Oh, the interwebs were alive with the sound of David Coleman today. His fervent presentation about the new, CCSS-infused SAT roused journalists (Wall Street Journalist), sort of journalists (Huffington Post), and tweetists (now we're on my level) galore. I read splintered quotes of Colemania, which must have merely scratched the surface, because I also read that his SAT speech earned the Standing O from the crowd in Austin
But I couldn't be there (I was busy, you know, working for a living). So now, using such classic faux journalist techniques as "Splicing Together Secondary Sources" and "Reading Real Journalism" and even one I like to call "Making Shit Up," I am going to bring you, loyal reader, David Coleman's presentation of the the ideas behind the New SAT!
Let's face it. The SAT is a doddering dinosaur of a test. Research just proved for the umpteenth time that it doesn't predict college success as well as high school GPA, and proving that is laced with loads of cultural bias has become a training exercise for freshmen-level research assistants. The old girl needs a facelift, a tummy tuck, and a boob job. It's not that I particularly care about the validity or usefulness of the test, but we are losing market share to the ACT and some colleges are starting to ignore us altogether. We've got a product to move, and that means releasing this year's hot new model to stir up the customer base.
So what have we done?
Well, that essay portion that colleges just kept ignoring because it didn't effectively test anything except a student's ability to locate the piece of paper-- that's gone. Well, "optional." If you still want to take it, knock yourself out.
But that won't matter because we are expanding writing in the rest of the test. Students are going have to write stuff based on documents from other disciplines-- in other words, none of that literature crap. God-- where we ever got the idea that anybody should read, like, that Shakespeare guy is beyond me. No, it'll be historical documents and biology charts and stereo instructions and quarterly earnings reports-- things that really matter.
Their essays will be evidence based. So all they have to do is come up with the correct interpretation of the reading, support it with the correct evidence from the excerpt, and assemble the evidence in the correct manner. This makes the SAT invaluable, because the ability to regurgitate a pre-determined single reading of a text is central to college studies. The ability to repeat what they're told is important for all American citizens, but real excellence is in being able to figure out exactly what we want them to say, and how, without us having to spell it out for them.
We're also going to get rid of all that fancy-shmancy vocabulary. We're chucking out words like "sagacious" and "ignominious" and putting in vocabulary like "empirical" and "synthesis" and "actuarial tables" and "return on investment."
Now, I know that many students in this country get an
unfair advantage on the SATs by hiring private tutors and prep programs,
and I feel that it is completely unfair that this going on.
Specifically, I feel that it is unfair that this is going on and we
aren't benefiting from it. But we have been learning from facebook and
your grocery store customer card and every on-line retailer in the
world, and we will be happy to provide you with some free test prep
products and even a handful of other free services for a select few--
all you need give us in return is all your personal information and the
chance to market many of our other products directly to you. See? We are
just a big bunch of humanitarians.
Look, these tests have become "disconnected from the work of our high schools," by which I mean that I used CCSS to redefine what the work of high school should be, and I promised that it would line up with college, and now in this new job I get a chance to make my own prophecy come true. I don't just get to move the goal posts-- I get to declare that now a football game will be won by the team that hits the most home runs. Is this a great country, or what?
And to all you sunsabitches who griped about my Common Core work-- how do you like me now? One way or another, I am going to force you to teach what I personally think ought to be taught the way I think it ought to be taught. Your students pee themselves over the SAT-- they will beg and bully you to teach math and English the way I want you to in mortal terror that they'll get a low score and end up working as a part-time cart-bearing greaser at some Wal-mart.
I am David Effing Coleman. I'm an education amateur, but I'm a well-connected one and I have personally redefined what it means to be an educated person in America. No more of this namby-pamby reading and writing about thoughts and feelings and ideas and the rest of that shit. From cradle to grave, you'll focus on the only thing that matters-- practical, literal stuff that helps people make money. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"-- what the hell was that Keats character smoking, anyway? The liberal arts?? Who in the bloody blue hell needs the liberal arts???!
Yes, the SAT was a biased test. It still is-- but now it's biased the right way. My way. We've got the CCSS and the SAT lined up. Next we'll get your three-year-olds properly rigorized, and once that's happening colleges won't be able to keep from becoming the proper vocational training centers they're supposed to be. Quality of life? Quality of life comes from money, baby. Education has something to do with a greater understanding of our world and our humanity and how we make sense of them, how we express our deepest connections to each other and the universe in a process of discovery, expression and wonder that continues our whole life? You're killing me.
Look, an educated person is one who can do well the tests assigned by his betters, can fulfill a useful job for the corporations that hire him, and will behave properly for the government that rules him. If you wanted something more out of life than that, you should have arranged to be rich. In the meantime, enjoy the new SAT.
At least, that's what I imagine him saying today. I might have paraphrased a little.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Why the Hell Are We Racing Anywhere?
Race to the Top had been rather quiet as a brand until President Obama revived it in his new budget proposal. Unfortunately, the new iteration underlines the metaphorical problems with the nom de regulation. For a guy who launched his career by being a moving speaker, Obama has hit on a real tone-deaf clunker here.
This time, we are racing for equity, which means, I guess, that we are going to Race To The Top To The Middle. Seriously, how does this metaphor even sort of work? How does a race for equality work, exactly?
My first thought is that we are about to see a real-life Diana Moon Glampers to preside over a race in which the swift are properly held back. But no-- we're clearly supposed to be competing for excellence. Excellence in...not being any more or less excellent than anybody else??
But the metaphorical muddle that is Race To The Top To The Middle only raises a more important question which is-- why were we ever racing anywhere?
Competition in pursuit of excellence is highly overrated.
