Reflecting on Green Dot’s Disastrous Locke Takeover

“Green Dot came and made it into more of a jail.” — Chris

My history of opposing the Green Dot Charter School Corporation back when I was an activist is well known. On Schools Matter alone there’s over a dozen pieces I wrote on them.

These days, as an educational rights attorney, I’ve successfully litigated against the corporate charter chain on a few occasions. Today I had a legal research assignment that involved looking up information on them and I came across this academic paper:

Taken Over: The Story of the Locke High School Takeover Through a Qualitative Study of Student Voice

by Loyola Marymount University’s Joshua Michael Beardall.

I only had a few minutes to skim through the paper, but it features some excellent feedback on how the students felt about the hostile take-over of a once public school by the corporate charter chain. Written through a Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) lens, the paper takes a student-centric view of what Green Dot did. It also exposes the intrinsic racism of Green Dot and its carceral, white supremacist campuses. Passage like this confirm what activists have said for years:

“The students also believed that the community and school did not interact and that the school was in opposition to the community surrounding it…”

I recommend people check the paper out.

Reflecting back on the hostile Locke takeover, a couple of things come to mind. First, the takeover was, and still is, a disaster. The Green Dot Corporation had to restructure Locke a number of times as their failed management and policies played out. Second, Green Dot, which boasted it would dramatically improve student scores on racist and classist standardized tests, actually set records for having so many schools at the very bottom — including four Locke HS branches in the bottom 25 SAT scores in 2015.

Ironically, the well-healed, white executives running Green Dot at the time of the take-over boasted that they would “turn the school around” and make it a “great school” in short order. Boastful Marco Petruzzi claimed they’d do it in three years. Braggart Steve Barr said they’d do it in one. Neither prediction by the two non-educators came true. Green Dot has run Locke for more than a decade now. Where’s all the compliant press parroting bromides of how Green Dot “cracked the code”?

Petruzzi was a hedge fund manager prior to running the corporate charter school behemoth Green Dot. His lack of background in pedagogy showed in everything he did. Today he’s a furniture salesman. Truth is, Petruzzi’s always been a furniture salesman. This passage by one of his vendors sums up the real essense of the “education reformer,” Marco Petruzzi:

“…Marco Petruzzi, is an ex-Bain partner who joined Dovetail in 2018 to increase sales and profitability and overhaul their physical and technology infrastructure. Marco appreciates working with analysts that can make short work of thorny Excel problems, as well as going beyond spreadsheets to assist in the technical complexities of an ERP database migration.”

KPCC did a piece on how the Green Dot Charter Corporation did not meet its promises with Locke. This passage is instructive:

“Yet for all these improvements, Green Dot has also found out just how difficult it is to act on its initial promises. Locke High School's graduation rate — at 55.9 percent — is one of the lowest of any comprehensive high school in L.A. Unified, charter or otherwise.”

Caught this during further search: ‘The Myth of Charter Schools’ Marco Petruzzi, reply by Diane Ravitch.

College Board Is Selling Student Data to Selective Colleges

As a reward for his devotion to corporate power during the creation of Common Core, David Coleman was handed the plum job as CEO for the College Board, where his work to shape college applicants in the image desired by Bill Gates could continue, unimpeded.  

Now Coleman's greed has joined forces with the greed of America's richest universities and colleges to misuse student SAT data to enrich all participating parties. For just 47 cents each (payable to the College Board), colleges and universities can buy SAT records of Ivy League aspirants and invite them to apply, whether or not the students ever had a chance in hell to get in.

More applicants to say no to makes selective colleges look even more selective, thus raising the prominence of their brand, and it gives the College Board a half-buck per head, plus all the extra dough that rolls in from kids retaking the SAT when they find out that, oh, Columbia is interested in me??  

Diabolical? You bet. The Wall Street Journal has the story:

Jori Johnson took the practice SAT test as a high-school student outside Chicago. Brochures later arrived from Vanderbilt, Stanford, Northwestern and the University of Chicago.

The universities’ solicitations piqued her interest, and she eventually applied. A few months later, she was rejected by those and three other schools that had sought her application, she said. The high-school valedictorian’s test scores, while strong by most standards, were well below those of most students admitted to the several schools that had contacted her.

“A lot of the rejections came on the same day,” said Ms. Johnson, a 21-year-old senior film major at New York University, one of three schools that accepted her out of 10 applications. “I just stared at my computer and cried.”

The recruitment pitches didn’t help Ms. Johnson, but they did benefit the universities that sent them. Colleges rise in national rankings and reputation when they show data suggesting they are more selective. They can do that by rejecting more applicants, whether or not those candidates ever stood a chance. Some applicants, in effect, become unknowing pawns.

Feeding this dynamic is the College Board, the New York nonprofit that owns the SAT, a test designed to level the college-admissions playing field.

