Two days after Christmas and it is currently warmer outside my home than inside it. But here are some pieces to read as you contemplate whatever strange weather you're facing today.
Will Hillary Clinton Go All in With Us or Wall Street
Closing Schools Is Not and Educative Option
Pretty sure that Hillary's quote won the Blogger Swarm of the Month award, with some reactions more reasonable than others. Julian Vasquez Heileg took a look at it.And so did Mitchell Robinson, who I think hit at what is most bothersome about the dumb thing that came out of Clinton's mouth.
The Least of Russ on Reading
Russ Walsh does a fun thing for his year-end post. Instead of his best or most popular posts, he lists some worthwhile posts that didn't pull quite the traffic as some others. Catch up on his overlooked gems.
Why Charter Schools Are Fraud Factories
Much of what's here is old news, but there's always something about seeing just how broad and deep and wide the world of charter school shenangians runs.
The Gift of Student Voice in New Orleans
Looking for some giving that will do some good? Edushyster has an inspiring and worthwhile project in New Orleans that actually promotes student voices. Take a look and wrap up your year by contributing to a worthy cause.
Merry Christmas, Ramone
Finally, Nancy Flanagan presents a story that is both heartbreaking and uplifting, looking at both what is awful and what is hopeful in the education world.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
When Business Doesn't Get It
Peter Elkind just published a "special report" in Fortune that is an illuminating read. "Business Gets Schooled" is the story of the rise and fall of Common Core from the perspective of the business interests that became involved, and I recommend that you read the whole thing yourself. It can be hugely instructive to see how things look from another vantage point.
But for right now, there are just a couple of specific points I want to pull out of the piece, and one truly amazingly awful quote.
Business Is Not Limber or Agile
When business interests backing CCSS found themselves under attack, they were simply unable to respond in any sort of quick or effective manner. The business world by and large doesn't get social media much, and it seems that the bigger the company and the more highly-placed the executive, the more deficient the understanding of how blogs and twitter and facebook can mount a damaging attack by lunchtime on any given day.
They are, as Elkind puts it, "used to exercising power through traditional channels," and so it made sense to work the political connections, work the personal power connections (the article opens with a dinner meeting between Bill Gates and Charles Koch), and when under pressure, to work big lumbering PR campaigns.
Elkind recounts the story of how Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon, threatened to pull the company out of Pennsylvania if the state did not embrace Common Core (and quotes without citing Kris Nielson's blog response-- in Elkind's world, the businessmen and politicians all have names and faces, but only a few bloggers and activists get the same consideration). Business interests tried founding groups like the Collaborative for Student Success to gin up some CCSS love among the citizenry, says Elkind, but he neglects to mention just how many similar groups have been created-- all fruitlessly, right up to recent entries like Education Post and the74, both well-funded with the hope that CCSS fans can fight internet fire with internet fire. And yet all of these have fizzled, almost as if corporate chieftains don't understand why there is opposition or how it spreads.
One thing that jumps out at me is that Elkind mostly talks about corporations like Exxon and Intel and SAS-- companies where corporate executives are unlikely to ever face the business problem of "How do we sell our product to individual consumers." And so when they discover that Common Core is a product that individual consumers don't actually want, they are stumped. Their "marketing" usually consists of gathering the political and corporate connections to make themselves inescapable. If Intel convinces the major computer companies to use their chips, it doesn't matter so much how individual consumers feel about it.
In short, big business is neither nimble, quick, or smart enough to fight this fight.
Business's Hard Lessons for the Left
There's been some criticism that Elkind's article largely ignores the Common Core opposition on the Left. But I think that reflects some hard truths about the left-side opposition to the Core, most particularly that it just hasn't been as effective as the opposition from the right.
The dump common core movements that have been at least cosmetically effective in some states-- those don't come from the left. Huckabee and Bush and other lovers of the Core didn't dump it like a itchy disease because they were worried about folks on the left. In fact, one of the (unsuccessful) tactics adopted by Core supporters for a while was to try to slap one more "Thanks, Obama!" sticker on the Core in an attempt to get right-wing knees to jerk in a Core-friendly direction.
None of that worked. And at the risk of offending some of my right-leaning readers, it didn't work in part because some of the far-right arguments against the Core are fact-free and logic-impaired. I can go on all day about the reasons that Common Core is a giant pile of toxic waste, but I still don't think it's going to turn our nation's children into a bunch of gay commie welfare bums.
