Pearson's aimsweb Behavior Module

If you like Pearson's DIBELS-style nonsense reading test for young children, you are sure to find a place for Pearson's Behavior Module for turning children in test-passing robots.  Like Pearson's other product lines in the aimsweb suite, it is entirely web-based so that your children's records can be stored for as long as there is a reason to manipulate their data and their lives.

With aimsweb Behavior control system, you can begin keeping seamless records in pre-K for every behavior infraction, regardless of how small.  You can also get extra help (or entirely creeped out) in webinars with ed psychologist, Dr. Shinn, who was part of the University of Oregon cabal when DIBELS became a lucrative product line that have made Good and Kaminski rich:

DIBELS were developed based on measurement procedures for Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM), which were created by Deno and colleagues through the Institute for Research and Learning Disabilities at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s-80s (e.g., Deno and Mirkin, 1977; Deno, 1985; Deno and Fuchs, 1987; Shinn, 1989). Like CBM, DIBELS were developed to be economical and efficient indicators of a student's progress toward achieving a general outcome.

From the Pearson website:

Count on improved student success with aimsweb Behavior. This comprehensive, flexible system provides the framework, resources, and data for RTI and positive behavior support programs. Whether it’s used for school-wide or individualized programs, aimsweb Behavior offers the flexiblity school professionals and administrators need to maximize value and results.

When you put aimsweb Behavior to work in your school or district, you can feel confident knowing you are using the only multi-tiered K-12 system available that includes all of the essential components needed for establishing an effective behavior management system, including:

Benchmarking for Behavior and/or Social Skills

Universally screen to identify students at risk for behavior or social skill problems that interfere with academic success.

         Two types of valid and reliable screeners:

                  Behavior and Emotional Screening System (BESS), for social emotional problems

                  Social Skills: Prosocial Behavior and Motivation to Learn

         Teacher and student benchmark forms available

Action Plan and Progress Monitoring: Customizable online tracking of specific classroom behavior

Research-Based Interventions: Online, evidence-based, classroom intervention resources to reduce problem behavior and improve social skills in the classroom.

Data Management:

         Seamless database for managing data on student behavior from benchmark through intervention and progress monitoring

         Individual and group-level (benchmark only) reporting options that track the status of an individual or group throughout the academic year

         Reports that can be combined with academic results (when used with other aimsweb modules), enabling comparisons between academic and behavior performance.

Related Links

         Download an aimsweb Behavior brochure

              aimsweb Behavior Administration and Technical Manual

Nashville School Board Backs Away from Pearson Nonsense-Based Reading Test

During the early years of the Reading First corporate feeding frenzy that dumped a cool billion dollars a year into worthless reading programs blessed by crackpot, Reid Lyon, and a handful of his corrupt cronies housed principally at the University of Oregon, a reading assessment called DIBELS became required if your state or city wanted a shot the Reading First grants.  It is based, essentially, on counting how many nonsense syllables a child can correctly identify in 60 seconds.

Surprise--Pearson has developed its own brand of nonsense based reading assessments marketed under the suite of products branded, aimsweb.  Led by former teacher, Jill Speering, the Nashville Metro School Board has delayed approval of a big contract with Pearson to provide their nonsense reading assessment for kids in Nashville Metro.  A clip from the Tennesseean's Joey Harrison:

A proposed reading assessment for Nashville elementary and middle school students has given pause to the Metro school board amid concerns from a member who spent more than three decades as a teacher.

Aimsweb, a product of the education publishing giant Pearson Inc., is one of a growing number of tests used nationally in public schools today to screen children for early academic intervention.

But the Metro school board voted 5-4 this month to defer voting on contracting Pearson Inc. to use the assessment in mathematics, reading and writing. That action came after school board member Jill Speering, a retired teacher and reading specialist — and the board’s biggest critic of so-called “high-stakes testing” in schools — questioned both the process to select the assessment and its merits.

“Does adopting the aimsweb coincide with our road map to success?” Speering said. “I don’t think it does.”

In outlining her disapproval, Speering said a panel of 23 administrators used to recommend the assessment included no classroom teachers. “That’s one more reason why we have low teacher morale, ” she said. “When we ask teachers to administer an assessment we give them no voice in choosing the assessment.”

