Bloomberg's Cracked Trumpet

As the above chart from the New York Times shows, NYC student scores on the state test have increased over the past five years, while the NAEP (national) scores have remained flat. Even though Bloomberg's trumpet has been the loudest, this same phenomenon is occurring all over the country. Why? Because the schools, particularly the urban schools, are focused entirely and year-round on state test prep, while the NAEP is a bit wider kind of temperature-taking test of academic abilities.

Now there are plenty of people who want to turn NAEP or something like it into a national test, while getting rid of the state tests where school systems can "game" the system, as the Eduwanks and Eduwankettes like to say. This would, of course, only serve to turn the full-time test prep in schools toward the national test, which would, in fact, (as Jerry Bracey has pointed out repeatedly) destroy any value that tests like the NAEP now have.

The disturbing part of this story from the Times is that it points out a trend that can be seen in the national NAEP data: NAEP gains were higher before the current testing hysteria in America got underway. This suggests what many of us have known, which is that the accountability-through-testing fixation is making American school children stupid. Imagine that.

By Jennifer Medina:

New York City’s eighth graders have made no significant progress in reading and math since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of the city schools, according to federal test scores released yesterday, in contrast with the largely steady gains that have been recorded on state tests.

The national scores also showed little narrowing of the achievement gap between white students and their black and Hispanic counterparts.

The results for New York and 10 other large urban districts on the federal tests, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, paint a generally stagnant picture for the city, although there are gains in fourth-grade math. On measure after measure, the scores showed “no significant change” between 2005, when the test was previously administered, and 2007.

Mr. Bloomberg has trumpeted improving state test scores as evidence that the city is setting the pace for urban school reform. But the federal scores, on a test often called the nation’s report card, suggest that the city’s gains are limited. Similar patterns of gains on state tests outstripping gains on the national assessment have emerged elsewhere as well.

New York City’s federal scores showed that while fourth-grade reading results have improved over the past five years, the most significant jump came in 2002, before Mr. Bloomberg took control. . . .

And, thus, another vaunted mayoral miracle turns out to be just another attempted corporate takeover of a another civic institution. Can we restore public control before it is too late?

This Week's Charter School Crime Roundup

What do you get when you offer free public education dollars with no public oversight to anyone who wants to open a school?

From Massachusetts:

In the charter school incident, the girl wrote a statement for police saying she saw Commeret [the "CEO" of the Marblehead Community Charter Public School] of drinking what she thought might be alcohol in his office and she asked what the drink was. According to her statement, "He grabbed my arms and pushed me up against the back of the door. He held me there for a few moments, and said, 'I'll (expletive) find you.' Then he jerked me back and let go."

From Canada:

The superintendent of a Calgary charter school where a teacher has been charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old female student is defending the school's hiring practices. Foundations for the Future Charter Academy Superintendent Jay Pritchard admits it is shocking to have a teacher face sexual assault allegations.

From Columbus, where profiteer, Alllison Perz, is in charge:

A second teacher at an East Side charter school is being investigated for inappropriate discipline after a sixth-grade teacher was fired for getting physical with a student.

Aleca Bryan, 28, was fired on Monday. Officials wouldn't name the second teacher yesterday, but that educator has been suspended with pay, said Allison Perz, who oversees the Columbus Arts and Technology Academy.

Perz is head of the Ohio Council of Community Schools, which sponsors the charter at 2255 Kimberly Parkway East.

Bryan was fired after a 13-year-old Reynoldsburg boy said she grabbed him and slammed him against the wall in the school's hallway. The boy told police she also dug her nails into his arms and that a witness who intervened had trouble pulling the teacher away.

How about this one on corrupting the youth of Toledo:

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - A state audit of a former Toledo charter school concludes that the former executive director and her husband couldn't justify the use of about $119,000 in taxpayer money.

And out west to a bold plan in Boulder:

Ann Leslie Kane, founder of Boulder's Horizons K-8 Charter School, was charged Friday with theft, forgery and attempt to influence a public servant. She is alleged to have misrepresented her salary to the Public Employees Retirement Association in order to increase her retirement benefits.

