Students Need Parenting To Succeed

Watch this short video of a grandmother's dedication to the education of her grandchild, then tell me how anyone can put the onus of "educating our kids" solely on teachers. Please.

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.

We Need To Hear The Voices Of The Students!

Yesterday there was a twitter chat --#SOSChat-- that I spent a little time checking out and participating in. It was a chance for those of us concerned with education reform and the damage it's doing to get together to figure out how best to move forward; what will SOS look like? What should we do next? Where should we focus? It's the kind of stuff a grassroots organization needs to do, and it was extremely helpful.

For a while now I have been doing Blog Talk Radio, both my own shows and as a guest on other shows (there's a link at the top of this blog) as a way to spread the word about the dangers of the current reform proposals and the nonsense Michelle Rhee spouts about LIFO and tenure, among other things. Doing the radio shows is fun and a great way to meet new folks and have meaningful discussions and disseminate information.

A while back I had the thought that it would be a good idea to include the voices of actual kids --students-- in the mix. I never really tried to do it. I talked with my 14 year old and some of his friends and I know they have opinions about reform, but they are 14 and getting them to commit was something I didn't even really try very hard to do, so it never happened. My bad.

Well, after the #SOSChat I realized that we anti-reformers are pretty much all over the place in terms of strategy ideas to spread the word. There are a million suggestions that I won't go over here. But there are two suggestions I have that occurred to me as I was participating in the chat:

1. Numbers. Numbers matter. Stephen Krashen made the point that Lady GaGa has 2 million followers and Diane Ravitch only in the thousands. I agree that's ridiculous, considering there are two million teachers in America. Want to impress? Get Diane's follower count up into the millions. Krashen's too.

I have a feeling there are about a million teachers who aren't on twitter. Find them. Get them on twitter, even if just to Follow Diane and then never tweet again.

2. The public think teachers suck--in the aggregate. People like their own teacher, think less of other teachers in the school, even less of others in the district, even less of others in the state, and even less of teachers nationally. It's just like congress where you like your congressperson but hate congress.

Therefore, I have determined, our voices are pretty much moot. They are not really that helpful. We need the voices of others--a proxy. Parents are a good proxy.

Kids are better. Interview kids.

So I want to interview public school students on Blog Talk Radio. I want teenagers to tell the public what they see their teachers dealing with. I want to hear what the teachers do for these kids, or what they don't do. I want kids to tell me what they like about school and what they think should change. I want to hear honest assessments of what life on the ground in public school is like for teenagers.

But that's not all. I want young kids too! Yes, like 2nd grade! When I taught 2nd grade I always had a few kids who could easily do their own radio show if given the chance. Surely there are some young kids who could handle a half-hour interview.

I will need parent input and permission. It can all be done over the phone and by email.

Are you interested in being interviewed? Are you a parent of a student who might be interested? Get in touch.

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!

How Discussions Go At Students First

I find it interesting and frustrating commenting and reading comments at the Students First Facebook page. There are some thoughtful people there, some batshit crazy folks, and some genuinely curious people too. There is also a lot of ignorance and bias.

Here is an example of a not-so-typical exchange between MTV, who I think opposes much of the reform agenda, and me. She seems to think there is something schools can do to improve outcomes for impoverished children while ignoring the poverty itself. I try to explain how poverty and being poor are not the same thing, necessarily.

My Teacher Voice-

Well TFT-What do you propose then? I happen to believe education can go a long way-but there have to be other supports as well-community supports, family supports, and often something within the person (a fire). How do you propose we end poverty if we can't provide a good education without it? Do you propose we don't waste our time on the education piece until we end poverty? I happen to think that a proper education IS part of treating the problem not a symptom. How have others done it? How have others gotten out of poverty?

I can't honestly say how far back poverty goes in my family, but I can tell you this...my mother and my father came from extreme poverty-especially my mother. Yes, her father was a DC lawyer until he died when she was five, but considering the fact that her grandfather hated her mother and the children from that marriage to that "Indian woman" (yeah-very little Indian but Indian none the less)...my mother had next to nothing growing up (no indoor plumbing...often no electricity....a step dad who drove over her mother with a tractor on purpose....). She did (and does) have a drive. No matter what, you just keep going. She was smart. She went to school. She met my father....blah blah blah. She's not wealthy-but solid middle class.

