I get hugely behind in my podcast listening-- I'm far better at absorbing information through my eyes than my ears, and listening to a full podcast requires a level of attentiveness that I can't always muster. That's unfortunate for me, because every time I finally get around to listening to casts, I end up wishing I'd listened sooner.
Tops on my list of podcast catch-ups is Have You Heard, a cast now in its second season and featuring the team of Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider. Both are long-time knowledgeable observers of the education; Berkshire is one of the best interviewers in the civilized world, and Schneider knows more about the history of education than just about anybody. They share a gentleness and decency that allows them to talk to the most difficult of subjects (check out their conversation with She Who Will Not Be Named)
Their most recent episode is a hugely illuminating look at the world of tax credit scholarships-- one more approach to vouchers that not only allow reformsters to circumvent the law and do some money laundering, but can even result in profit in the bargain.
The episode includes a conversation with Carl Davis of the Institute on Taxation Economic Policy, and Davis provides an explanation that is both easy to follow yet rather alarming. I'm suggesting that you listen to the whole thing, but let me give a short version to whet your appetite.
In most states, laws known as Blaine Amendments (let Schneider explain that whole business to you) make it illegal to give tax dollars to church-related enterprises like, say, a private religious school.
Tax credits are a way around that. Taxpayer Chris owes the state $1,000 in taxes, but once Chris hands that to the state, it would be illegal for the state to give that $1,000 to Wholly Jesus Academy. So Chris gives the $1,000 to WJA Scholarship Fund, the fund gives the $1,000 to the Academy, and the state says, "That's okay, Chris-- you don't have to pay $1,000 in taxes." In fact-- and this is perhaps the most astonishing thing of all, some states give Chris some of the $1,000 back! Chris has now served as the state's bag person by delivering money to a private religious school that the state could not, and in some states, Chris has been paid to do it. This is before we even get into deducting from federal and local taxes.
This is a trick that's popping up in many states (including my own Pennsylvania, where it's known as EITC). The "many states" part is because this is another ALEC-supported idea. Any legislator interested in launching education tax credits can just lift the language from ALEC.
Those are the broad strokes. I encourage you to listen to this podcast in its entirety, because while folks are agitating to keep vouchers from coming in the front door, these neovoucher education tax credits are sauntering in through the kitchen entrance.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Friday, April 7, 2017
Instead
You order your steak dinner, and soon it arrives-- but when you cut into the steak, you discover that rather than medium rare, it is well done without a trace of pink or moisture.
"Chris," you say, because your waitperson's name is Chris, "I'd like to send this back and get a steak done the way I ordered. After all, that's what I paid for."
Chris replies, "No, we don't fix meals around here. We've already spent your money on... other things. But we can offer you some choices instead."
"Choices? I don't want choices. I want what I ordered."
Chris barrels on. "Look. Here's a nice all-twinkie option. Here's a lovely plate of pork cubes. Here's some cucumber soup."
"But I want a nice medium rare steak."
"We don't want to spend our money on fixing your order. We want to offer you choice, instead."
Instead.
That's been the formula over and over again. We want health care that serves all citizens and does so without ruining anyone financially. But the Paul Ryan has told us that he would rather give us choice instead. Instead of the health care we want, we could choose from among several options that we don't want. Instead of the health care we want, we could even choose to go without, which would be better because it would be our choice. Right. Choosing to go without health care instead of having health care would be better, because it would be a choice (in the same way that African-Americans chose to attend HBCUs). Because, frankly, the folks at the top of the pyramid do not want to have to spend a bunch of money to provide health care for Those People. Let them have a choice, instead.
And that's the current administration's idea for education.To people who aren't getting what they want, who aren't getting the public school that they want, who aren't getting equitable support for education in their community, who aren't getting the funding and resources and responsiveness that they want-- well, the reformsters-in-charge don't intend to give these students and families what they want. The reformsters-in-charge are not going to spend the money or time or will or commitment to fix those schools, to turn them into the schools they should be. No, they're going to offer something else, instead.
Instead.
Instead, some students can be admitted to some other schools that may or many not be well-supported, well-funded, well-managed. Students will get a choice, instead, though some of them, like the citizens who "choose" no health insurance at all instead of health insurance that won't meet their needs (because, you know, that's a choice), will choose not to attend schools that won't provide proper support for that student's needs. Some will "choose" not to attend schools where they aren't welcome, and others will "choose" not to attend schools whose application process is unnavigable for their family. Some, of course, will not really get any choice at all, will not be welcomed to any non-public school. But even for them the choice exists.
And that's all that matters. We aren't going to fix your schools, not going to try to get you what you want from them.
Instead, we offer choice. That choice may not result in a quality education. It may not get you what you really want. But at lesat you'll have choice, and that's the important part.
Choice. Not a way to get excellent schools, but a thing to get instead of excellent schools.
Instead.
"Chris," you say, because your waitperson's name is Chris, "I'd like to send this back and get a steak done the way I ordered. After all, that's what I paid for."
Chris replies, "No, we don't fix meals around here. We've already spent your money on... other things. But we can offer you some choices instead."
"Choices? I don't want choices. I want what I ordered."
Chris barrels on. "Look. Here's a nice all-twinkie option. Here's a lovely plate of pork cubes. Here's some cucumber soup."
"But I want a nice medium rare steak."
