PA: Gutting Teacher Sick Leave

In Pennsylvania, while folks were busy working to head off the appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, the State Senate's education committee was passing a bill to strip sick and bereavement leave from teachers (as well as sabbatical leave).

SB 229 is a re-introduction of SB 584 from the previous session. It would end the state requirement for a minimum number of sick and bereavement days to be given to each teacher. All such days would become subject to local contract negotiation, which means a local district could provide down to and including zero sick days or zero bereavement days or neither or both. The requirement to allow sabbaticals would be stricken entirely.

The bill won approval of the committee by a 7-5 vote on Tuesday. 

The sponsor of the bill is Senator John H. Eichelberger, an insurance broker who represents-- well, the only way to explain his district is to show the map.

That's our Senate District 30.

Ain't no gerrymander like a Pennsylvania gerrymander

Eichelberger is a Republican upstart who was swept into office on the wave of voter anger over the infamous late-night pay raise of 2005. He was supported by an assortment of conservatives including Pat Toomey.

GOP legislators propose the bill in order to push fairness and flexibility.

See, the flexibility would allow-- well, there's only one sort of flexibility that could be involved, because districts can already negotiate or simply give sick and bereavement days over and above those required by the state. So the only flexibility we could really be talking about is the flexibility to give teachers fewer sick days and/or fewer bereavement days. Because if there's one problem we have in schools, it's teachers who have too many dead relatives and who spend too much time feeling sad about it. Just toss Grandma in the ground after supper and get back to school the next day. Be less sick.

Sen. John DiSanto, R-Dauphin County, thinks this is a benefit for teachers. "It gives them the opportunity to negotiate these costs ... and allow for benefits that are more meaningful in other areas." Which again can only mean giving up sick days in order to get something else. Want better health care or more pay? Then negotiate away your ability to get sick or grieve a family member. Yes, the flexibility to get less is clearly a benefit for teachers.

But Eichelberger also sees a fairness issue. And by "fairness," he means that old favorite argument-- somebody else doesn't get this so teachers shouldn't, either. This is part of the great American Worker Race to the Bottom in which all non-wealthy folks are supposed to be losing and teachers are supposed to be leading the pack.  And the only flexibility that matters is the flexibility of employers to provide employees with less and less and less.

No, call it what you like-- this is a move to strip teachers of sick and bereavement leave. Oh, yeah-- and no more sabbaticals, ever.

Meanwhile, throughout the US, legislators remained too busy praising the importance of family and The Children to do anything about our standing as the country with literally the worst maternity leave policies in the world. 

What About Rural Charters

In a recent panel discussion, Nine Rees, the head honcho of the National Alliance of Public [sic] Charter Schools observed that "It is actually quite hard to expand charter schools in a lot of rural communities because there's no political base of support for those kinds of changes." And then she was on to other stuff (I'm working my way through that video and will have commentary on the whole thing some day, soon).

But I think that's a statement worth examining, both because I'm in a small town/rural community, and because that lack of a rural political base tells us something about the problems of the modern charter movement.

Part of the rural charter problem isn't political support at all-- it's market. My district, for example, has roughly 150 students per grade level, which means that there's not a lot of market here to tap. A charter would have to really hustle to round up enough students to make business sense, and certainly compared to a customer-rich urban environment it's a tough challenge. On top of that, those few students are spread out geographically, and while the "Getting the kid to school is the parents' problem" may fly in urban districts, out here, folks expect schools to provide transportation. Want to figure out the costs of sending a school bus an extra thirty miles every day to pick up one kid? Why try to set up your ice cream stand at a remote Antarctic outpost when you can set it up on a busy street corner in Miami?

But there's also a lack of political support because of the money.

A big urban district is swimming in so much money that we can shuffle some around and it may not be super-obvious how much money was lost when a charter opened. It's significant, and it's damaging, but it's also hard for the average citizen to notice or track.

But in rural areas, money is already stretched tight, and while a loss of a half million dollars is a minor inconvenience in big districts, in a small rural district it can be crippling.

