For those of you who are interested in education “reform”, take a look at this letter from Bill Cala, who is the superintendent of one of our suburban school districts (Fairport), to his teaching staff. Here’s a taste:
As this country gets poorer and poorer and the few get richer and richer the pride of our nation, its public schools, are being disassembled while Bill Gates, The Walton’s, The Koch Brothers, Eli Broad and other scavengers are feasting at the table of greed.
While the situation may seem hopeless, I believe parents are able to bring this tyranny to a screeching halt. Assessments should be used only for the benefit of students…..nothing else. Last year over 60,000 parents in New York refused the 3-8 tests. This year it is expect that number will triple. The refusal movement will indeed collapse the evaluation system and the governor’s plan to dismantle public education.
Cala was on a local radio program this week and it’s worth a listen if you’re interested. He really believes that the test refusal movement will sink Cuomo’s ed reform battleship. His comments about how teachers are getting blamed for the problems of poverty in urban schools are also worth a listen. Cala is interim superintendent at Fairport after a long and successful career there. Fairport, like most of the Rochester suburban schools, is one of the best public school systems in the nation. He was also interim at the Rochester City Schools, which are some of the worst in the nation, in a city with a serious problem with childhood poverty. So he’s seen both sides and been consistent in defending the position that schools cannot be the sole cure for the effects of severe poverty.
Open thread for those who aren’t interested in this stuff.
Iowa Old Lady
This guy has guts. Good for him.
Baud
What does this mean?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Baud: Identifying where the student may need help to catch up/keep up?
K488
@Baud: I expect this means that school systems have used this for determining raises amongst the faculty, or increasing funding to the school itself, leading to the inevitable cheating scandals we’ve seen various places over the years (I think I remember something widespread in Atlanta a few years ago?).
Bravo to this guy – I’m so glad there is a push-back on the whole testing issue, and I’ve feared exactly what he’s articulating about the dismantling of the public school system. More power to him!
Scamp Dog
@Baud: The privatization crowd wants to use test scores to identify “bad” teachers, who will then be fired, and used as examples why charter schools are much better than those dreadful, socialistic public schools.
Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
@K488: It’s also used as a justification to shut down whole schools. Because that makes the situation better.
Mike in NC
A lot of noise getting generated in SC by wingnuts in the statehouse who want kids in the public schools properly educated about their gun rights.
Mike J
Seattle, too.
Tommy
The little rural town I live in has amazing schools. They might be the best in the state if not the nation. We pride ourself on this. We take pride in we have good schools.
Little Boots
good lord, sometimes.
Little Boots
this place needs more omnes, actually more steeplejack.
Gin & Tonic
@Little Boots: Aren’t you early?
Little Boots
@Gin & Tonic:
yes, is that any excuse for them? no.
Josie
@Baud: Before all this testing craze, students in my district took the California Achievement Test to see what progress each student was making in the various skills and bases of knowledge. For instance, I could tell that my son progressed a certain number of grades in reading or math skills from year to year and could see what needed work. Now the reports (at least in Texas) don’t show student progress on an individual basis. The report is on the class as a whole with percentages passing certain skills. Students won’t take a nationally normed test until they take the college entrance exam, which is way too late to make up any lost ground. Thus the tests and reports are for the benefit of adults instead of the students.
Piquoiseau
“The Walton’s”
His umbrage is justified, but it does no service to cause of public education to include a basic spelling error.
Zinsky
Andrew Cuomo is a criminal and an embarrassment to the Democratic Party.
BGinCHI
This guy is exactly right and I hope to hell parents do exactly what he suggests and dump the fucking stupid “reform” that is wrecking public schools.
I taught a seminar last Friday at the Newberry Library to 24 HS teachers from all over Chicago and the suburbs. Afterwards I heard the woeful kvetching about how much their teaching lives are burdened by regulations and paperwork instead of concentrating on subjects, students, and getting development for themselves to be better at their hobs. That’s all they really want: to do their jobs well and maintain their enthusiasm for keeping that going.
One teacher, who teaches in a great district, told me that she was about ready to give it all up after 20 years. She said her job is about 90% justification for what she teaches and to follow test regs and 10% thinking about what she actually teaches.
Blaming teachers is a symptom of corruption.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Josie:
I think one of the reasons testing as it is now got such a foothold is that everyone who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s took those individual achievement tests, so they didn’t think the new kind of testing that evaluated the class as a whole rather than individual students was a big deal. Whoops!
Iowa Old Lady
@BGinCHI: My DIL is a first grade teacher in a Chicago suburb and in my totally unbiased opinion, any kid would be lucky to have her. Last year, she was ready to give up, but this year she seems to feel better. She likes her principal.
Big R
@BGinCHI: I am stealing this: “Blaming teachers is a symptom of corruption.”
gelfling545
See also https://teachersofconscience.wordpress.com/
MomSense
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
When I go to parent teacher conferences, I get a form that lists my son’s test scores and compares them to the school, county, state, and national average. The problem is that the test results are used to determine funding for the schools.