The left-ward opponents don't appear in Elkind's article because they don't appear on business's radar, at least not as anything more than the usual background buzz of people who always hate and oppose them every time they try to make a buck. And they can point at groups like DFER and the NEA/AFT early embrace of the Core and say, "Well, see. We've got some lefties on our side, too."
I have no doubt that these folks seriously underestimate the strength and effectiveness of progressives who oppose the Core. But for me, the article is a reminder not to overestimate your own effectiveness just because you're being listened to in a room of folks who already agree with you. Common Core's conservative opponents have been very effective in spreading the word to people who didn't otherwise have an opinion. (NY is perhaps our best model for how the Left can get it done)
Business Just Doesn't Understand The Purpose of Education in a Democratic Society
Tillerson is a central figure in Elkind's article, and it's Tillerson who gets to demonstrated just how completely, clueless, stupidly wrong these guys are. Elkind takes us to a 2014 panel discussion in DC.
But Tillerson articulates his view in a fashion unlikely to resonate with the average parent. “I’m not sure public schools understand that we’re their customer—that we, the business community, are your customer,” said Tillerson during the panel discussion. “What they don’t understand is they are producing a product at the end of that high school graduation.”
The Exxon CEO didn’t hesitate to extend his analogy. “Now is that product in a form that we, the customer, can use it? Or is it defective, and we’re not interested?” American schools, Tillerson declared, “have got to step up the performance level—or they’re basically turning out defective products that have no future. Unfortunately, the defective products are human beings. So it’s really serious. It’s tragic. But that’s where we find ourselves today.”
Man. The fact that anybody can shamelessly express such an opinion out loud, without recognizing that it is ethically dense and morally bankrupt, a view of both human beings and an entire country that is about as odious and indefensible as anything spit out by a Ted Bundy or an Eric Harris.
This is not an aberration-- just about two years ago I had my first widely-read post on this blog responding to Gates Foundation's Allan Golston when he issued what I called the "wrongest sentence ever in the CCSS debate." Golston said, "Businesses are the primary consumers of the output of our schools, so it’s a natural alliance."
No. No no no no no no no no no no, hell no.
Students are not a product. Corporations are not "customers," and the public institutions of our nation do not exist to serve the needs of those corporations. The measure of public education is not how well it produces drones that serve the needs of corporations, not how "interested" corporations are in the meat widgets that pop out of a public education assembly line.
Tillerson's viewpoint is anti-education, anti-American, anti-human. It's a reminder that the education debates are not about Left versus Right or GOP versus Dems. The education debates are about the interests of the human beings who are citizens of a nation and stakeholders in its public institutions versus the interests of a those who believe their power and money entitle them to stripmine an entire nation in order to gather more power and money for themselves. The education debates are about democracy versus oligarchy. The education debates are about valuing the voices of all citizens versus giving voice only to the special few Who Really Matter.
Again, give Elkind's article a read. It explains both how business is losing (though he tries to make it all end on a "hopeful" note), but more importantly, it explains why businessmen like Tillerson and Bill Bennett and Bill Gates deserve to lose.
But for right now, there are just a couple of specific points I want to pull out of the piece, and one truly amazingly awful quote.
Business Is Not Limber or Agile
When business interests backing CCSS found themselves under attack, they were simply unable to respond in any sort of quick or effective manner. The business world by and large doesn't get social media much, and it seems that the bigger the company and the more highly-placed the executive, the more deficient the understanding of how blogs and twitter and facebook can mount a damaging attack by lunchtime on any given day.
They are, as Elkind puts it, "used to exercising power through traditional channels," and so it made sense to work the political connections, work the personal power connections (the article opens with a dinner meeting between Bill Gates and Charles Koch), and when under pressure, to work big lumbering PR campaigns.
Elkind recounts the story of how Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon, threatened to pull the company out of Pennsylvania if the state did not embrace Common Core (and quotes without citing Kris Nielson's blog response-- in Elkind's world, the businessmen and politicians all have names and faces, but only a few bloggers and activists get the same consideration). Business interests tried founding groups like the Collaborative for Student Success to gin up some CCSS love among the citizenry, says Elkind, but he neglects to mention just how many similar groups have been created-- all fruitlessly, right up to recent entries like Education Post and the74, both well-funded with the hope that CCSS fans can fight internet fire with internet fire. And yet all of these have fizzled, almost as if corporate chieftains don't understand why there is opposition or how it spreads.