She also took aim at the assessment’s definition of fluency — which emphasizes reading with speed — and its use of what are known as “nonsense words.” Those call on students to identify the phonetics and sounds of words not found in the dictionary. Speering believes employing them is a poor way to evaluate how well a child is understanding what he or she reads.

“We confuse kids when we have them reading something called nonsense,” Speering said.

The board will reconsider the aimsweb contract at its Jan. 9 meeting. Under the proposal, the district would use $357,200 in federal Race to the Top funds to use the assessment for the 2014-15 school year. Administrators want to begin training teachers on the assessment in February.

Under state law, local districts are required to administer a universal screener for response to intervention plans. It is separate from new tests that are part of Common Core standards. Metro officials don’t plan to use the assessment for state-mandated teacher evaluations.

Aimsweb would replace Metro’s use of an assessment called DIBELS, another web-based program. Doing so, Speering said, would be “replacing one flawed assessment with another flawed assessment.” . . . .

Real Life Consequences of Corporate Education Deform

There's no shortage of education blogs and information about how utterly worthless and destructive current education policy is for the United States. There are mounds of factual, scientific evidence based on thousands of academic studies on the destructive education policies that continue to dumb down the nation's next generation. There are enough books and documents to fill the Capitol rotunda ten times over, but nothing has changed.

As public school districts scramble to prepare for and implement Common Core,  more high stakes standardized testing. and canned, scripted curriculum emanating from corporate, for-profit bottom feeders in charge of education policy, there are real life consequences.

At this point, so much damage has been done, it's almost impossible to see how this will be reversed anytime soon. The beginning of a new year is a time of hope and reflection, but unfortunately, after reading this latest research finding on reproductive rights, reality bites.

The consequences of an ignorant population who have no concept of history, the Constitution, social studies, and hard fought battles for basic human rights, are rearing their ugly heads in a myriad of ways in legislatures across the country. The decimation of history and social studies in schools, resulting from what isn't tested isn't taught, means Americans have no clue about who or what they are voting for, if they even bother to vote at all.

So, here we are, in 2014, after Roe v. Wade has been settled law and most civilized, Western democracies are moving forward on women and children's issues. We are stuck in the good ole U.S.A. wringing our hands over PISA scores and fighting for a livable minimum wage while people continue to suffer and our basic rights are taken away, one at a time.

Let's see what is happening in states as the clock is turned back on reproductive freedom -- just one consequence of many, resulting from sheer apathy and ignorance when it comes to government and public policy.  Just another consequence of blind stupidity in a country where Congress is too impotent and lame to pass sane gun control legislation.  Even after the brutal slaying of 20 first graders and six educators were gunned down in the bucolic suburb of Newtown, CT two years ago, we still put up with a Congress devoid of the moral courage to close gun show loopholes and ban assault weapons. That pretty much says it all. If gun legislation can't get passed, what chance does sane education legislation have?

For the majority of Americans, it's on to the next football game, or inane news story about Miley Cyrus and Black Friday shopping sprees. Anyone who thinks this onslaught by anti-intellectual fascist fanatics who occupy statehouses across the country, and who fantasize about the good old days -- you know, when white men ruled, isn't going to end badly, is living in a dream world.  

The new abortion restrictions are just another by-product those who prefer a mindless population focused on test and punishments, all the while benefiting profiteers at the expense of children. They have what they have always wished for, a backwards, mindless society that can easily be manipulated by fear and desperation. Then, when the majority of eligible voters have no clue what is going on in their state legislatures, it's easy to zero in on the most vulnerable -- women and children. 

Teachers who try to discuss politics or current events in public schools are seen as subversive, crossing the line and insubordinate. Most are fired or asked to leave. These are the consequences of teaching to the test, following the script and avoiding  anything "political" or engaging in political or controversial discussions or topics with students.

Here's a dose of reality and a glimpse into the new normal when it comes to reproductive choice and freedom from the Guttmacher Institute's latest study, Laws Protecting Reproductive Health and Rights, 2013 State Policy Review.

