Is a dog a reader's best friend? No.

Sent to the News-Sentinel (Indiana), August 24

Do children improve in reading when they read out-loud to dogs? ("Why a dog may be a young reader's best friend," August 21). A close look at the Tufts study reported in the News-Sentinel shows that the children didn't take a reading test: The test they took measured how many words they could pronounce correctly in one minute. This isn't reading. Reading means understanding what is on the page.

Even if we accept the test as legitimate, the improvement was tiny, about four words per minute, according to the chart included in the Tufts study, a gain that was not statistically significant.

It is alarming when a meaningless study like this gets so much attention when there is so much research showing what really works: Read-alouds for beginning readers, and lots of self-selected reading. Dogs aren't a young reader's best friend. Parents, teachers, librarians and libraries are.

Stephen Krashen

Original article: http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110821/LIVING/110819906

Schools short of money, but no talk of reducing testing

Sent to Education Week, August 24, 2011

Schools are "facing tough budget choices" (August 24) and cutting back on teaching positions, tutors, support staff, summer programs, and extracurricular activities. According to an ASCD survey (SmartBrief poll, 2011-12), 78% of respondents said that they are "experiencing a lack of funding and it has affected student learning.

Unmentioned in the Ed Week article is the fact that at the same time money is so short, we are keeping a number of useless tests and actually increasing testing to astonishing levels, in the face of empirical evidence showing that these tests do not increase student achievement

A clear example of a current useless test is the High School Exit Exam used in many states. Studies consistently show that high school exit exams do not lead to more college attendance, increased student learning or higher employment. In fact, researchers have yet to discover any benefits of having a high school exit exam.

The US Department of Education is planning an astonishing increase in testing. In addition to end-of-year tests, there will be tests in reading and math near the end of school year and testing several times during the year (interim testing), In addition, the Department is encouraging pre-testing in the fall and testing other subjects as well. Recently, the Department announced plans to test children before they enter kindergarten. In addition, all tests will be administered on-line, a huge expense. There is no evidence that the new tests will help children.

We all agree that assessment is part of teaching and learning, but our philosophy should be "no unnecessary testing": Determine which tests are useful and eliminate the others. Over-testing is choking our schools both intellectually and financially.

Stephen Krashen

Original article: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/08/24/01openingday_ep.h31.html?tkn=QOQFffbFmIbu4uJDCSj3MNDKAeQOV%2BCORTw3&cmp=clp-sb-ascd

Some sources:

High school leaving exams, most recent review: Holme, J., Richards, M., Jimerson, J., and Cohen, R. 2010. Assessing the effects of high school exit examinations. Review of Educational Research 80 (4): 476-526.

No evidence the new tests will help: Nichols, S., Glass, G., and Berliner, D. 2006. High-stakes testing and student achievement: Does accountability increase student learning? Education Policy Archives 14(1). http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v14n1/.; OECD 2011. Lessons from PISA for the United States, Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264096660-en

Open note to LA's Promise former CEO Mike McGalliard regarding what he terms my pithiness

"The results are eye-opening, that conventional schools display stronger results," said Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley education professor. — Los Angeles Times


Mr. McGalliard:

I am the author of the "pithy" comments in question that you discuss in your Howard Blume & My Thoughts about the Corporate Takeover Hysteria essay. While I agree with you in part that the premise of the Times article was based on marginal differences in AYP/API gleaned from CST, we need to bear in mind that those in the corporate "reform movement" are the ones that have fetishised standardized test scores and used them as a bludgeon to privatize schools in the case of Green Dot Charter Corporation seizing Locke. Alternatively scores have been used as way to justify Los Angeles Unified School District "partnering" with outside groups featuring unelected boards stacked with slick business and finance types in the case of your organization LA's Promise.

When Marco Petruzzi was vying to takeover Locke, he frequently cited Locke's poor scores as the primary reason why it would be better run by outsiders. He went as far as to say, "give us three years and we'll give you a great school." The issues with Locke extend far beyond those brought up by Howard Blume and Sandra Poindexter in their Los Angeles Times piece. Fact is Green Dot Corporation is "graduating" students where only two percent are proficient in English. Those type of remediation rates are clearly not what you term "looking at the tiniest variance between schools with regard to students who measure proficient or advanced."