And more out west to Arizona:

. . . .The charges stemmed from allegations that her son, Bobby Kennedy, a teacher at Morningstar and a youth pastor, had molested teenage girls in his class.

Today, Bobby Kennedy, 29, is on the run from police and listed by Apache Junction police as one of their “Most Wanted.”

And Carolyn Kennedy, 53, who police say attempted to protect her son and conceal the abuse allegations, is still in charge of the Apache Junction charter school.

State law requires school teachers, counselors and administrators to report allegations of sexual abuse.

Yet there is nothing in the law that forces state education officials to remove educators such as Kennedy from their schools. One person who could remove her, charter holder C. Steven Cox, is embroiled in his own personal scandal after being indicted on more than 100 counts of misappropriation of public funds and grand theft. . . .

Kevin Johnson's Overreaching, Michelle Rhee's Under-Researching

Would Michelle Rhee try to hire a charter outfit for DC Schools that is run by someone whose Sacramento properties were cited 73 times over the past ten years for code violations, ranging from high weeds to open raw sewage? Are Johnson and Rhee both in over their heads?

Oct 16, 2007 (The Sacramento Bee - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- No one questions Kevin Johnson's heart or his dedication to the Oak Park neighborhood where he was raised. But some Oak Park residents question whether the former NBA All-Star has the ability to follow through on his ambitious development plans to revitalize the neighborhood.

As The Bee's investigative report published Sunday revealed, Johnson owns more than three dozen properties in Oak Park. Some are well maintained, but others have fallen into serious disrepair.

The Bee reporters who reviewed city property records, code enforcement files, permits and police and fire reports found 37 properties owned by organizations founded by Johnson, including Kynship Development, St. HOPE Development, St. HOPE Academy and Kevin M. Johnson Living Trust.

Over the last 10 years, the city has cited Johnson properties on 73 occasions. Simple things such as cleaning up trash and cutting weeds have been neglected. One property had to be torn down. Johnson tenants have complained about raw sewage bubbling into backyards and mice. In his client's defense, Johnson's lawyer says in the demolition case Johnson was caught in a dispute between city preservation and code enforcement officals and that the tenants who complained had not paid rent for months and were being evicted.

Johnson may have underestimated the difficulty of redevelopment; even experienced developers have trouble rebuilding in depressed inner cities.

Piecing together city lots takes more time and money than developing in the suburbs. Rehabbing historic houses is expensive. Landlords in low-income neighborhoods can't charge as much.

Despite the challenges and the problems uncovered, Johnson's overall Oak Park economic development record is mixed. His signature 40 Acres complex at 35th and Broadway has given Oak Park a handsome gateway. Anchored by a Starbucks coffeeshop, it contains the rebuilt Guild Theater, a book store, art gallery, barber shop and apartments. When it opened in 2003, many saw it as the catalyst for Oak Park renewal, and it has helped.

Local architect Ron Vrilakas, who is building a 10-unit loft complex in Oak Park, credits Johnson's 40 Acres with leading the way: "We would not have taken this risk we took had his project not gone first. ... It changes the perception of what Oak Park is."

But since 40 Acres was built, Johnson's attention has been diverted by his other passion, the charter school movement. He took over Sacramento High School in a very contentious fight in 2003. His St. HOPE Academy continues to run PS 7. He has even expanded his operation to another charter school in Harlem. Any of these school projects is enough to occupy one person's efforts full-time and more.

It appears that Johnson's Oak Park economic redevelopment interests have been placed on hold. That is appropriate. St. HOPE's educational ventures should be his first priority.

But Johnson can't afford to neglect his real estate holdings entirely. Neighborhoods suffer when homes go vacant and fall into disrepair or empty lots become dumping grounds.

If Johnson really cares about Oak Park, he must show it by maintaining the property he owns there.

Will Charter Schools Help to End Church-State Separation?

As fundmentalist theocrats challenge the Constitutional protections of the Establishment Clause at every turn, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims must ask themselves whose interests are served when they, themselves, begin to accept public money to run religious schools, or a watered-down version of religious schools? The theocrats, mostly Protestant and in the majority, express no such reservation because their greater calling by God or Pat Robertson (or some other crackpot who has been washed in the blood of the Lamb) offers them impunity from legal obligations or Constitutional niceties. See George Bush.