"We don't want to spend our money on fixing your order. We want to offer you choice, instead."
Instead.
That's been the formula over and over again. We want health care that serves all citizens and does so without ruining anyone financially. But the Paul Ryan has told us that he would rather give us choice instead. Instead of the health care we want, we could choose from among several options that we don't want. Instead of the health care we want, we could even choose to go without, which would be better because it would be our choice. Right. Choosing to go without health care instead of having health care would be better, because it would be a choice (in the same way that African-Americans chose to attend HBCUs). Because, frankly, the folks at the top of the pyramid do not want to have to spend a bunch of money to provide health care for Those People. Let them have a choice, instead.
And that's the current administration's idea for education.To people who aren't getting what they want, who aren't getting the public school that they want, who aren't getting equitable support for education in their community, who aren't getting the funding and resources and responsiveness that they want-- well, the reformsters-in-charge don't intend to give these students and families what they want. The reformsters-in-charge are not going to spend the money or time or will or commitment to fix those schools, to turn them into the schools they should be. No, they're going to offer something else, instead.
Instead.
Instead, some students can be admitted to some other schools that may or many not be well-supported, well-funded, well-managed. Students will get a choice, instead, though some of them, like the citizens who "choose" no health insurance at all instead of health insurance that won't meet their needs (because, you know, that's a choice), will choose not to attend schools that won't provide proper support for that student's needs. Some will "choose" not to attend schools where they aren't welcome, and others will "choose" not to attend schools whose application process is unnavigable for their family. Some, of course, will not really get any choice at all, will not be welcomed to any non-public school. But even for them the choice exists.
And that's all that matters. We aren't going to fix your schools, not going to try to get you what you want from them.
Instead, we offer choice. That choice may not result in a quality education. It may not get you what you really want. But at lesat you'll have choice, and that's the important part.
Choice. Not a way to get excellent schools, but a thing to get instead of excellent schools.
Instead.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Schools Are Symptoms
Schools have always been a visible symptom of whatever has ailed United States society as a whole.
When we explicitly valued mostly only white men, we only educated white boys. When we were resistant to waves of immigrants, we ran parallel school systems for them. And as long as we have been mired in racism that is steeped all the way down into our systems, our schools have displayed the symptoms of the racial divide.
We have occasionally tried to treat the symptoms that manifested in public schools. We made the effort (which in retrospect seems almost charmingly naive) to combat racism by desegregating schools. But in many places that led to segregation just being institutionalized in other ways, like segregation academies and mass firings of black educators. When you only treat symptoms, the disease just keeps finding new ways to manifest itself.
Treating symptoms can be necessary-- if someone has sliced open your major arteries, stemming that blood flow is a big priority. But it's not the solution. Your medical goal is not simply to find something that will staunch the flow, but to stitch up the wounds themselves. Your bigger goal is to get the person with the knife to stop stabbing you.
If you are coughing a lot because of your growing lung cancer, the best medical treatment is not a powerful cough suppressant. If you have an abdominal tumor, the best treatment choice is not a compression belt to hide the swelling.
Nowadays, we face a massive yawning Jupiter-sized gulf between haves and have-nots in this country (check these charts). And so, our school system is a visible symptom of that problem. Rich folks get rich, well-financed schools. Poor folks get run-down, poorly-supported schools. And policy decisions are driven by a bunch of rich folks saying, "Well, I don't want the government taking money out of my wallet to spend educating Those People!" Throughout the country, we have a handful of very rich people who have collected power and money in enormous amounts, while nearby (but not TOO nearby) we have people who are struggling to make ends meet, always just one health crisis or personal crisis away from disaster.
And yet, somehow, we're being sold the notion that it's schools that have the problem.
John Kuhn's quote captures the issue. Schools always reflect the symptoms of society. Those symptoms need to be treated, because our most vulnerable citizens are directly in their path. We have an equity problem in this country, and we have a dismantling-democracy-and-selling-the-pieces-to-private-interests problem as well. These problems infect our health care, our legal system, and, increasingly, our government itself (what else has Trump done except privatize the presidency). Of course they infect our education system as well.
We should always strive to make pubic schools the best expression of our national ideals that we can. But when we have trouble living out those ideals as a country, we cannot be surprised that schools reflect the same problems.
When we explicitly valued mostly only white men, we only educated white boys. When we were resistant to waves of immigrants, we ran parallel school systems for them. And as long as we have been mired in racism that is steeped all the way down into our systems, our schools have displayed the symptoms of the racial divide.
We have occasionally tried to treat the symptoms that manifested in public schools. We made the effort (which in retrospect seems almost charmingly naive) to combat racism by desegregating schools. But in many places that led to segregation just being institutionalized in other ways, like segregation academies and mass firings of black educators. When you only treat symptoms, the disease just keeps finding new ways to manifest itself.
Treating symptoms can be necessary-- if someone has sliced open your major arteries, stemming that blood flow is a big priority. But it's not the solution. Your medical goal is not simply to find something that will staunch the flow, but to stitch up the wounds themselves. Your bigger goal is to get the person with the knife to stop stabbing you.
If you are coughing a lot because of your growing lung cancer, the best medical treatment is not a powerful cough suppressant. If you have an abdominal tumor, the best treatment choice is not a compression belt to hide the swelling.
