Did Marcus Dobbs Get a Sweetheart Deal from Silberman?

When KSN&C posts reports from sources, while we don't reveal their names, we do know who they are and that, in fact, they are in a position to know the information they share. So the information we are sharing today comes with a warning - I do not know the source(s) other than they claim to be white women in the FCPS Transportation Department. Treat it as a rumor.

The reason I'm running (a greatly reduced version of) the information they provided is that some of it has been verified through other sources. The precise data mentioned however has not been confirmed.

An individual with the colorful handle, "Pissed Mary" (mademployee@hotmail.com) claims that a number of white female members of the FCPS Transportation Division are upset because of an 11th hour appointment that Stu Silberman made just prior to his departure.

Mary says:

When Stu decided to retire, a couple of weeks before he left, everyone was shocked when he used his power to “appoint” Marcus Dobbs to a position of Assistant Director simply because he was a minority and he had to supposedly meet minority quotas.  John Kiser even seemed surprised at this move. He is sooo unqualified, he had not earned this position, and was given a big boost in pay, just like all the other positions that he held in transportation before. He is nothing more than a routing supervisor with big bucks!!!  How do you justify that to us~  Board Members, Mary Browning, and Stu?

Apparently the shell of this allegation is true. Marcus Dobbs was a member of the committee that brought Silberman to Fayette County and served as some kind of courier/helper for Stu during his convalescence following a bad spill from his bicycle a few years back. Dobb's appointment to a position that didn't exist may have surprised Director John Kiser, but it shocked the heck out of the district's only female Router, Kim Webb, who upon learning that she had no opportunity to compete for the newly created position, got up from her desk and made a beeline to Mary Browning's office to complain. Obviously, nothing came of her complaint. Stu was Mary's boss. But we hear that every chance she gets to make Dobbs look bad, she takes.

Dobbs serves as Assistant Director, but he does not supervise the Routers - making him more of an Assistant to the Director, rather than an Assistant Director. Yet, in his position Dobbs draws a big salary.

If Silberman ever operated under a racial quota, I am not aware of it. Still, he may have felt pressure to show some effort toward the advancement of African Americans late in his tenure. KSN&C, for one, was questioning why employment levels among African American teachers and Administrators lagged during his administration.

Was the appointment of Dobbs a sweetheart deal?

Let’s be more specific. Every year the Lexington Herald Leader publishes the yearly salaries for the FCPS employees. Check it out at: WWW.Kentucky.com – then News-then salary/databases and then type in the small search engine at the top of the page (Fayette county public school salaries), then type in the employee name and scroll down and you will find the same information I am telling you.  Everything I am about to unload are pure facts, so hold on to your seat.

How many white women  routing supervisors ever made $64,954.00 per year?

Answer: NONE~ they weren’t friends of Stu Silbermans!

You can even go to the: FCPS board meeting minutes at www.fcps.net  for the past five years to find out how Marcus Dobbs salary has increased at the tax payers’ expense. Check in the April or May budget minutes.  Well, wait, I’ll just tell you and save you the time.

·         2006/2007  White woman routing supervisor made $29,127.60

·         2007/2008  Marcus Dobbs $59,033.

·         2008/2009  Marcus Dobbs $61,933

·         2009/2010  Marcus Dobbs $64,954

·         2010/2011  Marcus Dobbs $77,847

 -         2011/2012  Marcus Dobbs $85,613

KSN&C sources say that is it Dobb's job to do Kiser's dirty work, so that he can keep his hands clean.

Mary goes on to suggest that:

• Dobbs only supervises 3 people in routing.  
• His job of providing customer service is a joke.
• We have a white woman manager of Liberty Road bus garage with 15 years experience, makes 52k, and supervises 250 employees
• We have a white man at the Miles Point bus garage, and has 3 years experience, supervises 150 employees and makes 48k a year.
• Many, many employees are watching to see what happens with John Kiser.
• Marcus has stated that his appointment as Director of Transportation is “in the bag.”
• Marcus does a good job as a routing supervisor, but …. Does he deserve almost (100K) for being a minority and Stu’s friend?  Hell No! 

Apparently the Board is considering issues related to salary next week and folks in Transportation are paying attention. 

Wasted Effort Sends Another Bad Message in FCPS Transportation

It has taken me longer than anticipated to dig out from under the pile of work that had arrived on my desk recently. I have a backlog of material from April, and blogging continues to be lighter than normal. I have resolved "my Cassidy problem" and will post something on it soon. I hope to be back at full strength after the 8th International Symposium on School Reform (ISER) wraps up at UK in mid June.

But I have no complaint. The work is satisfying, and as I complete one task I can simply move on the the next. I don't have to do specific tasks over and over again. Too bad the Fayette County Schools Transportation Department managers and supervisors couldn't say that last month.

A February audit of district practices--on the academic side--called for more consistency in evaluation. Had the "diagnostic review" looked at operations, it may well have reported the same problem. Sources within Transportation Department leadership tell KSN&C that a meeting was held with managers and supervisors this spring to review the district's evaluation system. The system is based on a 5-point scale. But at that meeting, according to several who were in attendance, Transportation Director John Kiser directed his staff that "nobody should get over a 3." The supervisors and managers dutifully completed the process as they were instructed.

Meanwhile, in other departments, FCPS staff were being evaluated using the full scale of 5 points. Wanna guess what happened next? Transportation folks suddenly wanted to know why they were the only ones marked down on their evaluations. So much for consistency. Kiser had to obtain an extension on the due date, and all managers and supervisors had to complete a rush job of redoing all of the evaluations they had already done according to instructions, to put their ratings back in line.

In the April 17th bulletin, now titled "Training and Safety," (wasn't it formerly called the We Sheet?)  the department explains it this way:

Due to the inflated nature of previous annual evaluations, the district has developed new forms that were designed to more accurately depict grading of individual performance. Unfortunately, the new system caused some people to feel they were being downgraded.

Of course they felt that way because that's exactly what was happening. The new system, with Kiser's instructions, was meant to downgrade employees, but the department finds it unfortunate that transportation employees might notice and care? It's apparently those pesky feelings that are the problem.

Nobody wants to be considered average, and in order to correct the feeling that the grades did not accurately depict actual performance; all supervisors have been instructed to review their evaluations and to consider the 3-4 grades as a single "Component" category with the 3 representing the base level and the 4 representing the high end of the category.

So, if we understand Kiser correctly, either he just learned that nobody wants to be considered average, or he knew it at the time he instructed his supervisors to downgrade his employees. Apparently, the real problem for Kiser is that anyone would have negative feelings about being downgraded. How should an employee with perfect attendance feel about being downgraded to a 3? The strong implication remains that Kiser doesn't think much of the performance of his staff.

Explanation is needed for any grade 5's. An example would be that perfect attendance would be a 5, no more than 5 absences might be a 4, and more than 10 but less than 12 might be a 3. Many evaluation forms will be redone and new signatures will be requested. Any changes will be a higher number. None of the scores will be lowered. Therefore, there won't be a lot of time for discussion. We have a two-week extension on the completion time in order to accomplish the changes.

So shut up and let us get this mess cleaned up. Is it fair to ask how Kiser would feel about his own evaluation? Does he score higher than a 3 in staff relations, and if so, what's the explanation for that?