Is it really a good trade-off for ecumenicalists to accept a few public dollars for the possibility of fueling the full-scale production of an Armageddon-laced religious cocktail that school children will be forced to drink every day? Or should they join with those who wish to keep religion out of Government, as the Founders intended?

Here is a very thoughtful take on the charter school temptation by Daniel Trieman:

Florida’s Ben Gamla Charter School is more than just a place of learning. It represents a radical new vision for the future of Jewish education in America.

The Ben Gamla school, which opened this summer, is the country’s first publicly funded, Hebrew-themed charter school. Its founder, former Democratic congressman Peter Deutsch, has said he wants to open 100 such schools across the country. Already, the idea of publicly funded, Jewish-themed charter schools has sparked the interest of mega-philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, a major force in Jewish education.

Critics have raised two main concerns about the Ben Gamla school: First, they say it undermines the wall of separation between church and state (although school officials maintain their curriculum is not religious). Second, critics argue that the school poses a competitive threat to private Jewish day schools. These are valid concerns. There is, however, a larger problem, namely that the Ben Gamla model represents a profound betrayal of American Jewish liberalism.

At the core of American liberalism is the idea that government should actively promote the common good. This presupposes a common American identity, one that binds our diverse society into a single nation — e pluribus unum. Public schools have been a cornerstone of this idea, building a common civic identity and offering educational opportunity to all.

American Jews have remained remarkably loyal to this vision. That’s why our community has fought efforts by conservatives to divert public funds to private schools. It’s why many Jews have taken the lead in opposing those on the multiculturalist left who reject the idea of a common American heritage that should be taught to children of varied backgrounds.

And why shouldn’t we defend this vision? After all, it has served us well. For Jews, public education provided a route to upward mobility. Public schools not only helped Jews enter the mainstream, they also helped craft an American civic culture that includes us.

Today, however, the challenge facing American Jews is no longer how to integrate into the mainstream. Instead, we struggle with the question of how to preserve our distinct heritage amid the assimilatory currents of American life.

Many communal leaders have concluded that the solution is for more Jewish kids to enroll in private Jewish day schools. They can point to survey data suggesting that day school graduates are more likely than their peers to have strong Jewish identities, affiliate with synagogues and marry other Jews.

The allure of Jewish day schools presents a difficult choice. Day school education has its benefits in terms of strengthening Jewish identity. But opting for Jewish schools also involves turning inward, away from a full embrace of the larger American scene — and away from the public education system that has served us so well. Something valuable is gained, but something is also lost.

No one can blame parents who — faced with this dilemma — choose to enroll their children in Jewish schools (after all, many non-Jews have long made similar choices). At present though, relatively few non-Orthodox children attend Jewish schools full-time, in part because tuition can be prohibitively expensive. That’s why Ben Gamla’s charter school model is so tempting. It offers many of the benefits of a Jewish day school (minus the religious component, of course) but with the taxpayer footing the bill.

It’s one thing, however, to opt out of the public school system; it’s another thing to cash out. It’s one thing to privilege your group’s private interests; it’s another to demand that government privilege those interests, as well.

True, this is not only a Jewish issue. The charter school movement has opened the door to public funding of particularist agendas; there are, in various places around the country, schools that are dedicated to promoting Greek, African-American and even Muslim culture. Thankfully, these remain the exception rather than the rule.

But what if government-funded charter schools devoted to reinforcing the pride — and prejudices — of particular ethnic groups became the norm? It’s difficult to see how this would lead to a more cohesive, tolerant America. And that’s why it’s hard to imagine this model would ultimately be good for America’s Jews.

Daniel Treiman is the Web editor of the Forward.

Yes! Reauthorization of Head Start Without the NRS Test

Now will the humanity and common sense of the Congress hold long enough to strip the high-stakes testing from NCLB? From UPI:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. lawmakers approved a five-year Head Start bill that will boost teacher qualifications and expand access to the preschool program.

After handily passing the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, the proposal moved to the White House, where U.S. President George Bush was expected to sign it, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

About 909,000 disadvantaged children are enrolled in the program designed to help prepare them for school academically and socially.

