This would be much funnier were it not so eerily close to stuff I’ve seen, even in great Texas school systems:
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A :30 commercial created by The Canandaigua Film Society in Canandaigua, New York, to protest over-testing in schools in May 2013.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Diane Ravitch gets all the good discussion — of course, she’s much the expert and she’s done several thousand posts in the last year.
View of a two-story wood-frame school house with students and teachers out front, by H. N. Gale & Co. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ravitch engaged in a brief back-and-forth with Ben Austin, a guy who contributed to the invention of virtual IEDs to blow up California schools, called parent trigger laws. Under California law, if 50% +1 of the parents of the students at a school sign a petition, the district must take apart the faculty or give up control of the school to a non-public school entity. See my posts repeating the early parts of the exchange under “More” at the bottom of the post.
For reasons I can’t figure, parent trigger advocates claim these moves bring “accountability” to education, though the only effect is usually to fire public school teachers. Oddly, most of the time replacements then are not accountable to the local school district nor the state for similar levels of student educational achievement. But a public school is dead and a private entity has taken its place.
Discussion on the threads at Ravitch’s blog get long.
Philadelphia teachers on Capitol Steps, Washington, D.C., May 13, 1011. Library of Congress colleciton
I responded to a guy named Steve who rather asserted that teachers are just trying to avoid accountability, and so should probably be fired (there’s more nuance to his position, but not enough). A few links are added here, for convenience of readers.
Steve said:
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were absolutely no standardized measures for educational success, and teachers could simply focus on educating children in whatever way they believe is best, and that all schools were funded to their greatest need and without oversight? And students learned to their capacity and everyone would sing kum-ba-yah at the end of the day?
No. The premise of no standardized measures is a bad idea. In that case, as now, we would have no real way to determine whether the system is working.
You mistake testing for reform, and you mistake test results for quality; you assume that test results are the result of what a teacher does in the previous few months, without any assistance (or interference) from parents, the front office, state agencies, and smart phones.
It would be good if we had research to guide teachers in the best ways to educate kids. We have way too little now, and what does exist rarely can break through the complex regulatory web created by NCLB proponents who ironically, and probably sardonically, require any new process to be “research tested and proven,” probably knowing that gives raters more opportunities to fire teachers.
That’s where our dispute lies.
Yes, sometimes it’s best to hold hands and sing “Kum Ba Yah.” Especially in school. Singing is good, music education is important to the development of sterling minds. Group activities to celebrate milestones produces greater achievement.
I gather you’re opposed to that. That’s a key part of the problem. “Reformers” are too often working against what we know works (though often we’re not sure why it works), against what many regard as “frills” like music and poetry (well, Aristotle argued against it, didn’t he?), and against achievement that can’t be used to fire somebody.
It’s a problem of models. A group singing a song together shows some developmental progress, and may show other progress. The Donald Trump “You’re Fired” model is much more titillating to bullies. Bullies tend to rule too many places.
We need a model that works, a model grounded in good theory (“theory” does not mean “guess”), a model that produces some sort of scoreboard teachers can use, day-in and day-out, to determine what to do next.
“Accountability” is a light on that scoreboard, but it’s not the score, and it’s not the game.
And yes, it certainly would be a better world if poverty, racism, abuse and more simply didn’t exist.
Don’t patronize with stuff you don’t believe and you know policy makers won’t work towards.
Poverty is the big one here. We’ve known for 40 years that poor parents as a group cannot produce students who will achieve well academically as well as rich parents, not because they’re not the great parents they are, but because middle class wealth brings learning opportunities for preschool kids and pre-adolescents and teens that mold minds and make them work well; kids in poverty miss that. Until you’ve tried to get your students up to speed on the Constitution with students who do not know how many states there are, what oceans border our nation, who George Washington was, what a Constitution is, how laws are made, or where food comes from, you really don’t appreciate the difficulty.
Yeah, they used to get that stuff in the newspaper. But their families can’t afford newspapers.
And when I get those kids to “commended” levels on the state test, how dare you tell me I’ve failed. Shame on you, and may you be nervous every time you hear thunder, or go under the knife with a surgeon who passed my class.
But this isn’t the world we live in. This is an organized society. When public funds are spent, there needs to be accountability.
There can be no accountability where there is no authority. If I do not have the authority to obtain the tools to educate the students in my tutelage to the standard, why not hold accountable those who are the problem? I produced four years of achievement in the bottom 20% — you’re bellyaching because the top 3% only got one year of achievement? They were already scoring at the 14 year level — sophomores in college. “Adequate Yearly Progress” can’t be had for those students, if you define adequate as “more than one year,” and if they’re already far beyond the material we are required to teach.
Accountability is a tool to get toward quality. You want to use it as a club. I think it should be a crime to misuse tools in that fashion.
You really don’t have a clue what’s going on in my classroom, do you.
I am *so* tired of the educators on this blog berating anyone who suggests that a teacher be accountable for *anything*.
Show me where anyone has said that. I weary of anti-education shouters complaining about teachers not being accountable, when we’re swimming in “accountability,” we’re beating the system most of the time, and still berated for it; our achievements are denigrated, our needs are ignored. If we win the Superbowl, we’re told we failed to win an Oscar. If we win the Superbowl AND an Oscar, we’re told someone else did better at the Pulitzers. If we win the Nobel Prize for Peace, we’re asked to beef up our STEM chops.
I was asked to boost my state passing scores by 5%. Part of the reason Dallas dismissed me was my abject refusal to sign to that (“insubordination”). That it’s mathematically impossible to boost a 100% passing rate to 105% didn’t change anyone’s mind, nor give anyone pause in passing along the paper. College acceptances didn’t count, SAT scores didn’t count, student evaluations didn’t count.
I wish idiots who can’t do math would be held accountable, but you want my gray scalp instead (and larger paycheck; but of course, that’s not really in the system, is it?). Is there no reason you can find to cling to?
There’s a difference between “accountability,” and “pointless blame.” See if you can discern it. Your children’s future depends on it. Our nation’s future depends on it. We’re not playing school here.
People are accountable for the work that they do.