The board is using the SAT as the foundation for another business: selling test-takers’ names and personal information to universities. . . .

The schools Steve Barr made: Green Dot Charters post NINE of lowest fifty SAT scores

"The lowest-performing, based on test scores, is the large Green Dot chain." — Los Angeles Times

Beleaguered Green Dot schools have dealt with charges of racism, embezzlement, poor performance, and even cheating. Green Dot Founder Steve Barr created a mythology about his corporate charters that persists even today. Barr photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/
CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Corporate profiteer Steve Barr is in the news again. Now he is mulling a run at Los Angeles Mayor. Barr calls himself an "educational innovator" despite having no background in either education or pedagogy. While his attempts to "turn around schools" have been epic failures in New Orleans and Los Angeles, his Green Dot Corporate Charter Chain is frequently held up as a measure of his so-called success. Except they're anything but successful.

Green Dot Corporate Charter Schools hold the dubious record of NINE of the lowest fifty average SAT scores in Los Angeles County for 2015. The billionaire backed charter chain, founded by corporate executive Barr and run by hedge fund manager Marco Petruzzi, group of SAT bottom dwellers leads all other charter chains in comprising 18% of the fifty worst. These schools were (lower numbers are worst performing):

• 4. Animo Locke Charter High School #1 (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1033
• 12. Animo Watts Charter High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1092
• 14. Animo Locke Charter High School #2 (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1104
• 16. Alain Leroy Locke High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1107
• 19. Animo Ralph Bunche High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1117
• 25. Animo Locke Technology High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1129
• 26. Animo Oscar De La Hoya Charter High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1129
• 34. Animo Jackie Robinson High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1150
• 50. Animo South Los Angeles Charter (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1180

The privately managed charter chain's marketing slogan is "…all students graduate prepared for college, leadership and life." These dismal SAT scores would seem to indicate otherwise. For context 1500 is considered the minimum threshold for college readiness, while 2052 was the composite average for Freshmen accepted into UCLA in 2013.

Barr has never been able to get his own house together at his lucrative charter chain. Why would we trust him meddling with our public schools?

---

(Source: LATimes accessed 20160210)

Karen Lewis Speaks at FairTest Event June 4 2015

The Hard Bigotry of High Expectations

So far, I have come across two articles that get to the heart of problems in Baltimore and other communities. Anyone paying attention to what has been going on in the two America's since John Edwards coined the term, knows  rich privileged kids get a high quality education while the poorest and most vulnerable students have their schools taken over or are force fed an empty, vacuous curriculum in order to make corporations like Pearson richer and more profitable.

One post was written at the Jaded Educator blog:

The Jaded Teacher  had this to say:

Point blank, we have not given these students anything of value. We have not given them a reason to think twice about throwing that rock and landing them in a heap of trouble. We have robbed them of what is within their rights which is an equal opportunity for education.

The question can be asked, are schools supposed to fix everything? Of course not. As an educators, we are already inundated with a myriad of responsibilities to attend to. However, we are the staple community institution, that possesses the power to make a life altering influence on our children.

I must say, I don’t blame my students for their often unruly behavior in the classroom. If you felt that your education was totally inaccessible to you, and didn’t incorporate aspects of your life, you would place little to no value in it. During my year long student teaching I, as well as a colleague of mine, wondered, “So we do all this work on the inside, but how does it translate on the outside of these four walls?” And what I am coming to terms with, is that, for the masses, it doesn’t. What long lasting impact will teaching my students how to multiply 2×2 digit numbers, if I am not able to supply them with life skills, and equip them with constructive strategies to manage their conflicts, and promote socially appropriate emotional responses, educate them using a curriculum that is most salient and relevant to them? What it seems we’ve been told is that it’s not important because its not on the test.

They have not failed, she says. We have.

Urban centers around the country are reeling from decades of decay and neglect in some areas, while the privileged go to schools with art, music, drama, physical education and a rich curriculum. 

Meanwhile, the children in the poorest, most vulnerable communities continue to be blamed because blaming the victim is a lot easier than taking responsibility for injustice and the oppression that now begins in kindergarten. 

The meme perpetuated by the corporate education reforms, hell bent on destroying public education in favor of charters, vouchers and privatization have been talking about the "soft bigotry of low expectations" now for 20 years. It's a way to tout education as the civil rights issue of our time while ignoring income inequality and bad economic policy.  The corporate interest have forced their soulless, mind numbing bullshit tests on the poorest, most vulnerable students and now on all public school students and their teachers who have been targeted as scapegoats. 

It's time to recognize and acknowledge that it is actually the hard bigotry of high expectations that has destroyed communities all across the country, pitted teacher against parents, students against teachers and administrators while segregating communities and schools by test scores permeating education policy to enrich corporations. 

Perhaps it is time to stop telling third graders whose father or mother is in jail, mentally ill, absent or dead that they are failures at 8 years old. This can't be helpful.

