Woody Allen On Education

I have been trying to write this for a while, but just didn't know how. Now I do.

I watched a documentary about Woody Allen a couple days ago. I always liked Woody Allen movies. I learned about his work ethic (strong--writes every day and puts out a movie a year, good or bad) and how he is able to get such great performances out of actors.

The thing he does first is cast well. He meets an actor for a minute or 2 (or 10 seconds) and decides if they are right for the part. If they get the job but don't work out, he blames himself for poor casting, fires them and hires someone else. No big deal, not a value judgement. It's not about worth, it's about fit. And he tells his actors the script is just an outline and they can change lines all they want as long as the meaning isn't lost; he's going for realism, and when actors can use their own words, it's just more realistic, ergo better.

Actors rave about Woody's direction -- which is minimal to non-existent, unless an actor asks for more direction. When an actor needs direction, Woody gives only positive comments and tries to make the actor comfortable so the actor can then give the best performance she is capable of. No pressure. Woody has a belief in the actor's ability to act and expects they will. They are professionals. A few Best Actor/Actress nominations and Oscars later, his method appears sound.

Again, actors love being directed by Woody because he believes in them and leaves them alone to do what they do--act.

What does this have to do with education reform? Well, reformers like Arne Duncan, Bill Gates and the rest of them seem to operate in the opposite fashion; the anti-Woody.

Reformers have no trust in the actors (teachers). They make us follow a script we cannot alter. They tell us to do certain prescribed things in certain prescribed ways for certain prescribed purposes, none of which help children or allow teachers --gifted or not-- to reach their potential (earn a nomination or get an Oscar). Woody creates conditions where actors not only are responsible for their performance, but are free to do their best; Woody does not know how to get them to give their best. He trusts they will with enough freedom and positive support. The public love his movies and the Academy awards his movies and actors Oscars.

Woody doesn't read reviews and doesn't care for the Oscars. He thinks the awards are arbitrary. I agree.

The point, if you haven't got it sussed yet, is to leave teachers alone. Let them do what they do. Give them the support they need. Then they will be awesome.

(This probably true of every profession)

Education Reform - or "The Kudzu That Is Eating Congress"

Kudzu, noun: a plant with a weak stem that derives support from climbing over trees or shrubs and grows so rapidly that it kills them by heavy shading.

Two years ago StudentsFirst didn't exist. I chose to start my conversation with that event because, in my mind, it is the watershed moment that marks the roll out of the newest phase in a long running plan for the hostile corporate takeover and privatization of public schools. In those two short years, the framers of the "reform movement," like the kudzu infestations, have accomplished much.

For example, reformers have effectively enraged the public sensibilities to the point of a near riot about the need for reform. In the process reformers have shaded and blocked out the voice of opposition from most all venues of public forum. Reformers have been most effective in vilifying their imaginary but enormously huge fantasy cabal of "bad teachers" as being the sole cause for every problem in education (really?). And no sooner did the reformers have their mob chanting "Bad Teachers, Bad Teachers" loud enough and were satisfied that phase one of the takeover was complete (teachers were now accepted in the court of public opinion as being "the problem,") it was time to begin phase two.

In phase two, the "reformers" were quick at the ready to offer their best (and only) solution. Their argument went something like this: "To insure every precious, innocent, defenseless child in America won't be 'left behind,' to wallow under the horrific and daemonic influence of the huge cabal of "bad teachers," we need the power to combat their overseer evil unions and remove the accounting practice of 'Last In - First Out' (LIFO) and, while we are at it, let's also eliminate teachers protections from arbitrary or capricious dismissal by eliminating the due process protections afforded by tenure (really?).

Naturally, a lot of folks looked at these proposals and thought they were a little bit wonky. How would removing LIFO and tenure help any child read better or understand mathematics more proficiently? From the reform camp, the counter to that question was this; “in removing all the legally negotiated and mutually accepted protections of LIFO and tenure, we can fire as much as the bottom 15% of teachers we want to every year and replace them with "great" teachers.” Oh, I see it now (kind of…).

OK. But how do we know who are good teachers and who are bad teachers? Always at the ready, reformers were quick to point out that “because the high stakes standardized test scores measure student learning, the high stakes standardized test scores must also measure teacher effectiveness.” “But,” folks countered, “research repeatedly demonstrates how high stakes standardized test scores vary wildly, are fraught with statistical anomalies and are widely understood to be unreliable metrics of teacher effectiveness.” "OK," said the reformers, "then we will look at individual student growth over time to discern teacher effectiveness." And so was born the reformers’ reliance on the model known as Value Added Measures, or VAM.

It must be pointed out at this point that the algorithm for VAM was developed by a geneticist to predict the percent outcome of a desired trait based on the influence of multiple factors such as environment or genetics. In other words, to reformers, learning is like the desired trait; kind of like plant height, and kids are like Soy Beans.

