From ED WEEK:

American Teachers Spend the Most Hours in Classroom

By Matthew Lynch on December 19, 2014 8:33 AM | No comments

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American teachers spend more hours in the classroom than their peer across the globe, according to a recent education report from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). The report outlines the state of education in the world's most developed countries.

The report shows that American elementary school teachers spend more hours teaching students than any other country surveyed.  American middle and high school teachers spend more time educating students than peers in every OECD country except Chile. In addition to classroom time, US teachers are also required to be at school more hours than their international peers.

Despite the long hours, teachers in American aren't compensated well, explains OECD director of education and skills Andreas Schleicher. The pay, compared to other countries, is competitive in the US; however, it lags behind that of other American workers with college educations.

The OECD report shows American teachers see smaller salary increases than their foreign counterparts; in the most recent year surveyed, the average teacher with 15 years of experience saw a salary increase of 32.6 percent. The US average was just 26.6 percent.

A study from the Center for American Progress in July found that slow salary growth is a contributing factor to the high turnover rate. Research shows that 13 percent of teachers leave the profession or take a position at a new school every year.

I think that the time teachers spend in the classroom, both with students present and without, is appropriate to get the job done in many cases. However, I do hope we can find a way to improve salaries so teachers earn what they deserve. Teachers should have at least a middle-class existence. Our nation needs to quickly learn how to attract and retain top talent teachers in the classrooms in order to best educate our children.

Wall Street Journal- Fight Is On for Common Core Contracts

I'm sure there will be no improprieties . . . . .

Wall Street Journal
U.S. NEWS
Fight Is On for Common Core Contracts

Testing Companies Jockey for a Growing Market, Protest States’ Bidding Process

By CAROLINE PORTER
Updated Nov. 12, 2014 12:30 a.m. ET

As states race to implement the Common Core academic standards, companies are fighting for a slice of the accompanying testing market, expected to be worth billions of dollars in coming years.

That jockeying has brought allegations of bid-rigging in one large pricing agreement involving 11 states—the latest hiccup as the math and reading standards are rolled out—while in roughly three dozen others, education companies are battling for contracts state by state.

Mississippi’s education board in September approved an emergency $8 million contract to Pearson PLC for tests aligned with Common Core, sidestepping the state’s contract-review board, which had found the transaction illegal because it failed to meet state rules regarding a single-source bid.

When Maryland officials were considering a roughly $60 million proposal to develop computerized testing for Common Core that month, state Comptroller Peter Franchot also objected that Pearson was the only bidder. “How are we ever going to know if taxpayers are getting a good deal if there is no competition?” the elected Democrat asked, before being outvoted by a state board in approving the contract.



Mississippi and Maryland are two of the states that banded together in 2010, intending to look for a testing-service provider together. The coalition of 11 states plus the District of Columbia hoped joining forces would result in a better product at a lower price, but observers elsewhere shared some of Mr. Franchot’s concerns.

The bidding process, which both states borrowed from a similar New Mexico contract, is now the subject of a lawsuit in that state by a Pearson competitor.

For decades, states essentially set their own academic standards, wrote their own curricula and designed their own tests. In a bid partly to help the U.S. education system keep up with overseas rivals, state leaders began working on shared benchmarks.

With financial and policy incentives from the Obama administration, 45 states and D.C. initially adopted Common Core. But the standards have faced pushback from some parents and conservatives who say they represent federal overreach. Two states have pulled out and are writing their own standards.

Still, most states are implementing Common Core and accompanying testing this year. The sheer size of that effort and this year’s deadline heighten the stakes and exacerbate the difficulty of hiring test suppliers.

“Winning the policy battle was not even half the battle,” said Michael McShane, a research fellow in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, who is skeptical about Common Core. “It was more like 10%, and 90% of the battle is implementation.”

The $2.46 billion-a-year U.S. testing market is seeing more competition beyond the three traditional powers of Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co. and McGraw-Hill Education CTB, according to Simba Information, a market-research firm. While McGraw-Hill recently got a $72 million contract for assessment services with several states, meanwhile, midsize vendors such as AIR Assessment and Educational Testing Service are winning big states like Florida and California.

Amplify, the education subsidiary of News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal, also provides assessment products.

Some experts say legacy companies are best able to meet states’ demands and offer familiar relationships during this period of flux. At the same time, the move to new standards coincided with a switch to digital and online learning that has forced vendors to rethink their strategies.

Maryland’s contract with Pearson was built off the one in New Mexico, which took the lead in writing the bidding documents for a four-year, roughly $26 million contract that applied to that state. But other states in the coalition were meant to copy the contract and competition, meaning its full value could balloon to $1 billion.

In the spring, New Mexico field-tested new state exams. The state relied on Pearson for a piece of software that delivers the test. AIR Assessment, a rival company to Pearson, protested over the bidding process last year and filed a lawsuit in the Santa Fe First Judicial District this past spring alleging that only Pearson could fulfill the bid requirements.

This summer, Judge Sarah M. Singleton ruled that state administrators had to review AIR Assessment’s concerns. New Mexico officials subsequently found the concerns invalid.

