In case you missed it, here are some of the more important reads from the last week. Happy Sunday!
The Costs of Accountability by Jerry Z. Muller
If you are only going to get to one item on this list, this should probably be it. Muller puts the cult of accountability in a historic and cultural context, shows how it slammed into education, and reminds us that schools are not the only ones to suffer from accountability's heavy and not very bright hand.
Schools are more segregated than they were in 1968
Article in particular looks at how the Supreme Court has not exactly been a big help in working on the issue.
Testing in kindergarten
Okay, if you read here, you likely read Diane Ravitch, but just in case you missed this among the gazillion posts, here's a must read account of what kindergarten testing actually looks like on the classroom level.
Pinellas Failure Factories
Okay, maybe this is the one piece you must read. A hard-hitting, thorough look at how racism and school district mismanagement can turn successful schools into a disaster. And all, I am sorry to note, in the name of neighborhood schools.
Education's Merchant of Doubt
Whenever you find the assertion that spending money on schools is just a waste of time and makes no difference, you'll find the work of Eric Hanushek. This is a great and thorough takedown of who he is, what his work says, and why it's all bunk.
Alfie Kohn on growth mindset
Alfie Kohn takes on the idea of growth mindsets and shows why they've turned from a potentially useful tool into one more educational baloneyfest.
Man, these are all must reads this week. I hope you have a few extra minutes to sit and check them out today!
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Saturday, August 15, 2015
VAM on Trial in NY
If you don't know Sheri Lederman's name, you should. She's the New York teacher who, with her lawyer husband, dragged VAM into a courtroom this week and gave it the beatdown it so richly deserved.
Lederman's story is, at this point, the story of millions of other teachers. One year, her VAM score indicated that she was awesome. The next year, her VAM score indicated that she sucked. Not only was she pretty much the same teacher, but her students got pretty much the same scores.
Because of the importance of the case, lots of folks were there to watch. Carol Burris has a great account in The Answer Sheet, and this blog by Alexndra Milleta who has known Lederman for decades is also worth a read. Audrey Amrein-Beardsley has been following the case for a while. Diane Ravitch provides links to the pertinent documents and experts affadavits in the case.
There appear to be two issues that strike the judge in the case as dopey.
The Curve.
How do you set up an evaluation system that predetermines that some teachers must be bad? Judge Roger McDonough wants to know how you can have a fair system that starts with the premise that even if all the teachers are effective, some of the teachers are not effective. How can evaluations be evaluations is they are not actually tied to a real standard?
The Avatars
New York, like most VAM systems, bases its evaluations on imaginary students. The magical formula creates an imaginary student, an avatar, who is somehow located in an imaginary universe where a neutral teacher leads her to a particular score. If your real student does better on the test than her imaginary counterpart, congratulations-- you're a swell teacher. If your real student does only as well as, or worse that, the imaginary counterpart-- so sorry, but you suck.
This is math as magic, an attempt to do a thing which cannot be done but to convince yourself you've done it because, hey, numbers!!
It will be a month or two before the judge comes back with a ruling, and if he rules against the evaluation system, get ready for the gates of hell to open. In the meantime, the Ledermans stand as a reminder that sometimes, someone has to stand up and make a fuss, and sometimes, when you look around at the circumstances of the moment, that person turns out to be you.
Lederman's story is, at this point, the story of millions of other teachers. One year, her VAM score indicated that she was awesome. The next year, her VAM score indicated that she sucked. Not only was she pretty much the same teacher, but her students got pretty much the same scores.
Because of the importance of the case, lots of folks were there to watch. Carol Burris has a great account in The Answer Sheet, and this blog by Alexndra Milleta who has known Lederman for decades is also worth a read. Audrey Amrein-Beardsley has been following the case for a while. Diane Ravitch provides links to the pertinent documents and experts affadavits in the case.
There appear to be two issues that strike the judge in the case as dopey.
The Curve.
How do you set up an evaluation system that predetermines that some teachers must be bad? Judge Roger McDonough wants to know how you can have a fair system that starts with the premise that even if all the teachers are effective, some of the teachers are not effective. How can evaluations be evaluations is they are not actually tied to a real standard?
The Avatars
New York, like most VAM systems, bases its evaluations on imaginary students. The magical formula creates an imaginary student, an avatar, who is somehow located in an imaginary universe where a neutral teacher leads her to a particular score. If your real student does better on the test than her imaginary counterpart, congratulations-- you're a swell teacher. If your real student does only as well as, or worse that, the imaginary counterpart-- so sorry, but you suck.