Nowadays, we face a massive yawning Jupiter-sized gulf between haves and have-nots in this country (check these charts). And so, our school system is a visible symptom of that problem. Rich folks get rich, well-financed schools. Poor folks get run-down, poorly-supported schools. And policy decisions are driven by a bunch of rich folks saying, "Well, I don't want the government taking money out of my wallet to spend educating Those People!" Throughout the country, we have a handful of very rich people who have collected power and money in enormous amounts, while nearby (but not TOO nearby) we have people who are struggling to make ends meet, always just one health crisis or personal crisis away from disaster.
And yet, somehow, we're being sold the notion that it's schools that have the problem.
John Kuhn's quote captures the issue. Schools always reflect the symptoms of society. Those symptoms need to be treated, because our most vulnerable citizens are directly in their path. We have an equity problem in this country, and we have a dismantling-democracy-and-selling-the-pieces-to-private-interests problem as well. These problems infect our health care, our legal system, and, increasingly, our government itself (what else has Trump done except privatize the presidency). Of course they infect our education system as well.
We should always strive to make pubic schools the best expression of our national ideals that we can. But when we have trouble living out those ideals as a country, we cannot be surprised that schools reflect the same problems.
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Rahm's Insane Plan
Just a reminder that it's not just Republicans who have insane ideas about education. Rahm Emanuel, former Obamabro and current mayor of at least some parts of Chicago has unleashed this genius idea, as covered by CBS today:
“We live in a period of time where you earn what you learn,” Emanuel said. “The school system of K through 12 is not applicable to the world and the economy and the world that our high school students are graduating to. So we’re moving to a pre-K to college model.”
Under the proposal, all Chicago Public School students starting with this year’s freshman class would have to show an acceptance letter to a four-year university, a community college, a trade school or apprenticeship, an internship, or a branch of the armed services in order to receive their high school diploma.
That's it-- Choose college, trade school, internship, or military, or else Rahm will hold your diploma hostage.
Janice Jackson, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, pointed out that any student who graduates from CPS is automatically accepted into the City College community college program. So I suppose we could see this not as a draconian, one-size-fits-all intrusion on the lives of young adults and instead see it as a really, really aggressive recruiting program for the City Colleges.
Or maybe just an aggressive recruiting program for Chicagoland charter schools.
My mind is still reeling from trying to compile the full list of life paths that Rahm Emanuel has now declared Not Good Enough.
Steady job that's not a trade? Working musician? Stay-at-home mom? Person who just needs to spend a year or two working at a crappy minimum wage job while they figure out what they want to do next? Manage the family business? All of that and more have passed through my classroom and gone on to successful, productive, happy lives. Are you telling me we shouldn't have given them a diploma because they didn't do what we wanted them to after graduation?
Nor do I imagine for one Chicago Second that wealthy parents whose children are not ready for or aimed at one of these four choices while they are still high school seniors-- those parents are going to say, "Oh, well, then. I guess you don't get a diploma. Them's the breaks." No-- this is one more numbskulled reformy idea that wealthy parents would not tolerate for a single second. Now, there are exemptions for incarcerated students-- maybe there will also be exemptions for trust fund students. This is one more reform aimed at Those People's Children, because Those People's Children really need to be pushed in the correct direction.
Is it valuable and worthwhile for students to be nudged and encouraged to think about life after high school? Absolutely. Should we hold their diploma's hostage unless they comply with our demands for only approved choices in their future-- not only comply with our demands, but do so on our timetable and not theirs?
Demanding that an eighteen year old develop a life plan, right now, this minute, or else, is just rank foolishness. To demand a commitment to that plan, right now, that involves a commitment to give up a year or spend a ton of money or both-- also foolish. And I don't even know how to stop goggling at the idea that people who won't go to college or learn a trade should go become cannon fodder in a foreign land.
But to attach such high stakes is the worst, particularly since three of the four options require someone to accept the student. Is the army not recruiting? Can they not afford a four year college? Do they lack the skills for a trade? And are they not really geared for a path that lead through community college? Well, too bad, because now they have a double strike against them-- no plan yet, and no diploma, either.
And as many commentators have noted, the slashing of guidance counselors from many Chicago schools (not the rich ones, of course) leaves students with even fewer resources to meet this new demand.
Rahm's goal of making education K-14 may or may not be a worthy one, but this is a terrible way to go about it, a method that ignores the diversity both of student talents and the different timelines along which we all grow. This is the kind of paternalistic top-down thinking that gives us, "Well, I think all these kids are making a mistake, so I'll just make them do what I want. I know what's best for them-- I will make them do it." No more freedom of choice for you, because you're not doing it right!
It's bad policy that comes from bad impulses and will yield bad results. But congratulations class of 2020-- it's your future. Just one more reasons that mayors should never, ever, be put in charge of public school systems.
“We live in a period of time where you earn what you learn,” Emanuel said. “The school system of K through 12 is not applicable to the world and the economy and the world that our high school students are graduating to. So we’re moving to a pre-K to college model.”
Under the proposal, all Chicago Public School students starting with this year’s freshman class would have to show an acceptance letter to a four-year university, a community college, a trade school or apprenticeship, an internship, or a branch of the armed services in order to receive their high school diploma.
That's it-- Choose college, trade school, internship, or military, or else Rahm will hold your diploma hostage.