The legislation would allow eligibility for the 42-year-old program to expand to families slightly above the federal poverty level. The proposal also set a goal that by 2013 all Head Start teachers will have at least a two-year associate's degree.

"Head Start teachers and staff are the heart and future of the program," U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a statement. "They help children learn to identify letters and arrange the pieces of a puzzle. They teach them to brush their teeth, wash their hands, make friends and follow rules."

The bill, however, would jettison a controversial system for testing 4-year-olds' math and verbal skills and doesn't have a provision sought by the White House to allow to allow religious groups participating in Head Start to hire and fire staff members based on religious affiliation, the Post said.

British Testocracy Fails the Test That Matters

New research from Lancaster University and reported in The Guardian shows that Blair testocracy in Britain has, for the most part, been a hugely-expensive bust that has disabled learners, rather than making them better thinkers. Maybe there is something here in these findings for our own clueless Congress as they consider ways to get free of the NCLB millstone:

. . . . The review is also highly critical of the narrow basis on which children's ability is measured. It points out that the pressure on schools and children to deliver the right answers to tests means teachers don't develop children's abilities to think and talk. Teachers ask closed questions and children are expected to give short, prescribed answers. What the report calls "higher-order learning", ie the ability to connect different ideas and draw conclusions from evidence, is neither encouraged nor measured. Here the report echoes a child I heard on the radio last week, who said: "I know the right thing to do to pass the tests, but I don't know what I'm doing."

But perhaps the most important parts of the report are to be found in its recommendations for the future. It points out, drily, that "massive efforts to bring about change have had a relatively small impact". Education policies have cost hundreds of millions, but they have generally had neither a sound basis in research nor a systematic evaluation thereafter. As the review says, what is clear is our ignorance. It wants to see policies tied much more closely to evidence, and trials of any new initiatives before they become national practice.

In its response the DCSF appears to be imprisoned by its political inability to admit that the thrust of this policy could have been a mistake. Indeed, ministers are planning to press ahead with new tests for primary school children which can be taken at any point during the school year - something critics believe will only add to pupils' stress, while adding nothing to their learning.

Perhaps the only hope lies in the possibility that the new secretary of state will have the courage to look at the evidence anew. Meanwhile, it is ironic to reflect that, 10 years after coming into office and promising to govern on the basis of "what works", the government should still have so little idea of what really does.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. --A. Einstein

Greenbacks and Green Dot Coming to DC?

With Congress and the American people eager to put the NCLB educational genocide behind them, the privatizing mayors are moving fast to get rid themselves of the burden of poor children in neglected schools where no one in power gives a damn about solving the problems of poverty that remain the source of the achievement gap. Unless a concerned public intervenes, these schools, teachers, and children will be auctioned off to the most corrupt bidders.

DC Schools under Fenty and Michelle Rhee are the latest to use the guaranteed failure provided by NCLB to dump the poorest into the laps of education industry. Where have we heard that name, Green Dot Public Schools, Inc. before? To be sure, the race is on in DC, LA, NYC, Chicago, and St. Louis to assign as many of these disposable children as possible to corporate control before the public actually notices what is going on. Would the public give a damn if they did? Where are the voices of support for public education? Does the relinquishing of public institutions and public dollars to corporate control matter? Where is the outrage?

From WaPo:

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is considering bringing in national nonprofit charter school operators to manage at least two dozen of the city's lowest-performing schools, one of the first indications of how she might proceed in reforming the 49,600-student school system.

The charter operators were one of several options for improving failing schools that Rhee outlined Monday to school leaders at Roosevelt and Cardozo high schools, according to Rhee spokeswoman Mafara Hobson. The Northwest schools are among those in the system that have not reached benchmarks in reading and math test scores in the past five years.

Under No Child Left Behind, schools that fail to reach benchmarks for five straight years enter into "restructuring" mode. In that phase, the school system must devise a plan that changes the schools' governance structure, replaces most of their staff, contracts with an education management organization to operate the schools or turns the schools over to the state. In the meeting with school leaders, Rhee outlined how those options could work in the District.

