without critical scrutiny.

In yesterday's New York Times, Richard E. Nisbett, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has an Op-Ed piece where he states:

... a program called KIPP (for Knowledge Is Power Program) is having remarkable success with poor minority children in middle schools. KIPP students attend school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., their term is three weeks longer than normal, and every other Saturday they have classes for half a day. The curriculum includes sports,visits to museums and instruction in dance, art, music, theater and photography.During one academic year, the percentage of fifth-graders at KIPP schools in the San Francisco Bay Area who scored at or above the national average on the reading portion of the Stanford Achievement Test rose to 44 percent from 25 percent. And while only 37 percent started the year at or above the national average in math, 65 percent reached that level by spring.

Has Nisbett simply not done his homework or does he deliberately omit the fact that these San Francisco KIPP schools have amazingly high attrition rates? Parent activist Caroline Grannan has done a little more digging, on her own. Caroline was an editor at the San Jose Mercury News for 12 years. She contributes to a number of Internet sites dealing with education and schools. She is a San Francisco public school parent, advocate, and volunteer and has followed education politics locally and nationwide.

A study by SRI International confirmed what Caroline found through her own independent investigations. As Caroline notes,

the study confirms what those who look beyond the test scores have found: Those KIPP (two in San Francisco, one in Oakland, one in San Jose, one in San Leandro) schools suffer from very high student attrition.

Sixty percent of the students who enter the Bay Area KIPP schools in fifth grade leave before the end of eighth grade (page ix of the study, repeated in several places throughout). And the study also confirms what some might suspect — it's consistently the lower performers who leave."

"On average, those who leave KIPP before completing eighth grade have lower test scores on entering KIPP and demonstrate smaller fifth-grade effects than those who stay," the study reports on Page ix.

Read much more from Caroline here.

And please read Research Analyst Michael Martin's powerful observations in response to the report "What Do We Know About the Outcomes of KIPP Schools?"

Martin notes:

It is fundamentally fraudulent to take any group of students to form a base level of test scores, remove the unsuccessful students, and then claim success on the basis of improved test scores, particularly when you can’t show the improved test scores.

and further:

comparisons of these schools with local public schools are comparing the few
successes of the remaining students in these schools with the entire student
membership of public schools.

In addition, although it seems clear that there is no formal selective admissions process in KIPP schools, it does not take the brightest crayon in the box to see that selection bias does indeed occur. KIPP schools demand that students and parents sign a commitment form that includes severe obligations for behavior and attendance. Nothing wrong with that some may argue. However, the point is that invalid comparisons are being made between KIPP schools and regular public schools. According to Martin, the selection bias is "blatant and crucial."

Again, you can read more of his analysis here.

Gve Us Hope

2009-02-06T19:14:00.004-07:00

Thank you to the teachers in Hoover, AL for putting this video together. And to the children in the video...wow! You are wonderful!

Thank you to Dr. Yvonne Siu-Runyan, 40 year educator, and Priscilla Gutierrez, Outreach Specialist, New Mexco School for the Deaf, for spreading the word about this uplifting video.

My "Zeal to Respond to Bill"

2009-02-01T16:36:00.020-07:00

In my previous post I said I'd have a response to Bill Gates up by Sunday evening. I'm a little red-faced here but it's going to take longer before I can write the letter. I apologize. I won't make excuses except to say that if you are a teacher, you probably understand. Your nights and your weekends are not your own.

In my passion to respond to Gates, I spoke too soon. Actually, rather than saying a thing I should have simply waited and posted the letter once it was finished. Teacher learns a lesson.

The 'Letter to Bill' will be up there at the top of my blog as soon as possible but I intend to take my time and do it well rather than rush it. I want it to be powerful.

So again, I apologize to my ~~thousands of~~ (will dedicated do?) readers!! Do stay tuned.

I Invite You Back

2009-01-30T19:24:00.012-07:00

By now, some of you have already read the "latest" admonition for public education reform by billionaire Bill Gates. If not, take a look here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/27/AR2009012702674.html

Right now I am bogged down but by Sunday evening (and hopefully sooner) I intend to have a response posted here at This Little Blog. It will be in the form of a "Letter to Bill". He will never read it of course but that isn't the point.

I hope it isn't too bold of me to ask that you return in a day or two to read it. Then, if you find it compelling, please spread word in the blogosphere.

Happy weekend!

Klein's True Colors Shining Through

2009-01-29T00:24:00.012-07:00

Over at Gotham Schools is a notable quote from Joel Klein, Chancellor of NYC Public Schools. He had the following to say in regard to the possible layoff of 15,000 school-based staff, including teachers, if Governor Paterson’s proposed state budget is passed:

We don't want to lose personnel. PARTICULARLY, we don't want to lose YOUNG TALENTED PEOPLE that we've recruited in recent years. (CAPS added for emphasis)

Apparently, EXPERIENCED TALENTED PEOPLE are of lesser use in the corporate scheme of things. Far easier to manipulate naive young recruits.

As Elizabeth Green notes at Gotham Schools, if teacher layoffs happen, the least experienced teachers would be the first to lose their jobs, according to provisions in the teacher contract.

I would not take joy in seeing anyone have to lose their job, but Klein's words are so telling that they are embarrassing. Heaven forbid that teachers with the most experience and teachers who commit for a lifetime should not be the first to go. Beyond the catastrophically narrow-minded and destructive obsession with testing, there is much to be said for longevity and commitment over PR hype and resume building.

But career teachers are a stumbling block to the continued undermining of public education. They cost too much. They know that the scourge of high-stakes testing being imposed in our schools is dumbing down future citizens. They know it is a practice which literally invites the corruption and gaming that is taking place in our big city schools under mayoral dictatorship. And let's do call it that, for that is what it is.

It's all about money, power, and control. Not children. As ever, education on the cheap for poor kids. Pump up test scores, claim victory for poor children, and an ill-informed public won't be a penny the wiser. Except the public IS getting wiser, despite mainstream media's long history of complicity in either serving as a mouthpiece for edu-biz propaganda or ignoring the war on public education altogether.

The Perimeter Primate, a parent activist who sees the Big Picture, translates Klein's agenda well in her excellent post here. I'll post a snip below but I encourage you to read her entire post.

The scheme now being steadily employed by inner-city school districts across the nation is to replace as many of their career teachers as possible with 22-year-old teaching “temps.” These energetic, young, recent college graduates have a do-gooder mentality and are willing to work in the worst inner-city school situations for very little pay. It is also beneficial to school districts that these fill-ins are green to the world of work and have zero family obligations. Those qualities, and being able to constantly take comfort in knowing they are short-timers, means that they don't tend to get agitated and complain...

Look Out Arne Duncan!

2009-01-22T17:19:00.014-07:00

Dare I say it? May the floodgates open! There is hope. Grassroots resistance and organizing by the parents, students, and teachers in communities actually affected by the corporate hijacking of public education. Don't miss this video about resistance to Renaissance 2010 in Chicago:

What an embarrassment this should be to the Mainstream Media mouthpieces for the corporate education agenda.

Bravo to PURE, Parents United for Responsible Education and other citizen, teacher, and student activists in Chicago.

You can also find much about the degradation of Chicago schools at the Substance website.

Spread the word.

Bush Defends Education Legacy

2009-01-18T00:05:00.003-07:00

The Associated Truth in Parody Press
For Release Right Away

As he prepares to leave office, President Bush responded patiently and without condescension today to reports of the growing and widspread consensus among the nation's 3.5 million incompetent teachers, the nation's most highly disregarded educational researchers and psychometricians, and growing masses of shallow citizens, that the "misuse" of standardized testing is catastrophically narrow-minded, inhumane, and counterproductive. Standing firm, however, the president stated that he doesn't give a hoot what people think.

For the first time in his eight years of presidenting, Mr. Bush was asked by a particularly obnoxious reporter what grade level is. The President gracefully rebuffed the irreverant and uncalled for remark by simply stating that it is where all children should be.

A particularly malicious line of questioning revolved around charges that the law has harmed most the very children it purports to serve, while lining the pockets of family, friends, and political cronies on both sides of the aisle.

Since when is it a crime for my brother Neil to help poor children
boost up their test scores with his innovative Cash On Wheels program, the COWS program? Since when is it a crime for my mom to rush aid to Hurricane Katrina's kids with Neil's product?

Since when is it a crime to help a family friend and buddy in need, Terry McGraw III, Business Roundtdable Chair and CEO of the McGraw-Hill Companies? He's making great profits with sound, innovative products that help all children get on grade level.

And by the way, since when is it a crime for me to reach across the
aisle to a Democrat, my friend and fellow Texan Sandy Kress, an engineer of this good law who just happens to have made a little money lobbying for testing companies? Those companies provide all sorts of innovative ways to pump up test scores. That's good for children and it's good for the recovery of the Global Economy.

Visionary Ed Reform in a Picture

2009-01-04T02:49:00.006-07:00

Outgoing Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings sometimes shares one of her favorite sayings from Texas in praise of NCLB, high-stakes testing, and a variety of band-aid market solutions:

If all you ever do is all you've ever done, then all
you'll ever get is all you ever got.

Here she unwittingly sums up 25 years of failed "reform" wrought by corporate politicos as they corrupt and undermine the very hope and promise of public education.

And it's even worse than you say Mrs. Spellings. We are actually regressing.

If all we ever do is put more teeth into what already does not work, then all we'll ever get is even worse than what we've already got. Thank you for reminding us of the definition of insanity.

Lift that veil of civil rights rhetoric you hide behind and show your face Ruling Class. The last thing you need in order to keep things as they are (and make them even more so) is a nation of well-educated citizens who can actually think.

Excellent CounterPunch Article on Arne Duncan Appointment

2008-12-29T23:23:00.012-07:00

Cheers for Kenneth Libby, teacher-in-training in Portland, Oregon. Please take the time to visit CounterPunch where his excellent piece on the appointment of Arne Duncan as Ed Secretary has been published.

I've been slammin' Duncan quite a lot on this blog but I believe Kenneth is right on target when he points out that Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same worn-out coin. He rightly speaks of "the collusion of government officials and corporate interests" and has some important things to say about our nation's spending priorities.

Some excerpts from Libby's article:

The policies touted as educational "reform" by the New Democrats apply the same neoliberal theories responsible for NAFTA, the WTO, and GATT with the same results: the inequalities become greater while those in positions of power receive even greater rewards. A two-tired education system lurks in the distance, the result of neoliberal efforts to create equality. The gradual privatization and outsourcing of public schools represents a shift towards the voucher system, the ideal school system envisioned by Milton Friedman and present-day neoconservatives.

The dull, "research based" education models explicitly required by sanctions in NCLB, inflicted on America's poorest children, and peddled by private, for-profit companies are designed explicitly to raise test scores. The marginal gains accomplished in the so-called "turnaround" schools are the result of data manipulation and drilling students with the question-answer format used in high-stakes testing. This is far from genuine education and contributes to a curriculum void of civics, history, social studies, physical education, health education, and active community building. Most importantly, this kind of education treats our children as either young factory workers or future executives based almost exclusively on their access to quality education. The educational inequality helps ensure poor children learn to read simple instructions and compute basic math, skills suited for minimum-wage employment, while middle- and upper-class students learn the "21st Century Skills" desired by corporate America in private schools, the affluent suburbs, and exclusive charters operating within impoverished districts.

Letters to Obama from Top National Experts

2008-12-29T08:44:00.014-07:00

Let us pray he listens. Carefully. You will find a link to the letters with accompanying research base below. A big thank you to the scholars who put this outreach to Obama together.

From Education and the Public Interest (EPIC) in Boulder, Colorado, and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University:

Fifteen educational scholars have produced a collection of letters to President-elect Obama. Each letter briefly sets forth an idea or proposal to help create a more productive and equitable educational system. The letters cover the gamut of key policyissues facing the next administration, including reading instruction, No Child Left Behind, the expansion of preschool availability, charter schools, special education, the effects of poverty, and the teaching of English learners. These proposals should be thought of as the tips of empirical icebergs –beneath the letters lies a research base to guide policymaking throughout Obama's time in office.

The collection is edited by Peter Cookson of Yale University and Kevin Welner of the University of Colorado at Boulder and is jointly published by the Education and the Public Interest Center at CU-Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University. Contributors include top national experts in their respective areas.

DC Schools Chancellor Rolls a Perfect 300. Or Did She?

2008-12-23T01:00:00.002-07:00

We really don't know. We may never know. During a rare respite from their relentless efforts to raise the standardized test scores of poor children in urban schools, Chancellor Rhee and ed reform colleagues Joel Klein, Paul Vallas, and Arne Duncan met at the Imperial Lanes in Miami, Florida for what was expected to be a simple evening of recreation. However, where Rhee goes, sweeping legends seem to grow.

The group was in Miami with Jeb Bush and other edu-biz reformers for an Education Leadership Conference under the theme "Levers for Reform". Teachers and the general public were not invited, as is typical of the many corporate-led education summits that have driven 'public' education reform for the past 25 years.