ALEC's Common Core Vote Now Under Public Microscope

This from State EdWatch:

At this rate, the American Legislative Exchange Council will be "about as clandestine as the National Football League," to use a Dave Barry phrase from a different context.

You may recall that both my colleague Catherine Gewertz and I have written about a resolution at ALEC opposing the Common Core State Standards. The common core, unlike other issues such as model legislation supporting charter schools and vouchers, has caused some dissent in the conservative policy shop. Without getting too deeply into the details, the group's Education Task Force approved the anti-Common Core resolution, but the group's board of directors did not. Now, ALEC is set to consider the resolution [at an upcoming meeting].

That reconsideration is being watched very closely. Stephanie Banchero of The Wall Street Journal wrote on May 8 that the group's deliberations could deliver a big hit to common core. Then on May 10, with a headline that read "'Common Core' Education Fight to Test ALEC's Conservative Chops," two other conservative think tanks, the American Principles Project (based in Washington) and the Pioneer Institute (based in Boston), directly appealed to ALEC to approve the resolution opposing the standards, which 46 states and the District of Columbia have agreed to adopt.

Both think tanks have produced a "white paper" (jargon for a "report") and a resolution that a state could use as a model to oppose the common core.

In a press release accompanying the report and resolution, Liv Finne, of the Washington Policy Center (yet another conservative think tank) stated directly that: "The ALEC board should approve the resolution. ... At stake is whether the government responds to the people or to other interests." Emmett McGroarty of the American Principles Project said the report details how the common core was created by "private interests and trade associations" and strongly promoted by the U.S. Department of Education. Finally, the Pioneer Institute's executive director, Jim Stergios, said three federal laws would be violated by the common core's tests.

Not to be outdone, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat, announced May 10 that he was "available to defend" the common core... Markell wrote a 2010 op-ed piece with Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, praising the standards initiative. He believes that the standards will positively impact America's place in the world.

Magnets Reimagined as School Choice Option

This from Education Week:

Once considered a solution to desegregate racially divided districts, magnet schools today have been forced to evolve, given legal barriers that bar using race to determine school enrollment and increasing pressure to provide more public school choices.

In a post-desegregation era, many large districts like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Baltimore County, have maintained high numbers of magnet schools, even amid the economic downturn, and others are using magnets as a strategy to meet new goals around improving school quality.

The changing definitions and demands have left the purpose and future of magnet schools in flux, according to magnet school advocates and researchers, particularly as the charter school movement continues to gather steam on national and state levels.

“This is a pivotal time for school districts and education leaders to clearly define the role of magnet schools,” said Claire Smrekar, an associate professor of education at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tenn., who has researched magnet schools for decades. “The future of magnet schools will depend upon which policy values and priorities school leaders embrace and whether the federal role will emphasize racial diversity as an educational goal or place the highest value instead on accountability and innovation exclusively, at the expense of diversity.”

Will We Listen to the Teacher?

This from Melinda Gates at the Impatient Optimsts:

When Bill and I first started thinking seriously about philanthropy, we realized we were both passionate about education. We were so lucky to attend great schools, and that made a huge difference in our lives. And we’re still convinced today that investing in great schools for all children would help every person have a chance at a successful life.

Over the years, we have studied schools that succeed against the odds, with students overcoming poverty or lack of school resources. What we’ve learned is that students with great teachers learn three times as much as students with ineffective teachers. But we’ve also learned that teachers simply do not get enough support to tap into their expertise and empower them to shape the reforms that impact their profession.

These learnings suggest a clear strategy: give all teachers the support they need to help their students reach the highest standards. 

This is why, yesterday, I was thrilled to take part in the PBS Teacher Town Hall as part of its American Graduate series. The series broadly fosters discussions about addressing the high school dropout crisis in America. We talked specifically about giving teachers a voice in how we improve and transform schools and what teachers need to be the best teachers they can be.

During the Town Hall, I shared some of the things I’ve learned from teachers. We’ve heard about the joys of teaching, as well as their struggles, and their concerns about changes to their profession. We’ve learned that the current system tells most teachers this: By the end of the year, your students need to have learned the subject you are teaching.

That’s it.

We don’t do a very good job identifying for teachers the most important concepts in their subject areas, and we rarely give them the kinds of rich classroom materials that can help them teach these concepts effectively. They rarely receive meaningful feedback about how they—and their students—are doing.

But it’s clear that teachers want a lot more. In fact, a survey conducted by Scholastic (with support from the foundation) shows that teachers want feedback. They want training that helps them become more effective in the classroom.

And they want to be heard. They want to contribute meaningfully to the dialogue about how to improve our schools and our education system.

This is in line with my own experience growing up. I went to school at the very beginning of the personal computer revolution. One of my teachers, Ms. Bauer, saw a demonstration of an early PC at a conference, and she made up her mind to start a computer program at our school. She was a full-time mom and a full-time teacher, but she got a degree in computer science so she could teach us about this powerful new technology. By the time I graduated, I knew I wanted to major in computer science.

This wasn’t something girls were supposed to do. But Ms. Bauer gave me the confidence and the knowledge to beat the odds.

Every child deserves a teacher who helps them beat the odds. Working together, with a focus on supporting teachers, and ensuring that teachers are heard, we can build a school system where the odds are better for all children.

President Obama calls charter schools 'incubators of innovation' in National Charter Schools Week proclamation

This from MLive:

President Barack Obama says the nation’s charter schools “serve as incubators of innovation in neighborhoods across our country,” and issued a proclamation calling this “National Charter Schools Week.” 

The charter movement in Michigan has been loudly opposed by Democrats, who argue that some of the schools are run by for-profit management companies, and some Republicans.

But Obama has been a supporter, sometimes frustrating state teachers union leaders.

In a proclamation released by the White House today, Obama said charter schools for years “have brought new ideas to the work of educating our sons and daughters.”

“Whether created by parents and teachers or community and civic leaders, charter schools serve as incubators of innovation in neighborhoods across our country,” he said in a release.

“These institutions give educators the freedom to cultivate new teaching models and develop creative methods to meet students' needs. This unique  flexibility is matched by strong accountability and high standards, so under-performing charter schools can be closed, while those that consistently help students succeed can serve as models of reform for other public schools.”

Obama said that a good education is “no longer just a pathway to opportunity -- it is an imperative.”

“Our children only get one chance at an education, and charter schools demonstrate what is possible when States, communities, teachers, parents, and students work together. This week, let us recommit to ensuring all our children receive a high-quality education that expands their horizons, inspires them to develop their talents, and instills in them a sense of possibility for their futures.”

Charter schools are one of a handful of issues where Obama and teachers unions – and many Democrats -- don’t see eye-to-eye...

Beyond Need and Merit: Strengthening State Grant Programs

This from the Brookings Institution with an interactive map: 

Rising college tuition levels—accelerated by cuts in state funding for public universities— have combined with today's tough economic realities to make financing a postsecondary education even more difficult for students and their families. State grant programs are more important than ever to make college possible for many students who could not otherwise afford to enroll.

For these dollars to make as much difference as possible in the lives of students and in the future of state economies, state grant programs must be designed to produce the largest possible return on taxpayers' investment. In this report, the Brookings Institution State Grant Aid Study Group, chaired by student aid expert Sandy Baum, examines the variety of state grant programs currently in place and makes policy recommendations based on the best available research.

