Friday Bonus Cartoon Fun: Greedy Bastards Edition

Friday Cartoon Fun: Tom Toles On Republicans Edition

Charter Schools As Answer Misses The Question

Charter Schools Not the Answer, Especially if We Fail to Identify the Question

One pattern of failure in education reform is that political leadership and the public focus attention and resources on solutions while rarely asking what problems we are addressing or how those solutions address identified problems. The current and possibly increasing advocacy of charter schools is a perfect example of that flawed approach to improving our schools across the U.S.

Let’s start with two clarifications.

First, the overwhelming problems contributing to school quality are pockets of poverty across the country and school policies and practices mirroring and increasing social inequities for children once they enter many schools.

Children who live under the weight of poverty attend buildings in disrepair, sit in classrooms with inexperienced and un-/under-qualified teachers, and suffer through endless scripted instruction designed to raise their test scores. Citizens of a democracy share the responsibility for eradicating both the out-of-school and in-school failures often reflected in data associated with our public schools.

Then, what is a charter school and should any state increase resources allocated to charter schools, and in effect, away from public schools?

Staring with Problems, not Solutions

Charter schools are public schools that function under agreements, charters, that allow those schools to function in some ways without the constraints placed on public schools.

Here, we must acknowledge that if charter schools are a viable solution to the serious problems I have identified above, a much more direct approach would be simply to allow all public schools to function without the restraints we know to be impacting negatively their ability to produce strong educational outcomes.

If innovation and autonomy are valuable for educational reform, then all public schools deserve those opportunities.

Powerful evidence that committing to charter schools is inefficient rests in the research that shows charter schools, private schools, and public schools have essentially the same academic outcomes when the populations of students served are held constant.

In his ongoing analysis of educational research, Matthew DiCarlo explains:

“[T]here is a fairly well-developed body of evidence showing that charter and regular public schools vary widely in their impacts on achievement growth. This research finds that, on the whole, there is usually not much of a difference between them, and when there are differences, they tend to be very modest. In other words, there is nothing about ‘charterness’ that leads to strong results.”

In other words, when schools succeed—which many public, private, and charter schools do—the success appears to have little to do with the type of school. The practices in any of these models can be replicated in any of the other models, but even then, scaling up or replicating what works in Public School A may not come to fruition in Charter School B.

The evidence, then, suggests that all states should avoid investing time and allocating tax dollars to charter schools, particularly when those commitments detract from addressing known problems in our public schools.

But there are additional red flags that should be considered about the charter school movement, cautions that are even more alarming:

• While charter schools across the U.S. are serving high-poverty and minority populations, charter schools tend to under-serve English language learners and students with special needs—two of the most challenging populations facing public schools. If our experiments with charter schools include ignoring populations at the heart of public school challenges, then the experiments are a failure from the start.

• The charter school movement is re-segregating public schools. This is the most disturbing fact of the charter school movement. Children of color and children living in poverty are disproportionately being isolated in charter schools that are without racial or socioeconomic diversity.

• Since charter schools create some degree of open enrollment, they create transient populations of students, thus producing data that are less valuable for mining policies and practices to address the problems facing neighborhood public schools.

• Charter schools have the power to manipulate the population of students served only because public schools must serve the students once they leave those charter schools. Public schools never have, and shouldn’t have, the power to reject students beyond expulsion.

Many states appear committed, then, to contradictory policies: Increasing charter schools and thus their autonomy while decreasing public school autonomy within an accountability system that prescribes curriculum and expands the testing regime.

Charter schools in theory represent a belief in innovation, experimentation, and school autonomy. If these qualities are valuable and if they can address the out-of-school and in-school causes of educational outcomes, then we simply need to allocate funding and policies to insure that our public schools are afforded the same, while also admitting that we have no evidence that a school type—pubic, charter, or private—insures the outcomes we seek.

Recommended Resources

Baker, B.D. & Ferris, R. (2011). Adding up the spending: Fiscal disparities and philanthropy among New York City charter schools. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/...

One contradiction of charter school advocacy is the claim that funding doesn't matter or is excessive at the public school level, but that many charter schools benefit from private donations or funding in addition to accepting tax dollars for running those charter schools. This study raises cautions about the wide variety of funding found in New York city charter schools. The authors warn about making careless comparisons and assuming that any charter schools are scalable as reform templates for public education reform.

Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO). (2009, June). Multiple choice: Charter school performance in 16 states. Stanford, CA: Center for Research on Education Outcomes. Retrieved from http://credo.stanford.edu/...

This comprehensive study of charter schools, though not without controversy, presents a solid picture of the range of quality found in any education format. Charter schools appear to have about 17% high achieving, 46% average, and 37% low achieving characteristics when compared to public schools. This data help place in context claims of “high flying” charter schools as all or even most charter schools, but the study does not address key issues such as the ideology and practices of those schools.