We do have one kind of charter in rural areas of PA-- cyber-charters. And they are hurting us. A few dozen students gone to cybers don't make the slightest difference in district expenses, but they cost the district a half-million dollars and that has translated into program cuts and closed buildings (there is also an impact in PA from the mismanagement of the pension fund). It is not hard for even the least attentive taxpayer to follow this conversation:

Taxpayer: Why did you close our elementary school?

School board: We needed to save a half a million dollars. Also, in other news, this year we had to pay half a million dollars out to cyber schools.

Charter schools hurt public schools. Charter schools drain resources from public schools, resources that they need to maintain their current level of service. In big busy setting, with lots of numbers and schools and students flying about, it's possible to generate enough smoke and mirrors to obscure that simple fact, but in a rural area, it is not.

Granted, it doesn't have to be true. States could choose to say to taxpayers, "We can have charter schools, but we'll have to raise school taxes to pay for them." So far, no politician seems interested in making that pitch.

There are other reasons that rural areas are not ripe charter markets. For instance, rural schools identify pretty strongly with their communities. Pennsylvania is a prime example. We have about 500 school districts which is, honestly, nuts. There should be fewer. But every time anyone starts a conversation about merging districts, there is a prodigious amount of noise about community and heritage and tradition and why students don't want to stop being a Humbletown Husky in order to become a Vistaville Viking.

Nor do I see taxpayers wanting to trade a school board run by neighbors that you see in the store, talk to at church, yell at at a public board meeting, or just call on the phone with whatever is bugging you about the schools-- well, who would wants to trade that for a board of strangers that meet in secret in some other city?

There is no mystery in why charters have not been driven to pursue rural markets, and there's no mystery in why rural communities lack the political motivation to pursue modern charter businesses. But it's important to remember that there isn't anything wrong with rural charters that isn't also wrong with charters in every other location.

Beyond Tuesday

It's late Monday night. I've finished firing off today's set of e-mails and vented some general internet outrage (because, you know, a well-turned tweet from a small town English teacher is totally going to shift the American conversation). And I think I'm settled for tomorrow.

Look, sooner or later one of two things is going to happen. Betsy DeVos is going to be confirmed as Secretary of Education, or she's not. One of those is far more likely than the other, but in both cases, we need to be prepared for what comes next.

The far-less-likely possibility is that she will be defeated and rejected, and that will be a good thing, but if it happens, the next thing that will happen is that Herr Trump will nominate someone else, and that person will be terrible. It might seem like an improvement because it may just be garden variety terrible and not burn-down-the-world terrible. But any education nominee out of this administration is going to be terrible. But still-- remember that Eva Moskowitz and She Who Will Not Be Named (former DC chancellor) were both reportedly considered, and both would suck hugely.

So if far-less-likely option occurs, we are going to have one more terrible Secretary of Education. We will have to do some loin girding and battening of hatches, and we will have to get back to the business of teaching in the storm, dancing into the apocalypse.

The far-more-likely possibility is that she will be confirmed. It is possible that some set of GOP senators will blink, but in case you haven't noticed, DC is not exactly awash in bold vertebrate behavior right now.

If DeVos is confirmed, you're going to hear a lot about how this was a big defeat for teachers and Democrats, a big victory for the Trumpsters. "tsk tsk," they'll say. Or maybe "Neener neener." Followed by, "Look at all the money and effort they wasted."

Do not believe it. The people who say that will be wrong.

Speaking up for what is right, speaking up for what you value, speaking up for the institutions that helped make this country great-- those actions are never wasted.

It is brutish, short-term foolishness to believe that effort is only well-spent when you get your way. It is a position of moral and ethical emptiness to assert that the only efforts and expressions that matter are those that end in victory. "If I don't get my way, then all my work was wasted," is the reasoning of a five-year-old.

You stand up and speak for what is right because that's what a functioning moral being does. You stand up for the people and choices and values and country that you value because to not do so is moral cowardice, spiritual and intellectual laziness.

It is, in fact, childish in the extreme to believe that every time you speak your truth, the world must stop and reorganize itself to revolve around it. But if you don't speak your truth, nobody can hear it. If you don't stand for something, nobody can stand up with you.

