Please Reprise Yourself

and make yourself at home. I'll be back in a few days.

From October 1, 2005:

The Education Reformation of NCLB and the Crusade to Kill Public Schools

Choosing the language that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross used to describe the process of dying, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings told the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on September 28 that “I think we have gone in to all the phases with ‘No Child Left Behind,’ –we’re into acceptance, if you will.” Whether “we will” or “will not” remains to be seen, but Spellings had one thing right: the American public school that has been the institutional bulwark for democratic aspirations for nearly 200 years is in the fight of its life. Ironically, it has been the corporate socialists who now control the federal government that reached the “acceptance stage” long before any of us knew that a sickness had set in. The campaign for acceptance of the imminent death of the public schools and the rise of privatized corporate welfare schools has been a concerted and continuing campaign, whose outcome is, indeed, certain unless changes are demanded by the American public in federal education policy now. How did we get to this stage?

It should come as no surprise that many of us grew up with the belief that the public school was the institution through which we as Americans come to realize the promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. After all, that is what we were taught in school, and what our teachers were taught, and their teachers before them. It is one of our cherished chestnuts that goes all the way back to Horace Mann, who masterfully pitched his case for public schools to a wary public in the early19th Century. What we were not taught in school, and therefore less likely to know, is that Mann’s plea for financial support to the skeptical industrialists and business owners of his day focused on, instead of liberty, providing a morally-prepared work force that would offer the factory owner the best kind of property insurance for his valuable investments. Workers educated in the new common schools would show up on time, take orders, and not vandalize the equipment. Though the liberty pitch to the common man was important in garnering widespread support, Mann’s idealistic salesmanship actually prevailed on the strength of this latter argument, even if the system that Mann inspired was unable to ever fully deliver on either of his promises. What would be left in the wake of those unfulfilled promises to the Boston Brahmin as well as the Massachusetts country farmer are the relics of reform efforts that now scatter the historical path that lead up to the door of the 21st Century schoolhouse.

Our modern history, then, is strewn with examples of efforts to exorcise the perceived mediocrity of the public schools that resulted from that initial over-promising by Mann and other promoters of Common School Crusade. Systematic reform goes back at least to the beginning of the 20th Century, when progressives sought to emulate the new science of efficiency and scientific management that brought us the assembly line and mass production. Having taken charge of the management of public education under the leadership of academics such as Stanford University’s Elwood Cubberley, the efficiency crowd sought to make the American school a smooth running and efficient business that could sustain the unending production of knowledgeable and malleable workers for what seemed to be America’s unquenchable industrial engine. The case that the efficiency reformers made for turning schools away from the classical goals of education centered upon the need to counter the economic threat of the German industrial machine just after the turn of the 20th Century. It was essentially an economic and national security argument based on fear that made it possible to turn “failing schools” into sorting machines that would use the new efficient science of the primitive IQ tests to decide children’s future work slots in a carefully-engineered society for which the zealots for efficiency campaigned heavily.

The disgruntled and displaced educational traditionalists, who had enjoyed centuries of dominance based on an unremitting system of memorizing, reciting, and strict discipline, lay in wait for an opportunity to attack the new social efficiency and utility-driven schools. They got their first big break in 1957, when the Soviets were first to launch the man-made satellite, Sputnik. Traditionalists like Arthur Bestor and Hyman Rickover quickly took advantage of the opening, scoring big with a receptive and gullible mass media by railing against the flabby school curriculum that had given the knowledge advantage to the Russians, thus placing American national security in jeopardy. Not mentioned were the intelligence and economic policy failures that allowed the Soviets to move ahead, and not mentioned was the complacency of American business to embrace the emerging technologies of the time. Not mentioned, either, was the fear that schools had lost control of the young, who seemed more fascinated with rock-n-roll than they did with those 3 Rs.

Thus the successful strategy of blaming the schools from the early century came to be used once more, this time against those who used it first. Blaming the schools worked to create an effective scapegoat that sold newspapers, which, in turn made the need for reform widely talked about and eventually accepted, thus ushering in an ideological solution desperate for educational problems to fix. Thus became the pattern for the large education reform movements in public education. It must be noted, too, that in 1969 when the USA was first to land a man on the moon, credit for that national victory did not go to the immediate turnaround in the failing American school system, but to the ingenuity and can-do spirit that coalesced in a cooperative venture by American business, government, and the investment communities. Never mind that the schools were not to blame in the first place.

The same pattern would be repeated in 1983, when “dumbed-down schools” were blamed for the economic threat by the Japanese and other Asian economies, whose schools were obviously much better than ours. American schools were so bad, said A Nation at Risk, that they had taken the United States to the brink of “unilateral educational disarmament.” Not mentioned in this analysis was the failure of America’s automakers and other industries to re-tool and re-invest to keep pace with energy and environmental conditions, and never mind the accumulating evidence for needed economic policy changes that the U. S. government had failed to acknowledge or to make a priority. This time, however, reform of the public schools would not be enough for reformers: the situation would require an alternative to the “public school monopoly,” as the first President Bush would call the school situation during a summit at Charlottesville, Virginia in 1989 with corporate CEOs and the nation’s governors. By the early 1990s, however, when the USA’s economy began an unprecedented surge that left Japan and others in the economic dust, it is worth noting that credit, once again, did not go to the immediate turnaround of the American schools, but to sound economic policy and to an entrepreneurial exploitation of technological advances. Never mind that the schools had not produced the crisis in the first place, just as they had not effected the solution.

Now, fifteen years later and well advanced into an era of testing hysteria that has left America’s children and parents edgy and anxious and our educators demoralized and exhausted, comes another education summit in February 2005, again in Virginia, and this time with the world’s top technocrat, Bill Gates, delivering the keynote. In the sights of the test-based reformers now is the American high school, as flabby it would seem as America’s school children and totally unprepared to insure the continuance of America’s economic predominance in the world. The high schools are so bad, it would seem, that students are leaving in droves, creating an embarrassing dropout rate for the world’s bastion of equal opportunity and economic success.

Those that are not leaving, according to the now-familiar narrative, are entering college without the basics that will assure their success in the high-tech jobs of the future. These students are so unprepared, says the familiar refrain, that corporations are looking to other countries to fill the need. Not mentioned is the fact that those high-tech and low-tech jobs are being funneled offshore into foreign job markets by people like Mr. Gates and the other CEOs at the Virginia summit who are unwilling to pay American workers a fair wage. Not mentioned, either, by the reform-by-testing crowd is the sad fact that, of the ten states with the lowest graduation rates, all ten already have high school exit exams. And nine of them have had exit exams for more than 10 years. The solution, nonetheless, is clear: higher standards and more high-stakes tests.

The great diversion continues unabated, this time, however, with some built-in solutions to that public school monopoly that Reagan and GHW Bush could not crack.

No Child Left Behind is different from all the other educational reforms that have preceded it—this time the reformers are assured of a win, regardless of the outcome. If schools are able to achieve the impossible and attain the 100 percent math and reading proficiency by 2014 that the legislation requires, then the reformers will have threatened, bullied, and shamed their way to educational success by having rendered our schools into scripted testing factories. If the more probable scenario develops (psychometricians say certain), however, and a large majority of American schools are clear failures or on the “Federal watch-list” before or by 2014, then the road to school privatization will be clear sailing. By then, American parents will be shell-shocked and willing to try anything to avoid another one of those Federally-mandated letters telling them that their children are failing because their schools are failing. And state legislatures, broken financially and in spirit by then from the under-funded burdens of NCLB implementation, will be desperate enough to turn the whole effort over to the EMOs of an education industry that will be ramped up, ready, and waiting to pounce.

What separates the current reform efforts from all others in American history is the degree to which millions of American children are suffering, are dropping out, or are being labeled as failures at an early age in ways that will forever leave them behind in a world of disenfranchisement or poverty that no standard or test can touch. Beyond this utter tragedy that is concealed under a cynical and hollow rhetoric that would make Horace Mann blush, there is a deeper tragedy still: for were we to achieve the impossible as required by NCLB with its 100 percent testing proficiency requirement, we will have by then narrowed the focus of the school curriculum and teaching to the narrow confines of that which is tested. Regardless of how valid those tests are likely to be, and experts like James Popham says that 90% of them are junk, this will tragically, perhaps, leave us even more unprepared to deal with the changing world events and challenges that will assuredly come, more unaware and unappreciative of our own diversity and the democratic adaptation that a healthy future requires, and more blinded to our imaginative and critical capacities that have thus far assured America’s cultural and scientific eminence in the world of nations. Is this the educational success to which we aspire? If so, then what should we call failure?

To those who continue to support an educational policy of false promises that threatens psychological and intellectual genocide against our children, and thus our future, let me ask you to go into the schools and see what has already happened there before you continue down this road. Ask elementary teachers and students about what has happened to the joy of teaching, learning , and of coming to school. Ask principals about what has happened to recess and field trips and civic purpose. Ask curriculum coordinators what has happened to the social studies, health, and the arts. Ask counselors about student behavior and teacher morale. Ask the public what it means when their local schools’ Title I dollars are used to pay private tutoring firms who are accountable to no one except their own Washington lobbyists and the insiders at US DOE that shovel them their millions. Ask parents about what it means when their children pass their subjects and are left behind because they did not pass a test. Ask them and listen, and you will begin to hear a rumble, steady and getting stronger, moving upward—signaling that the American public will not go so gentle into that night of the corporate socialists.

Jim Horn

Will Real Oversight and Standards Spoil the Charter School Looting Party?

A entirely phony brand of accountability (NCLB) has brought urban public schools to the brink of collapse, while institutionalizing the entirely unaccountable charter school solution that is supposed to replace those collapsing public schools. Pretty neat trick.

Perhaps some real accountability will be the first step in rebuilding urban public schools. For when real oversight, public governance, and the end of tax giveaways come to corporate charter schools, much of the Business Roundtable's impetus for supporting them will disappear quicker than you can say educational entrepreneur. Then perhaps we can get down the real work of public school renewal, rather than offering up guaranteed tax credits for corporate interests to destroy urban public schools with their parrot learning and detention testing camps manned by unqualifed, temporary script readers working for peanuts.

Do you think the new Administration will notice, or will they barrel ahead with their plan to beef up the charter industry by doubling the federal commitment to them?

From the Star Tribune:

By NORMAN DRAPER, Star Tribune
January 22, 2009

Minnesota appears ready to lay some tough love on one of its most celebrated school choice creations -- charter schools.

Big changes in the way the state's 153 charter schools are monitored and regulated are likely to emerge from this year's legislative session. If so, it would be the first time since 1991, when the state blazed a national trail by passing charter school legislation, that state lawmakers have overhauled the system in such a way.

Minnesota's charters, which serve 30,000 students, will probably face a future of tighter controls, more oversight and increased training for charter school teachers and governing boards. Over the years, charter schools have been battered by problems with poor student performance, fiscal woes, conflicts of interest and charges of inappropriate mixing of public education and private religion. . . .

And here is, yet, another prime example of what is going on all across the country in these unregulated "non-profit" sewage puddles. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Germantown Settlement Charter School, already fighting a district decision to close it, faces an exodus of staff and other problems that threaten its continued operation.

More than 17 teachers and administrators have quit the troubled middle school since September, including the principal, who left 10 days ago. Former staffers say special-education students are not receiving services they need; some eighth-grade classrooms have had no heat.

The school has staved off an eviction order for today at its campus at 5538 Wayne Ave.

The cash-strapped charter scraped up the final installment of $13,538 Friday to satisfy a court judgment of more than $157,000 for past-due rent and fees.

In his resignation letter, principal Jeffrey Williams told the school's board that he was "concerned about the health and safety of the kids." He said he got no response.

Special-education teacher Shober Hairston, who quit last week, said he left because it was impossible to do his job. The school lacked resources and students' records were out of date.

"They're 'playing school' now," Hairston said. "It's sad. The parents don't know."

The school, which enrolls 440 students in grades five though eight, has appealed the Philadelphia School Reform Commission's October decision that it should shut down.

State and federal law enforcement agencies also are investigating allegations that the school diverted some of the $31 million in taxpayer money it received over nine years in order to prop up other nonprofits operated by its parent group, Germantown Settlement, a community-development organization with an array of nonprofit and for-profit subsidiaries. . . .

I think they call that leverage in some business circles, yes?

Last updated: 4:30 pm

Two More Reasons I'm a Card-carrying Member of the ACLU

One:

CHICAGO (AP) — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the state law requiring a moment of silence in public schools across Illinois is unconstitutional, saying it crosses the line separating church and state.

“The statute is a subtle effort to force students at impressionable ages to contemplate religion,” the judge, Robert W. Gettleman, said in his ruling. . . .

. . . . The “teacher is required to instruct her pupils, especially in the lower grades, about prayer and its meaning as well as the limitations on their ‘reflection,’ ” Judge Gettleman ruled.

“The plain language of the statute, therefore, suggests an intent to force the introduction of the concept of prayer into the schools,” he ruled. . . .

Two:

The Minnesota chapter of the ACLU has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against an Inver Grove Heights-based charter school for using taxpayer money to promote religion.

"Minnesotans are not interested in having their tax dollars go to fund sectarian schools," the ACLU's Chuck Samuelson said. "The money's going to the mosque. It's all the same thing, the school is the mosque which is the property owner," Samuelson said.

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy is the first entity named in the suit. A communications firm hired by the school responded to the suit in a statement. "We are surprised by today's actions. . . . .

. . . . The ACLU alleges teachers illegally lead prayers; the school has said students lead any prayers. The school has also said some kids stay after school to attend a Muslim studies class which parents pay for.

The ACLU says the school endorses religious practices by using state funded buses for the kids, after they've attended those religious-based classes.

"The real client in this case is the first amendment," Samuelson said. He also says the school is set to receive $3.8 million in state funding for this current school year.

"We are also suing the Department of Education for failure to supervise," Samuelson added.

Infusing 19th Century Science Skills Into Texas Schools

The theocrats strike again, and Rick Perry and Dr. Don McLeroy are at the head of creationist column. A clip from the NY Times:

. . . .Even as federal courts have banned the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in biology courses, social conservatives have gained 7 of 15 seats on the Texas board in recent years, and they enjoy the strong support of Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican.

The chairman of the board, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist, pushed in 2003 for a more skeptical version of evolution to be presented in the state’s textbooks, but could not get a majority to vote with him. Dr. McLeroy has said he does not believe in Darwin’s theory and thinks that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event, thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion as scientists contend. . . .

Chicago's Ariel Community Academy Offers Example of Business Roundtable in Action

Guest commentary by graduate student, Kenneth Libby:

The Lessons We Teach Our Children
Kenneth Libby

"Who doesn't love to talk about money? That really makes it fun," (1) says Connie Moran, the Investment Program Director at Ariel Community Academy, a unique school operating within the Chicago Public Schools system. Children at Ariel Community Academy, serving children in Kindergarden through eighth grade, spend their day studying more than just the traditional subjects. In fact, nearly 10 percent of the school's operating budget is dedicated to a single subject: wealth management. "Like the bulls of Wall Street, the saving and investment curriculum is stampeding through the classrooms," claims a 2006 report published by the school. "Future portfolio managers, accountants, investment bankers and, most importantly, fiscally savvy young people are emerging from the Academy's unique saving and investment curriculum."(2)

Ariel Community Academy represents the public-private partnership envisioned by education reformers on both sides of the political aisle. The academy draws approximately half of their funding from the Chicago Public Schools and the other half from a private investor, the Ariel Education Initiative. As such, it is neither a charter school nor your traditional neighborhood public school. The school opened in 1996 while the Ariel Education Initiative was under the direction of Arne Duncan, the future CEO of Chicago Public Schools and President-elect Obama's choice for Secretary of Education.

Ariel Investments, a firm with over $7 billion in assets, provides the funding for the Ariel Education Initiative, a program "committed to advancing educational opportunities in economically disadvantaged areas." In addition to funding the Ariel Community Academy, the initiative funds the Extended Day Program. "In the Ariel Extended Day Program, our goal is to expose the multiple intelligences that exist within every child. Academically, culturally and physically, these students are learning that an education is not limited by time, but by their own imagination," according to Dawn Welles, the director of the program (2). Evidently, the Ariel Community Academy does not have time during the regular school day to expose children's multiple intelligences: the school recently mandated two hours of math instruction for students in grades K-5 and three and a half hours for grades six through eight.

According to Ariel's strategic plan, "teacher training in the use of technology (Learning First, DIBELS, etc.) and using technology in mathematics assessments have been effective" (3). Learning First and DIBELS represent the kind of "scientifically-based" methods capable of measuring a limited range of child's reading but utterly incapable of teaching critical thinking skills, a child's ability to connect words in print to their unfolding world, or meaningful comprehension. More importantly, these scientifically-based programs are designed specifically to raise standardized test scores with the unfortunate side-effect of stunting children's interest in reading. But at the Ariel Community Academy, high-stakes testing is big business not simply reserved for weekdays. Part of the private-public partnership includes the Saturday Morning Teacher Corp, with employees of Ariel Investments, Nuveen Investments, and Lehman Brothers volunteering to "spend two hours every Saturday morning working with third- through eighth-grade students to improve their math and reading skills and prepare them for state-required, standardized tests "(2).

The most unique project, the Ariel-Nuveen Investment Program, is intended to "demystify the financial world by providing an opportunity for the student's to manage a real $20,000 portfolio."(5) The $20,000 provided to each incoming class is managed by Ariel and Nuveen representatives until select seventh- and eight-grade students are ready to take over as the class reaches middle school. When student's graduate from eighth grade, the original $20,000 is given to the incoming class of first graders while the profits are divided in two, half to be used as a class gift to the school and the rest divided up among the students as either cash or college savings plans.