Janice Jackson, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, pointed out that any student who graduates from CPS is automatically accepted into the City College community college program. So I suppose we could see this not as a draconian, one-size-fits-all intrusion on the lives of young adults and instead see it as a really, really aggressive recruiting program for the City Colleges.
Or maybe just an aggressive recruiting program for Chicagoland charter schools.
My mind is still reeling from trying to compile the full list of life paths that Rahm Emanuel has now declared Not Good Enough.
Steady job that's not a trade? Working musician? Stay-at-home mom? Person who just needs to spend a year or two working at a crappy minimum wage job while they figure out what they want to do next? Manage the family business? All of that and more have passed through my classroom and gone on to successful, productive, happy lives. Are you telling me we shouldn't have given them a diploma because they didn't do what we wanted them to after graduation?
Nor do I imagine for one Chicago Second that wealthy parents whose children are not ready for or aimed at one of these four choices while they are still high school seniors-- those parents are going to say, "Oh, well, then. I guess you don't get a diploma. Them's the breaks." No-- this is one more numbskulled reformy idea that wealthy parents would not tolerate for a single second. Now, there are exemptions for incarcerated students-- maybe there will also be exemptions for trust fund students. This is one more reform aimed at Those People's Children, because Those People's Children really need to be pushed in the correct direction.
Is it valuable and worthwhile for students to be nudged and encouraged to think about life after high school? Absolutely. Should we hold their diploma's hostage unless they comply with our demands for only approved choices in their future-- not only comply with our demands, but do so on our timetable and not theirs?
Demanding that an eighteen year old develop a life plan, right now, this minute, or else, is just rank foolishness. To demand a commitment to that plan, right now, that involves a commitment to give up a year or spend a ton of money or both-- also foolish. And I don't even know how to stop goggling at the idea that people who won't go to college or learn a trade should go become cannon fodder in a foreign land.
But to attach such high stakes is the worst, particularly since three of the four options require someone to accept the student. Is the army not recruiting? Can they not afford a four year college? Do they lack the skills for a trade? And are they not really geared for a path that lead through community college? Well, too bad, because now they have a double strike against them-- no plan yet, and no diploma, either.
And as many commentators have noted, the slashing of guidance counselors from many Chicago schools (not the rich ones, of course) leaves students with even fewer resources to meet this new demand.
Rahm's goal of making education K-14 may or may not be a worthy one, but this is a terrible way to go about it, a method that ignores the diversity both of student talents and the different timelines along which we all grow. This is the kind of paternalistic top-down thinking that gives us, "Well, I think all these kids are making a mistake, so I'll just make them do what I want. I know what's best for them-- I will make them do it." No more freedom of choice for you, because you're not doing it right!
It's bad policy that comes from bad impulses and will yield bad results. But congratulations class of 2020-- it's your future. Just one more reasons that mayors should never, ever, be put in charge of public school systems.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Scott Walker's Next Move To Crush Teachers
When it comes to a full frontal assault on public education and the people who provide it, no governor takes a back seat to Wisconsin's Scott Walker.
Walker's most famous for his 2011 move to strip public unions of their power to negotiate much of anything, a move that he made one of the foundations of his failed run for President. Act 10 gave school districts the directive to unilaterally shift pension and health insurance costs to teachers who, under Act 10, are now allowed to negotiate only wages-- and increases in wages are limited by a cost-of-living cap. That means even if a school district could afford to feel generous at the negotiating table, their generosity was limited by law-- and whatever piddling raise they gave teachers could all be taken back with insurance and pension hits on the teacher paycheck. Teacher pay under Act 10 is headed down.
In addition, contracts should now last one year, and the union must be recertified every year. (Also, no tenure for University professors, either.)
It turns out that Walker is not done. His current budget proposal offers additional funding to schools-- but only if they can prove that they used Act 10 to cut teacher pay and shut down long-term contracts. So any districts that had previously harbored thoughts like "We ought to treat our teachers decently" or "We would rather not drive all of our professional staff away" are now stuck between a financial rock and a staffing hard place. They can get back some of the badly-needed funding that was precipitously cut in 2012, but only if they agree to screw their teaching staff.
Does this seem guaranteed to drive even more teachers out of Wisconsin? Walker has another clever idea up his sleeve: no minimum required hours for school.
"If our students are succeeding, honestly I don't care how many hours they are in, if they're seeing success," said Gov. Walker. "To me, the report card is the ultimate measure. It's not how many hours are you sitting in a chair."
This proposal comes with all sorts of neat features.
Cyber-schools, for instance, don't need to have a minimum number of meat-form teachers available for a number of hours. One or two teachers, some software, and you can enroll a few hundred students.
And when Walker says "report card," he doesn't mean the report card issued by the school-- he means the state report card for the school. As long as your test scores are up and your attendance and graduation numbers are good, hey-- your school year is long enough.
According to some reports, this genius move is the brainchild of CESA 6, "a member-driven cooperative educational service agency," or as their LinkedIN profile puts it
CESA 6 is an educational solutions provider. Located in OshKosh, WI CESA stands for cooperative educational service agency. We provide regional services to school districts that range from providing staff for hard-to-fill positions to helping schools build Web sites, to professional development and coaching, and much, much more.
Honcho Ted Neitzke says the proposal is about flexibility. For instance, why should an AP class count the hours that the students spend reading their assigned books outside of school? I presume that means all homework would count as school time under the proposal. Hell, why not cut phys ed class, cut bus service, and count the hours students spend walking to school as school?
