Guy Brandenburg enhances #Money Talks

Guy Brandenburg enhances #Money Talks

Cool Graphs added and Guy learns about Westchester stereotype!

How #Money Talks

DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

Since writing my book, Doing The Right Thing: A Teacher Speaks, I have become much more sensitive to how media, in its many guises, lets slip some of the facts that show how wealth, poverty, economics, and politics all have a place in the education policy being controlled by those with the money. All you have to do is keep your eyes open and put pieces of the puzzle together. That happened over the past two days.

 

Yesterday I received my monthly copy of Westchester Magazine, a high end, high gloss, celebration of everything money can buy in Westchester County, where I live. This month’s feature was devoted (as it is annually) to highlighting education. To its credit the magazine spotlighted  fabulous student-teacher relationships from several schools in the county. Then there was the “centerfold”. Literally! Every year the centerfold is a chart (spreadsheet) comparing all the high…

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How #Money Talks

Since writing my book, Doing The Right Thing: A Teacher Speaks, I have become much more sensitive to how media, in its many guises, lets slip some of the facts that show how wealth, poverty, economics, and politics all have a place in the education policy being controlled by those with the money. All you have to do is keep your eyes open and put pieces of the puzzle together. That happened over the past two days.

 

Yesterday I received my monthly copy of Westchester Magazine, a high end, high gloss, celebration of everything money can buy in Westchester County, where I live. This month’s feature was devoted (as it is annually) to highlighting education. To its credit the magazine spotlighted  fabulous student-teacher relationships from several schools in the county. Then there was the “centerfold”. Literally! Every year the centerfold is a chart (spreadsheet) comparing all the high schools in the county.

 

Very comprehensive, with an eye towards real estate values, it includes columns for median income, mean SAT scores, APM (Aspirational Performance Measure) rates, Students who qualify for free lunch (the poverty measure), Gross expenditure per student, the 4 year graduation rate, the percentage of college to go to college, average class size, student-teacher ratios, percentages of AP test takers and scores of 3 or above, extra curricular participation, and % of teachers with Masters or above (required within 5 years of hiring to gain permanent certification

 

-Note: (APM: The percent of students in the cohort who graduated with a local, Regents, or Regents with Advanced Designation diploma and earned a score of 75 or greater on their English Regents examination and an 80 or better on a math Regents exam (note: this aspirational measure is what had been referred to as the “college and career ready” graduation rate in February 2011; it is now referred to as the “ELA/Math APM”). -NYS DOE)

 

With all this information, not only can parents see how their schools are doing, but perspective home buyers and real estate agents figure out how houses are priced and what districts are in high demand.

 

However, a student of the relationship between education and economics can discover other things, such as the relationship between wealth/poverty and success/failure in high school.

 

The second thing I read, that connects politics and policy to this data was a column by NYT writer and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman entitled “America’s Taxation Tradition“ (3/28/14). In it, he compares Republican wealth based policies in the early 21st century with those of the early 20th century. He quotes the famous socialist Obama loving “pinko”, Theodore Roosevelt, who in his famous New Nationalism Speech of 1910 said,

 

“The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power…”

 

Krugman then compares that “radical Republican” statement with the “new Republican” standard bearer, Mitt Romney, who said in the 2012 election campaign,

 

“If one’s priority is to punish highly successful people, then vote for the Democrats.”

 

So here we are, in 2014, with Democrats who are far to the right of Republican Teddy Roosevelt, who continuously reward “highly successful people” especially when it comes to education policy while they ignore the major issue that separates schools and students in this country and that is economic inequity and wealth distribution.

 

Now, back to the particular county of Westchester New York. Falsely stereotyped as a bastion of wealth, it is in reality a bastion of opposites as the high school spreadsheet points out… if you look! Not only does it have some of the richest school districts in the country, it also has firmly established middle/working class districts, integrated districts, and some of the poorest districts in the nation. This provides a wealth of data to show the distinct relationship between wealth and educational success. We know that the two biggest indicators for educational attainment, whether measured by GPA, SAT, APM, AP scores or acceptance into college, are family income and mother’s educational attainment levels. We also know that, for the most part, these go hand in hand.

 

What do the numbers show us? Unfortunately the digital version of this chart is not available. More unfortunately, not all districts are forthcoming with their numbers. Here are some examples.