That’s absolutely untrue in about 85% of the jobs in America. W. Edwards Deming died, and people forgot all about the 14 points and how to make winning teams. Are you familiar with the Red Bead experiment?
Most people calling for accountability can’t define it (Hint: in the top management schools, you don’t see this equation: “accountability=fire somebody”).
Can you do better? What is “accountability?” Will you please rate me on the advancements of my students? No? How about on their achievements? No? Can you tell me even what you want to hold teachers accountable for?
Don’t wave that sword when you don’t know how to use it, or if you can’t recognize the difference between a scalpel and a scimitar, please.
You give me white beads, I turn 80% of them red, and you complain about the few that remain white? [If you’re paying attention and you know Deming’s experiment, you know I reversed the color in my example — no one ever catches me on that. Why?] You’re playing the guy who, having witnessed Jesus walking on water, wrote the headline, “Jesus can’t swim!” That’s a joke — it’s not how to make a better school, or a better education system, and it’s not accountability.
NOBODY wants a teacher to be accountable for things that are beyond their control. You have had FIFTY YEARS to develop a means to show that you are accountable in your use of public funds. You have not done it to the public’s satisfaction.
As Deming noted occasionally, we’ve had 5,000 years to develop standards of quality for carpentry and metalwork, and haven’t done it.
The Excellence in Education Commission in 1983 recommended changes to stop the “rising tide of mediocrity” in education. Among the top recommendations, raise teacher pay dramatically, and get out of the way of teachers so they can do their job.
Instead, teacher pay has stagnated and declined, and we have a bureaucracy the sort of which George Orwell never had a nightmare about standing in their way.
But you want to “hold the teachers accountable.”
I suppose it’s impossible to be part of the rising tide of mediocrity and also recognize you’re part of the problem.
Your failure to understand accountability should not cost me my job. I not only want accountability, I want justice, especially for my students. 97% of my students will face invidious racial discrimination when they go out to get a job; many of them (about 50%) come from families who don’t use banks. No checking accounts, no home loans, no car loans from a bank. More than half of the males have never worn a tie. 75% of them come from homes where no novel is on any bookshelf; 30% of them claim to come from homes where there are no books at all, not even a phone book.
They passed the test with flying colors despite that.
That kid who came in not knowing how to write a paragraph went out of my classroom with a commended on his state test, and writing well enough to score 80th percentile on the SAT including the writing part. You have a lot of damnable gall to claim that my work to get him to write his brilliant ideas, well, was wasted effort.
Why won’t you hold me accountable for that? Why do you refuse to look at real accountability?
Don’t claim I’m shucking accountability, when you haven’t looked, and you don’t know what it is.
So – others are now coming in to try and develop what you failed to do. Yup, some of them are shysters. Some of them are ego-maniacs. And some of them are doing so because they have experience and success and they can apply those to helping to improve education and measurement of same.
Good luck to them. Why not let me compete with them. I mean compete fairly — either they don’t get to take money from me merely by existing, or I get to take money from them when I beat them in achievement, and when we take students away from them because they aren’t getting the job done?
You seem to think that these other alternatives for sucking taxpayer money work better. My schools beat charter schools and most private schools in our same population in achievement, in yearly progress, and in a dozen other categories. (Our art students took the top prizes at the state show, beating students from one of the nation’s “top ten high schools” four miles away; the art teachers who got them there? Rated inadequate, given growth plans, funding cut . . . I though you were campaigning for accountability?)
Don’t change the subject. I thought you were for accountability. All of a sudden, you’re against it when we’re talking brass tacks. When we miss a standard, we public school teachers get fired. When we beat the hell out of a standard, we still get fired. When we beat the private schools, the charter schools, and the home schooled kids in achievement, we get zip, or a pink slip.
Accountability? I’d love to see it. You can’t show it, though, so you’re wasting my time and taxpayer money hollering about it.
Some of you even have the temerity to say that the system isn’t broken. Well, maybe it’s not broken for *you*. But it IS broken for the rest of us. And it’s public money here – so – if you are so certain that everything is hunky-dory in what you are adding to the process, well then, prove it. That’s what using public funds requires.
Your kids are in jail? Sorry the system failed you so badly. I had a 90% graduation rate out of my students, in a state where 75% is the state norm and suspected by everyone to be inflated. If your kids are not in jail, and didn’t drop out, that’s good.
Public education isn’t a right (in most states); it’s a civic duty, the thing that keeps our republic alive and democratic. School worries about your kids, sure — but we must also worry about every other kid, too.
What about the 200 other families in your neighborhood? The levels of vandalism and other crimes in your neighborhood depends on the children of those families getting an education. I was able to turn around a dozen of them. The local cops actually did a good job with another dozen.
The local charter school wouldn’t take any of those 24 kids. The private schools took one on an athletic scholarship, but he flunked out his junior year, after football season ended. He was out of school for full six months before we got him back. Three of those girls got commended on the state test despite their having infants; two others got commended and one more passed for the first time in her life despite their delivering children within three weeks of the test. We covered the history of children’s literature one week, convincing more than a few that they should read to their babies, as they were never read to. I got the local bookstore to donate children’s books for each parent in my class, so that their children won’t grow up without at least one book in the house.
We’re teachers, and we worry about the future. Why won’t you allow accountability for that?
Accountability? The word does not mean what you think it means.
Firing teachers is not accountability. It’s an evasion of accountability. It’s destructive of schooling and education. Firing teachers damages children. Even if you could tell who the bad teachers are — and you can’t, no one can do it well — firing teachers cannot offer hope of getting better teachers to replace them.
Why not improve education instead? Who is accountable for that?
Again at Diane Ravitch’s blog, Steve responded that he wants everyone held accountable, including parents and administrators. Good, so far as it goes. I think that’s just lip service. He’s still firing teachers with no way to tell the good from the bad.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Parent trigger laws portrayed, At the Chalkface; it’s a warning sign, of course.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
At her blog again, Diane Ravitch responded to Ben Austin’s open letter to her at the Huffington Post.
