We've collected a whole bunch this week, campers. Let's get cracking.
I Don't Want To Be Liberal
Blue Cereal Education tells a story that seems really familiar. Raised to be conservative, inclined to be conservative, and yet, somehow, forced to be a liberal.
TN(Not)Ready-- What's Really Changed
Tennessee's testing fiasco and the effects of disorganized, change-your-mind accountability
Who's Raking in the Big Bucks in Charterworld
Just how rich are charter school leaders getting on the backs of a small number of students?
Will Competency Based Learning Rescue the Testocracy
Anthony Cody looks at how Competency Based baloney fits into the arc of reformster policy.
Robbing Public Schools to Pay Private Charters
Former lawmaker Paula Dockery takes on a proposed Florida bill intended to steal more public tax dollars to enrich private schools.
How Charters Get the Students They Want
This Stephanie Simon piece is from three years ago, but it's still essential reading. A vivid picture of just how charters can rig the admission process so that they get only the students they want while still looking as if they're open to all.
Seventh Grade Reflections on Stereotypes and Assumptions
Brief but poignant-- what seventh graders know about the assumptions they are painted with by others.
No, You Cannot Test My Child
Daniel Katz runs the table on arguments that his child should be tested, batting each one down. Perfect reading for anyone psyching themselves up to take the opt-out plunge.
A Light Moment in Senate Ed Committee-- and Some UNlight Reading
Claudia Swisher catches the OK ALEC crowd trying to deal with someone appropriating their terminology. And she adds an outstanding reading list about vouchers programs.
Showing posts with label Tennessee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tennessee. Show all posts
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
TN: We've Found the Unicorn Farm
Tennessee officials are cheerfully announcing the advent of awesome new assessments that will be "not a test you can game." The tests will be delivered at the end of the year by winged unicorns pooping rainbows while playing a Brahms lullabye on the spoons.
“We’re moving into a better test that will provide us better information about how well our students are prepared for post-secondary,” Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen told reporters recently during sneak peek at some of the questions.
Fans of the new standardized tests continue to be impressed at how these tests solve the problems of education in the 1970's. Assistant state commissioner of data and research Nokia Townes says that the tests will require "more than rote memorization," which puts them on a par with the tests I started giving my students thirty-five years ago. But that statement also indicates that officials still don't understand what "gaming the test" means.
Standardized tests are, by their nature, games. Where you have multiple choice questions, you have one correct answer and several other answers designed to trick and trap students who might make a particular mistake, so by their nature, they are not simply trying to capture a particular correct behavior, but are also testing for several incorrect ones.
But Tennessee officials are distracted themselves, focusing on unimportant test features. The questions have drop and drag! Which is, of course, simply a bubble test question with dragging instead of clicking or bubbling. The questions require multiple correct answers! Which is just a bubble test with more options and two bubbles to hit.
Because standardized tests are a game, gaming them will always be possible. The tests involve plenty of tricks and traps, and so we teach students how to identify those and spot when testers are trying to sucker them in a particular way. We learn specialized testing vocabulary (this is what "mood" means to test manufacturers). We learn what sorts of things to scan for in response to certain types of questions. In short, we teach students a variety of skills that have no application other than taking the Big Standardized Test.
Nothing has changed, really. The advantage of a standardized multiple choice test is that it can be scored quickly and cheaply. The problem is that it can't measure much of any depth. At its worst in the bad old days when Hector and I were pups, it measured recall. In the new and improved days since, it measures whether or not the student will fall for particular tricks and traps-- which may or may not have anything to do with how well the student understands and applies the understanding. And since our focus under the Core is almost entirely on performing certain operations and not at all on content, we're not really testing a student on what she knows, but on whether she can perform the required trick (of course, we're also testing whether or not she's willing to perform the trick, but we never, ever have that discussion).
The article says that the "oldest and most potent criticism of tests" is that "they force teachers to 'teach to the test' and focus unduly on memorizing facts and testing tricks that students promptly forget after completing the test."
Memorizing facts? Maybe. Testing tricks? Those will always and forever be part of test prep for standardized tests because those tests must be speedy and cheap, and the only way to do testing speedy and cheap is by building it out of testing tricks. And any testing tricks that manufacturers can use to create a test, students can learn to take it.
“We’re moving into a better test that will provide us better information about how well our students are prepared for post-secondary,” Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen told reporters recently during sneak peek at some of the questions.
Fans of the new standardized tests continue to be impressed at how these tests solve the problems of education in the 1970's. Assistant state commissioner of data and research Nokia Townes says that the tests will require "more than rote memorization," which puts them on a par with the tests I started giving my students thirty-five years ago. But that statement also indicates that officials still don't understand what "gaming the test" means.
Standardized tests are, by their nature, games. Where you have multiple choice questions, you have one correct answer and several other answers designed to trick and trap students who might make a particular mistake, so by their nature, they are not simply trying to capture a particular correct behavior, but are also testing for several incorrect ones.
But Tennessee officials are distracted themselves, focusing on unimportant test features. The questions have drop and drag! Which is, of course, simply a bubble test question with dragging instead of clicking or bubbling. The questions require multiple correct answers! Which is just a bubble test with more options and two bubbles to hit.
Because standardized tests are a game, gaming them will always be possible. The tests involve plenty of tricks and traps, and so we teach students how to identify those and spot when testers are trying to sucker them in a particular way. We learn specialized testing vocabulary (this is what "mood" means to test manufacturers). We learn what sorts of things to scan for in response to certain types of questions. In short, we teach students a variety of skills that have no application other than taking the Big Standardized Test.
Nothing has changed, really. The advantage of a standardized multiple choice test is that it can be scored quickly and cheaply. The problem is that it can't measure much of any depth. At its worst in the bad old days when Hector and I were pups, it measured recall. In the new and improved days since, it measures whether or not the student will fall for particular tricks and traps-- which may or may not have anything to do with how well the student understands and applies the understanding. And since our focus under the Core is almost entirely on performing certain operations and not at all on content, we're not really testing a student on what she knows, but on whether she can perform the required trick (of course, we're also testing whether or not she's willing to perform the trick, but we never, ever have that discussion).
The article says that the "oldest and most potent criticism of tests" is that "they force teachers to 'teach to the test' and focus unduly on memorizing facts and testing tricks that students promptly forget after completing the test."
Memorizing facts? Maybe. Testing tricks? Those will always and forever be part of test prep for standardized tests because those tests must be speedy and cheap, and the only way to do testing speedy and cheap is by building it out of testing tricks. And any testing tricks that manufacturers can use to create a test, students can learn to take it.
Monday, July 20, 2015
What Barbic Learned
Last week brought the announcement that Chris Barbic, head of Tennessee's Achievement School District, is headed out the door at the end of the year. The announcement came complete with a letter that ran on the ASD website. There are certainly many lessons to be learned from the ASD in TN. Did Barbic learn any of them? Let's see...
Sustaining Effort
Barbic opens with the one-two punch of why he's leaving. First, because ASD is all launched and "sustainable," now is a good time to pass the baton. Second, because the job was killing him.
The pace and stress of a superintendent role...does not lend itself to decades of work.
That is perhaps a rough way to recruit a successor. But it also underlines one of those things that reformsters don't get-- education is a marathon, not a sprint. Maybe the job doesn't lend itself to decades of work, but a school district does, in fact, have to keep working for decades.