Frankenberg, E., Siegel-Hawley, G., & Wang, J. (2011) Choice without equity: Charter school segregation. Educational Policy Analysis Archives, 19(1). Retrieved from http://epaa.asu.edu/...

We often fail to recognize the negative consequences of choice, but the charter school movement is exposing those consequences. This study concludes that charter schools "currently isolate students by race and class" and that charter schools may tend to under-serve English language learners and the extreme low end of poverty.

Fuller, E. (2011, April 25). Characteristics of students enrolling in high-performing charter high schools. A "Fuller" Look at Education Issues [blog]. Retrieved from http://fullerlook.wordpress.com/...

The choice dynamic of charter schools necessarily creates a student population unlike the community-based traditional public schools. In order to understand if and how charter schools in fact provide some evidence for reforming public schools, the populations of charters schools must be fully examined and understood. Fuller begins to examine the characteristics of students in charter schools labelled "high-performing" and identifies many disparities including special education students served, achievement characteristics among high-poverty students in both charter and public schools, and at-risk students, concluding: "This suggests that HP charter high schools do not serve the same types of students as the regular neighborhood schools. Now, granted, the HP charter high schools do enroll a greater percentage of students participating in the free- and reduced-price lunch program and in the free lunch program, but these economically disadvantaged students are not the same as the economically disadvantaged students in the regular neighborhood schools!"

Garcia, D. (2011). Review of “Going Exponential: Growing the Charter School Sector’s Best.” Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/....

Garcia debunks think tank advocacy for expanding rapidly charter schools. This review is important for remaining skeptical about charter schools and for continuing to be vigilant about distinguishing between advocacy dressed as research and credible conclusions drawn from scholarship and research.

Miron, G. (2011). Review of “Charter Schools: A Report on Rethinking the Federal Role in Education.” Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/....

Miron presents a mixed view of a report from the Brown Center on Education Policy of the Brookings Institution. The Brown Center report represents a growing endorsement of a federal role in promoting the expansion of charter schools. Miron argues for a tempered position on expanding charter schools and for using this report as just one initial piece of evidence in forming policy.

Miron, G. & Urschel, J.L. (2010). Equal or fair? A study of revenues and expenditure in American charter schools. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved from http://epicpolicy.org/...

Funding and how funding is distributed lie at the center of much of the charter school and public school reform debates. This study details the complexity of how charter schools are funding and how that compares to public school funding. Key in this study is a call for more research on charter funding along with greater and fuller disclosure of charter funding, since charter schools tend to receive less per-pupil funding that public school but additional private funding that is not disclosed. As well, public schools remain likely to offer services that charters do not provide, distorting further any comparisons of funding equity.

Miron, G., Urschel, J. L., Mathis, W, J., & Tornquist, E. (2010). Schools without Diversity: Education management organizations, charter schools and the demographic stratification of the American school system. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved from http://epicpolicy.org/...

This study draws a disturbing pattern being uncovered about the charter school movement: "The analysis found that, as compared with the public school district in which the charter school resided, the charter schools were substantially more segregated by race, wealth, disabling condition, and language."

Miron, G., Urschel, J. L., & Saxton, N. (2011, March). What makes KIPP work?: A study of student characteristics, attrition, and school finance. Teachers College, Columbia University. National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education. Retrieved from http://www.ncspe.org/...

Focusing on inputs instead of student outcomes, this study examines KIPP schools and finds that KIPP schools do enroll high-poverty student but under-serve special needs students and English language learners. The study also raises questions about student attrition and about the apparent inequity in funding that KIPP schools receive when all funding is examined, totaling about $6500 more per pupil than public schools in the area. Combined, this evidence challenges the KIPP model as scalable.

Ravtich, D. (2010, November 11). The myth of charter schools. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved from http://www.nybooks.com/...

Ravitch's scholarly commentary is important because of her credibility as a scholar and historian along with her recent shift in positions concerning accountability/testing and school choice. This detailed discussion confronts the media-driven claims of "miracle" charter schools.

Schools Matter

Wednesday Cartoon Fun: Knowledge Edition

TFT's #SOSChat Radio Is Fully Funded!

We did it! You all donated and now I have a Premium account at Blog Talk Radio. Thank you so very much. I can now host whenever I want and for up to 2 hours! Awesome!

Many thanks to all who donated. In a year, I will have to ask for donations again, but don't let that stop you from donating today, or again! Do it frequently!

For the inaugural show I have invited Michael Butz (a fellow Deadhead and the reason for the picture above) to talk with me about education reform, especially as touted by Michelle Rhee and Students First. We will have an hour to talk and many guests have been invited to call in. We have a little community over at the SF FB page, and this show is an opportunity to actually speak with each other.