AIR Assessment is appealing that finding and asking that New Mexico reopen the bidding process with new specifications for the next school year—potentially reopening the contracts in all 11 states and D.C. Judge Singleton could rule as soon as this month, according to Jon Cohen, president of AIR Assessment, a division of the American Institutes for Research, a not-for-profit organization.

“We just want a fair bid,” Mr. Cohen said, whose company recently won a $220 million contract to provide Common Core-related testing products over six years to Florida. A spokesman for New Mexico’s education department called AIR’s allegations “frivolous.” Pearson declined to comment on the suit.

“You’re seeing a whole ecosystem transform,” said Shilpi Niyogi, a Pearson official. “There’s new players and new innovation, and we’re constantly looking at the relationship between innovation and scale.”

An Open Letter to Campbell Brown

Dear Ms. Brown,

Before going into my personal problems with your attacks on teacher tenure, let me first state that I have for years appreciated your work as a news correspondent with both NBC News and more recently CNN. You have spent the past twenty years honing your craft and reporting the news we, as a nation, require for a functioning democracy. However, I now find myself wondering what your motivations might be for entering this fight against public teacher tenure. More on that later.

Let's be clear right up front, I am a public education teacher with over 16 years experience in the classroom and I benefit from seniority and tenure laws. However, you may be surprised to learn that I believe very strongly, as do many of my educator colleagues, that these systems need to be reformed. Many of us agree that it is too costly and too difficult to remove an ineffective teacher from the classroom. Likewise, during this age of budget cuts, many of us have seen highly effective teacher's cut while ineffective teachers remain in the classroom simply due to the date they were hired. I agree that students in urban schools are often left with inferior and insufficient educational experiences. Too often these students sit in classrooms with weak teachers, outdated materials and disparate financial resources.

So, we have some common ground from which we can approach this problem. However, we first need to get beyond your stated reasons for opposing these practices. Simply stated, you're attacking the wrong issue to come up with a solution for your problem. It isn't teacher tenure and seniority laws that are providing the neediest students with bad teachers- it's economics.

In 1997, while working toward my Master of Science degree in Education at the University at Albany, I had the pleasure of attending an event with Jonathan Kozol, author of the 1991 groundbreaking social-educational work, "Savage Inequalities", in which he observes the unequal distribution of educational funding in inner-city public schools and the impacts it has on students. During his talk, I recall the question of educational spending as a solution to inequalities being presented. Kozol's reply, "When does anyone ask if throwing money at the military will solve a problem? They don't. They only question throwing money at things that represent human decency." And here lies our current problem- socio-economic status, funding inequities and greed.

Money, spent wisely and thoughtfully, CAN solve the very problems we are all facing, and in particular the problems you face, with public education. I'm not talking about raising taxes and randomly throwing it at schools. I'm talking about a redistribution of the funds that creates an equitable funding source for students in ALL schools. 60 years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education supreme court case, schools continue to suffer due to economic inequalities as stark as those based on race. That's because school district in New York fund their schools primarily through their local property taxes. Poor communities = poor funding which leads to funding gaps. Worse than that, New York State has continued to decrease their share of funding which leaves schools with less money to accomplish more. Wealthy districts can continue to provide programs while poorer districts struggle. These districts, like the one I teach in, continually cut faculty and programs which results in fewer opportunities and larger classes for our students.

Ms. Brown, solving the economics of public school funding will help resolve many of the concerns you have with teacher quality. Ending tenure protections will do little to strengthen the effectiveness of teachers. In fact, it may have the opposite effect. Without tenure protections, teachers will be reluctant to experiment with new ideas and methods. Teachers will be reluctant to speak out on behalf of the many issues we and our students face on a regular basis- issues like equity, access to resources and constitutional rights. More importantly, destruction of tenure may actually prevent highly qualified prospective teachers from entering the profession as instability enters into the equation. 

Now, as I mentioned, I am not necessarily a fan of tenure and seniority as they are currently practiced. I agree that bad teachers are too often protected and too difficult to remove from the job. As a teacher, I feel this reflects poorly on our entire profession. However, tenure is not absolute as many will try to imply. It is costly and prolonged, but not absolute; and lets keep in mind that behind every bad teacher is an administrator who recommended that teacher for tenure. Teachers don't "turn bad", often times all the signs are there from the start, but overworked administrators don't have the time or resources to fully observe or evaluate teaching. So the goal here, to remove truly ineffective teachers, must be streamlined and reformed. 

To start, tenure should be granted after a longer time period than is currently used along with higher professional standards and expectations. Current tenure law in New York State allows for granting of tenure following three years of teaching. Extending this to five years may provide a longer period for observation and teacher support. The longer time period may also have the impact of improving new teacher quality as they seek professional development in order obtain tenure and Administrators can have greater input into teacher concerns and development.

Seniority is more difficult to address. As districts face budgetary concerns, there may very well be a push to cut the fat at the top, not because these teachers have become lazy and apathetic, but due to the cost of maintaining these teachers. In addition, these teachers often represent the most outspoken members of the faculty and can be seen as being politically adversarial. Fixing tenure will allow for some natural reform of the seniority concerns by keeping the best teachers in the profession. 