We have been cutting education funding for over 30 years in addition to all the other systemic economic decisions that have increased poverty. The testing regime is all accountability for students and teachers but no accountability for us as a nation to invest in our children or to promote healthy and fair economic policies.
It’s the classic shit runs down hill situation.
Cckids
@Piquoiseau: Amen. Incorrect apostrophe use makes me nuts.
BGinCHI
@Iowa Old Lady: I’m worried that a spiral is going to take hold in K-12 ed. With all they have to put up with, the best and brightest are not going to become teachers.
It’s a sad fact that this country can’t fund education and build up its infrastructure.
I wish Hilary would run on that.
Kay
@Baud:
It really does start to feel like they’re using the kids to conduct this experiment and the children get less and less out of it.
My son “field tested” Ohio’s new standardized test in science last year. He essentially spent a whole day doing product development for a for-profit company.
He’s generally sort of cheerful and stoic- he trusts the adults at school- and I increasingly feel he’s being taken advantage of not by the local teachers, who are really powerless to do anything about this, but by people who belong to a national ed reform “movement” that has to be fed “data” constantly.
He doesn’t want to opt out, he would hate to be singled out like that, so we won’t- he’ll be taking the Common Core test (English and Math in Ohio) but I feel these people have completely lost the plot. They are so far from ” the children” at this point I don’t know if they can find their way back.
His English teacher rebelled this year. She gave them a long project, which they loved. My elder daughter also had her. She’s a great teacher. These are the people they’re pissing off and alienating-teachers like her. The exact sort of teachers they say they want.
Corner Stone
Maybe I am missing something. The school spends all its time teaching to the tests. So what good does refusing to take the test do? Your child isn’t learning anything else useful, in any event.
Is the thought that if enough parents say no to testing the curriculum will be forced to change? I don’t see how. The RWNJs are determined to destroy public education, and the grifters are just aiding them along for the ride while they suck at the public teat.
They will never move away from testing while there is a dollar left to be stolen.
BGinCHI
@Kay: They don’t know a good goddamn about teaching or anything to do with what goes on day after day after day in classrooms.
Teaching is process and hard work, not gimmickry.
Parents really do need to push back on this.
Iowa Old Lady
@BGinCHI: The thing that kills my DIL is the scorn for teachers coming out of the mouths of politicians and pundits. It’s a tough job. The least she should get is some respect.
Kay
@BGinCHI:
I am, but boy does it feel overwhelming. It’s like stopping a train. It takes really confident and strong teachers to even question it, because there’s this whole narrative around any dissent- they’re lazy or coddled or stuck in the status quo, and on and on. I think I’ve told you I feel some of it is because that profession is dominated by women-they’re treated as unreliable reporters on their own work and their classrooms. I think that goes to gender.
I hate the fake-science veneer they put on it. Ohio just determined they could reduce testing “by 20%”. Not 30, not 50, but “20”.
Oh okay, Mr. Lab Coat and Clipboard. Pull that number out of your ass like all the other numbers :)
Baud
Thanks to all for the explanation about assessments.
@Kay:
He should have demanded stock options. Doesn’t he watch Shark Tank?
Corner Stone
@Kay:
When I kept my son home recently due to a bug +fever, his teacher chided him endlessly upon his return. She worked him over non-stop and kept repeating that until they took the STAAR, every minute in class was super important and should not be missed for any reason.
It’s like its own variant of a sickness. The teachers are scared to death by these tests, and are unable to do anything else. Even if some may want to.
BGinCHI
@Kay: You are spot on about gender.
It’s also a classic management and labor issue, with more and more MBA-fueled strategies that consist in “innovations” instead of best practices.
Some day we are going to learn to keep business people out of education and government. Why can’t they just stay in country clubs and jail where they belong?
FlyingToaster
I’m thrilled that an administrator is publicly telling parents to pull their kids out of testing.
There’s a vast difference between taking the Iowa Basics or Stanford-Binets and these tests. The old tests were used to a) show where kids were as individuals and map individual progress; b) to show teachers where kids were missing instruction; c) to show administrators where you had groups of students doing well or poorly, and be able to figure out which things were different in different classrooms or schools.
Instead, these tests are being used for political data mining. “This teacher’s kids are at this level (no comparison to where they were the year before), which is low and therefore fire the teacher.” “This school district with 48% immigrants has the lowest scores in English state-wide, so shut down the district.”
And, alas, a number of parents think this is great.
Corner Stone
@Baud: I get Kay’s point about her son. It is super hard for kids to say no and be the one outside the norm. At least in elementary school, anyway.
I have to really dial back my attitude when my son tells me some of the feedback his teachers are giving him on certain items. Because I don’t take very well to a lot of it, but it’s him that has to suffer the outcome.
So, it sucks.