Less than an hour after the group had bowled three games and left the premises, reports began surfacing that the diminuative former Teach for America superstar had bowled a perfect 300, putting her male colleagues (including former pro-basketball player Arne Duncan) to shame. However, at press time news sources were unable to obtain scoring sheets from the Imperial Lanes documenting the game in question. Some witnesses had downsized the miracle to a score of 152 with accommodations, including inflatable bumper pads in the gutters.

Teach for Awhile, Bowl for Awhile.

Rhee has been nominated for election into the USBC (United States Bowling Congress) Hall of Fame, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon contributors to the sport. She will appear on the cover of Time magazine in January with a broom in one hand and a bowling ball in the other.

news spoof brought to you by staff at This Little Blog

Does it ever hit you like a brick

2008-12-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

or make you stop in your tracks when you consider what a giant travesty this all is? The whole pretense of public education reform as it is being framed. God help us. We must stop allowing the ruling elite to call what is taking place reform and call it what it is, the continuing war on public education. Corporatism. Deception cloaked in the language of civil rights. This is a war.

From Henry Al Giroux and Kenneth Saltman:

It is difficult to understand how Barack Obama can
reconcile his vision of change with Duncan's history of supporting a corporate
vision for school reform and a penchant for extreme zero-tolerance polices -
both of which are much closer to the retrograde policies hatched in conservative
think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institution, Fordham Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, than to the values of the many
millions who voted for the democratic change he promised. As is well known,
these think tanks share an agenda not for strengthening public schooling, but
for dismantling it and replacing it with a private market in consumable
educational services.

I urge you to read their entire piece at truthout.

Obama Congratulated by Business Roundtable for Ed Secretary Pick

2008-12-17T02:04:00.024-07:00

But of course. After all, who are the beneficiarie$ of the current standards and accountability movement? Yes, a "sweet choice" for the Business Roundtable given that Linda Darling-Hammond, who is eminently more qualified than Duncan, would have worked to strengthen, support, and improve public schools rather than undermine and destroy them. Same for Doug Christensen.

From coach and non-educator Rod Paige and the Houston Fraud to Margaret-All-Children-On-Grade-Level Spellings, to CEO and basketball player Arne Duncan and his Chicago Miracle. Non-educators all.

Thanks Obama for the slap in the face insult to our nation's teachers.

Mr. Duncan has a strong record of working with the business
community to improve schools in Chicago. John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable

How fitting it is that Duncan is called the CEO of Chicago "public" schools! An oxymoron in my book, this big-biz title now being used in so many urban schools being "rescued" by business opportunists. Does the arrogance of big business know no bounds?

Remember the word "superintendent" back in the days when public schools were public? Even the language of public education is being hijacked.

Arne Duncan may be a nice guy. He seems like it. But he is not an educator and it is quite possible that he is merely an unwitting tool of the disaster capitalists. In his ignorance he may be a true believer that high-stakes testing improves the quality of teaching and learning. Test scores go up a little under immense pressure and he sees those scores as evidence that learning has improved. He doesn't see the big picture and the disaster that is unfolding.

The greatest hindrance to reforms that would really make a difference in the lives of poor children? The ruling elite.

A national uprising. Let's work to improve the quality of teaching and learning and keep public schools public.

Appointment of Arne Duncan Incites Letter to Santa

2008-12-15T17:57:00.016-07:00

Dear Santa,

Silly me. All I want for Christmas is a national uprising of teachers, a nationwide walkout. While I am not anti-union, I think it would send a powerful message if the movement took place independent of the teachers' unions.

Please deliver Santa.

Naively yours,
Tauna

P.S. I do hope I'm wrong about Duncan. I can imagine worse...Michelle Rhee or Joel Klein. Still, I'm mighty uneasy Santa. That nationwide movement of teachers is needed regardless of who the Secretary of Education is.

It is needed to respond to a nation that does not take care of its children but simply dumps them into the public schools, places wildly unrealistic demands upon those schools, then hypocritically wags a finger of blame. It is high time the relentless "failing public schools" mantra received critical scrutiny.

Alfie Kohn in The Nation

2008-12-11T21:54:00.023-07:00

In view of the blatantly skewed flurry of recent high-class commentary villifying teachers and presenting false dichotomies in the debate over who should be the next Secretary of Education (for example comments by Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and David Brooks of the New York Times), the following Alfie Kohn commentary published in the December 29 issue of The Nation is most welcome.

Note: Happily, most of the readers' comments spurred by the Brooks column linked above were quite negative. It seems people are figuring out that the "real reform" these guys are advancing - and boy should they be embarrassed - actually IS the archaic and destructive status quo.

By Alfie Kohn

If we taught babies to talk as most skills are taught in school, they would memorize lists of sounds in a predetermined order and practice them alone in a closet. -- Linda Darling-Hammond

Progressives are in short supply on the president-elect's list of cabinet nominees. When he turns his attention to the Education Department, what are the chances he'll choose someone who is educationally progressive?

In fact, just such a person is said to be in the running and, perhaps for that very reason, has been singled out for scorn in Washington Post and Chicago Tribune editorials, a New York Times column by David Brooks and a New Republic article, all published almost simultaneously this month. The thrust of the articles, using eerily similar language, is that we must reject the "forces of the status quo" which are "allied with the teachers' unions" and choose someone who represents "serious education reform."

To decode how that last word is being used here, recall its meaning in the context of welfare (under Clinton) or environmental laws (under Reagan and Bush). For Republicans education "reform" typically includes support for vouchers and other forms of privatization. But groups with names like Democrats for Education Reform--along with many mainstream publications--are disconcertingly allied with conservatives in just about every other respect. To be a school "reformer" is to support:

§ A heavy reliance on fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests to evaluate students and schools, generally in place of more authentic forms of assessment;

§ The imposition of prescriptive, top-down teaching stand-ards and curriculum mandates;

§ A disproportionate emphasis on rote learning--memorizing facts and practicing skills--particularly for poor kids;

§ A behaviorist model of motivation in which rewards (notably money) and punishments are used on teachers and students to compel compliance or raise test scores;

§ A corporate sensibility and an economic rationale for schooling, the point being to prepare children to "compete" as future employees; and

§ Charter schools, many run by for-profit companies. Notice that these features are already pervasive, which means "reform" actually signals more of the same--or, perhaps, intensification of the status quo with variations like one-size-fits-all national curriculum standards or longer school days (or years). Almost never questioned, meanwhile, are the core elements of traditional schooling, such as lectures, worksheets, quizzes, grades, homework, punitive discipline and competition. That would require real reform, which of course is off the table.

Sadly, all but one of the people reportedly being considered for Education secretary are reformers only in this Orwellian sense of the word. The exception is Linda Darling-Hammond, a former teacher, expert on teacher quality and professor of education at Stanford. The favored contenders include assorted governors and two corporate-style school chiefs: Arne Duncan, whose all-too-apt title is "chief executive officer" of Chicago Public Schools, and his counterpart in New York City, former CEO and high-powered lawyer Joel Klein.

Duncan, a basketball buddy of Obama's, has been called a "budding hero in the education business" by Bush's former Education secretary, Rod Paige. Just as the test-crazy nightmare of Paige's Houston served as a national model (when it should have been a cautionary tale) in 2001, so Duncan would bring to Washington an agenda based on Renaissance 2010, which Chicago education activist Michael Klonsky describes as a blend of "more standardized testing, closing neighborhood schools, militarization, and the privatization of school management."

Duncan's philosophy is shared by Klein, who is despised by educators and parents in his district perhaps more than any superintendent in the nation [see Lynnell Hancock, "School's Out," July 9, 2007]. In a survey of 62,000 New York City teachers this past summer, roughly 80 percent disapproved of his approach. Indeed, talk of his candidacy has prompted three separate anti-Klein petitions that rapidly collected thousands of signatures. One, at StopJoelKlein.org, describes his administration as "a public relations exercise camouflaging the systematic elimination of parental involvement; an obsessively test-driven culture; a growing atmosphere of fear, disillusionment, and intimidation experienced by professionals; and a flagrant manipulation of school data." (The only petition I know of to promote an Education secretary candidate is one for Darling-Hammond, at www.petitiononline.com/DHammond/petition.html.)

Duncan and Klein pride themselves on new programs that pay students for higher grades or scores. Both champion the practice of forcing low-scoring students to repeat a grade--a strategy that research overwhelmingly finds counterproductive. Coincidentally, Darling-Hammond wrote in 2001 about just such campaigns against "social promotion" in New York and Chicago, pointing out that politicians keep trotting out the same failed get-tough strategies "with no sense of irony or institutional memory." In that same essay, she also showed how earlier experiments with high-stakes testing have mostly served to increase the dropout rate.

Duncan and Klein, along with virulently antiprogressive DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, are celebrated by politicians and pundits. Darling-Hammond, meanwhile, tends to be the choice of people who understand how children learn. Consider her wry comment that introduces this article: it's impossible to imagine a comparable insight coming from any of the spreadsheet-oriented, pump-up-the-scores "reformers" (or, for that matter, from any previous Education secretary). Darling-Hammond knows how all the talk of "rigor" and "raising the bar" has produced sterile, scripted curriculums that have been imposed disproportionately on children of color. Her viewpoint is that of an educator, not a corporate manager.

Imagine--an educator running the Education Department.

Ohio Charter School Report Found False and Deceitful

2008-12-10T17:18:00.008-07:00

This from The Think Tank Review Project of the ASU Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) and CU-Boulder's Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC), which provides the public, policy makers, and the press with sound reviews of selected think tank publications:

Miron demonstrates in his review that all of the report's main contentions
are wrong or misleading, but one claim drew particular criticism. The Buckeye
report contends that the state's largest school districts receive a net gain in
revenue on average for each student attending a charter school--and that
returning those charter students to the regular schools would actually cost the
districts in revenue per pupil. This contention, Miron says, is "ridiculously
false, deceitful, and patently misrepresent[s] how the funding of public schools
works."

Go here for more information. The Think Tank Review Project is a valuable resource, demonstrating that many of the studies and reports disseminated to the public by think tanks (with the aid of an uncritical media) are simply ideology masquerading as educational research.

What is Education?

2008-12-01T23:20:00.007-07:00

It has been largely reduced to a maniacal, fear-driven focus on test scores. Let there be no doubt that the misuse of standardized testing serves the elites in control of the global economy very well. Test scores may go up a little here and there but the joy and quality and depth of learning do not. Potential is curtailed by standardization. Every child is different though all are of equal human worth.

Those in charge don't really see children. They see test scores. Data. Opportunity. We are in the Dark Ages of Education in the United States.

The rhetoric and framing of the 'failing schools' testing and accountability movement has been brilliantly deceptive garnish with no substance. A favorite quote by W.B. Yeats comes to mind. You know it already but I think it bears repeating in these difficult times:

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

Kiss My Class: The School Reform Blues

2008-11-23T18:19:00.004-07:00

I visited Professor Sherman Dorn's blog today and he has provided some links to NCLB/ed reform (deform?) songs. See his 11-15-08 post. Listen to the above-referenced song from Bill Wraga here. It's one I hadn't heard before.

Enjoy!

Don't Miss This - Send Stager's Message to Obama...

2008-11-23T06:51:00.014-07:00

Bravo to Gary Stager. Read the entirety of his blogpost here where he notes:

Here is a most stunning principle of the school the Obama children and
Biden grandchildren will be attending:

(from Wikipedia) The school does not rank its students, as this conflicts
with the Quaker Testimony of Equality.

What? Not ranking students??? No winners or losers? No AYP? Where is the accountability in that?

Perhaps there are other ways of identifying educational accomplishment? You wouldn't think so if you listened to President-elect Obama speak
about public education.

Like Stager, I voted for Obama (gladly) but with an ache in my heart all the same. He seems to see only dimly if at all how deceptively Orwellian the big-business driven standards and accountability movement is. He wants to "fix" rather than expose the No Child Left Behind Act for the outrage that it really is, a law replete with absurdities and hypocrisies, a law that rests entirely on a bed of false assumptions and false premises. A law under which thousands of public schools have falsely been labeled failing so that unproven "market solutions" can kick in, punitive solutions which have funneled billions to corporate interests. He is not connecting the dots between disaster capitalism and the relentless attacks on public education, attacks cunningly framed in the language of civil rights.

Forgive the rant but one more thing before I finish this post. It appears that Obama is a fan of charter schools. In my book, charter schools that are publicly funded but run by business interests are NOT public schools. They are yet another form of corporate socialism and control of the masses by the wealthy elite.

How is it that we have a need for alternatives and "choice" where freedom and innovation are hailed and encouraged while our truly public schools have been held under the thumb of the most suffocating, oppressive, and punitive law imaginable, a law which guarantees their failure?