Lastly, how do we identify poor teaching? Standardized testing is not the answer as teacher ratings rely on the randomness of student assignment. The New York system of pre-test and post-test comparisons is an absurd joke. Students barely try to perform on a pre-test that has no meaning or consequence for them, while teacher determined Standard Learning Objectives (SLO's) are completely random and immediately suspect when realizing that pre-test score indicate unreliable information.

Unfortunately, none of the reforms you mention will lead to better educational outcomes. Students, particularly those you are choosing to defend, are suffering NOT because the schools can't remove the teachers, but most likely because the best teachers have probably chosen to leave the school. The structural and physical condition of many of these schools are failing and the pay scales in many of these schools are often below regional standards. As a result, some of the best teachers move from these schools to higher paying and safer suburban schools. These schools offer greater access to technology, resources, and course offerings. Why wouldn't they leave?

As Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute recently wrote, "Addressing the core drivers of these schools’, and students’, problems requires working in close partnership with teachers and unions. The vast majority of teachers are doing yeomen’s work under very difficult conditions; improving education means improving those conditions, making teaching in the schools that need strong teachers more attractive, and supporting those teachers to help them improve their craft." 

Lastly, let us consider your motivation Ms. Brown. As a current board member of Success Academy charter schools, your interest in these students and the future of public schools is questionable. Much has been written concerning the negative impact charter schools have on public schools and the lack of achievement demonstrated by these charters. In fact, Success Academy has had their own struggles with student achievement considering their inability to place students in the top public high schools in New York City. So lets not pretend that your motives go far beyond the destruction of public education and the privatization of our educational system. 

Overall, private charter school businesses have shown little actual success in improving student achievement. In fact, the achievement levels at public schools and charter schools have historically been similar. Given the lack of tenured positions and seniority, I'm guessing that the problems these schools face are not a result of said programs. If tenure and seniority are the problems then charter school scores should be through the roof! So why is it, Ms. Brown, that you are not going out of your way to file law suits against the charter schools that are failing students? I suppose there's a greater return in pandering to hedge-fund managers and other privateers who gain financially through tax credits and the destruction of the public schools. 

So in the end Ms. Brown, is it the public good you're trying to benefit, or your own? I think it's pretty clear in which direction your interests lie. If you truly want to help students in this country, then we welcome your help in trying to end the inequities that exist in public schools. We can do this by reforming public taxation and revenue distribution rules and by helping struggling urban schools and other low-income schools across the state to balance their budgets, help them stop the endless teacher and program cuts and help them restore programs that will help ALL students in New York to have a true common and equitable educational experience.

Dead Man Walking . . . .

Just to be clear, that headline is NOT a threat . . . just a point of reference that insinuates the demise of testing culture.

It seems Commissioner John King is becoming increasingly desperate. As his world closes in around him, he finds it necessary to marginalize the opposition to his Common Core policies and testing fervor. 

Education Commissioner John King hopes Common Core controversy behind him

King asked supporters at a breakfast forum to push back against critics who label the educational standards ‘a national conspiracy’ of either the left or the right.

“When your elected officials acquiesce to people saying higher standards are a national conspiracy of the left or a national conspiracy of the right we need you to push back,” he said. 


To which I would say, when your constituents insist that you be critical of a public policy and program, conduct your due diligence, research the policy, its background, its implementation, its costs and benefits to society and then rule as you see fit. Don't acquiesce because a commissioner of any entity says, "trust me". 

Toxic Culture of Education: Joshua Katz at TEDxUniversityofAkron

I could only hope to be as eloquent as Joshua Katz in this TEDx address. Mr. Katz sums up many of my own personal beliefs surrounding testing culture and the true problems facing education today.

The truth about education policy is that it is written and enforced by people who have either spent little or no time in the classroom with the students that these very policies affect. Why not allow the individuals in direct contact with students to mold and shape the environment of the students? Education is the only industry that is developing a product without any valid market research from its users! Students aren’t asked what they want or need. Teachers aren’t asked what would work for their students. Teachers are not the enemy: it’s the private companies like Pearson and interest groups like ALEC, that write policies and laws that are passed over steak dinners with words like “accountability” and “rigor” to perpetuate their bottom lines on the heads of our students. Follow the money: of all the tax dollars that go into education, how much goes directly to students? How much goes directly to a teacher’s relationship with students (which by the way are another leading indicator of student success)? Compare that to how much goes to private companies for materials and resources, as well as bureaucracy? Just follow the money.

We must change the public narrative on education. We must fight our Toxic Culture! We must end high stakes testing for the sake of “accountability”. Let’s have education policy that builds up our students with sensible human standards instead of fitting them into robotic boxes for “college readiness”. Let’s focus on getting students out there in the evolving global economy. Let’s focus on teaching them the important things: how to read, how to think, how to research, how to reason, how to master basic skills, and how to be good citizens. Let’s talk about the Non-Cognitive factors that are the true measures of student achievement: persistence, integrity, character.