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: It’s like they already have a red A on their chest but they didn’t even get to sinfully fuck anyone. Teachers that is.
Kay
@BGinCHI:
It’s so funny how resilient kids are. My son has been in a NCLB environment his entire time in public school. He has been tested and tested and tested.
He took (of course!) the standardized test to see if he goes into advanced English next year last week and he was as casual as all get out. He didn’t finish because he “didn’t know it was timed”. He spent too much time on the essay so missed half the bubble-in part. I love how he’ s completely ignoring this huge controversy swirling around him, just polishing up his essay, unconcerned :)
Good for him. I told him “take as much time as you need”.
Baud
@Corner Stone:
I’d imagine older kids may feel more confident saying no to meaningless tests. At least that’s how my high school was.
Baud
@Kay:
I thought I heard somewhere that NCLB was up for reauthorization this year or next.
BGinCHI
@Kay: Good for him. Preserve that curiosity and drive and he’ll be fine.
Kay
@Corner Stone:
Kids have that great “fairness!” thing too-everyone has to do it or it won’t be “fair”.
They’re the fair police, basically. They enforce that among themselves. I think he likes the commonality of doing what everyone else has to.
mai naem mobile
Have Bill Gates, the Kochs or the Waltons attended a public educational.institution? Gates went to Interlochen, I believe the Kochs went to Andover or something similar and the one cheating Walton grandkid went to USC for college. I doubt any have attended a school where kids had a hard time affording decent clothes or be homeless.
Another Holocene Human
Sic ’em, Cala.
Kay
@Baud:
It is. It’s going horribly. Lamar Alexander made this big show of a bipartisan bill, but Patty Murray is the lead Democrat and Alexander got no Dem input on the draft. None. The GOP House bill is a disaster. It was written by Rep Kline from MN and he is the biggest promoter of for-profit colleges in Congress.
I hope it falls apart or Obama vetoes.
Scott
BTW, if anyone is interested in this topic in depth, go to dianeravitch.net. Youl’ll more than you could ever want.
recurvata
This post needs some context for non local readers. What is ‘3-8’ assessments? Basically, what the heck are you talking about? I get that this is an opinion piece – something is bad! – but what?
BGinCHI
@Kay: Is Arne Duncan the only cabinet sec to stay the whole time? I must be missing something.
That guy is fucking terrible.
Another Holocene Human
@mai naem mobile: lol that’s rich, those private schools actually never get through as much material as a good public school, especially a magnet high school
they can’t, they’re just smaller and a lot of time they actually don’t hire the best teachers either, traditionally they paid less. most effort was towards making sure every kid “got in” to the WASPy institution best suited to their aptitude
I know a kid who had to switch from public to private (and others who went back and forth by choice), lucky enough her mom had the income to pay for it (oh yeah it was mommy’s money, mommy was the breadwinner), but there were extenuating circumstances (long story but she was on a path to dropout in the public high school) and she was pretty pissed about not completing calc in high school because–private school
Baud
@Kay:
Good. I know (from you) that the administration and other Democrats haven’t been good on this issue. Hopefully, the GOP will overreach again and make it a partisan issue for 2016.
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay: Gah. For-profit colleges are an abomination.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: eek, at first I thought that was NLRB and I freaked out. nooooo!!
a ha ha ha NCLB, yeah, let that pile of shit shit the bed as it should
for all the GOP’s talk of “reel ‘Murrca” that bill was a fucking MESS for rural school systems, so much so the “never wrong, decider” party had to fix it but how do you fix something built on a bad foundation? it will crack.
Another Holocene Human
@Iowa Old Lady: so are for-profit hospitals
Another Holocene Human
although for-profit vaccine production could work. gov’t should regulate that like a utility. we need so many doses made this way, it costs you this much to make, we will pay this premium over cost of production, go.
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: My old school system took A WHOLE YEAR to assess which kids would go into “honors” English. That’s right, the kids they thought would be middle and top track all took English together for A WHOLE YEAR and then based on performance they recommended one or the other. Although you could try to take the other one if
youyour parents were crazy enough.Ask me how I know. Solid B in general English, D in honors. THANKS PARENTS.
Mandatory tracking is racist and high stakes testing is stupid. Plenty of talented kids in humanities are terrible test-takers. Also anxiety dulls math performance so you’re basically denying good math skills to some students because of your worship of the almighty test.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
It’s pretty clear by now that the GOP could kill the first born of every rural American and still win their vote.
Redshift
Virginia Republicans are currently trying to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot to show the state board of education to establish charter schools in a district even if people in the district don’t want it. Because they’re all about local control and keeping government of people’s backs, right?
Kay
@BGinCHI:
I’ve really come to loathe him. Just the business cliches alone. It makes you wonder about Harvard, it really does. If he quotes Tom Friedman one more time I am going to scream.
He could use the “rigor” of the Common Core himself. He’s just not very smart.