What's sadly ironic for public school advocates and social justice activists is that the factors "reformers" like your MBA backers have consistently dismissed as unimportant or mere excuses (ie. better attendance, slowly rising scores, improved school culture, etc.), are now being cited by people like you and Petruzzi in lieu of your test scores. Why weren't those things valid when we discussed them in the context of struggling public schools? How is it that the vile Yolie Flores could say "I'm tired of waiting" to public schools in program improvement trying to keep their schools public under PSC, but when those factors are discussed by the corporate "reform" cabal, suddenly they take on importance? The truth is those factors are important, but you well heeled business types always fail to acknowledge that for public schools, or worse, call it the defense of the status quo. How does it feel to be defending your status quo now?

Where you cite "hysteria," we social justice advocates call the selfsame thing "outrage" regarding the very real corporatization of public education. The fact that your organization has charlatan board members like Tom Vander Ark, or that you refer to yourself as an Educational Entrepreneur, speaks volumes to the fact that you might be somewhat obtuse to neoliberalism and corporatization. I'm not going to accuse you and John Holcomb of white savior syndrome per se, but I will go on record as saying that your ideas and actions, no matter how well intentioned, are the epitome of what Freire called "the false generosity of paternalism."

While I'm sure we could discuss this at length at get a better understanding of each other's positions, let me say this: I would be a huge advocate of some of the programs of yours that "Increase Access to Health Care Through Schools," if you folks were trying to do this for public schools in general. Not just for children that your corporate benefactors like Amgen have decided are worthy of their so-called charity.

I could only laugh when I saw your own comments on the same Times piece that ended with:

"Once and for all, can we stop pretending that these 'outsiders' are in it for any other reason than help a struggling system?"

Let's be clear, none of the plutocrats behind corporate "reform" are in it to help a struggling system, since they strive to maintain an inequitable economic system that created the problems in our public schools in the first place. Eli Broad, The DeVos Family, Bill Gates, The Koch Brothers, Reed Hastings, The Walton fortune heirs, and all the other oligarchic outsiders are in it for one or more of three primary reasons: profitability, lower taxes, or devotion to discredited market ideologies. Those things may or may not be ignoble to you, but they are anathema to social justice.

Of course, you're doing what all wealthy business types do when times get tough — you're moving on to greener pastures. None of those people you were "saving" have that option. I for one want to thank you for the short two year missionary stint you did as an English teacher, since that was the first and last genuine thing you ever did for education. However, I'm sure Eli et al will thank you for all your contributions supporting their neoliberal school privatization project which includes LA's Promise.

Introducing the Depowered Forward for the Corporate Oligarchs

Just too good!

Steve Brill = Corporate Shill

 Randy Shaw has a number of things to say in this piece about Michelle "Erasure" Rhee and the defensive posturing of oligarch education reform, but my favorite part has to do with the new book by corporate stooge, Steve Brill:

When I saw notorious anti-teachers union Steve Brill had a book on education on the front-page of the August 21 New York Times Sunday Book Review, and that the review was written by a private school teacher who has problems with unions, I assumed the worst. But this book by a legal entrepreneur with no educational background failed to even convince a sympathetic critic that teachers unions are the problem with American education.

As reviewer Sara Mosle writes:

“Yet Brill wants us to believe that unions are the primary – even sole – cause of failing public schools. But hard evidence for this is scarce. Many of the nation’s worst-performing schools (according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress) are concentrated in Southern and Western right-to-work states, where public sector unions are weakest and collective bargaining enjoys little or no protection. Also, if unions are the primary cause of bad schools, why isn’t labor’s pernicious effect similarly felt in many middle-class suburbs, like Pelham, N.Y., or Montclair, N.J., which have good schools – and strong unions?

More problematic for Brill’s thesis, charter schools, which are typically freed from union rules, haven’t succeeded in the ways their champions once hoped. A small percentage are undeniably superb. But most are not. One particularly rigorous 2009 study, which surveyed approximately half of all charters nationwide and was financed by the pro-charter Walton Family and Michael and Susan Dell Foundations, found that more than 80 percent either do no better, or actually perform substantially worse, than traditional public schools, a dismal record.”