This is math as magic, an attempt to do a thing which cannot be done but to convince yourself you've done it because, hey, numbers!!
It will be a month or two before the judge comes back with a ruling, and if he rules against the evaluation system, get ready for the gates of hell to open. In the meantime, the Ledermans stand as a reminder that sometimes, someone has to stand up and make a fuss, and sometimes, when you look around at the circumstances of the moment, that person turns out to be you.
Jeb's Amnesia
Jeb Bush has developed selective amnesia. It's unfortunate, because the thing that has vanished from his memory used to be near and dear to his heart-- the Common Core.
There was a time when it looked like Bush 3.0 would be the only one to stay true to the cause, but in the end, his Presidential aspirations and his Common Core commitment created such violent cognitive dissonance that his brain just spit the Common Core chunks right out of his head.
I first noticed it in New Hampshire. While vacationing, I ended up watching the August 3 New Hampshire GOP Candidate Beauty Pageant. It was about the most non-hostile venue the candidates could hope for, with balls lobbed so soft that they could have been written by the candidates' staffs. The closest thing to confrontation was when the interviewer gently prodded Carly Fiorina to answer the question she had just ignored (spoiler alert: she didn't). The closest thing to genuinely fun moment was when the interviewer offered Rick Perry a do-over on eliminating three government agencies.
The interviewer asked Jeb Bush, "Would you take a moment to tell us the new talking point you're going to use to try to get the stink of Common Core off of you?" (I'm paraphrasing.) The questionish intro to Bush's talking point ended with, "Should state and local school boards reject any so-called national standards?" (You can watch for yourself here at about the 2:01 mark)
They should. They should. States ought to create standards. They should be high. They should be state-driven and locally implemented. The federal government should have no role in the creation of standards. No role in the creation directly or indirectly, no role in the creation of content or curriculum.
He goes on to say that the feds should hand over money without any strings attached and references how Bobby Jindal wants to do all these cool things but the feds say he has to spend Title I money on poor people.
Bush has been using this mantra on the campaign trail as recently as yesterday, along with a somewhat frustrated complaint that he doesn't even know what Common Core means any more.
The frustration over nomenclature is a sort of evolution. Back in May, while he was still defending the Core in an interview with Megyn Kelly, he conceded, "Common Core means a lot of things to different people, so they could be right based on what's in front of them." He's not wrong-- the term Common Core has become so mushy as to be meaningless.
But as Mercedes Schneider points out, Bush has still managed to do a lot of forgetting, including the forgetting of how he conned ALEC into turning from Core opponents into Core fans.
And in his plea that he just wants higher standards developed on the state level, he's forgotten a few other things. He might want to consult the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the organization he used to scale his educational policies up from Florida level to national level. Poor FEE-- they spent all those years getting ready to help Jeb ride straight to the White House, and now he doesn't even know their name. But there they sit-- an ongoing record of what Bush's ideas about education reform used to be, before the amnesia struck.
To build an American education system that equips every child to achieve his or her God-given potential.
That's their stated goal-- a national education system. And that national education system is needed, in part, to protect our country because national education is important for national security (Joel Klein helped whip up that classic report). But Bush isn't talking about that any more.
Bush is also not talking about comparing schools across state lines or making it easy for students to move from school to school. He is certainly not talking about how much help he provided the feds in selling the Core.
There has been no politician who has worked as hard and tirelessly for the Core as Jeb has, and in an odd way I could at least respect him for having convictions. But being trapped in a clown car with a crowded GOP field has apparently washed those convictions right out of his brain. What remains to be seen is if the voters' memories are as malleable as Bush's own.
There was a time when it looked like Bush 3.0 would be the only one to stay true to the cause, but in the end, his Presidential aspirations and his Common Core commitment created such violent cognitive dissonance that his brain just spit the Common Core chunks right out of his head.
I first noticed it in New Hampshire. While vacationing, I ended up watching the August 3 New Hampshire GOP Candidate Beauty Pageant. It was about the most non-hostile venue the candidates could hope for, with balls lobbed so soft that they could have been written by the candidates' staffs. The closest thing to confrontation was when the interviewer gently prodded Carly Fiorina to answer the question she had just ignored (spoiler alert: she didn't). The closest thing to genuinely fun moment was when the interviewer offered Rick Perry a do-over on eliminating three government agencies.
