Hello, I am a trainee teacher. I read the article. It was an interesting
read. I have a question. How can a teacher attain a work life balance,
given that she wants to do so much and that she is expected to do so
much?
--Meena Valli
Since it started running the Huffington Post, my piece about how teachers face the challenge of Not Enough has brought responses like this, asking if I know the secret to work-life balance for teachers. I've not responded to them for a while, mostly because I'm not sure that I have anything useful to say (and Meena-- you appear to be in India, so I'm really not sure how much of what I could say translates across cultural boundaries). So this post is personal, and may not be useful for anybody except me.
The short answer:
No, I don't know the secret. I'm not any smarter or wiser than the average shmoe.
The long answer:
I can pass along what experience and observation suggest works, or at least helps.
Don't Count on the Job To Fill You Up
It's okay to love your job. It's desirable and even necessary that a teacher love teaching. But you have to be careful, because as much as you love teaching, teaching will never love you back. Teacher lore is filled with tales of stirring moments-- the note from a student, the special recognition at a meeting, the stirring movie-style public honoring of a teacher at the end of his career. We all have these stories, and we treasure them precisely because they are as common as Sasquatch sightings.
My community is pretty supportive of teaching, but if I am counting on my school community to be so moved by my dedication that they devote themselves to giving me all the support, cover and assistance I could ever need to fill up my emotional tank, I are going to be running on empty. This is not because everyone is evil or stunted or awful. You're a lifeguard at a beach with a dozen other lifeguards and a hundred people floundering in the water. There's too much work for the lifeguards to do for them to be worrying about the other lifeguards.
The job is great, but it's only for a while. As beloved as I may be right now, three years after I leave my building, I will be "that guy who used to teach here." There may be a voice inside you that thinks, "I spend all my time at work nurturing other people. When is it going to be my turn to be nurtured?" The answer is the same for you as it is for every other working professional in the country-- you may have a place of nurturing, but it's not at work.
The Students Are Not There For You
How many teachers have I watched burn out because they viewed their students as their emotional support system? Too many. Almost as bad are the teachers who sacrifice their effectiveness-- once your students figure out that you need their approval or approbation to make it through the day, they know they're driving the bus (or they become uncomfortable knowing that nobody is driving the bus).
Have Other Passions
It doesn't matter what, but have something. I play in a town band, work with community theater, write for the newspaper, kayak, bike, read and other odds and ends. These have many good side effects, not the least of which is giving me a life outside of my classroom. How can I ever hope to teach my students about how to be in the world if I never spend any time there myself? How can I possibly relate to their struggle to acquire and perfect new skills when I haven't had the experience of developing new skills myself in the last twenty years? How can I bring anything into my classroom if I never really leave it?
Have Non-teacher Friends
Some things we deal with in teaching are unique to teaching. Some are not. Perspective is helpful. Some of the challenges we face come from being teachers, but some of them come from being human. Spend some time with your fellow humans to build your outside-the-classroom life. My relationships with people in other fields give me a useful understanding of what's going on in the working world my students want to enter as well as reminding me about the ways in which I have it pretty good. (Pro tip: don't ever, ever complain about going back to school after your twelve week summer break in front of your working friends who will only get ten vacation days all year.)
Work and Don't Work
Boy, was I terrible at this one when I started. I worked all the time, including the time that I was theoretically doing not-work. I knew that I needed to take some time to unwind, but I felt guilty about not working, so I would take work along for the not-working. Consequently, I wouldn't really get much work done and what was done was half-assed, but since I had been trying to work, I didn't really get the benefit of the unwinding time either. I managed to get the worst of both worlds. When you work, work. When you don't, don't.
Decide What Matters and Don't Waste Time on the Rest
When I started out, I thought I needed to say yes to everything, and so I acquired a lot of tasks that I just didn't care about. Your time is precious; use it for the things that matter to you. This is not always an easy call-- your friend Pat may love curling and you may not think that curling is important at all, but because you believe that Pat is important, you spend time on curling. You may want to earn some points with your principal, but do you really want to devote hours and hours to the Restroom Sink Cleaning Committee? If it's not important to you, don't throw away your time and effort on it.
And the primary relationships in your life? Take care of those. Teachers can become just as tunnel-visioned as any stereotypical work-obsessed executive in movies.
I'm often asked how I am able to blog so much. It's because the need to express what's in my head and gut in words is an itch I have to scratch (playing music is another must-scratch itch for me); working my thoughts out here literally clears my head. That matters, so I find the time for it.
Don't Buy Tickets for the Guilt Train
It will always be possible to compare yourself unfavorably with what you think you're supposed to be doing. Thirty-five years in, I can still list for you the areas where I am lacking as a teacher. I can give you a whole verse and chorus about what I ought to be doing that I am not. I could spend a lot of time feeling guilty about that. I could spend every single moment that I'm not doing classroom stuff (like this moment, for instance) feeling guilty about it, or I could just decide I won't ever do anything ever except teacher stuff, but neither stance is sustainable in the long run. This goes back to the original post-- I could give teaching everything 24/7 and it still wouldn't be enough. In fact, I'm pretty sure that trying to live without any life outside my classroom would actually move me backwards as a teacher. The trick is knowing how much I can sustain.
In fact, if I were going to boil everything down to just one line of advice, it would be
Know your limits and accept living within them.
But Also Stretch Them
I have to grow. So every year, I stretch something. I accomplish something or master something or change something or strengthen something. I believe that in life, in all things, there is only moving forward or moving backwards-- there is no standing still.And that's part of what insures that
Balance Is an Ongoing Process
Finding this balance is not like setting up one of those cool stacks of balanced stones. It's like walking a tightrope while juggling pumpkins while somebody keeps stacking bricks on your feet and head. I have to constantly self-evaluate and adjust and there are times still when I get that feeling that lets me know I've lost control. Plus there are times when some aspect of my life just blows up and I have no choice but to live an unbalanced life for a while. Getting a good work-life balance looks a lot different right now with grown children far away and a newish marriage here at home than it did when I was single dad of high school age kids, and it certainly looks different than when I was dealing with divorce.
In short, my balance is never something I get to just wrap up and say, "Okay, that's settled. I never have to think about it again." I can't balance on autopilot, and I don't think many people can.
Teaching is an awesome job, and I would never have been as happy doing something else. But teaching will take everything you have to give and then yell for more. You must have a well-built boundary between your self and the job, or it will simply consume you and spit you out. You are the goose that is laying the golden egg, and if you cut yourself open to get more eggs out faster, that will be the end of both you and the gold. Or you're a lifeguard and you can't save others if you're drowning yourself. Pick a metaphor you like, but like people in many human service work, you have to have a part of yourself that you keep safe and whole, or you'll be done. At least, that's how it looks to me.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Report Shows Huge $$ In Ed Testing
I know, I know. Later I'll do a post in which we learn that water is wet.
This report comes from the education division of the Software and Information Industry Association, "the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries." (h/t to Jim Horn at Schools Matter) It's an extension of their annual survey of their members, so this is how the education market looks to the people who hope to make money from it. This is not the hypothetical fretting of those of us in the education biz.
The survey covers a three-year span, and the findings are simple and stark. During a period marked by "difficult economic times during an overall PreK-12 budget and spending decline," the industry saw an increase in testing and assessment sales of 57%. And the three years in the survey are 2010-2011 through 2012-2013. Anybody want to place bets on how the trend continued in 2013-2014?
In dollar amounts, the 2012-2013 dollar figures is around $2,500,000,000. Two and a half billion. With a "b."
The executive summary is available on line (the full report seems to have been released only to member companies), and there's not a great deal to see there. It's not even very slick and pretty, kind of like it was an actual industry group report and not some sort of thinky tank advertising brochure masquerading as a report. At any rate, that means we can only see the broad outlines, and those simply confirm what common sense already told us.