The group proposes moving away from the dichotomy between “need-based” and “merit-based” aid and instead designing programs that integrate targeting of students with financial need with appropriate expectations and support for college success. Here are highlights from their recommendations:

Help students with financial need
• To maximize the impact of their financial aid programs, states should do a better job of targeting aid dollars at students whose potential to succeed is most constrained by limited resources.
• Students whose options are constrained by limited resources are most likely to be affected by state grant awards—in terms of both their ability to attend college and the likelihood that they will graduate.

Consolidate and simplify
• States should consolidate programs to make the system simpler and easier for prospective students and their families to understand and navigate.
• Programs can be better targeted but still relatively simple. Look-up tables like those that would base grant eligibility only on income and family size might serve as a model.
• States should welcome federal simplification efforts and should resist any temptation to collect additional data—restoring complication even as the federal government reduces it.
• States should create a single net-price calculator that students can use to calculate the cost of attendance at every public institution in the state.

Design programs that encourage timely completion
• To encourage on-time degree attainment, state grant programs should reward concrete accomplishments such as the completion of credit hours.
• Academic requirements embodied in state grant programs should provide meaningful incentives for success in college; they should not be focused exclusively on past achievement or be so high as to exclude students on the margin of college access and success.
• States should provide second chances for students who lose funding because they do not meet targets the first time around.

Improving state grant programs in difficult financial times
• Rationing funds is unavoidable and there may be no good options under these circumstances, but some choices are worse than others. Providing assistance to those who apply early and denying aid to those who apply after the money has run out is quite arbitrary, particularly if an application deadline cannot be specified in advance.
• States under pressure to reduce their budgets quickly could lower income limits; cut grants for all recipients, with the neediest students losing the least; or build more incentives for college completion into their programs.
• States should use this time of financial exigency to carefully evaluate the effectiveness of existing grant programs and put in place systems for periodic review of these programs.
• In addition to tweaking their existing programs, states should test and evaluate innovative approaches. A pilot program found to be very successful could then be scaled up and replace another program found to be less effective.

Kentucky tax reform moving ahead

This from The Courier-Journal:

Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson says he’s pleased with the early steps of the tax-reform panel that he chairs by appointment of his boss, Gov. Steve Beshear.

But some legislators who sit as nonvoting members of the panel caution that the goal of winning passage of a major tax reform in a politically divided General Assembly is a monumental challenge.

Beshear appointed the 23-member commission in February to recommend a plan to make Kentucky’s tax system more fair, more competitive with neighboring states, and capable of generating revenue to pay for the services Kentuckians need.

“I feel good,” Abramson said after the commission’s third meeting on Tuesday. “Members of the commission now share a basic knowledge of the tax system. Our next step will be to give the public an opportunity to engage.”

The state has also hired a team of three consultants on a $59,860 contract to study Kentucky’s system and make a report to the commission by Aug. 31. The consultants are William Hoyt, director of the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Kentucky; and Michael Childress, policy adviser to the dean of the College of Communications and Information Studies at UK; and William Fox, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Tennessee.

Hoyt told the commission Tuesday the consulting team would provide detailed data. The data, he said, will allow commissioners to see where Kentucky’s system is different and allow them to recommend how to make it more fair, simple, competitive and able to generate sufficient revenues.

“We’re not going to be making any statements about what’s a fair or unfair tax,” Hoyt said. But he said the data will show commission members “how our current tax structures, and alternative proposals, affect distribution of who pays the taxes under different scenarios.”

Robo-graders like ETS’s E-Rater aren’t good enough yet.

Standardized tests will finally ask good essay questions. 

But robot grading threatens that progress.

This from Dana Goldstein in Slate:

In 2002, Indiana rolled out computer scoring of its 11^th grade state writing exam. At the time, ETS, the company that developed Indiana’s software, said automatic writing assessment could help cut the state’s testing budget in half. But by 2007, Indiana had abandoned the practice.

Why? Though ETS’s E-Rater proved adept at scoring so-called “naked” essays based only on personal opinion, it couldn’t reliably handle questions that required students to demonstrate knowledge from the curriculum. State testing officials tried making lists of keywords the software could scan for: in history, for example, “Queen Isabella,” “Columbus,” and “1492.” But the program didn’t understand the relationship between those items, and so would have given full credit to a sentence like, “Queen Isabella sailed 1,492 ships to Columbus, Ohio.” Cost and time savings never materialized, because most tests also had to be looked at by human graders.

Indiana’s experience is worth keeping in mind, since although the technology has not advanced dramatically over the past decade, we’re now in the midst of a new whirlwind of enthusiasm about electronic writing assessment. Last month, after a study from Mark Shermis of the University of Akron announced that computer programs and people award student-writing samples similar grades, an NPR headline teased, “Can a Computer Program Grade Essays As Well As a Human? Maybe Even Better, Study Says.” Education technology entrepreneur Tom Vander Ark, who co-directed the Shermis study, hailed the results as proof that robo-grading is “fast, accurate, and cost-effective.”

He is right about “fast”: E-Rater can reportedly grade 16,000 essays in 20 seconds. But “accurate” and “cost-effective” are debatable, especially if we want students to write not only about what they think and feel, but also about what they know. Testing companies acknowledge it is easy to game the current generation of robo-graders: Such software rewards longer word counts, unusual vocabulary, transition words such as “however” and “therefore,” and grammatical sentences—whether or not the facts contained within the sentences are correct. To address these problems, the Hewlett Foundation, which also paid for the Shermis study, is offering a $100,000 prize to the team of computer programmers that can make the biggest strides in improving the technology.

The recent push for automated essay scoring comes just as we’re on the verge of making standardized essay tests much more sophisticated in ways robo-graders will have difficulty dealing with. One of the major goals of the new Common Core curriculum standards, which 45 states have agreed to adopt, is to supplant the soft-focus “personal essay” writing that currently predominates in American classrooms with more evidence-driven, subject-specific writing. The creators of the Common Core hope machines can soon score these essays cheaply and quickly, saving states money in a time of harsh education budget cuts. But since robo-graders can’t broadly distinguish fact from fiction, adopting such software prematurely could be antithetical to testing students in more challenging essay-writing genres...

Court Orders Further Review of N.C. District's Assignment Plan

This from The School Law Blog:

A federal appeals court has ordered a lower court to give greater scrutiny to a North Carolina school district's student-assignment plan, suggesting that the district's move away from racial diversity goals is inconsistent with a long-running court-supervised desegregation plan.

The case involves the 23,000-student Pitt County school district, which has been under court supervision for desegregation since the 1960s. The case was largely dormant when, in 2006, a parents' group filed a complaint about race-conscious student assignments with the U.S. Department of Education's office for civil rights. The district and the parents' group, the Greenville Parents Association, clashed before settling the complaint, with the parents' group backing away from efforts to have the district declared unitary, or legally desegregated. The district, meanwhile, agreed to include the parents' group in the planning and discussion for its 2011-12 assignment plan.(The district's enrollment is 48.3 percent black, 38.3 percent white, and 9.2 percent Hispanic this year.)