The interviewer asked Jeb Bush, "Would you take a moment to tell us the new talking point you're going to use to try to get the stink of Common Core off of you?" (I'm paraphrasing.) The questionish intro to Bush's talking point ended with, "Should state and local school boards reject any so-called national standards?" (You can watch for yourself here at about the 2:01 mark)
They should. They should. States ought to create standards. They should be high. They should be state-driven and locally implemented. The federal government should have no role in the creation of standards. No role in the creation directly or indirectly, no role in the creation of content or curriculum.
He goes on to say that the feds should hand over money without any strings attached and references how Bobby Jindal wants to do all these cool things but the feds say he has to spend Title I money on poor people.
Bush has been using this mantra on the campaign trail as recently as yesterday, along with a somewhat frustrated complaint that he doesn't even know what Common Core means any more.
The frustration over nomenclature is a sort of evolution. Back in May, while he was still defending the Core in an interview with Megyn Kelly, he conceded, "Common Core means a lot of things to different people, so they could be right based on what's in front of them." He's not wrong-- the term Common Core has become so mushy as to be meaningless.
But as Mercedes Schneider points out, Bush has still managed to do a lot of forgetting, including the forgetting of how he conned ALEC into turning from Core opponents into Core fans.
And in his plea that he just wants higher standards developed on the state level, he's forgotten a few other things. He might want to consult the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the organization he used to scale his educational policies up from Florida level to national level. Poor FEE-- they spent all those years getting ready to help Jeb ride straight to the White House, and now he doesn't even know their name. But there they sit-- an ongoing record of what Bush's ideas about education reform used to be, before the amnesia struck.
To build an American education system that equips every child to achieve his or her God-given potential.
That's their stated goal-- a national education system. And that national education system is needed, in part, to protect our country because national education is important for national security (Joel Klein helped whip up that classic report). But Bush isn't talking about that any more.
Bush is also not talking about comparing schools across state lines or making it easy for students to move from school to school. He is certainly not talking about how much help he provided the feds in selling the Core.
There has been no politician who has worked as hard and tirelessly for the Core as Jeb has, and in an odd way I could at least respect him for having convictions. But being trapped in a clown car with a crowded GOP field has apparently washed those convictions right out of his brain. What remains to be seen is if the voters' memories are as malleable as Bush's own.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Neighborhood Failure Factories
I am a big believer in the concept of neighborhood schools. I think schools are best as an extension of their communities. I've written pretty about why I see charterizing initiatives such as those in New Orleans as both bad educational practice and an assault on fundamental American values.
At the same time, it's important that I acknowledge the limits of the approach that I value so much, and nothing has highlighted those failings any better than this gut-wrenching story of how Pinellas County in Florida turned five thriving schools into "failure factories." I could hem and haw and hedge, but here's the brutal truth of how they did it.
They turned them into neighborhood schools.
They ended desegregation and starved the five schools of, not only the additional resources they needed to succeed, but also in some cases didn't even provide the basic level of support provided to other schools in the county.
This story, written and reported by
Though the efforts were working — black students were posting steady gains on standardized tests — many parents bridled at the tools of integration. They complained about the inconvenience and the high cost of busing and special programs.
In other words, desegregation, with its magnet schools and special programs and busing, required (White) Pinellas County to spend a bunch of money educating Other People's (Black) Children. And so they stopped.
The plan to resegregate called for neighnborhood schools. Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA told the article's authors what that gets you
“It produces schools that teachers don’t want to teach in and that are branded as failures by our state and national governments,” Orfield said. “When you go to neighborhood schools, whites and Asians get schools that function well and blacks and Latinos get schools that are impoverished and fail. This isn't a secret."
I don't want to think it's that simple, and I definitely don't care for how short a step it is from that observation to the observation that non-white students and families are somehow defective. But there's no denying what happened next to the five schools.
They had been successful by both the measures that reformsters like to use and the measures that those of us in the whole child well-rounded education community like to use. But what distinguished the new plan is what the school board chose not to do.
Giving up on racially balanced schools wasn’t the School Board’s only option.
They could have integrated schools by requiring a balance of children based on socio-economic status, as other counties were doing.
They could have carefully constructed magnet schools and special programs to attract more white children to schools in black neighborhoods.
Instead, they were ready to plow ahead, to scrap the most important parts of what they had done to guarantee black children got an equal education.
At the same time, it's important that I acknowledge the limits of the approach that I value so much, and nothing has highlighted those failings any better than this gut-wrenching story of how Pinellas County in Florida turned five thriving schools into "failure factories." I could hem and haw and hedge, but here's the brutal truth of how they did it.
