School Reform -- Louisiana Style. Are We Next?

Nancy Flanagan, who writes Teacher in a Strange Land, published a letter she got from a friend of hers. The letter described Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's Education Summit held in Baton Rouge on January 30, 2012. The letter writer, said Flanagan,

is a National Board Certified Teacher, with a long and distinguished career in education. She wasn't invited to Bobby Jindal's education summit--but a Teach for America corps member she's mentoring was, and urged her to attend, saying that she'd learn about the exciting innovations planned for public education in Louisiana.

The Education Summit included Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Louisiana Recovery School District Superintendent John White and, according to BusinessReport.com, education reformers from across the country.

In a preview of the summit, BusinessReport.com announced that the summit boasted "a distinguished list of speakers."

The distinguished list included the aforementioned former governor Jeb Bush who brought devastation to the public schools of his state and Joel Klein, Executive Vice President of NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch's information empire. Mr. Klein is a former Chancellor of New York City public schools.

And, of special interest to us was guest speaker, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett.

Nancy Flanagan's teacher friend describes some of the action...

When the doors opened, we were instructed to go to the front tables if our nametag had a table designation on it; if not, we were to find a seat in the back. Thus began the division of the haves and the have-nots. Sponsors, legislators, school board members, TFA, chamber of commerce, Business Report, BESE, and other stakeholders were of course seated at reserved tables in the front.

Those of us who are really in the education business (teachers, principals, superintendents, university people) were left to fend for themselves and find a seat..

...Jeb Bush took the stage to tell us what a wonderful job he had done (singlehandedly) in Florida to fire bad teachers, raise the graduation rates, and buck the teachers unions. He quoted General Petraeus, saying we must "focus on the big idea and not let go." He also predicted that, "over the next five years you are going to see some train wrecks around the country as standards go higher and people fail to meet them."

...The love fest among the "haves" continued with the next speaker, Dr. Howard Fuller, from The Black Alliance for Educational Options. He spoke about the need for strong leaders (something our state has so far ignored, choosing to blame teachers instead). He said the current educational system itself is "dysfunctional." As a teacher, I appreciated most of what he said, especially since it made the front of the room squirm a little.

When Dr. Fuller was finished, Paul Pastorek got up to introduce the next speaker, who is obviously an old buddy of his - Tony Bennett, Indiana Superintendent of Instruction. The love fest at this point became nauseating.

Did you know that Mr. Bennett has singlehandedly reformed public education in his state, too? And that he's made a lot of enemies along the way? He believes that the system will be fixed with...competition. (And did you know that he was once a coach?)

Governor Jindal was next...One of the only things he said that struck me was that "we've taken steps to reward our teachers..." Is that why he took away the stipend for National Board Certified Teachers? Did you know that having a great teacher can change a child's life? Really? Finally--we should not be wasting money on failing schools. Give that money to parents as vouchers so they can choose. My question: What will be left for them to choose from?

...then a fiery speech by Joel Klein. He's part of the gang; they stopped just short of slapping each other on the back or high-fiving at their astounding success. Klein began by telling us how privileged we were to have John White as our state superintendent. Klein said three things must change if we are to have a better system:

1. We need national standards.
2. Choice and competition will cause us to be better and innovate.
3. Professionalize teaching and make teachers our "heroes."

Then a "panel discussion" from Ben Austin, Director, Parent Revolution, California; Scott Shirey, Executive Director, KIPP Delta Public Schools, Arkansas; and Marc Sternberg, Deputy Chancellor for Portfolio Planning, NYC DOE. (All three are TFA alums, and I really had trouble focusing at this point, so I took a break, took a walk - there were more people milling around in the lobby than there were in the room listening.)

Read the entire letter at http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/

Diane Ravitch also discussed Louisiana in her latest post titled, Bobby Jindal vs. Public Education at her Bridging Differences Blog.

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Race to Nowhere - Reminder

On Monday March 12th, IPFW will show Race to Nowhere, a film to mobilize people to challenge the current assumptions on how best to prepare the youth of America. 7:00 PM in room 101, Neff Hall.