One of the tactics of those who seek the destruction of public education is to call our public schools "government schools". Ah yes...and just WHO is controlling our government? Corporations! There is no more zealous supporter of NCLB and high-stakes testing than the Business Roundtable. Government is not the problem when we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And a well-informed citizenry as opposed to a citizenry misinformed by the corporate-owned and controlled media.

Margaret Spellings Undaunted By Results of New Study

2008-11-17T23:00:00.008-07:00

WASHINGTON, DC - According to a groundbreaking new $2 million study by the U.S. Department of Education, Ed Secretary Margaret Spellings will not realize her dream of all students being on grade level (an average) or beyond by 2014. Not by 2014, not ever. By any reasonable definition of the term, it was found that nationally about half of all students will always fall somewhere in a spectrum below average.

"These results are astounding," said officials. "Academic achievement actually falls along a continuum, like other human attributes."

Asked to comment, Spellings said, "I'm not into playing numbers games. Not once in all my travels have I met a parent who didn't want their child on grade level now—let alone by 2014. I know I do, and I'm sure every parent in the nation agrees."

In an entirely separate but equally compelling study on merit pay, researchers found that in the area of public education, a majority of highly paid politicians do not know what they are talking about. While the disastrous policymaking that results does not affect their pay, the consequences for children, teachers, and schools are devastating. More about merit pay to follow...

More Hypocrisy from Rhee and Fenty

2008-11-16T07:52:00.015-07:00

In this morning's Washington Post:

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle A.Rhee are discussing a dramatic expansion of their effort to remove ineffective teachers by restoring the District's power to create nonunionized charter schools and seeking federal legislation declaring the school system in a "state of emergency," a move that would eliminate the need to bargain with the Washington Teachers' Union.

About that STATE OF EMERGENCY dear Rhee and Fenty:

Indeed there is one! When the ed reform bigwigs who posture as messiahs for poor children while wagging fingers of blame at teachers and public education say it's time for the nation to declare a "state of emergency" about the condition of childhood itself among our nation's millions of children living in poverty, living amid violence, abuse, and neglect, living without adequate health care, then we may finally get some "reforms" that will make a difference in the lives of children.

A reminder that our nation is number one in childhood poverty among the wealthy nations and next to last in overall child well-being.

You say poverty is no excuse. No, it isn't. It's a grinding reality.

NCLB Legislation for Corporate Fat Cats

2008-11-10T21:00:00.022-07:00

I first proposed the following legislation in October, 2007, and it was virtually ignored by Congress. Can you believe it? And here I am, an important blogger and all, not to mention an actual teacher. I was dreadfully disappointed. It's a finely crafted bill, really!

Well, maybe Florida teachers will like it.

With a new administration soon to take the helm, now seems the perfect time to re-introduce it:

HB 2014:
No Corporate Fat Cat Left Behind

It is proposed that in keeping with the 99.9% pure, bright line principles of NCLB accountability and transparency, the nation's primary beneficiaries of NCLB and high-stakes testing be administered the newly-crafted, teacher-constructed F-CATT (Fat Cat Test). All items on the F-CATT have been designed to be able to detect disingenuous responses, deception and/or incompetence by measuring individual responses against results of the NAEP-E, National Assessment of Ethical Practices in Education, to arrive at the test-taker's UMI, or Ulterior Motives Index. Conservative estimates are that at least 90% of test-takers will fail to demonstrate AEP, Adequate Ethical Practices, in the arena of public education reform.

Sister assessments to the F-CATT are under construction for politicians as well as the leading members of a highly networked web of corporate-funded, anti-public education propaganda machines, also known as think tanks. It is anticipated that the POTTY, Politicians and Opportunists Tempted by Testing Yardstick, will be ready for administration by spring 2009. The T-TIA, Tinkle Tank Incontinence Assessment, is being developed to diagnose an irresistible urge to eliminate public education through ideology masquerading as educational research.

Test takers can relax since no sanctions will be imposed for failure to make AEP. The test results will be reward enough for our nation's besieged public schools.

Barack Obama's Safety

2008-11-08T18:45:00.014-07:00

I hope that Barack Obama and his family will be safe. I'm sure there are many of us who have fears that someone will try to assasinate him. I hate to throw this dreadful thought out there amid all the renewed hope that his election has inspired but I just came across an article which is chilling if accurate. And sadly, it comes as no surprise.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs. Palin's attacks.

I'm not posting this to fuel anger at Palin. The threat will be there with or without her irresponsible and inexcusable remarks linking Obama to terrorism. I'm posting this with the hope that if you are a praying person, you'll keep Obama and his family and our entire nation in your prayers.

McCain's Choice of Running Mate Finally Understood

2008-11-04T21:54:00.017-07:00

I could never understand McCain's choice of running mate. I wondered about his judgment. But I talked to my cousin on the phone tonight and now I get it. It was this swept up hairdo thing.

Liar Liar Pants On Fire

2008-11-02T19:37:00.027-07:00

For Immediate Release
Washington, D.C

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings escaped serious injury today when the seat of her pants caught fire without any apparent source of ignition. The incident occurred in her office just minutes after she had addressed the House Committee on Labor and Education with this oft-repeated statement:

Over the last five years, NAEP testing demonstrates that 9-year-olds in the
United States have made more progress in reading than in the previous three
decades combined. Achievement gaps between white and black students in reading
and math are now the narrowest they have ever been.

Actually, average reading scores for 4th grade students have shown a 2 point gain since NCLB was implemented in 2002. Before NCLB became law, between 2000 and 2002, there was a 6 point gain. For 8th graders, scores have actually dropped a point.

An office worker immediately extinguished the flames with Spellings' custom made fire extinguisher, said to be a favorite novelty item and fixture in her office. The device was a gag gift presented to the Secretary by President Bush in 2006 after her infamous remark that NCLB is nearly perfect:

I talk about No Child Left Behind like Ivory soap: It’s 99.9 percent pure
or something. There’s not much needed in the way of change.

Emblazoned on the canister are the words "This is purity: Hold their feet to the fire until all on grade level." The message stands out in awkward disharmony with the soft Ivory soap colors and logo surrounding the device. Reportedly, the extinguisher was actually filled with Ivory soap foam and Spellings was cracking a soapy little smile as she was taken to an emergency room for treatment of minor injuries.

newsspoof by staff at This Little Blog

Challenging the Assumptions Upon Which Decades of Uninspired "Ed Reform" Are Based

2008-11-01T09:37:00.015-06:00

Longtime educator/administrator/author/thinker Marion Brady offers a challenge to the archaic standards and accountability movement that dominates education policymaking. Check out his refreshing and mind opening ideas at his website. And he has just offered online what he sees as a rough draft of an alternative general education curriculum based on systems theory rather than fragmented academic subjects. Check it out, it's free! His vision and ideas are at the very least well worth thinking about. Could it be we've been boxed up in such narrow thinking that we haven't realized powerful alternatives exist?

Just a couple of intriguing statements from Marion:

"Covering the content" – Forget this too. It hasn’t been possible since the
Enlightenment, and the assumption that it should be done (or at least attempted)
is naive and destructive. It’s best to see it for what it is–dynamic, constantly
changing, never equally appropriate for all students, and with the possible
exception of a tiny fraction of it, not worth storing in memory. Choose from it
what helps explain and elaborate the sense-making process. That process is the
main content.

Pacing – The whole idea of a "pacing guide" is ridiculous, a futile attempt
to standardize the unstandardizable. If you’re trying to help learners
understand something really important, there’s no point in moving on to a second
idea until they understand the first, even if that takes days, weeks, months. IS
tries to lay out the whole of the "liberal education" ball of wax, so don’t rush
it. Take as long as it takes.

Just keep an open mind, ponder the possibilities of what education could be, and enjoy a breath of fresh air...

Thank you Marion.

Wedding of Karl Rove and Michelle Rhee Marred By Anonymous Delivery

2008-10-26T23:03:00.043-06:00

The nation's capital was both stunned and amused today by a blistering press release from Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling's office. Officials announced that a private wedding ceremony uniting political mastermind Karl Rove and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was tainted by the anonymous delivery of a gargantuan 'floral' arrangement of unmistakably turd-like blossoms, heavily-scented and accented with a large spray of vampire fangs.

One wonders what the tiny wedding party expected by holding the ceremony so close to Halloween and just inside one of the moronic Little Red School House facades that front several entrances to the U.S. Department of Education building. Many teachers note how symbolic the ridiculous structures are of the great infusion of morale that the Orwellian No Child Left Behind Act has inspired in the nation's children and teachers.

Reportedly, after exclaiming that she would fire every career teacher in the city, a very upset Rhee lifted her floor length scantron chiffon bubble dress to yank off her number two shoes and fled out into the parking lot. New hubby and Satan underling Karl Rove followed close behind. Along with NCLB architects Margaret Spellings and Sandy Kress, Rove is one of the original masterminds of using the rhetoric of civil rights and anti-poverty to advance the dismantling of public education.

spoof brought to you by staff of This Little Blog

Defying Gravity: Trickle-Down Economics

2008-10-19T10:21:00.007-06:00

There is a good article in the Baltimore Sun on the glories of trickle-down economics. Read it here.

Now I'm diverging a bit, but if only reporters would dig deeply and connect the dots between disaster capitalism and the enormity of big business efforts to undermine and discredit public education so they may have excuse to jump in and take over with their wondrous market solutions.

Child well-being has long been neglected in this nation and a crisis has been allowed to develop. Millions of children lack health insurance and millions are abused and neglected. Millions have parents who are drug/alcohol addicted. Scores are left alone to fend for themelves after school in crime-infested neighborhoods. About 2 million have parents in prison and 13 million live in poverty. We rank 20th out of 21 wealthy nations in child well-being. As to poverty, we rank dead last among 25 wealthy nations.

How convenient for politicians and the ruling elite who control them to wag fingers of blame and ridicule at public schools and teachers because achievement gaps exist. It diverts attention from our nation's collective and exceedingly costly failure to take care of our most vulnerable children. While children's most fundamental life needs go unmet, testing and more testing and more "standards and accountability" from our schools and teachers is always the refrain. That's the ticket. More of the same. Such vision!

National Museum of The Middle Class Opens In Schaumburg, IL

2008-10-17T19:02:00.005-06:00

from the ONION, America's Finest News Source:

SCHAUMBURG, IL—The Museum of the Middle Class, featuring historical and anthropological exhibits addressing the socioeconomic category that once existed between the upper and lower classes, opened to the public Monday.

"The splendid and intriguing middle class may be gone, but it will never be forgotten," said Harold Greeley, curator of the exhibit titled "Where The Streets Had Trees' Names." "From their weekend barbecues at homes with backyards to their outdated belief in social mobility, the middle class will forever be remembered as an important part of American history."

Museum guests expressed delight over the traditions and peculiarities of the middle class, a group once so prevalent that entire TV networks were programmed to satisfy its hunger for sitcoms.

"It's fascinating to think that these people once drove the same streets as we do today," said Natasha Ohman, a multi-millionaire whose husband's grandfather invented the trigger-safety lock on handguns. "I enjoyed learning how the middle class lived, what their customs were, and what sorts of diversions and entertainment they enjoyed. Being part of this middle class must have been fascinating!"

During the modern industrial age, the middle class grew steadily, reaching its heyday in the 1950s, when its numbers soared into the tens of millions. According to a study commissioned by the U.S. Census Bureau, middle-class people inhabited great swaths of North America, with settlements in the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, and even the nation's urban centers.

"No one predicted the disappearance of the middle class," said Dr. Bradford Elsby, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "The danger of eliminating workers' unions, which had protected the middle class from its natural predators for years, was severely underestimated. We believe that removal of the social safety net, combined with rapid political-climate changes, made life very difficult for the middle class, and eventually eradicated it altogether."

One of the 15 permanent exhibits, titled "Working For 'The Weekend,'" examines the routines of middle-class wage-earners, who labored for roughly eight hours a day, five days a week. In return, they were afforded leisure time on Saturdays and Sundays. According to many anthropologists, these "weekends" were often spent taking "day trips,"eating at chain family restaurants, or watching "baseball" with the nuclear family.

"Unlike members of the lower class, middle-class people earned enough money in five days to take two days off to 'hang out,'" said Benson Watercross, who took a private jet from his home in Aspen to visit the museum. "Their adequate wages provided a level of comfort and stability, and allowed them to enjoy diversions or purchase goods, thereby briefly escaping the mundanity."

Many museum visitors found the worldview of the middle class—with its reliance on education, stable employment, and ample pensions—difficult to comprehend.

Thirty-five Booker T. Washington Junior High School seventh-graders, chosen from among 5,600 students who asked to attend the school's annual field trip, visited the museum Tuesday. Rico Chavez, a 14-year-old from the inner-city Chicago school, said he was skeptical of one exhibit in particular.

"They expect us to believe this is how people lived 10 years ago?" Chavez asked. "That 'Safe, Decent Public Schools' part was total science fiction. No metal detectors, no cops or dogs, and whole classes devoted to art and music? Look, I may have flunked a couple grades, but I'm not that stupid."