For a broader perspective on the rage and anger over the continued injustice that has blanketed the country, read Alan Singer's well-researched and documented statistics on the realities in these communities that have been starved of funds, jobs and infrastructure through no fault of their own:

From Alan Singer, Hofstra University,

One in twenty-eight children in the United States have a parent behind bars. For African American children, that number is one in nine. In the U.S. the average term being served by incarcerated parents is eighty months. Each year the number of children with incarcerated parents continue to grow as a result of the record prison population in the United States. The arrest and removal of a mother or father from a child's life forces that child to confront many emotional, social and economic consequences.

The incarceration of parents creates a crisis for children, a crisis for families, a crisis for schools, a crisis for communities, and a crisis for American society as a whole. If you are a teacher in an inner-city school, you likely have three or four students in each class who have a parent who is incarcerated.

The incarceration of parents creates communities of orphans. Children grow up with a sense of loss, a belief that they somehow are responsible for the break up of their families. They do not develop close emotional parental bonds and are often without sufficient adult supervision.

Households with these children function on the economic margins. Remaining caretaker adults, whether it is a parent or grandparent, are under economic and emotional stress and this is conveyed to the child.

Children are unprepared for school, behave badly, perform poorly, and are punished. Studies show that school-age children of incarcerated parents have school-related problems and problems with peer relationships. They are often teased and become truants.

Large concentrations of similar troubled young people create dysfunctional schools and communities. This is a recipe for self-replicating community crisis.

The incarceration of a mother especially can result in more serious disturbances for a child's development, as the mother is typically the primary caregiver. Fifty percent of incarcerated mothers are also their kids' main financial providers. With many children in severe need of assistance, and with the exception for local aid organizations and welfare services, there are only 6 states addressing this issue specifically.

_____________________________________

The days or no excuses is over for politicians and their corporate ed cronies and it's time to acknowledge the hard bigotry of high expectations is destroying an entire generation of black and brown youth with nothing left to lose. More and more people are beginning to connect the dots and it's not a pretty picture. 

Perhaps they will turn all the schools in Baltimore over to KIPP and teach these kids how to work hard and be nice so one day they can work at CVS or Walmart for minimum wage, no benefits and no security like the rest of the 99%.

State Attorney Generals Should Do "Close Reading" On The Student Success Act

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating dietary supplements being sold to consumers by the largest retail companies in the world. After years of billion dollar profits, people getting sick or wasting their money, New York's attorney is taking on some powerful corporations.

As reported today in the Associated Press,

"The scientific community, public health officials, and others have raised serious doubt about the steps taken to ensure the safety and efficacy of the herbal dietary supplements taken daily by millions of Americans," Schneiderman said in his letter. "As part of a broader investigation, NYAG is reviewing the sufficiency of the measures manufacturers and retailers are taking to independently assess the validity of their representations and advertising in connection with the sale of herbal supplements."

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent letters Monday to four manufacturers, in Long Island, California and Utah, demanding detailed ingredient and quality control information on every herbal supplement they sell in New York state. The companies' products include the store-brand supplements Schneiderman ordered off the shelves at Walmart, Walgreen's, Target and GNC stores in New York state.
__________________________________________

What does this have to do with education you ask? 

Well, the scientific academic community in education has raised serious doubts about another bogus product, high stakes standardized tests.  Obama hosted the nation's governors this past week in Washington DC,  and he could have asked them to have their AG's investigate the education profiteers who have been selling the nation's public schools another toxic placebo costing taxpayers billions of dollars and decimating public schools, the teaching profession as they continue to destroy the souls of our nation's children with yet another revision of a bad policy.

Even though Paul Krugman let the cat out of the bag this week by speaking truth to power and ripping the fig leaf off bad economic policy, it seems there's still no accountability for anyone except teachers for a situation they have absolutely no control over - growing poverty.

Krugman wrote: But if my math is right, the 90s ended 15 years ago — and since then wages of the highly educated have stagnated. Why on earth are we still hearing the same rhetoric about education as the solution to inequality and unemployment?

Good question. I'm still waiting for an answer. One possible explanation could be the emperor just has no clothes. This little fictional tale from 1620 will make a good lesson this week as students prepare for PARCC testing. Perhaps it will reduce their anxiety just a little to reread The Emperor's New Clothes and help them understand why sitting at computers for hours answering inane questions instead of learning is taking up so much of their precious time in school.

It's highly unlikely Diane Ravitch or her followers letters to Congress will put any clothes back on this emperor or make a difference in terms of sane legislative changes.  As for me, I'm finished wasting my time. I just can't get excited about making another phone call, sending money to another organization, or standing out in the pouring rain and freezing cold to protest education policy. 