First of all, we only compete with other teams. The five members of a basketball team do not compete with each other to score the most baskets; if they did, they would be a terrible team and they would lose very much, and nobody would say, "Wow, those guys are really excellent!" Not even if they competed with great rigor.
So who is supposed to be the other team in this race? Other schools? We are supposed to beat other schools and teachers and students and leaving them whipped and beaten and in this way we will achieve excellence?
Or is it just possible that, in the education game, every American public school that uses teachers to educate American children-- that every one of those schools is on the same team and not in competition at all?
Second of all, even in economics and business, competition is really great until it isn't. Rockefeller created Standard Oil by absorbing competition, by buying up every last one of his competitors. At no point did he say, "You know what? For me to be really excellent, I need to have some competition." No-- he said, "In order for me to be really excellent, I need to control and organize most of this big, messy industry. Competition must go away." You know who else thought ending competition would be a good business strategy? Bill Gates.
Granted, Gates and a few others toyed with making their workers compete with each other. They stopped doing it, because it was bad for the team.
So don't tell me the business world loves competition, because they don't. At best, the people who are losing pay it lip service which lasts right up until they aren't losing any more.
And they aren't wrong. Rockefeller and Gates both brought order to industries that were messy and wasteful, industries that were throwing away valuable resources and opportunities fighting against each other. Competition did not improve the industry; it made it sloppy and inefficient.
Obama et al seem to believe that races advance all racers, just like Reagan's rising tide raised all boats (or trickled down on submarines, or something). They remain convinced that the folks in the back of the pack are only there because they are slackers, lazy, unmotivated, and that somehow the shame of losing will spur them to finally get their acts together. We've heard about compassionate conservatives. Here we see loveless liberals, compassion-free with a Nietzschian disregard for the under-menschen.
"But," they are going to protest, "we can't keep giving medals to everybody no matter what." And you know what? I agree. The self-esteemy movement to reward students just for having a pulse was a mistake. But our mistake was not giving medals to everyone. Our mistake was giving unearned medals to everyone.
"But," they are going to mansplain, "in the race of life, there are winners and losers." And I am going to say, not in school there aren't.
This is the problem with people who play too many sports. I'm a musician. You know what happens when you go to a concert and everybody plays their very very best? We don't declare one a winner and one a loser no matter what. We applaud like crazy, because when everybody does a great job, it's freakin' awesome!
In my classroom, there is no useful purpose for having a race. There is no useful purpose in declaring winners and losers. If all my students learn today, today everybody wins. And we don't have to race for that to happen.
Racing is a terrible awful no good very bad metaphor for what should be happening in schools. It is a stupid way to frame the whole business and cheap besides. Competition will not improve education-- not on the macro-national scale, not on the district scale, not on the building scale, not on the classroom scale.
We are not racers. We are builders. And building takes time and care and attention. It takes an understanding of your materials and the place in which you are building. It requires time and care and harmony and craft and attention. And every beam, every bolt, every square inch of surface matters. Every aspect of the building rests on and supports other aspects. And if you build a great building next to mine, it does not diminish me, but adds to my work.
Mr. President, I reject the language of scarcity, the language that says we will only support those who finish the race first, the language says that we are not a team, but a country of competitors in a dog-eat-dog world where there is only enough to support a chosen few. I am not going to race to any damn where.
This time, we are racing for equity, which means, I guess, that we are going to Race To The Top To The Middle. Seriously, how does this metaphor even sort of work? How does a race for equality work, exactly?
My first thought is that we are about to see a real-life Diana Moon Glampers to preside over a race in which the swift are properly held back. But no-- we're clearly supposed to be competing for excellence. Excellence in...not being any more or less excellent than anybody else??
But the metaphorical muddle that is Race To The Top To The Middle only raises a more important question which is-- why were we ever racing anywhere?
Competition in pursuit of excellence is highly overrated.
First of all, we only compete with other teams. The five members of a basketball team do not compete with each other to score the most baskets; if they did, they would be a terrible team and they would lose very much, and nobody would say, "Wow, those guys are really excellent!" Not even if they competed with great rigor.
So who is supposed to be the other team in this race? Other schools? We are supposed to beat other schools and teachers and students and leaving them whipped and beaten and in this way we will achieve excellence?
Or is it just possible that, in the education game, every American public school that uses teachers to educate American children-- that every one of those schools is on the same team and not in competition at all?
Second of all, even in economics and business, competition is really great until it isn't. Rockefeller created Standard Oil by absorbing competition, by buying up every last one of his competitors. At no point did he say, "You know what? For me to be really excellent, I need to have some competition." No-- he said, "In order for me to be really excellent, I need to control and organize most of this big, messy industry. Competition must go away." You know who else thought ending competition would be a good business strategy? Bill Gates.
Granted, Gates and a few others toyed with making their workers compete with each other. They stopped doing it, because it was bad for the team.
So don't tell me the business world loves competition, because they don't. At best, the people who are losing pay it lip service which lasts right up until they aren't losing any more.
And they aren't wrong. Rockefeller and Gates both brought order to industries that were messy and wasteful, industries that were throwing away valuable resources and opportunities fighting against each other. Competition did not improve the industry; it made it sloppy and inefficient.
Obama et al seem to believe that races advance all racers, just like Reagan's rising tide raised all boats (or trickled down on submarines, or something). They remain convinced that the folks in the back of the pack are only there because they are slackers, lazy, unmotivated, and that somehow the shame of losing will spur them to finally get their acts together. We've heard about compassionate conservatives. Here we see loveless liberals, compassion-free with a Nietzschian disregard for the under-menschen.