Reformsters often look at teachers and other professional educators as if they're just not trying hard enough. But the most read piece I have ever written is this one; on Huffington Post it has pulled 560K facebook likes. That's not because I wrote it so darn good, but because I touched a nerve, and the nerve I touched is the one that says that there is never enough-- never enough time, energy, you, to do everything, and so everybody who works a full career in education makes compromises. Otherwise you have to leave after four years because you drove yourself to a heart attack and your family misses you.
Schools require sustainable efforts. Otherwise it's constant chaos as teachers and administrators have to be constantly replaced. So Barbic has learned a True Thing here, maybe.
Pretty words
Barbic follows with some very pretty words about how ASD has changed stuff and made things better. Nothing about how Barbic's promise to move the bottom 5% of schools into the top 25% hasn't actually happened. Instead, advocates for ASD have been moving the goal posts from "achieve miracle move to top 25%" to "made some students do a little better." I'm pretty sure that if public schools were also allowed to move the goal posts in this game, they could score more often as well.
But now Barbic is going to move on to actual lessons learned.
Trust the professionals
Barbic speaks up for teachers and administrators, and, well, non-profit school operators, too.
By removing the bureaucracy—and putting the power in the hands of nonprofit school operators—we can eliminate the vicious cycle of the hard-charging superintendent needing to “reform” a central office once every three years.
Or even every four. I can't tell if Barbic has just suffered an irony overdose or if he is smart enough to be recognizing that he is living proof that you can't put your managerial eggs in a mercurial superintendent basket. I'm going to give him credit for the latter.
Autonomy cannot outpace talent
A good school is run by a rock star principal and a superhero teaching staff. If you have those folks in place, you should give them freedom, but if you don't, don't. Barbic believes that hiring the right superstars is the secret sauce for a tasty great school burger.
Swing and a miss
Barbic sees two ideas in the school debate that are, IHHO, off the mark. First, he believes that superstar staffs can insure "that all kids, in the right conditions supported by the the right team of adults, can achieve at high levels no matter their circumstances." But Barbic is wrestling with a giant man of straw, saying that the "poverty trumps education" argument is out of place. At least, I think he's wrestling a straw man. Given the context, I think he's saying that nobody should argue that poor students cannot be educated, which is a great thing to say since I don't believe I've ever read anybody who disagrees with it (although I'm behind on my Donald Trump press releases).
On the other hand, if he's referring to the idea that poverty has more influence on a student's future than an education does, he's in trouble. As soon as I can locate one of the many charts I've seen showing that the highest achieving poor kids still end up behind the lowest achieving rich kids, I will link it here.
Home run!
Barbic's second Ed Debate Mistake is, however, dead on the mark.
Let’s just be real: achieving results in neighborhood schools is harder than in a choice environment. I have seen this firsthand at YES Prep and now as the superintendent of the ASD. As a charter school founder, I did my fair share of chest pounding over great results. I’ve learned that getting these same results in a zoned neighborhood school environment is much harder.
Exactly-- having a successful charter when you have control over which students are enrolled is much easier then having to serve the students who are actually in the community. You know, the way a public school does.
Include parents
I’ve spent plenty of time in “community” meetings where the voices of parents are shouted down by people who are not from the community, do not have kids attending a chronically under-performing school, and are simply hell-bent on defending the status quo.
Funny, but this brings to my mind videos from, say, "community" meetings in Newark, where the people Not from the Community were running the meeting, defending the status quo of state control and charter privatizing. Or maybe the "community" meetings that the state of New York canceled because the local folks were too cranky. And of course there's the hybrid approach, where folks from outside the community bankroll elections so that the Wrong Peoplecan be forced to shut up.
It's not that Barbic doesn't have a point. Any time folks from outside come into a community to tell those local folks what it is they want, a line has been crossed, no matter which "side" crossed it. But that outside takeover has been the pattern of reform since Bill Gates appointed himself America's School Superintendent, right down through the establishment of Achievement School Districts which are predicated on stripping local taxpayers and voters of their democratic rights so that wiser folks from outside can come in to hire other people from outside to tell the community what schools they'll be allowed to have.
And it's brave for Barbic to use "status quo," because in 2015 top-down test-driven privatizing school initiatives are the status quo.
Also, this work is hard
Barbic has an engaging openness to this letter, including this part where he acknowledges that his heart attack was a kind of wake-up call.
Ironic thank yous
He thanks the governor. He thanks (always silly and currently departed) Kevin Huffman for bringing him to Tennessee. He thanks Candace McQueen and he thanks "the local and national philanthropic community whose commitment to this work and to our kids is inspiring." What was that part again about outsiders coming in and rolling over the community?
One last bonus point
I'm going to give him credit for his sign-off, in which he states the big goal: "the very best education possible for every child in this great state." I appreciate that he doesn't tout "access" or "opportunity," which are charter-speak for "one spot in a charter school for every hundred students." A great education for every kid is the correct goal.
Now let's see who they replace him with. Good luck, Tennessee.
Sustaining Effort
Barbic opens with the one-two punch of why he's leaving. First, because ASD is all launched and "sustainable," now is a good time to pass the baton. Second, because the job was killing him.
The pace and stress of a superintendent role...does not lend itself to decades of work.
That is perhaps a rough way to recruit a successor. But it also underlines one of those things that reformsters don't get-- education is a marathon, not a sprint. Maybe the job doesn't lend itself to decades of work, but a school district does, in fact, have to keep working for decades.
Reformsters often look at teachers and other professional educators as if they're just not trying hard enough. But the most read piece I have ever written is this one; on Huffington Post it has pulled 560K facebook likes. That's not because I wrote it so darn good, but because I touched a nerve, and the nerve I touched is the one that says that there is never enough-- never enough time, energy, you, to do everything, and so everybody who works a full career in education makes compromises. Otherwise you have to leave after four years because you drove yourself to a heart attack and your family misses you.
Schools require sustainable efforts. Otherwise it's constant chaos as teachers and administrators have to be constantly replaced. So Barbic has learned a True Thing here, maybe.
Pretty words
Barbic follows with some very pretty words about how ASD has changed stuff and made things better. Nothing about how Barbic's promise to move the bottom 5% of schools into the top 25% hasn't actually happened. Instead, advocates for ASD have been moving the goal posts from "achieve miracle move to top 25%" to "made some students do a little better." I'm pretty sure that if public schools were also allowed to move the goal posts in this game, they could score more often as well.
But now Barbic is going to move on to actual lessons learned.
Trust the professionals
Barbic speaks up for teachers and administrators, and, well, non-profit school operators, too.
By removing the bureaucracy—and putting the power in the hands of nonprofit school operators—we can eliminate the vicious cycle of the hard-charging superintendent needing to “reform” a central office once every three years.
Or even every four. I can't tell if Barbic has just suffered an irony overdose or if he is smart enough to be recognizing that he is living proof that you can't put your managerial eggs in a mercurial superintendent basket. I'm going to give him credit for the latter.
Autonomy cannot outpace talent
A good school is run by a rock star principal and a superhero teaching staff. If you have those folks in place, you should give them freedom, but if you don't, don't. Barbic believes that hiring the right superstars is the secret sauce for a tasty great school burger.