In 2010, the school district adopted a plan with less reliance on racial diversity and ended up with a new school with a high concentration of minority students. This prompted complaints from a second parents' group, the Pitt County Coalition for Educating Black Children, that the plan was moving the district toward more racially identifiable schools with lowered student achievement.

The coalition sought the intervention of the U.S. District Court overseeing the district's desegregation orders. The coalition argued that the 2011-12 student assignment plan moved the district further away from becoming a unitary system.

The district court sided against the coalition, ruling in August 2011 that intervention would disrupt the school system and that a review of the district's progress towards unitary status was due by December 2012.

The coalition appealed, and in a May 7 decision, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, in Richmond, Va., ruled 2-1 to set aside the lower court's decision.

"Given that there is no dispute that the school district has not attained unitary status, the evidentiary burden should have been on the School Board to prove that the 2011-12 Assignment Plan is consistent with the controlling desegregation orders and fulfills the School Board's affirmative duty to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination and move toward unitary status," Judge James A. Wynn Jr. said for the majority in Everett v. Pitt County Board of Education.

The court remanded the case to the district court for further factual development.

In dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Paul V. Niemeyer said the 2009 settlement of the Greenville Parents Association's OCR complaint purported to settle all disputes in the desegregation case "going back to the 1960s and 1970s." The burden of proof was properly on the other parents' group, the Pitt County Coalition for Educating Black Children, when it brought its motion to have the district court reject the 2011-12 assignment plan, and the district court properly rejected the group's efforts, Judge Niemeyer said.

The coalition is represented by the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina law school, which has a Web page devoted to the case that includes legal briefs for both the coalition and the school district.

 

Breathitt school superintendent jailed for violating terms of bond

This from The Herald-Leader:

Breathitt County Schools Superintendent Arch Turner must stay in jail until his trial on federal vote-buying charges because he probably would try to influence witnesses if left free on bond, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Wier revoked Turner's bond after a hearing Tuesday, ordering Turner jailed immediately.

Wier had released Turner from custody after he was arrested in the vote-buying case in March.

One condition of Turner's pretrial release was that he not have contact with prosecution witnesses or with defendants in the case, except through his attorneys.

However, evidence at the hearing showed Turner went to the home of another man charged with him, former county Sheriff John L. Turner, and discussed the case, Wier said in an order filed Wednesday.

Among other things, Arch Turner discussed lining up stories among defendants and witnesses in his trial and a related case, Wier said.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/05/09/2181891/breathitt-school-superintendent.html#storylink=rss?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#storylink=cpy

School-Standards Pushback

This from WSJ.com

The Common Core national math and reading standards, adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia two years ago, are coming under attack from some quarters as a federal intrusion into state education matters.

The voluntary academic standards, which specify what students should know in each grade, were heavily promoted by the Obama administration through its $4.35 billion Race to the Top education-grant competition. States that instituted changes such as common learning goals received bonus points in their applications.

Supporters say the Common Core standards better prepare students for college or the workforce, and are important as the U.S. falls behind other nations in areas such as math proficiency.

A 2010 report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning educational-research group, said the Common Core standards "are clearly superior to those currently in use in 39 states in math and 37 states in English. For 33 states, the Common Core is superior in both math and reading."

But conservative lawmakers and governors in at least five states, including Utah and Alabama, recently have been pushing to back out, or slow down implementation, of Common Core. They worry that adoption of the standards has created a de facto national curriculum that could at some point be extended into more controversial areas such as science...

How My Child Skipped the State Tests

A homework assignment for third graders in Astoria: 

Fill in the bubbles to practice for state exams. 

The parent copied the form and wrote on it.

This from The SchoolBook at the N Y Times:

As one of the parents who decided to have their children “opt-out ” of this year’s standardized high-stakes testing, I am most struck by the lack of empowerment that parents have in the education of their own children. When we try to explain the reasons behind our protest, we are met with bland bureaucratic platitudes, and even attempts at subtle intimidation.

On the first day of the English Language Arts exams, I brought my son into his elementary school in Astoria, Queens, after the testing period was finished.

I was told that, “according to Legal,” if he entered the building at any time at all he was “required” to take the test.

Never mind that I was in contact with other opt-out parents from different districts whose principals had tried to accommodate the parents’ wishes while their official response was sorted out (the city’s chief academic officer, Shael Polakow-Suransky, told one parent at a Brooklyn meeting he did not have a “clear answer” as to the consequences of a child not taking the test).

Our principal seemed confused by my opposition to the test, wondering if I was simply against all testing.
To be clear, I’m not against my kid taking tests; he takes a lot of them.

What I am against is taking a test that is used as a partial determinant in the future careers of the adults who are responsible for teaching and administering the test. Doesn’t that fundamentally change the relationship between a teacher and the children she teaches?

Or what about the fact that if enough children score poorly, their very school might be in jeopardy? ...

Maurice Sendak Dead: 'Where The Wild Things Are' Author Dies At 83

This from The Huffington Post:

Maurice Sendak is dead, according to The New York Times. He was 83.

The Associated Press reported that Sendak died early Tuesday at a hospital in Danbury, Connecticut after having a stroke on Friday. His longtime caretaker and friend, Lynn Caponera, was with him.

The popular children's book author wrote "Where The Wild Things Are" in 1963. He won a Caldecott Medal for the book in 1964, and was adapted into a movie in 2009.

According to The New York Times, a posthumous picture book, "My Brother's Book," is scheduled to be published in February 2013.

Here's more from the Associated Press:

Sendak didn't limit his career to a safe and successful formula of conventional children's books, though it was the pictures he did for wholesome works such as Ruth Krauss' "A Hole Is To Dig" and Else Holmelund Minarik's "Little Bear" that launched his career.

"Where the Wild Things Are," about a boy named Max who goes on a journey – sometimes a rampage – through his own imagination after he is sent to bed without supper, was quite controversial when it was published, and his quirky and borderline scary illustrations for E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Nutcracker" did not have the sugar coating featured in other versions.

Sendak also created costumes for ballets and staged operas, including the Czech opera "Brundibar," which he also put on paper with collaborator Pulitzer-winning playwright Tony Kushner in 2003.

He designed the Pacific Northwest Ballet's "Nutcracker" production that later became a movie shown on television, and he served as producer of various animated TV series based on his illustrations, including "Seven Little Monsters," "George and Martha" and "Little Bear."

But despite his varied resume, Sendak accepted – and embraced – the label "kiddie-book author." ...

How to Destroy Education While Making a Trillion Dollars

This from Common Dreams:

Here’s a three-step recipe for how to destroy education. It maps perfectly to how to make a prodigious profit by privatizing it. It is the essential game plan of the big money boys.

First, lower the costs so you can jack up the profits. Since the overwhelming cost in education is the salaries of the teachers, this means firing the experienced teachers, for they are the most expensive. Replace them with “teachers” who are young, inexperienced, and inexpensive. Better yet, waive requirements that they have to have any training, that is to say, that they be credentialed. That way, you can get the absolute cheapest workers available. Roll them over frequently so they don’t develop any expectation that they’ll ever make a career out of it.