Earlier today, Ben Austin wrote an open letter to me on Huffington Post. He expressed dismay about my characterization of him and his group Parent Revolution. Read his letter here. Here is my reply.
My Reply to Ben Austin’s Open Letter to Me
Dear Ben Austin,
Thank you for your invitation to engage in dialogue in your letter posted on Huffington Post.
You probably know that I have been writing a daily blog for the past fourteen months and during that time, I have written over 4,000 posts. I can’t remember any time when I have lost my temper other than when I wrote about your successful effort to oust an elementary school principal in Los Angeles named Irma Cobian.
I apologize for calling you “loathsome,” though I do think your campaign against a hardworking, dedicated principal working in an inner-city school was indeed loathsome. And it was wrong of me to say that there was a special place in hell reserved for anyone “who administers and funds this revolting organization that destroys schools and fine educators like Irma Cobian.”
As I said, I lost my temper, and I have to explain why.
I don’t like bullies. When I saw this woman targeted by your powerful organization, it looked like bullying. Your organization is funded by many millions of dollars from the Walton Family Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. You have a politically powerful organization, and you used your power to single out this one woman and get her fired.
Your organization sent in paid staff to collect signatures from parents. The teachers in the school were not permitted to express their opinion to parents about your efforts to fire their principal. When you succeeded in getting her fired, 21 of the 22 teachers on staff requested a transfer. That suggests that Cobian has the loyalty of her staff and is a good leader.
Who is this woman that you ousted?
All I know about her is what I read in this article in the Los Angeles Times.
It said: “More than two decades ago, Cobian walked away from a high-powered law firm to teach. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she said she was inspired by a newspaper article about the low high school graduation rates of Latinos and wanted to make a difference.
“Her passion for social justice led her to Watts in 2009.”
Irma Cobain is now in her fourth year as principal of the school, and you decided that her time was up.
What did her teachers say about her?
“Third-grade teacher Kate Lewis said Irma Cobian is the best principal she’s had in nine years at Weigand Avenue Elementary School in Watts.
“Joseph Shamel called Cobian a “godsend” who has used her mastery of special education to show him how to craft effective learning plans for his students.”
“Fourth-grade teacher Hector Hernandez said Cobian is the first principal he’s had who frequently pops into classrooms to model good teaching herself. Recently, he said, she demonstrated how to teach about different literary genres by engaging students in lively exercises using characters from the “Avengers” comic book and film.”
When Cobian arrived at the Weigand Avenue Elementary school four years ago, she found a school with low test scores, low parent involvement, and divisiveness over a dual-language program. “All the students come from low-income families, more than half are not fluent in English and a quarter turn over every year,” the Los Angeles Times story said.
Cobian decided to focus on improving literacy and raising morale. She certainly won over the faculty.
The day after Cobian learned about the vote removing her, she went to a second-grade classroom to give prizes to children who had read 25 books this year. She cheered those who met the goal and encouraged those who were trying. But she could not hide her sadness.
“I need happiness today,” Cobian told the bright-eyed students. “What do I do when I’m sad?”
“Come here!” the students sang out.
For a moment, her sadness gave way to smiles. But later, she said: “I am crushed.”
Ben, how did you feel when you read that? I felt sad. I felt this was a caring and dedicated person who had been singled out unfairly.
Ben, I hope you noticed in the article that Dr. John Deasy, the superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, praised the plan that Cobian and her staff developed for improving the school. He called it a “well-organized program for accelerated student achievement.” He thanked Cobian for her commitment and hard work.” But you decided she should be fired.
Ironically, the parent who worked with you to fire Cobian said she preferred Weigand to her own neighborhood school where she had concerns about bullying. Even stranger, the parents at Cobian’s school voted to endorse her plan. Your parent spokesperson said she did not like the plan because it focused on reading and writing, but she told the reporter from the Los Angeles Times that she actually never read the plan.
I understand from your letter, Ben, that you somehow feel you are a victim because of what I wrote about you. But, Ben, you are not a victim. Irma Cobian is the victim here. She lost her job because of your campaign to get rid of her. She is the one who was humiliated and suffered loss of income and loss of reputation. You didn’t. You still have your organization, your staff, and the millions that the big foundations have given you.
I am sorry you had a tough childhood. We all have our stories about growing up. I am one of eight children. My father was a high-school dropout. My mother immigrated from Bessarabia and was very proud of her high school diploma from the Houston public schools. She was proud that she learned to speak English “like a real American.” My parents were grateful for the free public schools of Houston, where I too graduated from high school. We had our share of problems and setbacks but I won’t go on about myself or my siblings because my story and yours are really beside the point. What troubles me is what you are doing with the millions you raise. You use it to sow dissension, to set parents against parents, parents against teachers, parents against principals. I don’t see this as productive or helpful. Schools function best when there is collaboration among teachers, parents, administrators, and students. Schools have a better chance of success for the children when they have a strong community and culture of respect.
Your “parent trigger” destroys school communities. True to its name, the “trigger” blasts them apart. It causes deep wounds. It decimates the spirit of respect and comity that is necessary to build a strong community. Frankly, after the school shootings of recent years, your use of the metaphor of a “parent trigger” is itself offensive. We need fewer triggers pointed at schools and educators. Please find a different metaphor, one that does not suggest violence and bloodshed.
It must be very frustrating to you and your funders that–three years after passage of the “parent trigger” law– you can’t point to a single success story. I am aware that you persuaded the parents at the Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, California, to turn their public school over to a privately operated charter. I recall that when parents at the school tried to remove their signatures from your petition, your organization went to court and won a ruling that they were not allowed to rescind their signatures. Ultimately only 53 parents in a school of more than 600 children chose the charter operator. Since the charter has not yet opened, it is too soon to call that battle a success for Parent Revolution. Only the year before, the Adelanto Charter Academy lost its charter because the operators were accused of financial self-dealing.
But, Ben, let me assure you that I bear you no personal ill will. I just don’t approve of what you are doing. I think it is wrong to organize parents to seize control of their public school so they can fire the staff or privatize it. If the principal is doing a bad job, it is Dr. Deasy’s job to remove her or him. I assume that veteran principals and teachers get some kind of due process, where charges are filed and there is a hearing. If Cobain was as incompetent as you say, why didn’t Dr. Deasy bring her up on charges and replace her?