Swing and a miss
Barbic sees two ideas in the school debate that are, IHHO, off the mark. First, he believes that superstar staffs can insure "that all kids, in the right conditions supported by the the right team of adults, can achieve at high levels no matter their circumstances." But Barbic is wrestling with a giant man of straw, saying that the "poverty trumps education" argument is out of place. At least, I think he's wrestling a straw man. Given the context, I think he's saying that nobody should argue that poor students cannot be educated, which is a great thing to say since I don't believe I've ever read anybody who disagrees with it (although I'm behind on my Donald Trump press releases).
On the other hand, if he's referring to the idea that poverty has more influence on a student's future than an education does, he's in trouble. As soon as I can locate one of the many charts I've seen showing that the highest achieving poor kids still end up behind the lowest achieving rich kids, I will link it here.
Home run!
Barbic's second Ed Debate Mistake is, however, dead on the mark.
Let’s just be real: achieving results in neighborhood schools is harder than in a choice environment. I have seen this firsthand at YES Prep and now as the superintendent of the ASD. As a charter school founder, I did my fair share of chest pounding over great results. I’ve learned that getting these same results in a zoned neighborhood school environment is much harder.
Exactly-- having a successful charter when you have control over which students are enrolled is much easier then having to serve the students who are actually in the community. You know, the way a public school does.
Include parents
I’ve spent plenty of time in “community” meetings where the voices of parents are shouted down by people who are not from the community, do not have kids attending a chronically under-performing school, and are simply hell-bent on defending the status quo.
Funny, but this brings to my mind videos from, say, "community" meetings in Newark, where the people Not from the Community were running the meeting, defending the status quo of state control and charter privatizing. Or maybe the "community" meetings that the state of New York canceled because the local folks were too cranky. And of course there's the hybrid approach, where folks from outside the community bankroll elections so that the Wrong Peoplecan be forced to shut up.
It's not that Barbic doesn't have a point. Any time folks from outside come into a community to tell those local folks what it is they want, a line has been crossed, no matter which "side" crossed it. But that outside takeover has been the pattern of reform since Bill Gates appointed himself America's School Superintendent, right down through the establishment of Achievement School Districts which are predicated on stripping local taxpayers and voters of their democratic rights so that wiser folks from outside can come in to hire other people from outside to tell the community what schools they'll be allowed to have.
And it's brave for Barbic to use "status quo," because in 2015 top-down test-driven privatizing school initiatives are the status quo.
Also, this work is hard
Barbic has an engaging openness to this letter, including this part where he acknowledges that his heart attack was a kind of wake-up call.
Ironic thank yous
He thanks the governor. He thanks (always silly and currently departed) Kevin Huffman for bringing him to Tennessee. He thanks Candace McQueen and he thanks "the local and national philanthropic community whose commitment to this work and to our kids is inspiring." What was that part again about outsiders coming in and rolling over the community?
One last bonus point
I'm going to give him credit for his sign-off, in which he states the big goal: "the very best education possible for every child in this great state." I appreciate that he doesn't tout "access" or "opportunity," which are charter-speak for "one spot in a charter school for every hundred students." A great education for every kid is the correct goal.
Now let's see who they replace him with. Good luck, Tennessee.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
PA: Huffman Sells Snake Oil
As i wrote earlier this week, some Pennsylvania legislators have been looking at an Achievement School District for the Quaker State. This is a great idea if you are interested in converting public education into a system of private schools that make investors and operators rich. If your goal is to actually educate children, an ASD is probably not your best shot-- the process disenfranchises local voters and taxpayers and hands their schools over to charter operators.
Kevin Huffman has thrown in his two cents. Huffman is a former Chief for Change, a lawyer who managed to become Tennessee's education head on the strength of two years with Teach for America and plenty of fine connections. He eventually slunk away from that job, but since reformsters seem to only fail upwards, he's still working the circuit, pitching reformsters programs.
That pitchmanship brought him to PA, where he "testified" in favor of the ASD and penned a lovely op-ed for PennLive.
In that piece, he notes that "additional funding is key," which may seem like a violation of the reformster mantra that throwing money at public education is a bad idea. But throwing money is actually an approved reformster idea-- as long as you throw the money at the right people.
Huffman outlines his two-step program for turning schoolsinto healthy investment properties around.
First, we created an Achievement School District (ASD) - a district that has the authority to remove chronically low performing schools and manage them outside of the home school district.
Second, we empowered local districts with district-run Innovation Zones in which schools are given more autonomy to select staff, run different programs, and change the school-day schedule to improve performance.
So first, strip local school boards and voters of authority over their own schools. Second, allow a mixture of innovation and stripping teachers of job security and pay. The stated plan in Tennessee was that the bottom 5% of schools would move into the top 25% within five years. Doesn't that all sound great? But hey-- how is it working out in Tennessee?
That depends (surprise) on who is crunching which numbers, but even the state's own numbers gave the Tennessee ASD the lowest possible score for growth.
In fact, Huffman forgot to mention the newest "technique" proposed to make ASD schools successful-- allow them to recruit students from outside the school's geographical home base. This is the only turnaround model that really has been successful across the nation-- in order to turn a school around, you need to fill it with different students.
Meanwhile, Tennessee is just starting to digest the news of this year's magical increased test scores. Could these be inflated for political reason? Well, duh. You didn't think that cut scores are set by some sort of sound pedagogical process, did you?
Huffman has been known to say Dumb Things. He once claimed that students with disabilities lag behind because they aren't tested often enough. He uses his special Dumb Thing skill to wrap up his op-ed.
When I spoke with Pennsylvania state senators last week about school turnaround work, one senator asked me directly, "When you created the Achievement School District, were you worried that it was too risky?" I responded, "The greatest risk would be to do nothing."
Pretending that any senator actually answered that question, the answer is still dumb. Your child is lying on the sidewalk, bleeding and broken after being struck by a car. A guy in a t-shirt runs up with an axe and makes like he's about to try to lop off your child's legs. "What the hell are you doing?" you holler, and t-shirt guy replies, "Well, the greatest risk would be to do nothing."
Doing Nothing is rarely as great a risk as Doing Something Stupid. Achievement School Districts are dumb ideas that offer no educational benefits and run contrary to the foundational principles of democracy in this country. They are literally taxation without representation. Huffman should move on along to his next gig and leave Pennsylvania alone.
Kevin Huffman has thrown in his two cents. Huffman is a former Chief for Change, a lawyer who managed to become Tennessee's education head on the strength of two years with Teach for America and plenty of fine connections. He eventually slunk away from that job, but since reformsters seem to only fail upwards, he's still working the circuit, pitching reformsters programs.
That pitchmanship brought him to PA, where he "testified" in favor of the ASD and penned a lovely op-ed for PennLive.
In that piece, he notes that "additional funding is key," which may seem like a violation of the reformster mantra that throwing money at public education is a bad idea. But throwing money is actually an approved reformster idea-- as long as you throw the money at the right people.
Huffman outlines his two-step program for turning schools
First, we created an Achievement School District (ASD) - a district that has the authority to remove chronically low performing schools and manage them outside of the home school district.
Second, we empowered local districts with district-run Innovation Zones in which schools are given more autonomy to select staff, run different programs, and change the school-day schedule to improve performance.
So first, strip local school boards and voters of authority over their own schools. Second, allow a mixture of innovation and stripping teachers of job security and pay. The stated plan in Tennessee was that the bottom 5% of schools would move into the top 25% within five years. Doesn't that all sound great? But hey-- how is it working out in Tennessee?