Second, make the curriculum as narrow, rote, and regimented as you can. This makes it possible for low-skilled “teachers” to “teach.” All they need do is maintain order while drilling students in mindless memorization and robotic repetition. By all means avoid messy things like context, nuance, values, complexity, reflection, depth, ambiguity—all the things that actually make for true intelligence. It’s too hard to teach those things and, besides, you need intelligent, experienced people to be able to do it. Stick with the model: Profitable equals simplistic and formulaic. Go with it.

Finally, rinse and repeat five thousand times. Proliferate franchised, chartered McSchools with each classroom in each McSchool teaching the same thing on the same day in exactly the same way. So, for the math lesson on the formula of a line, you only need develop it once. But you download it in Power Point on the assigned day so the room monitors, i.e., the “teachers,” know what bullets to read. Now repeat this for every lesson in every course in every school, every day. In biology, chemistry, geometry, history, English, Spanish, indeed, all of a K-12 curriculum. Develop the lesson literally once, but distribute and reuse it thousands of times with low-cost proctors doing the supervision. The cost is infinitesimal making the profit potential astronomical.

This is the essential charter school model and the money is all the rationale its promoters need. Think about it. There’s a trillion dollars a year spent on public education in the U.S. and enterprising investors want to get their meat hooks on it. Where else in the world can you find a $1 trillion opportunity that is essentially untouched? Not in automobiles. Not in health care. Not in weapons, computers, banking, telecommunications, agriculture, entertainment, retail, manufacturing, housing. Nowhere.

Oh, to be sure, you have to soften up the public with a decades-long PR campaign bashing teachers, vilifying their unions, trashing schools, and condemning public education in general, all the while promising the sun, moon, and stars for privatization, which is the ultimate charter goal. Voila! You’ve got your chance...

Money Talks

A bit of recent history for those whose heads are still spinning from trying to figure out where Democratic support for public schools went. It's still there. But it's split. In education policy these days, it's hard to distinguish the left from the right.

This from the Daily Kos:

DFER and Education Policies

In August 2008, many teachers in America and this one in particular were thrilled about Barak Obama’s nomination. Linda Darling-Hammond was a leading spokesperson articulating the Obama campaigns’ education positions. Darling-Hammond had pushed for professional education standards for teachers and had presented data showing the importance of teacher training. Yet, by November Alexander Russo of the Huffington Post was reporting “The possibility of Darling-Hammond being named Secretary has emerged as an especially worrisome possibility among a small but vocal group of younger, reform-minded advocates who supported Obama because he seemed reform-minded on education issues like charter schools, performance pay, and accountability. These reformists seem to perceive Darling-Hammond as a touchy-feely anti-accountability figure who will destroy any chances that Obama will follow through on any of these initiatives.” In December, Obama tapped Chicago’s Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. Because Duncan had no real education experience it was considered highly likely that Darling-Hammond would be the Deputy Secretary of Education. On February 19, 2009 the New Republic reported, “Darling-Hammond was a key education adviser during the election and chaired Obama's transition education policy team. She has been berated heavily by the education reform community, which views her as favoring the status quo in Democratic education policy for her criticisms of alternative teacher certification programs like Teach for America and her ties with teachers' unions.” They reported that she was going home to California to work on other priorities and would not be a part of the new administration.

    So, what happened and who were those “small but vocal younger, reform minded advocates that supported Obama” but hated Darling-Hammond? In August 2008 a pre-convention Democrats for Education Reform seminar, billed as "Ed Challenge for Change" previewed a coming attack from within the Democratic Party on teachers and especially their unions. David Goldstein of the American Prospect reported:

     “It was sponsored by a coalition of foundations, nonprofits, and businesses supporting the charter-school movement, including Ed in '08, the advocacy group founded by Bill Gates and real-estate mogul Eli Broad. The evening provided a truly unusual spectacle at a convention: A megawatt group of Democrats, including Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington, D.C., and former Gov. Ray Romer of Colorado, bashed teachers' unions for an hour. Amid the approving audience were Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, an icon of the civil-rights movement; Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, (in)famous as a high-profile African American Hillary Clinton endorser; and Mayor David Cicilline of Providence, the reformer of that once-Mob-ridden New England city. Cicilline took avid notes.” It was from this crowd that Darling-Hammond was receiving her harshest criticism and where the non-traditional (meaning no education background) leader of the Chicago school system, Arne Duncan, was championed as the next Secretary of Education. The loudest voices were those of a new organization calling themselves Democrats for Education reform (DFER), led by young extremely wealthy hedge fund operators from New York City.

        In the May 31, 2007 issue of New York Sun there was a report about one of the first victories of DFER: “A money manager recently sent an e-mail to some partners, congratulating them on an investment of $1 million that yielded an estimated $400 million. The reasoning was that $1 million spent on trying to lift a cap on the number of charter schools in New York State yielded a change in the law that will bring $400 million a year in funding to new charter schools. The money managers who were among the main investors in this law — three Harvard MBAs and a Wharton graduate named Whitney Tilson, Ravenel Boykin Curry IV, Charles Ledley, and John Petry — are moving education-oriented volunteerism beyond championing a single school.

         “They want to shift the political debate by getting the Democratic Party to back innovations such as merit pay for teachers, a longer school day, and charter schools. …  The group — actually two separate political action committees — has raised money for senators Obama, Clinton, and Lieberman; Governor Spitzer; Rep. George Miller; state senators Malcolm Smith and Antoine Thompson; assemblymen Sam Hoyt, Hakeem Jeffries, and Jonathan Bing, and City Council Member Vito Lopez. They count the charter cap lift, signed by Mr. Spitzer in April, as their first major victory.”

        The two political action committees the Sun mentioned are Education Reform Now, a 501c3, and Education Reform Now Advocacy, a 501c4. To lead these committees the hedge fund operators chose Joel Klein, the form chancellor of the New York City schools. It seems likely that Mr. Klein was influential in these young businessmen from elite schools developing the view of education reform they have adopted. Until April of this year, Klein has been the director of Education Reform now. In April he joined his former protégé, Michele Rhee at her advocacy group Students First which is also supported by DFER, the Broad Foundation and the Gates Foundation. When I looked on the DFER web site the first image that popped up was that of a favorite basketball player of mine and the current mayor of Sacramento, California, Kevin Johnson. He also happens to be Michelle Rhee’s husband.

       On the DFER’s official web presence they take at least partial credit for the selection of Arne Duncan instead of Linda Darling-Hammond.