Hence, the crusade was on. Reformers trumpeted the value of VAM as being sound and, as many proclaimed, “Better than nothing” and the idea was soon attached to the reformers agenda as a rock-solid tool of wisdom. But, it must be said that nobody, especially politicians who LOVE VAM, can explain any of the factors that make up the equation or what it measures. Try it yourself by looking at the equation found in Michael Winerp's article in the New York Times. Personally I wonder which factor accounts for the influence of the ever growing student’s free will point decision of “I don’t give a rat’s ass about you or your flippin’ test.” I personally didn’t see any compensation for that in the equation.

But today’s modern reform movement is proving itself not to be about understanding what works and what doesn't work when educating kids. Modern education reform is not about looking at and championing all the influences that merge to create a successful learning experience for every child in every classroom every day. Modern education reform is about propagating an agenda whose end result is to grow over and dominate the educational landscape; to create an environment shaded from light and creativity where every teacher is at risk of being fired from every school every day; to become the dominant authority thereby choking out the very fertile and positive effective domain needed by teachers to imagine the best and create a safe and encouraging crucible so needed by kids to discover the very real joy of learning. Modern education reform is about legislating this agenda into law.

Don't believe me? Take a moment to follow the link and look at the latest piece of Federal Legislation to emerge from our Washington politicians. Read the following synopsis of the bill very carefully to see how much of the reformers agenda is reflected in the proposed legislation:

The DOE Would Like To Ruin Public Schools: The Proof (Updated)

This document, from your government, basically enshrines the notion that teachers should be evaluated based on the scores of their students, that teacher certification is for fools (hire TFA instead), and unions and job security are bad ideas. Thank your President, Barack Obama for hiring the idiot Arne Duncan whose work we see below. The definition of "douche-bag" is "Arne Duncan."

SUPPORTING EFFECTIVE TEACHERS IN THE CLASSROOM 

THE PROBLEM:

The teacher quality policies under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) were intended to encourage better educators in schools. But in the 10 years since the law’s enactment, the “Highly Qualified Teacher” requirements have placed too much emphasis on a teacher’s credentials and tenure and imposed significant burdens on states and schools, while paying little attention to student learning.

When it comes to getting better teachers in our schools, these “Highly Qualified Teacher” provisions can do more harm than good. As former elementary school teacher Deborah Ball stated at a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing, “Right now, teachers are considered qualified simply by participating in an approved program or completing an academic major. This means that being qualified does not depend on demonstrating that you can teach.”

THE SOLUTION:

Parents know the best teachers are the ones who keep students motivated and challenged in the classroom. Instead of relying on teacher credential or tenure requirements, which provide little information about teachers’ ability to help students excel in the classroom, the Student Success Act and the Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act will ensure states and school districts have the tools necessary to effectively measure an educator’s influence on student achievement.


THE STUDENT SUCCESS ACT AND THE ENCOURAGING INNOVATION AND EFFECTIVE TEACHERS ACT

-Repeal federal "Highly Qualified Teacher" requirements.

-Support the development and implementation of teacher evaluation systems to ensure parents have the information they need to make decisions about their child’s education.

-Set broad parameters – including linkages to student achievement data – that must be included in any teacher evaluation system, but allows states and school districts to design their own systems.

-Require states and school districts to seek input from parents, teachers, school leaders, and other staff as they develop the evaluation system.

-Encourage states and school districts to make personnel decisions based on the evaluations, as determined by the school district.

-Consolidate teacher quality programs into a new Teacher and School Leader Flexible Grant, which supports creative approaches to recruit and retain effective educators.

Your Government

Update: I should not have said this was a DOE document. It's not. It's an Education and the Workforce Committee document, like the banner shows. I got ahead of myself.

Tim Furman (SchoolTechConnect) in the comments gently pointed that out to me. And he also made an interesting point--this came out of a Republican led committee and only Republicans voted for it. Still, it includes many of the things Duncan and Obama want. So why did it get published? Is it for, as Tim put it, a bad cop/worse cop scenario?

I put nothing past the reformers. Arne will love this document. It might as well be a DOE document. I predict, in large part it will become one anyway.

The Truth About Arne, Rahm & Chicago

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Educational policy in the Obama era isn't about education at all. It's about replacing skilled, experienced teachers with rootless temps better suited to serve in the privatized holding tanks they wish to turn public schools in poor neighborhoods into, for a population on its way to low wage jobs and prisons.