"But," they are going to protest, "we can't keep giving medals to everybody no matter what." And you know what? I agree. The self-esteemy movement to reward students just for having a pulse was a mistake. But our mistake was not giving medals to everyone. Our mistake was giving unearned medals to everyone.
"But," they are going to mansplain, "in the race of life, there are winners and losers." And I am going to say, not in school there aren't.
This is the problem with people who play too many sports. I'm a musician. You know what happens when you go to a concert and everybody plays their very very best? We don't declare one a winner and one a loser no matter what. We applaud like crazy, because when everybody does a great job, it's freakin' awesome!
In my classroom, there is no useful purpose for having a race. There is no useful purpose in declaring winners and losers. If all my students learn today, today everybody wins. And we don't have to race for that to happen.
Racing is a terrible awful no good very bad metaphor for what should be happening in schools. It is a stupid way to frame the whole business and cheap besides. Competition will not improve education-- not on the macro-national scale, not on the district scale, not on the building scale, not on the classroom scale.
We are not racers. We are builders. And building takes time and care and attention. It takes an understanding of your materials and the place in which you are building. It requires time and care and harmony and craft and attention. And every beam, every bolt, every square inch of surface matters. Every aspect of the building rests on and supports other aspects. And if you build a great building next to mine, it does not diminish me, but adds to my work.
Mr. President, I reject the language of scarcity, the language that says we will only support those who finish the race first, the language says that we are not a team, but a country of competitors in a dog-eat-dog world where there is only enough to support a chosen few. I am not going to race to any damn where.
How Green Are Your Roots?
The world of reformy stuff has altered my life; specifically, it has changed my daily routine. In the morning before school, I read. At lunch, I read. And sometimes in the evening, I read. And when I need a break from reading, I write.
There are soooooo many powerful writers out there covering the world of education, the high stakes test-driven status quo, and the many fronts in the ongoing battle to reclaim public education. The long list to the right of this column only scratches the surface. And to stay fully informed, I also read the work of the corporate champions of the high stakes test-driven status quo, the various organizations that fight and claw to keep the dream of educorporate schooling alive. So I've had plenty of opportunity to see what separates the two groups, what distinguishes the Network for Public Education from, say, StudentsFirst or TFA or any of the groups that shoehorn "Education" and "Quality" into their names.
The difference is money.
So many of the supporters of Reformy Stuff are bought and paid for. So many of the opponents are not.
If the Gates Foundation woke up tomorrow and discovered that all its money had turned into, I don't know, expired gift certificates for a free breakfast at Denny's, support for CCSS would collapse. If the Common Core and Teach for America and the Charter Movement had to survive on actual merit, this whole fight would be over in a week. If rich white guys couldn't buy studies and then buy other groups to study the studies and then buy organizations to praise the studies, the support for Reformy Stuff would evaporate.
You would think that the acolytes of meritocracy would want to say, "Look, if our concepts cannot survive in the marketplace of ideas strictly on their merit, then they don't deserve to live." But they are fans of another sort of meritocracy, one in which money proves one is a virtuous person, and therefor one's every idea must have merit and deserve to be rolled up in twenty dollar bills that are then shoved down less virtuous throats.
I watched and read about the Network for Public Education conference, and I can't help noticing that it does not include any people who are getting rich off fighting reformy stuff. In fact, I see quite a lot of people spending their own money and uncompensated time to fight this fight.
In the meantime, "I completely waived my speakers fee today and traveled at my own expense because I really believe in my message," said no Michelle Rhee ever. "Fixing schools" is making some people wealthy.
Time after time, Gates Foundation and other sources like it plant money in the ground and a group springs forth, ready to say whatever they are paid to say. People are making very good livings pushing this stuff.
But others of us are fighting it for free. I'd love to say something moving about how our righteous virtue in the support of a good cause gives us a homespun Davidian strength that no Goliath-like corporate heartless hucksters can overcome, but I don't think so.
I think Diane Ravitch has it right. They have to lose. The Masters of Reforming Our Nation's Schools are like farmers who have had to fill their field with plants that they bought at the store and transplanted on their own. When those plants die, they go back to the store and buy more. But every plant they buy and transplant fails.
They have bought (and bought and rebought and bought again) the illusion that they know how to raise those crops, but the truth is that they haven't a clue and every thing they have tried has failed, turned dry and dusty in the hard sun of reality. The successes they have enjoyed depend on nothing but a large supply of money, and eventually they will either run out or simply tire of spending it. What success can they point to that they did not prop up with money-based illusion? What words of support can they point to that haven't been paid for? What would happen to it all if the money went away?
The Reformy Stuff movement has no roots. Where roots should be there is only a large and impressive supply of money. But for those of us on the other side, there are roots that go deep, roots that were already planted by our love and passion for education and that have driven deep long before the fake foundation farmers came along. They can only keep this up as long as they can afford to pay for it. We can only keep this up as long as we have breath and brains, fingers to type, voices to speak.
It's not that their dependence on money makes them evil or dirty. Their dependence on money makes their movement unsustainable. But those of us fighting back and teaching and blogging and talking? We can keep this up all day, every day.
There are soooooo many powerful writers out there covering the world of education, the high stakes test-driven status quo, and the many fronts in the ongoing battle to reclaim public education. The long list to the right of this column only scratches the surface. And to stay fully informed, I also read the work of the corporate champions of the high stakes test-driven status quo, the various organizations that fight and claw to keep the dream of educorporate schooling alive. So I've had plenty of opportunity to see what separates the two groups, what distinguishes the Network for Public Education from, say, StudentsFirst or TFA or any of the groups that shoehorn "Education" and "Quality" into their names.
The difference is money.
So many of the supporters of Reformy Stuff are bought and paid for. So many of the opponents are not.