The whole business is much like teaching itself. Every day in the classroom we make choices about what to say, what to do, how to interact with students. Some of what we do will vanish into the depths of time without leaving a trace on a single brain or heart. Some of what we do will absolutely alter the trajectory of some student. If you have taught for more than a decade, you have had the experience of talking to an old student who shares something you did that was absolutely life-altering for them-- and you have no memory of it at all.

Point is, going forward, you never know which choices will be earth-shattering and which will simply vanish into the dusts of time. So you have to make each choice the best you can, choosing as if each choice is one that will change someone's world. You make the best choices you can because that's how you become the best person you can be. The alternative is to live like some kind of morally stunted troll who tries to say or do whatever will make them feel as if they've won, no matter what that victory costs in integrity and decency. You can win with that approach-- hell, you can apparently become President-- but you will live as a hollow, empty, shitty human being who walked past a million chances to do something right and ignored them all.

So you stand up for what is right because there is value in being the kind of person who stands up for what is right, whether you win the day or not.

No matter what happens next, the effort to oppose DeVos (and all the other acts of resistance that are going on in the cavalcade of giant whalloping wrongness parading out of DC) will not be a waste. It won't be a defeat, either, because as we've been learning anew over the past decade, you never cross the finish line for Important Stuff. The work of defending the promise of public education is a marathon, not a sprint, and there is no finish line.

This has, in fact, been a big surprise to the Trumpkins, who seemed certain that once they won, all their opponents would just shut up and go away and let them blunder on in peace. But no-- we're all still here.

There is no ultimate victory, and there is no final defeat. Not as long as you stand back up.

And we will still be here the days beyond Tuesday. This DeVos business is just a blip in the race; it may tell us what route the marathon will follow next, but it won't end the race, and when they look around, we'll be right there, and you can bet that regardless of who is out in front at the moment, the great galloping pack of us force them to think about how to take their next steps.

And here's one of the most important secrets of all-- standing up for what is right creates its own sort of vigor and strength, while standing up for a lie, for what is wrong, for what is shallow and self-serving is exhausting work. I don't say this lightly-- I have lived my life badly, and it was absolutely draining and toxic and burdensome. Trying to live well for what is right-- that takes years off your life, weight off your shoulders. Trust me on this one. It is our advantage in the long haul.

So grab a breath. Get a cool glass of water. Shake the dust off your shoes.

And most of all, remember that as large as all this seems to loom, the real work still goes on in teh classroom, with the young humans that are our charges, and for day after day after day they will present themselves to us and we will meet their needs to the best of our ability. We will stand up for them, for what they need, for who they are, for who they can become, and as we will stand for them through this lousy Secretary of Education just as we have through the lousy Secretaries of Education who came before them. We will stand up through injustice and inequity and neglect and ugly empty foolishness. We will stand in that classroom, and we will show them how it's done.

Beyond Tuesday there is a whole world of opportunity for us, a whole sprawling world of what can be and could be and should be, and we may not always fight our way through the obstacles in our path, but it's still all there, and the appointment of a bunch of government functionaries doesn't change that. I will step back into my classroom, and I will look at those faces, and I will feel better for having stood up, and then I will move forward on whatever path is laid out for me next.

This is neither the end or the beginning, and there is still a world of work to do out there beyond Tuesday. Stand up. Take heart. Breathe deep. Step forward. Here we go.

PAC Makes Final DeVos Push

America Rising is a super PAC created by Republicans back in 2013 when the RNC determined that they needed a group that did "nothing but post inappropriate Democrat utterances and act as a clearinghouse for information on Democrats.” You may remember them as the folks that followed every single Democratic candidate around and taped everything they ever said.

These masters of opposition research have turned their money on Herr Trump's cabinet nominees, and they felt the need to make one last push for Betsy DeVos through their division called America Rising Squared. The weakness of the video underlines the weakness of the nominee.

The spot is thirty seconds long, and it doesn't have much to say.

"If elected, I will not seeeeeerrrvvveeeeeeeee....."

Over a greyed-out image of Beloved Leader, we get the words "Americans sent a clear message." This seems disingenuous at best, since three million more Americans sent the message "I will pick the Democrat-favored Lesser of Two Evils." Because first, Trump lost the popular voe and eked out an electoral college win. And second, all sides should remember that this was the election in which "Earth hit by comet" was a contender. This face-off between the two most unpopular candidates in ever may have done many things, but it was never going to deliver any sort of clear message.