It was tough getting Mike to come on. I had to prove to him it would be okay. He now knows it will be fun. Good for him! He's right!

So, set the date: March 21st at 7pm PST.

@Jillsmo: I Am A Feminist (TFT Is Too!)

I am a feminist

I am a woman, but I am not a victim.

Society may think that I need its protection, but society is wrong.  I don't need your laws protecting my vanity; protecting my womanhood. I can protect myself. Your well crafted, media tested talking points do not speak for me; I can speak for myself.

I am responsible for the choices that I make and the things that I say and do. I will choose what I eat and drink and what medications I take. I am in charge of what I look like, what I wear, how I act, and in the end, I take ownership of the consequences of all of my actions.

I will raise my children as I see fit, and I will own my body in all of its fleshy glory, and I will fuck my husband, while using birth control, and not be ashamed of any of it.

I don't care if you call me a slut, a bitch, a whore, or a cunt. Saying those words might make you an asshole, but they don't affect me in the slightest. Those are just words and your words don't define me: I define myself.

I am a woman, and I am not not a victim of men. I am responsible for myself; for my own feelings, for my own sense of self worth. For my own life.

I am a feminist and I am proud to call myself one, because this is what feminism means to me.

It means that I am not weak.

It means that I am not a victim.

It means that I am a woman.

My Yearly, Obligatory Daylight Saving Post

Tonight you must not forget to set your clock ahead 1 hour for Daylight Savings Time!!

Blame this guy:

Benjamin Franklin

Update: Oops, forgot this:

California Commission On Teacher Credentialing Lawyer Blows The California Education Whistle!

Kathleen Carroll, an attorney and fired whistleblower at the California Commission On Teacher Credentials attended the March 5, 2012 rally for public education at the State Capitol and talks about the organized destruction of public education in California and who is responsible for this crisis. Included in her comments is the role of Apple and other online education companies who are draining funds from public schools. She also calls for the investigation and prosecution of illegal actions by lobbyists funded by the Gates Foundation and Broad Foundation who are illegally voting on public money to private schools in which they have an economic interest. She questions why California Attorney General Kamala Harris has refused to investigate and also whey Governor Jerry Brown is continuing to allow criminal activity at the Commission On Teacher Credentials. The California Commission On Teacher Credentials is under the direct authority of Governor Brown and his office.

Thursday Cartoon Fun: Rape Me With A Dildo? Edition

TFT Welcomes Gideon Stein

We Must Not Cave To The Onslaught

What a dilemma we find ourselves in. If it weren't for our love of kids, the other side would have won by now. We are adrift in a sea of professional educators who have spent the past 40 years being the frog in the boiled frog experiment. We find ourselves having survived thousands of fly-by-night Mcfix-its to the point that the majority of our fellow educators have spent the past two years numbed by Pavlovian conditioning and sit passively by watching the current siege as yet another passing fad. We are worn down, we are unsure, we are taken in front of the board of inquiry to face the kangaroo court of judgement. We see our comrades falling like flies under the scrutiny crafted of lies and political expediencies.

My fellow teachers, I feel your pain. Two years go I too was under the lights and flogged in the arena of degradation and humiliation. We are facing a form of mental water-boarding in the hopes we crack under the strain and cave to our human instincts to take flight under duress.

Today we find ourselves at a crossroads. We see the armor of our foes begin to strain under the scrutiny of truth. Simultaneously, we find ourselves mentally and physically exhausted from our courageous and prolonged fight. As we enter into the days ahead we must not waiver from our commitments. But we also must remember that in order to do our best for others, we must first put on our own oxygen mask before helping others to put on theirs. But we must not cave to the onslaught. We are educators, damn it! Our lives have meaning as we work every day to give meaning to the lives of others. Our indignation is righteous, warranted and just! Our anger is born from the injustice and inhumane indifference by which the reformers toss the hearts and minds of children aside like so much rubbish accumulated and in the path of their chase for control of education.

This is indeed the lost generation. We see it grow more and more so year after year. This is why we get up every day! This is why we stand from the rooftops hollering for others to hear! This is why we take quiet solitude, give time to the quiet, and humbly reaffirm that our calling is so much more than any test, or any policy, or any soul lost to the venom of propaganda. And we open our door in the morning, peer into the eyes of the future and start another day of making a difference.