If the Gates Foundation woke up tomorrow and discovered that all its money had turned into, I don't know, expired gift certificates for a free breakfast at Denny's, support for CCSS would collapse. If the Common Core and Teach for America and the Charter Movement had to survive on actual merit, this whole fight would be over in a week. If rich white guys couldn't buy studies and then buy other groups to study the studies and then buy organizations to praise the studies, the support for Reformy Stuff would evaporate.
You would think that the acolytes of meritocracy would want to say, "Look, if our concepts cannot survive in the marketplace of ideas strictly on their merit, then they don't deserve to live." But they are fans of another sort of meritocracy, one in which money proves one is a virtuous person, and therefor one's every idea must have merit and deserve to be rolled up in twenty dollar bills that are then shoved down less virtuous throats.
I watched and read about the Network for Public Education conference, and I can't help noticing that it does not include any people who are getting rich off fighting reformy stuff. In fact, I see quite a lot of people spending their own money and uncompensated time to fight this fight.
In the meantime, "I completely waived my speakers fee today and traveled at my own expense because I really believe in my message," said no Michelle Rhee ever. "Fixing schools" is making some people wealthy.
Time after time, Gates Foundation and other sources like it plant money in the ground and a group springs forth, ready to say whatever they are paid to say. People are making very good livings pushing this stuff.
But others of us are fighting it for free. I'd love to say something moving about how our righteous virtue in the support of a good cause gives us a homespun Davidian strength that no Goliath-like corporate heartless hucksters can overcome, but I don't think so.
I think Diane Ravitch has it right. They have to lose. The Masters of Reforming Our Nation's Schools are like farmers who have had to fill their field with plants that they bought at the store and transplanted on their own. When those plants die, they go back to the store and buy more. But every plant they buy and transplant fails.
They have bought (and bought and rebought and bought again) the illusion that they know how to raise those crops, but the truth is that they haven't a clue and every thing they have tried has failed, turned dry and dusty in the hard sun of reality. The successes they have enjoyed depend on nothing but a large supply of money, and eventually they will either run out or simply tire of spending it. What success can they point to that they did not prop up with money-based illusion? What words of support can they point to that haven't been paid for? What would happen to it all if the money went away?
The Reformy Stuff movement has no roots. Where roots should be there is only a large and impressive supply of money. But for those of us on the other side, there are roots that go deep, roots that were already planted by our love and passion for education and that have driven deep long before the fake foundation farmers came along. They can only keep this up as long as they can afford to pay for it. We can only keep this up as long as we have breath and brains, fingers to type, voices to speak.
It's not that their dependence on money makes them evil or dirty. Their dependence on money makes their movement unsustainable. But those of us fighting back and teaching and blogging and talking? We can keep this up all day, every day.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Cyber-Schools Still Suck, Says NEPC Report
The National Education Policy Center announced the release of its report on virtual schooling with the hefty headline "Responsible Policymaking Still Absent for Virtual Schools, Which Continue To Proliferate Despite Scant Research Support and Lagging Quality" There's going to be plenty of scholarly discussion and parsing of the full report, but based on the press release, I feel pretty comfortable with the headline I've chosen here.
The full title of the report, garnered by examining the records of 338 cybers, is VirtualSchools in the U.S. 2014: Politics, Performance, Policy, and Research Evidence, edited by University of Colorado Boulder Professor Alex Molnar, and it will be all over the place shortly. But while we're waiting for the grownup scholars to sort through the details, let me see what a hack fake journalist can tell you about it.
Enrollment is rocketing skyward, sort of. In a finding that is, well, rather an odd surprise, it turns out that cyber-schooling is mostly for white kids. Current enrollment stands at 248,000 students, which is a whopping 21.7% increase over 2011-2012. But that enrollment breaks down into around 75% non-Hispanic whites, 10% African-America, and 11% Hispanic. Given the large cyber-presence in heavily Hispanic states and a national school population of 23%, the Hispanic numbers are surprising.
Are cyberschools less appealing to non-whites, or are cybers aiming their marketing primarily at the white market? Has cyber-school become one more way to get your kids away from "Those People"? Time to take a closer look at the marketing for outfits like K12 (which has a whopping third of all the cybercustomers).
The cyber-free-or-reduced-lunch population runs 10% behind the general population (35%). Students with disabilities runs just over 7% compared to 13% nationally. I found this number surprising, since I think of students with disabilities as people for whom cyber-schooling can be a particular good alternative to bricks and mortar. Less surprising is the English Language Learners (ELL) population-- 9.6% in the real world, but less than 1% in cyberian schools.
So how well do cyber-schools serve their oddly skewed population? After sorting through various state measures of effectiveness, the researchers determined the answer is, "Crappily." (I'm paraphrasing).
30% of the schools had not been measured for effectiveness at all. Only 33.8% of the schools who had been rated did well. Cybers operated by private for-profit organizations were less likely to do well. Only 157 schools reported on-time graduation numbers; their rate was 43.8%. In other words, a student in cyberschool has a less-than-fifty-fifty chance of actually graduating from it.
The report looked through a wide variety of reports, from bureaucratic through journalistic, and wherever one looks, one sees fields and fields of cyberschool suckitude. Consistent, inexcusable, suckitude.
Funding. Apparently every state uses some version of the cockamamie system we use in PA, where the amount that the cyberschool is paid per student has nothing to do with what providing the education actually costs, thereby providing cyber operators with a profit-grabbing system that is literally easier than taking candy from a baby, because a baby cries but a legislator just asks if you want more.