Let’s teach them how to learn and how to innovate, NOT how to take tests. We must change the focus of our Toxic Culture away from curriculum, teachers, and schools, and WE MUST focus on our students!

King's Brown v Board Speech: Right Problem- Wrong Solutions

May 14th marked the 60th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The Brown case set the standard for school desegregation and made "separate but equal" a supposed practice of the past. While the Brown decision remains important today, it has also failed to be a solution for inequalities. In many inner city school systems and small upstate districts, separate but unequal is a reality. Decades of well-intended attempts to remedy this problem have resulted in very little progress.

To mark this momentous occasion, New York State Commissioner of Education, John B. King, Jr., spoke at the Rockefeller Institute of Government to decry the continuing failures of public education, the damaging actions of non-reformers and hail his holy grail solution to all things unequal . . . . the Common Core!  

As a prelude to his main points, Dr. King begins by asking a pointed question: Why are we silent?

The question isn't asked in an inquiring fashion. He isn't actually wondering why the silence exists. He's framing his question in the form of a criticism. A criticism levied at an imagined public who sits back and allows the unequal schooling to continue. It's levied at the parents, the administrators, the politicians and, of course, the public school teachers who sit idly by and watch as poor kids and children of color fall through the cracks.

The problem is, so long as I have been in public education (16 years), the plight of these children has been the central focus of nearly every conversation concerning a host of problems ranging from testing achievement to drop-out rates to homework completion and reading levels. No one in my public education experience has been silent. We've cried for funding equity, condemned unfunded mandates and pleaded for real solutions to these problems. We've read and discussed Ruby Payne's "Understanding Poverty", developed mentor programs, organized after school programs and increased school-based support services. But as No Child Left Behind became the law of the land and we moved toward a system of testing and accountability, we have only found that a narrowing of the curriculum coupled with high-stakes testing results in increased disinterest for these students.

So, to start with, the problem isn't silence. The problem is in the solutions that benefit market-forces more than they do the students. The problem is a society that obsesses over their fears of income redistribution and taxation of the wealthy. The problem is that we have communities that have had to cut their teaching staffs, increase their class sizes and put on hold long overdue building repairs and infrastructure upgrades. If we want equality of opportunity, we need to offer equality of resources.

During his speech, Dr. King made some valid points and provided a very strong and compelling assessment of the current state of public education New York State. In particular, he summed up the challenges many schools face when dealing children of color and those who come from impoverished households.  His claims about the impact of public schools mirror my own beliefs when addressing those from poor neighborhoods:

Schools have often been called the great equalizer – the place where the impact of our differences of economic class and background can be erased – and where our qualities of intellect, creativity, hard work, and persistence can triumph. 

He further states his view that schools have gained little since the Brown decision:

Believe it or not, 60 years after Brown, we also remain deeply segregated. According to one recent report, New York has the most segregated schools in the country – both racially and economically.

Not only do our 700 school district lines often track patterns of residential economic segregation, there are school districts in this state today – including New York City – with boundary lines within the district that keep children of wealth starkly separated from children of poverty -- and we know from our history that segregation – whether it’s economic or racial -- breeds inequality.

The facts are plain: America spends less to educate poor children than wealthy children. Fewer poor children have access to high quality pre-school. Poor children are often assigned to less effective teachers and have fewer resources in their schools.

They have fewer after-school programs and fewer social and emotional supports. If they are high achieving students, they have less access to rigorous courses and they are far less likely to go to a top-notch college.

By every single measure – whether it is classroom grades or test scores, or high school and college graduation rates, our children of poverty and children of color are further behind, and the promise of equality through education still eludes us.

I would be hard-pressed to find any disagreement with Dr. King in any of these important points. Clearly, the challenges facing many public schools revolve around race and poverty issues. As I have already alluded to, where I strongly disagree with Dr. King is in identifying the solutions for these societal problems and in his overly simplified and exaggerated dismissal of those who oppose Common Core and the ancillary reforms.

Among the litany of solutions for Dr. King are charter schools. Although Dr. King tries to make the point that charter schools outperform public schools, the facts tell a different story. In a 2013 study conducted at Stanford University, 25-29% of the charters outperformed public schools in the areas of growth on reading and math. Most demonstrated no significant statistical gains. Other concerns surrounding charter schools have been well-documented- increased suspension rates, high levels of expelled students with special needs and behavioral problems and more. Clearly, public schools are not in any position to do any of this.

Dr. King also offers a flippant description of those who oppose his reforms:

You’ve seen it in the media and in the political arena. You’ve seen it in schools and communities across the state where some parents, some educators, some union leaders and some politicians say the standards are too high. They argue that we should not hold ourselves accountable for student learning.

Being against the use of no-stakes, poorly written standardized assessments as a means for assessing achievement and determining teacher effectiveness, and therefore accountability, is not the same as refusing to be accountable. Most teachers I know want accountability. We want accountability as a means to clean up our profession and strengthen our positions in our community. We acknowledge that every field has members whose actions, or inaction's, reflect poorly on the whole. We recognize that, in order to be viewed as fully professional, we have to have a means for accountability. We just want it to be conducted in a fair and effective manner, using evidence and data that is relevant and reflective.