 

School	Median Household Income	APM	MEAN SAT	College Acceptance	AP 3+	Free Lunch	ESL Students
Horace Greeley (Chappaqua)	$213,000	85.6%	1936	97%	N/a	1%	N/a
John Jay (Cross River)	$186,000	77.7%	1747	97%	N/a	2%	N/a
Scarsdale	$165000	76.4%	1917	99%	94%	0%	2%
Ossining	$76500	34.9%	1487	89%	N/a	22%	N/a
Peekskill	$60800	17.2%	1338	67%	40%	52%	8%
Mt Vernon	$64500	11%	1199	76%	N/a	60%	N/a
Gorton Yonkers	$57000	9.7%	1181	49%	9%	86%	12%

 

Equivalent schools (income and free lunch) that have freely given the AP and ESL numbers follow the same pattern…

 

School	Median Household Income	APM	MEAN SAT	College Acceptance	AP 3+	Free Lunch	ESL Students
Briarcliff	$165500	88.2%	1771	99%	90.8%	4%	0%
Ardsley	$155300	73%	1767	99%	96%	3%	1%
Sleepy Hollow	$75000	33.8%	1462	92%	70%	35%	12%
Saunders Yonkers	$42800	29.7%	1315	88%	28%	74%	2%

  

Regardless of the “n/a”s, we certainly see a pattern here.

 

Two neighboring schools, Ossining and Sleepy Hollow are examples of integrated districts, ethnically and economically.  Their numbers reflect the fact that they have pockets of wealthy, middle class, ELL, and poor families.

 

The three wealthiest of these districts clearly outdistance not only the three poorest, but also the middle class (and most diverse) schools in SAT, APM, and where information is available, AP scores.

 

The clearest indicator, even in “tony” Westchester is that as the percentages of students with free lunch (the poverty indicator) increase, the scores and the college acceptances decrease.

 

It is as clear as the numbers on pages 88 and 89 in Westchester Magazine’s April 2014 edition. Pick it up and see for yourself, if you dare.

 

As always, I leave the conclusions to you.

REALLY?

Tags

common core, education, teachers

I, for one, am tired of those writers, like the one who appeared in March 23rd’s NYT review section, who argue that either we have these Common Core standards or we have nothing, or rather, had nothing and that it doesn’t matter anyway because these standards are not curricula. 

Call them whatever you wish. The guidelines, standards, curricula, syllabi, taxonomies, courses of study, programs of study, subjects, and/or modules,  “THEY” think students should have, and how teachers should teach them are inappropriate because of who created them.

Really? NO teaching professionals have ever created challenging curricula, syllabi, standards, or lessons that meet the needs of students? Not one state? Not one District? Not one School? Not one teacher? Really? 

Not until Gates, et al came along?

Really?

COME RALLY WITH US ON MAY 17TH in NYC for the TRUTH!

Why Did She Have To Quit?

Why Did She Have To Quit?

A few days ago I received an email from Susan who, after reading my USNEWS Op-Ed piece, asked me how she could get her resignation letter publicized. She asked me if i would put it on my blog. Realizing that she totally overestimated my readership I suggested she contact Anthony Cody, Diane Ravitch, and Valerie Strauss, each of whom have graciously shared some of my meager attempts at writing. 

Susan was able to get Valerie Strauss to devote a page to her letter and explanation, and was recently told by Diane Ravitch, that she too would include something on her blog. 

It feels good to help although it feels bad that she had to quit. Her kids have lost a wonderful teacher.

David Greene: How the Common Core Standards Stifle Creativity

Diane Ravitch's blog

Just a few days ago, Bill Gates told the annual assembly of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards that the Common Core standards were “the key to creativity,” and likened their development to the standardized electrical plug. I am not sure I see the analogy, but I guess he meant that with a standardized electrical plug, we could all have electric lights and do better work in the light. Or something. But if he meant that standardization was a formula for creative teaching and learning, I doug that many of the National Board Certified Teachers in his audience were convinced.

David Greene certainly does not agree. He is an experienced teacher trainer and mentor who recently published an article in U.S. News & World Report about how the Common Core standards kill creative teaching, precisely because they attempt to standardize what teachers do.

He writes:

To try to live…

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COMMON CORE AND THE RIGHT TO LEARN

May 17 will mark the 60th anniversary of Brown vs. the Bd. Of education, Topeka Kansas. That landmark Supreme Court decision was supposed to guarantee equal and equitable education for all. Obviously racial and economic segregation have not gone away, but these days there is a different reason countless numbers of students have lost their civil right to an equitable education.