With all the hoopla in the blogosphere about reauthorization of ESEA, the latest media circus  isn't focused on education but on the Department of Homeland Security and its employees being held hostage so Republicans can throw poor immigrant children under the school bus once again.  Perhaps they'll find some common ground with Democrats and give immigrant children an opportunity to become soldiers, or work at a Walmart or even win the lottery and get a spot in a charter school or KIPP.

So let's check in and see what's happening in DC as the on-line petitions,  letters and phone calls flood the halls of our nation's capitol.   Congress continues to bloviate about a new and improved version of NCLB, aka, The Student Success Act  There are so many important decisions to make for the powerful who send their children to private schools where none of these policies exist. Should we test once a year in every grade? Or what percentage of a teacher's salary and job security should be based on their student test scores, 10%, 25%, 50%? 

Meanwhile, there is some good news for those working at Walmart this week. The company, which made a few billion in profits and saw their revenues surge this quarter, is raising its hourly rate to $9!  See, there's no need for Congress to pass a national living minimum wage and worker protections, no need for social studies, civics and history -- and no need for a college degree when you can look forward to $9 an hour at Walmart, or Target or another corporation that squeezes and abuses its workers and rewards its shareholders, its management team and the politicians in their back pocket. 

How many of our elected representatives in DC will do a "close reading" of the new and improved Student Success Act as they sit around discussing reauthorization of ESEA which has no chance in Hell of passing anyway. How many more books, blogs, columns, letters, protests, occupies and opt outs do we need before things change?

Will public school teachers and schools in crumbling towns and communities, urban centers and rural areas continue to be judged on the test performance of hungry, sick, anxiety ridden and depressed kids who might have to attend "bad schools" as Michelle Obama so eloquently pointed out this past week. Looks like it.

I wonder if the final version of  The Student Success Act exceed the 1,100 pages of No Child Left Behind passed a few days after 9/11. Can't wait to see the final bill that will never make it to the President's desk because there seems to be no accountability in Washington DC or in Governor's offices where union bashing, teacher trashing and budget cuts are the new normal. Another train crash again today, this time in California? No reason to invest in railroads or mass transit, especially when those making the laws and directing the money are flying around on private jets, yachts and limos. 

Meanwhile, Arne Duncan is running around like Chicken Little warning the sky is falling because of  Draconian budget cuts in the Republican proposal for education. 

Hasn't Arne  figured out yet that the Student Success Act, just like No Child Left Behind, is the placebo or Golden Goose that laid the Golden egg; and the WMD sent to blow up public education by measuring every child, every year in every subject? Maybe he was too busy playing basketball with Obama when Margaret Spellings was running this at the Department of Education.

In this upside down world of Alice in Wonderland, where up is down and right is left and no one can even tell the difference between right and wrong, just follow the Yellow Brick Road Arne.  It will lead to a beautiful Utopia where everyone plays basketball with the rich and famous and the children of the poor sit at computer screens quietly, grateful that no matter how bad their schools are, they too can become a Walmart employee some day.

It's good  these youngsters aren't being taught how to close read quarterly financial statements or they might actually see the Wizard behind the curtain i.e., the billions of dollars in profits and tax breaks going to those who need it least and to the companies making their lives and futures a bleak, empty pile of debt and impossible odds. 

Like NCLB, The Student Success Act is shaping up to include more money for vouchers, charters and a little less testing to keep the teachers and students from literally killing themselves or someone else.

Meanwhile, the intent of this insidious legislation written into law in 2001, is doing it's job by putting the final nail in the coffin of public education and democracy itself.  The powerful and the wealthy are working overtime to cut the heart and soul out of the nation's public schools and its teacher unions, the one last bastion of job security and benefits about to be toppled in a world where even cooking is now a competitive sport. 

Since most teachers are women and some are the sole supporters of their families working around the clock to jump through all the hoops being thrown their way, Republicans in state houses and Congress are determined to turn the clock back about 100 years when women knew their place and were expected to be underpaid or not paid at all. Just think how much money the corporations could save on taxes if women just taught the children for free and took care of the elderly for free. No need for expensive social programs - free labor.

So, how much longer will politicians and business leaders blame public school teachers for America losing its competitive edge in a global economy or for poor children not reaching their full earnings potential? 

That's actually one question I know the answer to, as long as they can.

Dear NAACP: The Tests You Say You Want to Use Are Racist and Classist to the Core

I don't often post unsigned comments, but the one below by NYCDOEnuts is an exception. It came in response to my post yesterday that Carol Burris had finally seen the light and is now calling for civil disobedience to stop the next generation of high stakes tests that the oligarchs and profiteers plan to use to impose years more of lucrative testing brutality in American public schools.

NYCDOEnuts is clearly in Ravitch/Cody camp, insisting that high stakes must be preserved to maintain the lost dignity of the corporate Kool-Aid drinkers at the NAACP and the other groups that are ostensibly committed to civil rights. 