In 2012 K12 made 29 million dollars profit. In 2013, that number was jacked up to 45 million. This is what it looks like when greed makes you stupid. Cybers could charge half the per-capita cost of a brick and mortar school. They would still make an obscene pile of money, and the savings to taxpayers would win cyber-operators hearts and minds from state capitols to local main streets. But since they can't pass up even one more dollar, cyber-operators now get caught both doing a lousy job of educating and price gouging for it.
They could have made allies out of all the people who hate public education, who accuse us of doing a lousy and costing us money. Instead, cyber-operators are busily demonstrating a system that is even worse, that wastes even more money and delivers even fewer results.
NEPC sticks to items that can actually be researched, so yet another report does not address some of the more obvious issues with virtual charter schools, or as some of my students like to call them, "those schools where anybody can do your homework for you, and you get a free computer." But there appears to be more than enough meat in this report to feed some well-needed discussion.
The report will hit the print media tomorrow and be available on line any minute. If you are not familiar with NEPC, you should be-- these folks do actual peer-reviewed legitimate research. Once you have digested this report, you should send off a copy to your favorite legislator (in PA, be sure to attach a note reminding them that SB 1085 is a lousy idea). It's time that cyber-schools be accountable to the taxpayers they milk and the customers they bilk.
The full title of the report, garnered by examining the records of 338 cybers, is VirtualSchools in the U.S. 2014: Politics, Performance, Policy, and Research Evidence, edited by University of Colorado Boulder Professor Alex Molnar, and it will be all over the place shortly. But while we're waiting for the grownup scholars to sort through the details, let me see what a hack fake journalist can tell you about it.
Enrollment is rocketing skyward, sort of. In a finding that is, well, rather an odd surprise, it turns out that cyber-schooling is mostly for white kids. Current enrollment stands at 248,000 students, which is a whopping 21.7% increase over 2011-2012. But that enrollment breaks down into around 75% non-Hispanic whites, 10% African-America, and 11% Hispanic. Given the large cyber-presence in heavily Hispanic states and a national school population of 23%, the Hispanic numbers are surprising.
Are cyberschools less appealing to non-whites, or are cybers aiming their marketing primarily at the white market? Has cyber-school become one more way to get your kids away from "Those People"? Time to take a closer look at the marketing for outfits like K12 (which has a whopping third of all the cybercustomers).
The cyber-free-or-reduced-lunch population runs 10% behind the general population (35%). Students with disabilities runs just over 7% compared to 13% nationally. I found this number surprising, since I think of students with disabilities as people for whom cyber-schooling can be a particular good alternative to bricks and mortar. Less surprising is the English Language Learners (ELL) population-- 9.6% in the real world, but less than 1% in cyberian schools.
So how well do cyber-schools serve their oddly skewed population? After sorting through various state measures of effectiveness, the researchers determined the answer is, "Crappily." (I'm paraphrasing).
30% of the schools had not been measured for effectiveness at all. Only 33.8% of the schools who had been rated did well. Cybers operated by private for-profit organizations were less likely to do well. Only 157 schools reported on-time graduation numbers; their rate was 43.8%. In other words, a student in cyberschool has a less-than-fifty-fifty chance of actually graduating from it.
The report looked through a wide variety of reports, from bureaucratic through journalistic, and wherever one looks, one sees fields and fields of cyberschool suckitude. Consistent, inexcusable, suckitude.
Funding. Apparently every state uses some version of the cockamamie system we use in PA, where the amount that the cyberschool is paid per student has nothing to do with what providing the education actually costs, thereby providing cyber operators with a profit-grabbing system that is literally easier than taking candy from a baby, because a baby cries but a legislator just asks if you want more.
In 2012 K12 made 29 million dollars profit. In 2013, that number was jacked up to 45 million. This is what it looks like when greed makes you stupid. Cybers could charge half the per-capita cost of a brick and mortar school. They would still make an obscene pile of money, and the savings to taxpayers would win cyber-operators hearts and minds from state capitols to local main streets. But since they can't pass up even one more dollar, cyber-operators now get caught both doing a lousy job of educating and price gouging for it.
They could have made allies out of all the people who hate public education, who accuse us of doing a lousy and costing us money. Instead, cyber-operators are busily demonstrating a system that is even worse, that wastes even more money and delivers even fewer results.
NEPC sticks to items that can actually be researched, so yet another report does not address some of the more obvious issues with virtual charter schools, or as some of my students like to call them, "those schools where anybody can do your homework for you, and you get a free computer." But there appears to be more than enough meat in this report to feed some well-needed discussion.
The report will hit the print media tomorrow and be available on line any minute. If you are not familiar with NEPC, you should be-- these folks do actual peer-reviewed legitimate research. Once you have digested this report, you should send off a copy to your favorite legislator (in PA, be sure to attach a note reminding them that SB 1085 is a lousy idea). It's time that cyber-schools be accountable to the taxpayers they milk and the customers they bilk.
Mercedes Schneider Rips CCSS in Five Minutes
I don't reblog a lot of other people's stuff here, mostly because I am a small, low rung on the edublog ladder, and if you're reading me, you've probably read most of what I have. But if I can add just five more views to this video, I've served a useful purpose today.
Mercedes Schneider is one of my teacher heroines. We've never met, but she's taught me a ton about what is really going on, and she's taught me a lot about how to be an activist-writer while still serving your students in a classroom.
At last weekend's Network for Public Education conference, she sat on a panel about CCSS and used her five minutes to hit many of the same fatal flaws that I hate in CCSS. Most of all, the intent to completely cut my professional classroom teacher I'm-actually-standing-in-front-of-these-live-human-students judgment out of the educational loop. I also recognize the notion that a classroom teacher's role now includes serving as a buffer between students and what the Powers That Be want to inflict on them.
So take five minutes and listen to what a passionate fan of public education and teaching the way it was meant to be has to say.