...BlackAgendaReport 

 

Dump Arne Duncan Petition

Petition Text

Dear President Obama,

We, the undersigned, a cross section of the nation’s teachers and their supporters, wish to express our extreme displeasure with the policies implemented during your administration by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Although many of us campaigned enthusiastically for you in 2008, it is unlikely that you will receive continued support unless the following three dimensions of your administration’s education initiatives are changed:

1. The exclusion of teachers from policy discussions in the US Department of Education and from Education Summits called under your leadership.
2. The use of rhetoric which blames failing schools on “bad teachers” rather than poverty and neighborhood distress.
3. The use of federal funds to compel states and municipalities to use student test scores in the evaluation of teachers and as the basis for closing low performing schools.

Because of these policies, teachers throughout the nation have become discouraged and demoralized, undermining your own stated goals of improving teacher quality, upgrading the nation’s educational performance, and encouraging creative pedagogy rather than “teaching to the test.”

We therefore submit the following measures to put your administration’s education policy back on the right track and to bring teachers in as full partners in this effort:

1. The removal of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education and his replacement by a lifetime educator who has the confidence of the nation’s teachers.
2. The incorporation of parents, teachers, and school administrators in all policy discussion taking place in your administration, inside and outside the Department of Education.
3. An immediate end to the use of incentives or penalties to compel states and municipalities to use student test scores as a basis for evaluating teachers, preferring charter schools to existing public schools, and requiring closure of low performing schools.
4. Create a National Commission, in which teachers and parent representatives play a primary role, which explores how to best improve the quality of America’s schools.

We believe such policies will create an outpouring of good will on the part of teachers, parents and students which will promote creative teaching and educational innovation, leading to far greater improvements in the nation’s schools than policies which encourage a proliferation of student testing could ever hope to do.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Sign here.

Obama & Duncan Think Teachers Are Just Too Stupid

When the "Best and the Brightest" Don't Have the Answers- President Obama's Approach to School Reform

“The Best And the Brightest”- President Obama’s Approach to School Reform

President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced modifications to the No Child Left Behind program on Thursday at the White House., Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo

When Barack Obama ascended to the Presidency, he was fired up with a desire to improve America’s schools, which he felt were falling behind those of other advanced countries. He decided to bring “the best minds in the country” in to help them with this task- CEO’s of successful businesses, heads of major foundations, young executives from management consulting firms- to figure out a strategy to transform America’s schools, especially those in low performing districts. He promised them full support of his Administration when they finally came up with effective strategies including the use of federal funding to persuade, and if necessary, compel local districts to implement them.

Notably missing in this brain trust were representatives of America’s teachers and school administrators, but their absence was not accidental. Because the President and his chief education adviser, Arne Duncan, believed that a key problem in America’s schools was the low quality of the people working in them, they felt no need to include principals and teachers in the Administrations education planning, especially since those plans involved putting pressure on them to perform and then removing those who couldn’t meet the new standards.

From a management standpoint the reforms developed, which including promoting competition, universalizing teacher evaluation based on student test scores, introducing merit pay, made perfect sense. However, since none of the people developing the reforms had spent much time in a classroom, or were willing to spend a significant part of their lives performing the jobs they were reshaping, they had little idea what their reforms meant “on the ground,” and even less evidence that, when implemented, they would be effective.

Now three years later, after all of these new policies have been put into effect, from New York to Chicago, to Philadelphia to Buffalo, there is no evidence than America’s schools are performing better than when the President entered office, or that the test score gap between wealthy and poor districts is being reduced. But evidence and experience doesn’t seem to matter when you bring “the best minds in the country” together to develop a strategy. Come on, how can Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and the Ivy League gurus from Teach for America be wrong, and graduates of state teachers colleges and teacher education programs be right?

But reality has a way of intruding even on “the best and the brightest” when the fundamental assumptions that guide policy are wrong. This happened during the Vietnam War, when an indigenous nationalist revolution was treated as an arm of a global Communist conspiracy, and it is happening now when school failures due to poverty and inequality are being blamed on incompetent teachers and administrators.

So as in Vietnam, we will invest hundreds of billions, maybe trillions of dollars in a cause, which, at the end of the day, will turn into a Fool’s Errand, undermining the careers and demeaning the efforts of the nation’s teachers, dividing communities against themselves, while fattening the pockets of consulting form, test companies and on line learning firms.

And ten years down the road, when all the damage is done, policy makers will wake up and call America’s teachers back in to ask “What do you think we should do?” And they will say that teaching has to be a life time calling, and that when dealing with children, there are no miracles- opening minds, and changing lives, requires hard work, persistence, imagination, and a love for the young people you are working with. And those are tasks that cannot be performed by computers or “managed” by people who have never worked with children themselves.

Mark Naison
February 12, 1012

This Is My Last Straw - Is It Yours Too?