They turned them into neighborhood schools.
They ended desegregation and starved the five schools of, not only the additional resources they needed to succeed, but also in some cases didn't even provide the basic level of support provided to other schools in the county.
This story, written and reported by
Though the efforts were working — black students were posting steady gains on standardized tests — many parents bridled at the tools of integration. They complained about the inconvenience and the high cost of busing and special programs.
In other words, desegregation, with its magnet schools and special programs and busing, required (White) Pinellas County to spend a bunch of money educating Other People's (Black) Children. And so they stopped.
The plan to resegregate called for neighnborhood schools. Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA told the article's authors what that gets you
“It produces schools that teachers don’t want to teach in and that are branded as failures by our state and national governments,” Orfield said. “When you go to neighborhood schools, whites and Asians get schools that function well and blacks and Latinos get schools that are impoverished and fail. This isn't a secret."
I don't want to think it's that simple, and I definitely don't care for how short a step it is from that observation to the observation that non-white students and families are somehow defective. But there's no denying what happened next to the five schools.
They had been successful by both the measures that reformsters like to use and the measures that those of us in the whole child well-rounded education community like to use. But what distinguished the new plan is what the school board chose not to do.
Giving up on racially balanced schools wasn’t the School Board’s only option.
They could have integrated schools by requiring a balance of children based on socio-economic status, as other counties were doing.
They could have carefully constructed magnet schools and special programs to attract more white children to schools in black neighborhoods.
Instead, they were ready to plow ahead, to scrap the most important parts of what they had done to guarantee black children got an equal education.
Federal AP Boondoggle
The USED is once again happy to announce that they have delivered a grant of $28 million to the College Board corporate coffers.
They have done this by once again paying to help cover the costs of taking the AP test for many low-income students.
This certainly sounds like a noble and worthwhile thing, and the nice quotes from Washed Up NY Education Commissioner and Now Deputy Secretary Without a Title So He Wouldn't Have To Face Congressional Approval John King certainly sound mighty fine: "Advanced Placement classes and the corresponding exams come with very high expectations for our students, as well as important early exposure to the demands and rigor of college-level courses, all while still in high school."
Well, I was not impressed the last time this program rolled around, and I'm still not impressed. Here's why not:
Tests are not education. Getting students the opportunity to take the test is less impressive than giving students the educational support to prepare for the test. $28 million to get teachers AP class teacher training, or money to get poor schools the materials they need to do the class properly (how many AP and Honors students in this country have to buy their own books and materials). This is like saying, "We are going to pay the fee for you to try out for Olympic time trials, but you'll still have to train without a coach out in your barn."
Bulk buying bargains? I am still waiting to hear the part where the federal government cut a deal with the College Board. "The taxpayers are giving $28 million to somebody," Fake Undersecretary John King should be saying. "Cut us a deal. Show me how much of your gigantic profit margin on these tests you will sacrifice in order to get this giant bale of bucks, or we'll support some other initiative." If the point of this initiative is to get the "opportunity" for the greatest number of poor students, and not to feather David Coleman's corporate nest, then I want to hear about the USED haggled and arm-twisted to get the absolute maximum number of students covered. Because if we're buying these tests at full retail price, then this is the worst deal since a $400 defense hammer.
Backwards programming and opportunity costs. This is not a program you come up with when you ask, "How could we provide a little more boost to poor students in underserved schools." This is the grant program you come up with when you ask, "What's a nice way we could funnel some money to that nice corporation we like so much." It may even be the program you come up with when a representative of that company sits in your office and says, "Hey, I know a way you could help us out and it would be swell For The Children, too."
The College Board has been outstanding at using the government to build their customer base (and consequently their revenue stream). In Pennsylvania, your school rating gets a boost if you offer more of the AP product, and that's certainly great news for them.
But if I said, "Okay, you've got twenty-eight million to spend helping poor students-- go!" I just can't believe that the first item on your list would be, "We'll get them a full-price chance to take an AP test." But the only utility of the AP test, beyond making adults proud of themselves for subjecting students to corporately-produced rigor, is to get students credit for courses at their college-- which only helps if they can afford to be at that college in the first place (and if the college accepts AP test results for credit).
If we're concerned about student college success, we could "grant" far more than $28 million just by getting the federal government out of the Grotesque Profits On Student Loans business.
If we wanted to spend $28 million to help poor students in this country, "buy them an AP test" doesn't even crack the top 20. This is a great deal for the College Board (which I will remind you, as always, is a business), but it is a lousy policy for students and taxpayers.