Participants in the survey identified four factors contributing to the huge mountain of money they now find themselves perched atop.
1. The Common Core Standards are changing curricula
2. The rollout of Common Core Assessments are [sic] galvanizing activity
3. There is widespread demand for more and better formative assessment
4. Testing and assessment is [sic] leading the transition from print to digital
I'll subtract points for the subject-verb agreement problems, but they get some back for using "galvanizing." Nice word. In other words, Common Core has cracked open the market so that money can pour out. Note also that as far as these guys are concerned, Common Core Assessments are a thing, so those who insist that the standards and the tests are two discrete and unconnected issues are contradicted for the sixty gazzilionth time. The mandate that testing be done on line is having the expected effect of making huge money for the digital stuff industry. The widespread demand for more formative assessment? I'm not sure who out here is hollering for more tests, but these four factors were noted "almost universally" by respondents. Four less commonly noted factors were
1. School districts are requiring interoperability
2. Big Data and Analytics are driving infrastructure
3. Real-time digital assessments are actionable
4. Linking assessments to content holds the promise of personalization
The first two reinforce the idea that our Data Overlords and their government minions continue to holler "Feed me!" The third item reinforces that English is a second language to these guys; it means, I believe, that getting instant test results is a thing that could be done. Four is the unicorn hunt of personalization; the idea that a program can look at all of a student's answers on the computer-based assessment and then spit out just the right instructional plan for that student is exactly the sort of thing that people who don't have any real knowledge of teaching and education think would be really cool and actionable.
The report ranks various product lines in terms of revenue generation. Summative testing is most of the mountain, which serves as one more sign that the reformster baloney about how one purpose of the High Stakes Testing is to guide and tweak instruction is Just Not So. That would be formative testing, which is runner up in the Making Us Money contest, followed distantly by psychological testing and test prep products.
They also offer two cautions against irrational exuberance. First, people are starting to get seriously antsy about the massive threats to and violations of student privacy. Second, the market for summative testing seems to be slowing and perhaps close to filled.
The full report appears to address all ten of these points in greater detail. If anybody's got a copy lying around, I'd be glad to have a look. But it appears that this report offers less Shocking Surprise Revelation and more Confirmation of What You Already Were Pretty Sure Was True.
This report comes from the education division of the Software and Information Industry Association, "the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries." (h/t to Jim Horn at Schools Matter) It's an extension of their annual survey of their members, so this is how the education market looks to the people who hope to make money from it. This is not the hypothetical fretting of those of us in the education biz.
The survey covers a three-year span, and the findings are simple and stark. During a period marked by "difficult economic times during an overall PreK-12 budget and spending decline," the industry saw an increase in testing and assessment sales of 57%. And the three years in the survey are 2010-2011 through 2012-2013. Anybody want to place bets on how the trend continued in 2013-2014?
In dollar amounts, the 2012-2013 dollar figures is around $2,500,000,000. Two and a half billion. With a "b."
The executive summary is available on line (the full report seems to have been released only to member companies), and there's not a great deal to see there. It's not even very slick and pretty, kind of like it was an actual industry group report and not some sort of thinky tank advertising brochure masquerading as a report. At any rate, that means we can only see the broad outlines, and those simply confirm what common sense already told us.
Participants in the survey identified four factors contributing to the huge mountain of money they now find themselves perched atop.
1. The Common Core Standards are changing curricula
2. The rollout of Common Core Assessments are [sic] galvanizing activity
3. There is widespread demand for more and better formative assessment
4. Testing and assessment is [sic] leading the transition from print to digital
I'll subtract points for the subject-verb agreement problems, but they get some back for using "galvanizing." Nice word. In other words, Common Core has cracked open the market so that money can pour out. Note also that as far as these guys are concerned, Common Core Assessments are a thing, so those who insist that the standards and the tests are two discrete and unconnected issues are contradicted for the sixty gazzilionth time. The mandate that testing be done on line is having the expected effect of making huge money for the digital stuff industry. The widespread demand for more formative assessment? I'm not sure who out here is hollering for more tests, but these four factors were noted "almost universally" by respondents. Four less commonly noted factors were
1. School districts are requiring interoperability
2. Big Data and Analytics are driving infrastructure
3. Real-time digital assessments are actionable
4. Linking assessments to content holds the promise of personalization
The first two reinforce the idea that our Data Overlords and their government minions continue to holler "Feed me!" The third item reinforces that English is a second language to these guys; it means, I believe, that getting instant test results is a thing that could be done. Four is the unicorn hunt of personalization; the idea that a program can look at all of a student's answers on the computer-based assessment and then spit out just the right instructional plan for that student is exactly the sort of thing that people who don't have any real knowledge of teaching and education think would be really cool and actionable.
The report ranks various product lines in terms of revenue generation. Summative testing is most of the mountain, which serves as one more sign that the reformster baloney about how one purpose of the High Stakes Testing is to guide and tweak instruction is Just Not So. That would be formative testing, which is runner up in the Making Us Money contest, followed distantly by psychological testing and test prep products.
They also offer two cautions against irrational exuberance. First, people are starting to get seriously antsy about the massive threats to and violations of student privacy. Second, the market for summative testing seems to be slowing and perhaps close to filled.
The full report appears to address all ten of these points in greater detail. If anybody's got a copy lying around, I'd be glad to have a look. But it appears that this report offers less Shocking Surprise Revelation and more Confirmation of What You Already Were Pretty Sure Was True.
The New Butterfly Effect
Old Butterfly Effect: A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, and the result is a tornado in Oklahoma.
Now that US ED wants to link everything together, we need a revision. New Butterfly Effect:
A butterfly flaps its wings against the window of a school room where students are taking the High Stakes Test. Several of the students are so excited (they just had a unit about butterflies and grew some in their room that they then released into the wild at recess-- is this one of ours? does he remember us and want to come back? look! Look!!) that they actually get up to look. The test proctor scolds them and makes them sit down, but between the excitement of the butterfly and the hurt feelings for the scolding, they have lost their focus for the day. All of them do poorly on the test.
Because several of the students do poorly, their teacher's VAM score is low.
A phys ed teacher and a music teacher also get low evaluations. They don't teach these kids, but the convoluted evaluation formula causes the student scores to lower the teacher evaluation scores.
Because at least one of these teachers is on the second year of a low evaluation score, that teacher is fired.
Two of these teachers got their degree from a local college education department ten years ago. Because Arne Duncan's plan to evaluate colleges by the test scores of their former students' students, that local college ed department gets a lower evaluation.
Because of the lower test score, the department loses financial support from the feds. They also suffer a bout of negative publicity because they are on the fed's Naughty List. They have already been struggling with recruitment, and so they cut their program and raise tuition.
Without an affordable local program, several local high school seniors decide not to pursue a goal of a teaching degree after all. Instead they just go straight into the workforce.
And so by next summer, former teachers and high school graduates are all looking for a job.
And so, because a butterfly flaps its wings, Wal-mart has a large enough labor pool to continue hiring workers for 20-hours-a-week at minimum wage.
Now that US ED wants to link everything together, we need a revision. New Butterfly Effect:
A butterfly flaps its wings against the window of a school room where students are taking the High Stakes Test. Several of the students are so excited (they just had a unit about butterflies and grew some in their room that they then released into the wild at recess-- is this one of ours? does he remember us and want to come back? look! Look!!) that they actually get up to look. The test proctor scolds them and makes them sit down, but between the excitement of the butterfly and the hurt feelings for the scolding, they have lost their focus for the day. All of them do poorly on the test.
Because several of the students do poorly, their teacher's VAM score is low.
A phys ed teacher and a music teacher also get low evaluations. They don't teach these kids, but the convoluted evaluation formula causes the student scores to lower the teacher evaluation scores.
Because at least one of these teachers is on the second year of a low evaluation score, that teacher is fired.