By Dave Russell

As a teacher, I have sat and watched our children increasingly suffer needlessly as the life of the of the school day has been systematically suffocated to the pallor of a deathly grey. The gauntlet of NCLB has morphed into the scourge of the corporate take-over model which spawned a full on attack warrior in the form of Michelle Rhee and her "resistance is futile" lobby group, StudentsFirst. My blood boils every time she rolls out a new Madison Avenue savvy propaganda smear or full court press media blitz designed to further the Oligarch's planned agenda for education takeover, uh...I mean "reform."

As my anger and frustration has grown, nothing has enraged me to the boiling point more than the recent publicity buzz flying around the paper authored by Economists Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia. In this 92 page report, these economic experts claim to have tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years concluding that the kids with improving test scores had lower teen-pregnancy rates and higher college-enrollment rates than their peers. They also had higher earnings, lived in better neighborhoods, and even saved more for retirement. In a front page article about the paper, The New York Times concludes “test scores help you get more education, and that more education has an earnings effect" (how's that again...test sores do what now?).

It's not too surprising that nobody was quicker to pick up on this paper and trumpet the message from this cherry bit of propaganda than Michelle Rhee and the merry Jesters at StudentsFirst! The ballyhoo from StudentsFirst is as predictable as clockwork! Some kluged report jukes the data to develop erroneous conclusions that dance right into the laps of the Rhee/Duncan/Gates Cabal of reformists and BAM! it happens; you place the stick in their hand, they will bang the drum.

This report is hogwash and StudentsFirst should be ashamed for publicizing it. The authors admit that their conclusions are extrapolated from stale data that was gathered in bulk (not for individuals as the summary leaves readers to believe), run through an analysis tool that is so fraught with statistical noise (individual and often conflicting point-source influence on outcome) that their only conclusion --there is far too much noise to disaggregate (take apart) the most reasonable conclusion-- is that teacher quality HAS to be the driving force for the very gains that they couldn't actually track because it was stale and gathered, after all, in bulk. WTF?

But honesty and integrity are not the norm, nor are they qualities valued by this Reformers' Cabal. Instead, truth is denied, facts are skewed, research (real research - not this 5 and dime tinker-toy variety) is overlooked, and professionals at all levels across the nation are ignored and besmirched.

The agenda of StudentsFirst is to use well crafted rhetoric, propaganda and deceptive practices to create false hysteria, create mythic villains in teachers and unions, project horrific consequences should the fabricated travesty be allowed to continue unchecked, and then (wait for it!) charge in like the Knights in Shining Armor they believe themselves to be, carrying their Shield of Righteous Purpose, picture perfect, jiffy-tailored solution that not only sounds good and gives that ever so needed cozy-snugly feel of good satisfaction, but is hawked and carnival barked as the only effective, critical, and urgent fix, and to not support it dooms he world as we know it to inevitable implosion. By God! reading their agenda you would think StudentsFirst is single-handedly saving every child in every classroom every day from a hideous ordeal in the slash & burn world of the indifferent, self-important, selfish, ineffective teacher!

All StudentsFirst is interested in is changing the game so the new power brokers can continue to coerce states and districts into adopting unproven agendas such that expensive teachers can be arbitrarily, capriciously, and summarily tossed onto the curb like so much rubbish only to be replaced by unproven, untrained, two-year commit-me-not ivy-league Slam-Bam-Thank You Ma'amers.

And all this hinges on some snake oil smoke & mirrors algorithm called Value Added Analysis, which in and of itself hinges on students passing a test nobody has ever seen, nobody has ever ensured is aligned to the hundreds of varied curricula and texts, and not fact checked for accuracy or cognitive appropriateness. It is taken on faith by StudentsFirst and the rest of the Rhee/Duncan/Gates Cabal of reformists that the ENTIRE machine that sets the standards, writes the curriculum, formulates the textbooks, writes the tests, scores the tests is SO seamlessly perfect that all children, regardless of socioeconomic status, family (dis)function, language abilities, learning difficulties, or desire to participate, will excel if it weren't for the incredible prevalence of those damned ineffective teachers.

The most aggravating aspect of the agenda water-boarding perpetrated by the whole Rhee/Duncan/Gates Cabal of reformists is that the American public is either too drunk on their cool-aid, too stupid to understand the realities, or too apathetic to do anything but allow their children to be willingly led to the intellectual slaughter.

Too harsh you say? Ask any child in Florida or anywhere else in America how excited they are to come to school. Ask them how relevant the curriculum is to their lives. Ask them when the last time it was that they engaged in test prep - and for how long. Ask them why they even take the test. Ask them if they feel like the institution is encouraging them to live, learn, and grow according to their (student centric) needs as 21st century learners. You want harsh? Listen to these kids rail on the Bull Shit that is the result of decade of reforms designed by a Cabal of reformists who think that the best way to solve our problems is to use a white-hot blowtorch approach to intensifying the same thinking that created the problems in the first place.