One thing that jumps out at me is that Elkind mostly talks about corporations like Exxon and Intel and SAS-- companies where corporate executives are unlikely to ever face the business problem of "How do we sell our product to individual consumers." And so when they discover that Common Core is a product that individual consumers don't actually want, they are stumped. Their "marketing" usually consists of gathering the political and corporate connections to make themselves inescapable. If Intel convinces the major computer companies to use their chips, it doesn't matter so much how individual consumers feel about it.
In short, big business is neither nimble, quick, or smart enough to fight this fight.
Business's Hard Lessons for the Left
There's been some criticism that Elkind's article largely ignores the Common Core opposition on the Left. But I think that reflects some hard truths about the left-side opposition to the Core, most particularly that it just hasn't been as effective as the opposition from the right.
The dump common core movements that have been at least cosmetically effective in some states-- those don't come from the left. Huckabee and Bush and other lovers of the Core didn't dump it like a itchy disease because they were worried about folks on the left. In fact, one of the (unsuccessful) tactics adopted by Core supporters for a while was to try to slap one more "Thanks, Obama!" sticker on the Core in an attempt to get right-wing knees to jerk in a Core-friendly direction.
None of that worked. And at the risk of offending some of my right-leaning readers, it didn't work in part because some of the far-right arguments against the Core are fact-free and logic-impaired. I can go on all day about the reasons that Common Core is a giant pile of toxic waste, but I still don't think it's going to turn our nation's children into a bunch of gay commie welfare bums.
The left-ward opponents don't appear in Elkind's article because they don't appear on business's radar, at least not as anything more than the usual background buzz of people who always hate and oppose them every time they try to make a buck. And they can point at groups like DFER and the NEA/AFT early embrace of the Core and say, "Well, see. We've got some lefties on our side, too."
I have no doubt that these folks seriously underestimate the strength and effectiveness of progressives who oppose the Core. But for me, the article is a reminder not to overestimate your own effectiveness just because you're being listened to in a room of folks who already agree with you. Common Core's conservative opponents have been very effective in spreading the word to people who didn't otherwise have an opinion. (NY is perhaps our best model for how the Left can get it done)
Business Just Doesn't Understand The Purpose of Education in a Democratic Society
Tillerson is a central figure in Elkind's article, and it's Tillerson who gets to demonstrated just how completely, clueless, stupidly wrong these guys are. Elkind takes us to a 2014 panel discussion in DC.
But Tillerson articulates his view in a fashion unlikely to resonate with the average parent. “I’m not sure public schools understand that we’re their customer—that we, the business community, are your customer,” said Tillerson during the panel discussion. “What they don’t understand is they are producing a product at the end of that high school graduation.”
The Exxon CEO didn’t hesitate to extend his analogy. “Now is that product in a form that we, the customer, can use it? Or is it defective, and we’re not interested?” American schools, Tillerson declared, “have got to step up the performance level—or they’re basically turning out defective products that have no future. Unfortunately, the defective products are human beings. So it’s really serious. It’s tragic. But that’s where we find ourselves today.”
Man. The fact that anybody can shamelessly express such an opinion out loud, without recognizing that it is ethically dense and morally bankrupt, a view of both human beings and an entire country that is about as odious and indefensible as anything spit out by a Ted Bundy or an Eric Harris.
This is not an aberration-- just about two years ago I had my first widely-read post on this blog responding to Gates Foundation's Allan Golston when he issued what I called the "wrongest sentence ever in the CCSS debate." Golston said, "Businesses are the primary consumers of the output of our schools, so it’s a natural alliance."
No. No no no no no no no no no no, hell no.
Students are not a product. Corporations are not "customers," and the public institutions of our nation do not exist to serve the needs of those corporations. The measure of public education is not how well it produces drones that serve the needs of corporations, not how "interested" corporations are in the meat widgets that pop out of a public education assembly line.
Tillerson's viewpoint is anti-education, anti-American, anti-human. It's a reminder that the education debates are not about Left versus Right or GOP versus Dems. The education debates are about the interests of the human beings who are citizens of a nation and stakeholders in its public institutions versus the interests of a those who believe their power and money entitle them to stripmine an entire nation in order to gather more power and money for themselves. The education debates are about democracy versus oligarchy. The education debates are about valuing the voices of all citizens versus giving voice only to the special few Who Really Matter.
Again, give Elkind's article a read. It explains both how business is losing (though he tries to make it all end on a "hopeful" note), but more importantly, it explains why businessmen like Tillerson and Bill Bennett and Bill Gates deserve to lose.