The class of 2007's portfolio shows most of their money was invested in the Ariel Fund and Nuveen Rittenhouse Growth Fund ($30,000 of the $33,000) (4). It is safe to say that most classes have their portfolio filled with Ariel or Nuveen Funds (after all, their representatives decide where the money goes until the children reach seventh grade), money used to teach children about investing in the stock market and provide a modest sum for the children's' future education. On December 31st, 2008, the Ariel Fund closed at $22.93, down from around $40.00 at the beginning of the school year in September. Nuveen Rittenhouse Growth Fund closed at $16.10, down from around $22.00 four months ago.

This year must have thrown a curveball for the program, a program suffering from the same faulty assumption of Wall Street investors: investing in the stock market guarantees a return. Upon graduating, "the original $20,000 grant is then turned over to the next incoming first grade class, making the program self-perpetuating," proclaims the Ariel website (5). The class of 2009 undoubtedly watched their portfolio shrink during 2008. How do the teachers explain the greed and corruption that brought down Wall Street and the student's portfolio? How do children feel about witnessing the beginnings of a college savings plan evaporate, knowing they'll be unable to give back to their school and next year's first grade class due to non-existent profits? How does the school manage to explain the "principles of business, economics and ownership - all of which have a lasting impact on their personal and financial growth"(6) in the wake of Treasury looting, unprecedented corporate unaccountability, and business plans guided solely by greed?

There are reasons to be concerned about the quality of information and instruction provided by an educational institution funded by corporate interests. Can we reasonably expect the Ariel Community Academy, backed by a Wall Street investment firm, to provide a critical analysis of the market meltdown, including addressing the human impact: the loss of retirement funds, jobs, health insurance, pension plans, college savings, and homes? Do conversations about economics include addressing the record number of Americans on food stamps, currently around 10% of our population, or are they limited to opportunity costs, start-up capital, and profits? Are the economics of poverty, a topic on the other end of the financial spectrum, studied as vigorously as NASDAQ, the Dow, and international markets? You cannot indoctrinate students into the philosophy of Wall Street, while failing to study the economic conditions keeping fellow humans, including one in five American children, in the cycle of poverty.

The Ariel Community Academy's homepage includes a short video about their unique investment program. Various children describe the program, showing a clear interest in investing, stocks, portfolios, markets, etc. "I think that I actually am ahead of some other kids that aren't learning about investments and stocks," reports one girl. "I remember I got into a fight with my friend about the war in Iraq, and I look at it from a business perspective, she looks at it from 'well if we pull out da-da-das gonna happen,' and I'm like, 'well if we pull out da-da-das gonna happen to the economy.' She's like, 'Why are you talking about the economy?'"(1) The Iraq War, an immoral if not illegal act, comes down to an economic decision when we raise our children to view the world through the corporate mentality, the mentality of "future portfolio managers, accountants, [and] investment bankers...emerging from the Academy's unique saving and investment curriculum"(2). Profits, above all else; the determination to force our economy forward in pursuit of profits despite the human cost. Economists like Larry Summers and Paul Volcker (both working for the Obama administration) would be proud: they see the world through the same lens as this young Ariel Community Student taught to view events strictly on economic terms.

Ariel claims to "demystify" the stock market though a carefully managed stock portfolio. Teaching about Wall Street presents a great risk when the information is presented from an obviously biased source. The demystifying process may, in fact, rewrap our economic system in new garb, ignoring the same problems associated with neoliberal capitalism: greed juxtaposed with extreme poverty. The education dialogue often includes the need for "21st Century Skills" in the workforce presumably because there will be a demand for these skills (a proposition we should question). Undoubtedly, our children need more than the "21st Century Skills" - we need to learn to share resources, reconcile our differences, gain a deeper understanding of various world cultures and histories, and learn to take care of each other.

As an educator, hearing a child speak about the war in Iraq on strictly financial terms is a strong indication of an institution's failure to reconcile the desire for money with a humanistic approach to the world, including international politics. I cringe to hear a child speak about a war impacting the American economy, a war that has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and undoubtedly halted the education of Iraqi children. Ariel Investments viewed the child's take on the war with enough approval to post it on their website, oblivious to the ethical shortcomings exhibited by a child indoctrinated into Wall Street's mentality: profits over people.

Ignoring the expansion of private corporations in our public education system puts us at risk of expanding the military-industrial complex into the military-industrial-educational complex, a process Henry Giroux contends has already happened through No Child Left Behind, the media, and other cultural factors. The appointment of Duncan, a CEO and not an educator, should be taken as an ominous warning for those of us opposing the private takeover of the American education system under the cloak of the “public-private partnerships”, “school choice”, and “innovation.” Ariel Investments claim to be “committed to strengthening the neighborhoods and cities in which we live and work, practicing a hands-on model of corporate responsibility.”(5) We’ve seen corporate responsibility during the last year. Our children’s education is an asset far too valuable to entrust with the same minds operating on Wall Street.


Sources:
1. Video on Ariel Community Academy website: http://schools.cuip.net/ariel/?page_id=113

2. Ariel Education Initiative Brochure 2006: http://www.arielinvestments.com/LibraryFiles//AEI/AEI_Brochure_2006.pdf

3. Ariel Community Academy Strategic Plan 2006-2008 SIPAAA report: http://www.stratplan.cps.k12.il.us/pdfs/SIPAAA/Reports/
05_15_2007_SIPAAA_ARIEL_COMMNTY_SCHOOL_3640.pdf

4. Ariel Education Initiative Brochure 2007: http://www.arielinvestments.com/LibraryFiles//AEI/AEI_Brochure_2007.pdf

5. Ariel-Nuveen Investment Program website: http://www.arielinvestments.com/content/view/108/1068/

6. Ariel Education Initiative website: http://www.arielinvestments.com/content/view/106/1066/

Rove Continues to Lie With Impunity About NCLB

The oft-repeated bald-faced lie is uttered once more in a saccharine homily to our former Torturer-in-Chief:

Mr. Bush was right to pass No Child Left Behind (NCLB), requiring states to set up tough accountability systems that measure every child's progress at school. As a result, reading and math scores have risen more in the last five years since NCLB than in the prior 28 years.

And, once more, the facts from an October 2008 piece:

With Margaret Spellings getting in a final safari in Africa before she turns in her keys, and as the rest of the incompetent Bush cronies at ED are cleaning out their desks and working on their resumes, the White House has simply side-stepped the Departent of Education and issued its own propaganda response to a recent New York Times piece by Sam Dillon on the impossible testing targets that NCLB uses to undercut the public schools.

In a Letter to the Editor published yesterday, Domestic Policy Director, Karl Zinsmeister, both lied and dissembled in making claims regarding reading scores during the NCLB reign of terror:

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

The first sentence by Zinmeister is simply a bald-faced lie. Here is NAEP's own chart showing average reading scores for 4th grade students. It shows a 2 point gain since 2002. Before NCLB became law, between 2000 and 2002, there was a 6 point gain. (Click to enlarge chart).





And here is the NAEP chart on 8th grade reading averages, and the picture is even worse. It shows scores actually dropping a point since 2002. (Click to enlarge chart).




In terms of the achievement gap being the narrowest it has "ever been," the final chart from NAEP shows the reality. In 2002, there was a thirty point gap in 4th grade reading scale scores. That gap for 4th grade reading has narrowed by 2 points since 2002, even with the draconian full-time test prep chain gang teaching that has replaced caring teachers and balance curriculums in schools with mostly minority and/or poor students. (Click to enlarge chart).

It is long past time that these liars, dissemblers, and epistemological thugs be run out of Washington on a rail.

Arne Duncan's Preppy Brand of Corporate Socialism

"Corporate socialism" -- the privatization of profit and the socialization of risks and misconduct -- is displacing capitalist canons. . . . Civic and political movements must call for a decent separation of corporation and state. --Ralph Nader

We're trying to blur the lines between the public and the private. --Arne Duncan

In a modern-day version of A Modest Proposal that, unfortunately, must be read as allegory rather than satire, the scions of the Business Roundtable have a plan to replace urban public schools with test prep chain gangs chartered by non-profit corporations. These non-profit corporations are to be funded by tax dollars and by corporate donations that garner dollar for dollar tax credits for the corporate givers. The management of these schools may then be farmed out to Edison, Green Dot, or another of the for-profit macschool outfits. Everyone gets fat in the process except, of course, the taxpayers and the children, who become units churned out by the testing machine. No school boards to provide oversight, accountability, or standards of conduct, and none of those professionally-prepared teachers who have diversionary and expensive interests in academic freedom, collective bargaining, or retirement plans. Meanwhile, the gaps remain gaping.

Arne Duncan has been the poster boy for this movement in Chicago. Below is a piece that is posted at Common Dreams and elsewhere:

Published on Monday, January 19, 2009 by TomDispatch.com

The Duncan Doctrine

The Military-Corporate Legacy of the New Secretary of Education

by Andy Kroll

On December 16th, a friendship forged nearly two decades ago on the hardwood of the basketball court culminated in a press conference at the Dodge Renaissance Academy, an elementary school located on the west side of Chicago. In a glowing introduction to the media, President-elect Barack Obama named Arne Duncan, the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools system (CPS), as his nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education. "When it comes to school reform," the President-elect said [1], "Arne is the most hands-on of hands-on practitioners. For Arne, school reform isn't just a theory in a book -- it's the cause of his life. And the results aren't just about test scores or statistics, but about whether our children are developing the skills they need to compete with any worker in the world for any job."

Though the announcement came amidst a deluge of other Obama nominations -- he had unveiled key members of his energy and environment [2] teams the day before and would add his picks for the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior [3] the next day -- Duncan's selection was eagerly anticipated, and garnered mostly favorable reactions in education circles and in the media. He was described [4] as the compromise candidate between powerful teachers' unions and the advocates of charter schools and merit pay. He was also regularly hailed [5] as a "reformer," [6] fearless when it came to challenging the educational status quo and more than willing to shake up hidebound, moribund public school systems.

Yet a closer investigation of Duncan's record in Chicago casts doubt on that label. As he packs up for Washington, Duncan leaves behind a Windy City legacy that's hardly cause for optimism, emphasizing as it does a business-minded, market-driven model for education. If he is a "reformer," his style of management is distinctly top-down, corporate, and privatizing. It views teachers as expendable, unions as unnecessary, and students as customers.

Disturbing as well is the prominence of Duncan's belief in offering a key role in public education to the military. Chicago's school system is currently the most militarized [7] in the country, boasting five military academies, nearly three dozen smaller Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps programs within existing high schools, and numerous middle school Junior ROTC programs. More troubling yet, the military academies he's started are nearly all located in low-income, minority neighborhoods. This merging of military training and education naturally raises concerns about whether such academies will be not just education centers, but recruitment centers as well.

Rather than handing Duncan a free pass on his way into office, as lawmakers did during Duncan's breezy confirmation hearings [8] last week, a closer examination of the Chicago native's record is in order. Only then can we begin to imagine where public education might be heading under Arne Duncan, and whether his vision represents the kind of "change" that will bring our students meaningfully in line with the rest of the world.

The Militarization of Secondary Education

Today, the flagship projects in CPS's militarization are its five military academies, affiliated with either the Army, Navy, or Marines. All students -- or cadets, as they're known -- attending one of these schools are required to enroll as well in the academy's Junior ROTC program. That means cadets must wear full military uniforms to school everyday, and undergo daily uniform inspections. As part of the academy's curriculum, they must also take a daily ROTC course focusing on military history, map reading and navigation, drug prevention, and the branches of the Department of Defense.

Cadets can practice marching on an academy's drill team, learn the proper way to fire a weapon on the rifle team, and choose to attend extracurricular spring or summer military training sessions. At the Phoenix Military Academy, cadets are even organized [9] into an academy battalion, modeled on an Army infantry division battalion, in which upper-class cadets fill the leading roles of commander, executive officer, and sergeant major.

In addition, military personnel from the U.S. armed services teach alongside regular teachers in each academy, and also fill administrative roles such as academy "commandants." Three of these military academies were created in part with Department of Defense appropriations -- funds secured by Illinois lawmakers -- and when the proposed Air Force Academy High School opens this fall, CPS will be the only public school system in the country with Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps high school academies.

CPS also boasts almost three dozen smaller Junior ROTC programs within existing high schools that students can opt to join, and over 20 voluntary middle school Junior ROTC programs. All told, between the academies and the voluntary Junior ROTC programs, more than 10,000 students are enrolled in a military education program of some sort in the CPS system. Officials like Duncan and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley justify the need for the military academies by claiming they do a superlative job teaching students discipline and providing them with character-building opportunities. "These are positive learning environments," Duncan said [10] in 2007. "I love the sense of leadership. I love the sense of discipline."

Without a doubt, teaching students about discipline and leadership is an important aspect of being an educator. But is the full-scale uniformed culture of the military actually necessary to impart these values? A student who learns to play the cello, who studies how to read music, will learn discipline too, without a military-themed learning environment. In addition, encouraging students to be critical thinkers, to question accepted beliefs and norms, remains key to a teacher's role at any grade level. The military's culture of uniformity and discipline, important as it may be for an army, hardly aligns with these pedagogical values.

Of no less concern are the types of students Chicago's military academies are trying to attract. All of CPS's military academies (except the Rickover Naval Academy) are located in low-income neighborhoods with primarily black and/or Hispanic residents. As a result, student enrollment in the academies consists almost entirely of minorities. Whites, who already represent a mere 9% of the students in the Chicago system, make up [11] only 4% of the students enrolled in the military academies.

There is obviously a correlation between these low-income, minority communities, the military academies being established in them, and the long-term recruitment needs of the U.S. military. The schools essentially functional as recruiting tools, despite the expectable military disclaimers. The Chicago Tribune typically reported in 1999 that the creation of the system's first military school in the historically black community of Bronzeville grew, in part, out of "a desire for the military to increase the pool of minority candidates for its academies." And before the House Armed Services Committee in 2000, the armed services chiefs of staff testified that 30%-50% of all Junior ROTC cadets later enlist in the military. Organizations opposing the military's growing presence in public schools insist [10] that it's no mistake the number of military academies in Chicago is on the rise at a time when the U.S. military has had difficulty meeting its recruitment targets while fighting two unpopular wars.

It seems clear enough that, when it comes to the militarization of the Chicago school system, whatever Duncan's goals, the results are likely to be only partly "educational."

Merging the Market and the Classroom

While discussing his nomination, President-elect Obama praised the fact that Duncan isn't "beholden to any one ideology." A closer examination of his career in education, however, suggests otherwise. As Chicago's chief executive officer (not to be confused with CPS's chief education officer), Duncan ran his district in a most businesslike manner. As he put it [12] in a 2003 profile in Catalyst Chicago, an independent magazine that covers education reform, "We're in the business of education." And indeed, managing the country's third-largest school system does require sharp business acumen. But what's evident from Duncan's seven years in charge is his belief that the business of education should, first and foremost, embrace the logic of the free market and privatization.

Duncan's belief in privatizing public education can be most clearly seen in Chicago's Renaissance 2010 [13] plan, the centerpiece of his time in that city. Designed by corporate consulting firm A.T. Kearney and backed by the Commercial Club of Chicago, an organization representing some of the city's largest businesses, Renaissance 2010 has pushed hard for the closing of underperforming schools -- to be replaced by multiple new, smaller, "entrepreneurial" schools. Under the plan, many of the new institutions established have been privatized charter or "contract" schools run by independent nonprofit outfits. They, then, turn out to have the option of contracting school management out to for-profit education management organizations. In addition, Renaissance 2010 charter schools, not being subject to state laws and district initiatives, can -- as many have -- eliminate the teachers' union altogether.

Under Duncan's leadership, CPS and Renaissance 2010 schools have adopted a performance-driven style of governance in which well-run schools and their teachers and administrators are rewarded, and low-performing schools are penalized. As Catalyst Chicago reported [14], "Star schools and principals have been granted more flexibility and autonomy, and often financial freedom and bonus pay." Low-performing schools put on probation, on the other hand, "have little say over how they can spend poverty funding, an area otherwise controlled by elected local school councils... [Local school councils] at struggling schools have also lost the right to hire or fire principals -- restrictions that have outraged some parent activists."

Students as well as teachers and principals are experiencing firsthand the impact of Duncan's belief in competition and incentive-based learning. This fall, the Chicago Public Schools rolled out a Green for Grade$ program [15] in which the district will pay freshmen at 20 selected high schools for good grades -- $50 in cash for an A, $35 for a B, and even $20 for a C. Though students not surprisingly say they support the program -- what student wouldn't want to get paid for grades? -- critics contend that cash-for-grades incentives, which stir interest in learning for all the wrong reasons, turn being educated into a job.

Duncan's rhetoric offers a good sense of what his business-minded approach and support for bringing free-market ideologies into public education means. At a May 2008 symposium hosted by the Renaissance Schools Fund, the nonprofit financial arm of Renaissance 2010, entitled "Free to Choose, Free to Succeed: The New Market of Public Education," Duncan typically compared his job running a school district to that of a stock portfolio manager. As he explained [16], "I am not a manager of 600 schools. I'm a portfolio manager of 600 schools and I'm trying to improve the portfolio." He would later add, "We're trying to blur the lines between the public and the private."

A Top-Down Leadership Style

Barack Obama built his campaign on impressive grassroots support and the democratic nature of his candidacy. Judging by his continued outreach to supporters, he seems intent on leading, at least in part, with the same bottom-up style. Duncan's style couldn't be more different.

Under Duncan, the critical voices of parents, community leaders, students, and teachers regularly fell on deaf ears. As described by University of Illinois at Chicago professor and education activist Pauline Lipman in the journal Educational Policy in 2007, Renaissance 2010 provoked striking resistance within affected communities and neighborhoods. There were heated community hearings and similarly angry testimony at Board of Education meetings, as well as door-to-door organizing, picketing, and even, at one point, a student walk-out.