To all the members of the Rhee/Duncan/Gates Cabal of reformists and to Race to the Top as well, you can kiss my ass and the collective asses of kids all across America!

Walkin' To DC Jesse Has Some Words For America About Education

Sending out a thank you to teachers everywhere. Letting Secretary Arne Duncan that our children and our teachers are more than a test score. I'm sending out a call to action for Americans to occupy their Departments of Education with "Opt Out The National Movement", and 'Children Are More Than Test Scores" this March 30, 31, and April 1 & 2. Let's show teachers and children we care. Think about joining, and thank a teacher today.

Thank you for listening to my call to action.

God bless you America,

Walking to DC Jesse

Why So Few Posts?

I have a new job. Not enough folks have the money to hire me as a consultant, even with my sliding scale of fees, so I took a teaching job. Now that I am working for someone else I have much less time for blogging. It's kind of a bummer, but a steady income is not a bummer.

There does seem to be lots of movement in favor of questioning the current edreform policies and ideas spouted by know-nothings like Rhee, Gates and the rest (yeah, you too Tilson). Rhee's organization, StudentsFirst, is now touting partnerships with teachers because they realize that they need the support of teachers if they are going to get their agenda enacted. What they don't seem to realize is that hiring TFA quitters and former teachers who have chosen to leave kids and become policy gurus does nothing for Rhee and her organization's desire to become loved by actual teachers who have remained inside classrooms despite Rhee's unfounded vitriol against us.

Even Arne Duncan is trying to get on our good side by saying we should double teacher salaries. This sounds nice, but is just more of the same teacher-bashing--this time it's just veiled. There is no money to do such a thing, and even if there was enough money, higher-paid teachers cannot overcome the devastating effects of poverty on our low-scoring students. Hence, offering more money is a veiled claim that poorly paid teachers are slouching on the job. Um, no, we're not. Fuck you.

The movement to opt out of standardized testing is also gaining traction. We have seen some prominent educators publicly claim that they have opted their own kids out of the state test. If my kid's mom is cool with it, we will also opt our son out. The oligarchs don't need or deserve all that data on my kid. They are abusive as it is, and I don't need their abuse aimed directly at my son. Fuck those assholes.

My radio show on BTR is also suffering from my new job, as I can no longer do it in the afternoon. If I am to do more radio I must do it during prime-time, which requires a pro account that I cannot afford, hence the donation widget in my sidebar on your left there. I would love to do more radio, and if you want me to do more, I need your financial help to do it. Consider a donation, won't you? I am in contact with a few interesting education leaders who are interested in interviews, and I think they would be a valuable addition to the counter-reform movement that is gaining steam. Anyone who donates is invited to be a guest on the show!

Remember, poverty is the reason for the achievement gap. We've known it for 60 years, and we've been in denial for that long. The reformers have done a good job defeating this idea by saying poverty is not an excuse. They are right. Poverty is not an excuse, it's a goddamned diagnosis.

Here Are Some Questions I Would #AskArne

Picture from http://firearneduncan.com/

Here are my questions for Arne Duncan, who is hosting a Twitter Town Hall on August 24th at 1:30 in the afternoon when every teacher in America will still be in class.

Do all American parents have the right to opt their children out of state tests per Prince V Mass, or is it a state by state issue? #AskArne

What qualifies you to be Secretary of Education? You are not credentialed, you have no education degree, you never taught school. #AskArne

Why does the NAEP, when disaggregated, show an almost 1 to 1 correlation between SES and academic success? #AskArne

Will you volunteer to take, say, a 2nd grade class for a whole day? Oh wait, you can't. You don't have a credential. #AskArne

Charter schools cream their students by default-passively. Is that going to re-segregate our schools? #AskArne

Do you know that there is no such word as "incent?" #AskArne

Why can charter schools hold kids to higher behavior standards, and then boot them for failing to meet them? #AskArne

Did you know Geoffrey Canada once kicked out an entire class just to raise his graduation numbers? #AskArne

Have you ever had to feed a malnourished American child who has a cellphone? #AskArne

Have you ever been yelled at by a parent for not educating the child they ignore? #AskArne

What is percentage of bad teachers? 5%? 10%? 15%? It's a completely unknowable quantity, yet you claim one of those numbers anyway. #AskArne

Are impoverished kids stifled from birth, or does their Kindergarten teacher make them forget their letters and numbers? #AskArne

Do you agree that what is good for the wealthiest families is also good for the poorest families? Or screw the poor ones? #AskArne

Do you agree that without prior knowledge (poverty stifles) some kids don't do as well on the test, but could if they lived w/me? #AskArne

Have you ever seen and had to comfort a 7-year old right before the test they have been hearing and worrying about all year? #AskArne

Why are kids receiving services for developmental issues required to take the test? To bring down our scores erroneously? #AskArne