They have done this by once again paying to help cover the costs of taking the AP test for many low-income students.
This certainly sounds like a noble and worthwhile thing, and the nice quotes from Washed Up NY Education Commissioner and Now Deputy Secretary Without a Title So He Wouldn't Have To Face Congressional Approval John King certainly sound mighty fine: "Advanced Placement classes and the corresponding exams come with very high expectations for our students, as well as important early exposure to the demands and rigor of college-level courses, all while still in high school."
Well, I was not impressed the last time this program rolled around, and I'm still not impressed. Here's why not:
Tests are not education. Getting students the opportunity to take the test is less impressive than giving students the educational support to prepare for the test. $28 million to get teachers AP class teacher training, or money to get poor schools the materials they need to do the class properly (how many AP and Honors students in this country have to buy their own books and materials). This is like saying, "We are going to pay the fee for you to try out for Olympic time trials, but you'll still have to train without a coach out in your barn."
Bulk buying bargains? I am still waiting to hear the part where the federal government cut a deal with the College Board. "The taxpayers are giving $28 million to somebody," Fake Undersecretary John King should be saying. "Cut us a deal. Show me how much of your gigantic profit margin on these tests you will sacrifice in order to get this giant bale of bucks, or we'll support some other initiative." If the point of this initiative is to get the "opportunity" for the greatest number of poor students, and not to feather David Coleman's corporate nest, then I want to hear about the USED haggled and arm-twisted to get the absolute maximum number of students covered. Because if we're buying these tests at full retail price, then this is the worst deal since a $400 defense hammer.
Backwards programming and opportunity costs. This is not a program you come up with when you ask, "How could we provide a little more boost to poor students in underserved schools." This is the grant program you come up with when you ask, "What's a nice way we could funnel some money to that nice corporation we like so much." It may even be the program you come up with when a representative of that company sits in your office and says, "Hey, I know a way you could help us out and it would be swell For The Children, too."
The College Board has been outstanding at using the government to build their customer base (and consequently their revenue stream). In Pennsylvania, your school rating gets a boost if you offer more of the AP product, and that's certainly great news for them.
But if I said, "Okay, you've got twenty-eight million to spend helping poor students-- go!" I just can't believe that the first item on your list would be, "We'll get them a full-price chance to take an AP test." But the only utility of the AP test, beyond making adults proud of themselves for subjecting students to corporately-produced rigor, is to get students credit for courses at their college-- which only helps if they can afford to be at that college in the first place (and if the college accepts AP test results for credit).
If we're concerned about student college success, we could "grant" far more than $28 million just by getting the federal government out of the Grotesque Profits On Student Loans business.
If we wanted to spend $28 million to help poor students in this country, "buy them an AP test" doesn't even crack the top 20. This is a great deal for the College Board (which I will remind you, as always, is a business), but it is a lousy policy for students and taxpayers.
Klein Fails Hard (Bye Bye, Amplify)
The news has spread rapidly-- Amplify, the education tech division of News Corp, headed by Joel Klein and funded by Rupert Murdoch, is headed directly down the tubes.
Klein is the poster boy for unqualified people in educational leadership roles, rising to the head of the nation's largest school system based on his extensive background as a lawyer. Since then, he has been one of the bright lights of reformsterdom. He has helped sell the idea that education is a threat to national security and argued about the power of education to overcome humble backgrounds by telling his own story (well, a story loosely based on his own life). Mercedes Schneider devoted a whole chapter to his exploits in Chronicle of Echoes, and even that is probably not enough space to trace his reformy footprints, from bolstering baloney groups like National Council on Teacher Quality and Jeb Bush's FEE to jump-starting the career or other well-connected clowns with no education background.
Klein has since tried to make his case for his handling of New York City schools in a book Lessons of Hope. The book contains all the signature Klein features, including a casual relationship with the truth. Klein is great example of the modern management principle that you don't have to know the business of the company you're running-- you just have to be smart, audacious and leaderly.
After New York, Klein decided to combine what he didn't know about education with what he didn't know about technology and con Rupert Murdoch into launching an education tech company. Amplify was going to be a player in the world of touch-screen based education. It's popular field for many reasons, not the least of which is the revenue stream involved. Note that Amplify's product was going to involve $299 for the wi-fi enabled tablet and a $99 subscription for the content.