Compare the leaders in the era of Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King, Jr., who called for the end of segregation and economic oppression, to today's unimaginative batch of would-be leaders who have surrendered to the corporate reformist plan to culturally sterilize black and brown children in privately run and publicly funded chain gang schools.  How out of touch could any group of would-be civil rights advocates get!

Does the NAACP really believe that the preservation of high stakes testing is going to assure any semblance of equity or equality for the children they say that they represent? Really?

These tests and their predecessors have been used for a hundred years to stigmatize, sort, separate, and treat children in ways to make them pliable, useful, and exploitable as second class citizens. 

Does the NAACP think the new Common Core tests with their 70-90 percent failure rate for black children offers some evidence that their needs are being met??  What need is that--for humiliation and degradation, or to force their participation in their own subjugation?

Below is NYCDOEnuts' comment to yesterday's post, and below that is my response.  By the way, DOEnuts, any future comments must include your real name in order to get them posted.

Note the first thing she does is to attack Carol Burris as being an out-of-touch suburbanite:

NYCDOEnuts4:16 PM
Jim I'm as against these private minded Ed reforms as anyone. That includes opposing high stakes tests and testing.

Having said that, every civil rights organization across the country supports at least one test before graduation for students. Perhaps this is because they feel the alternative -no high stake tests at all- will usher in a system where students of color and in impoverished schools will simply be left at the side of the road by districts all across the U.S. This seems to be their position and, to be honest, I very clearly see the absolute legitimacy of both the concern and the position.

Carol Burris' district serves some of the most well to do students there are -students who don't need a test in order to get a leg up in this world as adults. So her call for civil disobedience against tests, toward parents who may never need to see the value of leveling a very unfair playing field, doesn't concern me and probably won't concerned most seriously minded people who are genuinely upset with the unfairness of BOTH this terrible testing AND schools that can't do their part (note: their part) in leveling the playing field of our society.

What does concern me is that she, as a leader, hasn't called for anything specific with which this testing regime should be replaced. In fact, no one has. Nothing. The grandstanding is nice and the sentiments are shared by many (myself included) but the plan to actually do something without a whole regime of tests is simply not there. This makes this call of hers sort of fluffy in nature and about as nourishing to a soul hungry for a fair and just system and society as a marshmallow is to a starving man (I'll eat it but it won't help).

Isnt it tme to promote a better way? It's time to show that an alternative to what we are all enduring does exist? Time to stop thinking of creative ways of complaining in social media and time to start leading us into a system that both relieves us from all of these terrible tests AND ensures that every student (every single student) is exposed to high quality in the classroom (and is prepared for a job or college when it's all done)? Jim Horn, I love your pieces and love this blog and all look up to every one of its contributors, but isn't it time to stop standing against something and start finding something to stand for?

Just a thought. Thanks so much for the share.


Jim Horn10:31 PM
Since you apparently have no memory of what happened before high stakes testing replaced sanity and learning in schools, let me offer a couple of things you need to read up about. First and foremost, the U. S. went from apartheid systems of education in 17 states to the most racially-integrated national system in the world without the benefit of high stakes tests. We vastly increased women's access to educational opportunity without requiring high stakes tests to do so. Thirdly, we closed the test score gaps between black and white children to an all time low in 1990 without the help of any high stakes tests.

That is when the resegregation of American schools began and when the testing gaps began to open up once more.

Not without some irony, that is when the test based accountability entered its second phase, with higher stakes, more tests, and more punitive measures.

Then came the third phase, promising that no child would left behind, even as children lost their schools, teachers, and childhoods to corporate charter operators with their own sweet promises and their cruel realities.

We knew in 1960 which students were not learning, and it did not take a test to prove it. We knew in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and still we know: they are the students disabled by poverty that no one is being held accountable for, even as our schools are turned into corporate revenue streams by profiteers who mutter empty rhetoric that once meant something beside cynical semantics.

I have been steadfast in pursuing an agenda to bring sanity back to public education in the U. S., and that agenda has not changed: 1) end high stakes testing as the first step to the restoration of schools where learning and teaching can happen. Nothing is possible without that. The Allies at the end of WW II did not need a Marshall Plan to justify the end of Nazi genocide. Nor do we.

Just as we don't need a test to determine which children are getting the help they need. These kids will never get the help they need until we end childhood poverty. Which brings me to point 2) end school and classroom segregation of any kind, whether based on ability, economics, or ethnicity. When black children and poor children go to school with middle class children, all children will get the same opportunities to learn. And the third leg of the school renewal stool: 3) end corporate meddling and profiteering in public education by putting the public back in charge of public schools. We don't need high stakes tests to do any of these important things, and all the tests in the world will never increase the likelihood that any of them will happen.