       There is a glaring lack of experience or knowledge about education amongst the leaders of DFER. Michael Hirsch writing for the United Federation of Teachers explains, “What do these folks know about education? With the exception of Williams, who’s the hired help: nothing! Understand that DFER’s endgame has little to do with learning and everything to do with marginalizing public-sector unionized workers and bringing down the cost of taxes for social programs. It’s about creating new business and investment opportunities in areas that are still publicly run and serving as a pre-emptive strike against any hope for private-sector union renewal. Where better to start than with attacking teacher unions, one of the few labor strongholds in this country?” His point is at least in part validated by a cursory look at the present Board of Directors of DFER and the Board of Advisors:

Board of Directors:
Kevin P. Chavous (chair) - Former Washington, DC, City Council member and chair of the Education Committee; Board Chair of Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).
Boykin Curry - Eagle Capital; Co-Founder of Public Prep. Public Prep launched in 2008.
Tony Davis - Co-founder and President of Anchorage Capital Group, LLC; Board Trusteer for Achievement First Brooklyn charter schools. Achievement First has grown into a network that includes 20 academies under ten charters in four cities.
Charles Ledley - Highfields Capital Management; Board Member of the Tobin Project.
Sara Mead - Bellwether Education Partners, Associate Partner; Former Director of Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation.
John Petry - Columbus Hill Capital Management; Co-founder of Harlem Success Academy Charter School in NYC. Success Academy Charter Schools operate nine public charter schools in NYC.
Whitney Tilson -  Managing Partner, T2 Partners LLC and Tilson Mutual Funds; Board member of KIPP-NYC, and National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

DFER Board of Advisors:
Steve Barr - Founder and CEO, Green Dot Public Schools.
Cory Booker - Mayor of Newark, N.J.
David Einhorn - Founder of Greenlight Capital, LLC.
Joel Greenblatt - Founder and Managing Partner of Gotham Capital.
Vincent Mai - Chairman of AEA Investors, LP.
Michael Novogratz - President of Fortress Investment Group.
Tom Vander Ark - Partner, Revolution Learning.

    In February another self-appointed expert on education policy from Seattle, Washington, loudly bashed teachers and their unions. An editorialist for the Seattle Times, Lynne K. Varner reported that “Major Democratic funder Nick Hanauer's recent email blasting Democratic lawmakers for failing to buck the teachers union and push for education reforms will go down as the tough-love message heard around the state. ‘It is impossible to escape the painful reality that we Democrats are now on the wrong side of every important education-reform issue,’ wrote Hanauer, a Seattle venture capitalist, to other party faithful. ‘Today, the (teachers union) is literally strangling our public schools to death with an almost infinite number of institutionalized rules that limit change, innovation and excellence.’” In that same editorial Varner said, “Reformers watched in dismay as Democratic leaders blocked key reforms including exchanging an outdated seniority-based layoff policy for one based on performance and overhauling the billion-dollar health-insurance program for school employees.”

    Diane Ravitch famously anointed these modern education reformers, “the billionaire boys club” and has valiantly fought off their benighted positions. They call for the end of seniority rights, lessening of health benefits for teachers, the destruction of the teachers union, privatization of public schools, standards based education, national standards, high stakes testing, no excuses, non-traditional school leadership, imbuing mayors with untrammeled control over schools, trigger laws, lessening the rigor of teacher certification, and value added measures to evaluate educators. Every one of these positions undermines the American public education system which is not failing and never has been failing. There has been a forty year campaign starting with the Reagan administrations falsely premised document “A Nation at Risk” to convince people that our public schools are terrible. Of course any institution can be improved but destroying the greatest education system the world has ever known is not an improvement. Across the United States, schools are staffed with well trained, experienced and dedicated employees and lead by competent administrators. For students who live in poverty zones that are often drug riddled and crime infested, the local school is often the only functional institution in the area. On standardized tests, poor students do not perform as well as students who live in wealthier and safer communities, but these schools still produce students who excel and win their way into some of the world’s most prestigious universities. John Dewey observed in 1916, “education will vary with the quality of life which prevails in a group.” Even as President Obama was cheering the closing of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, many success stories from that school were following the path out of the poorest neighborhood in the state of Rhode Island opened by their school. These schools are not failing; the communities they are in are failing and schools are being unfairly blamed for it.

    At the DFER web presence is a section called the Brian Bennett Education Warrior Award. Not surprisingly, the awards go to political activists who opened the path for charter schools or who helped close “failing schools” or did some other deed that promoted the DFER agenda in most cases against the will of the local community. When citing previous heroes of education reform, the very first name cited is Alan Bersin. The citation says, “Appointed in 1998 as Superintendent of Public Education of the San Diego Unified School District, Bersin led the eighth largest urban school district in the country. In 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed him as California's Education Secretary. Bersin led the way as one of the nation's first 'non-traditional' big city school leaders, promoting ambitious reform to raise the quality of education and bolster student achievement. Bersin currently serves as the Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection. Bersin was a founding board member of DFER.” By ‘non-traditional’ they meant he had no education experience or training. I worked one year under Bersin’s leadership. Amongst all teachers and most San Diegan’s the Bersin administration is considered a colossal failure. Today, San Diego Unified School District is bankrupt having just issued a 1000 certificated and a 1000 non-certificated layoff notices and still suffers from the loss of experienced teachers and administrators suffered during Bersin’s tenure.

    It was under Bersin that some of the first DFER style reforms were implemented. It is a fundamental tenet of DFER style reform that there are many failing schools and bad teachers especially in poor communities. DFER Executive Director Joe Williams (“the hired help who has some education experience”) reported about Bersin’s success in changing two “failing schools” into charter schools. He wrote about the valiant fight Bersin put on to defeat the anti-reform teachers union and misguided parents who stood in the road of real reform. In November 2006, Wilson stated, “The conversion of Gompers and Keiller  to charter schools in San Diego suggests that with the right combination of top-down and bottom-up pressure for reform, and with sufficient support for reform efforts from inside and outside of school districts, even the most troubled public schools are able to turn the corner toward educational success. The question is whether education policymakers will act on the lessons that schools like Gompers and Keiller teach us.”  Joe Williams claimed victory for the students and parents who lived in the service areas of Gompers and Keiller, but like most “reform” success it is a complete mirage, because the only thing wrong with the schools was they were in poverty stricken gang infested neighborhoods. The charter school replacements were not a magic bullet that repaired the neighborhood and are likely doing worse than their public school predecessors would have. For a comparison, I picked two public schools that are nearby and have similar populations, Granger middle school and Spring Valley middle school and used the vaunted but often misleading standards based testing data.

API (Academic  Performance Index-California)     AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress-Federal)
Gomper  charter            2011 API 657     2006 API 551     +102     Failed 2011 AYP
Keiler  charter        2011 API 748     2006 API 687    + 61    Failed 2011 AYP
Spring Valley Middle     2011 API 786     2006 API 737    +49    Failed 2011 AYP
Granger Middle             2011 API 817     2006 API 693     +124    Achieved 2011 AYP
Data from California Department of Education.

    Like the supposed miraculous achievements of the Harlem Children’s Zone based on one class in one year or the dramatic improvement in the DC schools based on questionable testing practices, a closer inspection causes great doubt about actual success. The pattern is to claim victory for a reform and berate those who question the wisdom of the reform, but these claimed successes always turns out to be a mirage. The San Diego, New York and DC experiences are being repeated across the nation. Corporate entities are gaining more and more leverage over the education dollar and schools are not being improved! This week in San Diego, the San Diego Unified School district who recently announced the massive teacher layoffs because of budget shortfalls announced they were spending $15 million on i-pads.  The corporate lobbying influence is warping school leadership values to the point where how a corporation like the testing giant Pearson is affected becomes more important than the schools, students or teachers.