He regularly repeats the stats that charter schools feed him, and one of his favorites is “100% college acceptance” at this or that charter school. Except they started with a “cohort” of 100 students in 6th grade and they’re graduating 35 or something. We could do the same thing in my local high school. We could get rid of the bottom 3/4 of the class and we’d have “100%” college acceptance too. Is he innumerate? Why can’t he figure out that “100% of 100 students” is different than “100% of the 35 students remaining”. I mean, good God. This isn’t difficult.
Another Holocene Human
A test is the environment where creativity goes to die. Somehow I suspect that is the point, keep the proles down, while rich kids go to “special” private schools (montessori, waldorf, yadda yadda) where there are no testing requirements. (the more working class, ie Catholic, parochial schools are exam schools with testing aplenty, different ethos, society’s elite do not go there).
I went to a top public school system in the country pre-testing. The teachers loved nothing more than to nurture student’s creativity. It’s part of what used to make our schools some of the best in the world. Creativity and hands-on learning. Now we test-test-test like some East Asian cram school, why the fuck would we do that? Our research institutions are or were better than theirs, why would you emulate a model that produced worse results?!
Tree With Water
The democratic rank and file is waiting for a presidential candidate of similar stripe to Mr. Cala, i.e., an informed protagonist battling those that look at the U.S. educational system like they do markets in China.
Corner Stone
@BGinCHI:
That guy serves the fucking Czar.
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: Wow, that is a really shitty graduation rate given that graduation rates in all demos are WELL over 60% now for US high schoolers*. That means they are dumping a lot of kids back into public schools which somehow despite the money drain are graduating many of them anyway. Wow wow wow.
*most demographic groups are well over 80%, various minority groups have had sharp upticks in grad rates I think in part because jobs are not there for these kids
Howard Beale IV
As someone who got double-promoted from second grade to third grade back in Detroit Public schools in the last 1960s, let’s just say that the whole idea of any one bringing up education being for-profit should be shot dead on sight. When you can send you freshly-high-school graduated child to Germany for a tuition-free education in a German University, the whole post-secondary education system in the US needs to burned to the ground.
And anyone who starts whining about the STEM shortage can kiss my ass-what it really is about is the corporations don’t want to pay prevailing US wages but are oh-so-willing to pay H1-B wages so execs can get their bonuses, while tanking the corporation in the long run (“I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone”)
HinTN
Lamar’s brain atrophied when he swelled up and thought he was presidential material. Once upon a time he was pretty good on moving education forward but kowtowing to the RWNJs of the day seriously did in whatever empathy and brains he once had.
Another Holocene Human
@Corner Stone: Correct me if I’m wrong but Obama’s said a hell of a lot about education lately, college and pre-K, but hasn’t said a word about testing or charters in years. You know a lot of liberals were “all in” on that shit at one time, but now Michelle Rhee has been exposed right there in DC under Obama’s nose.
Just sayin’.
That man knows how to slow-walk something.
Tree With Water
“WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden will visit the early caucus state of Iowa next week, stirring speculation once again about the possibility of a presidential run in 2016”.
More like positioning himself in hopes he’s be offered another four years as VP. Because Biden has a bad case of Dan Quaylitis if he actually believes he’ll ever be elected POTUS.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@HinTN: A college friend in the nineties was from Nashville, I remember her telling me how much she and her liberal parents liked Alexander (pre-Lamar!) because he was a different kind of Republican. Remember in the nineties those actually existed.
ETA: I think he was governor then?
HinTN
@Howard Beale IV: THIS !!!
Corner Stone
@Kay:
They actually are, to the extent that they can do anything about it. My son has a serial offender in his G&T class. The kid is nuts, has homelife problems but is a math wizard. He gets to pick a “treasure” out of a box any day he doesn’t violently act out. My son is like, “WTF?”. I’m in the margins every day *, but I don’t get shit for being good.
*My para.
HinTN
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This liberal actually walked with Alexander when was first running for governor and made a small suggestion regarding personalized license plates. Tennessee has been making money ever since. I liked the man he once was. Ambition…
Kay
@Another Holocene Human:
It’s tough for public schools because they have to be all things to all people. People in my income bracket in this town LOVE the gifted track. They also love harsh disciplinary methods because they want disruptive kids removed.
It’s 50% free and reduced lunch so it’s genuinely diverse as far as income. It creates all kinds of tensions. I think it’s worth it because that’s the democratic ideal of public schools, right? People have to get along in what is a “community”. Everyone doesn’t get everything they want. They have to serve all of the kids, to the best of their ability. There’s trade-offs. I think that has value for children all by itself.
Corner Stone
@Another Holocene Human: Listen. I have no idea what the fuck you are saying, little kid.