"The opposition," Lipman wrote, "brought together unions, teachers, students, school reformers, community leaders and organizations, parents in African American South and West Side communities, and some Latino community activists and teachers." Yet, as she pointed out recently, mounting neighborhood opposition had little effect. "I'm pretty in tune with the grassroots activism in education in Chicago," she said, "and people are uniformly opposed to these policies, and uniformly feel that they have no voice."

During Duncan's tenure, decision-making responsibilities that once belonged to elected officials shifted into the hands of unelected individuals handpicked by the city's corporate or political elite. For instance, elected local school councils, made up mostly of parents and community leaders, are to be scaled back or eliminated altogether as part of Renaissance 2010. Now, many new schools can simply opt out of such councils.

Then there's the Renaissance Schools Fund [17]. It oversees the selection and evaluation of new schools and subsequent investment in them. Made up of unelected business leaders, the CEO of the system, and the Chicago Board of Education president, the Fund takes the money it raises and makes schools compete against each other for limited private funding. It has typically been criticized by community leaders and activists for being an opaque, unaccountable body indifferent to the will of Chicago's citizens.

Making the grade?

Despite his controversial educational policies, Duncan's supporters ultimately contend that, as the CEO of Chicago's schools, he's gotten results where it matters -- test scores. An objective, easily quantifiable yet imperfect measure of student learning, test scores have indeed improved in several areas under Duncan (though many attribute this to lowered statewide testing standards and more lenient testing guidelines). Between 2001 and 2008, for instance, the percentage of elementary school students meeting or exceeding standards on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test increased [18] from 39.5% to 65%. The number of CPS students meeting or exceeding the Illinois Learning Standards, another statewide secondary education achievement assessment, also increased from 38% in 2002 to 60% in 2008.

When measured on a national scale, however, Duncan's record looks a lot less impressive. In comparison to other major urban school districts (including Los Angeles, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C.) in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or "The Nation's Report Card," Chicago fourth and eighth graders ranked, with only one exception, in the bottom half of all districts in math, reading, and science in 2003, 2005 and 2007. In addition, from 2004 to 2008, the Chicago Public Schools district failed to make "adequate yearly progress" as mandated by the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act.

Even if Duncan's policies do continue to boost test scores in coming years, the question must be asked: At whose expense? In a competition-driven educational system, some schools will, of course, succeed, receiving more funding and so hiring the most talented teachers. At the same time, schools that aren't "performing" will be put on probation, stripped of their autonomy, and possibly closed, only to be reopened as privately-run outfits -- or even handed over to the military. The highest achieving students (that is, the best test-takers) will have access to the most up-to-date facilities, advanced equipment, and academic support programs; struggling students will likely be left behind, separate and unequal, stuck in decrepit classrooms and underfunded schools.

Public education is not meant to be a win-lose, us-versus-them system, nor is it meant to be a recruitment system for the military -- and yet this, it seems, is at the heart of Duncan's legacy in Chicago, and so a reasonable indication of the kind of "reform" he's likely to bring to the country as education secretary.

© 2009 Andy Kroll

Andy Kroll is a writer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a student at the University of Michigan. His writing has appeared at the Nation Online, Alternet, CNN, CBS News, CampusProgress.org, and Wiretap Magazine, among other publications. He welcomes feedback, and can be reached at his website [19]. To listen to a TomDispatch audio interview with Kroll on the new Secretary of Education, click here [20].

Reformer, Deformer, or Renewer?

I am glad the Republocratic word warriors led by Frank Luntz and the corporate media echo chamber nailed up the "education reformer" frame around themselves, while pushing everyone else out. Personally, I think education deformers would be a much more suitable frame.

Nonetheless, the carrying away of the reform flag by the high tech antiquarians leaves new possibility for all of us who would like to be part of the rebirth of a public commitment to schools aimed at sustaining our democracy and building individual happiness--a new possibility that will be constructed upon the realization of educational renewal. Let all of us, then, who would like to leave the testocracy behind become part of the educational renewal movement.

So even though the great national nightmare is over (hey, hey, hey, goodbye!--see below), Bush and Spellings left a real reformer in charge at ED. We will have to see if the new President can reign in the reformers, i. e. the closet antiquarians, so that educational renewal can become a part of the larger national renewal that he talks so much about. Or if all the talk of renewal is just hype.

Teacher Appeals to New President on NCLB

Here is part of an open letter from Bill Heller of upstate New York:

. . . .Now, all year long, precious days are lost and enormous amounts of money are spent on annual testing. Out here in the country we have a saying: "Nobody ever fattened a calf by weighing it." Unfortunately, we've figured out that only tested subjects "count" anymore. Many of our limited resources get pumped into the few areas that get tested; other areas are given short shrift when it comes to funding, staffing and, more importantly time. In order to combat this two-tiered system of "core" and "non-core" subjects, time requirements need to be imposed so that all students at all levels get the chance to take music, art, foreign languages, vocational training and other non-tested subjects.

One more change that needs to be made in NCLB is how we treat special education students. In order to play the NCLB game and to avoid having the stigma of being labeled a "failing school," there is a lot of pressure not to classify needy students in order to avoid having to disaggregate data and make AYP for special education students as a separate subgroup. In addition, students with very limited abilities are dumped into classes that are way beyond their developmental abilities instead of being given appropriate instruction at a level at which they can be successful. Some have been forced to sit through lengthy exams that they have no hope of passing. In the same vein, we need to recognize that not all students will want to pursue a four-year college degree. In fact, we need more tool and die makers, more skilled carpenters, plumbers, and electricians; more nurses, EMTs and child care workers. Vocational programs could be made just as rigorous, incorporating meaningful certification and licensure requirements attainable by the time a student graduates from high school. . . .

. . . .Above all, Mr. President-elect, I hope you can help create a climate of zero tolerance for bashing teachers. The teachers I work with will bend over backwards to help students as long as they are given a say in how best to do it and as long as they are not made to feel that their health care and pensions are not under constant attack in the media and the marketplace. Those who would like to use business models and metaphor as a solution to the "failures" of the public schools are mistaken. Businesses can be held accountable for a finished product because they can control the quality of the raw materials used. We need greater cooperation, not greater competition among schools and among teachers. Public schools take all comers, which is as it should be. America's teachers do the best with what they have. Anything that needs fixing in the public schools needs first to be "fixed" in the home and in the values promulgated by the mass media. Take care of the home and the schools will fix themselves.

Title I Funds to Tutoring Companies Shown Dump Worthy Once More

President Obama today:

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

From the Detroit Free Press:

. . . ."It's [tutoring] not being taken advantage of by students, those who are taking advantage of it are not showing improvement in test scores, and the providers are not being rigorously monitored," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center for Education Policy, which recently released a nationwide study that found little academic gain from a program nationally. . . .

. . . .The No Child Left Behind law requires that students be offered tutoring, called Supplemental Education Services, paid for with federal Title I dollars, when their schools fail to meet performance standards for three consecutive years. Nationwide, it costs about $2.5 billion.

To gauge the effectiveness of the tutoring in Michigan, the Free Press reviewed fifth-, eighth- and ninth-grade MEAP results for 2005, 2006 and 2007 in selected subjects for schools required to provide tutoring. Among the findings:

• The average increase in fifth-grade students meeting expectations in English at schools where tutoring on the MEAP test was required was 1.7 percenage points, compared to a 2.8 percentage point increase statewide.

• Eighth-grade math showed a 4.7 percentage point bump for schools with tutoring but an 8.4 point increase statewide.

• Ninth-grade social studies saw an average 15.4 percentage point decrease among schools forced to offer tutoring, compared to a 4 point decline statewide.

The tutoring sounds good in theory but is failing in practice, Jennings said. There are no educational requirements for tutors beyond a high school diploma, and nothing to guarantee students are tutored in the areas they need the most help. . . .

"A Nation Cannot Prosper Long When It Favors Only the Prosperous"

No War Criminal Is Above the Law

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Jay Mathews Pumps His New KIPP Book on MLK Day

By strenuous overreaching across inappropriate analogies, Jay Mathews today managed to offer a big plug for his new book, to give a passing nod to Martin Luther King, to note that he and Barack Obama have been members of the same church denomination, and to become the fiery advocate for the notion that every child should be judged, not the color of her skin, but by the content of her bubble sheet.

To accept anything less, according to Mathews, is worse than engaging in the "bigotry of low expectations:" it is to become a "sorter," as in one who sorts, in a racist sort of way, the cans from the cannots. Sorters sit at the opposite end of Mathews' false dichotomy from "educator," and educators believe that everyone should take the SAT, not just white folks.

These days, those of us interested in schools -- parents, students, educators, researchers, journalists -- are not sure if we believe in teaching or sorting. Is it best to strain ourselves and our children trying to raise everyone to a higher academic level, or does it make more sense to prepare each child for a life in which he or she will be comfortable? The people I admire in our schools want to be teachers. Sorting, they say, is a new form of the old racism but subtler and in some ways harder to resist.

I suspect that Mathews must be talking to some of those Teach for America (Awhile) anti-teacher ed scholars who have not suffered through a history of ed course, or who have not been around long enough to know that sorting has been around longer than they have. It began, Jay, just about a hundred years ago, in fact, with another group of bold reformers looking to "scientifically manage" schools, schools that would be based on "scientific" curriculums that would be assessed using "scientific" tools, i.e., standardized tests.

What happened then, Jay, is the same thing that is happening today among those who will not let past mistakes get in the way of making the same ones again. What the bold reformers of a hundred years wanted most was a "scientific" way to engineer a society that would assure the protection of privilege and power for those who already had it, while giving full lip service to a meritocracy based on testing, which would, in good Jeffersonian fashion, "rake a few geniuses from the rubbish." Sounding familiar, Jay?

By mid-century, we were ready to let the SAT do the sorting for us--the poor from the middling classes and the middling from the upper classes--so that the privileged would be left blameless for doing what their well-designed tests would, otherwise, do for them.

It has only been in the past thirty years that the privileged could no longer ignore the fact that their tests left out the poor. Unfortunately for everyone it seems, except the test companies, the remedy for the disparity has not been sought by ending the poverty that, as Dr. King knew, was the source for the testing gaps. The remedy has been sidestepped by diversions aimed to blame the teachers or the schools or the parents for not closing the gaps. And most unfortunate for the poorest children where the gaps are greatest, the privileged now devise chain gang schools of forced learning to change what is inside the children's heads, rather than to change the social inequities, lack of opportunities, and covert racism that such interventions leave soundly in place. That's where you come in, Jay.

Most of us, for humane reasons, think it is best that people choose lives that fit. That is why the sons and daughters of housecleaners are advised to take vocational courses and why impoverished children are less often encouraged to take the SAT than are affluent children. This notion of a place for everyone was used by defenders of slavery before the Civil War and of Jim Crow after it, but we never think of it that way. We say we don't want to put unneeded stress on children who can't handle it.

In this new era, which will win: teaching or sorting?

So in "this new era" that looks so much like the old era that antiquarians and bold reformers are now indistinguishable, Mathews has managed to demolish any distinction (in his own head, at least) between testing and teaching, even though the testing-teaching he advocates is the most socially acceptable and efficient way of sorting the poor that the privileged of our society has yet devised. In the meantime, those who remain defiantly unwilling to do anything about poverty focus more and more on rigid interventions, more hours, and more parrot learning. We have, indeed, reached the era of Kill the Child, Save the Test Taker. We have, in fact, reached the Age of KIPP.

They [KIPPsters] are part of an informal movement including many veterans of the Teach for America program who have made similar progress with such organizations as Achievement First, Aspire, Edison, Green Dot, IDEA, Imagine Schools, Noble Street and Uncommon Schools. But their numbers are small, and their critics large and powerful.

Mathews would have us believe that KIPP and the other corporate welfare outfits he names here are struggling mom and pop operations out to bring enlightenment to the urban poor, when, in fact, they are backed by billions of ready to be tax free dollars from the largest American corporations that are funneled through investment funds and foundations. And, of course, with time running out before the American people understand the extent of the scam, all the bottom feeders are thrown into the same bin as the KIPPsters. Might as well.

Dr. King Knew the Education Problem is a Poverty Problem

From Dr. King's last book, Where Do We Go from Here? Chaos or Community:

Where We Are Going

In the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out: There are twice as many white poor as Negro poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and Negro alike.

Up to recently we have proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils: lack of education restricting job opportunities; poor housing which stultified home life and suppressed initiative; fragile family relationships which distorted personality development. The logic of this approach suggested that each of these causes be attacked one by one. Hence a housing program to transform living conditions, improved educational facilities to furnish tools for better job opportunities, and family counseling to create better personal adjustments were designed. In combination these measures were intended to remove the causes of poverty.

While none of these remedies in itself is unsound, all have a fatal disadvantage. The programs have never proceeded on a coordinated basis or at a similar rate of development. Housing measures have fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies. They have been piecemeal and pygmy. Educational reforms have been even more sluggish and entangled in bureaucratic stalling and economy-dominated decisions. Family assistance stagnated in neglect and then suddenly was discovered to be the central issue on the basis of hasty and superficial studies. At no time has a total, coordinated and fully adequate program been conceived. As a consequence, fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.

In addition to the absence of coordination and sufficiency, the programs of the past all have another common failing -- they are indirect. Each seeks to solve poverty by first solving something else.

I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective -- the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.

Earlier in this century this proposal would have been greeted with ridicule and denunciation as destructive of initiative and responsibility. At that time economic status was considered the measure of the individual's abilities and talents. In the simplistic thinking of that day the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber.

We have come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands it does not eliminate all poverty.

We have come to the point where we must make the nonproducer a consumer or we will find ourselves drowning in a sea of consumer goods. We have so energetically mastered production that we now must give attention to distribution. Though there have been increases in purchasing power, they have lagged behind increases in production. Those at the lowest economic level, the poor white and Negro, the aged and chronically ill, are traditionally unorganized and therefore have little ability to force the necessary growth in their income. They stagnate or become even poorer in relation to the larger society.

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be two-fold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available.

In 1879 Henry George anticipated this state of affairs when he wrote, in Progress and Poverty:

"The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature, and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake, and not that they may get more to eat or drink, or wear, or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased."

We are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. The poor transformed into purchasers will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes, who have a double disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.

Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life and in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he know that he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.

Two conditions are indispensable if we are to ensure that the guaranteed income operates as a consistently progressive measure. First, it must be pegged to the median income of society, not the lowest levels of income. To guarantee an income at the floor would simply perpetuate welfare standards and freeze into the society poverty conditions. Second, the guaranteed income must be dynamic; it must automatically increase as the total social income grows. Were it permitted to remain static under growth conditions, the recipients would suffer a relative decline. If periodic reviews disclose that the whole national income has risen, then the guaranteed income would have to be adjusted upward by the same percentage. Without these safeguards a creeping retrogression would occur, nullifying the gains of security and stability.

This proposal is not a "civil rights" program, in the sense that that term is currently used. The program would benefit all the poor, including the two-thirds of them who are white. I hope that both Negro and white will act in coalition to effect this change, because their combined strength will be necessary to overcome the fierce opposition we must realistically anticipate.

Our nation's adjustment to a new mode of thinking will be facilitated if we realize that for nearly forty years two groups in our society have already been enjoying a guaranteed income. Indeed, it is a symptom of our confused social values that these two groups turn out to be the richest and the poorest. The wealthy who own securities have always had an assured income; and their polar opposite, the relief client, has been guaranteed an income, however miniscule, through welfare benefits.

John Kenneth Galbraith has estimated that $20 billion a year would effect a guaranteed income, which he describes as "not much more than we will spend the next fiscal year to rescue freedom and democracy and religious liberty as these are defined by 'experts' in Vietnam."

The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the middle and upper classes until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent. We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking.

The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.

Difference in School Test Scores Based on Social Background, Duh

Dr. Barry McGraw is formerly Deputy Director of Education for OECD. From The Australian:

NATIONAL Curriculum Board head Barry McGaw yesterday called on Canberra to release suppressed international test data comparing the performance of Australian public and private schools.

Australia is one of only three countries that suppress the results of OECD tests believed to show that a student's social background rather than their school is a better indicator of academic performance.

Professor McGaw believes the results are likely to bear out the crucial role of social background, such as parental education and occupation.

Of the 30 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, Australia, Belgium and France are the only members that don't reveal the breakdown of public and private school results in the OECD's regular testing of 15-year-olds.

"Australia shouldn't be suppressing that piece of information," Professor McGaw, a former head of education at the Paris-based OECD, told The Australian.

"The Government obviously know which are the government schools and which are the private schools in the data set, but that information is removed from the file sent to Paris."

He said analysis of OECD test results internationally showed private schools tended to outperform state schools. However, he said that in all countries that outperformance directly reflected social background.

"How much of the difference between the schools is due to that and not due to what the school does but just due to whom they enrol? The answer is, in all countries, all of it," Professor McGaw said.

The ban on the release of the information has been in place since the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment test started in 2000. The PISA test compares achievement in reading, mathematics and science across 57 countries.

About 14,000 Australian students from randomly selected schools are set to take this year's test between July and September.

Based on the raw PISA data from Australian schools, Professor McGaw said it was already clear that 70 per cent of school performance is dependent on the background of the students. . . .

FairTest's Open Letter to the President-Elect

From FairTest. HT to Ken Bernstein:

Keep Your Promises to Fix NCLB

January 7, 2009

Dear President-elect Obama:

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) congratulates you on your historic victory and endorses your message of uniting all Americans to work for positive change.

During your campaign, you spoke with power and clarity about the serious challenges facing our schools due to the flaws of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. On the seventh anniversary of NCLB being signed into law by George W. Bush, we urge you and secretary of education nominee Arne Duncan to keep your promises to America’s children and work quickly to address NCLB’s flaws through the reauthorization process.