    During the 1990’s education reform in America turned in a positive hopeful direction. Throughout America young educators were being introduced to the thinking of Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky, Gardner, and others. They read case histories of how social constructivism was being introduced in classrooms around the globe. The Soka education revolution in Japan based on the ideas of Makiguchi and the Reggio Emelia preschools of Italy led by Loris Malaguzzi presented young educators with decades of practical application of constructivist theories. In Japan, the concept of lesson study and in America the developments of action research were leading to a model of continuous improvement based on peer reviewed application. Darling-Hammond’s professional teaching standards were codified in California promising a path of growing professionalism for educators in all California public schools. The factory model of education was being replaced by a more humanistic model that engendered a love of learning and engaged children in developing understanding. Then NCLB happened and progress in education was stopped by a mandated return to Edgar Thorndike’s behaviorist model that Dewey had resisted so strongly. All positive education reform and improvement in pedagogy stopped and was replaced with privatization, disrespect of the teaching craft and hubris. Ravitch, Meier and Darling-Hammond were deemed anti-reform and the thinking of Whitney Tilson, Eli Broad and Bill Gates became guidance for good pedagogy. It is as if night were called day. Sadly, educators and union members can no longer count on the Democratic Party – the support of one hedge fund manager drowns out the voices of 100,000 educators.

What You Need To Know About ALEC

This from Diane Ravitch at Bridging Differences:

Since the 2010 elections, when Republicans took control of many states, there has been an explosion of legislation advancing privatization of public schools and stripping teachers of job protections and collective bargaining rights. Even some Democratic governors, seeing the strong rightward drift of our politics, have jumped on the right-wing bandwagon, seeking to remove any protection for academic freedom from public school teachers.

This outburst of anti-public school, anti-teacher legislation is no accident. It is the work of a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Founded in 1973, ALEC is an organization of nearly 2,000 conservative state legislators. Its hallmark is promotion of privatization and corporate interests in every sphere, not only education, but healthcare, the environment, the economy, voting laws, public safety, etc. It drafts model legislation that conservative legislators take back to their states and introduce as their own "reform" ideas. ALEC is the guiding force behind state-level efforts to privatize public education and to turn teachers into at-will employees who may be fired for any reason. The ALEC agenda is today the "reform" agenda for education.

ALEC operated largely in the dark for years, but gained notoriety because of the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. It turns out that ALEC crafted the "Stand Your Ground" legislation that empowered George Zimmerman to kill an unarmed teenager with the defense that he (the shooter) felt threatened. When the bright light of publicity was shone on ALEC, a number of corporate sponsors dropped out, including McDonald's, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Mars, Wendy's, Intuit, Kaplan, and PepsiCo. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said that it would not halt its current grant to ALEC, but pledged not to provide new funding. ALEC has some 300 corporate sponsors, including Walmart, the Koch Brothers, and AT&T, so there's still quite a lot of corporate support for its free-market policies. ALEC claimed that it is the victim of a campaign of intimidation.

Groups like Common Cause and colorofchange.org have been putting ALEC's model legislation online and printing the names of its sponsors. They have also published sharp criticism of ALEC's ideas. This is hardly intimidation. It's the democratic process at work. A website called alecexposed.org has published ALEC's policy agenda. Common Cause posted the agenda for the meeting of ALEC on May 11 in Charlotte, N.C. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has dropped out of ALEC and also withdrawn from the May 11 conference, where it was originally going to be a presenter.

A recent article in the Newark Star-Ledger showed how closely New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's "reform" legislation is modeled on ALEC's work in education. Wherever you see states expanding vouchers, charters, and other forms of privatization, wherever you see states lowering standards for entry into the teaching profession, wherever you see states opening up new opportunities for profit-making entities, wherever you see the expansion of for-profit online charter schools, you are likely to find legislation that echoes the ALEC model.

ALEC has been leading the privatization movement for nearly 40 years, but the only thing new is the attention it is getting, and the fact that many of its ideas are now being enacted. Just last week, the Michigan House of Representatives expanded the number of cyber charters that may operate in the state, even though the academic results for such online schools are dismal.

Who is on the education task force of ALEC? The members of the task force as of July 2011 are here.

The ALEC Education Task Force Members from Kentucky include

Sen David Givens

Sen Vernie McGaha

Rep Brad Montell

Rep F L Waide

Sen Ken Winters 

Rep Addia Wuchner

Rep Jill York

H-L reports:
ALEC's state chairmen in Kentucky are
Sen. Tom Buford, R-Nicholasville, and
Rep. Mike Harmon, R-Danville.
Buford said about 32 state senators and 37 House members
 — Republicans and Democrats —
in Kentucky are members of ALEC
and pay $100 membership dues.

ead more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/05/01/2171344/kentucky-ethics-group-calls-for.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

Several members represent for-profit online companies, including the co-chair from Connections Academy; many members come from for-profit higher education corporations. There is someone from Jeb Bush's foundation, as well as right-wing think tank people. There are charter school representatives, as well as Scantron. And the task force includes a long list of state legislators, from Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Quite a lineup. Common Cause has asked why ALEC is considered a "charity" by the Internal Revenue Service and holds tax-exempt status, when it devotes so much time to lobbying for changes in state laws. Common Cause has filed a "whistleblower" complaint with the IRS about ALEC's status.

The campaign to privatize the schools and to dismantle the teaching profession is in full swing. Where is the leadership to oppose it?

 

Consider the Principal

This from the National Journal:

The principal is your pal. (That's how I learned to spell it, anyway.) That statement may be hard to square with literary characterizations of principals--from the hapless Principal Krupp in the acclaimed kids' book series Captain Underpants to the deliciously evil Principal Rooney in the 1996 John Hughes film Ferris Bueller's Day Off--but it does bear out in real life. A principal's main job is to make sure the kids and teachers in his or her school are taken care of, and that's no small task.

A new report from the Center for Public Education says that a principal's responsibilities have grown beyond administrative duties to include core curriculum and student achievement goals, and many in the profession now feel the job is "undoable."

However, the report also says that principals often are the key ingredient to improving a school's performance, and principals have the most impact at low-achieving schools. Effective principals hire and retain the most effective teachers, and they stick around to make sure that needed changes are carried through. The less effective principals tend to move more frequently to different schools, which adversely impacts the students and teachers.

Principals also are on the hook more than they used to be with the achievement goals of No Child Left Behind and the Education Department's turnaround model for low-performing schools, which mandates new leadership. The Center for Public Education agrees with the administration that the principal is a critical element in turning around a low-performing school, but its report notes that even the best leaders need time before the results of their labors are evident. "It takes a highly effective principal about five years to fully impact a school's performance," the report said...

Student Loan Rates Suddenly Got Sexy

This from the National Journal:

Who knew student loan interest rates could be so provocative? Until last week, only a few members of Congress seemed aware that the current 3.4 percent interest rate for government-subsidized student loans will double by June 30 without congressional action. Now everyone knows, thanks largely to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who said last Monday that the lower interest rate should remain in place. President Obama deserves credit, too, for launching the White House college tour to highlight the student loan interest rates. Obama's push no doubt prompted Romney to step up to the plate...

Link between value-added ratings and classroom observations is modest at best, studies show

This from Bill Turque at The Washington Post:

Here’s a statistical postscript to the story of Sarah Wysocki , the MacFarland Middle School teacher fired by DCPS last year after she earned good classroom observation scores on IMPACT’s Teaching and Learning Framework, but low value-added marks on student test results.

Ideally, there would be a healthy statistical link between the value- added and TLF scores. That would provide some solid evidence that following DCPS prescriptives in the classroom leads to higher student achievement on standardized tests.