We want to fix what is broken.

Maybe that's supposed to be the message?But no-- I think it's supposed to be a lead-in to the next sentence, which arrives over a big picture if Randi Weingarten speaking in front of a crowd in front of a garish screen with her name, her title, and "working Americans."

But Senate Democrats are taking orders from the BIG UNION allies

As a dues-paying NEA member, I'm wondering why MY president isn't up there looking like an evil embodiment of those terrible, terrible unions. Why isn't Lily scarier?

And then over images of Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer looking dangerous/deranged

Playing politics as usual

We are fourteen seconds in and DeVos makes her first appearance.

Blocking nominations like Betsy DeVos

Exactly which nominations have they blocked? Because the last time I checked, Senate Democrats were mostly disappointing their constituents by being less resistant than overcooked linguini in a hurricane.

I will give them credit for one thing-- their next photo of DeVos is one that we haven't all seen or used a hundred times. In this one, she's sitting in a rocking chair in front of a bunch of tykes, smiling with a book on her lap. See! See!! She's in a school!

Betsy DeVos knows what it takes 

Now some moving pictures of smiling, happy children

so that every American child has a chance to achieve their destiny

And now we're back to that shot of DeVos and Beloved Leader standing on the steps in front of the door. Man. Mike Pence is greyed out, behind an overlay (you might even call it a visual curtain) on which is displayed

Call your senator * (202)224-3121  Confirm Betsy DeVos

And that's it. That's the whole message:

Americans sent a clear message. We want to fix what is broken. But Senate Democrats are taking orders from the BIG UNION allies. Playing politics as usual. Blocking nominations like Betsy DeVos.
Betsy DeVos knows what it takes so that every American child has a chance to achieve their destiny.  Call your senator * (202)224-3121  Confirm Betsy DeVos

That's it. This message is running on social media in key-ish states. That's the argument. Never mind that DeVos is inexperienced in education, has no experience running a large, complex organization, has no experience in politics beyond purchasing compliance, has shown disregard for students with special needs, didn't know basic education policy issues at her hearing, made a hash out of Detroit and Michigan, and has generally shown no qualifications except being a major contributor to the GOP.

But all that's okay, because she "knows what it takes."

Not that the spot even hints at what that might be. Maybe this is such weak sauce because it looks like, barring some sort of actual comet impact on DC, DeVos will be confirmed (however, still contact your senator because you never know, and doing nothing is not a useful option). But if this is the best counterargument that DeVos supporters can muster-- well, it's just further evidence that she deserves to be shot down and replaced by just about anybody else on the planet.

Friedrichs At It Again

You remember Rebecca Friedrichs. She had a whole lawsuit named after her in which she was the face of union-busting in California. That case stalled when Justice Scalia died and the GOP decided that they would keep the court stuck with eight justices for almost a year (yes, that would be the same GOP that says only dirty rotten America-haters would obstruct a Presidential appointment).

But Rebecca "I'm Not Anti-Union I'm Just Drawn That Way" Friedrich has found other fun things to do, like record a video for Prager University entitled "Why Good Teachers Want School Choice." (Spoiler alert: to stick it to those evil unions). If you want to see the current version of the choice argument in action, this clip is for you.

Teachers' unions? Let's kill them with fire.

Prager University might be best described as an alternative university founded by conservative Dennis Prager and, well, is not so much a university as a library of videos. Many are hosted by semi-famous conservative voices, and none of them are particularly friendly to public education. There are several about choice and charters, but let's just deal with this one today.

What if schools had to compete for students in the same way that businesses have to compete for customers?

That's how Friedrichs, with a kind of sing-songy delivery, opens the video, and while you might be inclined to reply, "Do you mean by marketing based on spin, puffery, half-truths and the occasional flat out lie? Or do you mean by ignoring the larger market and just focusing on the customers you want?" But of course she doesn't mean either of those things.