A discussion will follow moderated by Carolyn Lindquist, Clinical Assistant Professor of Education at IPFW, with panelists...

• Julie Hollingsworth, FWCS School Board member
• Kathy O'Shaunessy, Homestead Parent
• Kathleen Randolph, president and chief executive officer of Work One Northeast

Public education is under attack

...from the Indiana Coalition for Public Education -- Monroe County and South Central Indiana

Guest Column

Public education is under attack. Reformers, driven by private, free-market profiteers and by the politicians whose pockets are lined with their money, are seeking to undermine and weaken our public schools.

In 2011, the Indiana Legislature adopted the nation’s most comprehensive “school choice” program whereby all parents may now take a standard deduction of up to $1000 per child for private school expenditures. Among the many benefits to private schools and their supporters are the vouchers or “Choice Scholarships.”

Last year more than 3,900 vouchers were granted by the Indiana Department of Education at an average value of $4,150. This year 15,000 vouchers will be available. Next year, there will be no legal limit. Every dollar of voucher money is subtracted from our schools’ general fund, money that supports the ECAs for thousands of students, helps control class size, and provides special programs for special needs children, among countless other benefits. The state keeps any overage between the cost of the voucher and the state per-pupil support. The public school keeps nothing. Parents are left with paying for lost or reduced services and programs, either directly or through referenda.

Vouchers to private schools erode local control over how taxpayer money is spent. Transparency and open records for voucher schools are not covered by the same state rules as for public schools. Private schools can essentially choose which students will be welcome. If a child has a learning disability or has English as a new language, private schools are not required to admit them. Public schools are open to all. Public schools’ mission is to educate each and every child who walks through their doors.

Here is the big question: who benefits from this legislation? Unsurprisingly, the forces backing vouchers stand to make an enormous profit. To them, the nation’s $600 billion public education pie is there for untold profit. Slick marketing, accompanied by the endless repetition of “failure, failure, failure,” attempts to shape the argument in their favor. They use the inadequate education of the poor, the underserved and neglected urban municipalities as their justification for vouchers and private schools. These efforts are funded and supported by the test and textbook industries, the data and tech firms, corporate contractors and hedge fund managers selling stock in companies managing private, profit-generating charter schools. The major contributors to the campaigns of Tony Bennett and Mitch Daniels (see, for example, HERE) tell the whole story.

Public schools are succeeding. Our Indiana schools are at or near their highest scores ever in attendance rates, SAT math, ACT, National Assessment, ISTEP+, and percentage earning Academic Honors diplomas and Core 40 diplomas (ICPE website). But our students are more than just test scores. They are children of diverse backgrounds, abilities and needs who are learning in an increasingly pressured and stressful environment. The caring and dedicated teachers and administrators who are facilitating this growth are doing an amazing job, given the enormous constraints placed on them by legislators who know nothing about education or child development. Should our schools be taken over by for-profit companies? Should the dollar become the bottom line?

The Indiana Coalition for Public Education (ICPE), Monroe County, has been recently formed. We are a bi-partisan, non-profit organization whose purpose is to support public education and oppose any public policy which detracts from that purpose. Only through the concerted effort of organized parents and citizens across the state can we stop big money and special interests from overtaking the cornerstone of our democracy: the public schools.

Race to Nowhere:

The Dark Side of America's Achievement Culture.

On Monday March 12th, IPFW will show Race to Nowhere at 7:00 PM in room 101, Neff Hall.

...from the Race to Nowhere web site:

Featuring the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren’t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what’s best for their kids, Race to Nowhere points to the silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace, students have become disengaged, stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant, and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired.

Race to Nowhere is a call to mobilize families, educators, and policy makers to challenge current assumptions on how to best prepare the youth of America to become healthy, bright, contributing and leading citizens.

In a grassroots sensation already feeding a groundswell for change, hundreds of theaters, schools and organizations nationwide are hosting community screenings during a six month campaign to screen the film nationwide. Tens of thousands of people are coming together, using the film as the centerpiece for raising awareness, radically changing the national dialogue on education and galvanizing change.