There's nothing like a good graphic chart to illustrate the success of three decades of high stakes standardized testing. Does anyone really care? Let's see. What do Americans still care about?

It's almost time for Super Bowl 2014! Can't wait to see the commercials this year. Perhaps there will be one for Western Governors University or some other for-profit on-line diploma mill, where you can become a teacher or a nurse for only $5,600 and in just six months. No teachers or professors necessary. 

What was all that talk about high standards, high quality teachers and no excuses while blaming teachers for the United States falling behind in global competition?

I think it's something about No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and National Core Curriculum Standards.

Sounds good.

Abortion is legal? Huh? When did that happen?

Pass the chips, please.

National Threat Alert: The Mind Trust’s CEE-Trust, George Bush, and Bill Gates

By Doug Martin

The Indianapolis-based Mind Trust plays a major part in my forthcoming book Hoosier School Heist, but many people don’t realize that the group founded by former Democratic mayor Bart Peterson and David Harris is a national leader in the school privatization movement through its CEE-Trust (Cities for Education Entrepeneurship). Loaded with Bill Gates/Joyce and Carnegie Foundation money, CEE-Trust actively works for charterization not only in Indianapolis but in Kansas City, Cleveland, Detroit, Memphis, Dallas, Denver, and New Orleans.  In fact, CEE-Trust boasts of 33 affiliates and members across the U.S.*

KANSAS CITY HERE WE COME

Joe Robertson and social justice group More2 recently exposed CEE-Trust’s secret political agenda in Kansas City, Missouri, where shady backdoor dealings, cronyism, an Edison Schools administrator, and government officials helped CEE-Trust land almost $400,000 to help privatize the  school district.

According to released emails, CEE-Trust, funded by the charter school promoting Kauffman and Hall Family foundations, connived with Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro and her operatives to get the gig, which Kansas City superintendent Steve Green rightfully calls a “conspiracy.”

Aware of a backlash over the inside deal, Nicastro even fed media talking points to Mind Trust-CEE-Trust’s Ethan Gray on how to downplay charter schools for fear that public school supporters would “try to paint" CEE-Trust “as the outsiders, funded with private money, determined to privatize all public education, yada yada.”

FORMER PREZ, CEE-TRUST, AND BILL GATES IN COLORADO

Besides being in bed with E3, whose Rochester, NJ, branch is now led by Rupert Murdock’s corporate buddy Joe Klein, CEE-Trust loves rightwing pseudo research groups like the Fordham Foundation, one of its main partners, which awarded former Indiana supt. of education Tony Bennett a major award a few years ago. 
 

The CEE-Trust/Fordham plan (besides eliminating local and democratically-elected school boards) is to breed Bill Gates-inspired for-profit blended learning schools across the country, as they discussed when the two groups met in December 2011 in Washington D.C.

In Colorado, CEE-Trust is spreading blended learning propaganda, bigtime. In a recent newsletter, the group praises how “Tony Lewis, Executive Director of the Donnell-Kay Foundation and Amy Slothower, Founder and Executive Director of Get Smart Schools this month co-published an op-ed in EdNewsColorado encouraging school leaders in the state to apply for Wave IIIa of the Next Generation Learning Challenges grant.” As I point out in my upcoming book, this is a Gates scheme to hire low-paid aides to watch kids play on school computers, so that CEOs of online schools can pocket more money. 

NCLB father George W. Bush is also involved in this CEE-Trust plot for Colorado, the former US president appearing at “Get Smart Schools (GSS is an affiliate of CEE-Trust member, the Donnell-Kay Foundation) during a visit to Denver in October.” 

CEE-Trust writes that “while President Bush is ‘out of politics,’ he still has a ‘great passion about educational excellence,’ and is working with groups such as GSS to ‘set up a collaborative effort of educational entrepreneurs’ at the Bush Center at Southern Methodist University.” This “collaborative effort” means that GSS signed a contract with George W. Bush Institute's Alliance to Reform Education Leadership (which is also involved in Indiana) to churn out corporate school rules for training and evaluating school principals.