Two of these teachers got their degree from a local college education department ten years ago. Because Arne Duncan's plan to evaluate colleges by the test scores of their former students' students, that local college ed department gets a lower evaluation.
Because of the lower test score, the department loses financial support from the feds. They also suffer a bout of negative publicity because they are on the fed's Naughty List. They have already been struggling with recruitment, and so they cut their program and raise tuition.
Without an affordable local program, several local high school seniors decide not to pursue a goal of a teaching degree after all. Instead they just go straight into the workforce.
And so by next summer, former teachers and high school graduates are all looking for a job.
And so, because a butterfly flaps its wings, Wal-mart has a large enough labor pool to continue hiring workers for 20-hours-a-week at minimum wage.
Feds Committed To Preserving Crappy Colleges
You may recall that the Corinthian College for-profit chain was in trouble. Specifically, they were in trouble for 1) running a massive scam and 2) not even running it successfully.
For-profit colleges are a great study in how a voucher system really works. The feds grant higher ed vouchers to a sector of potential students, and then various institutions compete to get those vouchers. Do they compete by being the most awesome providers of the most excellent education? Don't be ridiculous. Do Coke and Pepsi compete by trying to create the most excellent, healthful beverage, or by piling on the marketing and putting in just enough sugary sweetness to trigger the monkey pleasure centers in our brains?
So these for-profit colleges specialized in marketing techniques like Empty Promises and Lying About Previous Results.
And of course, there's one significant difference between this system of vouchers as compared to the usual-- these are vouchers that students have to pay back with interest (which turns out to be difficult when you've sunk all your money in an education that doesn't get you a good job).
Anyway, the full story is here. Short version: feds threatened to shut down predatory loan-sucking for-profit scam schools, but decided to bail them out instead. Kind of like finding people in a burning building and saying, "You guys just stay there inside. We're going to hire someone to paint the place."
Now we've arrived at Chapter 2. After bailing Corinthian out so that students could continue to stay warm and toasty inside the burning building, the feds are supporting a new deal. As reported in the Washington Post, a chunk of the chain has been bought up by----- a debt collection company!
“What we are seeing is an unprecedented attempt on the part of a regulator to prop up one of the very worst companies in the industry,” said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. “You could debate which is better — allowing a predatory operation to collapse, or keeping it on life support so that it could victimize more people. That is what the federal government has done.”
Nassirian is being generous-- I'm not sure exactly what the argument for allowing predatory operations to collapse, other than it would be disruptive for the students sooner than letting them finish school and then finding out that they've been had.
Educational Credit Management Corporation is the buyer, and if you've heard horror stories about students being relentlessly pursued to pay up school debts, these guys were probably the monster under those stairs. They've been spanked a few times for overzealous pursuit of the money. They might seem to be, to say the least, an odd choice to own and operate a for-profit college chain.
ECMC is an odd choice to run chunks of Corinthian only if you think the purpose of these schools is to provide an education. If you understand that the whole for-profit college biz exists only to move school loan money around so that outfits can make money from the process every time the dollars change hands. For-profits exists in order to convince students to go into debt; the school collects the principal, and the owners of the loans collect the interest, and the students collect the debt. It is a great model for privatizing profit while sloughing the risk and debt off on citizens. So ECMC, as a debt collector, is simply getting into some vertical integration, making money from the loans both coming and going (earlier this year they also acquired College Abacus "the kayak.com of college loans). They can hire somebody to maintain the illusion that there is an actual school at the center of this giant scam, and do it through their own Zenith Education Group subsidiary so that not a single delicious dollar leaks out of any of the seams.
How do federal authorities feel about these efforts to keep a shark in the educational waters? Are you kidding? They helped broker the deal. Because in all of this, it's far more important that the for-profits remain intact and viable than the futures of tens of thousands of students be safeguarded. This is as if Gerber laced a hundred thousand jars of baby food with arsenic and the fed's first priority was to make sure the company was okay while leaving the babies to just fend for themselves.
I'm sure that the obscene profits that the fed makes from student loans has nothing to do with this. It couldn't be that nobody called it a bad idea, because many, many people have spoken out at every step of this process. From the Huffington Post:
“While bailing out 56 schools, the sale treats the more than 30,000 students like financial assets,” said Maggie Thompson, manager of the Higher Ed, Not Debt campaign.
“If you’re supposedly a regulatory agency, and your mission is to protect students, why wouldn’t you want students to know that?” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at policy organization Demos. The Education Department, in effect, allowed Corinthian to enroll as many students as it wanted, even as it teetered on insolvency -- ignoring the demands of a dozen Democratic senators.
From the Washington Post:
“Corinthian faced enrollment challenges and regulatory scrutiny common to other for-profits, but the thing that did them in at the end of the day was plain old mismanagement,” [Trace Urdan, a higher education analyst at Wells Fargo Securities] said. “They failed to cut costs like they needed to, operating under the assumption that next year would be better — and it never was.”
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said he was “shocked” that the Education Department would support the deal and questioned whether keeping Corinthian open under any management was in the best interest of students or taxpayers.
“To prop up a school whose main purpose seems to be to get federal money is a misguided use of federal funds,” Cohen said. “When a school like [Corinthian] that has a checkered history is on the mat, throw in the towel. It’s over.”
But here's who liked it:
“We are glad that Corinthian has reached an agreement with ECMC Group and believe that this transition will allow students to maintain progress toward achieving their educational and career goals and protect taxpayers’ investment, while Corinthian moves out of the business,” Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell said in a statement.
The whole Corinthian mess is as clear an example as we've ever seen of the federal government putting corporate interests ahead of the interests of citizens. It's also a fine example of the federal policy of say one thing, do another. Just last month, Arne Duncan said
“Career colleges must be a stepping stone to the middle class. But too many hard-working students find themselves buried in debt with little to show for it. That is simply unacceptable.”
It's unacceptable. But not so unacceptable that we're going to do anything about it.
It's not complicated. If you want an example of for-profit colleges that bury hard-working least-able-to-afford it students under debt while giving them nothing to show for it, you could not find a clearer example than Corinthian. If the feds couldn't bring themselves to intervene on behalf of students in this situation, they never will. The US ED can talk all it wants, but its actions show the truth, and the truth is that predatory for-profit schools get no punishment and plenty of profitable help from Arne Duncan's department.
For-profit colleges are a great study in how a voucher system really works. The feds grant higher ed vouchers to a sector of potential students, and then various institutions compete to get those vouchers. Do they compete by being the most awesome providers of the most excellent education? Don't be ridiculous. Do Coke and Pepsi compete by trying to create the most excellent, healthful beverage, or by piling on the marketing and putting in just enough sugary sweetness to trigger the monkey pleasure centers in our brains?
So these for-profit colleges specialized in marketing techniques like Empty Promises and Lying About Previous Results.
And of course, there's one significant difference between this system of vouchers as compared to the usual-- these are vouchers that students have to pay back with interest (which turns out to be difficult when you've sunk all your money in an education that doesn't get you a good job).
Anyway, the full story is here. Short version: feds threatened to shut down predatory loan-sucking for-profit scam schools, but decided to bail them out instead. Kind of like finding people in a burning building and saying, "You guys just stay there inside. We're going to hire someone to paint the place."
Now we've arrived at Chapter 2. After bailing Corinthian out so that students could continue to stay warm and toasty inside the burning building, the feds are supporting a new deal. As reported in the Washington Post, a chunk of the chain has been bought up by----- a debt collection company!
“What we are seeing is an unprecedented attempt on the part of a regulator to prop up one of the very worst companies in the industry,” said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. “You could debate which is better — allowing a predatory operation to collapse, or keeping it on life support so that it could victimize more people. That is what the federal government has done.”
Nassirian is being generous-- I'm not sure exactly what the argument for allowing predatory operations to collapse, other than it would be disruptive for the students sooner than letting them finish school and then finding out that they've been had.