That depends (surprise) on who is crunching which numbers, but even the state's own numbers gave the Tennessee ASD the lowest possible score for growth.
In fact, Huffman forgot to mention the newest "technique" proposed to make ASD schools successful-- allow them to recruit students from outside the school's geographical home base. This is the only turnaround model that really has been successful across the nation-- in order to turn a school around, you need to fill it with different students.
Meanwhile, Tennessee is just starting to digest the news of this year's magical increased test scores. Could these be inflated for political reason? Well, duh. You didn't think that cut scores are set by some sort of sound pedagogical process, did you?
Huffman has been known to say Dumb Things. He once claimed that students with disabilities lag behind because they aren't tested often enough. He uses his special Dumb Thing skill to wrap up his op-ed.
When I spoke with Pennsylvania state senators last week about school turnaround work, one senator asked me directly, "When you created the Achievement School District, were you worried that it was too risky?" I responded, "The greatest risk would be to do nothing."
Pretending that any senator actually answered that question, the answer is still dumb. Your child is lying on the sidewalk, bleeding and broken after being struck by a car. A guy in a t-shirt runs up with an axe and makes like he's about to try to lop off your child's legs. "What the hell are you doing?" you holler, and t-shirt guy replies, "Well, the greatest risk would be to do nothing."
Doing Nothing is rarely as great a risk as Doing Something Stupid. Achievement School Districts are dumb ideas that offer no educational benefits and run contrary to the foundational principles of democracy in this country. They are literally taxation without representation. Huffman should move on along to his next gig and leave Pennsylvania alone.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Nashville Schools Under Attack While Journalists Sleep
Over at Dad Gone Wild, blogger norinrad10 has been chronicling the various messes in the Nashville, Tennessee school scene. The latest news is not good-- one more example of a city in which entrenched media are part of the business community that is cheerfully working to dismantle public education.
Tennessee's Grand Experiments
Tennessee has long been out in front of the reformster wave, marking such dubious achievements as being the first state put a former TFA temp guy in charge of the state education system. Kevin Huffman did also mark some time as an education lawyer, but that and the two years of TFA temping were enough to rank him as one of Jeb Bush's Chiefs for Change. Huffman was a loyal Common Core warrior and was right at the front of the line to hand the feds the keys to Tennessee education in exchange for a NCLB waiver. Huffman never met a reformster idea he didn't like (evaluation to root out bad teachers, performance based pay, charters) and his commitment was strong-- when Nashville failed to approve a Huffman-approved charter expansion, Huffman took $3.4 million away from the school system.
Huffman also recruited Chris Barbic from Houston to come run the Achievement School District. The ASD was an attempt to see if New Orleans style public-to-private education conversion could be implemented without the fortuitous advent of a hurricane. Could human beings deliver that kind of destruction without the assistance of nature and create a network ofbusiness investment opportunities private charter schools?
Hurricane ASD landed initially on Memphis, with a business plan that is a little bit genius--"The Achievement School District was created to catapult the bottom 5% of schools in Tennessee straight to the top 25% in the state." There will always be a bottom 5%. In fact, given even a tiny modicum of success, ASD will eventually get its hands on almost 100% of the schools as they all cycle through that bottom slot. More recently, ASD has worked on expanding into Nashville, and that is raising its own new set of issues.
Huffman, however, has moved on, gracefully jumping ship before he could be pushed off the plank. Late in 2014, his general incompetence and gracelessness had finally turned him into a large enough political liability to end his happy time as Tennessee Educhieftain.
Can't We Just Start Over?
Lots of folks in power had loved Huffman and thought he had the right ideas. But the whole Common Core discussion had exploded in a welter of hard-right anti-gummint much dislike, and Huffman's attempt to make every Tennessee teacher just a little poorer had not exactly won a lot of backing from that community, either.
So here comes the Nashville Public Education Foundation, a coalition of civic-minded folks that would really like to make a mark on public education as long as they don't have to A) actually talk to or deal with people who work in public education or B) work through any of those democratically-elected institutions. We've seen this kind of foundation before (I ran across it most recently in York, PA, when local businessmen decided that they really wanted to dismantle public schools without actually having to run for office or convince the general public to go along.)
Watch their scrolling bank of happy quotes and you'll see supportive words from Teach for America, the Chamber of Commerce, the mayor, a former governor, a parent, a CEO, the school director, the country music association foundation, and -- wait? what! really??-- Ben Folds.
The Foundation has had its fingers all over Nashville education, and that foundation has decided that what the city needs is to RESET. What the heck is that?
The mission of Project RESET (Reimagining Education Starts with Everyone at the Table) is to elevate the conversation on education as we approach a vital time in Nashville’s history. Led by the Nashville Public Education Foundation, with the support of Nashville’s Agenda and media assistance from The Tennessean, Project RESET will set the table for a larger, communitywide conversation about improving Nashville’s public schools.
The event, lauded by charter operators around Nashville, is coming up at the end of the month. How much fun will that be?
Dogs and Rocks
You know the old Will Rogers quote: "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' while you look for a rock." Remember this any time somebody is acting diplomatically toward you. Don't listen to what they say; watch to see if they're looking for a rock.
The rock in this case is the Parthenon Consulting Group.
Look at their website. Look at this 2009 power point presentation about educational investment. Look at this paper about investing in KSA and UAE. Check out how this publisher lists them with other examples of Strategic Consulting Firms like Bain, McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group.
Look at what Parthenon had to suggest in Knoxville. Their suggestions there included cutting 300 people, which would create a big pile of money if teachers were paid as well as Parthenon consultants in Memphis (4 consultants per month = $350K).
What is blindingly clear is that when it comes to education, Parthenon is only interested in one topic-- how to make money at it.
If your landlord says he's called an outfit to come work on the problems in your building, and what you see pull up in front is a Demolition Specialists truck, you are the doggie. If you are a public school system and the Parthenon Group shows up to "help" you, you are the doggie. The Parthenon Group does not specialize in helping schools systems do a better job of educating students. The Parthenon Groups helps school systems turn into pieces that can be more easily replaced with profitable charter schools. (The Momma Bears have a great post about what Broad-style slash-and-burn looks like.)
Is anybody paying attention?
Well, no.
Scroll back up to the RESET quote, the one where The Tennessean is credited with providing "media assistance." You can peruse that site for glowing PR puff pieces in support of NPEF, with a big fat RESET logo on each one. Just yesterday they ran a super-duper article about how great it is that Nashville has Pre-K's doing academic instruction with four-year-olds. A ten-second google would have turned up ample evidence that such instruction is a terrible idea, but as we've recently seen in New Jersey, sometimes it's just more fun to promote what you're supposed to promote instead of doing actual journalism.
And that brings us back around to the post that originally sparked my interest.
I personally called Tennessean reporter Jason Gonzales to discuss his article and asked him point blank if The Tennessean had a sponsorship role in Project RESET. He emphatically answered no, they are just producing a series of articles on the Nashville education system. Articles that all bear the Project RESET logo and have been a mixture of negative and calls to put aside petty politics. You know, politics that call for an equitable system for all kids.... When I asked Jason if he thought that information surrounding the group conducting the study was relevant he answered with an equally emphatically no. The data from the study is important, he said, but not the conductors.