Duncan serves at the pleasure of the POTUS. And Obama himself has been behind charter excursions and other DoE Fucking Fuck Jobs.
mai naem mobile
@Another Holocene Human: in general thats true but one of the Kochs went to Deerfield and Gates went to Interlochen. They’re both two very good schools. But its not so much the quality of education, it’s that you have kids where there parents can afford to do whatever needs to be done – enrichment classes, test prep classes, health issues like teeth and glasses. There’s a good chance there’s a stay at home parent or good after school childcare. That isn’t necessarily the situation in public schools.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
kind of on topic: Jonathan Chait’s wife is some kind of muckety muck in the “school reform” movement. I suspect someone being mean to Mrs Chait on the internets was the impetus to that bizarre screed on “political correctness” from last week, and he occasionally writes blog posts on the subject without mentioning his personal connection. His editors really shouldn’t let him get away with that, but they’re probably from the same neo-liberal demographic
Corner Stone
@Howard Beale IV:
Boom! Goes the dynamite.
Now let’s add on healthcare and we can actually start the long road to being a western civilized nation. At some point.
Kay
@Another Holocene Human:
Compare the 2009 SOTU to the last SOTU. Part of the problem is just numbers. They may love them some charters in DC, but 90% of the kids in this country attend public schools. If they aren’t improving public schools then they aren’t improving “education” and I don’t think people IN public schools believe they are IMPROVING public schools. It’s a problem for them.
Iowa Old Lady
My first job out of grad school was teaching at a private business college that was theoretically non-profit. It ran an “overage” of about a million dollars a year and the president got a bonus based on the size of the overage. Every book in the library or dollar paid a prof came out of his pocket.
It was open admission. All you needed was a high school diploma or a GED and the ability to pay the substantial tuition. Most students were on Pell Grants. IOW, we paid for that.
Maybe students got something from the experience. I hope so. The profs I knew tried their best. But it was a scam. An abomination.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He’s incredibly dishonest on the whole issue. He insists on framing this as “teachers unions versus noble reformers” and it’s just bullshit. The people who are complaining about testing are parents. The people who are starting to notice that ed reform is not actually “improving” public schools are parents.
They didn’t sell this as “opening charter schools”. They sold it as “improving public schools”. There was a reason they sold it like that. The vast majority of children attend the public schools he bashes.
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: Disruption has to be dealt with, obviously. I’ve heard the complaint everywhere that they’ve taken authority away from the teacher. I feel like in areas where corporal punishment was the go-to the teachers and administrators and parents can’t fucking figure out how to run a classroom without the fear of physical pain, which is stupid. But there has been a change in society where parents do not want their kids to mind the teacher, so they don’t, and there’s not much the teacher can do, so rich kids do as much disrupting as the disadvantaged troubled kids who disrupt because they’re afraid of being frustrated by the material if they ever got down to it or because they have a pattern of attention seeking.
Variety of reasons for this, some good, some bad, but even if kids don’t respect the teacher they need to respect the institution and the process or they’re denying 30 other kids their lesson for that day, which is bullshit. (It’s also bullshit that there are 30+ kids in there, but rant for another day.)
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Why does Chait continue to have fans and defenders is what I’m wondering. Every time his name comes up he’s not just wrong but dead wrong about something. He seems to be engaging in the hipster version of hippie punching, also, too, to market himself as “serious”.
He needs therapy. Or maybe a few hits of acid. Let it go—
Kay
@Another Holocene Human:
I sort of come down n the middle on it. On the one hand, I think it’s good for kids to learn to deal with some disruption- they can’t live in a little bubble. On the other hand I think they have to feel safe and I think children generally dislike chaos because they’re genuinely vulnerable.
I;m glad it went away from “zero tolerance”. That was a disaster. There has to be some way to keep order that works better than kicking them out.
mai naem mobile
My niece attended a magnet grade school.and now she’s in a good IB program in a not good public school basically because a lot of the kids from the magnet school decided to follow the principal to his new position as director of the IB program. The whole school started at around 950 kids in her class and it’s down to around 650. Keep in mind this is during the Great Recession so I think there’s people moving out of the state not just straight dropping out. Arizona has shitty schools and is a leader in charter school development. We have tons of charter schools.but only about 7 have turned out to be good schools. Three are Basis which is incredibly rigorous. Basis Tucson was ranked as one of the top two schools in the country. Two are Tempe Prep which one year had 10 National Merit finalists/semi finalists out of about 50 kids! Still,though, that isn’t that many good schools out of so many charters.
Another Holocene Human
@Iowa Old Lady:
By this you mean to say he had an economic incentive not to spend money on materials or teaching staff so as to pocket more money every year? Ie the profit came at the expense of the students?
I had to read this three times, the framing was odd to me.
Kay
For the people who aren’t in this directly, this is the Indiana testing schedule:
ISTEP- 3rd grade:18 hours
4th grade:20 hours 10 minutes
5th grade:19 hours 42 minutes
6th grade:19 hours 55 minutes
The Indiana bar exam is 13 hours.
Corner Stone
@Kay:
“Zero Tolerance” went away because the ISDs could not afford to provide alternative campuses or rooms for the kids who actually needed it.