That reason is the creation of a 2-tiered education system: one for the elite and one for the common people based not only on ethnicity and economics, but also on the implementation of the common core and standardized testing.

We see this monster’s ugly head in the guise of the “education reform” movement and the Common Core expertly marketed by organizations funded and founded by the likes of bill gates, the Koch brothers, Wendy Kopp, and now, apparently, Eva Moscowitz. 

At first glance, the curriculum standards known as common core looks appealing. Who could be against improved critical thinking and communication skills or more progressive, student centered teaching? Who could be against collaborative thinking and reflective learning or being “college and career ready”?

But as teacher-blogger José Vilson, puts it, “people who advocate for the [common core standards] miss the bigger picture. … [They] came as a package deal with the new teacher evaluations, higher stakes testing, and austerity measures, including school closings.” 

 The Common Core is just the last of a series of politicized and incentivized business models inappropriately being applied to education. Attempts to “commonize” education to make the U.S. more economically competitive started with the use of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s scientific management in public, not private, schools during the early 20th century to train workers, not leaders, for our new industrial economy. During the 1950s, the launch of the U.S.S.R.’s sputnik then led to an infusion of federal dollars to improve science education. 

But it was the publication of “A Nation At Risk” in 1983 that was “commonizing’s” great leap forward. According to the author of “Finnish lessons,” Pasi Sahlberg, international corporate and national leaders then decided in the early 1990s on a “close interplay between education policies and economic strategies”.

Which nation refused to join? Finland, which is considered to have the world’s top education system, and turned it’s very poor education system around in the early 1990s by emulating the teaching we did here in the 60’s and 70’s.

In 2001, President George W. Bush brought us No Child Left Behind, an education reform law based on the goal that high standards and establishing measurable goals would improve individual outcomes. That law also gave states the impossible goal of achieving 100 percent proficiency in English and Math by 2014. In 2009, the Obama administration then launched race to the top, created to “spur innovation and reforms in state and local district k-12 education.”

The net result was a huge standardized testing craze used to rate students, teachers and schools that led to stressed out students, frustrated teachers, anxious administrators and cheating and closed schools. 

Relying on national standardized tests to evaluate naturally leads to the next logical step: nationally standardized curricula. The problem is that a federal set of common curricula is illegal according to “the 1965 elementary and secondary education act (ESEA), and two additional education acts.

So, to skirt those laws the national governors association and the council of chief state school officers spearheaded the creation of the common core: D.C.-based associations funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others.

The common core standards themselves were actually developed by Achieve Inc. Headed by now ETS president, David Coleman. No teachers were in the work groups charged with drafting the standards. Almost all 35 people in the feedback groups were university professors, and of the 135 reviewers, not one was a k-3 teacher, early childhood professional or parent. One K-12 teacher was found to be in the entire process and any other K-12 teachers associated with the products were brought in after the fact mostly to endorse and legitimize them.  Had teachers developed these curricula and standards as they have done in states like New York for decades  and without the standardized testing umbilical cord, I believe this debate would not be going on.

James Poulos, in the daily beast, argues that:

 “We need to bluntly confess that all these concerns and more boil down to a single bad idea—one that’s revealed by big business’s insanely obdurate and fanatical devotion to the ideals of common core.”

“In its substance and its structure alike, common core does not educate students to be their own bosses or their own masters. The common core standards owe their existence to the appeal of a simple master concept: everyone should be an employee. The corporate elite will pretty much stop at nothing to make us all into happy, healthy sheep.”  

Is that our children’s new civil right?

Somewhere Frederick Winslow Taylor is smiling. 

 

NYSAPE Calls for End to Verbal Refusal Policies

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 20, 2014

More information contact:

Eric Mihelbergel (716) 553-1123; nys.allies@gmail.com

Jeanette Deutermann (516) 902-9228; nys.allies@gmail.com

NYS Allies for Public Education www.nysape.org

 

 

NYSAPE Calls for End to Verbal Refusal Policies

NYSAPE encourages school districts to handle student test refusals in a developmentally appropriate and humane manner that safeguards student dignity while respecting parental rights. To that end, NYSAPE applauds the recent efforts of many districts to revise their “sit and stare” policies. However, parents continue to express concern that some districts will require students to verbally refuse the tests on each day of testing, even when parents have submitted a letter of refusal ahead of time.