Others among the 99 percent of U.S. citizens who make less than $28,000 per year shared Chavez's sense of disbelief.

"Frankly, I think they're selling us a load of baloney," said laid-off textile worker Elsie Johnson, who visited the museum Tuesday with her five asthmatic children. "They expect us to believe the government used to help pay for college? Come on. The funniest exhibit I saw was 'Visiting The Family Doctor.' Imagine being able to choose your own doctor and see him without a four-hour wait in the emergency room. Gimme a friggin' break!"

While some were incredulous, others described the Museum of the Middle Class as "a trip down memory lane." William Harrison, a retired social worker with middle-class heritage, said he was moved to tears by several of the exhibits.

"You wouldn't know it to look at me, but my parents were middle class," Harrison said. "Even though my family fell into poverty, I cherish those roots. Seeing that section on middle-class eating habits really brought it all back: the Tuna Helper, the Capri Sun, and the cookie dough in tubes. Oh, and the 2-percent milk and reduced-cholesterol butter spread! I was thankful for the chance to rediscover my past, even if the middle class is gone forever."

The Museum of the Middle Class was funded primarily by the Ford Foundation, the charitable arm of the Ford automotive company, which sold cars to the middle class for nearly 100 years.

Deflated School Prayer Warrior Not Arrested for Organizing "See You At the Copy Machine" Event

2008-10-13T12:41:00.010-06:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Area resident Mavis Dupe didn't create the frenzy that was apparently intended Friday for her role in organizing and kicking off the first annual See You At the Copy Machine prayer event at the public school where she volunteers. The event was organized to gather teachers together in one place to pray for the restoration of prayer in public schools. A few reporters attended with claims circulating that organizers had naively hoped for some arrests to take place in order to bolster their claims of persecution.

At a sparsely attended press conference arranged by Citizens for Prayer in Public Schools (CPPS), Mrs. Dupe announced:

The 1962 Supreme Court decision banning prayer in public schools has led to America's demise. We defy those who
would deny us our God-given right to pray in public places.

Caught off guard by an astute reporter who asked whether any power instituted by men can prevent or hinder one from praying - a voluntary act that need not be audible and an act that is arguably meaningless when imposed by the state - Mrs. Dupe sought to save face in Palin-style cuteness:

I'll hafta get back to you on that!

Surveys of teachers indicate that many pray often throughout the course of their day and have long done so unhindered and unnoticed. Interestingly, anonymous teacher surveys also indicate that teachers' private supplications to God have increased 259% since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act.

-News spoof brought to you by staff at This Little Blog

Matthew 6:5-6: "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men....when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret...."

About The Phonies Who Have Far Too Long Occupied Throne Rooms of Global Elite Education Reform

2008-10-11T12:55:00.018-06:00

The article below was written by Miami high school teacher Paul Moore. I am copying and pasting it from Education Notes Online in the hope that you, dear readers, will help spread the message. I'll say it again - spread the message:

Oh, they had such grand plans for public education. Homage was paid to their ideological godfather Milton Friedman. In his 1950 book Capitalism, Friedman wrote that "The privatization of schooling would produce a new highly active and profitable industry."

Their pride and joy is burning as you read. It was never sustainable but they had us going for awhile, didn't they? It was immutable. It was eternal! It was a pig with lipstick in a poke!

Oh, they had such grand plans for public education. First the masters of the universe genuflected to their ideological godfather Milton Friedman. In his 1950 book Capitalism, Friedman wrote that "The privatization of schooling would produce a new highly active and profitable industry."

Then fueled with the fire of the Reagan revolution they put the finishing touches on their devious campaign at the Business Roundtable education summit in 1989. Standardized testing would be their primary weapon. The tests would isolate urban schools first and bury them under public posturing for accountability . The corporate vultures from Edison Schools and the others would move in to pick up the pieces and impose their gospel, the business model. Vouchers and charter schools would even redirect public monies to the destruction of public schools .

Toxic wastes, like incessant testing and mindless data collection and merit pay plans, would be pumped into the public school environment to sicken both teachers and students. And bye and bye the privatizers would have their brave new education system to serve their global economy.

And they were so close. They had their blueprint for legally closing public schools, the No Child Left Behind Act, in place. Billionaire Bloomberg and his CEO sidekick Joel Klein were in control in New York City. Mayor Daley and Arne Duncan were strangling the Chicago Public Schools. Mayor Villariagosa and Admiral Brewer were trying to get their hands around the throats of the Los Angeles Unified Public Schools. Jeb Bush, in and out of office, was calling the shots in Florida. Bill Gates had succeeded in winning Washington D.C. for Mayor Fenty and he in turn introduced the nation to a new level of ruthlessness and brutality in the person and policies of Michelle Rhee. Eli Broad's superintendents dotted the landscape from Vallas in New Orleans to Crew in Miami, chirping over the achievement gap and with grave voices declaring "the children of Singapore are eating our kids lunch." Many of those pesky democratically elected school boards had been eliminated.

Then just as the campaign appeared ready to bear fruit, their rationale for being, their precious global economy, crashed! Their pride and joy is burning as you read. It was supposed to be immutable. It was eternal! When the men of the Business Roundtable came down from their Charlottesville, Virginia education summit they were imbued with the Reagan Revolution's confidence. Now that's all gone.

A forlorn John Castellani's mug has been all over TV for the last couple weeks. He's the president of the Business Roundtable. Who could have imagined that less than twenty years after their education summit these same men would appear on their knees, hat in hand, to desperately plead with every public school teacher, parent and student to give them $3,000 as their share of a $700 billion public bailout. Goodness, what happened to their vaunted business model? Somehow these proponents of data driven education have no idea what their collateralized debt obligations (CDO's) and structured investment vehicles (SIV's) are worth. Most shockingly, the poster boys for accountability who pranced around with their noses in the air chanting "no excuses" over the battered minds and bodies of poor children, now beg for sympathy and want to be rescued by their victims!

Well it will take some time to clean up this mess, and we will suffer for their folly, but there is now some light ahead. Our corporate tormentors will soon slink away to lick their wounds and we will have the chance to rebuild the public schools, make them truly places of learning. Imagine there's no pacing guides, it's easy if you try. Our time under these sanctimonious, hypocritical blowhards is over! They have forfeited their right to any influence in our schools and in our lives.

Mail your No. 2 pencils to the Business Roundtable, swords into plowshares, standardized tests into poetry contests!

Resurrecting "The Case Against Standardized Testing"

2008-10-03T00:07:00.009-06:00

It never ceases to amaze me the enormously overblown credence placed in standardized testing to judge the quality of teaching and learning. It is their overuse and misuse that constitutes educational malpractice.

Please, if you are willing, read and circulate this award winning article by teacher Peter Henry, one of the founding members of the Educator Roundtable. The article won an award from the Minnesota English Journal in 2007.

The Politics of Disaster Ed Reform in the United States (with apologies to Robert Frost)

2008-09-27T09:25:00.012-06:00

Two roads converged in a dense wood
And sorry I took not only one but both,
Which merged into one, long I stood
Pressing schools down as hard as I could
With truth kept hidden in the undergrowth.

Taking the easy road as just and fair
I bought the fear and assigned the blame.
Posturing for poor children wanted no wear -
Framing the issue covered evidence there -
The ruling class wanted more of the same.

And on that morning hidden lay
The leaves that I had trodden black.
Oh, I kept that knowledge for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever turn back.

I shall be telling this with regret and a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads in a wood merged into one, and I -
I took that road so easily traveled by,
And for poor children it made little difference.

Corporate Welfare: Robbin' Hood in Reverse

2008-09-25T21:30:00.005-06:00

"Capitalism will always survive in the U.S. as long as the government is willing to use socialism to bail it out." A quote from Nathra Nader, Ralph Nader's dad, who emigrated to the United States in 1912 at the age of 19.

But I love this proposal from Norm Scott at Education Notes Online today:

Instead of putting 800 billion into the corporate
hoppers - supposedly to keep the economy humming and preventing unemployment,
how about putting the money directly into people's pockets by a New Deal style
WPA that would create jobs that could fix the deteriorating infrastructure, put
people in many places where they are needed (London and Tokyo have so many
people working at each subway stop to provide help and assistance), and goodness
gracious, even enough teaching positions to cut class
size.

Why not, politicians?

More on Gingrich (The Historian??)

2008-09-23T00:44:00.007-06:00

History itself soundly disproves the alarmist propaganda of A Nation At Risk. Yet here, Gingrich vomits it up again and adds steroids. Note the connection to ED in '08, Al Sharpton, Roy Romer, and Lisa Graham Keegan, McCain's education advisor.

Incredibly, Gingrich calls for the Secretary of Defense to issue an annual report on education as a national security matter and calls the "failure" of math and science education in the United States the second greatest threat to our national security (next to a terrorist attack).

I can't believe these people! How do they get away with this stuff?

Newt Gingrich to the Rescue

2008-09-22T22:44:00.009-06:00

All is well. Follow this link, where Gingrich lays out an 18 point "recipe" of prescriptions to fix the economy. Among other things his plan would lower corporate taxes, further the deregulation of the financial industry, and of course put children first through incentives and competition.

McMore of the Same - Savoring the Hope and Excitement

2008-09-20T06:33:00.011-06:00

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Still, I can't resist adding a few words.

Yesterday, in light of the unfolding AIG crisis and the government (we the people) bailout of the insurance giant, journalist Paul Krugman of the New York Times quoted John McCain:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous
nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would
provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses
of state-based regulation.

Ain't it sweet?

But by all means politicians, please do continue burdening our nation's schools with excessive, big-business supported federal regulations that guarantee "public school failure". Then our corporate messiahs may have excuse to jump in and save our children with the business agenda for education.

Deregulation for big business.

Strangulation for public schools.

Onward!

Mayor and Chancellor Conclude Invitation-Only Summit on Reducing Classroom Overcrowding

2008-09-16T20:03:00.021-06:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein met again today with billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, representatives of the Business Roundtable, and think tank experts to address the issue of overcrowding in many of the city's traditional (non-charter) public school classrooms. Today's gathering was the final meeting in a 3-day summit and culminated in a plan of action that is almost certain to raise eyebrows among tens of thousands of parents and teachers who were not consulted.

Determining that it is not feasible to reduce overcrowding numerically through smaller student/teacher ratios, the elite group claim they will offer a more innovative solution while at the same time saving taxpayers millions of dollars over time. According to Mayor Bloomberg:

We will contract with Furniture Solutions, Inc. to alter or reforge existing student desks into Bunk Desks, two desks stacked on top of each other. The desks will meet the highest industry safety standards. In addition, we have agreed to raise ceiling tiles in these overcrowded classrooms by a minimum of six inches.

To add to a sense of spaciousness, we will install nearly wall-to-wall
shatterproof acrylic mirrors in the classrooms. A growing body of
research suggests that the presence of large mirrors in classrooms
correlates
highly with students working harder and being less inclined to
cheat on
standardized tests compared to control groups performing the same
tasks in
non-mirrored settings. We believe physical self-reflection will
lead to more
ethical and philosophical self-reflection on the part of
students and
teachers.

Unconfirmed reports are circulating that the group also plans to include the installation of two-way mirrors in many classrooms to allow for surveillance of classroom instruction by what some teachers refer to as the 'accountability police'.

spoof by staff at This Little Blog

Recent Spike in Signers on Educator Roundtable Petition to Dismantle NCLB

2008-09-13T06:43:00.021-06:00

As the election of our next president draws near, we're seeing a spike in petition signers. Bit by bit, the incremental destruction of public education will continue to take place if teachers and the public do not take a stand. If you agree with the Educator Roundtable call to dismantle the current iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB) please please spread the word about our petition.

Specifically, we are asking that the pre-NCLB Elementary and Secondary Education Act be restored as a starting place for genuine reforms, reforms that at long last incorporate the wisdom and experience of parents and teachers, those closest to the children themselves.

It is our view that the hypocrisies, absurdities, and anti-public schoool tactics of NCLB are so unjust (especially to poor and minority children) that tinkering with or merely reforming the law, while well-intended by some, runs the great risk of merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and ultimately plays into the hands of elites who would like to see our system of public education transformed into a profit-making industry.

Just a couple of recent comments left by petition signers:

NCLB now appears to be a stratagem to dismantle U.S. education in order to
create an ignorant, gullible, manipulable, and USABLE mass of workers that
will
help fill the coffers of the few.

Note: I personally believe that some who supported NCLB were well-intended, though misguided. But regardless of motive and intent, I agree with the above petition signer that the law does work to foster an "education" that will produce a mass of workers for the global economy who have had little opportunity to learn to question and think for themselves, nor even discover their own unique potentials, interests, and aspirations. Keep in mind that the vast majority of jobs being created by the global economy are low paying.