Educational Credit Management Corporation is the buyer, and if you've heard horror stories about students being relentlessly pursued to pay up school debts, these guys were probably the monster under those stairs. They've been spanked a few times for overzealous pursuit of the money. They might seem to be, to say the least, an odd choice to own and operate a for-profit college chain.
ECMC is an odd choice to run chunks of Corinthian only if you think the purpose of these schools is to provide an education. If you understand that the whole for-profit college biz exists only to move school loan money around so that outfits can make money from the process every time the dollars change hands. For-profits exists in order to convince students to go into debt; the school collects the principal, and the owners of the loans collect the interest, and the students collect the debt. It is a great model for privatizing profit while sloughing the risk and debt off on citizens. So ECMC, as a debt collector, is simply getting into some vertical integration, making money from the loans both coming and going (earlier this year they also acquired College Abacus "the kayak.com of college loans). They can hire somebody to maintain the illusion that there is an actual school at the center of this giant scam, and do it through their own Zenith Education Group subsidiary so that not a single delicious dollar leaks out of any of the seams.
How do federal authorities feel about these efforts to keep a shark in the educational waters? Are you kidding? They helped broker the deal. Because in all of this, it's far more important that the for-profits remain intact and viable than the futures of tens of thousands of students be safeguarded. This is as if Gerber laced a hundred thousand jars of baby food with arsenic and the fed's first priority was to make sure the company was okay while leaving the babies to just fend for themselves.
I'm sure that the obscene profits that the fed makes from student loans has nothing to do with this. It couldn't be that nobody called it a bad idea, because many, many people have spoken out at every step of this process. From the Huffington Post:
“While bailing out 56 schools, the sale treats the more than 30,000 students like financial assets,” said Maggie Thompson, manager of the Higher Ed, Not Debt campaign.
“If you’re supposedly a regulatory agency, and your mission is to protect students, why wouldn’t you want students to know that?” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at policy organization Demos. The Education Department, in effect, allowed Corinthian to enroll as many students as it wanted, even as it teetered on insolvency -- ignoring the demands of a dozen Democratic senators.
From the Washington Post:
“Corinthian faced enrollment challenges and regulatory scrutiny common to other for-profits, but the thing that did them in at the end of the day was plain old mismanagement,” [Trace Urdan, a higher education analyst at Wells Fargo Securities] said. “They failed to cut costs like they needed to, operating under the assumption that next year would be better — and it never was.”
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said he was “shocked” that the Education Department would support the deal and questioned whether keeping Corinthian open under any management was in the best interest of students or taxpayers.
“To prop up a school whose main purpose seems to be to get federal money is a misguided use of federal funds,” Cohen said. “When a school like [Corinthian] that has a checkered history is on the mat, throw in the towel. It’s over.”
But here's who liked it:
“We are glad that Corinthian has reached an agreement with ECMC Group and believe that this transition will allow students to maintain progress toward achieving their educational and career goals and protect taxpayers’ investment, while Corinthian moves out of the business,” Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell said in a statement.
The whole Corinthian mess is as clear an example as we've ever seen of the federal government putting corporate interests ahead of the interests of citizens. It's also a fine example of the federal policy of say one thing, do another. Just last month, Arne Duncan said
“Career colleges must be a stepping stone to the middle class. But too many hard-working students find themselves buried in debt with little to show for it. That is simply unacceptable.”
It's unacceptable. But not so unacceptable that we're going to do anything about it.
It's not complicated. If you want an example of for-profit colleges that bury hard-working least-able-to-afford it students under debt while giving them nothing to show for it, you could not find a clearer example than Corinthian. If the feds couldn't bring themselves to intervene on behalf of students in this situation, they never will. The US ED can talk all it wants, but its actions show the truth, and the truth is that predatory for-profit schools get no punishment and plenty of profitable help from Arne Duncan's department.
Friday, November 28, 2014
PA Axes Reading Specialist Programs
Turns out there is more than one way to reduce the job requirements for teaching.
Pennsylvania's Department of Education has apparently announced its intention to cut Reading Specialists off at the knees. In an email dated November 5, the department apparently indicated that they would add the Reading Specialist Certificate to the Added By Test list. In other words, it will no longer be necessary to go out and do a Master's Degree's worth of college coursework to become a reading specialist. Instead, aspiring reading specialists would just take a test.
The Keystone State Reading Association is not delighted. Neither are the colleges and universities that make money by training reading specialists. And neither should the rest of us be.
I find the whole concept a little bizarre. I've been an English teacher for 35-ish years and while I know a thing or two about reading, I wouldn't call myself a specialist.
If I wanted to be a specialist, I would take some classes because reading is a highly technical and complicated field, and I would benefit from taking courses with other practitioners as well as having structured opportunities to work on my technique with actual live human beings. I don't think my quest to be a highly competent reading specialist would be improved by the alternative of grabbing a Praxis-style cram book and then hoping to correctly answer a brace of questions on an adult-aimed standardized test.
Why allow for such an approach to the readings specialist certificate? Certainly not to make life easier for teachers-- here in PA teachers have to do a Master's Degree's worth of work to keep our teaching credentials (plus more hours every several years), so why not pick something directed and useful? Is it for students and their families? Are parents calling Harrisburg to complain that their child's reading specialist knows too much as is too well-trained for the job? I'm going to bet the answer is "none of the above."
So who benefits? Could it be perhaps anybody who wanted to operate a school but wanted to cut back on the costs of things like, say, reading specialists? Is this one more move intended to make charter staffing easier and cheaper? Granted, it's less destructive than the Ohio plan for just doing away with the requirement for specialists entirely, but it still does nothing to elevate the profession, the teaching of reading, or the quality of instruction here in the Keystone State.
The KSRA has a nifty link to letters that you can fill in and send to anybody in Harrisburg who might conceivably help. It's true that this is probably one of the major battle fronts in the struggle to preserve public education, but it is one more thing to chip chip chip away at the level of professionalism and expertise required to work with students. It's one more way to create a world in which anybody can stand in a classroom and be a content delivery specialist, at least for a year or two, as long as they've gotten some clearances and some paperwork done.
Why not demand that reading specialists be trained, and trained well, in their field? Passing some test is not enough. Harrisburg is wrong on this one. Reading specialist should mean more than "passed a special test."
Pennsylvania's Department of Education has apparently announced its intention to cut Reading Specialists off at the knees. In an email dated November 5, the department apparently indicated that they would add the Reading Specialist Certificate to the Added By Test list. In other words, it will no longer be necessary to go out and do a Master's Degree's worth of college coursework to become a reading specialist. Instead, aspiring reading specialists would just take a test.
The Keystone State Reading Association is not delighted. Neither are the colleges and universities that make money by training reading specialists. And neither should the rest of us be.
I find the whole concept a little bizarre. I've been an English teacher for 35-ish years and while I know a thing or two about reading, I wouldn't call myself a specialist.
If I wanted to be a specialist, I would take some classes because reading is a highly technical and complicated field, and I would benefit from taking courses with other practitioners as well as having structured opportunities to work on my technique with actual live human beings. I don't think my quest to be a highly competent reading specialist would be improved by the alternative of grabbing a Praxis-style cram book and then hoping to correctly answer a brace of questions on an adult-aimed standardized test.
Why allow for such an approach to the readings specialist certificate? Certainly not to make life easier for teachers-- here in PA teachers have to do a Master's Degree's worth of work to keep our teaching credentials (plus more hours every several years), so why not pick something directed and useful? Is it for students and their families? Are parents calling Harrisburg to complain that their child's reading specialist knows too much as is too well-trained for the job? I'm going to bet the answer is "none of the above."
So who benefits? Could it be perhaps anybody who wanted to operate a school but wanted to cut back on the costs of things like, say, reading specialists? Is this one more move intended to make charter staffing easier and cheaper? Granted, it's less destructive than the Ohio plan for just doing away with the requirement for specialists entirely, but it still does nothing to elevate the profession, the teaching of reading, or the quality of instruction here in the Keystone State.