Mercedes Schneider is one of my teacher heroines. We've never met, but she's taught me a ton about what is really going on, and she's taught me a lot about how to be an activist-writer while still serving your students in a classroom.
At last weekend's Network for Public Education conference, she sat on a panel about CCSS and used her five minutes to hit many of the same fatal flaws that I hate in CCSS. Most of all, the intent to completely cut my professional classroom teacher I'm-actually-standing-in-front-of-these-live-human-students judgment out of the educational loop. I also recognize the notion that a classroom teacher's role now includes serving as a buffer between students and what the Powers That Be want to inflict on them.
So take five minutes and listen to what a passionate fan of public education and teaching the way it was meant to be has to say.
11 Essential Questions from the Network for Public Education
At the wrap-up from last weekend's Network for Public Education conference in Austin, TX, the leaders of the national pro-public education (I realize that alignment should be obvious from the title, but these days you can't assume these things) issued a call for Congressional hearings " to investigate the over-emphasis, misapplication, costs, and poor
implementation of high-stakes standardized testing in the nation’s K-12
public schools."
NPE offered a list of eleven essential questions for Congress to ask, but I'd offer those questions to anyone who is questioning test-based high stakes education in their schools. There will be, I hope, plenty written about this, but the word needs to be spread far and wide.These are questions that need to be answered, in public, loudly.
Do the tests promote skills our children and our economy need? Is there a big market for professional bubblers, or people who can take tests that are easy to score with a computer? If we need creative thinkers, problem solvers and collaborators for the future, do these tests foster or measure any of those abilities? Tests promote certain values by virtue of saying "This is what counts." Are the tests aligned with the skills we really value?
What is the purpose of these tests? Couldn't be to help me teach, because the students in my class who take them will be gone by the time I see my highly generalized results. Nor will my students get any kind of useful feedback from them. So why do we need to take these again?
How good are the tests? Take a look at them. This may take some work, because test security is high, almost as if the test-makers knew that their work couldn't stand the light of day. "Tests are not scientific instruments like barometers; they are commercial products that are subject to multiple errors."
Are tests being given to children who are too young? Let be plain-- if you are giving a standardized test to a kindergartner, you are a dope. If you are giving a timed test that requires keyboarding to an eight-year-old, you are a dope. And an abusive dope at that.
Are tests culturally biased? Do we even have to ask? Standardized tests universally correlate to socio-economic class. That tells us either that a) class is completely a function of intellect and all rich people are rich because of their superior merit or b) tests include a class bias. Take your pick.
Are tests harmful to students with disabilities? The horror stories of dying children being forced to take standardized tests are terrible in and of themselves, but they underline a larger point-- the people pushing this stuff really haven't thought things through. At worst, testing is damaging to students with disabilities. At best, the tests have been rushed through so quickly and haphazardly that adaptations that might allow disabled students to actually be measured by the tests have been completely overlooked.
How have the frequency and quantity of testing increased? Testing time has an opportunity cost. A day spent testing is a day not spent playing in band or drawing art or playing in phys ed. It's a day not spent studying history or science. Increased testing has the effect of shortening the school year. What would you say if your child's school announced that the year would be over in March? That is effectively what increased testing is doing in some schools.
Does testing harm teaching? Are teachers in your district so worried about the test scores that they have narrowed their instruction? Do you have teachers who are buckling under the stress of possible bad evaluations because of test scores that, in many cases, they can't even control?
How much money does it cost? Again, don't just look at the expense-- look at the opportunity costs. LA schools spent $1 billion on ipads for their students as part of a testing initiative. If someone had given LAUSD $1 billion dollars and they had said, "What's the best stuff we could get with this money?" would over-priced ipads have carried the day? Districts are looking at the cost of tests, pre-tests, hiring test prep coaches, and in some states, technology upgrades to make testing possible. What is this costing you?
Are there conflicts of interest in testing policies? Not really a question here. By working all sides of this issue-- producing the test, producing the aligned materials, producing the legislation and standards that drive it all-- corporations are creating both the demand and the supply. \
Was it legal for the U.S. Department of Education to fund two testing consortia for the Common Core State Standards? Okay, so this question really is for Congress. But the feds are barred from directing local education, and the last twelve years sure look like a clever end-run around that legality. Is this administration even worse with legalities? Before you answer too loudly, you may want to keep in mind that the current administration believes it's legal to kill a US citizen who in their opinion represents a threat to our country.
On one level, I'm not that excited about asking Congress to look into this (that would be the level that believes the current Congress is not capable of getting much right, as well as the level that believes the federal government needs to just get out of the education biz). But on another level, I welcome anything that puts the current test-driven high stakes status quo under scrutiny. There's so much going on that can't stand the light of day any better than a light-sensitive cockroach, so anything that throw light toward it is welcome.
NPE offered a list of eleven essential questions for Congress to ask, but I'd offer those questions to anyone who is questioning test-based high stakes education in their schools. There will be, I hope, plenty written about this, but the word needs to be spread far and wide.These are questions that need to be answered, in public, loudly.
Do the tests promote skills our children and our economy need? Is there a big market for professional bubblers, or people who can take tests that are easy to score with a computer? If we need creative thinkers, problem solvers and collaborators for the future, do these tests foster or measure any of those abilities? Tests promote certain values by virtue of saying "This is what counts." Are the tests aligned with the skills we really value?
What is the purpose of these tests? Couldn't be to help me teach, because the students in my class who take them will be gone by the time I see my highly generalized results. Nor will my students get any kind of useful feedback from them. So why do we need to take these again?
How good are the tests? Take a look at them. This may take some work, because test security is high, almost as if the test-makers knew that their work couldn't stand the light of day. "Tests are not scientific instruments like barometers; they are commercial products that are subject to multiple errors."