Today, a growing majority of Americans across the political spectrum recognize that NCLB has failed to live up to its promise to close learning gaps between racial groups and raise the performance of the nation’s schools. Most agree it has transformed too many schools into mind-numbing test-prep centers.

According to a recent Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa poll, eight in ten Americans believe that NCLB must be completely revamped in order to succeed. In addition, the federal government’s own National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows that student academic performance rose more rapidly before NCLB was adopted than after it went into effect.

NCLB needs a fundamental overhaul to ensure that all students learn up to their potential. That’s why FairTest initiated an alliance of 150 national civil rights, education, religious, parent, labor, children’s, and civic organizations which have signed a statement calling for a new direction for federal education policy (see list at http://www.edaccountability.org/Joint_Statement.html). We were heartened by your statements on the campaign trail about NCLB’s shortcomings and want to support your efforts to create a new, beneficial law.

President-elect Obama, please heed your strong statements and promises concerning NCLB as you move to make positive change in the nation’s education policy. For example, you said:

• “We should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests.” We agree and recommend that NCLB end its overreliance on simple-minded tests, which have dumbed down both teaching and learning in the quest for higher scores, and reduce the amount of mandated testing.

• We need to use “a broader range of assessments that can evaluate higher-order skills, including students’ abilities to use technology, conduct research, engage in scientific investigation, solve problems, present and defend their ideas.” We agree and recommend that a reauthorized NLCB incorporate multiple measures of student learning and school quality that promote educational excellence. These can include real-world performance tasks, collections of student work that can be independently reviewed, evaluations by inspection teams, and standardized tests. To make this work, there needs to be a proper balance of local and state assessments.

• “Labeling a school and its students as failures one day and then throwing your hands up and walking away from them the next is wrong.” We agree. Researchers have concluded that NCLB will label 70 to 100 percent of the schools in the nation as 'failures.' A new law should stop this massive over-labeling and start helping schools improve. That means providing adequate funding for a broad range of educational services and developing better assessment tools. It means giving teachers themselves ongoing opportunities to learn, as all professionals must, so they can do their jobs better. It means holding schools, districts and states accountable for meeting reasonable rates of progress and taking positive steps toward improved teaching and learning.

• “Forcing our teachers, our principals, and our schools to accomplish all of this without the resources they need is wrong.” We agree. Sadly, the law was not designed to provide the resources or the help to make schools better. Instead, it requires actions that do little to strengthen teaching and learning. Some of them, such as the tutoring provision, divert resources from schools serving low-income children and give those resources to private test preparation firms, with little evidence of benefit to the tutored students. The federal government needs to fully fund the overhauled law and meet its obligations to children and communities.

Educators, parents, and students across the country trust that you will keep these important promises and that your inauguration will be a step toward bringing desperately needed change to our schools. Red state and blue state, urban and rural, rich and poor Americans all want a federal education law that actually helps children learn, instead of just testing, labeling, and punishing them. FairTest and our allies in the Forum on Educational Accountability would be honored to be among the first to support your efforts to bring such a law into being.

Sincerely,

Jesse Mermell
Executive Director

Cc: Arne Duncan

Washinton Post Recycles Old Op-Eds to Keep NCLB Hopes Alive

The only parts of the Washington Post Co. that are making money are the Kaplan, Inc. pieces: Kaplan Kids and Schools, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, Kaplan Higher Education and Kaplan Professional. So with Jay Mathews, the Post's test prep cheerleader reporter getting ready for his new book tour, the Post has simply chosen the cheapest route to keeping the testing mania dream alive: it is recycling old op-eds in favor of more and more testing. On Jan. 16, they put up a piece by Bill Bennett and Rod Paige from 2006 calling for national testing:

Article | 01/16/2009

Why We Need a National School Test

William J. Bennett and Rod Paige (washingtonpost.com)

...reining in Washington's impulse to micromanage our nation's schools. William J. Bennett was education secretary under...

And on the same day, they recycled this piece by Chester Finn from Feb. 2008 on the virtues of NCLB:

Article | 01/16/2009

5 Myths About the Education Law Everyone Loves to Hate

Chester E. Finn Jr. (washingtonpost.com)

...capable people who want to teach but take a less traditional route to the classroom. cefinnjr@aol.com Chester E. Finn Jr....

Now I appreciate WaPo's money-saving efforts to make money for their crumbling empire, but in the interest of full disclosure on Finn's views on NCLB, I would like to include here some chunks from a revealing piece by the same Chester Finn for National Review:

The truth is, despite all the fuss and feathers about NCLB, there’s little agreement on exactly what ails or what might cure it — which is not to say there’s a shortage of advice. A five-foot shelf of books, studies, reports, commission recommendations, etc. is rapidly accumulating. (I plead guilty to having helped contribute a few inches.) Its very amplitude attests not only to the length and complexity of the law, but also to the disputed nature of what, exactly, is awry in NCLB 1.0 and what should be the essential attributes of version 2.0. Even more important, underlying all the technical specifics are five immense dilemmas that go to the heart of the matter.

Is NCLB’s grand goal itself naïve and unrealistic? Politicians pledge that no child will be left behind, yet I don’t know a single educator who seriously thinks 100 percent of American children can become “proficient” (according to any reasonable definition of that term) by 2014 in reading and math. Exemptions have already been made for seriously disabled youngsters. In truth, raising American kids from their current proficiency level of some 30 percent to 70 or 80 percent would be a remarkable, nation-changing achievement, yet I can’t imagine a lawmaker conceding this. The first thing hurled back at him would be “which 20 percent of the kids don’t matter to you?”

. . . .

Can Washington successfully pull off anything as complex and ambitious as NCLB in so vast and loosely coupled a system as American K–12 education, one in which millions of “street-level bureaucrats” can ignore, veto, or undermine the plans of distant lawmakers and regulators? I’m no great fan of local control of schools but I’m even less a fan of bureaucratic over-reaching.

Do the likely benefits exceed the ever clearer costs? Boosting skill levels and closing learning gaps are praiseworthy societal goals. But even if we were surer that NCLB would attain them, plenty of people — parents, teachers, lawmakers, and interest groups — are alarmed by the price. I don’t refer primarily to dollars. (They’re in dispute, too, with most Democrats wrongly insisting that they’re insufficient.) I refer to things like a narrowing curriculum that sacrifices history, art, and literature on the altar of reading and math skills; to schools that spend ever more of the year prepping kids to pass tests; to gifted pupils being neglected so as to pull low achievers over the bar; and to the homogenizing of schools — including charter schools — that crave the freedom to be different and offer parents distinctive choices.

So long as these monster questions lack agreed-upon answers, I don’t see much hope for an NCLB consensus, and I don’t see much hope for NCLB 2.0 anytime soon.

— Chester E. Finn Jr. is senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

Will the Shining Citi Becomes the CitiCorpse?

I've had a Citi credit card for a long time, and I have in recent years used it like a free Amex card: buy stuff and pay it off at the end of the month before interest accrues. Recently I got to wondering about all those points I've been collecting, and when I checked, I had enough for a new DVD recorder and a bunch left over.

About 2 weeks after my new player arrived, so did my monthly bill. My interest rate had gone from 7.99% to 14.96%. When I called up and finally got a human voice, I was told the cost of credit has gone up and so, I, a loyal platimum customer, must pay my fair share. When I asked a question that was not among the scripted responses, the poor lady put me onto a supervisor. He told me I could accept the new terms or accept the fact that my card would not be renewed when it expires.

Today's WaPo has a story about a new GAO report that shows that Citi is the leader among the corporate scumbags who set up foreign subsidiaries to evade American taxes. So it looks like now I and everyone else with a Citi Card is paying our fair share at least 4 times: the fees Citi collects for using its card, the increase in interest rates to pay for the tight credit, the taxpayer cash to pay for Citi's 45 billion dollar bailout, and now, extra taxes to pay for the taxes that Citi hasn't been paying for years.

I told the Citi supervisor on the phone that I know it is not his fault that he works for a corrupt bunch of thieves. He did not disagree--in fact, he said Happy New Year. From WaPo:

Most of America's largest publicly traded corporations -- including several that are receiving billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to finance their recovery -- have set up offshore operations that could help them avoid paying U.S. taxes on their profits, a government study released yesterday found.

American International Group, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are among the companies that are getting bailed out by U.S. taxpayers while having subsidiaries in locations where they can avoid paying U.S. taxes, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Of the 100 largest public companies, 83 do business in tax-haven hotspots like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, where they can move their income into tax-free accounts.

It is all legal, but it could come to an end, given the dire condition of the U.S. economy and President-elect Barack Obama's campaign pledge to close this popular business tax loophole. The Treasury estimates that it loses $100 billion a year in tax revenue as a result of companies shipping their income off shore, and congressional leaders are vowing to introduce legislation forcing big companies to pay full freight.

The GAO did not independently review company transactions to see if the companies purposely created tax-haven businesses to avoid U.S. taxes. But it said that historically, offshore subsidiaries are used for reducing tax costs and shielding transactions from public view.

Several of the companies are household names, including Pepsi, Exxon, Dell and Dow Chemical. In the list of 100 companies that GAO studied were 63 with major federal contracts, including Caterpillar, BearingPoint, Boeing, Merck & Co. and Kraft Foods.

Legislators gave particular attention to the 14 companies on the list that received bailout money from the Treasury in the recent financial meltdown. Sens. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Carl M. Levin (D.-Mich.) requested the GAO study as a launching pad for their effort to curtail what they call "tax-dodgers."

The bailout recipients on the list include Bank of America, which received $45 billion; Citigroup, $45 billion; American Express, $3.4 billion; and Goldman Sachs, $10 billion, according to the Taxpayers for Common Sense watchdog group.

"This is kind of like economic patriotism," Dorgan said. "Americans were told you have to pony up some money to help these companies. And it's rather infuriating for them to find out now that those companies, when they were profitable, didn't want to pay taxes and found clever ways to hide their money overseas."

Several companies said they are engaged in legitimate business operations around the world, and rejected the premise that they are trying to avoid paying their share of U.S. taxes.

Representatives from two companies reported in interviews that they couldn't say whether their foreign operations ultimately reduced their total tax bill.

"We do business around the globe," AIG spokesman Nick Ashooh said. "It's absurd that we're being accused of using these as tax havens. Now what the net tax impact is, that's extremely complicated."

The GAO found 17 companies with no business in tax-haven locales, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, United Parcel Service, Verizon, Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman. . . .

Duncan Uses Citizen's Briefing Book to Advance Business Roundtable Agenda

The Obama Team has up a website called Citizen's Briefing Book. According to the site, ideas can be entered, and others can vote the idea up (+ 10 points) or down (-10 points):

Share your ideas on any issue facing the new administration, then rate or comment on other ideas. The best rated ideas will be gathered into a Citizen's Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama after he is sworn in.

I spent some time on this site, and below are the ideas related to education that were ranked between 910 points to 54,900 points. There are over a hundred other ideas with a lower ranking than 910. And please note that the idea, "Eliminate No Child Left Behind," has 1050 points but is not listed in this grouping of "Popular Ideas." (In order to find it, in fact, you have to search the phrase, "Eliminate No Child Left Behind"). On the other hand, the idea, "Reform No Child Left Behind (NCLB)" has fewer points (1100) and is included in the Popular Ideas. Hmm--those algorithms can be so picky.

The Briefing Book is a great idea if it works to actually affect decision making, and only time will tell that. The NCLB "eliminate" vs. "reform" business just cited does not bode well for a transparent process. But that shortcoming is insignificant in comparison to how the Secretary Designate is using the Citizen's Briefing Book. So far, the Briefing Book has been turned into a scam to promote the Duncan (Business Roundtable) agenda, which has nothing to do with what citizens are suggesting to improve education.

In Duncan's first YouTube comments (see below) on what he is hearing from the citizens who care enough to write down their education ideas, he opens with this as #1:

" First there has been a series of folks who are interested in looking at alternate routes into the teaching profession. That's something I'm actually a big fan of . . . over the past five years, I think we brought 1,200 new teachers into the Chicago Public Schools through alternative certification routes."

Now I can assure you that the "series of folks" interested in alternative routes to teaching are not among those who are writing ideas into the "Briefing Book." I could not find any idea, in fact, on alternate routes to teaching or alternate certification or anything related under teacher preparation that had more than a couple of comments and very few points. Duncan is using the Briefing Book as an entry point to continue the propagandizing for the BR agenda that he began in Chicago under Daley. And with Wendy Kopp's name being floated for a top job with Duncan, it would make sense for him to begin to soften the ground for the cheap solution to the urban teacher issue: a ready supply of non-professional, inexpensive, temporary, issue-ignorant, enthused, malleable, patronizing, and privileged lasses who will not hang around long enough to be overly concerned with benefits or rights.

Duncan's second issue pick relates to an actual idea from the Most Popular List--a greater emphasis on vocational education. Some serious fact-checking is needed, however, on Duncan's claim that at there is a vast shortage of skilled blue collar workers. Perhaps this will prove true if any money from the bailout actually goes to rebuild infrastructure after the banks' stolen cash is replaced.

And the third idea that Duncan pulls is student loan forgiveness, which is a ways down the list from the public's more popular ideas, which are listed here, even though they have escaped the attention apparently of the Secretary Designate, who has much bigger fish to fry and many fewer people to listen to with ideas that are worth a whole lot more.

This is a ranked list rom the most "Popular Ideas" that are related to education:

54,900 An end to the government sponsored abstinence education to be replaced by an introduction of age appropriate sex education

22670 Encourage Trade Schools

12970 Establish a Free Online Educational System for the Working Poor!

9980 Encourage Science and Technology

9850 Healthy Kids Learn Better

9080 Focus on the Art and Creativity

7290 Lost SCIENTISTS and ENGINEERS

7270 Libraries of all types need our support

6940 Limit the cost of student loans

4790 Create an online E-Library

3900 Renew US leadership in education

3730 Return Civics Education to the Schools

3170 Money Management Taught in Public Schools

2900 National Service for College Students

1980 Financial Literacy Programs

1870 A New Curriculum

1690 Reclaiming America's Status as Science and Engineering Leader

1560 Studen [sic] Loan Help

1350 Re-introduce civics as a standard in high school education. Understanding

the constitution is fundamental to enforcing the constitution.

1330 STOP COLLEGE TEXTBOOK PRICE-GOUGING - help our students by reforming system!

1240 Solar and Wind Powered Schools

1210 Invest in Education (teacher pay)

1140 America needs more Doctors, Scientists and Engineers to solve today's and tomorrow's problems.

1140 No Child Left Inside - Promote Environmental Education

1120 Stop the privatization of public works

1120 Green Textbooks

1100 Reform No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)

1050 Include teachers in educational decision making

1030 Financial Literacy and Budgeting in Education

1020 Public School Gardens

990 Expand Student Loan Forgiveness Programs

950 Foreign languages should be an integral part of American education.

920 Cost of Education

910 Stop Credit card companies from taking advantage of college students

At least a hundred other ideas fall between 910 and 40 in the "Popular Idea" section, which is where I found this, the closest thing I could find that has anything to do with teacher qualification:

40 Teacher Qualifications
No degrees in education as a qualification for teaching. Prospective teachers must have a master's degree in their chosen field. Learning to be an educator is another, further step in the quest to be a teacher.

Finally, I found what is probably the least popular education idea:

-240 Abandoning public education

Too bad that the Business Roundtable, the ed industry, and Arne Duncan don't feel the same way.

Final Ironies in the Bush Sewer

With six days to go in the longest political nightmare in the history of Republic, the final moves, words, and scandals exuding from this Administration represent a perfect microcosm of the crimes, outrages, and base stupidity that have been the hallmarks of the Bush Reign. This week we found out conclusively that perjured racists have been running the Civil Rights Division at the U. S. Department of Justice. And this one, John Tanner, is being funded by the Justice Dept. to help other racists in Alabama to redraw voting districts to water down the black vote. From Talking Points Memo:




And yesterday the NYTimes carried a story of IRS plans to go looking for unpaid taxes at public and private universities. After all, the Feds are cash strapped after replacing all the money that the thieves who have wrecked our economy and stole with impunity as the SEC and other oversight agencies looked the other way. The universities should tell these jokers to go Cheney themselves:

The Internal Revenue Service is considering expanding its scrutiny of colleges and universities to focus on billions of dollars associated with academic research, federal financing and intellectual property, a senior agency official said on Tuesday.

The expansion of an investigation would put pressure on the schools to further disclose their inner financial workings as the I.R.S. undertakes a major effort to learn more about whether academic institutions are improperly using their nonprofit status to avoid paying certain taxes.

The expansion, while not yet certain, “is on the table,” Lois G. Lerner, the I.R.S.’s director of exempt organizations, said in a brief interview.

As part of its current investigation, which began last October, the I.R.S. sent unusually detailed questionnaires to 400 private and public universities and colleges about their executive compensation policies and their business activities.

While the institutions are not obligated to respond, not doing so can potentially lead to an audit.. . .

NY KIPP Teachers Ask for Union Protection

The KIPP chain gang ed model is backed by today's rich and powerful SEPs (social entrepreneurial parasites) as the final solution for urban schooling. Hundreds of millions of dollars are available to propagandize and to supplement the public expenditures on these test-cramming and behavior-mod camps that rob children of their capacity to grow and think as children do who are educated elsewhere. And as children are robbed by a bare-knuckled pedagogy sprinkled with eugenics-inspired positive psychology, so, too, are teachers robbed of any sense of professional autonomy, due process, or decision-making power.

And even though the SEPs make sure that NY KIPP teachers make $10,000 more per year than regular teachers, this incentive has not kept two KIPP schools from now asking for union protection. The teachers' reasons: stress and burnout over long hours, limited voice in school decisions, unfair evaluation systems, and unfair discipline policies. From the NY Times:

The United Federation of Teachers announced on Tuesday that it had organized teachers at two respected New York City charter schools, making inroads in a movement that has long sold itself as an alternative that is not hamstrung by union contracts and work rules.