Like Rhee, Brill’s animus toward teachers unions leads him to disregard unpleasant facts. The review notes that “Brill obliquely refers to such research in half a sentence. He then counters that other studies have shown better results for charters, without clearly indicating what these studies are or explaining why they should trump a comprehensive, national study.”

Unfortunately for attorney Brill, he does not have a Justice Scalia or Clarence Thomas to save him from his evidentiary shortcomings. Brill has inadvertently brought down a “case closed” on the once rising campaign against teachers unions, as it has fallen victim to the test score measuring stick of its own devise.

Randy Shaw’s most recent book is Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.

Are children shunning books?

Sent to The Telegraph (London), August 23, 2100

Re: "Warning as children shun books in favour of Facebook," August 22

Since 1840, newspapers have been reporting on the decline of literacy among young people. It wasn't true 170 years ago, and there is no reason to believe it is true now.

The Telegraph notes that pleasure reading declines as children get older. This has been reported in every study of this kind ever done and there is widespread agreement among scholars that increasing demands of school play a large role.

The Telegraph reports that that technology-based reading is more popular. This is not a cause for alarm. My analysis shows that if we include computer-based reading, young people today are doing just as much reading as ever. I compared American teenagers' reading habits in 2010 with teenagers in 1946. The amount of book reading was nearly exactly the same, but today's teenagers are spending much less time reading magazines and newspapers, and more time reading from the internet. Overall time spend reading? About the same.

Original article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8716114/Warning-as-children-shun-books-in-favour-of-Facebook.html#disqus_thread

Opt Out of Testing: It's a National Movement

Join the new wiki to share information on strategies and tactics to shut down the sanctioned child abuse of high stakes testing.

What you can do here?

• Click the link with your state name to see what is there.
• Add information on a page by "joining" the wiki then selecting "edit" and adding the information then "save."
  • Don't worry if you make a mistake. You can always revert to an older version.
• Use the discussion tab on the each page to discuss issues specific to your state.
• Use the discussion tab on the All States page to discuss general opt out issues.
• Tweet people a link to this page with the hashtag #optout and #standardizedtests
  • Sample Tweet: Find out how to #optout of #standardizedtests in your state at http://optoutofstandardizedtests.wikispaces.com

Opt Out Groups on Facebook

Parents & Kids Against Standardized Testing (Opt Out of State Testing)

• Page for parents, teachers, students of all beliefs and backgrounds.

Parents & Kids Against Standardized Testing ( Opt Out of State Testing )

• Group for parents, teachers, students of all beliefs and backgrounds.

OPT OUT OF THE STATE TEST : The National Movement

• Group for parents, teachers, students whose primary focus is the preservation of public schools through the opting out of state tests. Members supporting alternatives to public education are not welcome in this group.

OPT OUT of State Tests: Parent/Student Support against Standardized Testing

• Group where parents frustrated by public school policies and mandates like standardized tests can feel comfortable to explore and share ideas about non public education alternatives.

State Opt Out Groups

National Resources

Home

Information on Standardized Testing from the American Homeschool Association

21st Century Schools Bumper Sticker

ht from Bob Schaeffer.  From Slate:

Will the Oligarchs' Venomous Poster Girl Be Charged with Fraud?

From the NYTimes:

WASHINGTON — Why won’t Michelle Rhee talk to USA Today?


Ms. Rhee, the chancellor of the Washington public schools from 2007 to 2010, is the national symbol of the data-driven, take-no-prisoners education reform movement.

It’s hard to find a media outlet, big or small, that she hasn’t talked to. She’s been interviewed by Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw and Oprah Winfrey. She’s been featured on a Time magazine cover holding a broom (to sweep away bad teachers). She was one of the stars of the documentary “Waiting for Superman.”

These days, as director of an advocacy group she founded, StudentsFirst, she crisscrosses the country pushing her education politics: she’s for vouchers and charter schools, against tenure, for teachers, but against their unions.
Always, she preens for the cameras. Early in her chancellorship, she was trailed for a story by the education correspondent of “PBS NewsHour,” John Merrow.

At one point, Ms. Rhee asked if his crew wanted to watch her fire a principal. “We were totally stunned,” Mr. Merrow said.

She let them set up the camera behind the principal and videotape the entire firing. “The principal seemed dazed,” said Mr. Merrow. “I’ve been reporting 35 years and never seen anything like it.”
 