Well, actually she kind of does, because she;s going to unleash some of those magical alternative facts before we even hit the twenty second mark. Would schools get better or worse with competition. There's no need to guess, she assures us, "because in almost every state and city where there's competition today, educational outcomes improve."

Now, I have to warn you-- if you expect a Prager University video to back up its claims with actual research or facts or even, in some cases, specifics, you will be disappointed. Does she mean that test scores (because that's all we mean by "educational outcomes"-- just scores on a standardized math and reading test) improve for everyone in the entire city? Because that would be some Grade A Made Up Alternative Factage. Does she mean that scores improve in the charter/choice schools? Because there's very little support for that and, honestly, it ought to be true. Given the chance to choose their student body, charters ought to do better. Yet they don't. It's almost as if charter operators don't know anything about education that public schools don't already know.

See, Friedrichs explains, under the old model, the government-- not the parent-- decides which school the student will attend. But with school choice, the money follows the student. Doesn't that sound great? At this point, Friedrich's voice motivated me to look up what she used to teach. Sure enough-- twenty-some years as an elementary teacher, which may explain why it seems as if she's pitching this video to six-year-olds.

At any rate, parents can direct their money to public, private, charter or home school (one bonus point for not trying to claim that charters are public schools). We're going to skip over the question of whether or not it's school choice when the school gets to tell the parents whether or not their child can attend there.

She will now cite a University of Arkansas study that shows choice students getting better reading and math scores. We're going to skip over the study that showed Louisiana voucher students did worse at new schools, or Ohio vouchers are used mostly to segregate schools, or the uncountable number of choice systems that allow huge graft and fraud.

[Update: To see how badly she misrepresents the research, check out this piece from Jersey Jazzman.]

Sounds like something we should get behind, doesn't it? 

But Friedrichs wants us to know that in some states, like her home state of California, school choice is not a choice. And can you guess the "one reason why"?

Teachers' unions.

Now she will relitigate her case. She was a teacher for 28 years, and a union person for part of that, so she's seen it all. California teachers are coerced to pay dues to the teachers' union. This is another alternative fact, as California, like most states, allows unions to charge a fee for non-members since those non-members still enjoy the benefits of negotiated contract and unions must represent all teachers who need it, members or not. But let's not rehash that whole mess again-- bottom line is that all the holes in her case are still right there.

But Friedrichs is now adding on to her argument-- the unions collect a ton of money, and they use that money to lobby the government for more money for public education. Those bastards.

That might sound good, but it's really just a smokescreen.

And Friedrichs shakes her head sadly for that part. Poor, sad, stupid public, duped into thinking public education is a good thing. Let her set you straight.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, school enrollment has gone up 5% since 1970. That's a true thing; so is the fact that education spending as a percentage of GDP has stayed pretty static. But Friedrichs isn't going to mention that; instead she wants you to know that staffing has gone up 95%. Now, you might think this is because we have dramatically increased our attempts to actually teach students with special needs instead of warehousing them, or that more complicated rules and regulations mean more office employees. But don't you believe it-- it's just the teachers' unions getting greedy because "more public school employment mean more dues for the unions."

But it doesn't mean better schools, because California is 45th in the nation in reading and math and they spend billions of dollars.

And yet rarely is anyone held accountable for those dismal results.

I thought maybe she would now tell us about her twenty-eight years of being wracked with guilt for her crappy job teaching, but I guess that's not where we're headed. She's personally seen awesome beginning teachers lose their jobs while some crappy veteran teacher kept their job because of tenure and FILO.

For these reasons and more, parents almost always prefer school choice when allowed to choose.

Yes, parents want school choice because they want to stick it to the unions. That "and more" covers an awful lot of ground, but I am more curious about all those regions where school choice has emptied out public schools entirely because, after all, parents almost always prefer school choice. So in the many, many areas where school choice is a thing, public schools were instantly deserted, right? Right? No-- because where choice happens it takes deliberately starving the public schools of resources or getting them all flattened by a natural disaster to actually drive the majority of parents into charters.

Rich parents always get to choose private schools, and so do middle class and poor parents, she says. And "the real giveaway" is that teachers send their kids out of public schools "when given the choice," which is a cool statistic that will not be backed up by any factual support.

So why are choice schools better?