Are tests being given to children who are too young? Let be plain-- if you are giving a standardized test to a kindergartner, you are a dope. If you are giving a timed test that requires keyboarding to an eight-year-old, you are a dope. And an abusive dope at that.
Are tests culturally biased? Do we even have to ask? Standardized tests universally correlate to socio-economic class. That tells us either that a) class is completely a function of intellect and all rich people are rich because of their superior merit or b) tests include a class bias. Take your pick.
Are tests harmful to students with disabilities? The horror stories of dying children being forced to take standardized tests are terrible in and of themselves, but they underline a larger point-- the people pushing this stuff really haven't thought things through. At worst, testing is damaging to students with disabilities. At best, the tests have been rushed through so quickly and haphazardly that adaptations that might allow disabled students to actually be measured by the tests have been completely overlooked.
How have the frequency and quantity of testing increased? Testing time has an opportunity cost. A day spent testing is a day not spent playing in band or drawing art or playing in phys ed. It's a day not spent studying history or science. Increased testing has the effect of shortening the school year. What would you say if your child's school announced that the year would be over in March? That is effectively what increased testing is doing in some schools.
Does testing harm teaching? Are teachers in your district so worried about the test scores that they have narrowed their instruction? Do you have teachers who are buckling under the stress of possible bad evaluations because of test scores that, in many cases, they can't even control?
How much money does it cost? Again, don't just look at the expense-- look at the opportunity costs. LA schools spent $1 billion on ipads for their students as part of a testing initiative. If someone had given LAUSD $1 billion dollars and they had said, "What's the best stuff we could get with this money?" would over-priced ipads have carried the day? Districts are looking at the cost of tests, pre-tests, hiring test prep coaches, and in some states, technology upgrades to make testing possible. What is this costing you?
Are there conflicts of interest in testing policies? Not really a question here. By working all sides of this issue-- producing the test, producing the aligned materials, producing the legislation and standards that drive it all-- corporations are creating both the demand and the supply. \
Was it legal for the U.S. Department of Education to fund two testing consortia for the Common Core State Standards? Okay, so this question really is for Congress. But the feds are barred from directing local education, and the last twelve years sure look like a clever end-run around that legality. Is this administration even worse with legalities? Before you answer too loudly, you may want to keep in mind that the current administration believes it's legal to kill a US citizen who in their opinion represents a threat to our country.
On one level, I'm not that excited about asking Congress to look into this (that would be the level that believes the current Congress is not capable of getting much right, as well as the level that believes the federal government needs to just get out of the education biz). But on another level, I welcome anything that puts the current test-driven high stakes status quo under scrutiny. There's so much going on that can't stand the light of day any better than a light-sensitive cockroach, so anything that throw light toward it is welcome.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Opportunity Cost: Distance Learning & Best Ravitch Line from NPE Conference
In the midst of show weekend with my students here in PA, it was interesting to try to follow the Network for Public Education Conference in Austin this weekend. I have two initial takeaways from the experience.
Distance Learning Is Even Worse Than Phone Sex
I followed lots of folks on twitter, watched some of the streamed video, viewed video clips as soon as anyone put them up. This conference left a huge footprint on the interwebs, with #npeconference leading the twitter trend list both days on weekend that included rising tensions in the Ukraine and preparations for tonight's Oscar bash. Beyond getting a few more sessions in front of the live streaming or hiring someone to carry around video devices, I'm not sure how much more digitally covered the conference could have been.
And I have to tell you-- it wasn't nearly enough. I caught some of the meat, got to see the real faces and hear the real speech cadences of many people that I've come to know online, read many of the best lines form the weekend-- but in the end, I still felt like a bunch of my friends had had a really cool party and group experience and I had missed out on it. So much energy and excitement leaked through the sad tiny pipeline that is the internet-- I can't quite imagine how much there was in the real place.
Which made me think-- if this was how it felt to try to distance-follow an event in which I was primed to be engaged and which was accessible to me by a whole array of current technology, how terribly inadequate distance learning, cyber-schooling and all the other computer-based substitutes for a real live teacher in the same room as students must be.
Like phone sex (I imagine), the experience lived somewhere in the land between better-than-nothing and painful-because-it-reminds-you-of-what-you're-missing. In the end, I come down on better-than-nothing, but my feelings that distance learning must be terribly inadequate are now even more confirmed.
My Favorite Ravitch Point of The Weekend
I got the keynote address in bits and pieces through twitter (set strike was today), so I know there were plenty of applause lines there. But I definitely caught the truncated video of the NPE press conference, and that call for Congress to get involved again some more in the Giant Testing Mess (which leaves me with some mixed feelings because, hey, there's no way THAT could end badly) included a phrase we ought to hear much more often in this debate.
Opportunity cost.
"Opportunity cost" used to be a semi-obscure economics term. Basically it underlines that buying a candy bar for a dollar doesn't cost you a dollar-- it costs you all the other things you COULD have spent the dollar on. By spending money here, you lose the opportunity to spend it over there.
This is the perfect way to frame the debate over testing and test prep. We keep talking about ytime, about how much time the tests take, how much time we spend preparing, how much time goes into testing.
But it's not just time. As Diane correctly noted, we're really talking about opportunity costs. A week of test prep means students lose the opportunity to play in band or sing in choir or draw in art or play a game in phys ed. A week of testing costs students the opportunity to spend that week doing something else.
We could pay the cost of testing simply in time. We could say, "Look, these tests are so important that we are going to add two months to the school year just to get ready for the tests and then take them." We could actually pay the cost in time pretty easily. But if we paid it that way, we'd know exactly what it was costing us (summer vacations, angry phone calls from angry parents).