Friday, December 25, 2015
Christmas Playlist
Here's my Christmas playlist, with a few standard issue pieces and a few somewhat less well-traveled (I do not know why this gentleman is the face of my list-- I'm sure there's some sort of moral there). This year, my entire family is home, the weather is comfortable, and it's just about time for me to make the breakfast waffles. May this day (and every day) bring you things you hope for and things you need.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
IN: Let's Try Solo Bargaining
Indiana State Senator Pete Miller is not the first guy to have this idea, but he's the one currently floating it in a state legislature-- let's do away with collective bargaining and let every teacher negotiate her own individual contract.
This is Miller's idea for fixing the teacher shortage. Let's treat teachers fairly, he says. But only when a shortage forces us to, and only some of the teachers. After all, why should I have to pay big bucks for both a first grade teacher and a science teacher when the former are a dime a dozen and the latter are so hard to come by?
I've thought about the solo negotiating approach before, because it seems like an interesting thought experiment. What would schools look like if each contract was individually negotiated?
They would probably look poorer, because at least the larger districts would hire professional negotiators to handle the workload. There are over 2,500 teachers in the Indianapolis district-- exactly who is going to negotiate 2,500 contracts? It's going to be somebody who doesn't have any other job and who was hired just to handle negotiations, which means administration just got bigger.
Or they would look more...well, awkward. In a smaller district, individual contracts would be negotiated by the same people who work as supervisors. I'm trying to imagine the dynamic of, "Yes, I told you last month that you couldn't have another $500 of pay, and now this month I am asking you to take on another extra duty."
And such a system would be sure to breed some intra-staff resentment, as people come to realize they are being paid far less for the same job as the guy next door. "What do you mean you want to borrow my worksheets about subjects and verbs?! Take your extra couple thousand dollars and go buy your own worksheets." And-- as everyone who's served on the front lines of contract negotiations well knows-- it is very easy for negotiations to breed an adversarial relationship. Does it really help a district for teachers to know that one of their supervisor's job is to make sure they never make too much money?
Of course, the current system also results in people being paid different amounts for the same job, but-- and here we get into the weirdities of the human brain-- nobody gets paid "less" than anybody else. Some people just get paid "more." Everyone starts at the same place, and everybody has the same opportunity to move up the ladder. And while I can agree that it's not ideal, I believe that it helps foster the collegiality needed in a school. When you set teachers against each other and make them compete for every dollar, nobody wins.
And they would have to compete, because school funding is a zero sum game. The district has as much money as it has, so if it is going to cough up an extra $10K to hire Rockstar McSuperteach for the science department, somewhere in the system, $10K is going to be cut. "Sorry, you can't have new literature books this year because we wanted to hire a math teacher," is not going to foster collegiality.
Worse, the competition would not even be about who was the best teacher, but who was the best negotiator. Negotiating is a skill. It's a profession. And the balance will always be against teachers, because each teacher will have practice negotiating one contract-- her own-- while the district will have a pro who has handled all the contracts. And really-- is it fair that the same sweet, kind demeanor that makes Quietina O'Introversion such a great first grade teacher will guarantee her a crappy contract negotiation year after year?
In fact, here's what I really imagine happening. Teachers, lacking the time or expertise to handle their own negotiations, will hire someone to do it for them. In fact, they'll probably pool resources so that they can get somebody a little better to negotiate for the whole pool. Kind of like a union.
Meanwhile, districts will get tired of negotiating multiple versions of the contract (and there will be multiple versions-- if I go in there you'd better bet I will also be negotiating for leave time, office space, what duties I will or won't be assigned, etc) as well as managing a host of employees who all have different conditions for their employment. Plus such negotiations would make budgeting too murky and problematic. So districts will develop a menu of contract offerings, a sort of ladder that teachers are placed on
Of course, some districts would just say, "Screw it. We're paying bottom dollar and we'll take whatever is lying around the bottom of the barrel." Just like now.
Miller's idea is that he wants the invisible hand of the market to control teacher pay, but Indiana, like most states with so-called teacher shortages, already has the invisible hand of the market shoved right in their face-- they have a shortage because they are ignoring what the hand is telling them, which is "Make a better offer!" Miller is involved in some negotiating of his own, telling the invisible hand, "Well, what if we just a make a better offer for only a few of them? What's the absolute minimum the market will let us get away with?"
Indiana has some other interesting ideas coming up, like a proposal to trade a free college education for five years of teaching service in the state. But Miller's proposal is a lousy idea that won't really work out well for anybody.