Petition comment from a parent:

I am very upset about the small amount of time my son gets for recess. He's
only in 1st grade and is complaining about the amount of work he is required to
do. I am afraid that this law is taking away his love of learning and will
stifle his imagination at the ripe old age of six.

About Those Little People and the Teachers Who Want to Serve Them

2008-09-07T11:51:00.010-06:00

Just came across a video of Jonathan Kozol discussing the content of his book, "Letters to a Young Teacher". Although the video is a year old now, it is as timely as ever. Kozol humanizes both children and the teachers who work with them. High-stakes testing and standardization can easily rob both of the diversity of gifts and talents that make them who they are and who they might become.

Children are not miniature adults. They are children. And they are individuals, naturally and wonderfully resistant to being standardized. The burden and the loss that result from the maniacal obsession with standardized testing fall most heavily on poor children, as Kozol notes. And I feel compassion for my colleagues teaching in the inner cities. If they have become defensive, perhaps it is in large part because they are maligned and scapegoated relentlessly. I am fortunate that the conditions under which I am allowed to teach are far better, although no one is escaping NCLB unscathed. Across the nation, from the day our doors open for the first day of school, education is about The Tests.

Sad.

Education should be about developing the individual child, not producing standardized workers for the global economy.

Ed Reformers Urge Vow of Celibacy for New Army of Teachers

2008-09-01T11:07:00.009-06:00

(spoof)

A group of prominent education reformers, headed by former Secretary of Education Rod Paige, is urging the institution of what is sure to prove one of the most highly controversial initiatives in education reform history. To ensure that all children are well educated and equipped to succeed in the global economy, new teachers would be required to renounce marriage in order to devote themselves more fully to the task of preparing each and every child to excel in standardized test-taking.

Paige said the inspiration for the Alliance for Teacher Abstinence is based on the grueling KIPP model of schooling. The Knowledge is Power Program is the most well-respected charter school network in the country. Its college preparatory schools serve predominantly low-income black and Hispanic students. KIPP students endure 9 hour school days, attend school two Saturdays per month, mandatory summer school, and hours of nightly homework. Their teachers are on call 24 hours per day to answer student/parent questions. KIPP schools receive glowing accolades and millions in funding from the corporate world.

According to Paige, credited with the Texas Miracle when superintendent of schools in Houston, "Without imposing celibacy, we realize that the success of KIPP schools is not widely replicable to all public schools across the nation. Celibacy will free teachers from concerns which might distract them from the rigor, strength of character, and discipline necessary to closing all achievement gaps. Most KIPP teachers are single, unfettered by the demands of marriage, and able to be on call 24 hours per day. On the other hand, very reliable data prove that the majority of public schools teachers are married. Some put the figure as high as 77%."

Reformer and civil rights activist Amy Wilkins added, "We simply CANNOT ignore the consequences that result when teachers are distracted from their mission to raise test scores by the demands of marriage and parenthood. We know it sounds radical, but we favor federal monitoring and annual standardized celibacy testing to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that teachers have remained unmarried. We would also offer incremental merit pay based on the number of years a teacher remains celibate."

The organization boasts the membership of another former Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett, often dubbed the Great Moralizer. Bennett is authoring the Institutio Generalis Missalis Educo, a handbook of morning and evening meditations and rituals to assist teachers in remaining celibate and true to a single-minded focus on raising children's test scores. In what appeared to be a paraphrase of the Apostle Paul's words in 1 Corinthians, Bennett said it is good that teachers should be free from all concerns which might distract them from the mission which has been assigned to them.

Kudos to The Perimeter Primate

2008-08-25T21:38:00.009-06:00

for her insights into the corporate hijacking of our public schools and the undermining of democracy under the guise of "philanthropy". Beware of billionaires bearing gifts.

...democracy in my city was pushed aside, permitting a set of wealthy
individuals (especially billionaire Eli Broad who inserted himself in the
management of Oakland Unified in June 2002) to acquire power over my school
district, and about the millionaires and billionaires who have gained control
of, and have infested, public education throughout our country under the guise
of “philanthropy” and “educational reform.” I am one of those who is repulsed by
this phenomenon.

Thanks Perimeter Primate. Here's a satirical piece I wrote about ole' Eli.

Wal-Mart EduNews

2008-08-21T21:06:00.026-06:00

Through the Walton Family Foundation, Wal-Mart has awarded EduBuild USA's local affiliate in Charterville, Arkansas 1.2 million in grants to build at least 100 units of affordable housing for the families of low-income Wal-Mart associates. Across America, EduBuild USA recruits student volunteers from a pool of recent high school graduates of Wal-Mart funded charter schools. Volunteers receive training in construction work as well as an intense six weeks training in ethics and community-building.

In other EduNews, Wal-Mart is piloting a dental health program called Building Bridges in select locations in Arkansas and Texas. In exchange for enrolling their children who qualify for admission in private schools, associates who have all their teeth will receive one free cleaning and check-up as well as a $1200 school voucher paid in full by the corporation. Associates with missing teeth whose children qualify and enroll in private schools will receive a $2100 tuition voucher and may elect to have up to $125 per month withheld from their paychecks to build up a nestegg for needed bridgework. Wal-Mart hopes to eventually expand the program to include dental healthcare for the children of Wal-Mart associates.

(spoof)

Do Not Send Your Kids to Public Schools!

2008-08-06T13:27:00.011-06:00

Why? Have a look at these shocking statistics:

**Fully half of all public school children score below average on standardized tests.

**An astonishing 89% of our nation's school-age children who are obese attend public schools.

**A whopping 94% of all urban crimes are commited within a 7 mile radius of a public school.

**At least 83% of all convicted felons below the age of 100 were at one time enrolled in a public school.

**Before the dawn of public education, eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia were virtually unheard of.

**In primitive tribal societies that have no public schools, there is an amazingly low incidence of cancer.

**According to private industry estimates, every day innumeracy in our public schools negatively impacts 6 out of 4 children.

**79% of wealthy televangelists surveyed, including Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart, will attest that public schools are evil dens of secular humanism employing godless teachers.

And, perhaps most frightening of all:

**A far higher number of students who attend public schools rather than private schools will become axe murderers.

DOWN WITH PUBLIC SCHOOLS!

McGraw-Hill Natural Remedies For Teachers

2008-08-04T22:13:00.033-06:00

(ad spoof)

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Relieves sadness and melancholy for teachers with a highly sensitive nature, who find it difficult to witness the impact of poverty and other societal ills on millions of America's children. Also temporarily acts to allay teacher fears that these children are not being lifted up by high-stakes testing.

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Helps angry teachers who overreact to being held accountable to deescalate, stabilizes mood swings. Reduces stress-induced paranoia.

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Oh, my, yes! I've tried them all, and these remedies are terrific. I only caution against using all three at the same time, for, when I did, I found myself on the floor of the state board of education, biting the ankles of every person who gave the state of Georgia the nightmare that is Reading First.Tweedle-Dee from Atlanta,Cindy Lute

Stephen Colbert - Not Enough Eyebrow Raising Sir!

2008-07-23T22:16:00.024-06:00

I'm afraid our esteemed Secretary of Spin Margaret Spellings received only a gentle ribbing at best about the No Child Left Behind Act when she appeared yesterday on The Colbert Report. She made the usual dubious claims about the success of NCLB and blustered for the 9,999th time about "all children on grade level".

Don't ya wish lightning-quick-on-the-draw Colbert, catching her off balance, had fired something like this at her?

ARE WE THERE YET? ARE ALL OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN AVERAGE OR ABOVE?

As norm-referenced tests have given way to criterion-referenced tests, I suppose no one can really define "grade level" anymore. Even in the "norm-referenced days" when it was understood that by definition, nationally 50% of all students are always below grade level, it was an arbitrary thing.

But the absurdity stands, no matter the definition: No goal can be both challenging to all and achievable by all.

U.S. Department of Education's Little Red School House 'Front' Vandalized by Militant Activists

2008-07-18T22:23:00.012-06:00

A convoy of Barbies in pink and purple Beach Cruisers, accompanied by a massive deployment of GI Joe Action Figures in heavily armored vehicles with pivoting turrets and side mounted missiles have surrounded one of the U.S. Department of Education's little red school house facades today and are demanding to speak to reporters.

The move follows U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' endorsement of a new line of Barbie dolls and accessories marketed to help poor children raise their standardized test scores, and occurs amidst growing evidence that high-stakes testing is doing our nation's most vulnerable children far more harm than good while lining the pockets of private industry. Growing numbers of the Mattel fashion dolls are outraged that they have been exploited to sell products that promote the oppressive education reforms being engineered by powerful corporate interests.

Initially, it was surmised that the Barbies may have used their feminine wiles to recruit the aid of the GI Joes but late breaking developments have left little doubt that the Joes' commitment to abolishing high-stakes testing and the No Child Left Behind Act is genuine. Clearly, they regard their female allies as much more than just toys.

When security officers attempted to block the activists' access to reporters, a Commander Steel ordered his troops to open fire on the little red school house. The red facade was sprayed with artillery fire from the armored vehicles, sustaining minor damage.

Clad in green uniform with weapon belt, grenade harness, and helmet with comm gear, Communications Officer Breaker was able to speak to a reporter. "We have reason to believe that officials in the Bush administration have been secretly negotiating with the Hasbro Company to manufacture and promote a very expensive line of GI Joes designed to keep poor kids in their place. We ain't gonna let it happen."

Breaker explained the new GI Joe line would be composed of action figures and equipment incorporating technology that only the wealthiest families would be able to afford. Play and interaction with the Joes and accessories would subtly train the children of America's ruling class in methods of recruiting and impelling poor children to take risks - so the elite Joes could survive to selflessly take the blame in the event of total catastrophe. Play would also include learning to use technology to develop a centralized database of information about high school students to satisfy NCLB's recruiting provisions.

Breaker's claims have not been substantiated and the standoff continues.

A Chicken Little Story

2008-07-14T14:31:00.015-06:00

One day Chicken Little was walking in the woods when -- KERPLUNK -- a walnut fell on her head. She pecked the walnut open and inside was a note from the ED in '08 / Strong American Schools campaign.

"Oh my goodness!" cried Chicken Little. "There is a crisis in our public schools that threatens our nation's economic competitiveness! The Tests prove it! I must go tell the Congress."

Wise Old Owl was watching and wasn't fooled for a minute.

"Chicken Little, who is controlling you?" he asked. But she did not listen nor stop to think.

As she hurried on her way to the nation's capitol, Chicken Little met teacher Henny Penny and her students. Henny Penny said they were going on a field trip to the woods to learn more about the worms they loved to eat.

"There's no time for that!" cried Chicken Little. "I've received word that our schools are failing! Hurry back to class and prepare for The Tests." So Henny Penny and her little brood marched sadly back to class.

Chicken Little went on her way as fast as she could. Soon she met teacher Cocky Locky and his students. Cocky Locky said they were going on a field trip to the woods to learn about the seeds they loved to eat.

"There's no time for that!" cried Chicken Little. "I've received word that our schools are failing! Hurry back to class and prepare for The Tests." So Cocky Locky and his little brood marched sadly back to class.

Chicken Little hurried along as fast as she could. Soon she met teacher Turkey Lurkey and her students. Turkey Lurkey said they were going on a field trip to the woods to learn more about the berries they loved to eat.

"There's no time for that!" cried Chicken Little. "I've received word that our schools are failing! Hurry back to class and prepare for The Tests." So Turkey Lurkey and her little brood marched sadly back to class.

Chicken Little went along as fast as she could. Then who should appear but sly old Foxy Woxy.

"Where are you going, my fine feathered friend?" asked Foxy Woxy. He spoke in a polite manner so as not to frighten her.

"Our schools and teachers are failing us!" cried Chicken Little. "I'm on my way to warn the Congress."

"I know a shortcut to the capitol," said Foxy Woxy. "Come and follow me."

But wicked Foxy Woxy did not lead Chicken Little to the capitol. He led her right up to the entrance of his fox hole. Once they were inside, Foxy Woxy would gobble her up!

Just as Chicken Little was about to enter the fox's hole, they heard the sound of murmuring and stopped.

It was Wise Old Owl accompanied by a mass of wondrous animals of all kinds calling themselves 'We the Creatures'. The dogs chased Foxy Woxy away. How he ran across the meadows and through the forests, with the hounds close behind! He ran until he was far, far away.

"Who has been controlling you Chicken Little?" asked Wise Old Owl.

Chicken Little thought for a moment. "The ruling class?"

"Yes. Someone with connections to the ruling class dropped the walnut on your head," said Wise Old Owl. "Remember, just like Foxy Woxy, the ruling class wants to control you for its own selfish ends. I've sent word to Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, and Turkey Lurkey to resume their field trips and boycott The Tests. You must learn to think and question and so must the children in our schools."

After that day, if perchance -- KERPLUNK -- a walnut fell, Chicken Little didn't panic at all.