The KSRA has a nifty link to letters that you can fill in and send to anybody in Harrisburg who might conceivably help. It's true that this is probably one of the major battle fronts in the struggle to preserve public education, but it is one more thing to chip chip chip away at the level of professionalism and expertise required to work with students. It's one more way to create a world in which anybody can stand in a classroom and be a content delivery specialist, at least for a year or two, as long as they've gotten some clearances and some paperwork done.
Why not demand that reading specialists be trained, and trained well, in their field? Passing some test is not enough. Harrisburg is wrong on this one. Reading specialist should mean more than "passed a special test."
5 Governors in Search of a Talking Point
On November 19, at the GOP Governor's Gathering, a panel of five Republican state leaders joined with moderation by Chuck Todd from "Meet the Press" (motto: Yes, We're Still On) to discuss many things, but they threw in a good twelve minutes about every Republican politicians favorite sticky point-- the Common Core. Each auditioned his own version of How To Deal With This Ugly Stepchild. Let's see how each one did!
Todd establishes his lack of fitness for the task right up by trying to set up the question with, first, a prologue that Governor Kasich is "pretty funny" about this (yes, my teacher friends in Ohio think he's frickin' HI-larious), and then says,
It does seem to me-- everybody agrees we need to have nationa--some form of standards, but now Common Core's a four letter word, instead of what it is.
Bobby Jindal immediately calls Todd on the "national standards" part of his intro. But it's not his turn yet, and Todd wants to move on. So let's listen to each of the governors and see which can generate the best CCSS talking points. We'll rate them in elephant tusks for their degree of likely usefulness for any Republican who wants to grapple with the Core. Note: I'm not rating them for fairness or accuracy, but for how useful they'd be for a GOP candidate, which in turn tells us how likely it is we'll have to hear them again over the next two years. Forewarned is forearmed.
John Kasich
Kasich sticks with the classics, complete with self-contradictions. His bottom line is that we need national-oops-some sort of standards that shouldn't be set by the federal government, but somehow standards that ensure that students all over the country are learning the same thing at the same time. His understanding is that the governors got together, called up the state superintendents and principals in their states to come over for pizza, they all had a slumber party and wrote the Common Core.
We're not doing well in the world. "If we're not careful, the googles and the paypals are going to be invented somewhere else!" Which begs the question of why they were invented here if we are in so much trouble, but okay. Also, the Germans landed a thingy on a comet (which will comes as news to the other members of the European Space Agency, but his point remains). Kasich as "like-- woah--why wasn't that here." It's an interesting criticism, given Kasich's unwillingness to fund NASA funding in Ohio.
Local control! Ohio is loaded with it. It's local districts with parental advisors who design curriculum! So, not Obamacore at all! He has looked at it carefully. Kasich's concern is with the PARCC test. Is it a good test. "We have" delayed the impact of the test, and I'm sure who "we" are because reportedly PARCC itself has delayed test results. "If it's a goofy test, we'll throw it out."
But he's for the idea that kids in many states must all reach a higher level of achievement, but if the federal government starts driving education policy out of DC, well, now, bub, that's an issue. How many states would spontaneously achieve the same level with students without the feds, or how Kasich could not have noticed federal intrusion in the last decade of ed policy is a mystery for the ages. As long as parents are involved, particularly in match and English (Kasich offhandedly notes that they aren't going to so social studies in a tone of voice that suggests well, that would be stupid), he thinks this is great.
So apparently Kasich is a dope. His talking points are old, worn, and require a serious disconnect with reality. One tusk.
Bobby Jindal
As one of the cutting edge CCSS turncoats, Jindal has his shtick down cold. He thought Comon Core sounded great when it looked like it was going to be what Kasich described (this is a GOP gathering, so he is not going to observe that Kasich must have his head under a rock somewhere next to his brains). But once that Arne Duncan and the federal department of education (his tone of voice makes those names sound like "that puss-sucking weasel and his weaselly friends") started making curriculum decisions, which Jindal correctly notes is what you're doing when you fund giant national high stakes tests.
Jindal namechecks NAEP and says we could always check ourselves against other states even before there was Common Core. Jindal's concern is that Common Core has become "something that it was never intended to be." 1) A one size fits all federal approach developed with no transparency and 2) the federal government is not allowed constitutionally to make curriculum decisions. This is an effective spin on the "Common Core was great till the feds hi-jacked it" talking point, which plays really well despite the fact that it's unvarnished baloney. If you think CCSS has not turned out exactly the way it was designed to, I would like to sell you some magic watermelon seeds which, I promise, will grow into a lasagna bush.
Jindal then plays the "look at these stupid Common Core homework assignments" game. Mind you, if other states or schools want to do these wacky things, that's fine. But when the feds use RttT bribery and NCLB waiver extortion to force states, funding the big tests, and violating the 10th amendment, Jindal is going to oppose the Common Core.
Jindal's weakest link requires arguing history to refute, and this is America, so nobody cares about history. His anti-federalism argument is a proven winner, even if he connects it to anecdotal homework baloney. Three tusks.
Momentary Sidetrack
Todd weirdly interjects himself here to say something about everybody being politics too sensitive arble garble but eventually we all have to agree and BOOM-- we're on to
Scott Walker
who leaps in to say, no, no we don't all have to agree. We were leaders in getting off the Common Core train. And Todd jumps in to, I don't know-- display his complete lack of journalistic knowledge or objectivity-- by asking something about how do you have high standards? and the governor starts rattling off stats about SAT scores and third grade reading and graduation rates all going up.
Walker's theory is that schools are not failing because of a lack of high standards, but because schools aren't held to the standards we have, and if you've been paying attention to Wisconsin and Walker, you already know what the real problem is going to turn out to be-- those damn unions. Walker says that test scores have gone up in Wisconsin because they "unleashed that burden" on schools. "We didn't just go after collective bargaining to deal with pensions and health care," he says, and now local school boards totally run the schools. The biggest problem in urban school systems around the country is that the schools are filled with rotten teachers just taking it easy with their big tenure protections.
But in Wisconsin (new motto: A Great State To Live If You're Not a Serf), they're free to hire and fire at will, to pay for whatever merit they imagine is meritorious. Walker concludes that "that"-- the ability to completely rule your teaching staff, crush unions, hire and fire at will-- "is what we need more than a national standard."
Here's the thing about Walker. I know that he is absolutely full of shit. I know that we have numbers out the wazoo making it clear that student achievement goes hand in hand with strong job protections, and that the system he describes is guaranteed to hurt teaching and therefor hurt schools (just click on the "tenure" tab at the top of this page). But when I see him talk, I can see how he survives political challenges. He sells it, and sells it hard. Jindal sounds like a college professor. Kasich sounds like an Ohio-style Cliff Claven who has been at the bar too long. But Walker sounds like a governor; I can see how this baloney would play well for certain low-information audiences. My heart goes out to everyone trying to make a teaching career in Wisconsin. Two tusks.
Mike Pence
Todd observes that NCLB has to be re-authorized at some point, and the he asks Pence what Pence wants from the feds re: education.
Pence reminisces about being a first term opposing NCLB, and then hits his point-- "Resources, not red tape." He elaborates-- just send us bales of money and let us spend it however we wish.
He tells the stirring tale of how Indiana withdrew from CCSS and PARCC and how they undertook the "arduous task" or making some minor changes to CCSS so that they escape the political fall-out of an unpopular program without actually changing the program. Ha ha, just kidding. He talks about creating whole new Indiana standards.