Did you know that the name "KIPP" comes from this: "Knowledge is Power. Power is Money. I want it."? #AskArne

I had 2 autistic students my last year in classroom. They did poorly on test. Is that my fault? And, why the fuck did they take it? #AskArne

Should trad. pub. schools be able to boot misbehaving kids and send them to the neighborhood charter, and keep the $$? #AskArne

VAM developed for agriculture industry. Developers caution against using it for teachers, say it can't do job. Why u support it? #AskArne

Do you have an advanced degree of any kind, or just a Bachelor's? #AskArne

Do you believe (erroneously) that tenure means a job for life? #AskArne

Why do I have to actually write the standards on the board for my 2nd graders? Is that for them or to make it easy to write me up? #AskArne

Are teachers to be trusted with things larger than lining kids up and testing them? #AskArne

Do you believe teachers are the least professional professionals? (I think it's pretty common) #AskArne

Feel free to tweet them endlessly.

Yong Zhao On Arne Duncan Being "Stunned" About Cheating In Atlanta

What was Secretary Duncan’s true feeling about the cheating scandal in Atlanta?

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said he was “stunned” by the cheating scandal in Atlanta Public Schools revealed last week. Given that English is my second language and I wanted to make sure I do not misunderstand the Secretary’s feelings about one of the largest scandals in U.S. education, I went to dictionary.com and found the following definitions of “stun:”

1. to deprive of consciousness or strength by or as if by a blow, fall, etc.
2. to astonish; astound; amaze.
3. to shock; overwhelm

So what was Mr. Duncan’s feeling? In the spirit of test-based education, this makes a great item on the next standardized test for our children:

What was Secretary Duncan’s true feeling about cheating in Atlanta?

A. He was deprived of consciousness or strength
B. He was astonished, astounded, and amazed
C. He was shocked and overwhelmed
D. All of the above

Using my well-honed testing taking skill developed in China, I went at the task and eliminated “B” and “C” first because both contain the element of “surprise” in that he was surprised to find out there were such massive cheating going on in schools. This cannot be true or I refuse to believe it is true because as Secretary of Education, Mr. Duncan must have read the numerous reports of suspected and confirmed cheating incidents in the nation’s schools, including but not limited to places such as Boston, Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Chicago, where he served as its education chief.

Yong Zhao

The Erection Of An Alternative National System Of Charter Schools (pun intended)

How the Corporate Right Divided Blacks from Teachers Unions and Each Other

by Glen Ford

Back in the mid-Nineties, devious right-wing activists at the Bradley Foundation, in Milwaukee, hit upon a “wedge” issue designed to wreck the alliance at the core of the Democratic Party’s urban base. Blacks and public employee unions – particularly teachers – were the foundations of Democratic power in the cities. Aware that African Americans revered education but were often in conflict with largely white teachers unions over issues of racism and community control, the Bradley gang, under president Michael Joyce, created out of whole cloth a “movement” for publicly-funded vouchers for private schools. No such Black community “demand” had ever existed, but well-aimed infusions of millions of dollars among opportunistic politicians like Cory Booker, a first term city councilman who aspired to become mayor of Newark, New Jersey, grafted Black faces onto a Hard Right corporate scheme to divide key progressive constituencies: Blacks and unions.

By the turn of the millennium, the Bradley outfit solidified its position as George W. Bush’s “favorite” foundation when it invented “faith-based initiatives” to funnel millions of public dollars to churches to provide social services. Faith-based funding and private school vouchers comprised the totality of Bush’s first term outreach to Black America. Neither program drew masses of Blacks into the Republican Party – even the wealthy social engineers at Bradley can’t perform miracles. But Bradley and its far-right sister funders – the Walton and DeVos Family Foundations, Olin, Scaife, Freidman and other troglodytes – had succeeded in penetrating Black Democratic politics, where the real action would unfold. Cory Booker, Harold Ford, Jr., the 29-year-old who inherited his father’s congressional seat in Memphis, in 1996, and other hustlers were the “new Black leaders” ready to embrace “pro-business” solutions to inner city problems, said corporate media boosters. The Democratic Leadership Council, the party’s corporate money bagmen, launched a frenzied, and quite effective, recruitment campaign among Black office-holders and aspirants.