Anti-Public School Soap Opera Digest - Part 2

2008-07-10T21:10:00.007-06:00

~~The Young and the Restless~~
The Young and the Tested to Death:

The Los Angeles Times reports that "California mandates testing every eighth-grader in algebra -- ready or not".

WHY?? Under the current oppressive regime of high-stakes testing, we are already witnessing a great surge of demoralized, disengaged students dropping out of school altogether.

Rather than lifting children up, respecting their differences, and expanding their opportunities for success, we are severely limiting their options and opportunities, pushing many right out of school. Why in the name of kindness do we insist that all children be able to achieve the same things?

While I am no big fan of IQ testing, I wonder if those who are imposing such one-size-fits-all mandates don't need to be reminded that approximately 50% of our nation's population have IQs below 100, with approximately 23% of that population having IQs ranging from 70 to 89?

The ruling elite of the ed reform industry (and it is indeed an industry) insist on challenging standards for all. But if all could meet the same challenging standards, the standards wouldn't be challenging would they?

Children are individuals. Attempts to standardize them will crush the hopes and dreams of many. All people are of equal value but their abilities, interests, gifts, and talents vary enormously. IQ tests and standardized tests in general do not measure what matters most in life. Our nation is made stronger and better by respecting, embracing and developing the vast diversity of gifts and talents our children present to the world. I believe the maniacal "standards and accountability" movement is sending us headlong in the opposite direction.

It is wonderful that some students can excel in Algebra and higher math - thank God for them. Our world needs them and their contributions are great. No doubt some professions and fields require such skills - but only a very few. Most Americans do not use algebra or higher math in their work or day to day lives. Good basic arithmetic covers virtually all of the important day to day math skills needed by the vast majority of Americans. Am I wrong here?

Learning is good for its own sake. Learning algebra, good in and of itself, should be an option, not mandatory.

Apologies for getting on my soapbox with this "soap opera" entry. Just can't help myself and I am reminded of the following scriptures as an analogy. A footnote in my NIV Bible notes that these scriptures were apparently addressed to believers who felt that their gifts were inferior and unimportant while the more spectacular and showy gifts like speaking in tongues had been glorified in the Corinthian church. Regardless of one's particular faith or beliefs, I think this analogy works well for those of us who oppose standardization:

1 Corinthians 12: 14-26

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Anti-Public School Soap Opera Digest - Part 1

2008-07-10T18:55:00.000-06:00

~~As the World Turns~~
As the Secretary Spins:

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings (see photo here), spins and distorts the truth about the most recent Department of Education findings, which showed (yet again) that students who received taxpayer funds to attend private schools in Washington D.C. did no better in reading and math tests than their peers in the DC public schools. Find her spin on the findings here, where she claims, "Better schools. Higher scores. And satisfied parents".

Staff at This Little Blog ask readers of Maggie's spin (linked above) to note the sudden shifting of metrics for success when private schools do not produce superior test results.

One of the hallmarks of propaganda is that those who disseminate it attribute to others the behaviors they themselves make a practice of:

We, too, must place student welfare above personal ideology.

This little blogger says it takes gall for Corporate Maggie to speak of "placing student welfare above personal ideology" when she and her corporate-serving ilk are the very embodiment of such behavior.

Anniversary of Some Words Worth Remembering

2008-07-05T08:41:00.006-06:00

On July 12, 2006, Michael Winerip wrote his last education column for the New York Times, Teachers, and a Law that Distrust Them.

Here are some quotes from the piece that our politicians would do well to ponder:

Instead of helping teachers, for me it's a law created by politicians who distrust teachers. Because teachers' judgment and standards are supposedly not reliable, the law substitutes a battery of state tests that are supposed to tell the real truth about children's academic progress.

The question is: How successful can an education law be that makes teachers the enemy?"

...We need a No Family Left Behind Law. This would measure economic growth of families and punish politicians in charge of states with poor economic growth for minority families.

Under the No Family Left Behind Act, if states failed to make adequate yearly progress toward closing the income gap,

...the governors and legislators would be judged failing, and after five years, could be removed from office. This way public schools wouldn't be the only institutions singled out for failing poor children.

Finally, Winerip closed with a well-loved quote from William Butler Yeats and recommended it "as the official motto for a new, revitalized No Child Left Behind law."

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

I couldn't agree more.

Submissions please!

2008-07-03T21:30:00.004-06:00

It was recently brought to the attention of the staff here that certain individuals who engineered and supported the passage of NCLB, and who marketed it under the guise of concern for our nation's poor and minority students (the ones being most harmed by it), actually had the ulterior motive of sort of "blowing up" public education and paving the way for privatization.

You could have blown me down, I was just shocked!

Certainly not all who managed to get this legislation passed had selfish, ideology-driven intentions in mind - some were just morons. Still others true believers in the magic and glory of the unfettered free market (it's in the scriptures you know).

Anyway, I am proposing here that these selfless individuals be subjected to polygraph crap detector tests. It is only right that they be questioned about the destruction and misery they have imposed in our public schools. It has to be pretend of course. Unlike them, we do not have the power and resources to be heard by millions. This little blog's crap detector will work like a seismograph, rating the magnitude of the spin/deception/evasion we suspect they would use in their responses were we really given the opportunity to question them. We'll say the scale is 1 - 10.

Here's how it works. We (assuming some of you would like to participate in the fun) ask difficult and inconvenient questions to anyone we want...George Bush, George Miller, Sandy Kress, Amy Wilkins, Congress, the Business Roundtable, Margaret Spellings, whoever. We assign our questions a number from 1 - 10, rating the magnitude of the spin we think they would respond with were this real. I'll start by asking Margaret Spellings and the Congress a question and assigning them a number.

I'm hoping some of you will participate once the ball gets rolling by submitting questions in the comments. As I write and collect a few from you, I'll add them to the post and keep it updated.

1. To the U.S. Congress and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings:

The 1100 page No Child Left Behind Act uses the phrase "scientifically-based research" over 100 times, demanding that such research support the programs and instructional practices adopted in our nation's public schools. Yet incredibly, there was no scientifically-based research whatsoever to support the law's absurd mandates - indeed research available both then and now argues against attaching life altering consequences to children, teachers, and schools based on standardized test scores. Not only this, there was not one iota of science or research supporting the law's punitive "remedies" for the alleged failures of our public schools. None. Zilch. After the first couple of years, these sanctions are merely market schemes that divert public education money into the private sector.

How can you justify this?

Maggie's number: 10!!!
Members of Congress: Varies from 2 - 10

Marion Brady letter to Senator Obama

2008-07-03T13:53:00.000-06:00

If by chance you have not already done so, I urge you to read Marion's excellent letter, consider signing, and forward the letter to others for their consideration. The future of America's children is at stake. Thank you!

To my visitors

2008-06-24T15:01:00.000-06:00

I'm going to be away from my computer for a few days. Please check back in about a week and I'll resume blogging. Thank you for supporting this blog with your visits!

Teacher Granted Interview with President Bush

2008-06-14T21:07:00.001-06:00

(spooferview)

Hot on the heels of the Scott McLellan book and Susan Neuman's shocking admission that NCLB was actually a privatization scheme, I traveled to Washington and was granted an exclusive interview with the President. The interview is causing quite a stir. I called my mom and told her about it. My girls read it. I called four of my naive teacher friends with whom I've argued over the years about Bush's suitability for the presidency and shared the interview with them. "I told you so!" I said. That sent them reeling. Now I'm sharing the interview with you.

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Bush, I understand the press corps gave you a good-natured ribbing at a recent correspondents' dinner, including some jabs about the No Child Left Behind Act.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, right. That roast, heh, it was quite a performance, lots of self-defecating humor. In West Texas, probably your state too, we've got an idea, a saying, an idea - whatever - that you can't take yourself too seriously. I got schooled up East but I was raised in Texas so I'm a down-home kind of guy. I'm...what was that? I'm self- defecating when the occasion calls for it. I'm humble and I don't take my mind too seriously but make no mistake, when I'm Decider I do...take my laws seriously. As the Decider I have to do some tough deciding about what's right for the country.

INTERVIEWER: I watched footage of the correspondents' dinner. Susan Neuman's admission that NCLB was really a privatization scheme, at least in the minds of some if its engineers, was addressed. Your response at the dinner generated some laughter. You have since denied that the law was intended to discredit public schools.

THE PRESIDENT: Presidenting isn't easy. As I said, you have to do some tough deciding. The No Child Left Behind Law is a good law. It's working. It's meant to rattle some cages and shake the feathers off our public schools, exposing their failures to educate.

INTERVIEWER: Sir, there are many signs the law isn't working. Dropout rates are rising and the achievement gaps the law was meant to address have hardly budged.

THE PRESIDENT: The dropout rates are rising? Yeah, I heard some rumors about that were running across the internets. And we've still got some pockets of persistent literacy across America which is unacceptable but we're making progress. NCLB must be strengthened and reauthorized and continued to allowed to spread its wings of faith and compassion around America's school childrens to capture that illiteracy, hold them captive, and spread their wings of literacy and soar out of poverty. You teach a child to read and they can pass a literacy test and compete for good competitive jobs in the global economy.

The soft bigotries of low expectation has got to stop. Before NCLB, seldom did teachers ask, "Is all my students learning? If so, which is and who isn't?" We've given teachers tools to help all their students soar. You've got data dis aggrandized into those oh what is it -Look it up -those groups of divisions those subgroups, that's it. NCLB is based on sound scientific-based assumptions proven what works and doesn't work to educate all children to grade level.

And parents need to help. When Laura and I were little we loved to read to our girls. Sometimes when I sleep at night I think of Dr. Seuss's Ham and Eggs book...the green ones. And I l like hop on pop-up books.

to be continued...

Reverend Al and Hip Hop Nursery Rhyme

2008-06-13T06:24:00.000-06:00

In honor of ~~opportunist~~ civil rights leader Al Sharpton, who joins a distinguished panel of ed reformers whose message is backed by billionaire philanthropists with an agenda. Note the ED in '08 signers.

O hippity hippity hop
bounds Reverend Al to the flock
of wolves who posture as sheep!

Great wealth commandeering
high-stakes engineering
best democracy money can buy
we are positioned as saviors!

Crush them, blame them,
tighten the screws
frame the debate
public education will lose.

High-stakes testing
convenient device
we demand accountability
in a smothering vise!

Predetermined failure
the kids need a savior
we are defenders of the poor!

We're corporate messiahs
offering choice long denied you
privately run "public" schools
and freedom to innovate!

O hippity hippity hop
a culture of fear and control
on we go, imposing our way
controlling the masses
for the children's good we say!

OK, not so good. But it's the message.

Fantastic Value: Made to Order Educational Research!

2008-06-08T13:53:00.001-06:00

Reversible Necklines and Educational Research On The Go....

Welcome to my blog! I'm starting my own made-to-order educational research business. Have an ideology? Tell me your agenda and I'll craft a study to advance it. I'm hoping this will eventually evolve into my own Think Tank. Please send $10.00 before you continue reading (just kidding....keep reading free of charge).

Actually, I've already completed my first study in record time. My Growth Model analysis uses rigorous, scientifically-based dieting principles and expertly extrapolates the findings to education.

Not only that, as you will see, my study is reversible, much like a sporty tank top with a V-neck front and a flattering boatneck back for a different look. To keep reading, send another $10.00.

Put simply, the most consistent finding in diet research can be summarized with the following equation:

Excess Calories In + Lack of Physical Exercise = Weight Gain

Similarly,

Overdose of Drill and Skill Test Prepping + Lack of Active, Authentic Learning = Brain Drain

Weight Gain and Brain Drain...note the rhyme, which obviously lends even more credibility to my study. And, as I noted earlier, my study is reversible:

Fewer Calories + Physical Exercise = Weight Loss

And,

Reduced Test Prepping + Active Learning and Projects = Engaged Students/Real Learning

There. I saved our taxpayers millions in needless research. You didn't forget the $20.00 did you?

Two Accounts Concerning International Test Comparisons: Same Lesson

2008-06-08T04:10:00.000-06:00

Pick a politician - left, right, or in between. When it comes to public education, you can bet dollars to donuts you'll hear them sounding the alarm that our ability to compete in the 21st Century Global Economy is in peril as evidenced by international test comparisons.

Here educational consultant Keith Baker observes that decades after the first international test was administered in 1964, it is possible to actually test the long held assumption that "our low test scores will adversely affect our ability to compete economically on the world stage."

The fact is that the higher a nation's test scores are, the worse that nation performs in the economic world. The most successful nations are low scorers.

Altogether, I found 61 measures on which to compare the economic performance of the USA in 2003 to the nations that had higher scores in 1964. If the theory that low scores lead to economic failure is correct, all, or at least most, of these comparisons would favor the higher scoring nation. Not so. The USA comes out on top in 74% of the comparisons, beyond question the premier economic competitor in the world.

Since the false assumption that high test scores are good for the economy has been behind educational reform for decades of efforts to raise test scores, we must now worry about having gone in the wrong direction.