But it's "who decides" that's important. The government that governs least governs best, partuicularly if it sends bales of money for local people to divide up in profitable ways. Ha. Kidding again. Pence is buttoned up and tightly controlled on his talking point (he is literally the most carefully dressed person on the podium-- everyone else is dressed to hang out and he is ready to speak at a church, probably Episcopalian). He brags about having the soon-to-be-largest voucher program in the country, with test scores, reading, and graduation rates up. I'm just going to recommend Doug Martin's Hoosier School Heist as a good one stop shop for how Indiana has perfected education as a path to illegitimate riches. And Pence finishes with, "Just send money; don't ask us what we did with it." Ha, no. It's "resources, not red tape" again.
And if Walker sounds like a governor, Pence sounds like a governor's chief accountant. Two tusks.
Rick Perry
I have to admit. I kind of like post-failed-Presidential-candidacy Rick Perry. He has this relaxed, screw-it-I've-got-nothing-riding-on-anything quality that I find, if not charming, at least a breezier kind of bullshit. Let's see how he does with his turn.
Todd opens again with "What do you want out of the new NCLB?" And Perry, who is tie-less, legs crossed (manly style) with his hands clasped around his knee, says we are on a return to federalism "like you've never seen it in this country before," in a earnest southern Fred Rogers tone. He says the solutions are in the states, not DC, and he sees no reason to re-authorize No Child Left Behind at all. See? Isn't this guy fun?
Texas blew off the Core and RttT because they believe that education decisions are best made, not by bureaucrats in the federal capital, but by bureaucrats in state capitals. The idea that Washington knows best in many different areas (name checking healthcare) is dopey. Tosses in Brandeis states as laboratories of democracy quote. "If you want to put programs in place, put them in place at the state level, and if they foul them up, they've only fouled up their state and not the entire country." And that is the one line that draws applause in the entire panel discussion, which is good because the applause covers the tortured extra clause that Perry tries to tack onto the end of the sentence. Seems to be the Rick Perry way-- good routine, but failure to stick the landing. Three tusks.
Bonus Round- John Kasich
After listening to four grown up governors indirectly suggest he's an idiot, Kasich can hold his water no longer, and jumps back in on the tail of Perry's applause.
He's really kind of worked up. "Dammit guys, but I know I was told that governors got together [he and Todd co-screw up the detail that it was all 45 CCSS governors who met] because they were worried that we were falling behind! That's what I was told, and dammit, Virginia, I believe it." He rants on, grasping at his own fingertips-- "In my state we've got choice and teacher..um...er... you know..evaluation [I would love to know what words he considered and rejected there] and third grade reading--" and he's looking at the other governors as if to say, "Hey, I did all that shit too, man!"
In his state-- he doesn't know, maybe it was different in these other states-- but in his state it's all local control. Local school board set control. If other things are happening, boy, dude, let him know because he hasn't seen anything like that. Kasich is really upset, like he's never heard of this stuff before! He is really, really flabbergasted by this federal control complaint, so flabbergasted that he's about to say something extraordinary. If anyone has any information about anybody out there who knows something about somebody setting curriculum, please let him know because-
I don't have any complaints from anybody in my state that they're not able to set their own curriculum to meet higher standards.
He's really upset, like he found out all the other governors went out and played pickup basketball last night when they told him they were just turning in early. "Maybe I didn't get the message from the forty-five governors," he says, and goes on to say that there was no Arne Duncan involved in writing these standards, no federal government involvement and you just want to pat him and say, "Oh, honey." There's some noise about PARCC and something else about how SAT and ACT are national tests already, you know. But this was governors writing this and that's what I thought we wanted, "but I'm going to look at what these guys say and mumble mumble sit back in confusion." Good God, man-- even Jeb Bush has a better handle on his love for the Core than Ohio's blustering man-child of a governor.
So there's your challenge, Ohio residents. Everyone else on stage may have been full of it, but at least they knew what they were talking (or being less than truthful) about. Your governor doesn't seem to understand how testing drives curriculum, and or where Common Core came from. Please go educate this guy before he blows a gasket. And while you're at it, empty Lake Erie with a spoon, blindfolded. Because, yes, it appears that Kasich has never listened to anybody on any side of this issue ever. He's clearly just not ready for a seat at the grownup table. Also, I'm downgrading him a half a tusk.
Todd establishes his lack of fitness for the task right up by trying to set up the question with, first, a prologue that Governor Kasich is "pretty funny" about this (yes, my teacher friends in Ohio think he's frickin' HI-larious), and then says,
It does seem to me-- everybody agrees we need to have nationa--some form of standards, but now Common Core's a four letter word, instead of what it is.
Bobby Jindal immediately calls Todd on the "national standards" part of his intro. But it's not his turn yet, and Todd wants to move on. So let's listen to each of the governors and see which can generate the best CCSS talking points. We'll rate them in elephant tusks for their degree of likely usefulness for any Republican who wants to grapple with the Core. Note: I'm not rating them for fairness or accuracy, but for how useful they'd be for a GOP candidate, which in turn tells us how likely it is we'll have to hear them again over the next two years. Forewarned is forearmed.
John Kasich
Kasich sticks with the classics, complete with self-contradictions. His bottom line is that we need national-oops-some sort of standards that shouldn't be set by the federal government, but somehow standards that ensure that students all over the country are learning the same thing at the same time. His understanding is that the governors got together, called up the state superintendents and principals in their states to come over for pizza, they all had a slumber party and wrote the Common Core.
We're not doing well in the world. "If we're not careful, the googles and the paypals are going to be invented somewhere else!" Which begs the question of why they were invented here if we are in so much trouble, but okay. Also, the Germans landed a thingy on a comet (which will comes as news to the other members of the European Space Agency, but his point remains). Kasich as "like-- woah--why wasn't that here." It's an interesting criticism, given Kasich's unwillingness to fund NASA funding in Ohio.
Local control! Ohio is loaded with it. It's local districts with parental advisors who design curriculum! So, not Obamacore at all! He has looked at it carefully. Kasich's concern is with the PARCC test. Is it a good test. "We have" delayed the impact of the test, and I'm sure who "we" are because reportedly PARCC itself has delayed test results. "If it's a goofy test, we'll throw it out."
But he's for the idea that kids in many states must all reach a higher level of achievement, but if the federal government starts driving education policy out of DC, well, now, bub, that's an issue. How many states would spontaneously achieve the same level with students without the feds, or how Kasich could not have noticed federal intrusion in the last decade of ed policy is a mystery for the ages. As long as parents are involved, particularly in match and English (Kasich offhandedly notes that they aren't going to so social studies in a tone of voice that suggests well, that would be stupid), he thinks this is great.
So apparently Kasich is a dope. His talking points are old, worn, and require a serious disconnect with reality. One tusk.
Bobby Jindal
As one of the cutting edge CCSS turncoats, Jindal has his shtick down cold. He thought Comon Core sounded great when it looked like it was going to be what Kasich described (this is a GOP gathering, so he is not going to observe that Kasich must have his head under a rock somewhere next to his brains). But once that Arne Duncan and the federal department of education (his tone of voice makes those names sound like "that puss-sucking weasel and his weaselly friends") started making curriculum decisions, which Jindal correctly notes is what you're doing when you fund giant national high stakes tests.
Jindal namechecks NAEP and says we could always check ourselves against other states even before there was Common Core. Jindal's concern is that Common Core has become "something that it was never intended to be." 1) A one size fits all federal approach developed with no transparency and 2) the federal government is not allowed constitutionally to make curriculum decisions. This is an effective spin on the "Common Core was great till the feds hi-jacked it" talking point, which plays really well despite the fact that it's unvarnished baloney. If you think CCSS has not turned out exactly the way it was designed to, I would like to sell you some magic watermelon seeds which, I promise, will grow into a lasagna bush.
Jindal then plays the "look at these stupid Common Core homework assignments" game. Mind you, if other states or schools want to do these wacky things, that's fine. But when the feds use RttT bribery and NCLB waiver extortion to force states, funding the big tests, and violating the 10th amendment, Jindal is going to oppose the Common Core.