That subscription fee represents a growing trend in the tech world-- why sell customers a product once when you can use a subscription fee model to keep them paying for the product over and over, year after year. But there's a major problem with using this business model with schools:
Tech wizard: Look! Electronic copies of books that won't wear out and can be easily updated!
Schools: Awesome! We won't have to spend millions of dollars to replace our paper textbooks every ten years.
Tech wizard: No, you won't. However, you will have to give us millions of dollars in subscription fees every single year.
Schools: We are now much less excited.
But Amplify had other problems. Like laptops that tended to melt and fall apart.
By April of this year, Klein was talking about "unifying" Amplify and getting the giant mess of money-sucking suckitude into some sort of orderly form that would placate investors and corporate overlords.
It wasn't enough. This week the news was that Amplify was "winding down" production on their disastrous laptops and would stop seeking new customers (an effort operating out of the same offices as their Yeti Locator and Loch Ness Monster Training divisions). They will totally keep providing support for their existing customers, and I'm sure you can take that promise straight to the bank. Meanwhile, they will take a $371 write-down on the education division (a write-down happens when you decide that the used Yugo that you've been swearing is worth $50,000 is actually worth $1.50).
In other words, Klein can now claim a Value Added Measure of negative $371 million. In other words, Klein has shown he knows how to make $600 million-- start with a billion.
They are now going to focus on their "digital curriculum and assessment products." And you just have to love the language of these sorts of corporate bloviation-fests. From the NYT coverage:
“As positive as this relationship has been, Amplify and News Corp. both believe it is time to explore new and exciting strategic opportunities, working with partners who share a deep understanding of what it takes to be successful in education,” Mr. Klein added.
It makes me wonder what it is like to work in the corporate sphere up to your neck in refined bullshit all day, or how badly it messes with your head to constantly use language for the opposite of its purpose (communicate clearly and say what you mean). But we can hope that Klein does manage to partner with people who have a deep understanding of what it means to be successful in education, because I'm pretty sure that would be a career first for him.
Klein is the poster boy for unqualified people in educational leadership roles, rising to the head of the nation's largest school system based on his extensive background as a lawyer. Since then, he has been one of the bright lights of reformsterdom. He has helped sell the idea that education is a threat to national security and argued about the power of education to overcome humble backgrounds by telling his own story (well, a story loosely based on his own life). Mercedes Schneider devoted a whole chapter to his exploits in Chronicle of Echoes, and even that is probably not enough space to trace his reformy footprints, from bolstering baloney groups like National Council on Teacher Quality and Jeb Bush's FEE to jump-starting the career or other well-connected clowns with no education background.
Klein has since tried to make his case for his handling of New York City schools in a book Lessons of Hope. The book contains all the signature Klein features, including a casual relationship with the truth. Klein is great example of the modern management principle that you don't have to know the business of the company you're running-- you just have to be smart, audacious and leaderly.
After New York, Klein decided to combine what he didn't know about education with what he didn't know about technology and con Rupert Murdoch into launching an education tech company. Amplify was going to be a player in the world of touch-screen based education. It's popular field for many reasons, not the least of which is the revenue stream involved. Note that Amplify's product was going to involve $299 for the wi-fi enabled tablet and a $99 subscription for the content.
That subscription fee represents a growing trend in the tech world-- why sell customers a product once when you can use a subscription fee model to keep them paying for the product over and over, year after year. But there's a major problem with using this business model with schools:
Tech wizard: Look! Electronic copies of books that won't wear out and can be easily updated!
Schools: Awesome! We won't have to spend millions of dollars to replace our paper textbooks every ten years.
Tech wizard: No, you won't. However, you will have to give us millions of dollars in subscription fees every single year.
Schools: We are now much less excited.
But Amplify had other problems. Like laptops that tended to melt and fall apart.
By April of this year, Klein was talking about "unifying" Amplify and getting the giant mess of money-sucking suckitude into some sort of orderly form that would placate investors and corporate overlords.
It wasn't enough. This week the news was that Amplify was "winding down" production on their disastrous laptops and would stop seeking new customers (an effort operating out of the same offices as their Yeti Locator and Loch Ness Monster Training divisions). They will totally keep providing support for their existing customers, and I'm sure you can take that promise straight to the bank. Meanwhile, they will take a $371 write-down on the education division (a write-down happens when you decide that the used Yugo that you've been swearing is worth $50,000 is actually worth $1.50).
In other words, Klein can now claim a Value Added Measure of negative $371 million. In other words, Klein has shown he knows how to make $600 million-- start with a billion.