I don't know a thing about Jason Gonzales, but I feel perfectly comfortable calling him dead wrong. When the city zoo hires a consultant who specializes in selling rare animal pelts, that information is relevant. When a local business hires a consultant who specializes in closing businesses and selling off parts, that information is relevant.
And when the unelected body that has put itself in charge of revamping local education hires a consultant who specializes in closing public schools and turning them into profit-making private enterprises, that information is relevant.
Why all this now? Nashville gets a new mayor and a new school chief very shortly; think of it as big welcome pep rally for them. Nashville schools are definitely the doggie. Let's hope somebody steps up to protect it before the rock falls.
Tennessee's Grand Experiments
Tennessee has long been out in front of the reformster wave, marking such dubious achievements as being the first state put a former TFA temp guy in charge of the state education system. Kevin Huffman did also mark some time as an education lawyer, but that and the two years of TFA temping were enough to rank him as one of Jeb Bush's Chiefs for Change. Huffman was a loyal Common Core warrior and was right at the front of the line to hand the feds the keys to Tennessee education in exchange for a NCLB waiver. Huffman never met a reformster idea he didn't like (evaluation to root out bad teachers, performance based pay, charters) and his commitment was strong-- when Nashville failed to approve a Huffman-approved charter expansion, Huffman took $3.4 million away from the school system.
Huffman also recruited Chris Barbic from Houston to come run the Achievement School District. The ASD was an attempt to see if New Orleans style public-to-private education conversion could be implemented without the fortuitous advent of a hurricane. Could human beings deliver that kind of destruction without the assistance of nature and create a network of
Hurricane ASD landed initially on Memphis, with a business plan that is a little bit genius--"The Achievement School District was created to catapult the bottom 5% of schools in Tennessee straight to the top 25% in the state." There will always be a bottom 5%. In fact, given even a tiny modicum of success, ASD will eventually get its hands on almost 100% of the schools as they all cycle through that bottom slot. More recently, ASD has worked on expanding into Nashville, and that is raising its own new set of issues.
Huffman, however, has moved on, gracefully jumping ship before he could be pushed off the plank. Late in 2014, his general incompetence and gracelessness had finally turned him into a large enough political liability to end his happy time as Tennessee Educhieftain.
Can't We Just Start Over?
Lots of folks in power had loved Huffman and thought he had the right ideas. But the whole Common Core discussion had exploded in a welter of hard-right anti-gummint much dislike, and Huffman's attempt to make every Tennessee teacher just a little poorer had not exactly won a lot of backing from that community, either.
So here comes the Nashville Public Education Foundation, a coalition of civic-minded folks that would really like to make a mark on public education as long as they don't have to A) actually talk to or deal with people who work in public education or B) work through any of those democratically-elected institutions. We've seen this kind of foundation before (I ran across it most recently in York, PA, when local businessmen decided that they really wanted to dismantle public schools without actually having to run for office or convince the general public to go along.)
Watch their scrolling bank of happy quotes and you'll see supportive words from Teach for America, the Chamber of Commerce, the mayor, a former governor, a parent, a CEO, the school director, the country music association foundation, and -- wait? what! really??-- Ben Folds.
The Foundation has had its fingers all over Nashville education, and that foundation has decided that what the city needs is to RESET. What the heck is that?
The mission of Project RESET (Reimagining Education Starts with Everyone at the Table) is to elevate the conversation on education as we approach a vital time in Nashville’s history. Led by the Nashville Public Education Foundation, with the support of Nashville’s Agenda and media assistance from The Tennessean, Project RESET will set the table for a larger, communitywide conversation about improving Nashville’s public schools.
The event, lauded by charter operators around Nashville, is coming up at the end of the month. How much fun will that be?
Dogs and Rocks
You know the old Will Rogers quote: "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' while you look for a rock." Remember this any time somebody is acting diplomatically toward you. Don't listen to what they say; watch to see if they're looking for a rock.
The rock in this case is the Parthenon Consulting Group.
Look at their website. Look at this 2009 power point presentation about educational investment. Look at this paper about investing in KSA and UAE. Check out how this publisher lists them with other examples of Strategic Consulting Firms like Bain, McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group.
Look at what Parthenon had to suggest in Knoxville. Their suggestions there included cutting 300 people, which would create a big pile of money if teachers were paid as well as Parthenon consultants in Memphis (4 consultants per month = $350K).
What is blindingly clear is that when it comes to education, Parthenon is only interested in one topic-- how to make money at it.
If your landlord says he's called an outfit to come work on the problems in your building, and what you see pull up in front is a Demolition Specialists truck, you are the doggie. If you are a public school system and the Parthenon Group shows up to "help" you, you are the doggie. The Parthenon Group does not specialize in helping schools systems do a better job of educating students. The Parthenon Groups helps school systems turn into pieces that can be more easily replaced with profitable charter schools. (The Momma Bears have a great post about what Broad-style slash-and-burn looks like.)
Is anybody paying attention?
Well, no.
Scroll back up to the RESET quote, the one where The Tennessean is credited with providing "media assistance." You can peruse that site for glowing PR puff pieces in support of NPEF, with a big fat RESET logo on each one. Just yesterday they ran a super-duper article about how great it is that Nashville has Pre-K's doing academic instruction with four-year-olds. A ten-second google would have turned up ample evidence that such instruction is a terrible idea, but as we've recently seen in New Jersey, sometimes it's just more fun to promote what you're supposed to promote instead of doing actual journalism.
And that brings us back around to the post that originally sparked my interest.
I personally called Tennessean reporter Jason Gonzales to discuss his article and asked him point blank if The Tennessean had a sponsorship role in Project RESET. He emphatically answered no, they are just producing a series of articles on the Nashville education system. Articles that all bear the Project RESET logo and have been a mixture of negative and calls to put aside petty politics. You know, politics that call for an equitable system for all kids.... When I asked Jason if he thought that information surrounding the group conducting the study was relevant he answered with an equally emphatically no. The data from the study is important, he said, but not the conductors.
I don't know a thing about Jason Gonzales, but I feel perfectly comfortable calling him dead wrong. When the city zoo hires a consultant who specializes in selling rare animal pelts, that information is relevant. When a local business hires a consultant who specializes in closing businesses and selling off parts, that information is relevant.
And when the unelected body that has put itself in charge of revamping local education hires a consultant who specializes in closing public schools and turning them into profit-making private enterprises, that information is relevant.
Why all this now? Nashville gets a new mayor and a new school chief very shortly; think of it as big welcome pep rally for them. Nashville schools are definitely the doggie. Let's hope somebody steps up to protect it before the rock falls.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Tennessee's New CCSS Astroturf
Tennessee has birthed one of the newest astroturf reformster groups in the country, the bright and shiny Tennesseans for Student Success.
Why does need this influx of shiny green? It could be that the state is playing with joining those that have jumped off the Common Core bandwagon. Last week the house subcommittee that watches over academic standards was all set to discuss House Bill 3, a bill that would scrap the Common Core and require the state to start over by developing its own standards in a process that would involve (gasp) teachers.
The bill was proposed by Republic John Forgety, a former teacher and superintendent. Reported Chalkbeat,
“I’m of the opinion that this body (the legislature) should not be in the business of telling a third-grade teacher how to teach,” said Forgety, a former teacher and school superintendent.