I think we can all agree on the problems facing our schools and on a larger scale our society. As income inequality continues to grow and more and more people are preoccupied with providing for their families, the ability for low-income and middle income families to provide educational support, assistance and supervision  for their children has dwindled. When parents are too busy working multiple jobs to provide food and shelter, they simply do not have the time to devote to these important tasks. Children from well-educated, professional and wealthy families will always do better as a group. The solutions are in finding ways to make the problems of poverty less damaging to the lives of the children with fewer supports.

This is why the story of Finland is so important. Finland continually scores high on all metrics associated with international testing. Yet, despite the fact that Finland has a growing income inequality that is comparable to the United States they continue to achieve at all income levels. It's what Finland does to resolve these problems that is important in explaining why Finnish children, regardless of socio-economic status, score high on international tests. 

In Finnish schools, ALL children receive breakfast and lunch, ALL children receive the same educational instruction, ALL teachers are treated as highly trained professionals and continue to receive high quality professional development throughout their careers. There is little to NO standardized testing, university education is FREE and medical care is provided to ALL students at schools. There are no charter schools or voucher programs and very few private schools. Their students attend less school per year, spend more time playing at school, and have less homework than American students.

So why do we NOT learn from the Finnish model and implement their strategies and practices? Maybe because there is little to no room for profiteering and it looks and sounds far too much like that dreaded SOCIALISM. Many people look toward other high scoring countries for examples, but the structural divergence between who tests and who doesn't is less egalitarian. We cannot, and don't want to duplicate nations like Singapore or cities like Shanghai. 

If we want to solve our educational problems, we must deal effectively with poverty. Until we can provide for the non-educational needs of all of our children, we will not be able to expect them to be concerned about learning. Living in poverty provides children with endless distractions and few opportunities when compared to their more affluent peers. What the Finnish model does is provide a framework for a society that educates 100% of its children from a variety of social and economic backgrounds in a highly effective manner. Dr. King and other reformers must grasp these models and institute policies that have proven to be effective elsewhere. 

The direction the United States is moving is a path of educational destruction. In the end, reformers are making promises that their policies cannot fulfill. 

The Public Education Shock Doctrine

Over the past several months, I have had this nagging feeling of déjà vu. As the nation divides into competing camps over the implementation of Common Core, I am constantly left with a feeling that we have already been down this path. That everything we are fighting about has been fought over already. That this has all happened before and the techniques being used by the government and the big educational corporations have been used to gain support and momentum in the past. And then it occurred to me, the buildup of the war on public education is strikingly similar to the buildup of support for the war in Iraq. And even further, there appears to be a similar goal- the corporate profiteering from a public good.

In Naomi Klein’s 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, she details the ways in which the laissez-faire philosophies of neo-liberal economists, such as Milton Friedman, had a direct influence on the political policies and practices of many Latin American coups and also the Bush administration’s push for the invasion of Iraq in 2002-03. Klein goes through mounds of data to make connections between CIA’s experiments and the ways in which the major western economic powers utilized these practices to create blank slate countries in which they could create developing economies favorable to corporatist regimes. In particular, she applies these theories to the buildup to the war in Iraq and the United States’ drive to gain access to Iraq’s vast nationalized oil reserves for corporate profit.

With the target of Iraqi oil reserves set, the next step in the process was the development of a crisis. In this case, As the Bush administration ramped up its push to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the fall of 2002 and winter of 2003, the tactics they used to gain public support and the outcomes sought were strikingly transparent and flimsy. Rationale’s wavered from weapons of mass destruction, the war on terror, human rights violations, democratization and the ultimate goal of peace in the Middle East. Regardless, the crisis was established and the rationale for action was “legitimized”. 

What followed was a process of social, political and economic destruction, a “blank slate” as Klein describes it, and the imposition of new institutions, often corporate, to replace those destroyed through the employment of “shock and awe” techniques. In the final stage, a new corporatist state would be secured to the benefit of western economic elites and shareholders.

Here is a quick summary of the basic process according to Klein:

STEP ONE- Identify target

STEP TWO- Invent crisis to expose popular weakness in the target

STEP THREE- Destruction of the existing order

STEP FOUR- Create new corporatist state

In the fight for the American public education system, the similarities to the buildup to the war in Iraq are striking. The TARGET in this case is the school system itself. For decades, a publicly funded holdout to corporate “reforms” and supported by the collectivist teacher unions; it’s the last bastion for privatization and its potential for financial gain is potentially astronomical.

The CRISIS in this arena is the manufactured and hyped up inequalities and inefficiencies of “failing schools”. With the public outcry over declining scores on the PISA test and cries of mediocrity on the NAEP, all fueled by an eager and willing corporate media structure, politicians and corporate reformers have found common ground on which to fight to save our children and prepare them for “college and career readiness”. However, these tests do not tell a full or even legitimate account of student performance since these scores do not take into account impacts of outside factors, such as socio-economic disparities. 