They are now going to focus on their "digital curriculum and assessment products." And you just have to love the language of these sorts of corporate bloviation-fests. From the NYT coverage:
“As positive as this relationship has been, Amplify and News Corp. both believe it is time to explore new and exciting strategic opportunities, working with partners who share a deep understanding of what it takes to be successful in education,” Mr. Klein added.
It makes me wonder what it is like to work in the corporate sphere up to your neck in refined bullshit all day, or how badly it messes with your head to constantly use language for the opposite of its purpose (communicate clearly and say what you mean). But we can hope that Klein does manage to partner with people who have a deep understanding of what it means to be successful in education, because I'm pretty sure that would be a career first for him.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Go Home, CAP
On the heels of a recent tweet in which the Center for American Progress tried to pretend that politics had nothing to do with Common Core (at least, not until big meanies dragged politics in), CAP is now here to assert that CCSS math standards are both necessary and research based.
"How the Common Core Will Help the United States Bring Up Its Grade on Mathematics Education" comes perilously close to being the sort of thing certain bloggers might write if they wanted to make fun of folks like CAP. This is like a small museum of bad and discredited arguments for the CCSS.
First, it's "OMGZ!! Our test scorers are worserer than everybody elses!!"
American high school students also perform far below the international average in math. Currently, they rank 27th in mathematics, while Korean and Japanese students lead the world. Between 2003 and 2012, the average math score in the United States actually decreased 2 points, while Korea’s shot up 12 points.
Education historian Diane Ravitch has addressed this point roughly a gazillion times.
In 1964, when the first international test was offered in two grades to twelve nations, we came in last and next to last in the two grades but went on to have a stronger economy in the next half century than the other 11 nations that were tested.
We have always done poorly in the international testing game, and yet, somehow, we are not yet ruled by Estonia. There is no evidence of any connection between students ability to take a standardized test and a nation's fortune and future. None. Zero. Zip.
CAP is going to go ahead and play cheat games with numbers anyway, just in case you aren't feeling properly panicked yet;
Even the most affluent American students scored significantly below the average score of other countries. For example, American students in the highest economic quartile scored 81 points lower than the average student in Shanghai, China.
Sigh. First of all, is there anybody left who thinks that the test-takers of Shanghai are representative of anything? Second, when we compare American apples to international apples, we generally do better. Not that it matters, but this is point on which CAP can stop chicken littling.
The Common Core math standards represent the culmination of decades of research into how students learn and are an extension of 30 years of standards and curriculum development by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, or NCTM.
Really? Care to directly reference any of that research? Because I'm pretty sure the story of Common Core math standards is that Jason Zimba went out and wrote them in his garage in the middle of the night. Did CAP use some fancy hyperlinks to connect directly to any research they wanted to offer as support. Nope.
But worry not. CAP has it covered:
The Center for American Progress has reviewed the literature and research and discovered several reasons why teaching for conceptual understanding of math leads to improved outcomes for students:
Again, that literature and research is not specifically referenced, and I have to tell you that even C-level bloggers such as yours truly try to be less sloppy and "oh just take my word for it" than this. Because this certainly sounds like an assertion you could back up with actual facts and research and stuff.
And this takes us right back to the premise embedded in this ridiculous article's ridiculous title. Common Core math WILL help the Us bring up its grades? It has been four or five years, depending on where you are, which means that most students have been common coring it up for at least half their academic careers. Are you telling me we can't see any signs of how much more awesome they are thanks to Common Core mathiness-- we can't see those results right now??! What are we waiting for? Why are these wonderful results still in our future? (And why do we frame the results as grades and not improved understanding?)
CAP wraps it up with some recommendations:
* Stay the course, because "through perseverance, the nation can improve the quality of mathematics education for all students."
* More PD for teachers, cause that'll help.
* Communicate with parents andhelp market the Core provide resources
* Make sure materials are high quality and fully aligned
* Incorporate "conceptual math" into teacher training
Shifting to math education of this caliber and depth is difficult and will likely challenge both teachers and students. States must support educators as they become fluent in and adapt their practices to ensure that students engage meaningfully with math and learn to think beyond simple formulas and processes. Otherwise, American students’ math performance will continue to slip below what the global economy requires.
"Will challenge"? Reading this article makes me wonder if CAP's office staff didn't just find an old article from 2012 stuck to the bottom of a pizza box and figured, what the hell, we can go ahead and run it now.
"What the global economy requires"? Which part of the global economy requires test taking? What exactly does the globally economy require? Please offer specific evidence, and show your work.