This is Miller's idea for fixing the teacher shortage. Let's treat teachers fairly, he says. But only when a shortage forces us to, and only some of the teachers. After all, why should I have to pay big bucks for both a first grade teacher and a science teacher when the former are a dime a dozen and the latter are so hard to come by?
I've thought about the solo negotiating approach before, because it seems like an interesting thought experiment. What would schools look like if each contract was individually negotiated?
They would probably look poorer, because at least the larger districts would hire professional negotiators to handle the workload. There are over 2,500 teachers in the Indianapolis district-- exactly who is going to negotiate 2,500 contracts? It's going to be somebody who doesn't have any other job and who was hired just to handle negotiations, which means administration just got bigger.
Or they would look more...well, awkward. In a smaller district, individual contracts would be negotiated by the same people who work as supervisors. I'm trying to imagine the dynamic of, "Yes, I told you last month that you couldn't have another $500 of pay, and now this month I am asking you to take on another extra duty."
And such a system would be sure to breed some intra-staff resentment, as people come to realize they are being paid far less for the same job as the guy next door. "What do you mean you want to borrow my worksheets about subjects and verbs?! Take your extra couple thousand dollars and go buy your own worksheets." And-- as everyone who's served on the front lines of contract negotiations well knows-- it is very easy for negotiations to breed an adversarial relationship. Does it really help a district for teachers to know that one of their supervisor's job is to make sure they never make too much money?
Of course, the current system also results in people being paid different amounts for the same job, but-- and here we get into the weirdities of the human brain-- nobody gets paid "less" than anybody else. Some people just get paid "more." Everyone starts at the same place, and everybody has the same opportunity to move up the ladder. And while I can agree that it's not ideal, I believe that it helps foster the collegiality needed in a school. When you set teachers against each other and make them compete for every dollar, nobody wins.
And they would have to compete, because school funding is a zero sum game. The district has as much money as it has, so if it is going to cough up an extra $10K to hire Rockstar McSuperteach for the science department, somewhere in the system, $10K is going to be cut. "Sorry, you can't have new literature books this year because we wanted to hire a math teacher," is not going to foster collegiality.
Worse, the competition would not even be about who was the best teacher, but who was the best negotiator. Negotiating is a skill. It's a profession. And the balance will always be against teachers, because each teacher will have practice negotiating one contract-- her own-- while the district will have a pro who has handled all the contracts. And really-- is it fair that the same sweet, kind demeanor that makes Quietina O'Introversion such a great first grade teacher will guarantee her a crappy contract negotiation year after year?
In fact, here's what I really imagine happening. Teachers, lacking the time or expertise to handle their own negotiations, will hire someone to do it for them. In fact, they'll probably pool resources so that they can get somebody a little better to negotiate for the whole pool. Kind of like a union.
Meanwhile, districts will get tired of negotiating multiple versions of the contract (and there will be multiple versions-- if I go in there you'd better bet I will also be negotiating for leave time, office space, what duties I will or won't be assigned, etc) as well as managing a host of employees who all have different conditions for their employment. Plus such negotiations would make budgeting too murky and problematic. So districts will develop a menu of contract offerings, a sort of ladder that teachers are placed on
Of course, some districts would just say, "Screw it. We're paying bottom dollar and we'll take whatever is lying around the bottom of the barrel." Just like now.
Miller's idea is that he wants the invisible hand of the market to control teacher pay, but Indiana, like most states with so-called teacher shortages, already has the invisible hand of the market shoved right in their face-- they have a shortage because they are ignoring what the hand is telling them, which is "Make a better offer!" Miller is involved in some negotiating of his own, telling the invisible hand, "Well, what if we just a make a better offer for only a few of them? What's the absolute minimum the market will let us get away with?"
Indiana has some other interesting ideas coming up, like a proposal to trade a free college education for five years of teaching service in the state. But Miller's proposal is a lousy idea that won't really work out well for anybody.
NY: USED Rattles Sabres
The United States Department of Education has once again tried to lean on New York and other states where the opt out movement has made a dent in participation rates for the Big Standardized Test.
Newsday reports that the state has received and replied to a letter similar to the one that went out in October, suggesting that they sure could hold up some Title I funds if the state doesn't get its participation rate above 95%. Depending on the reports you read, NY's participation rate in last year's BS Testing was in the neighborhood of 80%.
Newsday reports that the USED says it will take "appropriate" action, and that such action could involve withholding funds, threatening to withhold funds, or talking about threatening to consider withholding funds. So take that, New York.