This is the national stage onto which Barack Obama stepped with his U.S. Senate campaign, in 2003-2004, as the very embodiment of the “new” Black politician, full of phrases like “public-private partnerships” and other codes for corporate penetration of the public sphere. By this time, the wealthy foundations were directing much of their money and attention to hawking charter schools as the cure for what ails education in the inner cities. Not that the Waltons and Friedmans and Scaifes give a damn about ghetto kids, but because they understood that Black parents were desperate for anything that might save their children, and would be receptive when fellow Blacks made the pitch. From its inception, the purpose of the project was to drive a wedge between teachers unions and Black constituencies. In addition to being unencumbered by sticky constitutional considerations, charter schools are technically public schools, and African Americans remain broadly committed to the concept of public education. Most importantly, from the rich man’s point of view, charter schools are the gateway to corporate access to the public education purse, a “market” worth hundreds of billions a year in which the public takes all the risk – a capitalist’s paradise! Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan – a veteran Chicago union buster and corporatist – have labored mightily to erect an alternative national system of charter schools.

The Hard Right foundations now had even bigger company as boosters of charter schools: the institutional weight of Wall Street, huge hedge funds, and individual billionaires, all out to make a financial killing, knock off teachers unions, and mold the world views of new generations. After more than a decade of corporate cultivation of ambitious “new Black leaders,” a large cadre of business-friendly African American politicians was in place – including, by 2008, in the highest place of all.

President Obama is the guy that Michael Joyce, at the Bradley Foundation, was dreaming about when he launched his campaign to split Blacks from unions, 15 years ago. Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan – a veteran Chicago union buster and corporatist – have labored mightily to erect an alternative national system of charter schools, plugged into a private financial and educational services sector, that in some cities is as large or larger than the traditional public schools. Obama, because of his race and his party affiliation, is a far more effective foe of public education and teachers unions than his white Republican predecessor.

Michael Joyce was right; he knew that the crucial battle over school privatization would have to occur in Black Democratic circles, if it were to work as a fractious wedge issue. Last month, the NAACP and the United Federations of Teachers filed a lawsuit to halt the closing of 20 public schools and to stop giving preferential treatment to charter schools that often share the same buildings. The differences in learning conditions, schedules and equipment are so striking, says the NAACP, as to reduce public students to second-class citizens. Charter schools, which President Obama fawns over like his own legacy, are blatantly favored by school systems and corporate sponsors. The NAACP is seeking to prove – in a different age and racial context – that separate is not equal, in New York City and other sites of breakneck charterization.

The inequalities are by design. From President Obama on down, charter school strategists hope to expand their privatized systems by deliberately making charters relatively more attractive than traditional classrooms, in order to create a political constituency for more charters. At root, it is a kind of bait-and-switch that is not sustainable, and will come to a halt once the public school “competition” is marginalized or eliminated. By then, the political forces necessary to revive public schooling will have been exhausted in fratricidal battles, and the corporations will have established a system to suit their own purposes– as Michael Joyce foresaw.

When the NAACP joined in the teachers union’s suit, charter school advocates declared war on the civil rights group. Two thousand people attended a May 26 rally in Harlem, accusing the NAACP of dividing the community. Of course, Michael Joyce knows who did the dividing – he and his right-wing schemers and billionaires wrote the script.

"My job, Arne, is to make Americans."

A snippet from my favorite response to Arne Duncan's thank fuck you to teachers.

Arne, I don’t want my students to be like the Chinese. If I did, I’d have moved there a long time ago. I don’t make data points in ELA, Math or any other subject. I don’t make goal setters, essential-question verbalizers, educational inputs, lifelong learners, lifelong objective makers, coherent planners, or jargon-based drones worthy of a “quality review” like widgets on an assembly line.

My job, Arne, is to make Americans.

Mr. D’s Neighborhood

Some Truth About The Difference Between Us And Them

"We don't tie teacher pay to test scores because we don't believe them to be a reliable indicator of teacher effectiveness." (Sidwell Friends faculty member, April 1, 2011)

Schools Matter

Arne Duncan: Trickster, Spinner, Manipulator

Beware of Arne Duncan’s Tricks

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/beware_of_arne_duncans_tricks_20110309/

Posted on Mar 9, 2011

By Moshe Adler

The statistical evidence is that smaller class size means better education, but smaller class size also means higher taxes. So Education Secretary Arne Duncan chose trickery to divert parents from the clear road.

At a recent meeting of governors in Washington he suggested that they pay bonuses to the best teachers if they agree to increase their class size. Duncan would prefer to put his own school-age children in a classroom with 28 students led by a “fantastic teacher” rather than in one with 23 and a “mediocre” teacher, he said.

But what parent wouldn’t? If large class size becomes the sign of a good teacher, no doubt all parents will insist that their child be placed in the largest class that a school has to offer. Unable to fit all students in just one class, however, principals will declare all teachers fantastic and assign large classes to all.

And the beauty of it is that the demand for large classes will come from the parents themselves. Clever, huh?

(For a discussion of the statistical evidence, go to the chapter “You Can’t Throw Money at Education” in my book, “Economics for the Rest of Us” pp. 97-106.)

Moshe Adler teaches economics at Columbia University and at the Harry Van Arsdale Center for Labor Studies at Empire State College.