It is wise counsel to 'never assume a conspiracy when stupidity will suffice', but I have seen some impressive arguments that conservatives are engaged in vast right wing conspiracy - vouchers, home schooling, restrictive funding, layman control- to destroy the public schools. Note that the raising test score craze, including its main program, NCLB, support that conspiracy theory.

Fellow contrarian Gerald Bracey of EDDRA (Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency) disagrees with Baker, not about the harmful obsession with standardized testing, not about the canard that our economic competitiveness is tightly linked to how well students score on standardized tests, but because Baker "assumes that, in fact, there IS a relationship between test scores and economic security."

I think it's more due to the 12 pillars of competitiveness as listed by the World Economic Forum in its annual Global Economic Competitiveness report 2007-2008 (we're #1, have been for quite a while, and because of the 25 or so personal qualities that tests don't measure that I provide in Reading Educational Research: How to Avoid Getting Statistically Snookered. Especially creativity, which, as Bob Sternberg keeps pointing out, is a victim of our obsession with testing.

Whether one agrees with Baker or Bracey (or some combination of their views), the lesson to be learned is the same. False assumptions have driven educational reform for decades.

I think it's important that a critical distinction be made between the appropriate and limited use of standardizes tests and their overuse and misuse. Place too much credence in them and you lose any benefit that might otherwise have been gained from them. Attach life-altering consequences to them and they're positively destructive. I think schools could live without standardized tests completely and suffer no harm.

Yet it is their misuse that is wreaking havoc and destruction in our public schools. I like to use a medical model to drive the point home. When a doctor prescribes a drug for a patient, it can help if used as the physician directs. But if the drug is abused, it can be destructive, even deadly.

Ed Reform Industry Holds Vigil for Nation's At Risk Children

2008-06-03T12:34:00.000-06:00

AP Photo (slightly enhanced)

spoof

Cathedral of St. William Bennett the Benevolent Hosts Prayer Vigil for Nation's At Risk Children

In a holy unanticipated show of solidarity and non-partisan contrition, scores of prominent education reformers, lawmakers, and ed industry insiders gathered tonight to prayerfully acknowledge the longstanding failure of our nation's public schools and teachers to end the poverty, achievement gaps, and devastating societal ills that afflict millions of America's poor and minority children. Although attendees made up an amazingly diverse group of key players in the highly profitable and competitive education reform industry, all agreed to one bright line nondenominational principle - public schools suck and they are failing to to their job.

Joined by religious leaders, philanthropists, pundits, education industry lobbyists, former education secretaries, current education secretary Margaret Spellings, conservative and progressive think tank experts, the Business Roundtable, Bush brothers Jeb and Neil, and media figures, the high-profile group vowed they would not ignore Jesus' radical and revolutionary admonition to focus on others instead of self.

Popular radio and TV pundit Sean Hannity introduced keynote speakers. True to Jesus' admonition, Hannity wasted no time focusing on the public schools. "If we fix our lousy public education system, then we have fixed a whole host of social ills, including our welfare dependency problem, our drug problem, and our crime problem. God forgive us all, our nation as a whole, for neglecting our precious children by dumping them into public schools, to people who loathe and ravage so many of our core values and traditions."

Jimmy Swaggart, tears and mucus streaming into his mouth, played the Hammond organ and led the congregation in singing "We Shall Overcome". Undaunted by age and scandal, face contorted in agony, he reminded the assembled that "sex education classes in our public schools are promoting vile and unspeakable acts."

The most memorable event in the evening's itinerary, however, was when Pat Robertson was suddenly overtaken by the Spirit while reminding listeners that public schools have long been evil dens of secular humanism. Eyes shut tight in direct communication with God, Robertson spoke in tongues unintelligible to the audience.

"Ohhhh!" translated Swaggart for Robertson, eyes and arms extended heavenward. Gasping for air as he translated, a wracked and broken Swaggart continued at length, "Praise God! Pat says we must not despair in our adversity but excite ourselves to holy action! We will reach the mountaintop, that happy day when public schools are no more. Surely the idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil himself to keep Christians from running their own country!"

Overcome and exhausted, Reverend Swaggart had to be removed on a stretcher and was transported to a nearby hospital.

The highly charged climate died down when burly William "Bill" Bennett himself, former secretary of education and longtime public school critic, took the helm. The cathedral named after him was originally built with funds donated by K12, Inc., a private for-profit firm Bennett once headed. The company received 4.1 million in tax funding from the U. S. Department of Education, collecting the funding under a provision of the No Child Left Behind law that was designed to expand options in public school choice.

Though visibly annoyed by the theatrics of the charismatic speakers who preceded him, lifelong Catholic Bennett agreed that far left fanatics have used the supposed wall of separation between church and state to facilitate "moral anarchy". Mr. Bennett continued:

Since 1963, our failing government school monopoly has led us to this shameful crossroads. Students leave school completely unprepared to compete in the 21st Century Global Economy. Incredibly, the United States of America, the richest nation on earth, now boasts the highest rate of childhood poverty of all the wealthy nations. In child well-being, the U.S. is ranked 20th of 21 wealthy nations. It is a national disgrace and it is a crime.

Despite our having courageously appropriated the language and mantel of school reform over the last 25 years, despite our having selflessly framed the debate, and despite two decades of reforms and standardization engineered by business interests working in unity with governors and legislators, achievement gaps remain unchanged and the alarming dropout rate is increasing.

It has been six years, six long YEARS mind you, since a concerned U.S. Congress passed the overwhelmingly bi-partisan No Child Left Behind Law, charging our nation's schools with guaranteeing that ALL students, regardless of life circumstance and ability, achieve 100% proficiency on standardized tests.

It is now painfully and abundantly clear that we will not achieve 100% proficiency by the 2014 deadline set by Congress. Even the culture of fear and punishment that we inspired in our schools and teachers on behalf of millions of needy children has failed.

It is time to declare educational bankruptcy once and for all, give the people their hard-earned money, and let them build their own schools and educate themselves.

KUMBAYA!!

Margaret Spellings Aids Promotion of New Line of Barbie Dolls and Accessories

2008-05-31T12:41:00.000-06:00

(spoof)
Unstoppable U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is at it again. On hand today with representatives from top toy manufacturer Mattel, Spellings curtailed her trips around U.S. cities promoting charter schools long enough to announce the launch of a distinctive new line of Barbie dolls and accessories being manufactured specifically to appeal to poor and minority children as well as poor white trash children.

"From the Projects and Trailer Parks to the Ivy Leagues" is the motivational theme of the new line, which promotes the bright line testing and accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush's signature domestic achievement.

Spellings, sporting rectangular tortoise shell glasses and her trademark sassy blond haircut, raved over the line's distinctive Ivy League Apparel, an array of t-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, caps, polos, totes, and backpacks, along with tiny digital cameras and chat-with-me picture phones. In Spellings' honor the new Barbie line offers a selection of fashion eyeglasses in assorted colors, including half-frames.

Accessories include Charter Heights Dream School complete with awesome school house furniture and tiny test taking paraphernalia: standardized test booklets, practice test booklets, scantrons, test preparation flash cards, and number 2 pencils.

Test marketing indicates that by far the most compelling accessories are the tiny interactive computers (including laptops!) which actually allow children to listen, learn, and interact while Barbie and friends practice their test-taking skills. Spellings appeared to get a special kick out of pressing Barbie's tummy and hearing her recite the components of the six step writing process in addition to other vital test-taking tips.

"Well, this is the cutest Barbie stuff I've ever seen!" marveled Spellings. "Enough with curvaceous plastic molds who don't know the flippin' main idea from the supporting details!"

The new Barbie line will feature both Black and White dolls and will debut in the fall in selected Walmart stores around the country.

Swimming Upstream....

2008-05-29T18:07:00.000-06:00

The 21st Century Global Economy?

Standardization.

No.

Children. Each a unique individual worth more than all the material possessions in the world. And wonderfully resistant to being standardized.

Keep on loving the children and keep on swimming upstream!

Shreddin' the Oldies: Test Security and Ticker Tape Parades

2008-05-28T18:29:00.000-06:00

(spoof)
Press Release

With standardized test security a national priority and triumphal ticker tape parades almost a thing of the past, multi-tasking Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced today an unusually practical, innovative, and culturally meaningful solution to both problems.

Faced with the pressing need for secure disposal of the estimated 2,583,440,250 standardized tests taken annually in the nation's k-12 schools as a result of the yearly testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal Department of Education has contracted with D C Shredding and Baling Services, a document destruction company formerly owned by Vice President Dick Cheney. A world leader in information destruction and reduction, the company's U.S. team boasts an impressive fleet of mobile shredding trucks that will service all 50 states. The units will transport the shredded waste to centralized processing facilities housing industrial balers, with final transport of the 25 lb. confetti bales to New York City for use in annual televised "ticker-tape" parades to celebrate the march toward all children performing average or above on standardized tests.

Preparing students for their roles in the 21st Century Global Economy has been my highest priority as Secretary of Education. With only months before my term as Secretary expires, what better way for me to leave office than with the inauguration of an annual cultural event to celebrate and commemorate the achievements taking place in education since the ascendancy of my friend George Bush to the presidency.

Asked to comment, an obviously delighted mayor Bloomberg added, "We also envision showering test confetti over the financial district from hot air balloons."

Pressed by a reporter about the unthinkable, Spellings was asked about the potential for leaks to the public about what is on the tests.

There will be no Shreddergate. All D C Shredder employees undergo scrupulous background checks and weeks of intensive security training.

Thank you, Carl Chew

2008-04-26T01:40:00.000-06:00

Seattle public school teacher Carl Chew has refused to administer the WASL test to his students. You can find his story and other links here.

Thank you sir for acting upon the strength of your convictions. May the floodgates open to further acts of civil disobedience against the oppression, malpractice, and corporate-serving opportunism of high-stakes testing in our children's public schools. Like so many, I wish I could join you but I'm in no position to risk my job. Still, if enough of us band together...I long for the day and I believe the storm is gathering....

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't
see the whole staircase. Martin Luther King, Jr.

WHERE ARE THE HEADLINES, DEAR CORPORATE-CONTROLLED MEDIA?

2008-02-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

Who will listen?? As you read this study, know that the consequences of high-stakes testing are occurring all over the country and that these consequences were entirely predictable.

High-stakes testing is a national scourge and it is educational malpractice in the extreme. Accountability? You bet. It is time to hold our nation's policymakers accountable.

Link to the study is here.

L. M. McNeil, E. Coppola, J. Radigan, J. Vasquez Heilig

Executive Summary

A new study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas-Austin, finds that the Texas public school accountability system contributes directly to low graduation rates. Each year Texas public high schools lose at least 135,000 youth prior to graduation. A disproportionate number of these are African American, Latino, and English Language Learners. This study has serious implications for the nation’s schools under the federal No Child Left Behind law, which was modeled on the Texas accountability system.

By analyzing data from more than 271,000 students in a large urban district the researchers call Brazos City, the study found that 60 percent of the African American students, 75 percent of Latino students and 80 percent of ESL students did not graduate within five years. The researchers found an overall graduation rate of only 33 percent.

The accountability system uses student test scores for rating schools and rewarding principals. The logic behind the system was that holding adults in the system accountable for student achievement would lead to improved test scores. The requirement to disaggregate and report student test scores by race, with no school permitted to rise in the ratings without increases in the scores of Latino and African American youth, had the stated intent of narrowing the persistent gap between the scores of these historically underserved subgroups and their Anglo counterparts.

“Avoidable Losses” investigates the disparity between these claims of improving achievement and closing the achievement gaps, and the persistent losses of thousands of young people from the system under the high-stakes accountability system.

The study finds that high-stakes test-based accountability leads not to equitable educational possibilities for youth, but to avoidable losses of thousands of youth from the schools. These losses occur not as administrators cheat or fail to comply, but as they comply with the system as it was designed: that is, in the production of rising test scores for their schools. The study shows that as schools came under the accountability system, which uses test scores to rate schools and reward or discipline principals, large numbers of students left the school system. The exit of low-achieving students created the appearance of rising test scores and of narrowing the achievement gap between white and minority students, thus increasing schools’ ratings.

Methods: The study steps outside the system’s own indicators, the student scores on the state test and the school ratings. The study’s shift away from reliance on school-level data to student-level data across multiple years permitted analysis of the effects of the accountability system on the youth themselves. The research employed multiple methodologies in order to track the policy through the system to the children. The studyanalyzed student-level data on more than 271,000 students in a large urban district over a 7-year period. It included analysis of the accountability policy and its implementation down through the system to the school level; extensive observations in high schools in the Brazos City school district; and interviews with administrators, teachers, and students, including students who had left school prior to graduating. It also included a multi-year case study of a high school attempting to comply with standardized accountability while undertaking reorganization and curricular reforms, and its resulting inability to hold onto many of its students.

Findings:

* Losses of low-achieving students help raise school ratings under the accountability system, thus accruing rewards to their principals in the form of bonuses and job security.