TAKING FRIEDMAN'S DEATH-BED WISH VIRAL

In New Orleans, the CEE-Trust  met with several other corporate school leaders to discuss furthering Milton Friedman’s death-bed wish of turning every single school in America over to rich folk (most schools in New Orleans are, indeed, privatized, at this point: see my article on the Mind Trust's lies about New Orleans here). 

CEE-Trust desires (see page 5 in PDF) to use public money from federal i3 and Race to the Top grants (see page 10) to “incubate” cities with some of the most corrupt private school corporations in the country, including Green Dot, known for first promoting the fake parent trigger bill with the Heartland Institute and ALEC.  The parent trigger bill allows corporate school leaders to send operatives into local communities and dupe parents into signing a form to turn their community schools over to for-profit companies.

For the national job, CEE-Trust wants KIPP (notorious for mental abuse to kids and teachers) and Uncommon Schools, a favorite of Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos which didn’t have to be a part of the teacher evaluation scheme in NYC, when school commissioner John King let them slide out of it. 

 

IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?

Yes, it’s not just the Mind Trust, folks, with celebrity spokesperson Jane Pauley onboard and mega-donors Eli Lilly.  David Harris (who makes almost $200,000 a year, as I’ve pointed out too many times in writings and on the radio) and Bart Peterson’s CEE-Trust is up to no good.  The question is, is anyone in Indianapolis or elsewhere listening?

**********************************************************

NOTE

Back in June 2012 in a very lengthy editorial in NUVO, I mentioned several other cities that CEE-Trust and Public Impact (who did the Mind Trust Opportunity Plan for Indianapolis) were threatening to invade.

The common core ignores the evidence

Sent to the Los Angeles Times, Jan 2

Al Austin, in his letter to the Times (Jan 2) notes that the common core calls for "a sharp reduction" in literature in schools in favor of increased exposure to informational text.

This policy was created without any empirical evidence. The common core designers ignored  (or were not aware of) not only studies showing that reading literature contributes to an "enhanced theory of mind," described in the Times by Robert Sapolsky ("Another use for literature," Dec. 29) but also the massive amount of published research showing that self-selected "lighter" reading (largely fiction) contributes powerfully to literacy development (reading ability, vocabulary, grammar, spelling) and supplies the foundation for the reading of challenging texts.

Stephen Krashen

original articles:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-le-0102-thursday-literature-mind-20140102,0,6884773.story#axzz2pH5o2Ugw
 http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-sapolsky-theory-of-mind-20131229,0,2431766.story#axzz2pH5o2Ugw

Do Teachers Matter?

I am seeking ways to address teachers and workers—and the conditions impacting all workers—as a focus of my public work in 2014.

Recently, I came across a wonderful piece about Roberto Clemente: Common bond for uncommon men: Clemente and King shared a hatred for discrimination, by David Zirin.

In part, this piece speaks to the importance of solidarity and community, the sense of empathy any one person can feel and act upon in solidarity with others.

Zirin highlights Martin Luther King Jr.'s impact on Clemente:

David Maraniss quotes Clemente's feelings about King in his 2005 biography of the Hall of Fame outfielder: 

"When Martin Luther King started doing what he did, he changed the whole system of the American style. He put the people, the ghetto people, the people who didn't have nothing to say in those days, they started saying what they would have liked to say for many years that nobody listened to. Now with this man, these people come down to the place where they were supposed to be but people didn't want them, and sit down there as if they were white and call attention to the whole world. Now that wasn't only the black people but the minority people. The people who didn't have anything, and they had nothing to say in those days because they didn't have any power, they started saying things and they started picketing, and that's the reason I say he changed the whole world..." ...

But Clemente just couldn't handle it that way. In Maraniss' biography, Clemente was quoted thusly: "They say, 'Roberto, you better keep your mouth shut because they will ship you back.' [But] this is something from the first day I said to myself: I am in the minority group. I am from the poor people. I represent the poor people. I represent the common people of America. So I am going to be treated like a human being. I don't want to be treated like a Puerto Rican, or a black, or nothing like that. I want to be treated like any person."