The discussion of the bill has been postponed (according to Chalkbeat, another GOP representative asked for a postponement citing, I kid you not, an epiphany). But Tennesseans for Student Success had shown up in force, ready to stand up for the Core.
TSS has been busy other places, as one would respect from any self-respecting well-bankrolled astro-turf group. They have had a facebook page for a month now, with a bit over 1200 likes as I write this. Tennesseans probably got to know them through their television spots, like this one
You can see that the Core is supported by moms and teachers. Clearly this is the kind of group that, even though it reportedly first formed in October and hired an executive director in January, managed to raise enough money to run the above ad during the Super-Bowl. I am sure they had several really awesome bake sales, and maybe a car wash. It could have happened. Well, no. Reportedly the Tennessee Association of Business Foundation helped fund it; the foundation is an offshoot of the TN Chamber of Commerce, which has received grants from the Gates Foundation to help promote Common Core. But these moms still look very determined and stern, particularly about the prospect of being "dragged" back to the bad old days.
TSS is fond of the point that Tennessee has the fastest-improving test scores in the country, which is better if you think test scores are super important and easier if you start out with test scores deep in the toilet.
The actual website is somewhat sparse, but you can sign up for a newsletter. They do list some of their staff. including executive director Jeremy Harrell (ran campaigns for both Gov Bill Haslam and Lamar Alexander, plus other political credits), Ashley Elizabeth Graham (was deputy communications director for Marsha Blackburn), and Weston Burleson (was account exec with Stoneridge Group). All of the listed personnel have connections to GOP lawmakers and campaign work (they also make sure to include a cheer for Tennessee sports teams). The Tennessean reports that the group also employs four lobbyists.
In short, this looks like a team selected for its political campaigning savvy; there appear to be no educators in sight except as props in tv ads and government hearings.
The whole business plays out like a complicated political circus balancing act. Governor Haslam was a for the common Core before he was against it, sort of. Haslam led the early adoption of the Core, but in the last year, the standards are not feeling loved. Anti-core politicians won big in some counties, and a Vanderbilt poll showed that teachers are not fans. So last September, Haslam decided that maybe Common Core needed to be carefully reviewed by a review board that he would set up and , well, you know those movies where the good guy is undercover and his buddy is about get offed by the bad guy so he steps in and punches his buddy first, just to keep both his buddy and his cover story alive...? This looks kind of like that.
So we've got Haslam's review of the Core and a separate rewrite of the Core proposed by a GOP legislator and backed by teachers. Now we have an astro-turf rather transparently run by a handful of Haslam's political operatives agitating to reject Forgety's review and stick with the Governor's. Some pols are apparently asking if the two reviews of standards can be put together. Want to place your bets?
In the meantime, the main event in Tennessee is not the battle over standards, but the push to scrap public education and replace it with a World O'Charters. So this astro-turf sideshow is not necessarily even getting everyone's full attention.
Why does need this influx of shiny green? It could be that the state is playing with joining those that have jumped off the Common Core bandwagon. Last week the house subcommittee that watches over academic standards was all set to discuss House Bill 3, a bill that would scrap the Common Core and require the state to start over by developing its own standards in a process that would involve (gasp) teachers.
The bill was proposed by Republic John Forgety, a former teacher and superintendent. Reported Chalkbeat,
“I’m of the opinion that this body (the legislature) should not be in the business of telling a third-grade teacher how to teach,” said Forgety, a former teacher and school superintendent.
The discussion of the bill has been postponed (according to Chalkbeat, another GOP representative asked for a postponement citing, I kid you not, an epiphany). But Tennesseans for Student Success had shown up in force, ready to stand up for the Core.
TSS has been busy other places, as one would respect from any self-respecting well-bankrolled astro-turf group. They have had a facebook page for a month now, with a bit over 1200 likes as I write this. Tennesseans probably got to know them through their television spots, like this one
You can see that the Core is supported by moms and teachers. Clearly this is the kind of group that, even though it reportedly first formed in October and hired an executive director in January, managed to raise enough money to run the above ad during the Super-Bowl. I am sure they had several really awesome bake sales, and maybe a car wash. It could have happened. Well, no. Reportedly the Tennessee Association of Business Foundation helped fund it; the foundation is an offshoot of the TN Chamber of Commerce, which has received grants from the Gates Foundation to help promote Common Core. But these moms still look very determined and stern, particularly about the prospect of being "dragged" back to the bad old days.
TSS is fond of the point that Tennessee has the fastest-improving test scores in the country, which is better if you think test scores are super important and easier if you start out with test scores deep in the toilet.
The actual website is somewhat sparse, but you can sign up for a newsletter. They do list some of their staff. including executive director Jeremy Harrell (ran campaigns for both Gov Bill Haslam and Lamar Alexander, plus other political credits), Ashley Elizabeth Graham (was deputy communications director for Marsha Blackburn), and Weston Burleson (was account exec with Stoneridge Group). All of the listed personnel have connections to GOP lawmakers and campaign work (they also make sure to include a cheer for Tennessee sports teams). The Tennessean reports that the group also employs four lobbyists.
In short, this looks like a team selected for its political campaigning savvy; there appear to be no educators in sight except as props in tv ads and government hearings.
The whole business plays out like a complicated political circus balancing act. Governor Haslam was a for the common Core before he was against it, sort of. Haslam led the early adoption of the Core, but in the last year, the standards are not feeling loved. Anti-core politicians won big in some counties, and a Vanderbilt poll showed that teachers are not fans. So last September, Haslam decided that maybe Common Core needed to be carefully reviewed by a review board that he would set up and , well, you know those movies where the good guy is undercover and his buddy is about get offed by the bad guy so he steps in and punches his buddy first, just to keep both his buddy and his cover story alive...? This looks kind of like that.
So we've got Haslam's review of the Core and a separate rewrite of the Core proposed by a GOP legislator and backed by teachers. Now we have an astro-turf rather transparently run by a handful of Haslam's political operatives agitating to reject Forgety's review and stick with the Governor's. Some pols are apparently asking if the two reviews of standards can be put together. Want to place your bets?
In the meantime, the main event in Tennessee is not the battle over standards, but the push to scrap public education and replace it with a World O'Charters. So this astro-turf sideshow is not necessarily even getting everyone's full attention.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Sigh. Another Teacher CCSS Love Letter
I feel as if I've become a connoisseur of the teacher-to-Common Core love letter. It is, at this point, a noble genre with a rich and varied history. And by "rich and varied," I mean they've found a lot of fairly similar people to say exactly the same thing. Sigh.
So, anyway, today's entry comes from Tennessee via the 2014-2015 Teacher of the Year (so, kudos to Tennessee on figuring out who's going to be awesome this year before this year is even half over), and it hits all the right notes.
Our TOTY kicks things off with a personal touch. After introducing herself, she says, "I am ill at the thought that these standards could be repealed." So that's an extra touch. After that, it's the usual required portions.
Claim that doesn't exactly make sense? Check. "We have data showing our students are performing at a rate faster than any other state in the nation." I am the last person to cast aspersions on an apparent lapse in proofreading, but I'm betting this isn't what she really means, unless Tennessee's big achievement is students who rip through tests really fast, which, when you think of it, is one possible solution to the problem of tests taking up too much of school time.