. . . .

Hobson said there are 25 traditional public schools in the restructuring phase, while state education officials put the number at 27. Four charter schools have also failed to meet testing benchmarks.

The charter schools and the D.C. system must turn in their restructuring plans to Gist by the end of the month.

"This is the planning year, but there is no more room for talk," Gist said. "I expect to see action."

According to Hobson, Rhee told the parents and teachers she met with Monday that three nonprofits potentially could run some D.C. schools: St. Hope, a charter operator in Sacramento; Green Dot, which operates 12 charter schools in the Los Angeles area; and Philadelphia-based Mastery Charter Schools.

Rhee has a personal connection with St. Hope. She recruited teachers for St. Hope in her former position as chief executive and president of the nonprofit New Teacher Project. She also was a board member of St. Hope for about a year until she was appointed chancellor, according to a St. Hope official.

At her confirmation hearing before the D.C. Council in June, former NBA star Kevin Johnson, who serves as president and chief executive of St. Hope, flew from California to testify on her behalf. . . .

NOVA's Judgment Day a Stunner

We can call them nitwits and crackpots all day, but words will never harm these zealots who wish to lead a revolution to return our society to a pre-science era in hopes of completing the theocratic experiment that John Winthrop began in 1630 in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, this well-funded revolutionary movement shares Winthrop's views, too, that democracy is the "meanest form of government." God's law, as interpreted by them, trumps even the Constitution.

The good part of the story is that the judgment delivered in the Dover school case by a Bush-appointed judge totally busted up the creationism-in-a-cheap-suit Intelligent Design bandwagon for the time being.

PBS will re-run this NOVA segment on November 16. Anyone, educator, parent, student or citizen should see this 60 minutes of history. This is an indispensable piece of journalism for every citizen of the world who seeks to avoid another Dark Ages. Watch a Preview

Work Hard, Be Nice, and Other Lies My KIPP Teacher Told Me

Update March 5, 2008: See review essay focused on Work Hard, Be Nice . . . by Jay Mathews here at Education Review.

For white philanthropists, the major appeal of the KIPP charter chain gang schools is the non-stop behavioral control system aimed at producing compliant worker bees who learn to internalize any real or potential shortcomings as evidence of individual weakness or failure. If things don't work out, then, as the KIPP brainwashers promise, then who is to blame? This is not a new pedagogical approach--it was used successfully at Hampton Institute in the late 19th Century to train a generation of black teachers like Booker T. Washington, who would become complicit in their own subjugation and that of their brothers and sisters.

For black parents, the KIPP appeal is the promise that for those who "work hard, be nice," there is a new world of opportunity waiting to embrace their efforts. Hope, however groundless, remains the only alternative to despair.

New studies by Pew and reported in WaPo show some disturbing realities that are troubling at least, even though they are likely to be ignored by the keep-on-the-sunny-side world of those who have been KIPP-notized.

A couple of clips here:

Nearly half of African Americans born to middle-income parents in the late 1960s plunged into poverty or near-poverty as adults, according to a new study -- a perplexing finding that analysts say highlights the fragile nature of middle-class life for many African Americans.

Overall, family incomes have risen for both blacks and whites over the past three decades. But in a society where the privileges of class and income most often perpetuate themselves from generation to generation, black Americans have had more difficulty than whites in transmitting those benefits to their children.

Forty-five percent of black children whose parents were solidly middle class in 1968 -- a stratum with a median income of $55,600 in inflation-adjusted dollars -- grew up to be among the lowest fifth of the nation's earners, with a median family income of $23,100. Only 16 percent of whites experienced similar downward mobility. At the same time, 48 percent of black children whose parents were in an economic bracket with a median family income of $41,700 sank into the lowest income group.

. . . .

Overall, family income of blacks in their 30s was $35,000, 58 percent that of comparable whites, a gap that did not surprise researchers. Startling them, however, was that so many blacks fell out of the middle class to the bottom of the income distribution in one generation.

Ronald B. Mincy, a Columbia University sociologist who has focused on the growing economic peril confronted by black men and who served as an adviser on the Pew project, said skeptical researchers repeatedly reviewed the findings before concluding they were statistically accurate.