I also have a problem with the idea that parents can sign a petition and hand their public school off to a private charter corporation. The school doesn’t belong to the parents whose children are enrolled this year. It belongs to the public whose taxes built it and maintains it. As the L.A. Times story pointed out, one-quarter of the children at Weigand Avenue Elementary School are gone every year. The parents who sign a petition this year may not even be parents in the school next year. Why should they have the power to privatize the school? Should the patrons of a public library have the power to sign a petition and privatize the management? Should the people using a public park have the right to take a vote and turn the park over to private management?
We both care about children. I care passionately about improving education for all children. I assume you do as well. You think that your organized raids on public schools and professionals will lead to improvement. I disagree. Schools need adequate resources to succeed. They also need experienced professionals, a climate of caring, and stability. I don’t see anything in the “trigger” concept that creates the conditions necessary for improvement. Our teachers and principals are already working under too much stress, given that schools have become targets for federal mandates and endless reforms.
I suggest that educators need respect and thanks for their daily work on behalf of children. If they do a bad job, the leadership of the school system is responsible to take action. What educators don’t need is to have a super-rich, super-powerful organization threatening to pull the trigger on their career and their good name.
Ben, thanks for the open letter and the chance to engage in dialogue. If you don’t mind, I want to apologize to Irma Cobain on your behalf. She was doing her best. She built a strong staff that believes in her. She wrote a turnaround plan that Dr. Deasy liked and the parents approved. Ms. Cobain, if you read this, I hope you can forgive Ben. Maybe next time, he will think twice, get better information, and consider the consequences before he decides to take down another principal.
Diane Ravitch
If Dr. Ravitch is correct in her claims, and her fears for future results, the biggest problem with this parent-trigger farce is that it costs a lot of money, and does only damage to schools, and to students, therefore.
Please continue to Part 4.
This series, on the dustup between Prof. Diane Ravitch and Ben Austin in California:
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4 Comments | Education, Education quality, Education reform, History, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Ben Austin, Diane Ravitch, Education, Education reform, Irma Cobian, Parent Trigger, Teachers, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
This is the first of five parts needed to document and lay the background for what unfortunately promises to be a pitched public relations battle, if not a serious battle to rescue a California school from being crushed by a corporation making a hostile takeover of a school using California’s “parent trigger” law. Follow-ups may be needed.
Diane Ravitch in Dallas, April 28, 2010 – Copyright 2010 Ed Darrell (you may use freely, with attribution)
If you’ve followed education issues, you know Dr. Diane Ravitch is a professor of education at Columbia, one of the most respected schools of education in the world. Her work on education reform was popular with the Reagan administration in the period after the Report of the Commission on Excellence in Education in 1983, and particularly with education reformers at the time I was tapped to work at the Department of Education, in the old Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Dr. Ravitch was appointed to head that arm of Education in the administration of George H. W. Bush, but after I had left government for the private sector.
More recently, Dr. Ravitch has looked hard to find evidence that the testing regimes imposed by the “No Child Left Behind” Act (NCLB) actually produce benefits to the education of students.
Finding no such evidence, Dr. Ravitch has called for an end to unproven methods of destruction of schools and school systems in pursuit of foggy, unattainable goals.
Recently, big-dollar guys have backed efforts to kick out teachers and trained educators from schools, and in particular with “parent-trigger” laws, which allow a group of parents to petition for the removal of professionals at a school, and for a group of parents to then take over the management of that school.
Oddly, the first places these laws have been applied is against teachers in schools where parental involvement has been historically abysmal. A closer look shows that in these cases professional organizers, well-financed by businessmen who fancy themselves education reformers, did the load-carrying to get the petitions signed, and to get the educators ousted.
One of the schools where this process is moving is Weigand Avenue Elementary School in Watts, that troubled, poverty-ridden section of Los Angeles more famous for riots and gangs than educational attainment.
Dr. Ravitch wrote on her blog on May 25:
Parent Revolution Force Out Excellent Principal
The billionaire-funded Parent Revolution flexed its muscle and got enough parent signatures to force the resignation of a highly effective principal.
Please read the story.
This is the principal who was ousted by Parent Revolution:
“Third-grade teacher Kate Lewis said Irma Cobian is the best principal she’s had in nine years at Weigand Avenue Elementary School in Watts.
“Joseph Shamel called Cobian a “godsend” who has used her mastery of special education to show him how to craft effective learning plans for his students.
“Los Angeles Unified Supt. John Deasy praised a plan developed by Cobian and her team to turn around the struggling campus — where most students test below grade level in reading and math — calling it a “well-organized program for accelerated student achievement.” He thanked Cobian for her commitment and hard work.”
21 of the school’s 22 teachers have requested transfers because of Cobian’s ouster.
Parent Revolution is a malevolent organization funded by Walton, Gates, and Broad.
There is a special place in hell reserved for everyone who administers and funds this revolting organization that destroys schools and fine educators like Irma Cobian.
Dr. Ravitch has a good sense of justice, and injustice in my opinion. This situation got her thinking, and she had more comments later.
Earlier today, I posted an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times about Parent Revolution forcing the ouster of an excellent principal, Irma Cobian.
I keep thinking about it. I think about the way her staff admired and respected her, how 21 of 22 teachers requested a transfer when she was targeted by the phony Parent Revolution.
Ben Austin is loathsome. He ruined the life and career of a dedicated educator. She was devoted to the children, he is devoted to the equally culpable foundations that fund his Frankenstein organization–Walton, Gates, and Broad. His biggest funder is the reactionary Walton Family Foundation [line added here], which spends $160 million every year to advance privatization.
Ben Austin is Walton’s useful idiot. He prattles on about his liberal credentials, but actions speak louder than words.
Here is my lifelong wish for him.
Ben, every day when you wake up, you should think of Irma Cobian. When you look in the mirror, think Irma Cobian. Your last thought every night should be Irma Cobian.
Ben, you ruined the life of a good person for filthy lucre. Never forget her. She should be on your conscience–if you have one–forever.