Not that this is about cutting costs. Oh no. And that may be true-- it may be more about reducing the need for staff. Can't find enough teachers who want to work under Wisconsin's increasingly regressive system? Split your school into morning and afternoon school meeting every other day and you can get twice the students, at least, served by one teacher. Have trouble staffing classes that don't actually affect your state report card? Cut 'em and send the kids home early.
More than that, this also serves as a big blast of freedom for charters. Set your charter up however you want, teaching whatever you want, meeting as often as you want, with as few teachers as you want. Scott Walker says that's okay. Come be an edu-preneur, and we won't tell you what you have to do, ever.
Would this reduce the number of teachers in Wisconsin? Of course-- and thereby weaken that damn union and its ability to stand up to guys like Scott Walker. And of course this also accomplishes the goal of making public schools less and less attractive so that charter schools can look better by comparison (without having to actually get good). Will this have any effect on the education of rich folks who can afford to make sure their children get into real schools that do real educating? Of course not, and that's undoubtedly part of the point--
Scott Walker has pushed hard on many reformster ideas, but the unifying principle seems to be one of the lowest of all reformy ideas-- wealthy folks (who deserve their wealth or why else would they be wealthy) should not have the government taking their well-deserved money to provide services for lousy poor people (who must deserve to be poor, or else they wouldn't be). And that include those damn teachers, who not only keep taking money they don't deserve, but keep using some of it to try to organize revolt against their rightful rulers. These peasants need to be sent packing and forced to understand that their Betters will decide what these Lessers deserve-- and the short list of what these Lessers deserve does not include an excellent, free public education.
Does all of this place Wisconsin squarely on the list of states to avoid if you want a teaching a career? Sure. Scott Walker's fine with that, because he doesn't want Your Kind here, anyway. God help America's Dairyland.
Walker's most famous for his 2011 move to strip public unions of their power to negotiate much of anything, a move that he made one of the foundations of his failed run for President. Act 10 gave school districts the directive to unilaterally shift pension and health insurance costs to teachers who, under Act 10, are now allowed to negotiate only wages-- and increases in wages are limited by a cost-of-living cap. That means even if a school district could afford to feel generous at the negotiating table, their generosity was limited by law-- and whatever piddling raise they gave teachers could all be taken back with insurance and pension hits on the teacher paycheck. Teacher pay under Act 10 is headed down.
In addition, contracts should now last one year, and the union must be recertified every year. (Also, no tenure for University professors, either.)
It turns out that Walker is not done. His current budget proposal offers additional funding to schools-- but only if they can prove that they used Act 10 to cut teacher pay and shut down long-term contracts. So any districts that had previously harbored thoughts like "We ought to treat our teachers decently" or "We would rather not drive all of our professional staff away" are now stuck between a financial rock and a staffing hard place. They can get back some of the badly-needed funding that was precipitously cut in 2012, but only if they agree to screw their teaching staff.
Does this seem guaranteed to drive even more teachers out of Wisconsin? Walker has another clever idea up his sleeve: no minimum required hours for school.
"If our students are succeeding, honestly I don't care how many hours they are in, if they're seeing success," said Gov. Walker. "To me, the report card is the ultimate measure. It's not how many hours are you sitting in a chair."
This proposal comes with all sorts of neat features.
Cyber-schools, for instance, don't need to have a minimum number of meat-form teachers available for a number of hours. One or two teachers, some software, and you can enroll a few hundred students.
And when Walker says "report card," he doesn't mean the report card issued by the school-- he means the state report card for the school. As long as your test scores are up and your attendance and graduation numbers are good, hey-- your school year is long enough.
According to some reports, this genius move is the brainchild of CESA 6, "a member-driven cooperative educational service agency," or as their LinkedIN profile puts it
CESA 6 is an educational solutions provider. Located in OshKosh, WI CESA stands for cooperative educational service agency. We provide regional services to school districts that range from providing staff for hard-to-fill positions to helping schools build Web sites, to professional development and coaching, and much, much more.
Honcho Ted Neitzke says the proposal is about flexibility. For instance, why should an AP class count the hours that the students spend reading their assigned books outside of school? I presume that means all homework would count as school time under the proposal. Hell, why not cut phys ed class, cut bus service, and count the hours students spend walking to school as school?
Not that this is about cutting costs. Oh no. And that may be true-- it may be more about reducing the need for staff. Can't find enough teachers who want to work under Wisconsin's increasingly regressive system? Split your school into morning and afternoon school meeting every other day and you can get twice the students, at least, served by one teacher. Have trouble staffing classes that don't actually affect your state report card? Cut 'em and send the kids home early.
More than that, this also serves as a big blast of freedom for charters. Set your charter up however you want, teaching whatever you want, meeting as often as you want, with as few teachers as you want. Scott Walker says that's okay. Come be an edu-preneur, and we won't tell you what you have to do, ever.