Union officials said the teachers’ decision was an important step because the schools are part of the Knowledge Is Power Program, known as KIPP, which has 66 schools in 19 states and the District of Columbia and plays an influential role in national education debates. Advocates for charter schools — which are publicly funded but independently operated — expressed concern that unionization could undermine the schools’ effectiveness.

“A union contract is actually at odds with a charter school,” said Jeanne Allen, executive director of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington group that supports charter schools.

“As long as you have nonessential rules that have more to do with job operations than with student achievement,” she said, “you are going to have a hard time with accomplishing your mission.”

Several teachers at the two schools — KIPP Amp, a middle school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and KIPP Infinity, a middle school in Harlem — said the union organizing drive came about because they wanted a stronger voice on the job and because the demands on them were so rigorous. They also said that they wanted to insure a fair discipline and evaluation system.

KIPP’s teachers in New York generally earn at least $10,000 more a year than teachers at the city’s traditional public schools, but also typically work from 7:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, as well as one or two Saturdays a month. Many teachers also give students their personal phone numbers.

Those who run the schools say the extra hours and increased availability are exactly what are needed to boost student achievement — KIPP Amp and KIPP Infinity both earned A’s on their report cards and students had high scores on standardized tests. But several teachers at the two schools said some KIPP teachers were getting burned out and quitting, hurting the schools and student-teacher relations.

“It’s a matter of sustainability for teachers,” said Luisa Bonifacio, who teaches sixth-grade reading at KIPP Amp. “There’s a heavy workload, and people have to balance their lives with their work.”. . . .

The Rumor: Kopp, Rotherham, Schnur Top Picks for Duncan Lieutenants

If this happens, there will be war. From one of the Ed Week blogs:

This was written by Sharon Robinson, the president of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, to education lobbyists and others and passed to me by a source (not Robinson):

It has come to our attention that Education Secretary Designee Arne Duncan has proposed a leadership team for ED that includes Wendy Kopp, Jonathan Schnur, and Andy Rotherham. I do not know the exact position in each instance, but we can safely assume positions such as deputy, under-secretary, and chief-of-staff are strong probabilities.

Significantly, Linda Darling-Hammond, who has directed the education policy team for the Transition, is not on Duncan’s list for any position in the Administration. It is imperative that we act quickly to let the Transition Team know that Wendy, Jonathan, and Andy are unacceptable for these roles. They have evidenced a constant and intense disregard for working with the organized education community, and there is no reason to expect them to behave differently as agents of the Department of Education. In the case of Wendy and Jonathan, their appointments would signal expansion for organizations that promote the revolving door of under-qualified teachers as the best answer for poor children. The proposed team, if appointed, would be a grave disappointment for those of us who are hoping to change the education system in the interest of students. Fast-track teachers, scripted instruction, and lots of testing is not an adequate response for low-income students. That is what Kopp and Rotherham are promoting. This is not just a time to simply offer support for Linda Darling-Hammond. This is a moment when we need to let the Transition Team know that the circulated names of Kopp, Schnur, and Rotherham are not acceptable. . . .

Reified and Refried Reform

Plucked in its entirety from Deborah Meier's website, January 09:

Dear readers,

I kept reminding myself before the election that Obama’s victory—if we were so lucky—was not the end, but just the beginning of our work. But, actually, some part of me was expecting otherwise. I’m getting a wee bit tired of swimming against the stream.

The choice of Arne Duncan came not as a surprise, but a disappointment. I watched the “campaign” as it pitted “reformers” against “the status quo” placing Klein/Rhee/Vallas/Duncan in the former category and folks like Linda Darling-Hammond (Christenson, Walters and, I guess, me) in the latter. At first I didn’t think they could get away with such a starkly biased classification system. But said often enough it probably set the stage for the choice of Duncan—who’s probably the best of the infamous four.

Maybe the story really reflects the way Obama sees the world of education, maybe because he feels comfortable with Chicagoans, maybe because he feels he has to “rule from the center-right” as some argue. Maybe, maybe.

But the mindset that has now been reified as “Reform” is what scares me. It borrows the worst from the market-place world of business. We have much to learn about how to make schools work better on a large scale, but one thing we ought to have learned from the events post-Enron is that the current business-model of accountability is dangerous. And it’s dangerous because it’s built on glorifying greed, and has few penalties for distortion and corruption of data. Instead of tending to the shop, the “business” class now tends to “the data.” At heart it’s a modified Ponzi scheme that’s always promising, but can’t deliver, the real goods. “Goods” are, in fact, now part of the “old economy.”

The data quoted by Obama in announcing Duncan’s appointment is entirely without merit. He didn’t raise scores—except by changing the method of testing and scoring! That’s a fact. On the only reliable measure, even assuming “better” test scores are what we’re seeking, it’s been flat, flat, flat. NAEP scores (the one national test we can use to see real change over time) have remained stable since Duncan took over from Vallas –who had already rescued Chicago. How many knights on a white horse claiming victory can save the same city? (Remember Ron Paige and the Houston miracle?)

Ditto for graduation rates, even if we trust that the Chicago style retention policy hasn’t “disappeared” thousands of youngsters before they even get to high school. (Graduation rates rest on the 9th grade headcount.) And – I have to check this – less than 5% of those graduates who go to college apparently don’t complete a 4-year education. They are, as Mike Rose reminded us, totally “unprepared” for college work—or the work of democracy or decent jobs in the economy. They’ve been prepared instead for taking dumbed-down tests, unless they’re lucky enough to be rich and to go to schools like Chicago’s Lab School or Sitwell Friends in D.C.

There’s a possibility that some of the new small schools are better for kids. I tend to think so regardless of their test scores. And there are more selective schools that have wooed back some of the middle class—but not in ways that benefit the rest I fear.

It’s hard to blame Duncan—and in many ways I don’t. He’s not an educator and he’s just going along with conventional wisdom and the political thrust of the Mayor’s who now control our urban schools. I hear nice things about him “as a person.”

Maybe in a new position, under different forms of pressure he’ll start taking a closer look at what really must be done. Maybe he’ll hire some interesting educators to think through some of these dilemmas. But, these “maybes” probably also depend on the kind of pressure and response he gets not just from educators, but from everyone else who cares—parents, for example, just smart citizens, and employers who know that what they’re looking for won’t be “produced” this way. As for democrats…12 plus years of the kind of compliance thinking that tests reward are a poor prescription for the shaky future of democracy.

Deborah

© 2009 Deborah Meier

Duncan Came to Neither Bury NCLB Nor to Praise It?

Based on the testimony offered at today's confirmation party, Arne Duncan is already deep into his new role in the post-partisan and aggressively-neutral political drama unfolding in Washington: He came to neither bury NCLB or to praise it. What did he come to do?

Libby Quaid, the heir apparent at the AP's education desk to the obsequious stooge, Ben Feller (will he retire with Bush in Dallas?), ascribes to Duncan a plan to "lure more people into teaching." How will he do this?

. . . .Duncan praised an idea unions have resisted, the idea of teacher pay raises tied to student performance. Duncan started a performance-pay program in Chicago with federal dollars from the Education Department.

"That's something that I want to look at, to not just support but also potentially increase," Duncan said. "We can't do enough to reward and recognize ... excellence."

Duncan said he intends to travel the country recruiting new teachers and to take steps to keep teachers on the job.

"Given the tough economic times, that actually helps our chances of recruiting great talent," Duncan said.

Duncan also said kids should spend even more time in the classroom. Kids in 200 schools came to class on Saturdays last year, Duncan said, and he brought 15,000 freshmen back to school a month early on a voluntary basis.

"I think our school day is too short, our week is too short, our year is too short," he said.

There are numerous good and bad reasons that people go into teaching, but longer school days, longer school weeks, and longer school years are not among the reasons--the good reasons or the bad ones. Nor will competent and caring professionals be "lured" into teaching by the prospect of being evaluated and paid according to the results of high-stakes standardized tests. Good luck on the recruiting tour.

Outrage Against Duncan Swells

Black Agenda Report has a lengthy piece, "Arne Duncan and Neo-Liberal Racism," on Arne Duncan just in time for his confirmation hearing. Will any Democrat ask why Duncan is roundly praised by Spellings, Bush, and Rod Paige? Will Duncan repeat the half-truths and lies that he presented on the Hill last summer in his cheerleading testimony for autocratic rule of urban schools? Stay tuned.

by Paul Street

This article previously appeared on Znet.

"NO SCHOOL LEFT UNSOLD"

Educational justice advocates are understandably displeased with President-Elect Obama's appointment of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Arne Duncan to the position of Education Secretary in the next White House.

As the Chicago public school teacher Jesse Sharkey notes, "In the past couple years, Duncan has been turning public schools over to private operators - mainly in the form of charter and contract schools - at a rate of about 20 per year. Duncan has also resuscitated some of the worst ‘school reform' ideas of the 1990s, like firing all the teachers in low-performing schools (called ‘turnarounds'). At the same time, he's eliminated many Local School Councils (LSCs) and made crucial decisions without public input... Charter schools and test-score driven school ‘choice' have been the watchwords of Duncan's rule in Chicago" (Sharkey 2008). [1]

"Charter schools and test-score driven school ‘choice' have been the watchwords of Duncan's rule in Chicago."

University of Illinois at Chicago education professor Kevin Kumashiro notes that Duncan's Chicago policies have been "steeped in a free-market model of school reform" that feeds the drop-out rate, increases segregation, and does little if anything to increase student achievement. "Duncan's track record is clear," says Kumashiro: "Less parental and community involvement in school governance. Less support for teacher unions. Less breadth and depth in what and how students learn as schools place more emphasis on narrow high-stakes testing. More penalties for schools but without adequate resources for those in high-poverty areas" (Kumashiro 2008). . . .

Sir Ken Weighs In On NCLB

From HuffPo:

. . . . President-elect Obama has said that NCLB was well intentioned, and it was. He's said too that one of the major problems in implementing it has been the lack of federal funding, and it has. But he knows too that the problems with NCLB are much deeper than money. The whole premise of the act is deeply flawed. It's based on the fatal idea that to face the future schools just have to do better what they did in the past: they simply have to get back to basics and raise standards. Schools, and policy makers, should get back to basics. They should aim to raise standards too. Why would you lower them? But what are the basics now, and which standards should apply?

I said that the premise of the act is flawed. Actually there are three flawed premises. First, NCLB promotes a catastrophically narrow idea of intelligence and ability. The result is a terrible waste of talent and motivation in countless students. Second, it confuses standards with standardizing. The result is that schools across the country are becoming dreary and homogenized. And third, it assumes that education can be improved without the professional creativity and personal passion of teachers. The result is that too many good teachers are streaming out of the very schools that urgently need them to stay. All of this is holding America back in a world that's moving faster than ever.

To face the future, America needs to celebrate and develop the diverse talents of all of its people -- young and old alike. It needs to cultivate creativity and innovation, systematically and with confidence, in business, in culture and in rebuilding its post industrial communities. It needs to provide leadership at home and abroad in promoting deeper forms of cultural understanding and cooperation. These are the real basics. Basic to all of them is a different view of human talent and ability, and of the real conditions in which people flourish. . . . .

Boston Globe Escalates Shilling for Charter Movement

The Boston Globe was panting to get to press last week as the ink was still drying on a new non-refereed charter school study paid for by the Boston Foundation, the prime mover and financial backer of the charter school movement in Massachusetts. The Boston Foundation has a long history of supporting good causes, but it is not good that they are now selling their institutional reputation to Business Roundtable ideologues to advance an agenda for the de-professionalization of teaching, the corporatizing of schools, the elimination of unions, and the intellectual sterilization of urban school children, all to be accomplished while collecting dollar-for-dollar tax credits and pats on the back by those who are clueless on the self-serving nature of this new social entrepreneurial movement—where even acts of giving must be self-serving.

So then the Boston Globe has become the carrier of the corporate message of the “bold reformers,” or the reckless corporatizers, depending on your views of the relative importance of renewing the public commitment to public education—as opposed to embracing private entrepreneurial investments at taxpayer expense, all disguised as public giving and philanthropic goodness.

The Globe first ran a big news piece with graphs and stats last Monday ("Charter Schools Grade Highest), followed up with editorials and op-eds heavy with quotes from insiders at the Boston Foundation. In none of these pieces will you find any of the caveats and limitations that the authors of the study carefully detailed to keep respectable news sources and other readers from doing what the Globe has done. I don’t blame Boston Foundation President, Paul Grogan, from pumping his study. And pump he did in, of course, the Boston Globe:

Paul Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, which funded the research, was more direct. "There is no justification for keeping a charter cap in place that is denying urban, mostly black and brown children the opportunity for a demonstrably better result," Grogan said.

After all, Grogan's non-profit Boston Foundation (with almost a billion dollars in non-profit) paid for the study and has a huge vested, shall we say, interest in removing the cap on charter schools, thus removing the top on the tax credit cookie jar for all those hungry edu-entrepreneurs seeking to do good. But it is unconscionable that the Boston Globe offer such a one-sided presentation of a schooling situation that is anything but one-sided.

So, then, a few observations on the limitations of the study, since it is obvious that the Globe and the folks at the Boston Foundation are trying their best to paint a picture that only exists in the sunny side of the heads of the “bold reformers.” I will leave the statistical surgery for someone more competent, and I will use largely quotes from the authors, themselves.

The study, Informing the Debate: Comparing Boston’s Charter, Pilot, and Traditional Schools is really two separate research designs under the same cover. It can be downloaded at the Boston Foundation website.

The first part of the study is an observational study, and it examines MCAS test score differences among charters, pilot schools (a sort of hybrid with some charter and some traditional characteristics) and Boston Public Schools (BPS). As indicated by the researchers, themselves, the findings of the observational design are easy to fault because of the selection bias background characteristics that are unaccounted for in the study. Besides attracting parents, for instance, who are more eager to seek out opportunities for better academic results for their children, we know that the charter schools in this study have fewer special education students, fewer English language learners, and fewer poor students. No wonder, then, that these charters outperform the BPS schools and the Pilots.

Charter Schools also serve a smaller proportion of special education students, free- and reduced-price lunch students, and English learners than do the traditional BPS schools. In addition, high school Charter students tend to come in with substantially better math and ELA performance on the MCAS than those in traditional BPS schools (.412 standard deviations higher in math and .412 standard deviations higher in ELA) (p.15).

The authors of the study further concede that

students who go to Pilot and Charter Schools are different in important ways from those that do not. We need to take account of these differences before judging the relative effectiveness of these different school models” (p. 18).

In an earlier section the authors entitled “Caveats,” they go further:

Each design is described in detail on page 8. This study is limited by the constraints of our two research designs. The observational study includes all schools but does not control for unobserved differences in background characteristics. The lottery study controls for all differences in students’ background, including unobserved differences, but does not include all schools.

A second caveat relates to the observed control variables used in our study. These include indicators for participation in special education and limited English proficiency. These broad categories may disguise large differences in student groups. Special education students range from those needing intensive all day services to students needing a little extra time in a resource room. English learners may know no English at all or have some proficiency. It is possible that Pilot and Charter Schools serve different proportions of these subgroups. Unfortunately, our state data set does not provide finely detailed breakdowns for these two variables in a manner consistent or comprehensive enough to be useful for this study (p. 6).

The second research design is what the authors call a lottery study. Students who applied for and were selected into pilot and charter schools were compared to students who applied and were not selected to attend. Their individual test scores were tracked over time to compare the effect of charter schools, pilot schools, and BPS schools. Quite ingenious in design, but extremely limited in the sampling—as noted in the Caveats above. What results is a skewed picture based on a handful of the most popular charters compared with pilots with a much more limited lottery selection compared to the BPS who accept any student who walks in the door (remember public schools?).

. . . it's important to keep in mind that while the lottery study uses a stronger research design than the observational study, both the Charter and Pilot lottery results come only from schools and years in which the demand for seats exceeds the number of seats. Our Charter lottery results also omit schools and years for which lottery records are missing or incomplete. These considerations have the largest impact on the sample of Charter middle schools in the lottery study, where the estimated test score effects are largest.

On balance, our lottery-based findings provide strong evidence that the charter model has generated substantial test score gains in high-demand Charter Schools with complete records. On the other hand, these results should not be interpreted as showing that Boston Charters always produce test score gains. In Charter Schools with lower demand and incomplete lottery records, we have to rely on non-experimental results (p. 39).

And the non-experimental results, remember, are the ones from the observational study that the authors told us that we have to take with a big grain of salt. What does this mean? It means that this study, the one that the “bold reformers” are crowing about did not include test data for students from the lower tier of charter chain gangs, where, of course, the scores are most likely to be equally bad or worse than they are in the poorest public schools that the edu-preneurs don't give a damn about. If they did, they would be putting their money where their mealy mouths are.

And what about this lottery business—didn’t this “scientifically-based” study show the charter schools superior in test results than the pilot schools? Well, just like charter schools, not all lotteries are equal. The lotteries for the pilot schools were conducted after all the guaranteed seats were filled, which means that most of the students attending the pilot schools are there not because of a lottery draw but because they live within a guaranteed proximity of the school. Here comes the self-selection bias again, yes, because ALL of the charter school students are there because their parents cared enough to fill out the app to get them into the lottery. Apples to oranges!

And how many charter school kids are we talking about in this earth-shaking study? Well, in the middle schools, where the significant math gains earned a big chart placement in the Boston Globe, the total number of students was 953 students from four (4) charter schools. A pretty meager sample to use in order to build an argument that charters have kicked butt over the pilots and BPS.

But remember, it doesn’t take much when the media hammer the intended distortion until it becomes an all-pervasive meme that is passed from newspaper to TV and back again. After all, it was just one study, and one that could not even cover its own statistical contortions, by another Harvard rock star, Paul Peterson, that launched the urban voucher movement.