The NYS department of Education has issued no guidance on this issue. Requiring a student to give a verbal refusal even though a parent or guardian has already submitted their child’s test refusal in writing is strictly a local school district decision. Jessica McNair, a New Hartford public school parent says,  “When a parent has made the decision that his or her child will refuse a state exam, requiring the student verbally refuse as well is not only coercive and humiliating, but a redundant, unnecessary tactic that causes a child undue stress.”

“School districts that require students to verbally refuse a state test are not only engaging in a developmentally inappropriate but a potentially discriminatory act that limits access to test refusal for students with disabilities.” said Bianca Tanis, a New Paltz public school parent.

In fact, the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) stipulates that no student shall be subjected to discrimination based on, among other things, a disability.  Furthermore, children with emotional, physical, cognitive, developmental or speech and language disabilities are legally entitled to equal access to any practice afforded to their non-disabled peers and a required verbal refusal may violate this right.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act states: “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States, as defined in section 706(8) of this title, shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance…” [29 U.S.C. §794(a), 34 C.F.R. §104.4(a)].        

“As a parent of a child with autism, a language processing and communication disorder, I find it unconscionable to require any child to verbally refuse the test, especially a child with a disability.  A parent or guardian’s note should suffice. Abusive, undignified policies should be stopped immediately, if not the administration should be replaced with more caring, competent people,” said Lisa Rudley, Ossining public school parent and founding member NYSAPE.

Katie Zahedi, principal of Linden Avenue Middle School said, “Public schools are charged with the care and protection of minor students. No teacher or principal should be forced to violate this trust by placing students squarely in the middle of a parent’s efforts to resist a practice that they deem harmful to their child.”

NYSAPE calls on superintendents and Boards of Education across NYS to assure parents that a parent letter of refusal is sufficient and that no verbal refusal from a child will be solicited or required in order to refuse a state test.

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The Long Death of Creative Teaching

Tags

children, education, politics, students, teachers

The Long Death of Creative Teaching

Common Core standards are part of a bigger movement towards stifling teachers.

WHY I AM: An excerpt from Doing The Right Thing: A Teacher Speaks.

I am a teacher. I am a parent. I am a mentor. I am a coach. I taught, advised, coordinated, and coached in three high schools in New York City and Westchester for over thirty-eight years. Since 2008, I have trying to pass on what I was taught and what I learned through my various experiences to new teachers and educate parents about the education “reform” scam.

What’s been going on most recently in the fight for public education? The election of Barack Obama was supposed to bring a sigh of relief to embattled, public educators. Instead, it brought more heartache and disappointment. The new Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan (not an educator) put into effect a “replacement” for No Child Left Behind  (NCLB) that turned out to be no such thing. State governments jumped at the chance to get out from under NCLB’s impossible mandate of having all children be reading proficient by 2014. They jumped at the bribe of more federal money. The catch was that they had to follow the new guidelines of the replacement—The Race to the Top (RTTT). Which state was going to be the best state in the Union? But at what cost?

            By accepting RTTT, states would now be forced to give more standardized tests; collect more scientifically based data (that has shown that these new techniques that are forced down public educators’ throats do not work); evaluate teachers using this data; follow a “Common Core” of standards that will use even more tests; privatize more schools and districts; force more good teachers out of teaching; hire more non-certified teachers from programs like TFA; pay even less regard to the professional expertise of teaching professionals; and worse, pay even less attention to how children learn best. 

The evidence of the resulting crumbling of public education all over the country is overwhelming.  Instead of “getting rid of bad teachers,” more good and excellent teachers are leaving. Teaching colleagues, who three years ago said they loved their job and would stay until someone carried them out, are now saying they can’t wait until they are eligible for retirement.

Whereas, in 1990, the average length of a teaching career was approximately fifteen years, it is now five. School districts all over the country, hit hard by the repercussions of the Great Recession and increased costs of all the new testing and mandates (of course, underfunded by the bribe), are now looking for ways to cut their budgets. They have cut courses, recess, and gym. They have limited electives and extracurricular activities. They have closed schools and eliminated teaching positions. Even more diabolically, many more have figured out a way to use these new rules to force more expensive, credentialed teachers out and replace them with short-timers not lasting more than two to five years. As a result, more districts and states are lowering labor costs and limiting future pension costs. The bottom line wins.

Do Teachers? No!  Do Students? No! Do Parents? No!