I suggest that you and those who claim the mantle of civil rights should find another strategy to bring about equality than the continued use of racist and classist tests that have always been used to justify sorting, segregation, and second class citizenship. If you can't appreciate the sad irony in your proposition, I am, indeed, sorry. Now stop wasting my time with your bullshit and your not-so-subtle accusations.

Carol Burris Urges Civil Disobedience to End High Stakes Testing

from Valerie's place at WaPo:

It has become increasingly clear that Congress does not have the will to move away from annual high-stakes testing. The bizarre notion that subjecting 9-year-olds to hours of high-stakes tests is a “civil right,” is embedded in the thinking of both parties. Conservatives no longer believe in the local, democratic control of our schools. Progressives refuse to address the effects of poverty, segregation and the destruction of the middle class on student learning. The unimaginative strategy to improve achievement is to make standardized tests longer and harder.

And then there are the Common Core State Standards. Legislators talk a good game to appease parents, but for all their bluff and bluster, they are quite content to use code names, like the West Virginia Next Generation Content Standards,  to trick their constituents into believing their state standards are unique, even though most are word for word from the Common Core.

The only remedy left to parents is to refuse to have their children take the tests. Testing is the rock on which the policies that are destroying our local public schools are built. If our politicians do not have the courage to reverse high-stakes testing, then those who care must step in. As professor of Language and Composition, Ira Shor, bluntly stated:

 Because our kids cannot defend themselves, we have to defend them. We parents must step in to stop it. We should put our foot down and say, “Do it to your own kids first before you experiment on ours!”

Read the rest here.

Ravitch Continues to Dissemble and Mislead on ESEA

Yesterday Diane Ravitch, who has been leading the lemmings to support Alexander's NCLB Lite, posted a letter by UOO on their position on ESEA.  Ravitch closed with this:

Senator Alexander conducted his first hearing on January 21 and plans another hearing on January 27. Senator Alexander proposed two options in  his draft legislation: option 1 was to replace annual testing with grade span testing; option 2 was to keep annual high-stakes testing (the status quo). UOO is opposed to high-stakes testing in the federal law, period. (So am I.)

What Ravitch does not say here is that her chum's "option 1" continues high stakes testing, just less of it (it's sort of like a law against half the murders committed).

What she does not say, either, is how she can be against high stakes testing and give full-throated support for legislation that provides another generation of high stakes testing.

Duncan to Double Down on NCLB High Stakes Testing

For those prone to fits of fanciful thinking about the imminent demise of the CorpEd testing regime, tune in to hear Arne Duncan's speech tomorrow:

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post News Service
Posted Jan. 9, 2015 @ 5:38 pm

WASHINGTON — As a new Congress gets to work to rewrite the 2002 federal education law known as No Child Left Behind, the Obama administration is drawing what Education Secretary Arne Duncan calls his "line in the sand": The federal government must continue to require states to give annual, standardized tests in reading and math.

In a speech scheduled for Monday at an elementary school in Washington, Duncan is expected to insist that any new law retain the trademark of No Child Left Behind, requiring that every public school student be tested annually in math and reading in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, and also be tested in science at three points during those years. . . .


Read more: http://www.sj-r.com/article/20150109/News/150109534#ixzz3OX8GcAcC

Einstein Never Would Have Passed a Standardized Test

Albert Einstein might or might not have had dyslexia but he didn't do well with the  standardized curriculum in Germany primarily because of its authoritarianism . That's a fact and his parents left Germany because they didn't like the rote memorization and mindlessness inherent in the German schools. It's all in his biography.

Mindlessness and blind obedience is not a recipe for a healthy society.

From the American Museum of Natural History:

He loathed Germany's rigid education system, which was based upon rote learning. "It's a true miracle," he commented years later, "that modern education hasn't yet completely smothered the curiosity necessary for scientific study." If Albert had remained in Germany until he was 16, he would have been obliged to perform military service. The sight of soldiers marching through the streets had always frightened and appalled him, and he was not willing to join them. So Einstein left high school and Germany, and joined his family in Milan.


Here's more info on people who had dyslexia and would have done poorly on a standardized test:

Agatha Christie - (15 September 1890 - 12 January 1976) Agatha Christie was the world's best selling book writer of all times only truly surpassed by the Bible and equaled by Shakespear, her books sold approximately 4 billion copies worldwide. Agatha suffered from dyslexia but in no way did it stop her from being creative and learning how to write, her mystery novels have always been some of the most captivating of all times. Her bestselling book was without a doubt "And then there was none" which was a source of inspiration for novelists and movie makers even many years after.