And yet, as voracious as she is for the media spotlight, Ms. Rhee will not talk to USA Today.


At the end of March, three of the paper’s reporters — Marisol Bello, Jack Gillum and Greg Toppo — broke a story about the high rate of erasures and suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools while Ms. Rhee was chancellor.

At some schools, they found the odds that so many answers had been changed from wrong to right randomly were 1 in 100 billion. In a fourth-grade class at Stanton Elementary, 97 percent of the erasures were from wrong to right. Districtwide, the average number of erasures for seventh graders was fewer than one per child, but for a seventh-grade class at Noyes Elementary, it was 12.7 per student. At Noyes Elementary in 2008, 84 percent of fourth graders were proficient in math, up from 22 percent in 2007.. . . .

Read on here.

Knoxville Parent Vows to Fight Use of State Test Scores to Determine Student Grades and Placements

Looks like Jim McIntyre has started something he might not be able to finish!   From a Knoxville parent:

            Grades are important. I impress it upon my kids, but I don’t allow it to define them. Unfortunately, this is what the school is doing; in the state of TN, our children are being severely limited by a simple standardized test. Let me explain:

            I have a 7th grader who has always achieved academically. She was placed in the gifted programs in elementary school and proceeded into honors classes when she moved into the middle school last year. She’s a strong A/B student without really even applying herself, as is the case with many kids. This year, however, she has not been allowed to continue in the honors program based solely on last year’s TCAP scores.

            After numerous phone calls and lengthy holds, I was apprised that not only was her class placement determined by this one score, but that these TCAP scores will figure into the grades of all TN students beginning this year. After a call to Nashville, I was told that the state set the grade percentage limit between 15% and 25%; the counties are able to choose any number in between. I also questioned the practice of using the TCAP to determine class placement and hypothetically inquired as to whether a child could be pulled from an honors class and placed into a regular class, or if a remedial student would be moved from her class into a regular class based solely on a single test score. I was told that they were not aware of this happening, but that each county can interpret the scores and use them at their discretion.

            As a parent, I don’t hold much stock in these types of tests to paint an accurate picture about any child, her aptitude, or even her knowledge, except in a purely superficial standardized test kind of way. BUT, when my child is being pulled from an honors class, despite the fact that she’s already passed the class with A’s and B’s, and is being forced to RE-DO an entire year of math because she didn’t score high enough on a standardized test, I’m going to fight it! This is the epitome of dumbing down education and teaching to the test. Although this fight began with me challenging my own child’s class placement, the repercussions of this decision are far-reaching. I’m not only going to fight for my children, I’m taking up this cause for every child in the state. 

            Throughout the entire state there are kids who are going to be hurt by this policy change. As much as they tout that this test is fair and equal to every student, what they fail to recognize is that all students are not equal. My child and many others have already been directly impacted. Those most harshly affected will be kids who are already socioeconomically disadvantaged. In addition to the student population, policy changes like these can have a direct impact on the community. There are non-profit organizations whose successful operations depend on grants based on student achievement. If the inclusion of the TCAP scores in the second semester grades makes it seem as though grades have gone down, it will appear that last year’s grant was ineffective and shouldn’t be renewed.

            Most parents try to raise children in a positive, supportive environment. Why is it that we practice this in our own homes yet we allow our schools to do things with which we completely disagree in practice and principle? Using a negative reinforcer like pulling a child from a class in which they were completely capable, or adding a standardized test as a portion of a grade, will not be successful in motivating a child to do well. A study printed in the International Journal of Academic Research entitled Use of Reinforcement Practices in the Educational Institutions and its Impact on Student Motivations concludes: “Negative reinforcers affect the student’s motivation for [a] short time. If... used frequently students become habitual and sermon proof. Hence... a balance between positive and negative reinforcers transform students into intrinsically motivated [individuals]. In this way they ultimately become lifelong learners.”  I want all of our children to enjoy school and thirst to learn. Policy changes like the one passed in TN for the 2011-2012 school year will only dampen attitudes toward school in general. We should not be training students to do well on this test to better overall state TCAP scores, but instead teaching our children the importance of education and instilling the foundation of intrinsic learning.

 Kari Hancock

changetnschools@gmail.com