How do teachers, then, form our own solidarity within our field and then foster a solidarity with all workers? How do teachers earn the solidarity of politicians, the public, and the media—all of whom often marginalize and disregard teachers' autonomy and voices?

I invite you to read and consider a few blogs recently attempting to address these concerns:

Education Reform: Our Field, Our Voices Simply Do Not Matter

An Open Letter to K-12 Teachers: A Call for Solidarity

"A Question of Power"—Of Accountability and Teaching by Numbers

Classroom Teaching Experience and Whose Voice Matters

Social Studies National Curriculum: Pearson and Gates Ready for Next Push

Even as 22 states are rethinking, restricting, or dropping prior commitments to national Common Core corporate standards for schools, this has not stopped the CorpEd machine from quietly pushing forward with another prong of its overreaching and lucrative exercise to increase testing, standardize thinking, and undercut diversity in American schools.

On September 11, 2013, a group drunk with money from the Gates Foundation published College, Career, and Civic Life: C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards.  Short on specifics and long on intent, the new C3 cram down crew offer this advice:

The C3 Framework was purposefully designed to offer guidance for state social studies standards, not to outline specific content to be delivered. For states utilizing the C3 Framework, the ten themes of the 2010 NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies:
A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment will be useful for the process of identifying specific content to be delivered and concepts to be acquired.

Apparently, the memo that these were not national standards but, rather, state standards did not reach all parties before they went to print.  If you would like to know what is in the new National Curriculum . . ., don't expect it be easy.  The document is available for $29.95, while supplies last.  Or it may be rented at Amazon for $20.89.  

Schools Matter 2013 Awards

Most Unconvincing Ideologue In the Role as Scholar
Chester Finn

Most Flagrant Political Organization Posing as a Legitimate Research Association
AERA

Lifetime Achievement Award
Deborah Meier

Self-Aggrandizement Award 2013 (tie)
David Coleman
Michelle Rhee

Education Book of the Year
The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver

Biggest Corporate Losers of the Year
Walmart
FedEx
Subaru

Most Dangerous Pseudo-Science Title
How Children Succeed by Paul Tough

Most unread Twitter posts
Larry Ferlazzo

Most Wasted Time on Twitter
Ken Libby

Least Criticized "reigns of error"
AFT's Weingarten and NEA's Van Roekel

Most self-congratulations in a single blog post
Ken Bernstein

Most un-appreciated real education news outlet
Substance News

Most ethically-compromised ed leadership graduates
Broad Foundation

Most promising education dean
Tim Slekar

Least avoidable plague
Gates Foundation

Most celebrated political retirement
Mike Bloomberg

Most promising new mayor
Bill de Blasio

Most Missed Education Warrior
Gerald Bracey

Best blogger
Bruce Baker

Most traitorous union leader
Paul Toner

Science Fiction Award
Barnett Berry for Teaching 2030

Most poisonous brand name
Teach for America

Most hated CorpEd reform (tie)
Common Core
VAM

Most likely to be sued
States and LEAs using VAM to evaluate teachers

Imminent Sunset Award
KIPP, Inc.

Education Writer Award
Susan Ohanian

Emerging Leader Award
Jay Saper

Most Harm by an Individual Achievement Award
Kevin Huffman

Segregation Award
City of Memphis and Shelby County

School Board Member of the Year
Amy Frogge, Nashville Metro

Education Research Corruption Award
CREDO

Teacher Courage Award
Lauren Hopson, Halls Elementary, Knox County, TN
Garfield High School Faculty, Seattle, WA

Most Corrupt State Politician (tie)
John Deberry (D) Memphis
Tony Bennett (TP) Indiana/Florida/Indiana

Most Corrupt Politician on National Stage
Jeb Bush

Courageous Student Award
Malala Yousafi

Best Education Reporter, Past or Present
Michael Winerip, NYT

Worst Education Reporter
Lyndsey Layton, WAPO

Most Outrageous Education Editorials
New York Times

Most Irrelevant Education Reporter
Jay Mathews

Best Model for National Union Movement
Chicago Teachers Union

Most Prolific Education Writer
Paul Thomas

Most Influential Education Org
United Opt Out National

Best New Schools Matter Blogger
Doug Martin