In an analysis of the 2009  PISA scores, Martin Carnoy and Richard Rothstein found that when accounting for socio-economic disparities, the scores for students in the  United States  jumped dramatically. In Reading, the students jumped from 14^th to 4^th and in Mathematics from 25^th to 10^th. Enormous gains ignored. Why? Because officials go to great length to ignore and minimize these statistical factors since they highlight two very important things- the ongoing divide between social classes in America and a failure to focus on the true crisis facing public education- poverty and income inequality.  

The DESTRUCTION OF THE EXISTING ORDER, perhaps the most insidious component of this progression, is taking place in school districts around the country. With the “evidence” of declining test scores, the politicians, corporate financiers and monied interests wage war on public education and the status quo; all with a glorified mission of rising up the impoverished through their philanthropic deeds and charter schools. By bringing testing scores to the fore, these reform minded forces can chip away at the multitude of labor protections that have prevented them from privatizing the system earlier- labor unions, collective bargaining, tenure laws- while holding high their moral certitude of providing a quality education for all students. Because in the view of the reformers, these aren’t just the factors holding back privatization, these are also the factors that hold back our children- just look at those falling test scores!

With the elimination of collective bargaining and tenure laws, the decline of labor unions as a political and financial counter-force is nearly eliminated. This ushers in the final stage in the process- establishment of a CORPORATIST STATE. Corporatism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction”. Simply put, the government is run by and for the benefit of corporations and their shareholders. No longer a democratically functioning tool, the government institutions simply work as elected arms of the corporations. In this final stage, corporations create laws and secure their passage and implementation. They buy entre through political donations, manipulate legal wording through lobbyists and maintain power through the funneling of funds to special-interests. Then they establish their own set of laws, through the Common Core State Standards, that simultaneously create a tool for demonizing schools and teachers while providing a framework for profits.

Finally, society becomes segregated by what Klein describes as “disaster apartheid”, in this case a form of educational apartheid. Following the privatization of schools, we will have a system that provides opportunities for the few at the expense of the many. This is hardly an exaggerated concept. Simply look at the impacts charter schools have had in several urban communities and you see the ways in which a new class order is being formed. Children who are lucky enough to win the charter lotteries are just the start. In order to stay in the charters they must demonstrate behavioral and academic norms that meet the expectations of the charter organization. This is something you simply can’t (and wouldn’t) do at a public school. In the end, the reformers succeed in streamlining class divisions based on socio-economic standards and academic achievement. Further fueling a rebirth of the civil rights era battles for equality. Except this time, the divisions are about economic standing as much as they are about race.

Every step in this process for educational privatization has followed a clear and steady plan. Built on the past success in other political areas, the corporations are playing by the same rules. However, as Naomi Klein describes in the final chapter of her book, the unintended consequences lie in the backlash that rises up against the corporations and the forces that work with them. At some point, the shroud of benevolent illusion is lifted only to reveal the true nature of the corporate beast. As testing increases and public schools face further funding cuts, the parents, teachers, administrators, politicians and community-minded organizers will work effortlessly to strike down the new order and reveal it for what it truly is.

Already we are seeing the roots of this movement. All across the country parent groups and teachers unions are organizing to fight for our children and the future of their schools. Courageous Administrators are taking brave stands in outing the tests and the standards for what they truly represent. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are combating the power-grab through new attempts at legislation that either restricts the impact of tests on teachers or withdraws their states from Common Core altogether.

The monetary and political alliances are being exposed and the media farce is becoming its own circus. As groups organize to oppose the Common Core, through meaningless standardized testing and the teacher evaluations that are based upon them, they develop the political power to overthrow this current regime. The political and financial motives of the “reformers” are not that complex. With opponents on the political right and left, perhaps the one thing they didn’t count on was the full spectrum of opposition that faces them today. 

Lesson's From the World's Best Public School?

Lesson's From the World's Best Public School

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/05/09/shanghai-high-confidential-249224.html

I have long stated that the fundamental flaw of the school reform crowd lies in their oft-repeated claim that American public schools are in crisis- that scores range anywhere from being in free-fall to stagnant when compared to scores of public schools from around the world- as if that means something. Many better informed academics have made better arguments than I am capable here, however, it continues to be frustrating to be faced with a constant barrage of claims that all start with this same premise.

The Newsweek article, Lesson's From the World's Best Public School, does a remarkable job at both highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of the public school system in Shanghai, China. The initial entry into the article starts by providing the reader with the idea that this will simply repeat the same old schtick about foreign schools- higher expectations, cultural pressures, talented and effective teachers, committed and involved parents- and it does. But buried beneath this sheen, is a damning critique of the international assessment process.

So, let's explore Shanghai's public school programs and the impact in students and their families:

Time- 16 hour days (school plus study/homework) during the week and only one day to enjoy human existence on the weekend. Perhaps it's just me, but I think human existence goes well beyond work load and time commitment. When do these kids get to be kids? And I don't mean that in a whiny over-parenting way. I mean it in a developmentally healthy way. All work and no play . . . . ?