"There is a lot of downward mobility among African Americans," Mincy said. "We don't have an explanation."

Pew hopes to develop some answers in future reports in its series on economic mobility. Reports scheduled to be released early next year will probe, among other things, the role of wealth and education in income mobility.

Mincy and others speculated that the increase in the number of single-parent black households, continued educational gaps between blacks and whites and even racial isolation that remains common for many middle-income African Americans could be factors.

"That's a stunner," said Orlando Patterson, a Harvard University sociologist, when told about the Pew finding. "These kids were middle class, but apparently their parents did not have the cultural capital and connections to pass along to them."

Another reason so many middle-class blacks appear to be downwardly mobile is likely the huge wealth gap separating white and black families of similar incomes. For every $10 of wealth a white person has, blacks have $1, studies have found.

"We already knew that downward mobility was much more likely for blacks," said Mary Pattillo, a Northwestern University sociologist who studies the black middle class. "But this is an even bigger percentage drop than I have seen elsewhere. That's very steep."

Renaiisance or Dark Ages in Chicago?

When I posted this at ARN on the Bloomberg corporate giveaway plans in NYC Public Schools, George Schmidt wrote back with this on the situation in Chicago:

The same kind of plan has been in place in Chicago for the past five years. It's called "Renaissance 2010 -- 100 new schools for Chicago" and is based on the same drives (privatize and charterize as much as possible).

Renaissance 2010, as we reported in Substance, was inaugurated in a speech by Mayor Richard Daley here in July 2004. It was scripted, though, in a report by a group called the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, which has been Chicago's local version of the Business Roundtable for the past 100 years or so.

The Civic Committee published a report entitled "Left Behind" in 2003 which claimed (based on twisting data sets) that all Chicago public schools had failed and should be replaced by charters.

That meant that by the time, one year later, Renaissance 2010 was announced by Mayor Daley people could say "Whew, they're only going to charterize 100 schools (out of 600) so most of us are safe."

The central committee of the ruling class at this point is sharing information about how to bring this stuff about. One of their main claims is that all they are doing is offering "choice" to poor and "underserved" communities. Of course, the ruling class has made those communities poor and underserved, but unless our side puts that loudly into the debate, it's ignored.

They have also raised a lot of private money (Gates; Walton; Ford; others) for direct assistance to charters. Additionally, they are continually getting additional funds from the federal government. Margaret Spellings came to Chicago (as we reported in February) for what I called a charter school infomercial three days after President Bush pushed charters in the State of the Union address.

With the amount of money they have, they are buying a lot of activists to shill for them, including many erstwhile "progressives." While they are starving the remaining public schools of capital and operational funds, there are millions of extra dollars provided you push charterization.

Finally, for now, there is a very strange religious side to this stuff. One Chicago charter schools (Chicago International Charter Schools) now has ten "campuses" and is the largest charter school in Illinois. Every one of its "campuses" is in what was once a Catholic Schools, and they have generally refused to remove the religious iconography from the building. Two weeks ago (as I'll be reporting in the November Substance this week) I was surrounded by security guys when I went out to the newest CICS charter school which was just opened in the old Immaculate Heart of Mary school building on Chicago's northwest side. I wanted to get my usual shots (a statue of the Blessed Virgin outside a "public schools", the crucifixes all over the place) and wasn't taking my photographs five minutes when first one, then two, then three private security people (for a school of 200!) rushed around trying to block my camera. They really wanted to protect that eight foot high statue of the virgin from my camera lens.

A reason I mention this is that it seems that the powerful Archdiosis of Chicago is very much in the middle of the charter school push, and that in some cases they are simply flipping Catholic schools, with the same kids and staffs, and calling them public charter schools.

On all levels, if you can challenge these programs every step of the way, you will be much better off.

Oh, and watch how they pick the people to run things. Here in Chicago, the "Office of New Schools Development" is staffed by people who've never worked in public schools, all paid more than teachers. Their current chief officer (at $135,000 per year) is a guy named Josh Edelman, a former charter school head from California. You might recognize the name of this young visionary. His mother is Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund.

George N. Schmidt

Editor, Substance