Because teachers at these schools are free from the union's stifling work rules.

Darn right. Teachers want to be free to work eighty hour weeks and get less pay and not have to worry about job security, but those damned unions. "In short, they're free to teach" says Friedrichs, although she didn't give the "in long" version of her point because there isn't one.

"Administrators in these schools can reward good teachers and fire bad ones." Of course, any public school system can fire the bad ones. And "reward good teachers" is another way to say "withhold decent pay from everyone else."  So I'm not impressed.

But we're back on unions, who don't like school choice because it means less power and money (she perhaps didn't get the "flush with cash" memo). I think we can all agree that teachers went into the business for the power and money.

Unions, she says, will say or do anything to stop choice, often by backing particular candidates, which I guess is another thing that only rich people are supposed to get to do. Unions also appear on tv with "sweet-sounding commercials." Those duplicitous bastards-- trying to act as if they actually care about children!

Friedrichs and some unnamed colleagues tried to reform the unions from within, but realized it wasn't possible to convince the union to curl up and die, and so she went to the Supremes. Her current version of her case is that teachers should be free to not join the union free of fear or coercion, which is ironic since its fear and coercion exerted on teachers that fueled the whole union thing in the first place. Friedrich's lost because of a 4-4 tie, which is another way of saying that she lost in the lower court and couldn't get the Supremes to overturn that decision.

Friedrichs still has hope because government and unions don't have the power-- "We do!"

I'm actually inclined to believe that Friedrich's we has some power, because that "we" apparently includes ALEC, where she has her shiny own page these days. She's left the classroom to better pursue her career as a perky union-busting mascot for the biggest bunch of profiteers around. And to think she finds it offensive that teachers' unions try to influence legislators- compared to ALEC's network of high rollers and well-greased legislators, teacher lobbying is bush league.

But if you believe that parents and not the government should choose where children go to school, and competition will make schools better, well, then, she has a bridge she's like to sell you. But first, join the School Choice Movement, and take the pledge (about 11,000 people have, which given that at least 350,000 have viewed the video is not a great rate of return). "We can have good schools for all children," she says, ignoring the fact that no free market sector has worked on the premise that a good or service should be provided to every single person.

Friedrich's signs herself out as a "mother and California public school teacher" which is sort of true, though her children are full-grown and she's out of the classroom these days. But if you want to check my work and get your dander up, go ahead and watch this clip yourself-- just grab your blood pressure medication first.

OR: Protecting the Tests

Oregon has a law-- House Bill 2713-- that directs their Secretary of State to conduct an audit of "use of statewide summative assessment in public schools in this state." It's an audacious, wacky move-- don't just implement the Big Standardized Test, but actually check back and do some studies to see if it's a big waste of money or not.

The audit was actually released back in September of 2016, to what appears to be not very much fanfare or attention. I ran across it only because of an op-ed published earlier this week.So this is definitely Not Breaking News. But I'm always intrigued when  a state actually bothers to see if their reformy measures are doing any good or not, and Oregon has just started out with the Smarter Balanced Assessment folks, so I've decided to take a look at the report.

Here are some of the findings:

The new tests are more expensive. In 2013-2104, Oregon shelled out $5.2 million to run the statewide Big Standardized Test. In 2014-2015, that leapt up to $10.2 million.$8.2 million was for the test and the scoring thereof. $1.8 was for "membership fees." Who knew that belonging to the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium was like belonging to a really fancy country club? Also, the assertion is out there that this is a lowball-- it does not account for the inhouse costs for Department of Ed supervision and administration of the test.

The audit declares that "statewide results are a measure of school performance" They say that "organizations" that use test results to "facilitate learning and improvement" can "deliver better outcomes." This is all part of using "measurement information" as part of a "broader performance management framework," and a lot of other baloney that come straight from corporate management consultant boilerplate.

But the audit noted that some people have concerns about the testing, like " how certain student populations experience the test." Or all the time lost to testing. Many of the folks surveyed had some thoughts about how to improve the whole business.Yeah, I'll bet they did.

Having said that, the audit goes on to say that "the test benefits and purposes are not always clear." People who thought they knew what the test is for gave conflicting answers. Parents want to know what the test is for. Teachers want to know why they're mandated to give a test that has no use for the classroom.