Monday Cartoon Fun: Clueless Edition

Ed Reform – Reducing Teaching to Sophie’s Choice

This will be a difficult blog for many to read. For some, the overarching subject matter will raise powerful emotions of anger and rage. For others the realization of being intensely manipulated and forced to compromise morals and integrity will also raise powerful emotions of anger and rage. My intention is to expose parallels between two cultures. My intention is to make you think. One event is monumentally abhorrent, intensely immoral, and a crime against humanity of such a magnitude, there are no words to describe it. The other event pales in comparison. So before I go any further, I offer my sincere and humble apologies to anyone who may be offended or may think I am over stepping my bounds, or making inappropriate comparisons.

In World War II, Germany’s Nazi regime owed much of its power and domination to a reign of abject and merciless terror. It was accepted policy to enter into a defeated town or village, round up the entire population to witness a wholesale slaughter of town leaders and “undesirables.” This was done to set the tone and show the survivors the consequences for defying the Reich. The Nazi's understood this: When you can strike terror into the hearts of many, you can get them to do most anything you want.

The remarkable American film, Sophie’s Choice, illustrated some of the heartless and cold blooded terrorist techniques the Nazi’s used to crush the will of people. In the movie, Sophie (Meryl Streep) reveals to her lover the tragic episode of the choice between her children in Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Sophie was forced to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp. To avoid having both children killed, she chose Jan (Adrian Kaltika), her son, to be sent to the children's camp, and her daughter, Eva (Jennifer Lawn), to be sent to her death in Crematorium Two. This is an unbelievably heartbreaking decision of such a magnitude there are no words to describe it. This is a decision no human being should ever have to face and one that rattles our sensibilities to their very core. This episode reaffirms how the Nazi's understood that when you can strike terror into the hearts of many, you can get them to do most anything you want.

Here is where this conversation will likely get tough and upset many.

The realities of today’s education landscape include excessive testing, NCLB, RttT, public humiliation, VAM rankings, no LIFO, and no tenure. The consequences associated with going against these realities invoke increasing degrees of censure including Federal punishments ranging from schools, districts, and entire states being labeled as failures, school closures, and now public humiliation.

Combined, all of these sanctions and punishments strike terror into the hearts of teachers. Teacher's are scrambling to find ways to not be noticed. We are desperate to both do the right thing by our students AND survive the gauntlet laid down by the Federal Department of Education and its Status Quo reform policies of NCLB, RttT, public humiliation, VAM rankings, no LIFO, and no tenure.

Teacher all across the nation lament the pressure to raise sore, the pressure to forego teaching for test prep, the damage they see year after year as kids are pushed through the assembly line of the classroom experiences. Today's school experience has been institutionally demoted to not much more than a test data mill.

In private, teachers wish to rise up and fight the oppressive regime that imposes such harsh sanctions for failing or being otherwise undesirable to the Status Quo. In private, teachers wish they had options.

Then they remember what happened to the Teachers in Wisconsin, or they consider the 50% impact student test scores have on teachers in states like Florida that has already been conquered and dominated by the reformers. And quickly, teachers retreat hoping to remain under the radar of sanctions. Quickly the thoughts turn to ways to keep their VAM scores up to avoid the public tarring and feathering experienced by Pascale Mauclair after the New York Post declared her “The city’s worst teacher” based on wonky VAM scores. The Federal government has, in essence, championed a system and dynamic that facilitates rounding up undesirables, parading them into the town square and then make a public example out of them.

So here is the modern teacher’s “Sophie’s Choice.” When it comes down to a choice between providing a home for our own kids and keeping food on our own tables by dancing at the end of the reform puppeteers stings, caving to the pressure of foregoing teaching for test prep, and push kids through the test data mill assembly line regardless of real learning, most will choose the dance and sacrifice their students to the requirements of the regime.

In reality, neither the security of career and home nor the well being of the students should be on the sacrificial block. But when the choice given to teachers is between placating the test mill regime and sacrificing kids' learning, or teach the way it is meant to be and excite the hearts and minds of kids at the risk of kids' scores dropping and probable sanctions and/or dismissal, education places teachers squarely in the immoral position of making a modern parallel to Sophie’s Choice.

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:

Alan Grayson's 12 Myths Republicans Must Believe

(1) The Government can’t create jobs. (Tell that to FDR, who created four million jobs in three months.)

(2) Tax cuts reduce the deficit. (Doesn’t it bother them that a man named “Laffer” came up with this one?)

(3) A fetus is a baby.

(4) The poor have too much money.

(5) Cutting the federal deficit will end the recession.

(6) The rich are incentivized by tax cuts, while the poor are incentivized by lower wages, no benefits, an end to the minimum wage, and unemployment.

(7) An unwanted child is God’s will.

(8) Everyone who wants health insurance has it.

(9) The problem with education is the teachers.

(10) The “free market” satisfies every human need.

(11) There is no discrimination in America anymore.

(12) The distribution of wealth and income are irrelevant.

DWT