They didn’t end it because they wanted to, they stopped doing that alternative track because they could no longer afford to.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In my case, because he’s about the only non-Krugman “respectable” pundit willing to call Paul Ryan a fraud, loudly and repeatedly
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/paul-ryans-most-shameless-lie-ever.html
skwerlhugger
As far as I know, Bill Gates is filthy rich mostly because he didn’t cash out of Microsoft early. Why is he on this list? Isn’t he giving most of it away? The Waltons, different story.
Corner Stone
@mai naem mobile:
They killed the IB program here dead in under two years. Killed it fucking dead.
“Fuck the UN trying to indoctrinate our precious snowflakes!”
Oh, and also, we don’t want to pay for your smarter child to actually get a quality curriculum when ours think the earth is 6000 years old. Fuck you, hippie.
Iowa Old Lady
@Another Holocene Human: Yeah, that’s what I mean. Money spent on education was money he didn’t get.
Corner Stone
@skwerlhugger:
He is a huge school reform pusher, that’s why. Being a billionaire has less to do with it than he stands to see the outcome he desires if public schools are privatized.
Another Holocene Human
@mai naem mobile: IB sucks though. More bullshit. A good solid public high school with AP courses is worth more than IB. I should know, I sat for both tests.
IB strengths: you’re required to take a critical thinking/philosophy class called “theory of knowledge” which is not a requirement for HS graduation in any state as far as I know. That TOK was lame and kind of sucked is another matter.
IB weaknesses: the math/science requirements are an utter joke and it’s not made up with by some sort of amazing arts or humanities curriculum. Seriously, the math requirements are a JOKE
the history is RIDICULOUS, NO east asian history, ZERO african history, seriously deficient American history, ALL FRENCH REVOLUTION ALL THE TIME who gives a flying fuck, Euro-centric history is an enormous disservice to AMERICAN high school students! it’s crap! technically I think I was supposed to get a year of ALL CIVIL WAR BATTELS ALL THE TIEM (it was Maryland, say hi to the KKK, they weren’t exactly studying slavery or Reconstruction, just tongue-bathing Lee) but hey, it wasn’t on the fucking exam!!!
AP scholar: SAME kind of tests, MORE American-based on the lit/history, LOTS of math/science options, REAL college credit especially if you pass the A/B or B/C calculus, which is usually a college graduation requirement so you would be a fool not to take this in high school, even if you do fail you’ll be taking for a second time in college and therefore pass. Many schools will let you test out of most of freshman year which is the shitty mega-lecture hall 200 students with grad student sections classes which are the biggest ripoff in college if you pass those AP exams with a high enough score. So, score!
IB? Yeah yeah what did you score on SAT/ACT.
Howard Beale IV
@Corner Stone:
What really grinds me is that Big Pharma’s re-purposing drugs that have gone off-patent with new delivery methods and now claim new FDA submissions. There has been few new novel drugs that have been submitted through the FDA’s approval process as of late (and the last one that made it though the gauntlet for insommia-well, based on my experience, it won’t be that big of a moneymaker once more folks get prescribed it.)
Tenar Darell
I can’t find it now, but I also saw a report that participation in Teach for America has gone down.
Another Holocene Human
@Corner Stone: Are you living in one of those places that revolted over “critical thinking” in the school curriculum in the 1970s–you know–holy rollers?
FlyingToaster
@Another Holocene Human:
Like with public schools, it depends upon the private school.
My nephew is in first grade in a good public school. My daughter is in first grade in a good (but neither religious nor prestigious) private school. She’s ahead of him in every subject, despite the fact that he has homework every night and she doesn’t. She has more “electives” — music, art, PE, spanish — than are available at his school. And his parents are paying as much in property taxes as we are in tuition.
At the PK-5 level, the utility of magnet schools seems minimal. At the middle and high school levels, the magnet schools meet and sometimes exceed private schools. But there’s a difference between the populations as well; I can name you 3 private high schools near the Hub that can beat Boston Latin (academically); I can also name you half a dozen that can’t come close.
Another Holocene Human
@Tenar Darell: I saw that too. Woo-hoo!
The premise was always kind of a mix of service/white man’s burden/this looks great on your resume anyway. And then you mix in the reality of them not being trained and shit. And the pay issue. Ouch.
Tommy
@Kay: My father was over the other day. He isn’t a wimp on school. Went to a military school. We are headed out of town and it is like 7:30 AM. Kids were walking into school. He openly asks why are those children going to school at this time?
Corner Stone
@Tommy:
Most likely because their parents have to go to work and/or that early breakfast may be one of only two solid meals they get that day.
Mine goes in early sometimes to re-work assignments or get clarification on something. But the line to drop off kids at 7:15 is quite long.