Newsday also reports that USED offers advice on how to coerce participation rates; it is typical of the department that all suggestions involve threats of some sort of punishment, from withholding aid to counting all non-participating students as non-proficient (because the test data is really really important, but it's okay to completely pollute the data pool with made-up scores).
[Update: Since I originally wrote this piece, somebody found me a copy of the actual letter. Read for yourself-- it's as bad as Newsday reports.]
In this context, High Education Commissioner Elia's actions to improve test participation actually look pretty canny. They are kind of ridiculous and seem unlikely to convince anybody of anything. But they do mean that when New York participation rates some in way below 95% next year, she can turn to Acting Pretend Education Secretary John King, shrug her shoulders, and say, "What do you want? We totally tried to get rates up."
At that point the USED will have to decide if it has the balls to cut New York's funding, a level of ballsiness that has not previously been displayed, ever. John King couldn't face the parents of New York when he worked there, and he couldn't face members of Congress in DC when he wanted to work there. Is he willing to stand up to all those folks and not back down when he's cutting a billion dollars from NY's budget?
This seems particularly improbable in the face of the new ESSA, which specifically recognizes the rights of parents to opt out of BS Testing, and gives states the right to decide what the punishment for non-compliance will be. Check out this handy FairTest guide "Why You Can Boycott Standardized Tests Without Fear of Federal Penalties to Your School" for more details.
Meanwhile, New York has a moratorium on counting BS Tests for student or teacher evaluation, making the tests a true waste of everybody's time and sharply reducing the possibility that the tests will measure anything at all other than the likelihood that bored students involved in pointless tasks will amuse themselves by playing ACDC on a standardized test.
The really big question here is-- why is the federal government doing this? Seriously? Why does the federal government have such a burning desire to have all students take the BS Tests? What use does the federal government have for the data generated by the tests? What policy decisions are going to be informed by test results? What part of the public good is threatened by children who don't take the test? If few US students take their local BS Test, so what? What bad thing happens because they don't?
The most cynical part of me says that none of those questions matter, that the feds promised test manufacturers a good, solid hold on a huge testing market, and they are doing their best to live up to the bargain they made. "Where are my customers," bark Pearson et al.
"I'm sorry, sir." says Acting Pretend Secretary King. "I'll get back out there and rattle my sabres some more." Too bad for him. I'm pretty sure the parents of the Opt Out movement don't scare that easily.
Newsday reports that the state has received and replied to a letter similar to the one that went out in October, suggesting that they sure could hold up some Title I funds if the state doesn't get its participation rate above 95%. Depending on the reports you read, NY's participation rate in last year's BS Testing was in the neighborhood of 80%.
Newsday reports that the USED says it will take "appropriate" action, and that such action could involve withholding funds, threatening to withhold funds, or talking about threatening to consider withholding funds. So take that, New York.
Newsday also reports that USED offers advice on how to coerce participation rates; it is typical of the department that all suggestions involve threats of some sort of punishment, from withholding aid to counting all non-participating students as non-proficient (because the test data is really really important, but it's okay to completely pollute the data pool with made-up scores).
[Update: Since I originally wrote this piece, somebody found me a copy of the actual letter. Read for yourself-- it's as bad as Newsday reports.]
In this context, High Education Commissioner Elia's actions to improve test participation actually look pretty canny. They are kind of ridiculous and seem unlikely to convince anybody of anything. But they do mean that when New York participation rates some in way below 95% next year, she can turn to Acting Pretend Education Secretary John King, shrug her shoulders, and say, "What do you want? We totally tried to get rates up."
At that point the USED will have to decide if it has the balls to cut New York's funding, a level of ballsiness that has not previously been displayed, ever. John King couldn't face the parents of New York when he worked there, and he couldn't face members of Congress in DC when he wanted to work there. Is he willing to stand up to all those folks and not back down when he's cutting a billion dollars from NY's budget?
This seems particularly improbable in the face of the new ESSA, which specifically recognizes the rights of parents to opt out of BS Testing, and gives states the right to decide what the punishment for non-compliance will be. Check out this handy FairTest guide "Why You Can Boycott Standardized Tests Without Fear of Federal Penalties to Your School" for more details.
Meanwhile, New York has a moratorium on counting BS Tests for student or teacher evaluation, making the tests a true waste of everybody's time and sharply reducing the possibility that the tests will measure anything at all other than the likelihood that bored students involved in pointless tasks will amuse themselves by playing ACDC on a standardized test.