Standing up for localism? Check. "We (Tennesseans, not the federal government) made decisions about how the standards would be implemented and how our educators would be trained." But not what the standards would be or whether they had value. But nobody, she insists, mandated curriculum and materials, though in the same graph she asserts that TN teachers received extensive training in just how to apply the standards. So, TN teachers were completely free to do exactly what they were trained to do?
Senseless critical thinking plug? Check. When she started teaching, she just taught students to pass tests. "I would ask questions, a student would reply correctly and I replied, “Good job”, and moved on." But the Common Core standards fixed that:
The beauty of the standards is they allow teachers and students the opportunity to delve deeply into concepts.
Sigh. So I will ask for the six gazillionth time (because I'm going to keep asking until someone provides an answer) -- what is it that kept you from doing this before? You say that the standards "allow" this opportunity-- exactly who was forbidding it previously? And are you saying that if today the standards were thrown out of Tennessee, tomorrow you would not be able to do any critical thinking stuff in class?
This teacher appears to be no slacker. She teaches at an "option" K-5 school (the Memphis equivalent of a magnet school). She is National Board Certified. She throws in some anecdotes that would seem to indicate that despite the picture she paints of herself as clueless when a newbie, she is now a fine professional educator.
So why give the Core credit for simply doing her job well? Here's her own description of reaching one challenging student: "I pushed his thinking when he solved problems by expecting him to justify his solutions. When he saw my excitement he wanted more, and he got it." Which part of that has some direct basis in the Core? Was it only the Core that made it possible for her to push his thinking? Was the Core responsible for the excitement that he saw in her? Would she be a dull, uninteresting, unexciting teacher tomorrow if the Core were taken away today? She also advocates student centered learning-- was she unaware that such a thing existed before she was Core trained?
Concluding with plea to stay the course? Check. Despite "growing pains," she believe that the Core will lead Tennessee to the land of awesome.
Teachers have received and will continue to receive training, but it takes time to learn and implement a methodology representing the most sweeping reforms in education history.
Sigh. First, what exactly is this sweepingly new methodology? Because critical thinking is not a new invention. Neither is displaying excitement. And student centered learning is not something David Coleman made up (nor, honestly, do I think there's much of anything in the Common Core Standards that requires or encourages it). And why are we talking about methodology when the standards are supposedly a list of things students are supposed to know? Why are we talking about methodology when the Core is supposed to be completely devoid of any directions about methodology?
This love letter is built on the usual assertion of connections for which there is no proof.
Are you using good teaching practices in your classroom? That's great-- but what does it have to do with the Core? Are you suggesting that the presence of the Core is somehow necessary for those practices to be followed? Are you suggesting that those practices are so mysterious and groundbreaking that only people who have been Core-trained can grasp them? Are you suggesting that if the Core were rejected by your state, all teachers would have to stop using those practices tomorrow?
Furthermore, what reason do you have to believe that the Core will lead to excellence? Can you point to any use of similar standards anywhere in the world that has led to excellence? Can you point to a research base for the standards themselves to suggest that there's some reason to expect them to be linked to excellence?
This lady seems like a nice person and is probably a swell teacher. I am sorry that she somehow became involved in making this sad, empty pitch for the poor, doomed Common Core, and it is not my intent to pick on her in any personal way. But if people are going to keep writing these ridiculous love letters to the Core, somebody has to keep pointing out how poorly they make the case.
So, anyway, today's entry comes from Tennessee via the 2014-2015 Teacher of the Year (so, kudos to Tennessee on figuring out who's going to be awesome this year before this year is even half over), and it hits all the right notes.
Our TOTY kicks things off with a personal touch. After introducing herself, she says, "I am ill at the thought that these standards could be repealed." So that's an extra touch. After that, it's the usual required portions.
Claim that doesn't exactly make sense? Check. "We have data showing our students are performing at a rate faster than any other state in the nation." I am the last person to cast aspersions on an apparent lapse in proofreading, but I'm betting this isn't what she really means, unless Tennessee's big achievement is students who rip through tests really fast, which, when you think of it, is one possible solution to the problem of tests taking up too much of school time.
Standing up for localism? Check. "We (Tennesseans, not the federal government) made decisions about how the standards would be implemented and how our educators would be trained." But not what the standards would be or whether they had value. But nobody, she insists, mandated curriculum and materials, though in the same graph she asserts that TN teachers received extensive training in just how to apply the standards. So, TN teachers were completely free to do exactly what they were trained to do?
Senseless critical thinking plug? Check. When she started teaching, she just taught students to pass tests. "I would ask questions, a student would reply correctly and I replied, “Good job”, and moved on." But the Common Core standards fixed that:
The beauty of the standards is they allow teachers and students the opportunity to delve deeply into concepts.
Sigh. So I will ask for the six gazillionth time (because I'm going to keep asking until someone provides an answer) -- what is it that kept you from doing this before? You say that the standards "allow" this opportunity-- exactly who was forbidding it previously? And are you saying that if today the standards were thrown out of Tennessee, tomorrow you would not be able to do any critical thinking stuff in class?
This teacher appears to be no slacker. She teaches at an "option" K-5 school (the Memphis equivalent of a magnet school). She is National Board Certified. She throws in some anecdotes that would seem to indicate that despite the picture she paints of herself as clueless when a newbie, she is now a fine professional educator.
So why give the Core credit for simply doing her job well? Here's her own description of reaching one challenging student: "I pushed his thinking when he solved problems by expecting him to justify his solutions. When he saw my excitement he wanted more, and he got it." Which part of that has some direct basis in the Core? Was it only the Core that made it possible for her to push his thinking? Was the Core responsible for the excitement that he saw in her? Would she be a dull, uninteresting, unexciting teacher tomorrow if the Core were taken away today? She also advocates student centered learning-- was she unaware that such a thing existed before she was Core trained?
Concluding with plea to stay the course? Check. Despite "growing pains," she believe that the Core will lead Tennessee to the land of awesome.
Teachers have received and will continue to receive training, but it takes time to learn and implement a methodology representing the most sweeping reforms in education history.
Sigh. First, what exactly is this sweepingly new methodology? Because critical thinking is not a new invention. Neither is displaying excitement. And student centered learning is not something David Coleman made up (nor, honestly, do I think there's much of anything in the Common Core Standards that requires or encourages it). And why are we talking about methodology when the standards are supposedly a list of things students are supposed to know? Why are we talking about methodology when the Core is supposed to be completely devoid of any directions about methodology?
This love letter is built on the usual assertion of connections for which there is no proof.
Are you using good teaching practices in your classroom? That's great-- but what does it have to do with the Core? Are you suggesting that the presence of the Core is somehow necessary for those practices to be followed? Are you suggesting that those practices are so mysterious and groundbreaking that only people who have been Core-trained can grasp them? Are you suggesting that if the Core were rejected by your state, all teachers would have to stop using those practices tomorrow?
Furthermore, what reason do you have to believe that the Core will lead to excellence? Can you point to any use of similar standards anywhere in the world that has led to excellence? Can you point to a research base for the standards themselves to suggest that there's some reason to expect them to be linked to excellence?