Can you guess what the audit's response to that widespread understanding that the BS Test is a purposeless waste? Of course you can-- "The department could clarify its message about the purpose of the test and take a more active communications role." We saw the same thing back when Common Core was still fighting for its zombie half-life. When your product is a dud and everyone is telling you it's a dud and it's proving it's a dud by failing to do any of the things you said it was going to do, why, then you have a PR problem, and you just need to sell your dud of a product harder.

Oh, and then there's this finding:

Smarter Balanced results are not consistently used in ways that provide clear benefits to everyone. 

Yes, we remember this from Common Core as well-- the product is great but you're implementing it all wrong.

Survey respondents identified current and potential limitations to using data, such as untimely results, uncertainty about how to use results, different skill levels in interpreting data, and a lack of complimentary resources. 

The committee forgot to include "the data does not actually represent any useful insights into student knowledge or instruction."

The report slips in one suggestion-- perhaps we need more assessment. "Comprehensive assessment systems" would provide more data, and therefor be more wonderful. We could throw in common state-level formative and interim assessments on top of the summative ones, and just standardized test the little buggers all the time. In fact, the SBA folks offer just such a larger testing package, just in case you're worried they're not getting enough Oregon tax dollars yet.

The audit also notes that a lot of folks think the test receives "too much emphasis." That may be because some folks feel there "are not clear benefits to the students and educators most affected by the test..."

Our next subheading signals that the audit committee will now drive directly toward the weeds.

The test demands more time and depth of knowledge

And once we've set our weedward course, the audit can start saying foolish things like "Because it assesses critical thinking and problem‐solving skills required by the Common Core State Standards..." which a clause without a single True Thing in it. The test does not assess critical thinking and problem-solving skills and neither does any other standardized test out there. That's okay, because the Common Core does not require any of those higher order thinky skills, anyway.

The test does require a bunch of time, though. For ELA testing, most grades require more than three hours, while the math test takes up five or six. Would we make it longer?

Understandably, with so much time invested in the test, many are interested in receiving individual students’ results. In order to offer those results in detail, the test must ask more questions of each student, making it longer. A shorter test, focused solely on the health of the system, would provide less precise individual results.

Got that. The SBA test cannot tell you anything valuable about your individual student, meaning that all the bunk about using the test to determine whether your child is on track for college, or teachers using it as a diagnostic test to see what Chris needs to be taught-- that was all, in fact, bunk. The test we've got actually focuses "on the health of the system" which means God knows what.

Anyway, parents stop asking for meaningful results for your specific kid. It's not going to happen. Quick-- somebody get a PR guy in here.

There were plenty of challenges with test administration. Turns out that when every student has to take the BS Test on a computer but you only have so many computers in the building that work it all turns into a huge mess that even better PR wouldn't solve. One quoted administrator noted that the school computer lab was tied up with testing from March through June. Notes the audit wryly, "We heard that having at least one computer for every student can be helpful."

Also test preparation and administration may have reduced available instruction time. May have. Or instructional time may have been reduced by localized time dilation fields. Or test preparation and administration actually increased instruction time by unleashing the power of black holes. Or maybe SBA tests come with a free time turner. May have??

Hi there! I'm your new testing administrator.

Schools do not always understand test administration guidance or have access to information about best practices.

Well, actually, as I read through the explanation of this section, it doesn't seem like an "understanding" problem so much as a "thinking some of these directives are stupid" problem. Nobody may enter a testing room. Teacher interaction with children testing is limited to "do your best."

Also, the audit has forgotten what it said a page or two back, because this:

The department sets requirements for secure and valid testing to ensure that each student has a fair opportunity to demonstrate his or her abilities... 

We established earlier that these tests will not measure individual student ability. The second half of the sentence reminds us that the school will be judged (and rated and punished) based on these results, and the state wants to be sure they catch all the schools that need to be punished. So let those kids suffer.

The audit also notes that some districts are better prepared than others to take the test. But wait-- isn't the test supposed to measure the school's educational achievement? Why should "prepared for the test" even be a factor-- shouldn't the mere fact of being well-educated be enough to prepare students for a well-designed test?