Arne Duncan Is A Liar, And Mike Klonsky Found Proof!

Writing in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, [Vivek] Wadhwa argues:

"Much is made of the PISA test scores and rankings, but the international differences are actually quite small. Most of the U.S. ranking lags are not even statistically significant. The U.S. falls in the second rank on some measures and into the first on others. It produces more highest-performing students in science and reading than any other country does; in mathematics, it is second only to Japan. Moreover, one has to ask what the test results actually mean in the real world. Do high PISA rankings make students more likely to invent the next iPad? Google? I don't think so."

Arne Duncan Claims More Untruths

Stephen Krashen makes 3 points in rebuttal to Arne's article today [I will give you #1]:

1. Response to Arne Duncan’s claim that his policies succeed in overcoming poverty:

Duncan states that schools and their "local partners" are "overcoming poverty" by "investing in teachers, rebuilding school staff, lengthening the school day and changing curricula."

I know of no evidence that this is so. Rather, the research indicates that there are very few high-performing schools in high poverty conditions. Also, to my knowledge, no detailed studies have emerged with descriptions of rebuilt schools with longer days showing consistent, startling progress.

There have been occasional media reports (e.g. Felch, Song and Poindexter, 2010), but these cases of improvement are sketchy. It is not clear whether scores are being pumped up by test prep or are the result of genuine teaching and learning.

The lack of comparison groups makes it impossible to dismiss the possibility that all students in the district are getting better, possibly due to the introduction of new tests and "test inflation," improvement due to greater familiarity with the test. Gerald Bracey (2009) reported that one highly publicized "success story" published in The New York Times about the Harvard Promise Academy, was true only for one grade, one subject and for one year.

Duncan gives the impression that "overcoming poverty" happens all the time under his administration. There is no real evidence that it happens at all.

Stephen Krashen

There Is A Precedent For Appointing Personal Yet Unqualified Friends

Many people are upset that the mayor of the New York City has appointed a personal friend with no teaching experience as head of education. They are concerned that the new head will continue policies of heavy testing and top-down management that have failed in the past.

There is a precedent: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Krashen

Charters And Vouchers Are An Excuse Not To Fix Real Issues

Paul Karrer: Schools lose with Race to the Top

A letter to my president, the one I voted for.

Your Honorable President Obama:

I mean this with all respect. I'm on my knees here and there's a knife in my back and the prints on it kinda match yours.

You're righting the wrong guys with your Race to the Top program, which provides grant money that "might" go to schools if they comply with unproven, absurd draconian "reforms" such as shuffling teachers around.

You're hitting the good guys with friendly fire.

I teach in a barrio in California. It's a public school. I have 32 kids in my class. I love them to tears. They're fifth-graders. That means they're 10 years old, mostly. Six of them are 11 because they were retained. Five more are in special education and two more should have been.

I stopped using the word parents when I talk with or about my kids because so many of them don't have them.

Amanda's mom died in October. She lives with her 30-year-old brother (a thousand blessings on him). Seven kids live with their grandmothers, six with their dads. A few rotate between parents.

Fifty percent of my 10-year-olds have visited relatives in jail or prison.

Do you and Arnie Duncan understand the significance of that? I'm afraid not. It isn't bad teaching that has taken things to the current stage. It's poverty. We don't teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities.

It's called the ZIP code quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high test scores. If they live in a ZIP where the people are poor, guess how they do.

We also have massive teacher turnover at my school. Now, we have no money. We haven't had an art teacher or music program in 10 years. We have a nurse twice a week.

And due to No Child Left Behind, we are punished most brutally. Did you know that 100 percent of our students have to be on grade level? That's like saying you have to get along with 100 percent of your cabinet (and unlike my kids, your cabinet gets to quit).

You lived overseas, so you know what conditions are like in the rest of the world. President Obama, I swear that conditions in my school are Third World. We had a test when I taught in the Peace Corps. We had to describe a glass filled to the middle. We were supposed to say it was half full. Too many of my kids don't even have the glass.

And then, of course, there are the gangs. They are eating my kids, their parents and the neighborhood.

One of my former students stuffed an AK47 down his pants at a local bank and was shot dead. Another one of my favorites has been incarcerated since he was 13. He'll be 27 next month. I've been writing to him for 10 years and visiting him in Level 4 maximum security—he's in chains behind bullet-proof glass—in Salinas Valley State Prison.

Do you get that it's tough here? Charter schools and voucher schools aren't the solution. They are an excuse not to fix the real issues. You promised us so much and now you want to give us merit pay based on how the kids do, no matter their circumstances?

You're making it real hard to vote with enthusiasm.

Can you pull the knife out now? It really hurts.

Paul Karrer, who teaches at Castroville Elementary School, writes about education for this page.

Hey Arne....