W. Edwards Deming,Wikipedia image. Oddly, few, if any, education reform efforts work to incorporate any of Deming’s rules for running high-efficiency, highly-productive, championship-quality organizations; its as if there is a different agenda being pursued.
Ravitch makes a good point. Organizational turnarounds rarely work when they start with mass firings. It didn’t work in the French Revolution, it didn’t work in Russian in 1917. Management experts like W. Edwards Deming, the most famous of the tough-reorganization management consultants in the drive for high quality organizations, bluntly warn that such efforts generally are destructive — the people fired are not the problem, nor do they have the authority to fix the problems, most often. People on the front line know the problems better than anyone else, and can provide the leadership to turn organizations around, however — and for those reasons, you don’t get rid of them, if your goal is to effect an organizational turnaround.
Mr. Austin should have a framed photo of Mrs. Cobian on his desk so he must see her, every day.
Mr. Austin disagrees.
See part 2.
This series, on the dustup between Prof. Diane Ravitch and Ben Austin in California:
More, different views, and resources:
6 Comments | Education, Education quality, Education reform, History, No Child Left Behind Act, Teachers, Teaching, War on Education, War on Teachers | Tagged: Ben Austin, Diane Ravitch, Education, Education reform, History, Irma Cobian, Los Angeles, NCLB, War on Education, War on Teachers, Weigand Avenue Elementary School | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Scott McLeod at Dangerously!Irrelevant put together a video, with computer voices to protect the innocent naive genuinely ignorant and proudly stupid.
Teachers who watch this may cry as they watch America’s future slip away into the Tide of Mediocrity™ we were warned about, which NCLB mistook for high water. Turn it up so you can hear the full sound effects. That’s the level of mediocrity rising as the “official” fiddles.
W. Edwards Deming researched and wrote a lot about organization managers who don’t really have a clue what is going on in their organizations, and who lack tools to measure employee work, because they lack an understanding of just what products are, what the resources are that are required to make the desirable product, and how to processes that make those products work, or could work better.
That’s education, today.
Should teachers be “held accountable?” Depends. Effective organizations understand that accountability is the flip-side of the coin of authority. Anyone accountable must have the authority to change the things that affect product, for which that person is “held accountable.” Texas schools lose up to 45 days a year to testing — that may drop as the TAKS test is phased out, but it won’t drop enough. 45 days is, effectively 25% of the school year. If time-on-task is important to education as Checker Finn used to badger us at the Department of Education, then testing is sucking valuable resources from education, way above and beyond any benefits testing may offer.
Today, Texas Governor Rick Perry has proposed laws sitting on his desk that would greatly pare back unnecessary testing. A coalition of businessmen (no women I can discern) with a deceptively-named organization urges Perry to veto the bills, because, they claim, rigor in education can only be demonstrated by a tsunami of tests.
What’s that, you ask? Where is the person concerned about the student? She’s the woman with the leaky classroom, who is being shown the door.
Why is it those with authority to change things for the better in Texas schools, and many other school systems throughout the U.S., are not being held accountable? If they won’t use their authority to make things better, why not give that authority to the teachers?
Check out McLeod’s blog — good comments on his video there.
More:
Fitzsimmons in the Arizona Daily Star
2 Comments | Education, NAEP, TAKS, Teacher Evaluation, Teachers, Teaching, TEKS, Testing, Texas | Tagged: Accountability, Classroom management, Education, NAEP, No Child Left Behind Act, TAKS, Teacher Evaluation, TEKS, Testing, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Interesting to me that a guy who didn’t go to college, made a fortune, left money to establish a college (and other schools), and has a great university named after him, today.
Bust of George Washington by Avard Fairbanks, at George Washington University, among the cherry blossoms. GWU photo
Full disclosure: My law degree comes from George Washington University, which was for many years Utah’s second law school, after the University of Utah.
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1 Comment | Education, George Washington, History | Tagged: Cherry blossoms, Education, George Washington, George Washington University, History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Consoler and Encourager in Chief:
Caption from Pete Souza‘s slide show: A message from President Barack Obama is seen on a Plaza Towers Elementary School sign, at Moore Fire Department Station #1 in Moore, Okla., May 26, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Pete Souza‘s work as White House photographer will ultimately make historians’ work much richer. He’s got a great eye for a shot that needs to be snapped, and a great sense of art on the fly. If you’re not a regular watcher of Souza’s work, you probably should be, especially if you’re teaching history.
More:
Leave a Comment » | Barack Obama, Disasters, Education, History, History images, photography, President Obama, Presidents | Tagged: Barack Obama, Disasters, Education, History, Moore Oklahoma, Pete Souza, photography, President Obama, White House | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Title page of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, 1776. Wikipedia image
This is an encore post. The topic is probably timely just about any time — the debates about which comes first, free markets or free people, or the balance of government regulation necessary to keep a truly fair and truly free market, or the utility of regulation at all, are debates that are good to have. It’s a pity there isn’t more discussion of Adam Smith’s ideas, instead of the idol-worshipping of a bronzed copy of Smith’s famous treatise. In any case, a spate of links to this post reminded me that it’s good to recirculate from time to time.
Have you read “I, Pencil?” You should. There’s a link early in the article. It’s a quick read.
Every economics teacher knows that old Leonard Read piece, “I, Pencil.” It’s a good, practical demonstration of the concept of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” free markets, and the way economies put stuff together for sale without a government agency issuing instructions, written by Read in 1958, for the Foundation for Economic Education, a once-free-market economic think tank that recently made an unexpected (by me) lurch to the radical right.
Pencils – Wikipedia image
The essay is dated, though, for high school kids today. Most of the stuff Read properly assumed people knew something about, is left out of modern curricula in elementary and middle school, so a high school teacher must do remedial work in mining, international trade, lumbering, manufacturing, chemistry and metallurgy, just to make the thing make sense. Where we used to learn about pencils in first or second grade, my students in recent years labor under the misconception that pencil leads are made out of lead, and I have to explain to them that graphite is a form of carbon. They don’t know cedar from pine, or mahogany, they don’t know copper from tin from zinc from steel, and they think rubber has always been synthetic.