* The statistical analysis of a sample of high schools serving poor and minority youth revealed a pattern of rising school ratings in schools that retained a large percentage of their students in 9th grade. Many of those retained in grade did not go on to complete high school.

* This pattern of 9th grade retention (often up to 30 percent of the class) was traced to a legal waiver that allowed principals to adjust grade promotion standards to retain in grade students deemed to be at risk of reducing the school’s scores on the state test; this practice has become commonplace, beyond the waiver provision.

* The reporting of student test scores by racial categories resulted in the singling out of the lowest-achieving students in these historically underserved subgroups as potential liabilities to the school ratings, increasing the incentives for school administrators to allow these students to quietly exit the system, rather than to provide them with the quality education necessary for them to succeed.

* The case study revealed the difficulty of undertaking substantive, long-term improvements under the pressure to produce immediate spikes in test scores to raise school ratings and achieve acceptable Annual Yearly Progress.

* The degradation of the curriculum into test drills, which have little relevance beyond the state test, distances students who otherwise wish to persist to graduation, exacerbating the likelihood they will leave school.

* The accountability system’s zero tolerance rules for attendance and behavior, including rigid regulations which shift youth into the court system for minor offenses and absences, alienate students and increase the likelihood they will drop out.

* Students experience the degradation of curriculum, zero tolerance policies and 9th grade retention as confusing and arbitrary, each which multiplies and magnifies the potential negative impact of the other on student decisions to persist or leave.

In summary, the study found that there is a strong association between high-stakes accountability and dropping out. This is in large part owing to the system’s internal administrative incentives, which reward increased school ratings, even if they are produced at the expense of youth whose test scores are not likely to contribute positively to the production of these indicators. In such a system, students come to be seen as assets or liabilities to their schools’ ratings. The triaging of thousands of youth out of our schools becomes not a side effect of standardized accountability, but an avoidable loss to make the system look successful.

There are many causes behind students’ dropping out of school, from poverty and unstable families, to pregnancy or the need to earn money. What this study shows is that standardized accountability not only does not aid in overcoming those barriers to school completion; it adds to them. Unreliable official statistics on student mobility and transfers, as well as understated official dropout figures (often reported as only 2-3 percent), make it difficult to assess the exact losses from our schools. Even if the figures generated in this study (for example, 75 percent of Latino youth in Brazos City not graduating) were adjusted downward by 10 percent to include possible transfers to other educational settings, the scale of the losses would still be unacceptable, and the numbers attributable to the impact of the accountability system would bear serious reconsideration of its claims.

This study has serious implications for the nation’s schools under the NCLB law. It finds that the higher the stakes and the longer such an accountability system governs schools, the more school personnel view students not as children to educate but as potential liabilities or assets for the school’s performance indicators, their own careers, or their school’s funding.

U.S. Department of Education Joining Forces with Department of Homeland Security

2008-01-31T23:29:00.000-07:00

(spoof)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

U. S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, joined by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, announced today the creation of a new strong-arm agency of the Department of Homeland Security to be charged with the task of protecting and defending the security and accuracy of the nation's standardized test data. The Test Security Operations Center will train security officers to patrol our nation's K-12 schools during the administration of standardized tests.

The agency will be headed by former drill sergeant and part-time mud wrestler Brunhilda Briarballs. "She'll serve us well," mused Spellings, noting that Briarballs is notorious among military insiders as having 'scared the crap' out of many strapping young military recruits. "They don't call her Bulldozer for nothing," quipped Spellings, "and there's no doubt we can expect her to take a hard nosed approach when addressing testing irregularities which can potentially impact the security of the tests or the accuracy of the data."

Any event which might be construed as having the potential to compromise the security or accuracy of the test data will constitute a security breach and will result in a school's failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) toward the federally mandated target of 100% proficiency of all students by the year 2014. A teacher who is involved in a compromising event, such as administering an encouraging pat on the back to a struggling student during testing, will be subject to stern disciplinary measures. Spellings explained that such a gesture, while seemingly innocent to the untrained eye, could actually be a signal to the student that they have answered an item incorrectly.

As part of her dual capabilities, Briarballs will also head the Office of Testing Emergency Preparedness. In the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack occurring during the administration of The Tests, first responders will be dispatched to herd and guard students and teachers while the tests are being gathered and propelled to underground shelters for safekeeping.

Spellings became visibly irritated when a reporter asked if the practice of high-stakes testing itself didn't actually encourage cheating, given that educators' jobs and the survival of their schools depend on their reaching a goal that is neither mathematically nor humanly possible to achieve. She responded, "We know that the very vast majority of teachers do not cheat. However, only with the implementation of these measures can we be guaranteed that we have objective proof of whether public schools are doing their job of ensuring that all children are average or above by 2014."

Excerpt from President's State of the Union - Revised

2008-01-29T20:11:00.001-07:00

"Too many public schools are getting away with ~~not failing~~ ...with failing," said the President. (laughter) "We must close all AYP loopholes to make sure all our nation's poor children, regardless of income or life circumstance, is reading and doing math at grade level. It's not right for there to be an achievement gap between some children and some other children."

Waiting List: Question #2

2008-01-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

inconvenient questions for our nation's corporate/politicos

If there is a tight link between what takes place in our public school classrooms and our nation's economic competitiveness and productivity, why haven't you been singing the praises of public education for decades? And why aren't you singing them right now?

But we see how the great wealth being created manages to defy gravity.

Yours truly,
the nation's scapegoat

WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!! (um....in childhood poverty)

2008-01-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

Sadly, it is to the everlasting shame of our nation's leadership that the United States, the richest nation on earth, has the highest rate of childhood poverty of all the wealthy, industrialized nations. But alas, we can breathe a huge sigh of relief and ease our collective conscience, for a solution has been found. What is it? Why, it's for our nation's teachers to "try endlessly until the magic works"!! But of course! No, I did not make up that quote.

The solution to childhood poverty offered by authors Delia Stafford-Johnson and Vicky Dill appeared online today, 1/26/08, at EducationNews.org under the title "Empowering Children Through Effective Education". However well intended Johnson and Dill may be, their solution could have easily been taken right from corporate America's executive manual on how to discredit and dismantle public education.

Johnson and Dill wrongly assert:

Equal and excellent education for all means access to high status jobs for those from poverty backgrounds.

No it doesn't. While we must indeed strive for excellent education for all, and while more equitable education for our nation's poor children is a national imperative, in order for better education to achieve better jobs for our nation's poor, there have to be decent paying jobs available. Lots and lots of them for lots and lots of poor people and our dwindling middle class. There aren't.

They're being outsourced and rendered obsolete by the same corporate elite who work relentlessly to discredit public education, the same corporate elite who would have the nation believe that public schools and teachers are responsible for the societal inequities that afflict innocent children, the same corporate elite who benefit mightily from cheap labor and that Golden Goose of profiteering and opportunism called the achievement gap.

As Jean Anyon, author of "Ghetto Schooling" recently pointed out in her article, No Child Left Behind as an Anti-Poverty Measure:

For more education to lead to better jobs, there have to be jobs available. However, there are not now, nor have there been for more than two decades, nearly enough jobs for those who need them...the jobs the U.S. economy now produces are primarily poverty-wage jobs ---and only a relative few highly paid ones --- making it increasingly less certain that education will assure that work pays well. Seventy-seven percent of new and projected jobs in the next decade will be low-paying. Only a quarter of these are expected to pay over $26,000 a year (in 2002 dollars).

And how deceptive are statements from Bill Gates and his 60 million dollar ED in '08 campaign:

Two thirds of new jobs being created require higher education or advanced training.

And there is this many times repeated claim from corporate crony and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, whose most noteworthy qualification for the job is that she doesn't have one:

Eighty percent of the fastest growing jobs require a college degree.

What they and the Business Roundtable conveniently fail to tell the American people is that these "fastest growing" jobs hire very few people, as one can easily find out by checking the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Educational researcher Gerald Bracey notes:

Spellings' assertion...slides past the fact that rates and numbers often paint extremely different pictures of what is going on. "Fastest growing" is a rate. If I make $1 today and double that for each of the next 4 days, my rate of increase in rapid, but at the end of the week I've only made $31. The fastest growing jobs do not account for very many jobs. In the BLS projections from 2004 to 2014, the number of retail sales clerk positions totals more than the top ten fastest growing jobs combined.

If one looks at sheer numbers of jobs, one sees what we might call the "Wal-Martization of America." The occupations with legions of jobs are mostly in the low-skilled, low pay sectors. Nineteen of the 30 occupations with the largest numbers of jobs are in the "low" or "very low" pay categories such as retail sales, janitors, food prep workers, waiters, home health aides, office clerks, etc.

And Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute nails it too in his article, Schools as Scapegoats:

American middle-class living standards are threatened, not because workers lack competitive skills but because the richest among us have seized the fruits of productivity growth, denying fair shares to the working- and middle-class Americans, educated in American schools, who have created the additional national wealth. Over the last few decades, wages of college graduates overall have increased, but some college graduates -- managers, executives, white-collar sales workers -- have commandeered disproportionate shares, with little left over for scientists, engineers, teachers, computer programmers, and others with high levels of skill. No amount of school reform can undo policies that redirect wealth generated by skilled workers to profits and executive bonuses.

Johnson and Dill rightly seek to elevate the issue of childhood poverty in our national conscience. However, their stated position that our nation's school teachers are the solution to childhood poverty and the poor academic achievement that so often accompanies poverty and its deprivations is unbelievably simplistic. And it continues to place an enormously disproportional responsibility on schools and teachers alone:

Graduating every student with an excellent education is the solution, and effective teachers and principals are the key to achieving this goal.

Not only this, it serves to divert national attention away from social and economic policy changes that are desperately needed to help these children. I do not mean to diminish the importance of quality teaching and quality schools. It's part of the needed mix. I believe the number one IN SCHOOL factor affecting academic achievement is the quality of the classroom teacher. It's critical. However, when it comes to factors impacting academic achievement, especially the achievement of our nation's most disadvantaged students, we know that circumstances outside the classroom over which educators have no control dwarf what takes place in the classroom.

Until this nation stops using our nation's public schools and teachers as the national scapegoat for poverty and societal ills, until social and economic injustices are confronted and ameliorated directly, we will see little change in achieving a more just and equitable society for all of our nation's children. Can we please stop pretending?

ED in '08 and Puppy Dog Tails

2008-01-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

Educational researchers, economists, and research scientists in the area of human behavior, working in collaboration with canine behavior specialists, have completed a groundbreaking study, the policy implications of which are likely to cause hair to stand on end among the Strong American Schools/ED in '08 folks who compose a 60 million dollar public awareness and action campaign funded by billionaire philanthropists Bill Gates and Eli Broad. The stated mission of ED in '08 is to make education a top priority in the 2008 presidential election.

The findings exposed by the study and the preliminary recommendations being set forth by its authors are considered long overdue by frustrated teachers on the ground charged with carrying out misguided corporate/politico policies guaranteed to leave many children behind. Extensive documentation demonstrates irrefutably that much of the fear-mongering now being disseminated by ED in '08 is virtually identical to the years of "failing public schools" propaganda that paved the way for the No Child Left Behind Act, now aptly re-named the No Corporation Left Behind Act.

Remarkably, the study was inspired by a simple observation frequently noted by exasperated teachers, an uncanny similarity between the tight frenzied circle of unproductive tail chasing activity that certain dogs engage in and the endless revolving circle of resurrected myths about public schools perpetuated by powerful business interests --- myths which scapegoat already heavily burdened schools and teachers while conveniently neglecting the elephants in the classroom.

The examination of likenesses between corporate behavior and obsessive/compulsive disorders in dogs may lead to treatments and policies which will bring blessed relief to children, teachers, and schools. Canine behavior specialists have long known that dogs afflicted with obsessive compulsive disorders commonly develop a fixation on their tails. Many scientists believe compulsive tail chasing derives from dogs' natural predatory instincts. Corporate obsession with public school accountability is likewise predatory.

While scientists acknowledge that dogs bear no particular hostility or ill will toward our nation's public schools, the same cannot be said of their corporate counterparts, who in sum evoke images of an animal of behemoth proportions, lumbering in large figure o-eights around our nation's struggling schools, waiting to devour them.

Recommendations are under consideration for treating the corporate compulsion to control our nation's public schools. Teachers are favoring the securing of rigor wraps (electric shock collars) around the necks of offenders. Every time the word "rigor" is invoked as a solution for the childhood poverty and deprivations largely responsible for poor academic achievement, a succession of harmless but exceedingly unpleasant electrical jolts will be administered into the necks of offenders by highly qualified teachers carrying remote control devices. Though actual implementation of the remedy is not a certainty, teachers have already affectionately dubbed the devices "rigor triggers". In the most extreme cases of obsessive/compulsive school bashing, even shock therapy may not significantly reduce the problem . In these cases, muzzling may have to be considered.