BBA
Not only is high-stakes testing destructive, the backlash is likely to prevent any degree of standardization in the future. Oh sure, people think of Common Core as those nasty Washington bureaucrats telling our teachers what to teach our kids, but between them and wingnut school boards who want the schools to teach creationism and the Lost Cause theory of the Civil War, I’ll take the Washington bureaucrats any day.
Another Holocene Human
@FlyingToaster: Boston Latin has a VERY diverse student body. In math team I rubbed shoulders with kids who were truly living in poverty who went to Boston Latin. So this is not a fair comparison, super rich kids to kids who come from poor households in impoverished enclaves with 30% foreign born heads of household, non English spoken in the home, landlord doesn’t pay for enough heating oil to make it through February, etc.
I’m talking about curriculum-wise, some of my best friends went to little private schools which were GOOD schools but they simply could not do the kinds of stuff a decent sized public high school could do, exam/magnet school or no. The public school they left was not an exam/magnet school, but it was big enough to have calculus and when my family moved from MA to MD we went to a bigger school that had TWO YEARS of calc, my friends in MA had to go to Harvard Extension School to get the second year of calculus. There are problems with bigger schools for sure like the friend I referred to who was falling through the cracks at the public school but small has problems too. I’m sorry but you’re just less prepared for college if you haven’t gotten through all that college freshman material. A good-sized high school will be able to take their college track kids through that stuff at least the one time so it isn’t all new when you move on up. There are enough challenges for kids going to college away from home without getting smacked in the face with totally new material and standards.
All that art, music, foreign language should be part of the elementary school education but we don’t want to pay for it. And if a ‘burb is based on sprawl they may have so many expenses that they are hard-pressed to pay for the schools they want because lots of houses, spread out, costs money in upkeep for the municipality. Curse of the ‘burbs. Somebody got paid, the last one holding the bag is the sucker … looking at you, homeloaner.
Another Holocene Human
@BBA: Common Core has partially gotten its bad name because it was voluntarily implemented by state governments and state governments run by Republicans are … state governments run by Republicans.
They’re driven by this Stalinist ideological thing, and they hate teachers, especially public teachers, especially unionized teachers … so.
Florida has had shitty grifter high stakes testing for years. They implemented Common Core by changing the test standards to Common Core at the same time as changing the curriculum to Common Core so kids halfway through their education will flunk the test and then they have the excuse to cut teacher’s pay and raid more money out of public schools again because private schools are exempt from requirements.
The end game is to use public money to fund Christian madrassas. They haven’t quite figured it all out yet but that IS their goal.
So of course parents and teachers are pissed about Common Core. (So-con wingers got pissed when they found out that yeah, Ark Troof was not part of the teaching standards. But in most states they’re a small lobby. Tennessee, of course…) And Florida’s ALEC story is not really that different from any other GOP controlled, ALEC captured state.
The evolution side is winning, though. It’s an ugly battle.
Howard Beale IV
@FlyingToaster:
Is your daughter and your nephew identical in every developmental domain?
Tommy
@Corner Stone:
That is what I said to him. That they might be having a meal. It seemed to pain me a little he didn’t get this point I was trying to make.They might be at the school earlier for a meal. I don’t know if this is the case, but my gut feeling.
Another Holocene Human
@Tommy: Research shows that early starting times are perfectly cromulent for young, pre-pubescent children.
High school kids, who in many, many areas are forced to go to school the earliest, are missing sleep (and learning) because of early start times and their school should start later.
I know I fucking snoozed through my 8am classes when I was 15, 16, 17. Too bad, kinda wish my multivar calc skillz were better.
Another Holocene Human
@Howard Beale IV: Music education alone could explain the difference. If the nephew’s school system cut music for elementary kids, woe on them.
Just one link, there are many more:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1869
Another Holocene Human
Or NIH, math and music:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10100200
Another Holocene Human
Now I don’t consider myself an old yet, but music used to be part of kindergarten/1st grade curriculum. Even though we had a music teacher one hour a week the teachers in K-2 used songs as part of our every day curriculum.
And then they brought in the recorders, over and above the music class.
Have teaching colleges/school/society dropped the notion of the primary teacher using songs as a teaching tool?
Given what we know about music and learning, shouldn’t schools be doubling down on that?
Corner Stone
@Tommy:
All the people he’s always voted for want to make sure no child arrives before 8:00am. Because they do not want to have Head Start and other nutrition programs funded. So I can see why he’s not sure what those poor sleep-deprived kids are doing filing in so early.
Another Holocene Human
PS: my subversive 2nd grade teacher along with teaching us all the verses of “America the Beautiful” which was written by a woman while soft pedaling the national anthem and not even bothering with “God Bless America” and drivel like that, made sure we all knew “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” and “Go Down Moses”. And we learned about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad and how she used these songs.
You never question what you’re taught in 2nd grade. It’s only looking back now that I realize this was his personal curriculum.
Another Holocene Human
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman_Underground_Railroad_National_Monument
The Harriet Tubman NPS site only created in 2014. They have a nice website where they can front and pretend it’s always been there but no. 2014.