This lady seems like a nice person and is probably a swell teacher. I am sorry that she somehow became involved in making this sad, empty pitch for the poor, doomed Common Core, and it is not my intent to pick on her in any personal way. But if people are going to keep writing these ridiculous love letters to the Core, somebody has to keep pointing out how poorly they make the case.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Charter Takeovers Tennessee Style
If you don't have the good fortune to have a hurricane clear the public
school competition out of your path, what other techniques can be used
to convert to an all-charter system? Kevin Huffman in Tennessee appears to have an answer.
Kevin Huffman, as the Tennessee Grand High Commissioner of Education, represents a reformster milestone of his own. Huffman's career path took him to Swarthmore, which led to a TFA posting, which led to law school, which led to practicing education law in DC, which led back to TFA, first as general counsel and later as various VP executive titly things. Then, a few years later, Governor Bill Haslam tapped him for Tennessee Educational Poobahdom. Which made him the first TFA temp to get to run an entire state's education system. So congrats on that, Tennessee.
Since taking over that post, Huffman has taken some great reformy steps. For instance, he chimed in with Arne Duncan to claim that low-achieving students, including those with learning disabilities, just needed to be tested harder. And as a super buddy of charter schools, he took $3.4 million dollars away from Nashville city schools because their board didn't approve the charter that he had personally shepherded through the process.
That blew open the giant can of worms that is Nashville metro schools, an ugly mess that I'm still reading up on. But there's more reformster excitement to be found in Tennessee. Let's travel cross-state to Memphis and the Achievement School District.
The ASD is yet another lesson in the kind of money to be made in the business of privatizing schools. It's also a lesson in what can happen when the state stops even pretending to have a commitment to public education.
Most states way back under NCLB had some sort of mechanism for taking over local school districts that were "failing." Most of these were site-specific and theoretically impermanent responses to local issues (eg the SRC in Philadelphia)-- turnaround pro tem operators. But Tennessee has the ASD-- a state-run board that is essentially a state-wide school district composed of Whatever Schools We've Decided To Shut Down This Week. The ASD is part school district, part brokerage firm, deciding which batch of students and real estate will be served up to which charter school operators. If your goal were to simply destroy public education and replace it with a charter system, this would be a genius way to do it.
You can see their genius right there in the big fat mission statement on the ASD site:
The Achievement School District was created to catapult the bottom 5% of schools in Tennessee straight to the to 25% in the state. In doing so, we dramatically expand our students' life and career options, engage parents and community members in new and exciting ways, and ensure a bright future for the state of Tennessee.
This is just brilliant (from a ruthless privatizing takeover standpoint) because there will always be schools in the bottom 5%. Maybe somebody in the state capital is dumb enough to think that eventually ALL the schools in Tennessee will be in the top 25%. But for everyone who is vaguely math literate, the implication here is clear-- if the ASD can just show a little patience, they will eventually be the only school system in Tennessee.
That process is already well under way. The ASD started out with six schools in 2012 and is up to twenty-two this year-- all in Memphis. The state has drawn big red bulls-eyes on twelve more schools in the Memphis area (though the ASD site frames it as "eligible to join ASD, as if that's a nifty prize they've just won) with nine now emerging as likely targets beneficiaries. ASD has already begun the process of deciding which charter operator gets to pick these plums, and the candidates include many of the usual suspects such as KIPP and Green Dot.
ASD is also expanding in Nashville, and I can only imagine that charter operators bidding e-bay style for the chance to snatch these beauties. ASD of course hands the schools over stripped of many of those bothersome rules about teacher certification and job security.
So sit back and relax, schools of Tennessee. You will be assimilated soon enough. Soon every single one of you will be in the top 25%, and you'll be happily wedded to your new charter overlords. In the meantime, other reformsters can just watch and learn as Memphis schools are parceled out to charter privateers.
This new type of system-- the state as a broker between communities and charters-- seems open to all manner of abuse. It seems absolutely built for pay-to-play, and it also seems to have built-in instability, since the state can run a revolving door of charter operators depending on results, ROI, and whatever operator is the flavor of the month. Students, teachers, and community members are just fodder for this giant money-generating machine.
Kevin Huffman, as the Tennessee Grand High Commissioner of Education, represents a reformster milestone of his own. Huffman's career path took him to Swarthmore, which led to a TFA posting, which led to law school, which led to practicing education law in DC, which led back to TFA, first as general counsel and later as various VP executive titly things. Then, a few years later, Governor Bill Haslam tapped him for Tennessee Educational Poobahdom. Which made him the first TFA temp to get to run an entire state's education system. So congrats on that, Tennessee.
Since taking over that post, Huffman has taken some great reformy steps. For instance, he chimed in with Arne Duncan to claim that low-achieving students, including those with learning disabilities, just needed to be tested harder. And as a super buddy of charter schools, he took $3.4 million dollars away from Nashville city schools because their board didn't approve the charter that he had personally shepherded through the process.
That blew open the giant can of worms that is Nashville metro schools, an ugly mess that I'm still reading up on. But there's more reformster excitement to be found in Tennessee. Let's travel cross-state to Memphis and the Achievement School District.
The ASD is yet another lesson in the kind of money to be made in the business of privatizing schools. It's also a lesson in what can happen when the state stops even pretending to have a commitment to public education.
Most states way back under NCLB had some sort of mechanism for taking over local school districts that were "failing." Most of these were site-specific and theoretically impermanent responses to local issues (eg the SRC in Philadelphia)-- turnaround pro tem operators. But Tennessee has the ASD-- a state-run board that is essentially a state-wide school district composed of Whatever Schools We've Decided To Shut Down This Week. The ASD is part school district, part brokerage firm, deciding which batch of students and real estate will be served up to which charter school operators. If your goal were to simply destroy public education and replace it with a charter system, this would be a genius way to do it.
You can see their genius right there in the big fat mission statement on the ASD site:
The Achievement School District was created to catapult the bottom 5% of schools in Tennessee straight to the to 25% in the state. In doing so, we dramatically expand our students' life and career options, engage parents and community members in new and exciting ways, and ensure a bright future for the state of Tennessee.
This is just brilliant (from a ruthless privatizing takeover standpoint) because there will always be schools in the bottom 5%. Maybe somebody in the state capital is dumb enough to think that eventually ALL the schools in Tennessee will be in the top 25%. But for everyone who is vaguely math literate, the implication here is clear-- if the ASD can just show a little patience, they will eventually be the only school system in Tennessee.
That process is already well under way. The ASD started out with six schools in 2012 and is up to twenty-two this year-- all in Memphis. The state has drawn big red bulls-eyes on twelve more schools in the Memphis area (though the ASD site frames it as "eligible to join ASD, as if that's a nifty prize they've just won) with nine now emerging as likely
ASD is also expanding in Nashville, and I can only imagine that charter operators bidding e-bay style for the chance to snatch these beauties. ASD of course hands the schools over stripped of many of those bothersome rules about teacher certification and job security.
So sit back and relax, schools of Tennessee. You will be assimilated soon enough. Soon every single one of you will be in the top 25%, and you'll be happily wedded to your new charter overlords. In the meantime, other reformsters can just watch and learn as Memphis schools are parceled out to charter privateers.
This new type of system-- the state as a broker between communities and charters-- seems open to all manner of abuse. It seems absolutely built for pay-to-play, and it also seems to have built-in instability, since the state can run a revolving door of charter operators depending on results, ROI, and whatever operator is the flavor of the month. Students, teachers, and community members are just fodder for this giant money-generating machine.
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