The really big question here is-- why is the federal government doing this? Seriously? Why does the federal government have such a burning desire to have all students take the BS Tests? What use does the federal government have for the data generated by the tests? What policy decisions are going to be informed by test results? What part of the public good is threatened by children who don't take the test? If few US students take their local BS Test, so what? What bad thing happens because they don't?
The most cynical part of me says that none of those questions matter, that the feds promised test manufacturers a good, solid hold on a huge testing market, and they are doing their best to live up to the bargain they made. "Where are my customers," bark Pearson et al.
"I'm sorry, sir." says Acting Pretend Secretary King. "I'll get back out there and rattle my sabres some more." Too bad for him. I'm pretty sure the parents of the Opt Out movement don't scare that easily.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Context Does Not Absolve Clinton
Well, that was quick.
After the interwebs blew up with Clinton's ill-considered comment about closing below-average schools, Lauren Camera leapt up at US News to say, "Oh, no. Y'all just misunderstood. It was taken out of context."
I had read the original context when I first responded to her comment. It doesn't help.
The context is that she was discussing how Iowa's governor was crushing rural schools by starving them of necessary resources. She was discussing Iowa's wacky laws about not allowing school district deficits. And then she said this:
This school district and these schools throughout Iowa are doing a better than average job. Now I wouldn't keep any school open that wasn't doing a better than average job. If a school is not doing a good job then, you know, that may not be good for the kids, but when you have a district that is doing a good job it seems kind of counterproductive to impose financial burdens on it.
It is true that she did not suggest, as some slightly hyperventilating reports might have implied, that if elected President, she would make it policy to close all below average schools (i.e. slightly more than half the schools in the country). I will give her that much.
However, that doesn't change what was boneheaded about her comment.
Yes, it was an off-the-cuff comment. But if that's the comment that comes off her cuff, I have serious doubts about how well she understands the situation.
Clinton did NOT say, "If there are schools that are performing poorly, then the state should look hard at whether those schools and the communities they serve are getting the resources they need." That kind of comment would have fit perfectly in the context of the financial issues she was discussing. But she didn't say that. The context actually makes this part seem worse, because she skipped right over the financial issues that she was actually talking about.
Clinton used "below average" as shorthand for low-performing, which indicates a lack of understanding of exactly how schools end up tagged low-performing, and how the stack ranking of schools is pernicious, inaccurate, and guaranteed to always result in schools labeled low-performing (and for that matter, what "below average" really means). The use of false, inaccurate and just-plain-crappy measures to label schools and teachers as successes or failures is central to what's going on in education reform. If she doesn't understand that, she doesn't understand some of the most fundamental problems we're facing.
Clinton's glib use of "wouldn't keep any school open" shows a limited understanding of just what is involved in "closing" a school. What happens to staff? What happens to students? What happens to the community? Clinton shows no awareness of how huge a task she's glibly suggesting, nor does she suggest that there are other options that should be considered long before this nuclear option, which should be at the bottom of the list.
No, I don't think Clinton telegraphed some sort of legislative intent or policy plan. But I do think she opened a window to the bad, incorrect, and damaging assumptions that she carries into her consideration of education. And because of her long and cozy history with privatizers like the Waltons, those bad assumptions are especially troubling.
So, yes, I considered the context, and no, Clinton doesn't deserve a pass on this one. She said a really, really dumb thing. And it is just as dumb in context.
After the interwebs blew up with Clinton's ill-considered comment about closing below-average schools, Lauren Camera leapt up at US News to say, "Oh, no. Y'all just misunderstood. It was taken out of context."
I had read the original context when I first responded to her comment. It doesn't help.
The context is that she was discussing how Iowa's governor was crushing rural schools by starving them of necessary resources. She was discussing Iowa's wacky laws about not allowing school district deficits. And then she said this:
This school district and these schools throughout Iowa are doing a better than average job. Now I wouldn't keep any school open that wasn't doing a better than average job. If a school is not doing a good job then, you know, that may not be good for the kids, but when you have a district that is doing a good job it seems kind of counterproductive to impose financial burdens on it.
It is true that she did not suggest, as some slightly hyperventilating reports might have implied, that if elected President, she would make it policy to close all below average schools (i.e. slightly more than half the schools in the country). I will give her that much.
However, that doesn't change what was boneheaded about her comment.
Yes, it was an off-the-cuff comment. But if that's the comment that comes off her cuff, I have serious doubts about how well she understands the situation.
Clinton did NOT say, "If there are schools that are performing poorly, then the state should look hard at whether those schools and the communities they serve are getting the resources they need." That kind of comment would have fit perfectly in the context of the financial issues she was discussing. But she didn't say that. The context actually makes this part seem worse, because she skipped right over the financial issues that she was actually talking about.