Homework- Upwards of 5 hours of homework/night plus 10 hours on Sunday? That's a full-time job after your full-time job! Would American parents actually stand for this sort of drive toward excellence? Hardly. This actually happened: One day last semester, I went to the Main Office at the beginning of the school day to drop off work for an absent student. While I was there I decided to check my mailbox. In my mailbox was a copy of the new "Bible for homework hating parents: "The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing" by Alfie Kohn. Attached to the front cover was a yellow sticky-note that simply stated- "To Mr. Shaver- FYI!!!!!" 

I didn't need to read the book to get the not-so-subtle and passively aggressive statement. By the way- this was from an honors level parent in a class where the students have on average THREE homework assignments per week. Each taking about 20-30 minutes to complete. I even provide the students with ALL of their homework assignments in a packet the first day or two of the unit so that they can complete them at their leisure. The problem- MOST of the students (admittedly upwards of 70%) wait until the last day or two to complete the 16 or so assignments. Suddenly, a manageable task becomes overwhelming as little Janie and Johnny try to cram a unit's worth of work into a single marathon session. Serves them right? Wrong. Let the parental hate mail fly! It's not their children's fault, it's the teachers fault for providing so little time.

Parental Involvement- One of the cure-all's that we consistently hear about in education circles is the impact of parental involvement in their children's education. Unfortunately, most parents have no idea what this is supposed to look like. Do they attend everything at school? Do they advocate for their child? If so, to what degree? Should they help with homework? But what if they don't understand it themselves? Tiger Mom's? Helicopter Parents? All of it just another version of bad. We've raised a generation of narcissists and then we wonder why they don't do what we ask. 

Mostly what schools need from parents, is constant reinforcement of the school and teacher roles in learning; guidance toward time management and organization; an occasional nudge and spark to stay on task/study, and most of all- a safe, healthy and nurturing home. You want to know where America fails in educating it's children, look no further. For as long as I have been a teacher, there have been students who wait outside the school doors every morning longing to get in because their home lives are so miserable or unsafe. Sometimes arriving up to two hours prior to the start of school, these kids need a place to go and school is the best, and sometimes only, option. And then we expect these kids to be college and career ready?

Respect for Teachers- "A teacher is the most exalted figure of respect outside of a student’s parents. The teacher speaks, the student listens. More than listen, the student memorizes and needs to be able to spit back virtually everything he or she is taught." I think we all know where teachers stand on this one. See above. When I started out teaching in the late 90's, I felt genuinely well-respected. However, throughout the 2000's, the climate took a noticeable and drastic change in the opposite direction. Suddenly, teachers were the problem to all of societies ills- economic, social, political . . . a scapegoat of sorts. So when you're the scapegoat at family homes, it's pretty easy to be less than respected at school.

Schooling- As described in the article, Shanghai and other public school systems around the world, have tiered public schools. These tiers are determined by a range of factors from socio-economic status, ethnic grouping, testing ability and childhood development. The advanced students move into one track, while the others move elsewhere. In some countries, this may include 3-4 different tracks. For testing purposes, the PISA and other test administrators focus their energies on the college or university bound groups. In the United States, this means everyone. In states like New York, every single student is educated with a college-bound curriculum. No longer available are the local diplomas that allowed lower ability students to graduate with pride. Today, the ONLY options for graduation are college-ready or GED. Not quite one-size fits all, but pretty close. 

So pretty much apples-to-oranges when we talk comparing student achievement levels. In most US school districts, there is a healthy chunk of students you're just happy got out! 

Overall, programs like PISA do nothing to advance the idea that some countries are better at educating their children. Some are better at it, and there is plenty we could learn from many of them. However, when you politicize a flawed system to leverage it for economic gain, we all lose.

Opt-Out Movement is a Form of Protest

On May 4, 2014, the Glens Falls daily, The Post-Star, published the following BOO in their weekly Boos and Bravos segment concerning the Opt-Out movement:

Parents continue to opt out of Common Core testing

Boos to those parents who continue to opt out of the Common Core testing for grades three through eight. Since the results won’t count on any student’s record, there seems to be nothing gained from opting out of the test. It appears the tests are here to stay, and just because they are more difficult is not a reason to boycott them. Raising the bar on educational standards will take years, and it starts by making the curriculum more challenging. The new standards should be given a fair chance, and we don’t expect children will be traumatized by a more difficult format.

Although I normally have disdain for letter writers and the garbage they spew, I felt compelled to reply given the Post-Star's track record on glib and flippant commentary toward educational issues. Here is my published reply (fighting glibness with sarcasm?):

Opt-Out movement is a form of protest

Editor:

Thank you for taking the time to highlight your dissatisfaction with the Opt-Out movement. Thank you also for reminding your readers that you lack even a basic understanding of an important educational issue that is impacting our society.

In one short paragraph, you managed to simplify a very complex issue into a very compelling argument, “Hey, the tests are here, deal with it!” If only our civil rights leaders had accepted that simple and sound advice! 

In reality, the Opt-Out movement is a diverse collection of parents, educators, administrators and politicians, all of whom have disparate reasons for objecting to the Common Core and the resulting tests. The arguments take much more space than is allotted here, but they start with the failed premise that American education is in decline and crisis and ends with the opposition to corporate profiteering from our children, testing schemes and curriculum materials. In between is a host of concerns about curricular content, developmental appropriateness, scripted lesson planning, the loss of local control of public education and much more. The Opt-Out movement is as much a practice in nonviolent protest as it is a challenge to a corrupt public policy.