Jindal's weakest link requires arguing history to refute, and this is America, so nobody cares about history. His anti-federalism argument is a proven winner, even if he connects it to anecdotal homework baloney. Three tusks.
Momentary Sidetrack
Todd weirdly interjects himself here to say something about everybody being politics too sensitive arble garble but eventually we all have to agree and BOOM-- we're on to
Scott Walker
who leaps in to say, no, no we don't all have to agree. We were leaders in getting off the Common Core train. And Todd jumps in to, I don't know-- display his complete lack of journalistic knowledge or objectivity-- by asking something about how do you have high standards? and the governor starts rattling off stats about SAT scores and third grade reading and graduation rates all going up.
Walker's theory is that schools are not failing because of a lack of high standards, but because schools aren't held to the standards we have, and if you've been paying attention to Wisconsin and Walker, you already know what the real problem is going to turn out to be-- those damn unions. Walker says that test scores have gone up in Wisconsin because they "unleashed that burden" on schools. "We didn't just go after collective bargaining to deal with pensions and health care," he says, and now local school boards totally run the schools. The biggest problem in urban school systems around the country is that the schools are filled with rotten teachers just taking it easy with their big tenure protections.
But in Wisconsin (new motto: A Great State To Live If You're Not a Serf), they're free to hire and fire at will, to pay for whatever merit they imagine is meritorious. Walker concludes that "that"-- the ability to completely rule your teaching staff, crush unions, hire and fire at will-- "is what we need more than a national standard."
Here's the thing about Walker. I know that he is absolutely full of shit. I know that we have numbers out the wazoo making it clear that student achievement goes hand in hand with strong job protections, and that the system he describes is guaranteed to hurt teaching and therefor hurt schools (just click on the "tenure" tab at the top of this page). But when I see him talk, I can see how he survives political challenges. He sells it, and sells it hard. Jindal sounds like a college professor. Kasich sounds like an Ohio-style Cliff Claven who has been at the bar too long. But Walker sounds like a governor; I can see how this baloney would play well for certain low-information audiences. My heart goes out to everyone trying to make a teaching career in Wisconsin. Two tusks.
Mike Pence
Todd observes that NCLB has to be re-authorized at some point, and the he asks Pence what Pence wants from the feds re: education.
Pence reminisces about being a first term opposing NCLB, and then hits his point-- "Resources, not red tape." He elaborates-- just send us bales of money and let us spend it however we wish.
He tells the stirring tale of how Indiana withdrew from CCSS and PARCC and how they undertook the "arduous task" or making some minor changes to CCSS so that they escape the political fall-out of an unpopular program without actually changing the program. Ha ha, just kidding. He talks about creating whole new Indiana standards.
But it's "who decides" that's important. The government that governs least governs best, partuicularly if it sends bales of money for local people to divide up in profitable ways. Ha. Kidding again. Pence is buttoned up and tightly controlled on his talking point (he is literally the most carefully dressed person on the podium-- everyone else is dressed to hang out and he is ready to speak at a church, probably Episcopalian). He brags about having the soon-to-be-largest voucher program in the country, with test scores, reading, and graduation rates up. I'm just going to recommend Doug Martin's Hoosier School Heist as a good one stop shop for how Indiana has perfected education as a path to illegitimate riches. And Pence finishes with, "Just send money; don't ask us what we did with it." Ha, no. It's "resources, not red tape" again.
And if Walker sounds like a governor, Pence sounds like a governor's chief accountant. Two tusks.
Rick Perry
I have to admit. I kind of like post-failed-Presidential-candidacy Rick Perry. He has this relaxed, screw-it-I've-got-nothing-riding-on-anything quality that I find, if not charming, at least a breezier kind of bullshit. Let's see how he does with his turn.
Todd opens again with "What do you want out of the new NCLB?" And Perry, who is tie-less, legs crossed (manly style) with his hands clasped around his knee, says we are on a return to federalism "like you've never seen it in this country before," in a earnest southern Fred Rogers tone. He says the solutions are in the states, not DC, and he sees no reason to re-authorize No Child Left Behind at all. See? Isn't this guy fun?
Texas blew off the Core and RttT because they believe that education decisions are best made, not by bureaucrats in the federal capital, but by bureaucrats in state capitals. The idea that Washington knows best in many different areas (name checking healthcare) is dopey. Tosses in Brandeis states as laboratories of democracy quote. "If you want to put programs in place, put them in place at the state level, and if they foul them up, they've only fouled up their state and not the entire country." And that is the one line that draws applause in the entire panel discussion, which is good because the applause covers the tortured extra clause that Perry tries to tack onto the end of the sentence. Seems to be the Rick Perry way-- good routine, but failure to stick the landing. Three tusks.
Bonus Round- John Kasich
After listening to four grown up governors indirectly suggest he's an idiot, Kasich can hold his water no longer, and jumps back in on the tail of Perry's applause.
He's really kind of worked up. "Dammit guys, but I know I was told that governors got together [he and Todd co-screw up the detail that it was all 45 CCSS governors who met] because they were worried that we were falling behind! That's what I was told, and dammit, Virginia, I believe it." He rants on, grasping at his own fingertips-- "In my state we've got choice and teacher..um...er... you know..evaluation [I would love to know what words he considered and rejected there] and third grade reading--" and he's looking at the other governors as if to say, "Hey, I did all that shit too, man!"
In his state-- he doesn't know, maybe it was different in these other states-- but in his state it's all local control. Local school board set control. If other things are happening, boy, dude, let him know because he hasn't seen anything like that. Kasich is really upset, like he's never heard of this stuff before! He is really, really flabbergasted by this federal control complaint, so flabbergasted that he's about to say something extraordinary. If anyone has any information about anybody out there who knows something about somebody setting curriculum, please let him know because-
I don't have any complaints from anybody in my state that they're not able to set their own curriculum to meet higher standards.
He's really upset, like he found out all the other governors went out and played pickup basketball last night when they told him they were just turning in early. "Maybe I didn't get the message from the forty-five governors," he says, and goes on to say that there was no Arne Duncan involved in writing these standards, no federal government involvement and you just want to pat him and say, "Oh, honey." There's some noise about PARCC and something else about how SAT and ACT are national tests already, you know. But this was governors writing this and that's what I thought we wanted, "but I'm going to look at what these guys say and mumble mumble sit back in confusion." Good God, man-- even Jeb Bush has a better handle on his love for the Core than Ohio's blustering man-child of a governor.
So there's your challenge, Ohio residents. Everyone else on stage may have been full of it, but at least they knew what they were talking (or being less than truthful) about. Your governor doesn't seem to understand how testing drives curriculum, and or where Common Core came from. Please go educate this guy before he blows a gasket. And while you're at it, empty Lake Erie with a spoon, blindfolded. Because, yes, it appears that Kasich has never listened to anybody on any side of this issue ever. He's clearly just not ready for a seat at the grownup table. Also, I'm downgrading him a half a tusk.
People of the Paperwork; Final Lessons of Rochester
It looks as if, at least for the time being, the saga of Ted Morris, Jr., the 22-year-old wunderkind and his charter school in Rochester seems to have reached, if not an end, at least an intermission, but there's still one big lesson to be learned.
Small Lessons and Predictions
There are also several smaller lessons, such "The internet is a thing that many people have." After Morris hit the news, a handful of bloggers used the magic of the internet to check his story, and once the reporter on the ground in Rochester started digging, everything fell apart. The Democrat and Chronicle was unimpressed enough to also give Morris an editorial spanking. Apparently Morris figured he could just say stuff and nobody would ever notice if much of the stuff was just a flat-out pile of lies.
It remains to see what the sequel to this tale might be. Morris's replacement is Peter Kozik, a college professor (who appears to have actual credentials) at Keuka College (previously at Syracuse) who has done some work for EngageNY in the business of packaging CCSS for students with special needs. In Syracuse he presented on the subject of Pre-K expansion. And he once published a poem entitled "Matryrdon Is For The Young." And he still intends to open the school in the fall.