Imagine my surprise on this: I got an e-mail touting an animated, YouTube update of Read’s essay. It’s not bad, even though it’s from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is neither competitive, nor an institute, but is instead a propaganda arm of crazy right-wing wackoes.
Whoever made this film appears not to have had much interference from the CEI poobahs.
Am I missing something? Is this film more right-wing than I see?
I worry that I missed something, or that the producers of this movie wove a spell over the usual radical near-fascist groups. This movie has been touted in recent days by almost all of the usual crypto-black-shirt think puddles, American Enterprise Institute, the unreasoning Reason magazine from the so-called libertarian view, the cartoonish Glen Beck effluent pipe The Blaze, the Coors family’s Heritage Foundation, the offensively-named Lexicans, the biased Cafe Hayek (which is often a good read anyway, so long as you don’t take them seriously on any science issue), the sanctuary for authoritarian-leaning victims of lobotomy Hot Air, and even that publication from the propaganda organization, The Daily Capitalist — in short, it’s been plugged by organizations covering the entire political spectrum from Y to Z, the far right end of the alphabet.
From US Patent 19783 Combination of Lead-Pencil and Eraser by L. Lipman, March 1858. (Patent later invalidated — so much for free market rewards to inventors) Wikipedia image
Maybe they didn’t watch it?
For today’s teenagers, someone should do a couple of updates. “I, SmartPhone” and “I, Tablet Computer” could include lessons in government regulation of radio spectrum and how such regulation allows public safety functions and air traffic control to exist alongside great profit-seeking groups, and how such developments would be impossible without government regulation. There would also be a section on the mining and milling of rare Earths, of ores like Coltan, which would introduce the concept of blood or conflict diamonds and ores, the collapse of order in unregulated areas like Congo and Somalia, slave labor as in Pakistan and China. “I, Fast Food Breakfast” could include side lessons in importing of orange juice from Brazil and other nations, artificially-flavored syrups from China and the threat from climate change to U.S. maple tree farmers, and meat from Australia and Argentina, along with the ideas of food safety regulation on eggs and egg products by USDA and FDA. “I, Burrito” could include lessons in cultural diffusion and migrant farm workers who pick the tomatoes . . .
Color pencils. Wikipedia image
By the way, the fact that pencil leads are graphite (and clay), and not lead, should not be taken to mean that pencil manufacturers came up with a kid-safe product on their own; lead in the paint on pencils was enough to worry the health officials, until regulation got different paints used.
We need a classroom guide on Read’s piece and this new movie that seriously discusses the need for regulation in pencil manufacture, from the safety of the saws used to cut the trees, and in the mills, to the anti-child labor provisions of the graphite and rubber import agreements, to the forest regulation and research necessary to keep the incense cedar wood in production, through the anti-deforestation requirements on rubber plantations and the regulation of lead in the paint. The movie is good, much less right-wing than those groups who fawn over it, but still in need of some real-world economic reality.
Mechanical pencil leads spilling out of their plastic case. Wikipedia image
More:
More, in 2013:
1 Comment | Economics, Education, Food Safety, Freedom - Economic, History, Regulation | Tagged: Competitive Enterprise Institute, Economics, Education, Foundation for Economic Education, Free Enterprise, Free Markets, History, I Pencil, Invisible hand, Leonard Read, Regulation | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Try the blogs listed at Teach.com, Teach Make A Difference, in their ranking of teaching blogs. 
I’m fascinated at the great teacher resource blogs I don’t see listed; one of the criteria for listing is that at least 50% of the posts must deal with education.
Consequently, it tends to be pedantically-oriented towards classroom technique, with a great diminution of education management and especially policy and politics, which are greater problems in education today, for my money (and lack of money, too).
You will find a lot of useful stuff there.
Was I right? Lots of useful stuff?
2 Comments | Classroom management, Classroom technology, Education, Education blogs, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: blogs, Classroom management, Education, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
. . . and noting the quote mark should be outside the comma, “free time,” but grading on the thought and not the punctuation, this time. From The Teachers’ Room on Facebook.
And in Texas, Attorney General Greg Abbott , the Tea Party, and CSCOPE critics are scheming to get that teacher fired, calling him or her a “communist,” mischaracterizing his or her religion as Islam instead of the Baptist he or she has been all his life, and claiming she or he is trying to tear down America for Obama, despite having voted Republican in every presidential election since he could vote.
He (or she) doesn’t need your sympathy. He needs justice, and he needs you to help your children with their homework, and read to them and support them in learning about life. Justice probably won’t come the teacher’s way, but he or she will consider it a good deal if your child learns, and does well.
Could we stop with the injustice, though?
2 Comments | CSCOPE, Education, Justice, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: CSCOPE, Education, Political Smear, Politics, Teacher Appreciation Week, Teachers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The nasty kerfuffle over a Texas lesson-planning aide, a comprehensive program called CSCOPE, may have evaded your radar.
Heck, most people in Texas aren’t even aware of this money-wasting teapot tempest.
CSCOPE Parent Portal logo for a Texas school district. Click to see one way Grand Prairie ISD gives parents access to what’s going on in classrooms.
But the state’s attorney general (campaigning for U.S. Senate, hoping to please the Tea Party Commissars) makes threatening gestures towards CSCOPE from time to time, our leading Black Shirt member of the State Senate pushes bills to gut the lesson planning tools, and Texas’s education overseeing ministry, the Texas Education Agency, is conducting a three-month “review” of CSCOPE to make sure it’s politically correct and properly condemning of Islam, Catholicism, Mormonism, Hinduism, agnosticism and atheism (if any can be found). CSCOPE critics hope that the review will delay updating materials just long enough that school districts across the state will abandon it in favor of . . . um, well, kids can learn if they got books . . . er, um, well — “they shouldn’t be learning about Islam at all” (never mind the state standards that require that course unit).
Out of the east, near Longview, three brave school district officials from two school districts put up their hands to ask why the CSCOPE critics are standing naked. It’s not much, but it’s about the toughest defense of CSCOPE put up by school officials — and of course, they risk investigation by the Attorney General Abbott merely by speaking out, according to CSCOPE critic harpies.