Would this reduce the number of teachers in Wisconsin? Of course-- and thereby weaken that damn union and its ability to stand up to guys like Scott Walker. And of course this also accomplishes the goal of making public schools less and less attractive so that charter schools can look better by comparison (without having to actually get good). Will this have any effect on the education of rich folks who can afford to make sure their children get into real schools that do real educating? Of course not, and that's undoubtedly part of the point--
Scott Walker has pushed hard on many reformster ideas, but the unifying principle seems to be one of the lowest of all reformy ideas-- wealthy folks (who deserve their wealth or why else would they be wealthy) should not have the government taking their well-deserved money to provide services for lousy poor people (who must deserve to be poor, or else they wouldn't be). And that include those damn teachers, who not only keep taking money they don't deserve, but keep using some of it to try to organize revolt against their rightful rulers. These peasants need to be sent packing and forced to understand that their Betters will decide what these Lessers deserve-- and the short list of what these Lessers deserve does not include an excellent, free public education.
Does all of this place Wisconsin squarely on the list of states to avoid if you want a teaching a career? Sure. Scott Walker's fine with that, because he doesn't want Your Kind here, anyway. God help America's Dairyland.
Monday, April 3, 2017
Charterizing from Within
The next big threat to public education, the next big arm of the corporate privatizing octopus, is Competency-Based Education, formerly known as Outcome Based Education, sometimes known as Proficiency Based Learning, and often dressed up in a nice suit as Personalized Learning.
It takes a whole subdivision of the public school advocacy movement to keep track of the slow, steady creep of CBE into public education. I frequently turn to Wrench in the Gears and Emily Talmage's Save Maine Schools as well as Hack Education to stay up on these issues (there are more-- go look around), but it is a recent Wrench in the Gears piece that sparked my attention. In a recent piece, the blog addresses the forces that are lined up against Rhode Island, and as usual, there are a great many connections to follow to find all the players. It's a worthwhile piece, but in it, I found a phrase that really hit--
Now they anticipate “reforming” districts internally through online “personalized learning” programs. For more information see my prior post on blended learning, and how it’s being used to charterize public schools from within.
I've had some trouble getting folks to see any threat from CBE. After all, as with Common Core, it seems as if there are aspects to like (also, as with Common Core, some objectors are... um... extremely passionate and agitated to the point of being a little off-putting for civilians). CBE provides an alternative approach to assessment that could conceivably do away with PARCC-type testing. The personalization seems like it could be a really good thing for students.
But wrench is right-- it's charterization from within.
The modern charter strategy has been pretty straightforward. Target a public school (you can use Big Standardized Test scores to target it, or you can chronically underfund it so it's an obvious collapsing mess). Build a new charter school across the street. Take the students and the money that you want. Ka-ching.
But what if there were another way? What if you didn't have to get your hands on a building, or set up a whole new administrative structure? What if you could just take over a public school a piece at a time.
So this year you buy the CBE/Personalized service to provide remediation to your low-score students. Then you shift more students into that "class"? Then you hand over an entire department to the service, and so on, until a huge portion of your curriculum is purchased and delivered via internet-based software, beamed straight into your school. Meanwhile, the school could also outsource janitorial services, alternative education, the cafeteria, transportation, and maybe even the actual staffing. You'll still have some teachers, but their main job will be Management By Screen-- checking student progress charts on the monitor and intervening if anything seems off. By the time you get here, most of your school "managing" is being done by the companies you've hired, not your front office. Ka-ching.
Instead of building a complete new charter school, you simply take a public school and slowly swap out all the parts. At what point does it become a charter school and not a public one? The vendors don't care-- you can call it a blue cheese school if you want, as long as a ton of that sweet, sweet public tax money is headed for private corporate coffers.
CBE is a great way for folks to get into the charter school business without having to bother with so much of the actual business of running a school. They can just slip into an already-running school from the inside, replacing the heart of the school with their own proprietary software. Perhaps there will be sufficient pushback along the way as parents hear the disgruntled student tales of spending much of the day at a screen, rarely being taught by a live human. Or perhaps the public won't figure out what's happening until it's too late to put everything back that has been lost. I do have my doubts about whether or not CBE will ever really fly.
But in the meantime, this is a useful way to understand what's so bad about CBE and how to recognize that it's happening. It's the wolf devouring the sheep from the inside, until there's nothing left but a well-fed wolf in what remains of the sheep's clothing.
 |
| Probably not going to end well |
Now they anticipate “reforming” districts internally through online “personalized learning” programs. For more information see my prior post on blended learning, and how it’s being used to charterize public schools from within.
I've had some trouble getting folks to see any threat from CBE. After all, as with Common Core, it seems as if there are aspects to like (also, as with Common Core, some objectors are... um... extremely passionate and agitated to the point of being a little off-putting for civilians). CBE provides an alternative approach to assessment that could conceivably do away with PARCC-type testing. The personalization seems like it could be a really good thing for students.
But wrench is right-- it's charterization from within.
The modern charter strategy has been pretty straightforward. Target a public school (you can use Big Standardized Test scores to target it, or you can chronically underfund it so it's an obvious collapsing mess). Build a new charter school across the street. Take the students and the money that you want. Ka-ching.
But what if there were another way? What if you didn't have to get your hands on a building, or set up a whole new administrative structure? What if you could just take over a public school a piece at a time.
So this year you buy the CBE/Personalized service to provide remediation to your low-score students. Then you shift more students into that "class"? Then you hand over an entire department to the service, and so on, until a huge portion of your curriculum is purchased and delivered via internet-based software, beamed straight into your school. Meanwhile, the school could also outsource janitorial services, alternative education, the cafeteria, transportation, and maybe even the actual staffing. You'll still have some teachers, but their main job will be Management By Screen-- checking student progress charts on the monitor and intervening if anything seems off. By the time you get here, most of your school "managing" is being done by the companies you've hired, not your front office. Ka-ching.