“Nationally the hope is that there is a strong correlation between a teacher’s score on an instructional rubric and his or her value-added score,” Rachel Curtis, former assistant superintendent in the Boston Public Schools, wrote in her 2011 study of IMPACT for the Aspen Institute. “This would validate the instructional rubric by showing that doing well in instruction produces better student outcomes.”

So far, after two full years under IMPACT, the correlation is modest at best. An analysis of scores by DCPS consultant Mathematica shows that it was 0.34 (+1 indicating the highest possible positive correlation, and 0 indicating no correlation) in 2009-10. Last year it was 0.35.

Jason Kamras, DCPS human capital chief, said two years of data is not enough to draw strong conclusions. The correlation was comparable, and in some cases a little higher, than in other studies. For Cincinnati’s value-added system, which covers the same grades as D.C., a study showed a three-year correlation of 0.35 in reading and 0.33 in math. A study by the Gates Foundation called Measures of Effective Teaching, while less comparable methodologically, found correlations of 0.12 to 0.34 in math and 0.09 to 0.24 in reading.

“Would we like to see it higher? Yes,” Kamras said. “The reality is that these things are complicated and nuanced. They’re not measuring the exact same things. One is a measurement of the practice, the other is the product of that practice.”

Kamras, whose team is working on a series of changes to IMPACT to be announced sometime this summer, said the low correlation “is something we continue to wrestle with and question.”

Good Schools, Bad Schools

 On Report Cards for N Y City Schools

 

Invisible Line Between 'A' and 'F'

This from Michael Winerip at the New York Times:

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

P.S. 30, on East 141st Street in the Bronx, received an A in its last city report card.

Public School 30 and Public School 179 are about as alike as two schools can be. They are two blocks apart in the South Bronx. Both are 98 percent black and Latino. At P.S. 30, 97 percent of the children qualify for subsidized lunches; at P.S. 179, 93 percent.

During city quality reviews - when Education Department officials make on-site inspections - both scored "proficient." The two have received identical grades for "school environment," a rating that includes attendance and a survey of parents', teachers' and students' opinions of a school. 

On the state math test, P.S. 30 did better in 2011, with 41 percent of students scoring proficient - a 3 or 4 - versus 29 percent for P.S. 179. 

But on the state English test, P.S. 179 did better, with 36 percent of its students scoring proficient compared with 32 percent for P.S. 30.

And yet, when the department calculated the most recent progress report grades, P.S. 30 received an A. 

And P.S. 179 received an F.

Is P.S. 30 among the best schools in the city and P.S. 179 among the worst? Very hard to know. How much can the city's report cards be trusted? Also very hard to know...

As universities compete for dwindling state funds, performance matters

This from the Hechinger Report:

When performance funding was first tested in the 1990s, many universities resisted it, “gamed” the numbers or even cheated, research by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University, and others has found.

But tight budgets have prompted dozens of states to try the idea again. And universities are coming around to it.

That’s because performance funding no longer just involves vying for cash bonuses above and beyond universities’ annual budgets. Now universities are competing for their share of dwindling state allocations.

“It’s not the cherry on top anymore,” says Travis Reindl, a higher-education researcher for the National Governors Association. “It’s the base.”

The Obama administration also wants to use money as a motivator. It has proposed a $1 billion competition, modeled after the Race to the Top program, to reward universities for becoming more affordable and raising graduation rates, and to withhold federal financial aid from universities that raise tuition too quickly.

“This has really burst back onto the scene,” said Stan Jones, former Indiana commissioner of higher education and now president of Complete College America, which pushes states to improve graduation rates. Only 55 percent of students at four-year universities graduate within six years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. And, the United States has fallen to 16th in the world in the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds with a college or university degree, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports.

The first round of performance funding began in 1979 in Tennessee. Twenty-five more states joined the movement in the 1990s and early 2000s, when healthy tax revenues enabled them to give financial bonuses to universities and colleges for meeting certain goals. But as the money dried up, one state after another abandoned the idea.

A revival began in 2007, led by Washington and Indiana. The portion of public-university budgets tied to performance, or that will eventually be tied to performance, varies from state to state, ranging from 6.5 percent in Indiana to 45 percent for technical colleges in Texas.

“Through performance funding we will show that each dollar we spend on higher education provides a greater return than if the dollar were spent on one of the numerous other competing worthy causes,” the Illinois Board of Higher Education pronounced. “We know we must be able to demonstrate that we can deliver a return on investment.”

State strategies vary. In Indiana, university budgets will be based on four things: the number of students who complete courses (instead of the number who enroll); the time it takes students to earn degrees; the number of degrees awarded; and the number of degrees earned by low-income students.

Ohio’s performance goals for universities include making it easier for students to transfer credits, and limiting the number of credits required to graduate. Tennessee will allocate state money for higher education based on such metrics as the number of students reaching milestones of 24, 48, and 72 credits. Louisiana will tie part of universities’ budgets to successes in improving graduation and job-placement rates, among other measures. And Texas already rewards universities for increasing the number of degrees awarded, and enrolling older, low-income and at-risk students who score below national averages on the SAT or ACT.

Various performance funding strategies are also under way, planned or being considered in Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina,  Virginia  and West Virginia.

Rather than continuing to give money to universities based on how many seats they fill, Jones said, “It’s astonishing that, after 60 or 70 years, [states have] finally got around to the point of saying, ‘Okay, did anybody graduate?’ ”

Now some states are also imposing penalties based on performance. When Indiana cut the budgets of its universities and colleges, it made deeper cuts for those with higher per-student costs and lower graduation rates.

Several studies, including two by the CCRC, show that even in its earlier incarnation, performance funding had an impact.

In Ohio, the average time it took to earn a bachelor’s degree fell. Pennsylvania reported fewer dropouts, higher graduation rates, more diversity and higher faculty productivity. Texas saw a 9.3 percent increase in the number of degrees awarded.

Academic strategies also shifted. Tennessee universities increased tutoring and advising. Community colleges in Washington eliminated fees for degrees or certificates, which had prevented some students from graduating. In Florida, community colleges monitored withdrawal rates to weed out and retrain faculty whose courses students most commonly dropped.

At Slippery Rock, the proportion of students who graduate within four years has jumped to almost 38 percent (from below 22 percent), and within six years to nearly 58 percent (from below 52 percent).

“That’s a significant change in the success of our students,” said Williams, the provost. “You have to recalibrate your entire campus to remember that the reason they’re here is for your students to be successful.”

There are plenty of critics of performance funding. If universities get money based on their success rates, critics say, they’re unlikely to admit marginal students who have potential but may have trouble graduating. To keep the money coming in, these critics say, universities might lower standards to make it easier to earn degrees.

In fact, one CCRC study reported that several university branch campuses in Ohio categorized rising juniors as transfer students to meet performance-funding targets. A faculty member at a Florida community college reported being told to push students into more courses than they needed, so the school would get extra performance points. In several states, faculty reported being pressured to avoid giving failing grades, while admissions counselors said they were instructed to reject marginal students.

Education analysts also say that universities with different missions and resources shouldn’t all be forced to meet the same goals.

“What you’re doing is you’re taking a university, which is a very complex enterprise, and you’re attempting to boil it down into a few quantifiable metrics,” Harnisch said...