Dear Reader, you can learn a lot from this opposite-editorial page article in the Longview News-Journal (I’ve added links for your convenience):
CSCOPE and Carthage ISD
Posted: Friday, April 19, 2013 5:46 pm
It is sometimes mindboggling how some controversies begin. Certainly, the wildfire that has swept across Texas concerning the CSCOPE curriculum has our heads spinning. Misinformation has spread rampantly and the truth backed by factual information has been difficult to get out in front of the folks that are taking small excerpts and lessons out of context. In some cases, the CSCOPE curriculum has been attacked with reckless, unsubstantiated accusations.
The shame is that CSCOPE should be a success story of how 870 public school districts, average enrollment of 2000 students, working together with the twenty Education Service Centers (ESCs) created a 21st century curriculum based on the state mandated Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Prior to selecting this curriculum for CISD, an extensive investigation was conducted to assure that it was a good fit for our district.
CSCOPE curriculum/lesson plans were created by master “Texas” teachers, not a textbook company, not a testing company, and not a private, for-profit vendor. Multiple resources, including digital resources, were integrated into the curriculum, with suggested lessons that proved to be extremely beneficial to less experienced teachers. The framework allowed districts and staff to integrate localized lessons within the scope and sequence of the system. Approximately 50% of the charter schools (i.e. KIPP Academy, UT Charter School, Bannockburn Christian Academy and the Texas School for the Deaf) also use CSCOPE. Private schools, such as Catholic Diocese of Austin, Wichita Christian, Hyde Park Baptist and Cornerstone Christian Academy use CSCOPE.
What is my point? CSCOPE and our ESCs have been accused of promoting non-Christian and unpatriotic values based on a couple of lessons that were taken out of context, the targeted lessons were based on state standards created and approved by the State Board of Education. Due to several districts refusing to purchase another “new” curriculum, the creators of this “new curriculum” began a mass media blitz misrepresenting two lessons that addressed the state required curriculum standards.
Districts are mandated to teach the major religions of the worlds and the beliefs of those religions. Districts are mandated to teach heroism and terrorism. CSCOPE curriculum units have designed lessons that explore these standards, allowing students to investigate, compare/contrast, and analyze perspectives based on cultural influences. Example, the Boston Tea Party was perceived as an act of heroism from an American’s point of view; however, patriots of England considered this an act of terrorism. Islam, one of the major religions of the world, believes their God is the only God. These are the two excerpts taken out of context of the instructional units that have resulted in mass social media messages from those wanting to sell “their curriculum”, accusing the writers of CSCOPE and the ESCs of treason and promoting the Islam religion! Recently, a superintendent received threatening emails because the district was using CSCOPE.
Carthage ISD was not one of the first districts to embrace the curriculum; however, the revised state standards and new state assessment system demanded a new curriculum. CSCOPE offers a well-designed curriculum framework that is vertically aligned to the state standards (NOT the Federal Core Standards as inaccurately reported), the state assessment system and 21st century life-long learning goals.
CSCOPE insures the appropriate skills are taught in specific grades using multiple resources. The instructional focus is college and career readiness at all levels. School districts have the flexibility of using the curriculum as a sole source or as an alignment framework – CSCOPE lessons/units optional. Skills such as spelling, cursive handwriting, and math facts are found aligned in CSCOPE. Teachers have the flexibility to adjust the amount of time spent practicing these skills.
CSCOPE is a learning curve for classroom instruction. It is not driven by one textbook or worksheets. It embraces multiple resources, integration of technology and higher order thinking skills.
Similar to purchased curriculum there are mistakes within the lessons, those are reported and corrected. An internal system exists where teachers are asked for input on any element of CSCOPE. It is a proprietary curriculum and shares the same protection as other vendors’ products one must purchase to access the content. Districts sign affidavits, comparable to those required by the state for STAAR testing, to protect the integrity of the system, not unlike copyright laws. The cost is based on the enrollment of the district.
Parents can view the content of a lesson at a parent meeting; however, giving parents free access to the lesson plans and tests would destroy the validity of the assessments and negatively impact the intent of the instructional lessons.
The attack against the supporters and users of CSCOPE may well become the first step toward the state assuming total control of all curriculum and lesson plans for all districts. A bill has been filed to begin this process. That would be another attack on local control by the state.
Article by:
Glenn Hambrick, Ed.D., Superintendent, Carthage ISD
Donna Porter, Ed.D., Asst. Superintendent, Carthage ISD
Mary Ann Whitaker, M.Ed., Superintendent, Hudson ISD
More:
Longview is under the green star, map from Sperling’s BestPlaces
Leave a Comment » | CSCOPE, Curricula, Education, McCarthyism, Political Smear, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Teachers, TEKS, Testing, Texas | Tagged: CSCOPE, Curricula, Education, Longview News-Journal, McCarthyism, Political Smear, Politics, TEKS, Testing, Texas, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Accounts for daily salary sealed by a high civil servant named Ur-Shara – Girsu, Sumerian object dated to circa 2044 BCE, Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon via Wikipedia. Finding evidence of significant teacher raises since 2044 BCE can be difficult.
I’ll let the press release speak for itself for a moment:
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National Council on Teacher Quality
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For Immediate Release// Contact: Laura Johnson
May 7, 2013PRESS RELEASE
New NCTQ Report: Teacher Salary Growth Slowed as Result of Recession
Over the Last Four Years, Teachers Continued to Get Raises, But at Only One-Third to One-Half of What Raises Were at Start of Recession
Washington, DC – A new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) finds that although teachers continued to get raises following the recession, there was a noticeable slow-down in teacher salary growth on par with that of comparable professions. Post-recession raises have been one-third to one-half of what they were at the beginning of the recession, with almost all 41 districts studied by NCTQ freezing or cutting at least one component of scheduled teacher raises at some point between the 2008-09 and 2011-12 school years. In 80 percent of the districts sampled (33 out of 41), teachers had a total pay freeze or pay cut in at least one of the last four school years.