But opportunity costs we can hide. And we have. We've hidden them because we are pros at that and have been for years. We add new units about health and safety and nutrition and adopting dogs and fold it into the year as if the school year is a big accordion-shaped squeezebox of fluid infinite time. We never talk about opportunity costs.
So it is dead-on correct to call for a study of opportunity costs. It is dead-on correct to ask what we are taking away to do this unholy regime of pointless testing.
Because when something costs time, there's the illusion that there's always more time. We can get it back. But opportunities lost are gone for good. And talking about opportunity costs force us to ask hard questions.
Talking about value is easy. Did I get good value for what I spent? Is this a decent dollar's worth of candy bar?
But talking about opportunity cost-- that's another thing. Because now the question is-- of all the things I could have spent this dollar on, is this candy bar the best?
Proponents of the high stakes test-based education status quo (another thing that Ravitch got dead-on correct-- this IS the status quo, not a challenge to it) don't just need to prove that their testing regimen has some value or may serve some useful purpose. What they need to prove is this-- looking at the resources spent, the money spent, the hours of young lives spent, the work of education professionals spent-- looking at all those costs, were there better opportunities? What opportunities did we give up to pursue the big ball of testing wax, and would some of those opportunities have been a better use of our resources? What opportunities are we and our students going to have tomorrow, and which ones should we pursue? Is the high stakes test-based status quo really the best thing we can think of to spend our time and effort on? I may not have been there, but I bet everybody who was in Austin knows the answer.
Distance Learning Is Even Worse Than Phone Sex
I followed lots of folks on twitter, watched some of the streamed video, viewed video clips as soon as anyone put them up. This conference left a huge footprint on the interwebs, with #npeconference leading the twitter trend list both days on weekend that included rising tensions in the Ukraine and preparations for tonight's Oscar bash. Beyond getting a few more sessions in front of the live streaming or hiring someone to carry around video devices, I'm not sure how much more digitally covered the conference could have been.
And I have to tell you-- it wasn't nearly enough. I caught some of the meat, got to see the real faces and hear the real speech cadences of many people that I've come to know online, read many of the best lines form the weekend-- but in the end, I still felt like a bunch of my friends had had a really cool party and group experience and I had missed out on it. So much energy and excitement leaked through the sad tiny pipeline that is the internet-- I can't quite imagine how much there was in the real place.
Which made me think-- if this was how it felt to try to distance-follow an event in which I was primed to be engaged and which was accessible to me by a whole array of current technology, how terribly inadequate distance learning, cyber-schooling and all the other computer-based substitutes for a real live teacher in the same room as students must be.
Like phone sex (I imagine), the experience lived somewhere in the land between better-than-nothing and painful-because-it-reminds-you-of-what-you're-missing. In the end, I come down on better-than-nothing, but my feelings that distance learning must be terribly inadequate are now even more confirmed.
My Favorite Ravitch Point of The Weekend
I got the keynote address in bits and pieces through twitter (set strike was today), so I know there were plenty of applause lines there. But I definitely caught the truncated video of the NPE press conference, and that call for Congress to get involved again some more in the Giant Testing Mess (which leaves me with some mixed feelings because, hey, there's no way THAT could end badly) included a phrase we ought to hear much more often in this debate.
Opportunity cost.
"Opportunity cost" used to be a semi-obscure economics term. Basically it underlines that buying a candy bar for a dollar doesn't cost you a dollar-- it costs you all the other things you COULD have spent the dollar on. By spending money here, you lose the opportunity to spend it over there.
This is the perfect way to frame the debate over testing and test prep. We keep talking about ytime, about how much time the tests take, how much time we spend preparing, how much time goes into testing.
But it's not just time. As Diane correctly noted, we're really talking about opportunity costs. A week of test prep means students lose the opportunity to play in band or sing in choir or draw in art or play a game in phys ed. A week of testing costs students the opportunity to spend that week doing something else.
We could pay the cost of testing simply in time. We could say, "Look, these tests are so important that we are going to add two months to the school year just to get ready for the tests and then take them." We could actually pay the cost in time pretty easily. But if we paid it that way, we'd know exactly what it was costing us (summer vacations, angry phone calls from angry parents).
But opportunity costs we can hide. And we have. We've hidden them because we are pros at that and have been for years. We add new units about health and safety and nutrition and adopting dogs and fold it into the year as if the school year is a big accordion-shaped squeezebox of fluid infinite time. We never talk about opportunity costs.
So it is dead-on correct to call for a study of opportunity costs. It is dead-on correct to ask what we are taking away to do this unholy regime of pointless testing.
Because when something costs time, there's the illusion that there's always more time. We can get it back. But opportunities lost are gone for good. And talking about opportunity costs force us to ask hard questions.
Talking about value is easy. Did I get good value for what I spent? Is this a decent dollar's worth of candy bar?
But talking about opportunity cost-- that's another thing. Because now the question is-- of all the things I could have spent this dollar on, is this candy bar the best?
Proponents of the high stakes test-based education status quo (another thing that Ravitch got dead-on correct-- this IS the status quo, not a challenge to it) don't just need to prove that their testing regimen has some value or may serve some useful purpose. What they need to prove is this-- looking at the resources spent, the money spent, the hours of young lives spent, the work of education professionals spent-- looking at all those costs, were there better opportunities? What opportunities did we give up to pursue the big ball of testing wax, and would some of those opportunities have been a better use of our resources? What opportunities are we and our students going to have tomorrow, and which ones should we pursue? Is the high stakes test-based status quo really the best thing we can think of to spend our time and effort on? I may not have been there, but I bet everybody who was in Austin knows the answer.
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