Why Doesn't This Feel Liberating?

Besides plugging Arne Duncan as the best hope to carry NCLB forward to its corporatizing conclusion, W had a few other truths this week to inspire a public made giddy with glee that he is finally leaving. In his final public policy speech, we find that W is not only the liberator of the Middle East, but also the liberator of us all via NCLB:

Now, under this system, if your public school is failing, you'll have the option of transferring to another public school or charter school. And it's -- I view that as liberation. I view that as empowerment.

Yes, yes, yes. Schools, indeed, have been liberated--from art, music, P.E., social studies, and even science. Throw in, or throw out, rather, Black History, health, holiday lore, assemblies, field trips, and recess and you have some real liberation, yes? Children have been empowered to cram their brains with testing items and to learn like parrots, all punctuated by their marching silently in the hallways to lunch 30 inches apart in lockstep.

Schools, yes, have been liberated from teachers who care too much or are too ethical to be part of the bureaucracies of sanctioned child abuse that schools have become in poor communities. Many of the teachers remaining have become empowered to create harsh behavior control regimens and to treat children as if it is their fault that they are not passing tests that would, otherwise, provide a teacher testing bonus. Urban schools have been liberated of most of their caring teachers.

Schools, too, have been liberated out of existence, to be replaced by charter chain gangs or church school vouchers that are no better or even worse than the impoverished public schools that are being shuttered. Charter school principals and mayors have been empowered to hire and fire at will without regard for due process or collective bargaining, while these same administrators have been liberated from any oversight or dissent from democratically-elected board members.

And children, yes, they have been liberated, too, from caring about what they are forced to "learn," liberated from any historical or cultural contexts for the factoids they parrot back at teachers. They have become empowered to pursue an anti-cultural sameness and a crass economic fundamentalism that makes education irrelevant unless it is motivated by a financial or other extrinsic reward.

Finally, the public has been liberated from a concern for what is imporant, what is significant educationally to sustain our republic, to maintain our political and cultural values, to preserve our ethics, to restore our environment, to even survive in the world as one of the best reasons to hope for the future of humankind.

As Cal State professor, Art Costa, has said, "What was once educationally significant, but difficult to measure, has been replaced by what is insignificant and easy to measure. So now we test how well we have taught what we do not value."

And yet he will not leave yet. He remains this week still the clueless and dangerous simpleton made senseless to the world by an unconscious convoluted stream of ideological bromides that are simply stunning in their absurdity and outlandishness:

The key to measuring is to test. And by the way, I've heard every excuse in the book why we should not test -- oh, there's too many tests; you teach the test; testing is intrusive; testing is not the role of government. How can you possibly determine whether a child can read at grade level if you don't test? And for those who claim we're teaching the test, uh-uh. We're teaching a child to read so he or she can pass the test.

Testing is important to solve problems. You can't solve them unless you diagnose the problem in the first place. . . .

To sum up Bush and to mangle T. S. Eliot all at the same time,

. . . And the end of all his exploring
Will be to arrive where he started
And still not know the place for the first time.

MSNBC, The Prison Channel, Will Never Show This

I was amazed over the holidays at the hours and hours of non-stop prison "documentary" footage on MSNBC, with the creepy John Seigenthaler as host and cheerleader for prison guards and wardens, who are never seen to be capable of doing anything wrong or even vaguely questionable. This kind of corporate media desensitizing of the public to the plight of the incarcerated in America, which has the largest prison population on Planet Earth, presents real questions about the social responsibility and educational responsibility of the mass media.

MSNBC's morbid fascination may be seen as helping to set the stage for the future urban police state, for which urban schools are certainly playing a role, too. (Watch any group of young children in urban schools holding together their imaginary straightjackets while mechanically marching to lunch, and you will see another part of the prelude).

Well, here is some footage you will never see on the MSNBC lockdown marathons. The first is from Oakland, where a young black man, already in custody, was repeatedly shot and killed at point blank range by a BART cop.

And today comes this from Raw Story about a young black man murdered by NOLA police:

A young, black man in New Orleans is dead, slain by police officers on New Year's Day, in an incident that has outraged a community and triggered protests over what family members are calling a "murder."

The New Orleans man, 22-year-old Adolph Grimes III, traveled to his grandmother's home near the French Quarter in order to celebrate New Year's Eve with his fiance and their 17-month-old son. Three hours after arrival, around 3 a.m., he was found dead a block from the front door.

The Orleans Parish coroner said Grimes was shot 14 times, including 12 times in the back.. . .

What Makes Teachers Effective: A Primer for Kate Walsh

Kate Walsh is the Sanjay Gupta of education policy. She looks good and is not afraid to lie when it is in the interest of the corporate pimp she is working for at the time. And just like Gupta's intentional falsehoods about Michael Moore's research related to Sicko, the media and the pols have forgotten or just don't care about Kate's earlier indiscretions that involved using federal grant money to flood the media with propaganda aimed at promoting bonus pay for test scores and directed at ridding the nation of teachers with credentials in teaching from accredited teacher education programs.

At least Gupta offered a muffled half apology for part of his lie about Michael Moore, whereas Walsh has done nothing to atone for her US DOE sponsored propaganda campaign and the misuse of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money that has never been repaid, despite the OIG's opinion:

The failure of these grantees to include the required disclaimer appears to have resulted in an improper expenditure of grant funds that should now be recovered.
Grant U215U030007-04 [$677,318], Oquirrh Institute and National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) (Appendix A, Item 1)

Walsh is still at it over at the "non-profit," NCTQ, except now she has access to the boundless billions from corporations that receive tax credits for helping Kate and her team in their attempts to bring down the teaching profession and the unions. Kate works tirelessly to load up urban schools with "teachers" who have a bachelors degree and have passed a test from the bogus outfit, ABCTE, that she help establish with $40 million in grants from, where else, US DOE. This is Kate's notion of "highly-qualified" teachers for poor children, a cheap supply of marginally-prepared test takers, themselves, who knows nothing about child development, teaching strategies, educational psychology, social justice issues, the history of education, or educational research.

The reason Kate is on my mind is that she is quoted in a WaPo article yesterday on Commandant Rhee's efforts to reduce the number of unqualifed teachers in the DC Schools. It seems that even though the number of highly-qualified teachers has risen this year, Rhee, and Walsh too, would just as soon have no teachers who are highly qualified. Instead of having teachers who have acquired state licensure, have a major or minor in the subject they teach, and have passed a state-approved test, Rhee sees no reason to be burdened by such credentialing:

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, a staunch supporter of No Child Left Behind, has nevertheless called for the law to be changed so that teachers are evaluated more on the basis of student performance than on credentials. "In our estimates, that is far more important than whether or not a teacher is highly qualified," said Dena Iverson, Rhee's spokeswoman.

If Rhee were chief administrator of a hospital, we could expect her, I would imagine, to be just as happy to have someone with no medical training treating the hospital's patients with a single approved treatment protocol, regardless of the illness and regardless of the ability of her replacement "doctors" to diagnose what was wrong with them. After all, there is a script for following the approved protocol, and if the worst happens and the patient dies, well then, it simply shows that the "doctor" was ineffective. Time to fire her and bring in another replacement. Those who are effective have living patients to offer evidence of their effectiveness, just as those effective teachers may be judged solely on how many survive the test.

Such crass, jaded, and ignorant conceptions of what constitutes teacher effectiveness are rampant among today's SEPs (Social Entrepreneurial Parasites), and Kate Walsh is no exception. Kate, Michelle, and their chums at TFA would be glad to turn over urban schools, where children need the most highly qualified teachers, to a supply of well-intentioned but ignorant temps or some desperate souls who have earned their teaching credential by passing an online test at ABCTE.

Walsh is quoted as an expert on teacher quality in the WaPo piece (remember that no one remembers her past lies), and offer this gem for the ages:

"I don't know anybody who could draw a direct correlation between being highly qualified and being effective."

Sadly, this demonstrates that Kate is still lying or that she is simply too ignorant to be quoted on any topic related to teaching. In either case, just for you, Kate, I have prepared a little cribsheet for the next time a WaPo reporter calls on your expert advice regarding teacher preparation or teacher effectiveness. Info is from the first chapter that offers somewhat of a lit review on teacher effectiveness--you don't even have to read the whole book, Kate! And pass this on to Mike Feinberg--he might learn something, too.

Stronge, James H. (2007). Qualities of Effective Teachers (2nd Edition). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

Teacher Certification

• Fully prepared and certified teachers have a greater impact on gains in student learning than do uncertified or provisionally certified teachers, especially with minority populations and in urban and rural settings (DarlingHammond, Berry, & Thoreson, 2001; Goe, 2002; Laczko-Kerr & Berliner, 2002; Qu & Becker, 2003).

• Teacher certification status and teaching within one’s field are positively related to student outcomes (Hawk, Coble, & Swanson, 1985).

• Teachers with certification of some kind (standard, alternative, or provisional) tend to have higher-achieving students than do teachers working without certification (Goldhaber & Brewer, 2000).
• 
  
• Students of teachers who hold standard certification in their subjects score 7 to 10 points higher on 12th grade math tests than do students of teachers with probationary, emergency, or no certification (Goldhaber & Brewer, 2000).
  

• Some studies have demonstrated relationships between standard certification and teacher practices (e.g., hands-on learning, connections to student experiences) (Darling-Hammond, 2000). These teacher practices have been found to be effective in supporting student achievement, thus illustrating a possible indirect relationship between traditional certification and student achievement.

• Teachers assigned to the area in which they are certified have been found to have more influence on student learning than uncertified teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2000b; Darling-Hammond, Berry, & Thoreson, 2001; Goldhaber & Brewer, 2000; Hawk, Coble, & Swanson, 1985; Laczko-Kerr & Berliner, 2002). For example, in a study comparing certified teachers who were licensed to teach mathematics with those licensed in another area, students taught by teachers instructing in their licensed field had higher levels of achievement (Hawk et al., 1985).

Related Resources: Cavalluzzo, 2004; Darling-Hammond, 1996, 2000, 2001; DarlingHammond et al., 2001; Darling-Hammond et al., 2005; Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 2003; Dozier & Bertotti, 2000; Ferguson & Womack, 1993; Fetler, 1999; Fidler, 2002; Goe, 2002; Goldhaber & Anthony, 2004; Goldhaber & Brewer, 2000; Hawk et al., 1985; Ingersoll, 2001; Laczko-Kerr & Berliner, 2002; Lilly, 1992; Mathews, 1999; Miller et al., 1998; Qu & Becker, 2003; Scherer, 2001; Stronge et al., 2005; Vandevoort et al., 2004; Wise, 2000.

Content Area Knowledge

• Teachers with a major or minor in their content area are associated with higher student achievement, especially in the areas of secondary science and mathematics (Wenglinsky, 2000).

• Students, teachers, principals, and school board members have all emphasized the importance of subject-matter knowledge in describing effective teaching (Covino & Iwanicki, 1996; Johnson, 1997; National Association of Secondary School Principals [NASSP], 1997; Peart & Campbell, 1999).

• The ability to convey content to students in a way that they can grasp, use, and remember is important, but it is not necessarily related to additional teacher knowledge or coursework in the content area (Begle, 1979; Monk, 1994; Monk & King, 1994).

• Content-area preparation is positively related to student achievement within specific subjects, especially in mathematics (Hawk et al., 1985; Wenglinsky, 2002) and science (Druva & Anderson, 1983).

• Several studies have illustrated that teachers with greater subject-matter knowledge tend to ask higher-level questions, involve students in the lessons, and allow more student-directed activities (Wenglinsky, 2000, 2002).

Related Resources: Berliner, 1986; Blair, 2000; Brookhart & Loadman, 1992; Carlsen, 1987; Carlsen & Wilson, 1988; Covino & Iwanicki, 1996; Darling-Hammond, 1996, 2000; Darling-Hammond et al., 2001; Druva & Anderson, 1983; Ferguson & Womack, 1993; Goldhaber & Brewer, 2000; Hill et al., 2005; Holt-Reynolds, 1999; Johnson, 1997; Mitchell, 1998; Monk & King, 1994; NASSP, 1997; National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, n.d.; Peart & Campbell, 1999; Rowan et al., 1997; Shellard & Protheroe, 2000; Shulman, 1987; Traina, 1999; Wenglinsky, 2000, 2002.

Teaching Experience

Experienced teachers have increased depth of understanding of the content and how to teach and apply it (Covino & Iwanicki, 1996). Additionally, experienced teachers are more effective with students due to their use of a wider variety of strategies (Glass, 2001). One study found that “schools with more experienced and more highly educated mathematics teachers tended to have higher achieving students” (Fetler, 1999, p. 9). This quality indicator does not necessarily mean that more years are better. Based on data from the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System, Sanders and Rivers (1996) found that teachers’ effectiveness increased through the first seven years of teaching and became flat by around year 10. (Note: The minimal teaching experience in Sanders’ original work was three years.)

If students are to learn, they need to feel comfortable in their instructional environment. In that respect, the personal connection that an educator makes with students assists in creating a trusting and respectful relationship (Marzano, Pickering, & McTighe, 1993; McBer, 2000). The ability to relate to students and convey a sense that they are valued and that the teacher wants them to be there is vital (Haberman, 1995a). Effective teachers have been described as caring, enthusiastic, motivated, fair, respectful, reflective, and dedicated individuals with a sense of humor who interact well with students and colleagues (Black & Howard-Jones, 2000; Delaney, 1954; National Association of Secondary School Principals [NASSP], 1997; Peart & Campbell, 1999). In brief, teachers’ effect on student learning is increased when students are taught by well-prepared professionals who integrate their knowledge of instruction with a deep sense of caring about the individual students they teach. As Sizer (1999) puts it, “We cannot teach students well if we do not know them well” (p. 6).

From Stronge, James H. (2006) Teacher Quality Index : A Protocol for Teacher Selection.
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2006.

Research supports the following findings related to teacher experience:

• Teachers with more experience tend to show better planning skills, including a more hierarchical and organized structure in the presentation of their material (Borko & Livingston, 1989; Covino & Iwanicki, 1996; Jay, 2002; Yildirim, 2001).
• 
  
• Effective experienced teachers are better able to apply a range of teaching strategies, and they demonstrate more depth and differentiation in learning activities (Covino & Iwanicki, 1996).
  

• Experienced teachers tend to know and understand their students’ learning needs, learning styles, prerequisite skills, and interests better than beginners do (Borko & Livingston, 1989; Covino & Iwanicki, 1996; Jay, 2002).

• The classrooms of more experienced teachers are better organized around routines and plans for handling problems than are those of novices (Covino & Iwanicki, 1996; Cruickshank & Haefele, 2001).

• Teachers with more than three years of experience are more effective than those with three years or fewer (Nye, Konstantopoulos, & Hedges, 2004), but these differences seem to level off after five to eight years (DarlingHammond, 2000; Scherer, 2001).

• Teacher expertise as defined by experience (as well as education and scores on licensing exams) accounts for as much as 40 percent of the variation in student achievement, which is more than race and socioeconomic status (Ferguson, 1991; Virshup, 1997).

• Schools with more beginning teachers tend to have lower student achievement (Betts, Rueben, & Danenberg, 2000; Fetler, 1999; Goe, 2002), and schools with student performance in the lowest quartile have more inexperienced teachers than those schools with student performance in the highest quartile (Esch et al., 2005). Related Resources: Betts, Rueben, & Danenberg, 2000; Borko & Livingston, 1989; Covino & Iwanicki, 1996; Cruickshank & Haefele, 2001; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Education Review Office, 1998; Esch et al., 2005; Fetler, 1999; Goe, 2002; Haycock, 2000, 2003; Jay, 2002; Kerrins & Cushing, 1998; Neilsen, 1999; Nye et al., 2004; Scherer, 2001; Tell, 2001; Virshup, 1997; Yildirim, 2001.

Stronge, James H. (2007). Qualities of Effective Teachers (2nd Edition).
Alexandria, VA, USA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

Bush Praises Duncan's "vision and leadership" in Final Domestic Policy Talk

With the enthusiastic support of Margaret Spellings, Rod Paige, and now, the Decider Himself, we must conclude that the Arne Duncan choice for Secretary was the right one--to continue, that is, the corporatizing of public education in America.

Funny thing, WaPo has a story this morning on the context of the endorsement, Bush's final public policy speech that continues his demonstrable lies about NCLB right up the end, but there is nothing about Bush's embrace of Arne Duncan. Hmm.

From MSNBC's First Read and John Yang:

In his speech in Philadelphia, President Bush went out of his way to praise Arne Duncan, President-elect Obama's education secretary-designate. The relevant paragraph:

"I have seen the resolve for reform and the belief in high standards in Chicago, where reading and math scores are soaring, and where every child still has time to study a foreign language and the fine arts. The school in Chicago we went to, like other schools across the city, have benefitted from the vision and leadership of a person named Arne Duncan. And he is going to be the next Secretary of Education. And we are fortunate he has agreed to take on this position. And we wish him all the very best."

Duncan appears before the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Tuesday morning.

In other words, you're doing a heckuva job, Arne. Is his nickname really Dunker?

. . .The Independent reveals consensus that CO2 cuts have failed – and their growing support for technological intervention

There is one crisis that has to be moved to the front of all the others, whether the others are economic, educational, moral, political, or even existential. The reason is simple and deadly: the future of human civilization on Earth will be extinguished unless we move quickly and effectively to control global warming.

This is not scare talk--it is the reality that most of us don't want to acknowledge. And it is time for educators to step up to make sure that children know the stakes and understand the urgency. If the plans discussed in the news article below are not successfully implemented, you may as well have your grandchildren will the farm to the cockroaches.