Clinton used "below average" as shorthand for low-performing, which indicates a lack of understanding of exactly how schools end up tagged low-performing, and how the stack ranking of schools is pernicious, inaccurate, and guaranteed to always result in schools labeled low-performing (and for that matter, what "below average" really means). The use of false, inaccurate and just-plain-crappy measures to label schools and teachers as successes or failures is central to what's going on in education reform. If she doesn't understand that, she doesn't understand some of the most fundamental problems we're facing.
Clinton's glib use of "wouldn't keep any school open" shows a limited understanding of just what is involved in "closing" a school. What happens to staff? What happens to students? What happens to the community? Clinton shows no awareness of how huge a task she's glibly suggesting, nor does she suggest that there are other options that should be considered long before this nuclear option, which should be at the bottom of the list.
No, I don't think Clinton telegraphed some sort of legislative intent or policy plan. But I do think she opened a window to the bad, incorrect, and damaging assumptions that she carries into her consideration of education. And because of her long and cozy history with privatizers like the Waltons, those bad assumptions are especially troubling.
So, yes, I considered the context, and no, Clinton doesn't deserve a pass on this one. She said a really, really dumb thing. And it is just as dumb in context.
AZ: Creationist Charterista Now Head of Senate Ed Committee
Arizona Senate President Andy Biggs has named Senator Sylvia Allen to lead the education committee. This is not good news for public education.
Allen has had a colorful career. She is a Senator because a man fell off a horse. Twice.
Before she arrived in the capitol, she held down a number of jobs, including county supervisor. It was in that job that she was slapped for interfering with an investigation into her son-in-law's misbehavior as a detention officer with female inmates. After becoming a senator, she filed a bill to make it harder to investigate detention officers.
But her legislative career has featured other highlights. In a hearing about some uranium legislation, Allen made the observation that the earth has only been here for 6,000 years (and has done great without environmental regulation, so why start now). That was 2009. In 2013 she hit facebook with a post saying, "Never mind about global warming. What about those chem trails behind planes dropping mind control drugs on all of us."
More recently, Allen offered support for a concealed carry law because the country needs a moral rebirth. Wouldn't it be great, she mused, if we could make church attendance mandatory? It's an interesting thought from a Mormon who has perhaps forgotten that once upon a time, the US sent soldiers to settle religious differences with Joseph Smith using the barrels of the many guns.
The new head of the education committee never went to college, but she did help found a charter school. George Washington Academy is located in her home town of Snowflake.
Democrat Senator Steve Farley doesn't seem too worried. "She's made some interesting comments to the public, but it's not like she's going to be teaching," he said. "We have accredited teachers for that."
Well, perhaps. Although the rules for who gets to be accredited can certainly be rewritten by the legislature. Perhaps to weed out those who don't attend church, or who don't believe in the proper age of the earth. Farley may feel okay. I'm just feeling okay that I don't teach in Arizona.
Allen has had a colorful career. She is a Senator because a man fell off a horse. Twice.
Before she arrived in the capitol, she held down a number of jobs, including county supervisor. It was in that job that she was slapped for interfering with an investigation into her son-in-law's misbehavior as a detention officer with female inmates. After becoming a senator, she filed a bill to make it harder to investigate detention officers.
But her legislative career has featured other highlights. In a hearing about some uranium legislation, Allen made the observation that the earth has only been here for 6,000 years (and has done great without environmental regulation, so why start now). That was 2009. In 2013 she hit facebook with a post saying, "Never mind about global warming. What about those chem trails behind planes dropping mind control drugs on all of us."
More recently, Allen offered support for a concealed carry law because the country needs a moral rebirth. Wouldn't it be great, she mused, if we could make church attendance mandatory? It's an interesting thought from a Mormon who has perhaps forgotten that once upon a time, the US sent soldiers to settle religious differences with Joseph Smith using the barrels of the many guns.
The new head of the education committee never went to college, but she did help found a charter school. George Washington Academy is located in her home town of Snowflake.
Democrat Senator Steve Farley doesn't seem too worried. "She's made some interesting comments to the public, but it's not like she's going to be teaching," he said. "We have accredited teachers for that."
Well, perhaps. Although the rules for who gets to be accredited can certainly be rewritten by the legislature. Perhaps to weed out those who don't attend church, or who don't believe in the proper age of the earth. Farley may feel okay. I'm just feeling okay that I don't teach in Arizona.
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