My dad-the eighth of nine children born to an alcoholic father...again not sure of the education levels of my grandparents there (I know my grandfather comes from a long line of moonshiners in southwest Virginia....and many factory workers), but my grandmother was on top of it-so were my aunts and uncles when it came to my dad. Every single one of those children either went into the military, college, or both and all are quite comfortable financially. My father is more than comfortable, and he grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing for a very long time. His parents cleaned the church for a living.

(My parents are no longer together...hence the different financial situations). I feel the need to mention too that it isn't just about money...money comes and goes. I have very little money right now...I had quite a bit more before I was divorced....I'm still pretty much the same; I just have to budget. I realize my money issues are NOTHING compared to people who have no health insurance, etc....which as a college student with a baby I also had very little and no health insurance.

I know...I know....they were white.....for the record, I"m not accepting that excuse...too many people of color find themselves out of poverty. So that being said, what do we do?

That is a typical way of thinking for too many. My response:

Tee Eff Tee-

MTV, poverty isn't about just money. Generational poverty in the social sciences, which is what we are discussing and should be the assumed level of discourse around here, is more accurately described as socioeconomic status, or SES.

When you look at families with low SES, they are the ones who do poorly in school. Poor people can have high SES--look at Obama's childhood, or your grandfather the lawyer--and still be poor. My grandmother was one of the first women in Boston to become a lawyer. Her dirt-poor family came from Russia to Boston in about '06 [1906] and immediately set sights on advanced degrees. Why? High SES, even without money. My grandfather was also a lawyer. As are about 5 of my cousins. And there are dentists and academics in the family, and a couple teachers and professors, and a loser or two.

Socioeconomic status is the only correlate to student success that exists in the literature. Nothing else correlates. And the correlation is powerful and sustained. It meets the threshold of causation.

Here is a good example if you don't get put off by it: Jews (I am one) arrived in America penniless, as did most immigrants. Jews as a group have done very well for themselves in America. Why? They have high SES. They value education. They worship it. The word "Rabbi" means "teacher" as I assume most know. Each generation of Jew has wanted the next generation to be more educated than the last. Jews are disproportionately represented in academia because of their notions about learning and study--it's part and parcel of the culture and faith.

Don't conflate poor with impoverished. They are often bound together, but can be mutually exclusive too.

And that is why poverty stifles--one generation passes their non-education on to the next, devaluing it. Schools and school leaders do nothing to try to change that--school is punitive, not welcoming these days.

Low SES and boring classes do not a successful school career make.

There's lots more over there. They need your input. Go there and comment.

And then, because I blame poverty for the poor test outcomes for impoverished kids (the only ones getting low scores) I get questions like these:

Jane Howard-

TFT- Do you think that there is anything we can do short term to improve education then?

To which I answer like this:

Tee Eff Tee-

Jane, yes.

We can eliminate NCLB sanctions that scripted teachers and return autonomy to them.

We can eliminate high-stakes testing and its attendant teaching to the test mentality.

We can end zero tolerance policies for young kids.

We can make sure kids with IEPs and 504s are given what they need and deserve and are entitled to by law.

We can give teachers the time to work together to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable kids instead of ignoring them in favor of the 2s and 3s.

We can improve school libraries by bringing back librarians (books have the largest positive impact on impoverished students--and it's cheap as hell).

None of these cost extra money.

Then, on the out of school stuff (which has magnitudes more impact) we should have universal health care, free high quality early childhood education programs, easy access to good food in impoverished neighborhoods (enterprise zones were one way to deal with this) and fix the inner city schools that are in a shambles, showing the community the larger community actually gives a shit.

Who would argue against anything above? Mike? Ramona?

I thought I'd share since not enough of you are doing any debunking.

Mind you, these two quotes from MTV and Jane come from 2 people I actually like and respect over there.

Students Or Learners: Who Are We Teaching?

David Warlick

Pesticide / ADHD Link Found

Scientists identify link between pesticides and ADHD

A new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, links pesticide exposure to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the U.S. and Canada.

Led by Maryse Bouchard in Montreal, researchers based at the University of Montreal and Harvard University examined the potential relationship between ADHD and exposure to certain toxic pesticides called organophosphates.

The rest at the link.

Sunday Cartoon Fun: Accountability Edition