This country should be ashamed of itself.
FlyingToaster
@Howard Beale IV:
Pretty close, actually. They were born 8 days apart, they’re both about the tallest kids in their respective classes. He’s more oriented toward athletics and practical jokes; she’s more oriented towards music and puns.
I’d expect her to be a bit ahead of him in English and math, but not 2 grades ahead in reading level and a grade ahead in math. He has two older brothers who are straight-A students, and two who are pretty much B+ students (one at Cornell, now).
We figured this out because at Christmas she was looking at his homework and answering all of the questions for his dad. Who thinks “she’s a fricking genius”. No, not so much.
My BIL’s grateful we don’t ask him to her violin recitals; we’re grateful he doesn’t ask us to any of the boys’ football games.
Kay
@Corner Stone:
We have one. They’re called “alternative learning centers”. We had one principal who was turning in really stellar scores at the same time we noticed that a large number of kids who were getting a court referral were coming from his high school. I mentioned it to the judge and he had noticed it too. I don’t know who spoke to the principal but it stopped. Predictably his scores slid because he was no longer “counseling out”. That’s the phrase for it.
FlyingToaster
@Another Holocene Human: Yeah, I’m pretty sure the first graders get the music teacher with the travelling keyboard once a week, not too dissimilar from my local public schools.
But by 5th grade, they do have orchestra in the school; the next oldest brother plays cello. And he’s one of the straight-A brothers.
Howard Beale IV
@Another Holocene Human: Eesh. If that’s the case, then the nephew needs to be kidnapped and exposed to Tom Lehrer and Tchaikovsky.
catclub
TPM Headline subject to misinterpretation: “Hundreds At Funeral For Teen Girl Killed By Denver Police”
FlyingToaster
@Another Holocene Human:
Yes. It’s one of the selling points of her school; one of the courses starting in 3rd grade is Music and Math integration. Every kid learns Suzuki Book 1 plus a fair amount of Brian Wicklund’s Fiddle Camp. WarriorGirl is already a Suzuki violinist (started in Suzuki Preschool), so this school was a natural fit for us.
A third of the reason why WarriorGirl is in private school is that our local public school, citing enrollment and space pressures (real), converted each grade school’s music and art rooms to classrooms and laid off 3 of the 4 full time teachers in each subject.
Every classroom up to 3rd grade in my crappy elementary school in Kansas City had a upright piano. We had Music once a week in the music room, and every damn day in class. Same with Art. Orchestra started in 4th, Band in 5th. And I should settle for less for my daughter?
The other major reasons we went private are class sizes and testing. I don’t have several billion dollars to fix our town’s problems, and they won’t have any schools at all without state and federal money. Which are contingent on testing.
FlyingToaster
@Howard Beale IV: There’s no kidnapping needed. My husband has shaken Tom Lehrer’s hand, while wandering around Sparks Street :) And we own all the albums. All of the boys get exposed to satire and music, but their school is not helping.
The pressure caused middle brother to go on medication for anxiety during his 4th Grade MCAS. Which got me reading Gerald Bracey. I’m no expert, but I did do a year of working on “Test the Tester” and these tests are NOT measuring achievement. Fuck em’.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: I’d bet a fair number of those “disruptive” kids are on IEPs (or should be on IEPS) and that the school does not have the expertise to know how to handle these challenging behaviors. There’s a saying in the autism field, “Behavior is communication.” Figure out what is the cause, and you’ll be more successful at teaching the correct behaviors (or at least behaviors that are better tolerated by everyone else).
When my son was in elementary school, he was often one of those disruptive ones but fortunately, my school system is both extremely sophisticated and deep-pocketed. They were able to call in autism consultants to help everyone through the bumpy years. Now he’s in high school and his biggest behavior issue is morning tardies. He’s come a long way, and the school gets a good part of the credit. Because they were committed to teaching the *whole” child.
Ohio Mom
@Tenar Darell: The drop in enlistment figures for Teach for Awhile was a front page article in the New York Times recently.
I wonder how much of it was alums traumatized by being thrown into extremely challenging situations and bombing out because they didn’t have the deep enough skills and supports they needed. Word gets around and other potential TFAs might have been scared away.
One of the mainstream theories is that the job market has improved enough that college grads have more options than they did a few years ago.
Dnarh
@Piquoiseau:
One might also hope for the correct verb forms to be used, too.
Howard Beale IV
@Howard Beale IV: Absotivley agree 100%. What’s truly depressing is that Adele’s last album sold as much as 80% of all classical titles combined.
pseudonymous in nc
@Baud:
That testing, especially at that age, is outsourcing the job of school inspection to young children for free.
pseudonymous in nc
@Corner Stone:
Perhaps the thought is that if there are sufficient non-participants, it will nullify the test’s attempt to rank classes and schools, and the districts and state will have to revert to school inspection with adults, instead of a poor approximation of it with children.