Featured in the film:

• Dr. Madeline Levine, Clinical Psychologist and author of the best-seller, The Price of Privilege
• Dr. Wendy Mogel, Clinical Psychologist and author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
• Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, Adolescent Medicine Specialist, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
• Dr. Deborah Stipek, Dean of the School of Education at Stanford University
• Dr. Denise Pope, Co-Founder, Challenge Success, Stanford University
• Sara Bennett, Founder, Stop Homework

Diane Ravitch speaks at Barnard College

...a preview of what's to come when Diane Ravitch speaks in Fort Wayne.

Dr. Ravitch spoke at Barnard College on February 21, 2012.

Her speech -- Is A Public School a Public Good, or a Shoestore? -- begins 8 minutes into the video. Questions and answers begin at about 45:00.



You might also be interested in these articles by Diane Ravitch:

• Do Politicians know anything about education?
• How to Demoralize Teachers

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Test Based Teacher Evaluations Released in NYC

New York City has released evaluation numbers based on student test scores for city teachers. The teachers union has argued that personnel information should be protected from publication and when the evaluation was first begun, then chancellor Joel Klein promised that, because the procedure was "experimental," it would be held in strict confidence. The administration, however, has reneged on that promise and has released the information.

Last week the newspapers in New York City published the results on tens of thousands of teachers.

Testing experts know that using student test scores to evaluate teachers is neither valid nor reliable. Diane Ravitch wrote in How to Demoralize Teachers,

Most testing experts believe that value-added assessment has many technical problems that reduce its validity and reliability. The most recent research review appears in the current issue of the Phi Delta Kappan. Unfortunately, advocates of measuring teacher quality by student test scores never let research or evidence or, in New York City's case, unequivocal commitments to privacy, get in their way.

The backlash against teachers has begun. Here's the story of one NY teacher who was the subject of misinformation, harassment and personal humiliation.

The True Story of Pascale Mauclair

As in many other cases, the story of Pascale Mauclair and P.S. 11 begins with a tale of the flawed methodology and invalid measurements of the Teacher Data Reports.

P.S. 11 is located at the epicenter of a number of different immigrant communities in northern Queens, and over a quarter of its students are English Language Learners. Mauclair is an ESL teacher, and over the last five years she has had small, self-contained classes of recently arrived immigrants who do not speak English. Her students arrive at different times of the school year, depending upon that date of their family’s migration; consequently, it is not unusual for her students to take the 6th grade exams when they have only been in her class for a matter of a few months. Two factors which produce particularly contorted TDR results – teaching the highest academic need students and having a small sample of students that take the standardized state exams – define her teaching situation.

If a journalist with integrity had examined the TDR data, a number of red flags which suggested something was seriously amiss with the scores for Mauclair and P.S. 11 would have presented themselves.

Read the complete story here.
More on the New York City teacher evaluations here and here.

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Pro Voucher Money Coming to Local Indiana Elections?

The American Federation for Children is pushing its pro-voucher activities in Indiana.

Karen Francisco, who writes the Learning Curve blog for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, describes the American Federation for Children in her February 29th blog post titled, Big Money Ahead in School Board Races?

The group is a thinly-disguised front for anti-union interests. Betsy DeVos of the Amway fortune is the group's leader and its Indiana mailing address is the Terre Haute law office of James Bopp, father of the Citizens United ruling that has spawned millions in secretive campaign financing. The organization pumped $336,500 into Indiana campaign coffers over the past two years – all of it to Republican candidates who have pushed the school choice/anti-union education agenda.

The group is sponsoring a Campaign Training School in Indianapolis at the end of this month in a search for pro voucher candidates to public office.

It's difficult to imagine how much more "reform" could be pushed on Indiana schools, but look for candidates backed by the American Federation for Children to surface in this fall's school board elections. They're already calling the shots in the Indiana House and Senate.

Read The Learning Curve for the complete story.

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