I suppose we could also go into the history of the math wars and the timeless battle between people who think numbers are for dealing with the real world and those who think pure, conceptual math is the real math, but we don't have time to watch the engineers and abstract mathematicians duke it out right now.
But even for CAP, this piece is off the rails, having passed through some time machine that simultaneous dulled the senses-- who, I wonder, was this reeling whip-saw tissue of discredited bunkum supposed to be for? Go home, CAP. You're drunk.
"How the Common Core Will Help the United States Bring Up Its Grade on Mathematics Education" comes perilously close to being the sort of thing certain bloggers might write if they wanted to make fun of folks like CAP. This is like a small museum of bad and discredited arguments for the CCSS.
First, it's "OMGZ!! Our test scorers are worserer than everybody elses!!"
American high school students also perform far below the international average in math. Currently, they rank 27th in mathematics, while Korean and Japanese students lead the world. Between 2003 and 2012, the average math score in the United States actually decreased 2 points, while Korea’s shot up 12 points.
Education historian Diane Ravitch has addressed this point roughly a gazillion times.
In 1964, when the first international test was offered in two grades to twelve nations, we came in last and next to last in the two grades but went on to have a stronger economy in the next half century than the other 11 nations that were tested.
We have always done poorly in the international testing game, and yet, somehow, we are not yet ruled by Estonia. There is no evidence of any connection between students ability to take a standardized test and a nation's fortune and future. None. Zero. Zip.
CAP is going to go ahead and play cheat games with numbers anyway, just in case you aren't feeling properly panicked yet;
Even the most affluent American students scored significantly below the average score of other countries. For example, American students in the highest economic quartile scored 81 points lower than the average student in Shanghai, China.
Sigh. First of all, is there anybody left who thinks that the test-takers of Shanghai are representative of anything? Second, when we compare American apples to international apples, we generally do better. Not that it matters, but this is point on which CAP can stop chicken littling.
The Common Core math standards represent the culmination of decades of research into how students learn and are an extension of 30 years of standards and curriculum development by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, or NCTM.
Really? Care to directly reference any of that research? Because I'm pretty sure the story of Common Core math standards is that Jason Zimba went out and wrote them in his garage in the middle of the night. Did CAP use some fancy hyperlinks to connect directly to any research they wanted to offer as support. Nope.
But worry not. CAP has it covered:
The Center for American Progress has reviewed the literature and research and discovered several reasons why teaching for conceptual understanding of math leads to improved outcomes for students:
Again, that literature and research is not specifically referenced, and I have to tell you that even C-level bloggers such as yours truly try to be less sloppy and "oh just take my word for it" than this. Because this certainly sounds like an assertion you could back up with actual facts and research and stuff.
And this takes us right back to the premise embedded in this ridiculous article's ridiculous title. Common Core math WILL help the Us bring up its grades? It has been four or five years, depending on where you are, which means that most students have been common coring it up for at least half their academic careers. Are you telling me we can't see any signs of how much more awesome they are thanks to Common Core mathiness-- we can't see those results right now??! What are we waiting for? Why are these wonderful results still in our future? (And why do we frame the results as grades and not improved understanding?)
CAP wraps it up with some recommendations:
* Stay the course, because "through perseverance, the nation can improve the quality of mathematics education for all students."
* More PD for teachers, cause that'll help.
* Communicate with parents and
* Make sure materials are high quality and fully aligned
* Incorporate "conceptual math" into teacher training
Shifting to math education of this caliber and depth is difficult and will likely challenge both teachers and students. States must support educators as they become fluent in and adapt their practices to ensure that students engage meaningfully with math and learn to think beyond simple formulas and processes. Otherwise, American students’ math performance will continue to slip below what the global economy requires.
"Will challenge"? Reading this article makes me wonder if CAP's office staff didn't just find an old article from 2012 stuck to the bottom of a pizza box and figured, what the hell, we can go ahead and run it now.
"What the global economy requires"? Which part of the global economy requires test taking? What exactly does the globally economy require? Please offer specific evidence, and show your work.
I suppose we could also go into the history of the math wars and the timeless battle between people who think numbers are for dealing with the real world and those who think pure, conceptual math is the real math, but we don't have time to watch the engineers and abstract mathematicians duke it out right now.
But even for CAP, this piece is off the rails, having passed through some time machine that simultaneous dulled the senses-- who, I wonder, was this reeling whip-saw tissue of discredited bunkum supposed to be for? Go home, CAP. You're drunk.
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