The audit gives a whole big subheading to Some student populations may experience more negative impacts than others.

For instance, Title I schools (aka poor schools) report they lose a lot of instruction time while trying to do test prep. Also, in high schools, students have the option of doing portfolios to meet Oregon's Essential Skills requirement, which means those students need to take the BS Test like a fish needs a high-powered Harley-Davison.

The audit acknowledges that some students will not be accurately measured by the test, including English Language Learners and students with special needs. You can sit a blind student down at a computer with no modifications to click on answers she can't see, or you can force a student who barely speaks English to take a test in English, but if you think their results tell you anything real, you're delusional. This applies to the student who is functioning below grade level but who must be tested at grade level. This also goes for all the students who are disinclined to bother to try at all on the BS Test.

In other words, a lot of your test result data is junk.

The audit nods to the idea that BS Tests can't fulfill their beloved PR talking point purpose of identifying underserved schools and communities if the data doesn't actually mean anything.

The report comes with a page of recommendations at the end. There are twelve.

1) More PR
2) Check which PR is working and do more of that.
3) Also, more PR directed at parents
4) More guidance for schools on how to use the damn things and PR to make them happier
5) Badger company to get results back faster
6) Look for other data to combine test data with
7) Add more standardized tests more often
8) Badger company to fix all the technical issues
9) Give better advice from state, because that will totally help with scheduling and facilities
10) Actually put in place feedback system so people can let us know about problems
11) Share happy stories about any place this stuff is actually doing some good (aka more PR)
12) Look for "opportunities to reduce individual impacts," or something.

Finally they get to methodology. Many reports like to do this, which is a pain if you're not experienced in this kind of fluffernuttery because you read through forty pages only to discover at the end that the "report" was generated by a chimpanzee using a Ouija board.

This report is a little bit better than the chimp method. Mostly they surveyed people. They surveyed lots of groups, including groups connected to ethnic groups (e.g. Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon), issue-specific groups (e.g. Disability Rights Oregon), the Oregon Education Association, some parent groups, and some reformster outfits that there's no good reason to include (e.g. Stand for Children). Mostly, they involved groups who do not have a track record of really challenging the test, or who are not normally players in the education biz. They interviewed people at the Oregon Department of Education, a department committed to the testing program, so I'm sure they were all about an objective look. They talked to the bosses at Smarter Balanced. They visited six whole public schools. Six! Way to get out there and see how things look on the ground, folks.

The survey was distributed to regular teachers and parents through a government mailing list, the Oregon PTA newsletter and facebook page. Which means that non-parental taxpayers were completely skipped here. 799 parents, a few hundred administrators, and some teachers responded, and the audit concedes there's a response bias built in.

But mostly the report seems to have been built to rearrange a few deck chairs without ever questioning the course of the SS Standardized Test. It's one more example of how to "examine" the testing program and conclude that everything is actually just fine, no large changes needed, maybe increase the PR budget, and do even more testing. The audit does mention that Oregon parents have the choice to opt out of the test; they might want to remember that in a few months.

ICYMI: Has it only been a week edition (1/29)

It is really hard to keep a focus strictly on education these days, and yet tomorrow morning, those of us who teach will be headed back into our classrooms whether the world is burning or not.

Media Consensus on Failing Schools Paved Way for DeVos

Making the case that years of repeating that "everybody knows" how badly schools are failing set us all up for someone like Betsy DeVos.

Channeling My Rage

Mary Holden on finding a way to turn frustration and anger into positive action.

What Taxpayers Should Know About the Public Cost of School Choice

Valerie Strauss and Carol Burris take a look at what school choice really does to public schools.

Can the President Handle the Truth

Yet another excellent response to that ignorant "flush with cash" line

Chris Christie Bashes Teachers, But Now Noone Cares

Jersey Jazzman notes that Christie has returned to his standard fallback in troubled times-- those damned teachers. But this time it's not enough to save his butt.

FaxZero

As our congresspersons make themselves harder and harder to contact (well, harder if you don't have a bunch of money to flash), it's necessary to get more creative. This website will let you send a free fax to your senator without even registering or setting up an account.