Instead of building a complete new charter school, you simply take a public school and slowly swap out all the parts. At what point does it become a charter school and not a public one? The vendors don't care-- you can call it a blue cheese school if you want, as long as a ton of that sweet, sweet public tax money is headed for private corporate coffers.
CBE is a great way for folks to get into the charter school business without having to bother with so much of the actual business of running a school. They can just slip into an already-running school from the inside, replacing the heart of the school with their own proprietary software. Perhaps there will be sufficient pushback along the way as parents hear the disgruntled student tales of spending much of the day at a screen, rarely being taught by a live human. Or perhaps the public won't figure out what's happening until it's too late to put everything back that has been lost. I do have my doubts about whether or not CBE will ever really fly.
But in the meantime, this is a useful way to understand what's so bad about CBE and how to recognize that it's happening. It's the wolf devouring the sheep from the inside, until there's nothing left but a well-fed wolf in what remains of the sheep's clothing.
Sunday, April 2, 2017
MN: Vergara III: The Attack on Tenure Continues
You probably remember the Vergara lawsuit, the California suit that was intended to destroy teacher tenure. You may even remember that a sequel was filed in New York.
The Vergara suit was simply beaten. The New York suit turned into a circus, starting with competition to see who could be out in front of the suit-- Campbell Brown or Mona Davids.Then Andy Cuomo floated his own plan for kicking teachers in the face, rendering the lawsuit mootish.
The original Vergara was brought to us by David Welch, one more unelected tech gazillionaire who wants to force parts of society to work the way he wants them to. In New York, the mantle was picked up by Campbell Brown's Partners for Educational Justice, a group fronted by Brown and funded primarily by the Waltons and Eli Broad (though for a long time Brown was adamant about not revealing that info because the poor frail dears would have been Made Real Sad by such public exposure).
For the Minnesota suit, PEJ was joined by Students for Education Reform, a younger-faced sock puppet group for the Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) the group of hedge-fundie privatizers and profiteers. It was filed about a year ago, and I called baloney at the time. The plaintiffs are concerned that during budget cuts, the wrong teachers will be fired-- but they're not concerned about budget cuts. And they toss around the old lie that tenured teachers can't be fired.
The Minnesota lawsuit was thrown out last October when Judge Margaret Marrinan ruled that a clear connection could not be made between academic achievement and due process for teacher tenure laws PEJ and SFER were back in January to appeal. Perhaps they were waiting for the holidays to be over, or perhaps they were waiting for the results of the Presidential election so that they'd know what the chances were once they drove this bulldozer all the way to the Supreme Court (the preferred result in these cases, as these folks generally would like to use a suit to punch teachers in the face all across the nation and not just in one state).
The plaintiffs are four moms from Minnesota (you get a picture here of how PEJ "found" them), including lead plaintiff Tiffani Forslund, a charter school teacher currently running for a seat on city council. Since the days of Vergara, the people crafting these lawsuits have learned to angle more toward Saving Poor Children, because it's much easier to attract teachers to underfunded schools with tough populations when you can promise those teachers that they will have no job security at all. The lawsuit wants to implement a solution of "protecting our best teachers and replacing low-performing teachers with effective teachers" which seems magical and simple and completely unrelated to whether or not teachers have tenure.
Just last week the cause was joined by our old friends TNTP (sister organization of TFA), and the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). TNTP has long agitated for the end of tenure and the use of test scores to make employment decisions about teachers. They are also that guy in the bar who will corner you to tell you about this one cool thing he did years ago; in TNTP's case, it's a "report" called "The Widget Effect," and it's not that cool. NCTQ-- well, I have heaped a lot of abuse on a lot of reformster organizations over the past few years, but there is no group I take less seriously than NCTQ, a group that has at various times evaluated teacher programs that don't exist, judged course difficulty by looking at commencement programs, and just generally cranked out the laziest faux research ever generated.
Anyway, these two reformster groups have sent along an amicus brief just last week, offering their two cents to the court that's hearing the case (because when it comes to the law, folks get to vote, I guess). Elizabeth Ross (NCTQ) and Daniel Weisberg are here to say that the suit is all about "Minnesota students' fundamental right to an education," which as always makes me wonder when they'll be filing a lawsuit about fully funding schools or developing better ways to attract top teachers. Nope. Just got to get rid of tenure.
Well, replace it, anyway, with New! Improved! Tenure Lite, as explained by TNTP's cool graphic:
Current tenure is premature? I've never understood this exactly, but the anti-tenure stuff want to make it take longer, presumably so that more teachers are fireable and staff churn can be maximized. New York tried a sort of tenure twilight and proved that if you really underline for someone that their job is not secure, they'll leave for one that is. What they didn't prove was whether they knew how to target good and bad teachers. Saying that tenure is irrevocable is meaningless-- your job is always revocable, and that's the point. They're correct that appeals can drag on forever.
But their alternative? "Tenure awarded for sustained strong performance" means good students Big Standardized Test scores, which means that schools serving poor communities will turn over staff regularly, because you know who gets low test scores? Non-wealthy non-white students. This is not because those students are less capable or smart-- it's because BS Tests are crappy, and schools that are underfunded and underresourced face greater challenges. Maybe TNTP would like to comment on a lawsuit about that. In TNTP's version you can't contest the conclusion of your evaluation-- you just have to prove it was bad faith. Good luck with that. And while I agree that drawnout hearings are bad for everybody, maybe we can come up with something fairer than putting someone's career on the line in just one day.