Albert Einstein - (March 14, 1879 - April 18, 1955) Being one of the most important great minds of his century Albert Einstein was then known to suffer from dyslexia mainly because of his bad memory and his constant failure to memorize the simplest of things. He would not remember the months in the year yet he would succeed in solving some of the most complicated mathematical formulas of the time without any trouble. He may have never learned how to properly tie his shoelaces but his scientific contributions and theories still have a major effect on all of todays current knowledge of science

.Alexander Graham Bell - (3 March 1847 - 2 August 1922) Well known as the inventor of the telephone Alexander was actually attempting to find a way that could make deaf people hear. His mother was slowly becoming deaf when Alexander was only 12 years old making him extremely sensitive to disabilities. Once older he was constantly seeking a way to cure them through technology. He himself had dyslexia which would cause him problems at school, but he always kept his interest for science, especially biology. He would show a great indifference for everything else and would have poor grades. Today Alexander Graham Bell is also well know as one of the founders of the National Geographic society.Cher - (Born May 20, 1946) Cher was a fatherless child and was most of the time very poor. Her mother tried to make money by singing and acting which ultimately brought Cher to follow into her footsteps. Due to dyslexia cher decided she would quit school and try to take some acting lessons in Los Angeles to finally do what she loved. One day while at the renowned Aldo's Coffee Shop her life changed upon meeting Sonny Bono, which was at the time successful in show business. They eventually made songs together and through fantastic duos with Sonny.

Dale S. Brown - Dale Brown is a strategic leadership consultant at Washington D.C and an author. Her most recent book is called "Steps to Independance for people with Learning Disabilities" which was published by Learning Disabilities Association of America in 2005. Dale suffers herself from dyslexia and wants to tell the world that learning disabilities does not have to stop you from being who you want to be. It does not have to stop you from striving or harm your capabilities to integrate to everyday life.

Danny Glover - (Born July 22, 1947) A great actor in both Lethal Weapon with Mel Gibson and Predator 2. Danny Glover suffered dyslexia at school when he was younger and the school staff would label him retarded. This definitely was not very encouraging for him but he ended up finding ways to feel better about himself. He says that dyslexia had given him the feeling that he was not worthy to learn and that the people around him would not care of what would happen to his education. With time he eventually regained his self esteem and became a great actor.George Burns - (January 20, 1896-March 9, 1996) An Academy-Award winning Jewish-American actor and comedian George Burns was a man filled with joy. He and his wife Gracie Allen would frequently team up on radio and television which made them both well known. George was an entertainer until a few years before his 100th birthday. Dyslexia never kept him from being who he was, a legend who had one of the longest American careers in show business history

.Hans Christian Andersen - (April 2 1805 - August 4 1875) Being an author of children's fantasy stories, he was a victim of dyslexia and showed the world that when you want something, nothing can stop you from obtaining it. The books that he wrote have been translated into hundreds of different languages and continue to be distributed even today in millions of copies. Hans wrote books such as "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Princess and the Pea" "Thumbelina", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Mermaid".

Henry Winkler - Henry Franklin Winkler (born October 30, 1945) is a Golden Globe Award-winning American actor, director, producer and author. He is perhaps most famous for his role as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli on the popular sitcom Happy Days (1974-1984). Winkler attended the McBurney School and received his bachelor's degree from Emerson College in 1967 and his MFA from the Yale School of Drama in 1970. In 1978, Emerson gave Winkler an honorary doctorate of humane letters. Winkler has also received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Austin College. Having struggled throughout his school years with unidentified dyslexia Winkler, at age 31, finally understood what he'd been grappling with all his life, when making a documentary about dyslexia, Winkler himself found that he was dyslexic.

Jackie Stewart - Sir John Young Stewart, OBE (born 11 June 1939 in Milton, West Dunbartonshire), better known as Jackie, and nicknamed The Flying Scot, is a Scottish former racing driver. He competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. Former F1 champion Sir Jackie Stewart, said he thought he was "thick" at school before discovering he was dyslexic. Sir Jackie said "word blindness" meant he had to race to keep up with other pupils. In those days dyslexia wasn't something that got identified in many schools.Leonardo Da Vinci - Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, (April 15, 1452 - May 2, 1519) was a Tuscan polymath: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptualising a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. He also had the gift of dyslexia. Most of the time, he wrote his notes backwards. Although unusual, this is a trait shared by many left-handed dyslexic people. Most of the time, dyslexic writers are not even consciously aware that they are writing this way.Magic Johnson - Earvin Effay Johnson, Jr. (born August 14, 1959 in Lansing, Michigan) is a retired American National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers. Johnson is acknowledged as one of the most popular NBA basketball players of all time, being well-known for his uncanny passing and dribbling skills, and for his cheerful nature on and off the court. In the words of Magic Johnson: "The looks, the stares, the giggles . . . I wanted to show everybody that I could do better and also that I could read.

"Thomas Edison - Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 - October 18, 1931) was an American inventor of Dutch origin and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and a long lasting light bulb. In school, the young Edison's mind often wandered. He was noted to be terrible at mathematics, unable to focus, and had difficulty with words and speech. This ended Edison's three months of official schooling. The cause of Edison's deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle ear infections. Thomas Edison was dyslexic, a problem child, and a mischief-maker. He talked when he was supposed to be listening and did not listen when the teacher talked. He had no patience. He was not well-coordinated and did poorly in sports. He applied himself with a passion to whatever caught his attention, but his attention was easily diverted.