There are two likely theories about what really comes next. Some folks are guessing that this is simply a strategic retreat and that Morris will quietly re-emerge to continue running his pet project charter. That's certainly highly likely, but for myself, I see one other possibility. I've known a young con man or two, and they tend to follow a pattern. At first their new friends find them charming, with a confidence that suggests they really know what they're doing. And then reality intrudes, the vision unravels, and the new friends back (or run) away (or to a lawyer). One detail in Morris's story sticks out for me-- even though he's supposedly been a fixture in Rochester his entire life, working in leadership roles since the age of 10, his board of trustees for the charter are new friends, people he dug up, literally, on the internet. Where are the people who have known him his whole life? Why are they not clamoring to help him out? It's possible that his retreat is a dodge, but I think it's also possible that his new friends are just now realizing that they've been had by a confident young scam artist from whom they will now try to detach themselves with the haste.
Bigger Lesson
There's a more important lesson to be learned about the reformsters, and it appears in this D&C follow-up story (reporter Justin Murphy has been working his ass off on this thing) in which he tried to see if he could find somebody on the NY state level who would take responsibility for handing this young liar a school charter (spoiler alert: no). Here's Meryl Tisch on the subject:
"When it comes to the board, it comes with an endorsement from (NYSED) and the local regents," she said. "What we hear is whether ... they've put together a sound application. There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, and I think people in (NYSED) need to address that with you."
Or this quote from the Rochester-based regents
"We rely on a considerable amount of data and information provided by applicants, along with conducting many in-person interviews before reaching a decision. If it were to turn out that we were deliberately provided misleading information by an applicant, that would of course call for further review of the issuance of the charter."
NYSED doesn't appear to have commented yet (blizzard + holiday = nobody in office). But the regents' defense is simple-- his paperwork looked fine.
Here's one of the core beliefs of reformsters-- it's all in the paperwork. The paperwork is king. The paperwork is god. In New York, we'll give you paperwork from EngageNY to make sure you do the right thing, and we'll make you submit paperwork in the form of tests to prove you've done what you're supposed to.
People who believe in the Great God Paperwork always make the same mistake-- believing that the paperwork is a true and faithful representation of reality. The paperwork is always reliable, and surely everybody everyone else takes the paperwork just as seriously as the Acolytes of Paperwork do. This is the great frustration of trying to earn almost any grant. Grants are not awarded for some need or merit in the actual world; grants are awarded for doing the best job of filling out the grant application form.
Business, government, even churches are laced with these People of the Paperwork, who believe that reality can only be seen and understood through paperwork, and not through looking at it directly. The People of the Paperwork love CCSS, and especially love high stakes testing, because it generates paperwork, and when we look at paperwork, golly bob howdy, then and only then do we see reality.
And that's why the People of the Paperwork are the easiest people in the world to lie to-- because they never lift their heads out of the paperwork to ask if the beloved charts and graphs and forms and charter school applications actually represent reality.
When the People of the Paperwork get their mitts into education reform, people in schools understand that our job is no longer to actually educate students-- it's to make sure that the paperwork looks good. Ted Morris may not know a damn thing about school (really-- not even how to graduate from it), but he clearly understood one thing-- if the paperwork is right, the bureaucrats in charge will go for it.
When Tisch says that she sees no reason that Morris's charter can't open right on schedule, she's behaving as a true Paperwork Acolyte. After all, Morris himself may turn out to be a fake and a fraud, but his school's paperwork still all looks good. What else matters?
Small Lessons and Predictions
There are also several smaller lessons, such "The internet is a thing that many people have." After Morris hit the news, a handful of bloggers used the magic of the internet to check his story, and once the reporter on the ground in Rochester started digging, everything fell apart. The Democrat and Chronicle was unimpressed enough to also give Morris an editorial spanking. Apparently Morris figured he could just say stuff and nobody would ever notice if much of the stuff was just a flat-out pile of lies.
It remains to see what the sequel to this tale might be. Morris's replacement is Peter Kozik, a college professor (who appears to have actual credentials) at Keuka College (previously at Syracuse) who has done some work for EngageNY in the business of packaging CCSS for students with special needs. In Syracuse he presented on the subject of Pre-K expansion. And he once published a poem entitled "Matryrdon Is For The Young." And he still intends to open the school in the fall.
There are two likely theories about what really comes next. Some folks are guessing that this is simply a strategic retreat and that Morris will quietly re-emerge to continue running his pet project charter. That's certainly highly likely, but for myself, I see one other possibility. I've known a young con man or two, and they tend to follow a pattern. At first their new friends find them charming, with a confidence that suggests they really know what they're doing. And then reality intrudes, the vision unravels, and the new friends back (or run) away (or to a lawyer). One detail in Morris's story sticks out for me-- even though he's supposedly been a fixture in Rochester his entire life, working in leadership roles since the age of 10, his board of trustees for the charter are new friends, people he dug up, literally, on the internet. Where are the people who have known him his whole life? Why are they not clamoring to help him out? It's possible that his retreat is a dodge, but I think it's also possible that his new friends are just now realizing that they've been had by a confident young scam artist from whom they will now try to detach themselves with the haste.
Bigger Lesson
There's a more important lesson to be learned about the reformsters, and it appears in this D&C follow-up story (reporter Justin Murphy has been working his ass off on this thing) in which he tried to see if he could find somebody on the NY state level who would take responsibility for handing this young liar a school charter (spoiler alert: no). Here's Meryl Tisch on the subject:
"When it comes to the board, it comes with an endorsement from (NYSED) and the local regents," she said. "What we hear is whether ... they've put together a sound application. There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, and I think people in (NYSED) need to address that with you."
Or this quote from the Rochester-based regents
"We rely on a considerable amount of data and information provided by applicants, along with conducting many in-person interviews before reaching a decision. If it were to turn out that we were deliberately provided misleading information by an applicant, that would of course call for further review of the issuance of the charter."
NYSED doesn't appear to have commented yet (blizzard + holiday = nobody in office). But the regents' defense is simple-- his paperwork looked fine.
Here's one of the core beliefs of reformsters-- it's all in the paperwork. The paperwork is king. The paperwork is god. In New York, we'll give you paperwork from EngageNY to make sure you do the right thing, and we'll make you submit paperwork in the form of tests to prove you've done what you're supposed to.
People who believe in the Great God Paperwork always make the same mistake-- believing that the paperwork is a true and faithful representation of reality. The paperwork is always reliable, and surely everybody everyone else takes the paperwork just as seriously as the Acolytes of Paperwork do. This is the great frustration of trying to earn almost any grant. Grants are not awarded for some need or merit in the actual world; grants are awarded for doing the best job of filling out the grant application form.
Business, government, even churches are laced with these People of the Paperwork, who believe that reality can only be seen and understood through paperwork, and not through looking at it directly. The People of the Paperwork love CCSS, and especially love high stakes testing, because it generates paperwork, and when we look at paperwork, golly bob howdy, then and only then do we see reality.
And that's why the People of the Paperwork are the easiest people in the world to lie to-- because they never lift their heads out of the paperwork to ask if the beloved charts and graphs and forms and charter school applications actually represent reality.
When the People of the Paperwork get their mitts into education reform, people in schools understand that our job is no longer to actually educate students-- it's to make sure that the paperwork looks good. Ted Morris may not know a damn thing about school (really-- not even how to graduate from it), but he clearly understood one thing-- if the paperwork is right, the bureaucrats in charge will go for it.
When Tisch says that she sees no reason that Morris's charter can't open right on schedule, she's behaving as a true Paperwork Acolyte. After all, Morris himself may turn out to be a fake and a fraud, but his school's paperwork still all looks good. What else matters?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)