At this stage of the game these folks are barely pretending that these lawsuits have anything to do with helping schools do a better job of meeting students' needs. But apparently the reformsters are calling in some buddies to help and they're all going to keep trying to undercut the teaching profession some more, despite their lack of evidence to support their case. It's like having a bull at cheerleading tryouts; you can't take it seriously, but you can't afford to ignore it, either.
The Vergara suit was simply beaten. The New York suit turned into a circus, starting with competition to see who could be out in front of the suit-- Campbell Brown or Mona Davids.Then Andy Cuomo floated his own plan for kicking teachers in the face, rendering the lawsuit mootish.
The original Vergara was brought to us by David Welch, one more unelected tech gazillionaire who wants to force parts of society to work the way he wants them to. In New York, the mantle was picked up by Campbell Brown's Partners for Educational Justice, a group fronted by Brown and funded primarily by the Waltons and Eli Broad (though for a long time Brown was adamant about not revealing that info because the poor frail dears would have been Made Real Sad by such public exposure).
For the Minnesota suit, PEJ was joined by Students for Education Reform, a younger-faced sock puppet group for the Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) the group of hedge-fundie privatizers and profiteers. It was filed about a year ago, and I called baloney at the time. The plaintiffs are concerned that during budget cuts, the wrong teachers will be fired-- but they're not concerned about budget cuts. And they toss around the old lie that tenured teachers can't be fired.
The Minnesota lawsuit was thrown out last October when Judge Margaret Marrinan ruled that a clear connection could not be made between academic achievement and due process for teacher tenure laws PEJ and SFER were back in January to appeal. Perhaps they were waiting for the holidays to be over, or perhaps they were waiting for the results of the Presidential election so that they'd know what the chances were once they drove this bulldozer all the way to the Supreme Court (the preferred result in these cases, as these folks generally would like to use a suit to punch teachers in the face all across the nation and not just in one state).
The plaintiffs are four moms from Minnesota (you get a picture here of how PEJ "found" them), including lead plaintiff Tiffani Forslund, a charter school teacher currently running for a seat on city council. Since the days of Vergara, the people crafting these lawsuits have learned to angle more toward Saving Poor Children, because it's much easier to attract teachers to underfunded schools with tough populations when you can promise those teachers that they will have no job security at all. The lawsuit wants to implement a solution of "protecting our best teachers and replacing low-performing teachers with effective teachers" which seems magical and simple and completely unrelated to whether or not teachers have tenure.
Just last week the cause was joined by our old friends TNTP (sister organization of TFA), and the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). TNTP has long agitated for the end of tenure and the use of test scores to make employment decisions about teachers. They are also that guy in the bar who will corner you to tell you about this one cool thing he did years ago; in TNTP's case, it's a "report" called "The Widget Effect," and it's not that cool. NCTQ-- well, I have heaped a lot of abuse on a lot of reformster organizations over the past few years, but there is no group I take less seriously than NCTQ, a group that has at various times evaluated teacher programs that don't exist, judged course difficulty by looking at commencement programs, and just generally cranked out the laziest faux research ever generated.
Anyway, these two reformster groups have sent along an amicus brief just last week, offering their two cents to the court that's hearing the case (because when it comes to the law, folks get to vote, I guess). Elizabeth Ross (NCTQ) and Daniel Weisberg are here to say that the suit is all about "Minnesota students' fundamental right to an education," which as always makes me wonder when they'll be filing a lawsuit about fully funding schools or developing better ways to attract top teachers. Nope. Just got to get rid of tenure.
Well, replace it, anyway, with New! Improved! Tenure Lite, as explained by TNTP's cool graphic:
Current tenure is premature? I've never understood this exactly, but the anti-tenure stuff want to make it take longer, presumably so that more teachers are fireable and staff churn can be maximized. New York tried a sort of tenure twilight and proved that if you really underline for someone that their job is not secure, they'll leave for one that is. What they didn't prove was whether they knew how to target good and bad teachers. Saying that tenure is irrevocable is meaningless-- your job is always revocable, and that's the point. They're correct that appeals can drag on forever.
But their alternative? "Tenure awarded for sustained strong performance" means good students Big Standardized Test scores, which means that schools serving poor communities will turn over staff regularly, because you know who gets low test scores? Non-wealthy non-white students. This is not because those students are less capable or smart-- it's because BS Tests are crappy, and schools that are underfunded and underresourced face greater challenges. Maybe TNTP would like to comment on a lawsuit about that. In TNTP's version you can't contest the conclusion of your evaluation-- you just have to prove it was bad faith. Good luck with that. And while I agree that drawnout hearings are bad for everybody, maybe we can come up with something fairer than putting someone's career on the line in just one day.
At this stage of the game these folks are barely pretending that these lawsuits have anything to do with helping schools do a better job of meeting students' needs. But apparently the reformsters are calling in some buddies to help and they're all going to keep trying to undercut the teaching profession some more, despite their lack of evidence to support their case. It's like having a bull at cheerleading tryouts; you can't take it seriously, but you can't afford to ignore it, either.
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