Tom Cruise - Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962), more commonly known as Tom Cruise, is an American actor and film producer. Cruise has said that he suffered from abuse as a child. This was partially due to him suffering from dyslexia. He stated that when something went wrong, his father came down hard on him. Having gone through fifteen schools in twelve years, Cruise, who dropped his father's name at age twelve, was also a victim of bullying at school

.Walt Disney - Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 - December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Disney is notable as one of the most influential and innovative figures in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. Walt Disney had dyslexia, which is a learning disorder characterized by reading difficulties. While Walt Disney was attending high school he also went to the Academy of Fine Arts. This caused him to have double the school work than an average student on top of the fact that he also dealt with being dyslexic

.Whoopi Goldberg - Whoopi Goldberg (born November 13, 1955) is an American actress, comedian, radio host, TV personality, game show host, and author. Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in New York City. Whoopi had a lot of difficulty in school, but it was not until she was an adult did she learn that she had dyslexia. Despite her dyslexia, Whoopi Goldberg has gone on to have a highly successful film and television career.

Winston Churchill - Churchill described himself as having a "speech impediment", which he consistently worked to overcome. After many years, he finally stated, "My impediment is no hindrance." Although the Stuttering Foundation of America has claimed that Churchill stammered, the Churchill Centre has concluded that he lisped. Churchill's impediment may also have been cluttering, which would fit more with his lack of attention to unimportant details and his very secure ego. According to several sources Winston Churchill was not dyslexic and had no learning disability whatsoever. In his autobiography he played up his low grades at Harrow, undoubtedly to convince readers, and possibly himself, how much he had overcome; but in this he exaggerated. He was actually quite good at subjects he enjoyed and in fact won several school prizes.

Woodrow Wilson - Former president of the United States. Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856-February 3, 1924), was the twenty-eighth President of the United States. Wilson did not learn to read until he was about 12 years old. His difficulty reading may have indicated dyslexia or A.D.D., but as a teenager he taught himself shorthand to compensate and was able to achieve academically through determination and self-discipline. He studied at home under his father's guidance and took classes in a small school in Augusta.Fanny Flagg - (born September 21, 1944) is an American author and actress. Flagg has spoken publicly about being dyslexic. Flagg has said she was enormously challenged as a writer because she was "severely dyslexic and couldn't spell. So I was discouraged from writing and embarrassed". Her burgeoning writing career was put on hold for much of the 1970s, but Flagg overcame her fear and completed several novels and screenplays.George Patton - George Smith Patton GCB, KBE (November 11, 1885 - December 21, 1945) was a leading U.S. Army general in World War II in campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, France, and Germany, 1943-1945. Patton not begin his formal education until age 11, most likely due to dyslexia. Patton attended high school in Pasedena. Upon graduation, Patton was accepted at the Virginia Military Institute. He spent a year at VMI before being accepted to West Point.Harry Belafonte - Harold George Belafonte, Jr. (born March 1, 1927) is an American musician, actor and social activist. One of the most successful Jamaican musicians in history, he was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style in the 1950s. Due to problems with dyslexia, Belafonte dropped out of high school and at the age of 17, he joined the US Navy for a couple of years. After that, he returned to New York and settled there. Belafonte became involved with the American Negro Theatre and soon began singing in clubs around the city.Richard Branson - Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English entrepreneur, best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 companies. Richard Branson has been involved in a number of world record-breaking attempts since 1985, when in the spirit of the Blue Riband he attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest recorded time. Branson has dyslexia, resulting in poor academic performance as a student. School was something of a nightmare for him. He was the captain of football, rugby union and cricket teams, and by the age of fifteen he had started two ventures that eventually failed, one growing Christmas trees and another raising budgerigars.Nelson Rockefeller - Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 - January 26, 1979) was the forty-first Vice President of the United States, governor of New York, philanthropist, and businessman. Rockefeller was born in Bar Harbor, Maine. He was the son of John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. He was the grandson of Standard Oil's founder and chairman John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. Nelson Rockefeller died on the evening of Friday, January 26, 1979 at age 70 from a heart attack under circumstances whose details have never been completely revealed.Neil Bush - Neil Mallon Bush (born January 22, 1955 in Midland, Texas) is the fourth of six children of former President George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush (Barbara Lane Pierce). Neil is the younger brother of President George Walker Bush, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and the late Robin Bush. At age 11, he entered the exclusive private St. Albans School in Washington, DC. He struggled through school. A counselor told his mother that it was doubtful the boy had the potential to graduate. He was later diagnosed as having dyslexia, and his mother spent much time coaching him through his learning disability. Eventually his grades 
What else is there to know?