From The Independent:

By Steve Connor, Science Editor and Chris Green
Friday, 2 January 2009

Poll of international experts by The Independent reveals consensus that CO2 cuts have failed – and their growing support for technological intervention

An emergency "Plan B" using the latest technology is needed to save the world from dangerous climate change, according to a poll of leading scientists carried out by The Independent. The collective international failure to curb the growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has meant that an alternative to merely curbing emissions may become necessary.

The plan would involve highly controversial proposals to lower global temperatures artificially through daringly ambitious schemes that either reduce sunlight levels by man-made means or take CO2 out of the air. This "geoengineering" approach – including schemes such as fertilising the oceans with iron to stimulate algal blooms – would have been dismissed as a distraction a few years ago but is now being seen by the majority of scientists we surveyed as a viable emergency backup plan that could save the planet from the worst effects of climate change, at least until deep cuts are made in CO2 emissions.

What has worried many of the experts, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as a Nobel Laureate, is the failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions through international agreements, namely the Kyoto Treaty, and recent studies indicating that the Earth's natural carbon "sinks" are becoming less efficient at absorbing man-made CO2 from the atmosphere.

Levels of CO2 have continued to increase during the past decade since the treaty was agreed and they are now rising faster than even the worst-case scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body. In the meantime the natural absorption of CO2 by the world's forests and oceans has decreased significantly. Most of the scientists we polled agreed that the failure to curb emissions of CO2, which are increasing at a rate of 1 per cent a year, has created the need for an emergency "plan B" involving research, development and possible implementation of a worldwide geoengineering strategy.

Just over half – 54 per cent – of the 80 international specialists in climate science who took part in our survey agreed that the situation is now so dire that we need a backup plan that involves the artificial manipulation of the global climate to counter the effects of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases. About 35 per cent of respondents disagreed with the need for a "plan B", arguing that it would distract from the main objective of cutting CO2 emissions, with the remaining 11 per cent saying that they did not know whether a geoengineering strategy is needed or not.

Almost everyone who thought that geoengineering should be studied as a possible plan B said that it must not be seen as an alternative to international agreements on cutting carbon emissions but something that runs in parallel to binding treaties in case climate change runs out of control and there an urgent need to cool the planet quickly.

Geoengineering was dismissed as a distraction a few years ago but it has recently become a serious topic of research. Next summer, for example, the Royal Society, in London, is due to publish a report on the subject, led by Professor John Shepherd of the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton University. Professor Shepherd was one of the scientists who said that a plan B was needed because he was now less optimistic about the prospects of curbing CO2 levels since Kyoto was agreed, and less optimistic about the ability of the Earth's climate system to cope with the expected CO2 increases. "Geoengineering options... must not be allowed to detract from efforts to reduce CO2 emissions directly," said Professor Shepherd, who studies the interaction between the climate and oceans. In answer to the question of whether scientists were more optimistic or less optimistic about the ability of the climate system to cope with increases in man-made CO2 without dangerous climate change, just one out of the 80 respondents to our survey was more optimistic, 72 per cent were less optimistic, and 23 per cent felt about the same.

Professor James Lovelock, a geo-scientist and author of the Gaia hypothesis, in which the Earth is a quasi-living organism, is one of those who is less optimistic. He believes that a plan B is urgently needed. "I never thought that the Kyoto agreement would lead to any useful cut back in greenhouse gas emissions so I am neither more nor less optimistic now about prospect of curbing CO2 compared to 10 years ago. I am, however, less optimistic now about the ability of the Earth's climate system to cope with expected increases in atmospheric carbon levels compared with 10 years ago," he told The Independent. "I strongly agree that we now need a 'plan B' where a geoengineering strategy is drawn up in parallel with other measures to curb CO2 emissions." . . . .

Read the rest here.

Remember the Achievement Gap?

Text below is from the NEA Today, which has come out its hidey hole now that the big bad Bush is building a new security perimeter for his return to Texas. What a bunch of cowards. If this crew of self-serving bureaucrats had mobilized their 2 million members eight years ago, we would not have had this debacle to begin with.

But, instead, they played it safe, just as they are about to play it safe again as they cuddle up with the corporations to strangle the public schools with more tests and more money based on test scores.

What the charts show, of course, is that trading in the bigotry of low expectations for the racism of NCLB's impossible demands has done nothing to close the achievement gap.

. . . .Is it working? Or as President George W. Bush once asked, “Is our children learning?” We hear a lot about test-stressed students, curricula stripped down to make way for teaching to the test, and exasperated teachers leaving the profession. But NCLB supporters say if students do better in reading and math, and if low-income, minority students close the achievement gaps, that’s worth the agony.

And we do hear that in many schools, teachers are getting out of their silos and working together to help all children achieve.

What’s more, scores on state tests are definitely climbing.

So-is that proof of success?

No, it isn’t, according to leaders in the science of testing. Scores always rise when you put high stakes on a particular test, whether or not students actually know more. This phenomenon even has a name: Campbell’s Law.

Harvard University Professor Daniel Koretz, a leading test researcher, explains it with an analogy to polling before an election. Pollsters can’t call every voter. Instead, they choose a small sample. Let’s say a campaign polled 1,000 likely voters and poured all their energy into winning over just those voters, ignoring everyone else. They would probably see encouraging gains among the 1,000 voters-and then lose the election by a landslide.

Koretz says a math test works the same way: No test can cover all the skills from every angle that students should master, so the test is just a small sample. If you focus on teaching kids to correctly answer problems that use a particular question format and only cover a narrow range of skills, students will do better and better-that is, until someone asks them questions in a different way, or measures a different set of skills from the larger curriculum.

Koretz carried out an ingenious demonstration of this phenomenon in the 1980s in a school district he had to agree not to name. The stakes on test scores in that district were “laughably low compared with today’s,” he says, but teachers did feel pressure to get scores up.

When the district switched to a new test, Koretz says, “scores dropped like a rock.” But over the next four years, they rose steadily.

Now comes the clever part: Koretz gave students the old test, the one that no longer carried high stakes so teachers didn’t prep students to take it. Their scores plummeted. His conclusion: Four years of rising scores did not reflect real achievement, just teaching to a new test.

Research on scores on high-stakes tests in Kentucky and Texas also showed Campbell’s Law in action.

So to see whether NCLB is really boosting achievement, we can’t rely on high-stakes state tests. We need to look at scores on a test for which students don’t get prepped.

Luckily, there is one: the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). It’s given to large, random samples of students periodically, but there are no scores for individual schools so nobody’s career is at stake.

Last Update January 9 2:35 pm

I'm not sure the crack staff at NEA was doing with their charts, but here are a couple from NAEP that demonstrate the achievement gaps over time. For some odd reason the Age 9 chart would not upload, but it shows a very similar pattern. For more up-to-date comparisons from NAEP, go here.

Click chart to enlarge.

Who is Monitoring Duncan's CPS Charter Goon Squads?

No one.

And no one dare dare report incidents like strip searches, or else end up as did whistleblower teacher, Meg Sullivan. Here is just a intro snippet from the Sun-Times's extensive round-up on the latest disasters within the Chicago Miracle:

BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter
Three high school girls, taken into a washroom one at a time by an off-duty Chicago police officer, told to drop their pants, squat and cough -- all in the hunt for a cigarette lighter that was never found.

Student grades bumped up a notch -- including Fs converted to Ds.

Dozens of student absences that mysteriously evaporated from report cards.

These are the charges that are now swirling around a charter school, one of dozens of new schools started under Mayor Daley's Renaissance 2010 initiative -- an approach touted by President-elect Barack Obama as he tapped Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan to be the nation's next U.S. Secretary of Education.

Chicago Public School officials say they investigated the allegations involving ASPIRA Early College Charter High School, and that two administrators and the off-duty Chicago police officer who was acting as a school security guard have been "disciplined'' and left the school as a result.

But the whistleblower in the case questions whether CPS acted thoroughly and swiftly enough, whether grades and attendance were ever fully corrected, and whether anyone is truly monitoring CPS charter schools.

"I was sick to my stomach about it,'' said teacher Meg Sullivan. "Is nothing sacred - not even children?''

'What else is going on?'
Sullivan said she complained in June to both ASPIRA of Illinois, which operates Early College High and three other charter schools, and to the CPS Office of New Schools, which oversees Renaissance 2010 schools. She said nothing much happened until she stood up publicly at the August School Board meeting.

Sullivan said it took ASPIRA five months to take any action against Principal Jose Velazquez, but ASPIRA fired her within days of her complaints to ASPIRA and CPS. She is pursuing a retaliatory discharge action against ASPIRA.

"I was fired within five days, and I didn't do anything but look out for the interests of the children,'' said Sullivan. "If I wasn't willing to risk my job, nothing would have happened.

"It makes me wonder what else is going on in these charter schools?''

This week, the office of CPS's inspector general opened its own investigation into grade-changing and alleged attendance tampering at ASPIRA Early College. Plus, CPS officials are now trying to determine if they acted as quickly as they could have, a CPS spokesman said.

Meanwhile, a federal lawsuit is expected to be filed Thursday against the off-duty police officer and ASPIRA of Illinois on behalf of two of three girls whom lawyers James Fennerty and Robert Ludemann say were illegally "strip searched'' on Dec. 20, 2007, during the opening year of ASPIRA Early College High, then located at 3729 W. Leland. . . .

Grand Theft Charter

From Central Florida News 13. By the way, no newspaper bothered to carry this story:

WEST MELBOURNE -- Two former top leaders at a Brevard County charter school are under arrest Tuesday, accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the schools operating budget.

The Explorer Charter School shut down in 2007 after an audit revealed more than two dozen employees were overpaid by tens of thousands of dollars.

Now, an FDLE investigation has shown former principal Ruben Rosario and former finance director Jay Maer were allegedly behind the thefts.

Maer is accused of receiving nearly $30,000 in unexplained payments. He was charged with grand theft and forgery, among other charges.

Rosario surrendered to the Brevard County Jail Tuesday. He is charged with several counts of grand theft.

Corporate Vouchers and the Smell of Doing "Good"

If you want to smell close up the reek of the corporate welfare parasites that are feeding off what remains of public education, sniff no further than Florida and its corporate voucher program.

Advertised as a way to offer better choices to poor parents of children in poor schools, the Corporate Tax Credit voucher program neither requires children to have ever been enrolled in a "failing" public school, nor does it come anywhere close in providing enough money to provide anything other than marginal schooling. The voucher is worth just about half of what the state paid would pay for a public education.

Both of these clean feats are accomplished while providing the corporations that give to the voucher fund a dollar in reduced taxes for every dollar they put into the fund. So in the end the public schools are further bled by a shrinkage of $6,106 for every child whose parents opt for the $3,416 voucher, while parents are stuck looking for a school that can provide an education as good as the public schools without the benefit of any accountablility requirement of those private "schools" accepting the public dollars. Thank you, Jeb Bush, for leaving this shiny trail for the world to see what a smelly slug you really are.

Sadly, the ploy of "educating" the poor at a big savings in taxes that can be turned into tax write-offs for corporations engaged in this variety of blood-sucking beneficence is not limited to Florida's corporate voucher program. It is the power source fueling the non-profit charter school movement as well. Large social entrepreneurial investment funds are ready for the feeding frenzy that they anticipate when Obama's Secretary Duncan fires the starting gun for the new race to pilfer the federal treasury for corporate benefit, while bringing the death blow to public schools trying as they will to survive. And all of it will done in the drippingly cynical name of the poor, whose poverty will assuredly remain the untreated cause of their numerous gaps, from achievement to health to job to prison, for yet another generation that remains preoccupied by "bold education reform."

Here is the story Winter Park Observer by a guest writer. The corporate media, not even the Winter Park Observer, is interested in putting a paid reporter on this:

By Kristy Vickery
Guest Writer

As public school officials contemplate how to deal with an increasing deficit, a new report on the cost of private school vouchers could put more pressure on them.

"The only way to get funding for a school is if a child is sitting in a desk," Orange County School Board Chairwoman Joie Cadle said. "Having more (private school) vouchers would take money away from public schools."

A report released last week by the state Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, or OPPAGA, shows that students choosing private schools may cost individual school systems money, but the state will actually spend less per pupil on students who use vouchers.

The OPPAGA report says the Corporate Tax Credit, a voucher program established in 2001 to help low-income students afford private school tuition, saved state taxpayers $38.9 million last school year and currently serves 23,234 students from households whose income meets federal guidelines for free and reduced lunch.

"We welcome OPPAGA's findings," said John Kirtley, chairman of the Florida School Choice Fund and the Tampa businessman who helped create the program. "We certainly want taxpayers to know we are saving them money, and we hope our partners in public education benefit from our savings."

Students in private schools cost the state less than students in public schools. According to the report, in 2007-08, the cost of the average scholarship for a student in private schools was $3,412, compared with the state cost of $6,106 in public schools. It is also estimated that 90 percent of scholarship recipients would have attended a public school if they had not received a scholarship through the program. For each $1 lost through corporate tax credits, the state saves $1.49 in general revenue.

"While the program reduces the amount of corporate tax revenues received by the state, it produces a net fiscal benefit," the report stated. "This occurs because state education spending for students who receive scholarships is reduced by more than the amount of revenue lost."

Although these savings please Kirtley, he said it is not the purpose of the program.

"The purpose of the program is not to save taxpayers money, but to give low-income families more educational options if their kids are struggling in their assigned schools," he said. "Our only goal is to improve the educational outcomes of low-income kids."

But some public school officials warn against low-income families making the choice to educate their children in a private setting.

Orange County School Board member Rick Roach said parents who use voucher programs should be careful.

"There's no proof that they improve the quality of education," Roach said.

Seminole County Public School Board member Jeanne Morris also has concerns about private school voucher programs.

"Students lose all constitutional rights in private school settings," Morris said.

Morris also said she questions the quality of education students receive under these programs because they are not required to take the same tests as students in public schools.

"There's no measurement to see the success of education these kids are receiving," Morris said. "And when you set your own grades, you can give kids whatever grades they want."

The OPPAGA report states that private school representatives will not encourage their schools to participate in state tests, such as the FCAT, and some would likely stop accepting scholarship students if required to use the FCAT. The report does undermine the argument that vouchers drain public school funds.

Rhee and Fenty: Accountable to No One

Today's WaPo has a piece by Bill Turque, who is the one of the few education reporters at the paper willing to look under the rock that he happens to writing about. It seems that, according to Turque's article, a year and a half into the Rhee Reign of Terror, there is still no approved vehicle for evaluating hers and Fenty's handiwork.

Knowing they have a deal that gives them until 2012 to offer some public evidence on whether or not their union-busting and charterization is having any positive effect on student learning, Fenty has offered to have Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute or Ken Wong, who never saw a mayoral takeover of schools he didn't like, to do the research. Ha ha ha.

Needless to say, Council Chair, Vincent Gray, is not impressed by the choices, nor is he impressed that Fenty wants to offer corporations a tax break for funding such a study. Gray has the audacity to ask for public funding of an unbiased study. Since Fenty and Rhee will never willingly accept a study whose results they cannot control, I would guess we are looking at 2012. By then, Rhee should have mostly charter chain gangs in place in DC, scripted parrot learning work camps manned by a permanent supply of bright and ignorant temps from Teach for America. All at a 20% discount to the taxpayers, and a whole wad of tax breaks for corporations that will help create the new non-profit corporate charters.

Will the new student work camps even be as good as the poverty-riddled public schools they will replace? Who will ever know--by then we will surely have some dollar store version of value-added growth model testing, and no one graduating into our world class economy at that time will be, in E. M. Forster's words, "a penny the stupider."

Here's the story:

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray said yesterday he will seek an independent evaluator to assess the progress of public school reform in the District under Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee.

"The council believes it's important to have an independent look," Gray (D) said during his monthly news briefing at the John A. Wilson Building.

Gray said he is stepping in because Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) has not acted. Under the 2007 law establishing mayoral control of the school system, Fenty is required to submit an annual evaluation of the District of Columbia Public Schools addressing areas such as academic achievement, business practices and personnel policies. Fenty also has the option under the law to skip the annual reports and deliver a five-year independent assessment by Sept. 15, 2012.

Last May, seven months after the deadline specified in the law, Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso recommended two education scholars for the project: Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute and Kenneth Wong of Brown University. But the plan stalled when Gray raised questions about their independence.

Both are experts on mayoral takeovers of school systems. But Hess, the institute's director of education policy studies, wrote an op-ed piece for The Washington Post in 2007 praising Rhee. Wong testified in favor of the mayoral takeover.

Gray said he also had concerns about the transparency of the study's financing. Fenty proposed that the five-year, $750,000 cost be picked up by the D.C. Public Education Fund, which the mayor established to attract private-sector contributions to aid school reform. Among the fund's board members is New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein, a friend and mentor of Rhee's.

Gray, who wants the project publicly funded, said that he has received no other names of potential evaluators from Fenty. After more than 18 months of the schools under mayoral control, he said plans must be made to meet the law's requirements.

"We're at one-and-a-half years," Gray said. "If we're going to have an objective analysis, now is the time to begin."

Rhee referred an e-mailed request for comment to mayoral spokeswoman Mafara Hobson. She said the mayor intends to comply with the evaluation requirement but has not submitted new names to the council.

Gray said he expected that the D.C. auditor's office would supervise the project, which was first disclosed in Saturday's Washington Post by columnist Colbert I. King. Gray said that he did not have any specific researchers in mind but that he hoped to have the review underway by spring.

Fenty and Rhee control day-to-day operations of the school system, but the council conducts oversight hearings. On Jan. 16, Gray will hold a session on teacher quality issues, including Rhee's plan to put some teachers on probation, giving them 90 school days to improve their performance or face dismissal. Rhee initiated the effort after failing to reach agreement with the Washington Teachers' Union on a contract that would award most instructors big raises and performance bonuses in exchange for a weakening of tenure protections.