Boo to The Post-Star for not understanding this important public movement and the scope of its impact and for further failing to report on the true nature of this issue. Although my wife and I have not opted our own children out of the state tests, I do have deep concerns surrounding the cause and effect principles inherent in such a dramatic and ill-conceived policy and strongly support those who make the difficult decision to opt their own children out of the tests.

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” -Aristotle

MICHAEL SHAVER

Queensbury

The Education-Industrial Complex

Below is the first piece I had written concerning the Common Core State Standards. I was inspired to write this piece following an eye-opening and extremely informative conversation with Kris Nielsen of, "I (used to ) Love Teaching" fame. After posting a comment on Facebook, I received a request to publish my thoughts for The Chronicle, a local weekly newspaper. Here it is:

The Education-Industrial Complex
August 19, 2013

On August 7th, the New York State Department of Education released the first round of student scores using the Common Core Standards based tests in English and math. Statewide, the passing rate for these tests was abominable with just a 31% passing rate. That represents a drop of nearly 25% since last year. This overall drop in passing rates has led to a mixture of reactions. The most dominant theme coming from the politicians and corporate leaders promoted the test was an expectation for failure. How can it ever be beneficial to create a system with expectations of failure? The problem lies in the way these tests have been developed- without any empirical data to support the tests- and the nature of the motivations behind such testing.

Failure and disappointment can oftentimes be beneficial. In fact, I would say they are necessary for proper growth and development. I would even go so far as to say that our society has mistreated failure by insulating our children from many negative impacts. However, I will say that constant failure, despite proper and studious preparation, can have devastating impacts on students, teachers and communities alike. Our children are guinea pigs in a great educational experiment with high stakes for them and their teachers. But once again, why would we expose our students to such a failure and the stress that accompanies it?

In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of a growing military-industrial complex.  Over the past 50 years, we have seen his warning of a political and industrial behemoth come to fruition. Today, we face a growing educational-industrial complex with similar warnings coming from both ends of the political spectrum. For some, public education is the final frontier; the last stronghold of public control that is ripe for privatization and profiteering.

Here’s how such a system is meant to work:

STEP ONE- Make false claims about the “failing American educational system”. Many of the proponents of the Common Core Standards are corporate leaders who claim American education is in crisis when compared to international competition. However, when viewed through value-added measures for poverty and ethnicity, American students actually end up ranked among the top tier of global students. In addition, in the most recent TIMMS tests for math and science (2011) American students continued to show growth in these areas. In the case of math, students have shown continuous and progressive growth since the test was first introduced in 1995. We don’t have an education crisis per se; we have a poverty crisis.

STEP TWO- Create a test that proves you're right. In this case, politicians and corporate leaders heralded a new curriculum tied to college and career readiness. What business leaders want most, are workers with the ability to collaborate, use of oral and written communication skills and critical thinking skills. Much of the Core curriculum does just that.  However, the tests that were administered don’t assess these skills. These multiple choice tests are inappropriate when compared to the goals of the curriculum.

STEP THREE- Use the disastrous test scores to claim there is a need for further reform.  As the state tests result in high failure rates, many proponents of privatization will inevitably cry for more private access to educate our children. Forget that such experiments have shown little result of improved academic performance when compared to public school performance. In this case, it’s about the money. There is big money to be made in testing, curriculum materials and privatization. Corporations such as Pearson, McGraw, Apple, The College Board, and many others stand to make billions of dollars through materials and development.

STEP FOUR- Kill the unions. Quite simply put, teachers unions are powerful. They collect massive amounts of money from tens of thousands of members who are politically active and highly motivated. These unions represent the last vestige of resistance to these privatization overhauls while maintaining their professional ranks, promised benefits and middle class wages. This group represents “lost” capital to the government and corporate powers and they don’t like it. Oddly enough, the two major teachers unions have partnered in this endeavor thanks to large endowments for collaboration from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

STEP FIVE- Create a permanent working class. In the end, the worst thing that may come out of this is the actual dumbing-down of American students. Due to the weight of the test results toward teacher evaluation and school success, teachers are forced to focus their time and efforts into assessment achievement rather than the college and career readiness skills the Core curriculum calls for.  Spending 4-6 weeks of the academic year preparing for a test is unacceptable. Who benefits from an uneducated populace; one that can’t actually think critically about the political, social and economic world that affects them?

Unfortunately, this is the culture we have allowed to thrive. As we move forward, there will certainly be continuing discussion about where we go from here. As an educator, I welcome rigorous curriculum and a goal of high achievement for all our students. College and true career readiness (including vocational training) should always be a goal for our public education system. Yet, it is also important that we achieve these goals responsibly and with the best interests of our children at heart. Unfortunately, the Common Core State Standards, and in particular, the tests being developed through consortiums like PARCC and SMARTER Balanced simply do not help us achieve these goals. Our children, our families and our communities deserve better.