“There is no question that teacher salary growth took a hit post-recession,” said Kate Walsh, President of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “The good news is that the economy is strengthening and districts are slowly getting back to investing more in teacher pay. The question is, will education leaders choose to go back to the status quo of step increases and regular annual adjustments, or will they evaluate teacher performance and reward the most effective teachers with raises? Expectations for students are increasing, which means the bar is being raised for teachers as well— and a support that should accompany this shift is the ability to reward the best-performing teachers.”
The recession’s impact on teacher raises varied district by district. Cutting annual adjustments, which are raises for cost-of-living and other market forces, was the most common method used to reduce raise amounts. However, no district had a pay cut or freeze every year and eight districts had positive salary growth over the entire four-year period (Fort Worth, Memphis, Milwaukee, New York City, Jefferson County, KY, Fresno, Chicago, and Baltimore City). Of the 41 districts in the sample, Chicago Public Schools had the highest average raise over the four years at 6.5 percent. The report includes detailed information on teacher raises in each of 41 districts from 2008-09 to 2011-12, including the methods each district used to reduce raises. To view the full report, visit http://www.nctq.org/tr3/docs/nctq_recession_salary.pdf.
Methodology
The report draws on data from the 50 largest U.S. public school districts in 2010-11 (the most recent year for which such data are available). Forty-one of the 50 districts responded to the data request with enough information to be included in the report. NCTQ calculated the average annual salary growth in the 41 school districts from 2008-09 to 2011-12 by analyzing districts’ salary schedules and determining teachers’ movement on the schedules (using information reported by the districts). Salary growth calculations take into account raises for earning additional years of experience (also known as “step increases”) and annual adjustments for cost-of-living increases and other market factors. They do not take into account raises for completing additional coursework.About NCTQ
The National Council on Teacher Quality advocates for reforms in a broad range of teacher policies at the federal, state, and local levels in order to increase the number of effective teachers. In particular we recognize the absence of much of the evidence necessary to make a compelling case for change and seek to fill that void with a research agenda that has direct and practical implications for policy. We are committed to lending transparency and increasing public awareness about the four sets of institutions that have the greatest impact on teacher quality: states, teacher preparation programs, school districts and teachers unions. For more information, visit: www.nctq.org.###
More:
“A new Landaff teacher in the 1940s watches as a student writes on the blackboard.” Wikipedia image
1 Comment | Economics, Education, Politics, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Economics, Education, National Council on Teacher Quality, NCTQ, Politics, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
His mother delivered Horace Mann on May 4, 1796, the last full year of the administration of President George Washington.
Mann died August 2, 1859. In those 63 years, Mann became at least the co-architect of the concept of public schools.
Today, few outside schools of education know who he was, or what he did (no, he’s not in the Texas TEKS).
Daguerrotype of Horace Mann, about 1850, by Southworth and Dawes; from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, via Wikipedia
We can get a brief snapshot from the website accompanying the PBS series, Only a Teacher, Schoolhouse Pioneers:
Horace Mann (1796-1859)
Horace Mann, often called the Father of the Common School, began his career as a lawyer and legislator. When he was elected to act as Secretary of the newly-created Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837, he used his position to enact major educational reform. He spearheaded the Common School Movement, ensuring that every child could receive a basic education funded by local taxes. His influence soon spread beyond Massachusetts as more states took up the idea of universal schooling.
Mann’s commitment to the Common School sprang from his belief that political stability and social harmony depended on education: a basic level of literacy and the inculcation of common public ideals. He declared, “Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common School…may become the most effective and benignant of all forces of civilization.” Mann believed that public schooling was central to good citizenship, democratic participation and societal well-being. He observed, “A republican form of government, without intelligence in the people, must be, on a vast scale, what a mad-house, without superintendent or keepers, would be on a small one.” The democratic and republican principals that propelled Mann’s vision of the Common School have colored our assumptions about public schooling ever since.
Mann was influential in the development of teacher training schools and the earliest attempts to professionalize teaching. He was not the first to propose state-sponsored teacher training institutes (James Carter had recommended them in the 1820s), but, in 1838, he was crucial to the actual establishment of the first Normal Schools in Massachusetts. Mann knew that the quality of rural schools had to be raised, and that teaching was the key to that improvement. He also recognized that the corps of teachers for the new Common Schools were most likely to be women, and he argued forcefully (if, by contemporary standards, sometimes insultingly) for the recruitment of women into the ranks of teachers, often through the Normal Schools. These developments were all part of Mann’s driving determination to create a system of effective, secular, universal education in the United States.
Further Reading
Mann, Horace. Annual Reports on Education, 1872; Massachusetts System of Common Schools, 1849
Messerli, Jonathan. Horace Mann, A Biography, 1972
Did you catch that? By 1838 Horace Mann figured out that good teachers were the key to improving schools, and so he set about creating systems to educate and help teachers do their work.
Arne Duncan? Mike Miles? Dan Patrick? Bill Gates? Anybody listening?
Oh, yeah, we knew Diane Ravitch is listening, and working hard to make things better.
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4 Comments | Biography, Education, History, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: Biography, Education, History, Horace Mann, Normal school, Teachers, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The annual reminder:
Paul Revere — tonight’s the anniversary of his famous ride.
Paul Revere, 1768, by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815)
John Copley painted all the bigwigs of revolutionary Boston, including this portrait of the famous horse-mounted alarm before he turned older and grayer.
And as April 18 is the anniversary of Revere’s ride, April 19 is the anniversary of the “shot heard ’round the world.”
Both events are celebrated in poetry; April is National Poetry Month. This could be a happy marriage for history and English classrooms.
Teachers, this is your cue to break out the Longfellow and Emerson and Whitman, and tie them together in the thread that runs from the French and Indian War clearly through the American Civil War, and we might hope, to today. Give the kids some culture to get their mental juices flowing for the tests.
More:
4 Comments | A Good Story, America's founding, Education, History, History and art, Literature, Poetry, Travel | Tagged: American Revolution, Boston, Concord Hymn, Entertainment, History, Poetry, Shot heard 'round the World, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 