"We continue to be deeply concerned about DCPS and the Washington Teachers' Union being able to reach an agreement which would allow far more predictability in the relationship of teachers to DCPS," Gray said yesterday during an online chat with Post readers.

Waltham MA Group Opposes Charter School

Act today. From the Daily News Tribune.

The public comment period for a planned charter school ends Monday, and city officials remain steadfast in their opposition.

School Committee member Margaret Donnelly has been helping lead an effort to fight a plan by Waltham social service agency Rediscovery Inc. to open the Rediscovery Academy Charter School in 2010.

On Wednesday, Donnelly said Gov. Deval Patrick's recent announcement saying he may have to make additional cuts in state aid to cities and towns is a new reason to oppose the charter School.

"I think the news from the governor this week of potentially more money cuts for local aid will hopefully have an effect on the (state) Board of Education's decision (whether or not to approve the charter school proposal)," she said. "Our local aid would be reduced and the money for the charter school would come off the top of state aid to the city."

Donnelly said she has been contacting residents and officials. She said she mailed a packet to the Board of Education containing 15 letters from city and state officials opposing the plan and a DVD of a public meeting held in Waltham in early December, in which community members and city officials came out in droves to oppose the plan.

Last month, Stanley Elementary School PTO President Susan McKinney created a Web page which has links to templates for letters to oppose the school. The Web page also has addresses for members of the Board of Education, which is the charter granting authority.

"It just seemed obvious to me. I had received from (Donnelly) a bunch of different documents and things and I wanted to be able to forward to people or have other people have access to," McKinney said. "I was pretty sure the public schools weren't taking initiative on something like this. Since I'm the webmaster at the Stanley, I figured I can put something together. Obviously it's biased against the charter school, but the information is there for anyone on either side and you can (research it)."

McKinney said the Web page was created around Dec. 10 and is linked to the Stanley school's Web site. The site is owned and maintained by the PTO.

"I was concerned people were not going to find the time (to contact the Board of Education)," she said. "I was concerned and I wanted to make it easy for people to have a voice."

The Web site is http://www.stanleyschool.org/rediscovery.html. . . .

Bill Ayers on Arne Duncan: "the smart choice, the unity choice"

When a former student sent me a link to Ayers's commentary, Obama and education reform, at HuffPo, I was eager to click over to see what my distinguished colleague had to say. It started off predictably enough:

Of course I would have loved to have seen Linda Darling-Hammond become Secretary of Education in an Obama administration. She's smart, honest, compassionate and courageous, and perhaps most striking, she actually knows schools and classrooms, curriculum and teaching, kids and child development. These have never counted for much as qualifications for the post, of course, and yet they offer a neat contrast with the four failed urban school superintendents--Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Paul Vallas, and Arne Duncan -- who were for weeks rumored to be her chief competition.

These four, like George W. Bush's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige of the fraudulent Texas-miracle, have little to show in terms of school improvement beyond a deeply dishonest public relations narrative. Teacher accountability, relentless standardized testing, school closings, and privatization -- this is what the dogmatists and true-believers of the right call "reform."

Well said, my good man. But a graph down came this:

So I would have picked Darling-Hammond, but then again I would have picked Noam Chomsky for state, Naomi Klein for defense, Bernardine Dohrn for Attorney General, Bill Fletcher for commerce, James Thindwa for labor, Barbara Ransby for human services, Paul Krugman for treasury, and Amy Goodman for press secretary. So what do I know?

Darling-Hammond would not have been a smart pick for Obama. She was steadily demonized in a concerted campaign to undermine her effectiveness, and she would surely have had great difficulty getting any traction whatsoever for progressive policy change in this environment. Arne Duncan was the smart choice, the unity choice--the least driven by ideology, the most open to working with teachers and unions, the smartest by a mile-- and let's wish him well.

Here we see a sad, though precise, example of the mirror image of the Far Right: you are still limited to being "with us or against us," but now the good and the evil have simply changed hands. So if, according to Ayers, public circumstance does not allow our modern Presidential rail splitter from Illinois, or is that rail sitter, to choose from the good, then let him, with our blessings, choose the smartest of the evil. After all, we are smart, too, and if we are going to make a deal with devil, at least we want to deal with someone smart enough to respect our intelligence. Someone who drives a stylish juggernaut is much preferred, don't you think, to one of those noisy, clunky locomotive types.

The truth, of course, is that outside the the faith-based worldviews of the official Far Right and the official Far Left, there are many choices along the ideological and operational continuum. Darling-Hammond, in fact, represented part of the great unexplored middle ground, just as did the ignored Doug Christensen, Peter McWalters, and dozens of others whose potential choice would have represented something other than a rubber stamp for the Business Roundtable corporate welfare agenda of the Far Right. And why should we expect that Darling-Hammond be painted as anything other than a radical by those on the Right who view her as "against us." Sadly, Ayers's own either-or digital thinking allows him to fall prey to the same game, same trap.

There is, too, a peculiar kind of fatalism emanating from the Ayers piece, even for a good Marxist. Sort of oh well, so what's new, stop your whining and get to back to work. Welcome the new boss, same as the old boss, blah, blah.

But there's a deeper point: since the Obama victory, many people seem to be suffering a kind of post-partum depression: unable to find any polls to obsess over, we read the tea-leaves and try to penetrate the president-elect's mind. What do his moves portend? What magic or disaster awaits us? With due respect, this is a matter of looking entirely in the wrong direction.

Obama is not a monarch -- Arne Duncan is not education czar -- and we are not his subjects. If we want a foreign policy based on justice, for example, we ought to get busy organizing a robust anti-imperialist peace movement; if we want to end the death penalty we better get smart about changing the dominant narrative concerning crime and punishment. We are not allowed to sit quietly in a democracy awaiting salvation from above. We are all equal, and we all need to speak up and speak out right now.

During Arne Duncan's tenure in Chicago, a group of hunger-striking mothers organized city-wide support and won the construction of a new high school in a community that had been underserved and denied for years. Another group of parents, teachers, and students mobilized to push military recruiters out of their high school; Duncan didn't support them and he certainly didn't lead the charge, but they won anyway. If they'd waited for Duncan to act they'd likely be waiting still. Teachers at another school refused to give one of the endless standardized tests, arguing that this was one test too many, and they organized deep support for their protest; Duncan didn't support them either, but they won anyway. If they'd waited for Duncan, they'd be waiting still. Why would anyone sit around waiting for Arne now? Stop whining; get busy.

So now do we have our own left-wing version of Mr. Tough Nut, Phil Gramm? Could this really be a psychologized privatization-corporate welfare scheme that we have dreamed up, rather than a real one? Except that Bill Ayers conveys nothing of the ramrod toughness of the fascist right that Gramm conveyed, but, rather, a milquetoasty soft-focus optimism based on an illusion of our government operating as a perfect democracy that gets its direction from the street, rather than from those we elect to make good appointments and to represent us for us in this highly imperfect union, sort of.

Now if Bill Ayers actually believes, for instance, that "if we want a foreign policy based on justice, for example, we ought to get busy organizing a robust anti-imperialist peace movement," then so be it. There are all sorts of pies in the sky to choose from, if that is where you like to forage for sustenance. But if he believes that the current testing hysteria and canned learning epidemic, our current schooling phenomenon that threatens to undermine the capacity of young people to discern the truth and to think, is going to be overturned by a few testing refusniks who are willing to give up their teaching jobs, then get the hell out of my face, mister.

Public education cannot survive eight years of the male version of Margaret Spellings, and there is no reason to pretend that it can. We could have a Secretary of Education that, yes, might not be fully with us, but one, too, that is not fully against us. To pretend and to advise that we should roll over for a choice whose primary postive attribute is that he is the smartest of the enemies of public education represents an invitation to the continued and extended domination of education by corporate interests--and those interests are not public, or even national, ones.

On the other hand, if you have built your own small empire as one of the most marginalized academic silverbacks among the perpetually disenfranchised intellectuals, then it could be that Duncan is not, indeed, such a bad choice, but one who represents the kind of reasonable repression that actually embraces the discourse of dissent as long as nothing changes outside the covers of the academic journals where such dissent safely rages. It could be that Duncan is just the right choice, in fact, to inspire a new redolent rhetoric of protest by those Marquard skewered on the academic Left as the "elites of non-elitism," those, in fact, "who live for the revolution and by its non-arrival." Don't worry, Arne and Bill, nothing has changed.

Last updated: 12:25 PM

Arne Duncan: Portfolio Manager or Schlock Trader?

On July 17, 2008 Congressman George Miller brought before the Education and Labor Committee a small band of "Democratic" urban mayors and superintendents to share all the good news about autocratic control of urban public education. The list of honorable rogues offering testimony included Bloomberg, Klein, Fenty, Rhee, Duncan, and Beverly Hall from Atlanta.

After some googling the other day on some of the realities not mentioned in WaPo's recent PR piece for Duncan, I thought it would be interesting to do some fact-checking on Duncan's claims before the Committee last July. Was he sworn in? I guess not--otherwise, he surely would be serving time by now.

But before getting into that, I decided to have a look, too, at Congressman Miller's opening statement as it related to the alleged accomplishments of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Miller:

In Chicago, a city where nearly 85 percent of children live in poverty, the number of students meeting or exceeding expectations on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test rose by 23 percent, to 69 percent proficiency in math over the past two years.

The only ISAT scores that come to close to this 23 point gain took place in 8th grade, even though there are good reasons to discount some of the glory. Here are the math ISAT percentages at or above proficiency, as reported by the State of Illinois:

2005 32%
2006 64%
2007 71%
2008 70%

Now if Congressman Miller was, indeed, comparing 2005 to 2008, rather than "the past two year" as he said in his statement, that still does not add up. Was he too embarrassed to claim 38-point gain over four years? Or do his numbers reflect an average gain grades 3-8?

The ISAT, in fact, was realigned in 2006, which severely limits any valid score comparison of before and after the realignment. In the words of Jan Wright, Asst. Supt. of Batavia Public Schools in October 2008:

"Because of the changes in the ISAT in 2006, one cannot make any fair comparison to the data prior to 2006."

Here is a clip, too, from the Sun-Times 2007 story that offers some other information on the altered scaling of the 2006 ISAT, all of it ignored, of course, by the Duncan PR machine that, no doubt, provided the Congressman with his impressive numbers:

Numerous changes to the 2006 ISATs -- including extra time and a livelier format -- made some question whether the new tests were truly comparable to the old ones.

Plus, in eighth-grade math, the passing bar was lowered from the 67th to the 38th national percentile, to better conform with other tests. As a result, state passing rates soared by 24 percentage points, to 78 percent meeting state muster. In Chicago, they doubled.

But enough about the Congressman and his phony claims for CPS. Let's have a look at the claims that came from Mr. Duncan's own lips on July 17, 2008. Is there anything here that would show him as a candid fellow--or just another in long line of lying hacks

Claim # 1: In 2001, less than 40 percent of our kids met state standards. Today, almost two thirds do and more than two-thirds of our 8th graders are at or above state standards.

As noted by the Sun-Times article above, the realignment of the ISAT in 2006 accounts for much of the big gain that Duncan references. Otherwise, the ISAT percentages of students in grades 3-8 at or above state standard show much less dramatic increases. Scores in both reading and math actually went down in 2008 for 8th graders, for instance :

2005 Reading 59 Math 32
ISAT Realignment
2006 Reading 72 Math 64
2007 Reading 78 Math 71
2008 Reading 75 Math 70

Another tidbit not mentioned in Duncan's sales job before Congress: In math the achievement gap between low income and non-low income widened by 5 percentage points over five years, and in reading the achievement gap increased by 11 percentage points during the same time.

Now it is screamingly obvious to anyone who has looked at the Interactive Illinois Report Card maintained by the State Department of Education in Illinois we must not consider high schooler as "kids" if Mr. Duncan's Claim #1 is to be interpreted as just a bad-natured deception. If high school students are, indeed, kids, then Duncan is simply lying outright.

High school kids, you see, are given the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE), and results here are stunning in light of Duncan's claim of almost tw0-thirds meeting state standard. This PSAE test has not been realigned and, therefore, cannot be manipulated by Duncan's staff to create false comparisons, as is the case with ISAT.

This composite score (PSAE) is derived by combining the ACT and three other tests given over two days, and they are used to measure academic strengths and weaknesses relative to the Illinois Learning Standards. Results of the PSAE are used, too, to determine high school AYP. Here are the results for Reading, Math, and Science from 2003 to 2008. Numbers reflect percentage of all 11th graders at or above State Standard:

Year/Reading/Math/Science/Low Income (all subjects)

2003/ 36/ 28/ 23/ 30
2004/ 36/ 28/ 27/ 31
2005/ 42/ 28/ 26/ 36
2006/ 37/ 30/ 24/ 33
2007/ 34/ 29/ 26/ 29
2008/ 30/ 28/ 24/ 25

Click chart below for better view in new window.

When these "kids" started kindergarten, Boss Daley had just recently assumed complete control of Chicago Public Schools in 1995. Contrary to Duncan's claim, I would estimate that two-thirds of these "kids" are below state standards. When we look at the poor and minorities, the numbers are even more disturbing. The percentage of black students meeting or exceeding the state standard went from 35% in 2005 to 22% in 2008. Hispanic achievement showed a 12-point drop from 40% to 28% of students meeting or exceeding the state standard. Asian students dropped from 64 to 53, and Native Americans sunk from 71% to 44%. (Black students and Hispanic students comprise the largest minority population groups in CPS, with 45% and 40% respectively).

Year/Black/Hispanic/Asian/Indian
2005/35/40/64/71
2008/22/28/53/44

Claim # 2: Our high school students are out-gaining the State of Illinois and the nation on the ACT test that is needed for admission to college.

Based on the figures from the Interactive Illinois Report Card, there is no place to go but up for most kids hoping to go to college from CPS. The percentage of Chicago (CPS) high school students meeting the College Readiness Benchmark as measured by the ACT has remained flat or gone down since the State began maintaining this record in 2006. Reading readiness has gone from 23% in 2006 to 21% in 2008. Math readiness inched up from 14% who are ready for college to 16%. Science, the most dismal of all, clicked up from 8% to 9% of students who are ready for college science. And English went from 41% to 39% from 2006 to 2008. Click chart below for better view in new window.

And below shows the staggering gaps between ethnic group ACT scores:
Click chart for better view in new window.

The website, Many Eyes, offers a graphic representation of how CPS high schools stack up (literally) on the ACT. Only a handful of CPS high schools exceed the State average ACT composite of 20.5, with the vast majority stuck between 14 and 18. (Click to enlarge).

Claim # 3: More and more of our high school students are taking college-level courses and more andmore of them are testing well enough to earn college credits.

Well, we don't know what "more and more" means, but we can safely surmis that "more and more" is not happening where other indicators show less and less.

Claim #4: On the national test comparing Chicago to other cities (NAEP) and to the nation – we’vegone up 11 point since 2002 while the nation has gone up just 3, so we’re closing the gap.

Another great example of cherry picking the data, this time from the NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment, which compares student scores in 4th and 8th grades from 11 urban district. By the way, CPS finished in 8th place overall, just ahead of the other recent miracle, Houston. Whereas previously Duncan was fixated on 8th grade scores, where he could ferret out the largest gains, Claim # 4 of an 8 point gain refers to 4th grade gains on the NAEP, where his staff found something to crow about:

Now if we look at the 8th grade, however, a very different picture emerges. But, then, a one point gain would hardly be something to brag about in front of a national audience. And we we certainly would not want to remind Congressman Miller that, based on 8th grade scores on the Nation's Report Card, that we are in reverse or neutral since NCLB went into effect.

Claim # 5: Hispanic students scored the highest of any other big city school district on this test so gains are being made among key subgroups as well.

Now we are back to 8th grade scores to make a point that is accurate, yes, but presents a misleading and obfuscating statement. This statement pretends that the "highest" applies to all students, when, in fact, the 4th grade Hispanic scores for CPS on NAEP's TUDA ranks them 6th out of 11 urban systems.

Claim # 6: We began tracking college acceptance rates three years ago and the numbers have risen every year. Today, over half of our graduates go to college.

The Gates-funded EPE Research Center in 2008 put CPS as 31st out of 50 (4 spots below #27, Houston) urban districts in dropout rate. According to EPE, Chicago's dropout rate is 51.5. So if half of Chicago's graduates go to college, then we may safely assume that 74% or so of Chicago high schoolers do not. One must wonder if Duncan's people are doing any tracking any of those students.

Claim # 7: This progress can be attributed to a few simple strategies that we have relentlessly
pursued since the City of Chicago – under the leadership of Mayor Richard Daley –assumed full control of the school system in 1995. The first thing we did was end social promotions – which is the shameless practice of passing children each year even though they are not ready – and ultimately graduating them without the skills they need to succeed.

Duncan praises Daley's dictatorial powers "full control." Fortunately for us, Daley and Duncan do not fully control the data that shows their sleazy sales pitch as disguising a threadbare record of real educational improvement, which has, in the meantime, canned the notion of democratic governance of public schools.

Yes, the shameless practice of social promotion was ended in 1995, when "Chicago adopted a policy that called for not promoting students who scored more than a year below grade level on national tests." Now here we are with some results 13 years later that lead us to conclude that not much has changed, except that many children have been and are failed regularly on their way into the school to prison pipeline.

And can we, in fact, say that "social promotion" has been eliminated when 86% of African-American 11th graders and 80% of Hispanic 11th graders in Chicago fail to meet Illinois's College Readiness Benchmark in 2008? Or when 91% of all 11th graders in Chicago fail to meet the CRB for Science? Or when 75% of low income Chicago 11th graders are below the State Standard on the PSAE? Is this really the end of social promotion, or is this just more of the same bullshit that another big city superintendent brought to Washington in 2001???